Imagination@Work

Say What?

Rant alert.

What follows is a rare public rant by Alton Gansky. You have been warned.

Any reader of this blog knows that I read a fair amount of magazines. I love ‘em. In fact—don’t tell anyone—but I’ve been known to spend more time with articles than books.

While flipping through one of my favorite mags, I happen upon an in-spine ad. That means they paid extra money for the insert. It’s a pleasant looking piece made interesting by the unusual size, coated, thick, stiff paper.

It caught my attention for another reason. Nestled among the bright yellow flowers and green leaves over a pale green background were two, industrial, electricity-generating windmills. You see, I’m one of those nut cases that believes we have a growing climate problem, so naturally, when something like sleek white, mighty windmills show up, I pay attention. In fact, it caught my attention enough to read the rather small print. Here’s what I read:

“We believe that the way to do business is as important as the way we brow our tobacco. That’s why being earth-friendly is a part of our everyday lives.”

Wha…What?

But there’s more.

“Whether it’s using wind power to run our offices, or contracting directly with farmers to grow tobacco using earth-friendly and organic growing practice, we’re dedicated to reducing our footprint on the earth.”

At this point, my mind did the equivalent of driving at freeway speeds and throwing the transmission into park.

Now here’s the irony. The Surgeon General’s Warning (which is required by law to appear on all cigarette ads) reads: Cigarette Smoke Contains Carbon Monoxide.

Carbon Monoxide!

That’s the stuff that kills people who run their cars in a closed, unventilated garage.

Carbon Monoxide.

To laugh or to cry.

If I understand this correctly, the company is proud of reducing the amount of carbon dioxide it produces while making small, cylindrical, carbon monoxide delivery systems, aka, cigarettes. (At this point, I’m tempted to list the other harmful compounds in cigarette smoke, but I’ll spare you.)

You should know something. The tobacco industry has no friend in me. The product they produce killed my biological dad; contributed to the death of my step-father, led to the death of my mother, killed my brother, and contributed to the death of my sister. Of the family I grew up with, I alone am left. In addition, because I grew up in a smoking home, I suffered respiratory problems as a child. There’s my confession.

It’s one thing for a tobacco company to say, “Adults can make up their own minds.” It’s another when the company says, “We’re eco-friendly. We’re committed to reducing our carbon footprint by using wind-generated power.” This is especially true when their product is a direct delivery system of carbon monoxide straight to the user’s lungs and blood.

So why did this bother me so much? Lots of reasons, but for purposes of this blog, which is dedicated to the use of imagination especially where it uses words, the burr under my saddle is the way the ad insults the reader.

I asked myself, “Do they really think I’ll be prone to buy cigarettes because they call themselves eco-friendly?” How can a company say we love the earth by producing a product that, when used as directed, poisons the user. Isn’t that, “Love the earth; hate the human.”

Creativity is a powerful gift and should be used to entertain, educate, involve, motivate, comfort, inspire and more. To use creativity to convince people to engage in dangerous behavior is a betrayal of the heart of public communication.

This company makes truthful statements apparently to mislead readers regardless of the proven harm it causes.

Should those who wield words be responsible for the outcome of such writing? Of course there is a limit.

Oh, by the way, the ad was printed on recycled paper. Sheesh.

This officially ends the rant.

AG

 

Guest Blog

RECENTLY I was invited to write a blog post for Zondervan Publishing. I was happy to do so. That post is up now at www.zondervan.com/blog. These are the people who have published many of my novels including the recently released FINDER'S FEE and the soon to be released ZERO-G.

Swing by and post a howdy.

AG

To the Writers Out There

I frequently receive questions about how to get started as a writer and I usually give two pieces of advice. Study the craft and attend writer’s conferences. Most people can learn to write but learning from books has limitations. Writer’s conferences allow the student to learn technique, ask questions about the business, fellowship with like minded students, and network with published writers, agents, and editors.

Part of being a writer today is attending writer’s conferences. Established writers go to teach and network; budding writers attend to learn and pitch ideas. I do about four of these a year. One of my favorites is the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writer’s Conference. The beautiful setting, the friendly people, and the quality of students makes the cross country jaunt worth the crowded airports and being pummeled by the snack cart.

Well, this year, Yvonne Lyman and her team are a doing a second conference for the advance novice (how’s that for an oxymoron?). If you’ve been to at least one writer’s conference and are working on a novel, then this may be for you.

The staff is exceptional with the likes of T. Davis Bunn, (gentleman novelist), Doc Hensley (Mr. Writer who knows more funny stories than anyone else on the planet), Steven James (the only man I know with an MFA degree in storytelling), and several other excellent teachers.

This conference is unique because it’s limited to those who have already started down the path and have spent time doing the thing that makes a writer a writer: writing.

If such an event interests you, then click here for more information. More information here.

AG

Serendipity

Serendipity: ser-en-dip-i-ty--noun, a gift for discovery: a natural gift for making useful discoveries by accident (Microsoft Encarta Dictionary)

My daughter sent me a short video of a newscast. Sending videos has become a past time for many but not for her or for me. So when I saw the attachment on the email and the topic, “Burning Saltwater,” I was intrigued. I now share it with you and after you watch it, I’ll explain why.

Download May42007WKYCCleveland.wmv

Here’s what rang my bell. First, John Kanzius decides to spend his retirement years searching for a cure for cancer. A noble goal, especially if you’re a medical doctor, but Kanzius' background is broadcast electronics. Instead of saying, “I have no training in the field, therefore I’ll sit around and watch television,” Kanzius tries anyway.

Second, he discovers—by accident—that his device can break away the oxygen and hydrogen in water to generate a burnable fuel. Kanzius wasn’t looking for away to do that, he stumbled over it. However, he was open to new ideas and recognized the potential.

This blog is dedicated to creativity, especially as it finds voice in writing. What excites me about this video piece is the sight of a man willing to try something noble for the good of others and serendipitously finds an entirely different application for his work.

“Think outside the box,” is a much overused and threadbare expression in business. (Here’s where we need creative people to step out of the box and suggest a better line.) Tired as the idiom is, it still makes the point. In writing and other creative outlets, it helps to put aside the “I-can’t-do-this-because” thinking and chase the dream. It also helps to be open to the unexpected.

My characters and events have changed my plot points more often than I can count. Those “Aha!” moments are gems and I’ve come to depend on them. Creativity is not just creating out of nothing, but recognizing a good idea and doing something with it.

My hat is off to Mr. Kanzius May his tribe increase.

AG

The Unintentional Prophet

FICTION has long been gifted with foresight. True, many a story has been penned that prognosticated what lay around time’s corner only to be shown way off the mark. Still, some authors have peeked beyond the veil to catch snippets of the future.

Jules Verne, the father of science fiction, seemed to be one such writer. Sci fi readers and writers speak of “soft” and “hard” science fiction. Soft sci fi may emphasize story over scientific tenets; its counterpart hard sci fi leans heavily on science and technology. Verne would fit in the latter category. For him, the science mattered, so he spent a great deal of time thinking about how things might work in the future.

In From Earth to the Moon he struggles with the overwhelming task of sending men to the Moon with 19^th century technology. (It was difficult project a century later.) So, walking the halls of his imagination, he crafted a system that he thought would work. What he came up with bares a striking similarity with what actually happened.

His book shows:

·         A three-man crew,

·         A liftoff from Florida

·         A rocket made of aluminum…

·         Traveling at 36,000 feet per second. (The Apollo craft traveled at a little over 34,000 feet per second.)

·         The command module of Apollo 11 was christened “Columbia”—Verne named his “Columbiad.”

Some have noted that his Paris in the 20^th Century anticipated cars, air-conditioning, the internet, television, calculators, high-speed trains, and execution by electrocution and more. By the way, the book was written in 1863 and published in 1994—almost 90 years after his death. (And I was irritated when a couple of my books were postponed for a few months.)

Not to be outdone, I have unintentionally predicted the future in a few of my books, especially Tarnished Image which hit the shelves back in 1998. The story deals with the head of a private relief agency who is accused of committing a crime he knows he did not do—even though he appears on video doing it. Well, I needed a few disasters around the globe to ratchet up the stakes. Those disasters included a hurricane that moves over Cuba and up the Gulf of Mexico to hit…you guessed it…New Orleans. Also in that book, I describe in great detail, a tsunami that crashes to shore along the coast of the Bay of Bengal.

Are these actual prophecies? No, I’m afraid not (actually, I’m relieved). In the case of the hurricanes, it is not unusual to see hurricanes scrape Cuban and make landfall in the US. Although when I was writing the book, there hadn’t been such an event for about 7 years.

The tsunami came to me as I studied an atlas. I asked, “If a tsunami were going to hit a country outside the U.S., where would it do the most damage (and therefore be more compelling in my book)? I chose the Bay of Bengal and focused on Bangladesh and India. Six years later, the Indian Ocean tsunami, triggered by an undersea earthquake as in my book, made landfall in those areas and taking more than 300,000 lives.

Again, did I predict that? No. It was just common sense and a little (okay, a lot) of research. I had no dates in mind, just a story. Like Verne (but maybe not so successfully) I made some educated guesses and got a couple right.

Verne got many things wrong, but it’s amazing what he got right.

As for me, in my next book, I’m going to write that I am young, rich, and good looking. Hey, a fella can try.

 

AG

 

PS. Don’t forget to visit my new Alton Gansky Online Bookstore.
PSS. The July 2007 newsletter is up.

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Old School Self-Promotion

Thumbing through the July/August issue of Fast Company magazine I stumbled upon Rob Walker’s column “Great Moments in Self-Promotion.” Walker caught my eye because his self-promotion guru is a writer we all know. More of that in a moment.

Every writer of books knows the growing pressure to self promote. In fact, it’s becoming a deal breaker for some publishers. Where once the weighty question was: “Is this a good work that people will read?” Now that question travels with new companions, hitchhikers who hopped in the back seat when the car stopped at a red light. The new travel mates include: “How do you plan to promote your book?” And, “Do you have a speaking ministry?”

Or so I thought.

To be fair, the publisher invests a boatload of money in every book. Even a new author whose advance might be in the low four figures will still cost the publisher much more. Publishers buy ink by the barrel and paper by the acre. Editorial staff must be paid, catalogs printed and much more. So I try not to whine too much.

For a long time, I thought these expectations to be something new, a late 20^th Century metamorphosis of technique. I was wrong. (I’ll give you a moment to catch your breath.)

Walker tells of how Mark Twain, then still a writer of articles and travelogues, promoted himself through public speaking. He borrowed $50 and invested another $150 in the effort. Twain rented the Academy of Music in San Francisco and printed flyers. Remember, a dollar in 1866 went much farther than a buck does today. Walker states Twain spent the equivalent of $2,600.

Twain’s flyer included these self-promotion gems:

A Splendid Orchestra
Is in town but has not been engaged.

Also,

A Den Of Ferocious Wild Beasts
Will be on exhibition in the next block.

Magnificent Fireworks
Were in contemplation for this occasion, but the idea has been abandoned.

A Grand Torchlight Process
May be expected; in fact, the public are privileged to expect whatever they please.

 

Twain took his work seriously but no so himself. His humor is what we remember most 141 years later. It was engaging then and remains so now.

Twain’s genius rest in his ability to play to his strengths. A quick wit, he knew how to make people laugh with written and spoken word. Through the course of his career, he did a lot of speaking. One wonders at times if he was a speaker who wrote or a writer who spoke.

I do a fair amount of speaking and occasionally someone will put that question to me. “So what are you? A writer or a speaker?” My answer remains, “I’m a communicator.” I communicate through fiction and nonfiction. I communicate through speeches, classes, sermons, lectures, and keynotes.

Self promotion is not new and my guess is that it his here to stay.

Maybe that isn’t so bad.

 

AG

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