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Ben Malisow |
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Ben’s 18Q |
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The Eighteen Questions |
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18Q |
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Bibliography |
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1. Did you choose the writing profession or did it choose you? eh. It’s this compulsion I can’t seem to kick. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been good at writing...and always said I’d never write for a living. Well, it turns out that most of my adult life was spent as a writer of some kind or another. Which makes my either lucky or unable to stick to my own goals. There was one guy who put it best --I think it was Brendan Behan-- when he said, “I’m a drinker with a writing problem.”
2. What is your background? (education, work, etc.) Grew up in Wisconsin (great place to be FROM), went to the Air Force Academy (my misspent youth), served as an officer (you’ll note that Utah and Arizona never invaded Nevada while I was on duty), then got out and had a string of degrading, sleazy jobs (including actor, journalist, political hack, college professor, and whatever else would take me). I later went and got an MBA, and did some consulting work, mostly in the information security arena; I still do some freelance consulting and writing. At the moment, I am pretending to be a junior/senior high school teacher for troubled kids in the Clark County School District.
3. When did you ‘know’ you were a writer? When I got that first check for something I wrote. Up to that point, I was someone who wrote. That made me a writer. It was, I think, twenty-five bucks, for a few hundred words about some local interest piece. I was amazed...people will PAY for this? I was hooked
4. How would you describe your style of writing? Wow. I’m...kind of a chameleon. I can write in any style; I can ape anybody. My own style is...lowbrow, gut-aimed, with a big vocabulary, and not much attention paid to grammar rules.
5. What is your writing process? It depends on the material. If I’m writing an opinion piece or some fiction: Sit down. Type. Try to stop at an appropriate place, or when I get hungry.
If I’m writing something requiring research and detail and actual work: Sit down. Type. Get up. Get a soda. Sit back down. Surf the ‘net for data. Get fascinated with some arcane aspect of the topic. Read for two hours. Type. Get up. Do some sit-ups. Sit back down. Type. Make a phone call. Type. Get up. Go play some video games. Sit down. Type. Get up. Get a beer. Sit down. Type. Repeat for effect.
6. What was your path to publication? The first article I ever published? My girlfriend was working at a newspaper, and I got rooked into playing on the softball team. During an after-game beer bash, I asked the editor if I could write something up for him. The fool agreed. We lost every game, by the way. For my first book? I was called by a another former editor of mine, and who asked me to write it. So I did.
7. What is your favorite self-marketing idea? My girl and I have pioneered the practice of “shopleaving,” which is the opposite of shoplifting. We smuggle a copy of my book into a high-traffic bookstore (like, say, in an airport), find the book the store has most prominently displayed (it’s never mine), covertly replace it with a copy of my book, then sneak out.
8. What are the biggest surprises you’ve encountered as a writer? How the editorial process is so maddeningly bass-ackward, from a business perspective. The publisher will sit for months, never contacting the author, then demand that the writer performs a Herculean feat (“get us a draft in six days”), as if the very next week is some crucial milestone...then sit on the book for another three months...then call back, requesting another another massive effort be completed in a matter of hours. It’s bizarre. Nobody else works like that...except maybe the military.
9. How do you inspire yourself? What are your sources of creativity? Two very different questions.
The answer to the first is “money.” I’m a hack-- I write for pay.
The second is “everywhere.” I read-- a lot. I recommend other wannabe-writers do so, also. Seeing what other writers do, examining the tricks they use, and the devices, and what works and doesn’t...that’s invaluable research. When I read something really good, by someone who impresses me, I’ll write something in that style, for kicks, to see if I can do it. It’s fun.
10. What is your proudest writer moment? Zounds...ummm....Let’s see....
Okay-- it was when I wrote a piece about a tragic aircraft accident involving two helicopters assigned to the 66th Rescue Squadron, out of Nellis AFB. As a USAFA grad, and former officer, I wanted to make sure I did the piece justice, and that I got as much correct as I could...I sweated over that sucker more than most every other article I did for the Weekly. It worried me, thinking I’d screw something up, and the friends and families of those dead guys would be ashamed or pissed off. I got letters from the commanders of the 66th and the Nellis Air Base Wing, in the weeks following publication. They thanked me for writing the article, and for how I did it. That was my proudest Writer Moment to date.
11. What’s the best advice you were given about writing? “Don’t do it-- pick a lucrative career, instead.”
12. What is your most embarrassing writer moment? Getting threatened with bodily harm when a piece of advertorial went grossly awry. Note to wannabe-writers: avoid advertorial. Bad juju.
13. What business challenges have you faced as a writer? The heinous incompetence (or purposeful assheadedness) of editors/publishers to conduct themselves like professional businesspeople. Too often, they act like promoted and saddened Artistes (which many of them are, or pretend to be), and try to convince me that “there is more to writing than the money.”
Uh, no there ain’t-- not for me.
Few pay on time. Many spike requested pieces with no kill fee. Most hack and slash beyond the semblance of Good Editing, and instead attempt to wage a scorched-earth policy against style and context.
Now, writers, by and large, don’t help themselves in this arena...most wouldn’t know how to read a contract or prep an invoice to save their lives. I happen to have subcontracted several freelance gigs in the past, so I know what flakey dorks writers can be. So I can see how many editors/publishers have become so jaded and lazy.
Still, it doesn’t excuse the behavior. So I now write my own contracts, with my own demands, before I write anything else.
14. What is your writer life philosophy? Ummm...wow. I didn’t know there was such a thing.
Uh-- okay. Let me see...How about: “Have as much fun as you can, without hurting anyone else”?
I’m not very good at describing my philosophy in anything less than a treatise (which most often becomes a rant against things I dislike). How’s this-- I’m a Randian Rational Objectivist, for the most part. The current terms that fit me best are probably BoBo and DINK.
15. When you’re not writing what do you do for fun? I like to read, play video games, mess around with my dog, watch movies, teach martial arts, cook and eat good food, travel, and annoy my girlfriend.
16. Who do you like to read? Sci-fi, mystery, horror, comics, adventure, humor. And anything else good. I am pretty much an omnivore. King, Pratchett, Hiassen, Frank Miller, John D. MacDonald, Vinge, Alan Moore, George R. R. Martin, Harlan Ellison, etc. etc.
17. What’s your advice for new writers? Don’t even think about it. Go try something else. Like painting. Nobody gets hurt by painting. I think you can get high off the fumes, too.
18. What are you currently working on? I’ve got another book coming out this year; it’s on counterterrorism, and it’s for the young adult market...nonfiction, designed for high school libraries. Fun to research, I have to admit.
I’m also working on a new novel, and am about three chapters deep. It’s an adventure/thriller/militaristic thing. I’m having a blast with it, but it is not sold, as yet. There’s another novel, already in the can, which I’m trying desperately to sell. It’s a mystery/thriller/courtroom drama.
Plus I’ve got a whole bunch of short stories to try and sell. And I still do a variety of freelance, from trade pubs in my chosen field of computer security to paparazzi work for a celebrity rag you find in your local supermarket checkout line.
Interested publishers can find me via my website, www.benmalisow.com. Please. Pretty please.
I’m also a high school teacher, and the county just changed the curriculum, so I have to crank out an assload of lesson plans this summer, as well as sit through some college course in order to maintain my state teaching license. Finally, I may have a significant role in a short film being shot this summer.
For a lazy guy, I’m damned busy. |
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