writers | CW Hawes

In memoriam: Caleb Pirtle III

A week ago, on Wednesday, August 2, the writing community lost a great soul: Caleb Pirtle III.

Caleb was an indefatigable writer of non-– fiction and fiction, with some 90 books to his credit, in a writing career spanning some six decades.

He was an untiring supporter and encourager of his fellow writers. Aside from telling a good story himself, he did his best to help other writers to tell their stories.

And Caleb was a wonderful person to have as your friend. You could find none better.

Our paths crossed sometime in 2019 on Twitter. As near as I can recall. I was flabbergasted when he named me one of the top 25 mystery writers people should be reading. That pronouncement certainly captured my attention.

Who was this guy? Obviously, someone who’d been around the block a few times. But I’d never read anything he wrote. I promptly remedied that by reading his Man on the Run trilogy. I loved it and I was hooked.

Caleb Pirtle is easily the best writer who is not a household name — but should be.

A year later Caleb invited me to join a writers co-op he was putting together. Serious writers who were looking for ways to market their books. And this began a path that eventually led to a friendship with a wonderful human being.

I don’t think I exaggerate when I say Caleb Pirtle was a giant among men. And as far as I’m concerned, remains a giant among men.

For the past nine months I had the incredible privilege to be in a writing critique group with Caleb. Those nine months were nine master class sessions on the art of writing. Not only was his advice each session a pearl of great price, but his own writing was a priceless example of how to tell a story.

As great a writer as Caleb was, he was perhaps an even greater human being. He never had an unkind word to say about anyone. He saw beyond a person’s limitations to the good that was inside them. He was a kind and gentle soul who understood people where they were at and did not judge them for their failings.

Life is often unrelentingly hard and difficult. It is often nasty and brutish. Caleb Pirtle was a ray of brilliant sunlight parting the black clouds. He made the rough places plain.

One of the greatest privileges of my life was to have this man as my friend.

In Memoriam

above the pines the full moon floating
on morning’s humid heat
brightly burned our friendship for too brief a time

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

CW Hawes is a playwright; award-winning poet; and a fictioneer, with a bestselling novel. He’s also an armchair philosopher, political theorist, social commentator, and traveler. He loves a good cup of tea and agrees that everything’s better with pizza.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider buying me a cup of tea. Thanks! PayPal.me/CWHawes

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Why I Write

Almost all of us, at least at one time or another, have the desire to live forever.

It’s why we procreate, and make things. It’s why we strive to make a difference: we want to be remembered. It’s why we believe in an afterlife, and why we’re fascinated with spirits and ghosts, vampires and werewolves.

It’s also why many, if not most, writers write. We have the hope that our books will give us a measure of immortality.

Of course, achieving immortality by means of the written word isn’t a whole lot different than one’s chances of becoming rich by winning the lottery. Just count how many perennial bestselling authors there are versus the number of new authors published each year, and the number of authors who never reach bestseller status but continue to write books. We’re talking thimbles to boxcars here.

And that doesn’t count the number of bestselling authors who pass into oblivion once they die. Their names are legion.

The number of writers who achieve immortality is indeed tiny.

One has a better chance of achieving immortality by becoming a mass murderer than by becoming an author — NOT that I recommend one should do so. Just sayin’.

When it comes to the desire to live forever, I’m like everyone else: bring it on! Or at least let me live for six, eight centuries. There are so many things I want to explore and do, and one lifetime hasn’t been enough.

Writing is a relatively easy avenue whereby one can hope to achieve immortality. After all, books last a very long time. Paper books, that is. Not sure how long these ebooks will last. Software and formats, tend to become obsolete. Remember floppy discs, Beta and VHS tapes, cassettes?

Ebooks are in the same category as those acid-laden wood pulp magazines that are self-destructing because of the cheap paper they were printed on. As the pulp magazines crumble into dust, so too do media vehicles become useless junk. Something to think about.

Nevertheless, by means of stories, I can tell whoever will listen to me what I think about life, who I am as a person, what my dreams and hopes are (or were). And if my stories become popular enough, then they will make the transition to each new storage medium that comes along. After all, I can read Shakespeare and Euripides on my ereader.

My desire to live a very long life, if not forever, and to write lots of books crystalized in the wake of close encounters of the near death kind.

About a dozen years ago I came close to death due to misdiagnosed appendicitis and consequently a ruptured appendix. The doctor told me I was a lucky man. The rupture created quite a mess. Then a couple years later, I had a heart attack. The left anterior descending artery was blocked. Colloquially called “The Widowmaker” because of its high percentage of fatalities. Again, the doctor told me I was a lucky man.

Now I have been told I have kidney disease. For which there is no cure. The only treatment is to follow good health practices in an attempt to slow the progress.

Death is my friend. My mortality has been made very clear to me. It is why I write and why I have such a feeling of urgency about writing. If it weren’t for the Grim Reaper standing in the corner of my room, I’d probably get lazy and slack off.

Of course, we don’t live forever, at least in this life, and it is the only one I care about at the moment, and this life is short. Although I always keep in mind Seneca’s words, “Life is long enough if you know how to use it.” That last clause is of course the rub: we usually learn too late how to use it well. We squander the most precious and rare gift doing and pursuing what is ultimately not of much value.

Writing brings me great joy. It also helps me to become a better person. Through my characters I hone what is important in my own life and discard what is not.

Around 40 to 45 percent of us are kinesthetic/tactile learners. These folk learn by acting and playing and touching. Through my characters, I live many lives and face many dilemmas and learn many things about myself, because they are after all the people I have made in my image.

I know writing brings me great joy and that I do it mostly for the sake of writing, because I make darn little money at it. The pot of gold continues to elude me. Yet, maybe my heirs will hit on the right marketing strategy and my books will sell and I will achieve that immortality we all desire. After all, my books will be in copyright for 70 years after I pass on. That’s more or less another lifetime. That too is something to think about.

Life is long enough if we know how to use it. I may at last be getting the knack of it. We’ll see. I’ll keep you posted.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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The Reading Experience

Every reading experience begins in the mind of the writer and is completed in the mind of the reader.

That means every time I finish writing a book, I’m only half done. No communication, no entertainment has taken place until someone reads what I wrote.

Only when there is a reader has the act of writing a novel been completed. And for the reading experience to be a positive one, the reader has to be able to tap into the world I created and been able to take something away from it that he or she can make part of his or her ongoing experience in this journey we call life.

Lee Child, in his 2012 introduction to a new printing of the first Jack Reacher novel, Killing Floor, says essentially the same thing.

Child wrote in that introduction this gem:

To me, entertainment was a transaction. You do it, they watch it, then it exists. Like a Zen question: If you put on a show, and nobody comes, have you in fact put on a show at all?

The reader is vital to any fiction writing experience. Not awards. Not accolades. Not bestseller status. Those things are nothing.

Bestseller status can be, and often is, gamed. (For example, Joanna Penn wrote a blog post on how you can ad stake your way to bestseller status.)

Accolades can be false. “That was a great book, Chris!” Said not because Jed actually meant it, but because it’s the social thing to do. Or maybe he’s hoping I’ll write him a 5-star review.

Awards basically mean nothing except to those who put value on what other people think. And often the award is based on who gets the most votes. So the winner is simply the one who got his or her fans to cast the most votes. Pure high school.

All that really matters are readers. Because readers read books. It is the reader that counts — and only the reader.

I am a reader. I have been ever since I can remember. Books are my life. Wear the old coat and buy the new book.

What do I look for in a book or short story? First and foremost — character. As Lee Child noted in the above mentioned introduction:

Character is king. There are probably fewer tha 6 books every century remembered specifically for their plots. People remember characters. Same with television. Who remembers the Lone Ranger? Everybody. Who remembers any actual Lone Ranger story lines? Nobody.

But great characters are only a part of the puzzle. There are certain themes I gravitate towards and others I shy away from.

In my life, I’ve experienced a significant amount of injustice. Unfairness. So for me, justice and fairness are very important themes. I want to see an unfair world made fair. I want the characters in the books I read, the good guys, to right wrongs. To see to it that the bullies and cheaters don’t win.

As a reader, so am I as a writer. My private detective’s name reflects it all: Justinia Wright. Justinia comes from the Latin for justice, and Wright to connote that she makes things right.

Pierce Mostyn fights an uncaring, and to us unfair, universe and its minions. He does his best to prevent bad things from happening to good people.

The other theme that is important for me is loyalty. In my world, when I was a child, I often felt like Julius Caesar, crying out “Et tu Brute?”. And in some ways that feeling of betrayal at the hands of those I trusted continued into adulthood. So loyalty and betrayal are themes which gain my attention as a reader.

And loyalty and betrayal also factor in my writing. For all their bickering, Tina and Harry Wright depend on each other. They are loyal to each other, through thick and thin.

Bill Arthur, in The Rocheport Saga, as he seeks to build a new world out of the ashes of the apocalypse, is constantly faced with issues of loyalty and betrayal.

To the extent a writer can tap into what is important to me, that writer becomes memorable.

For the most part, I think most readers don’t give this idea of themes conscious thought. They read books and like some and not others. The books they like they often aren’t even sure why they like them. Most likely, though, they like those books because they tap into things that matter to the reader.

As writers, we have to give this considerable thought if we want a ready audience. What is our message? The more we can identify it and communicate it, the more likely we are to find our fans. And not have to rely on accident or luck.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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Van Dyne’s Vampires

A writer is a little bit like a god. Gods in all religions are creators. They are responsible for the world as we know it, and for the world we cannot see.

Writers create worlds, both seen and unseen, every day, along with myriads of people. Like gods, writers are creators.

The act of creating is, for me, exhilarating. It is the most exciting part of writing. Someday I hope to have enough money so I can hire someone to do all the other aspects of the writing business so I can just write.

The first audience of a writer is himself. If the story doesn’t interest him, it won’t see the light of day. And it might not even see completion. After all, writers basically write about what they know and they write a story they find interesting. That’s what keeps them going. I suppose the same can be said of deities: they do what pleases them.

Yesterday was supposed to be the official launch day of Van Dyne’s Vampires (Pierce Mostyn Paranormal Investigations, Book 4). However, Amazon is having hiccups in their KDP processing. Consequently, Van Dyne isn’t showing up on the Pierce Mostyn series page and the price (as of this writing) is still listed at 99 cents, which is what I offer as a special deal to my reading list folks. However, since the book is still 99 cents — grab a copy before the Zon finally gets its act together and raises the price to $2.99.

The Pierce Mostyn stories have been a joy to write. More and more I’m growing to truly love Mostyn and company. I’m anticipating a long relationship with him and his world.

Van Dyne’s Vampires is a bit of a departure from the previous three stories, where I riffed on a story by HP Lovecraft. Van Dyne is my own creation. Although characters of his ilk abound. Van Dyne is the Moriarity, the Zeck, the Fu Manchu of Pierce Mostyn’s world. The human evil genius. Never mind that Mostyn also has Cthulhu and his buddies to contend with.

Cthulhu and friends, however, don’t care about us. We are to them as ants on a sidewalk are to us. That is the horror of the Mythos: in the vastness of the universe, we don’t matter. We are nothing. Whether human beings and our little world continue to exist doesn’t even register in the minds of entities greater than ourselves.

The true horror of our quest to meet other intelligent life is that they will be superior to us and not care if we live or die. And maybe for them, things would be better off if we were dead. Be careful what you wish for.

However, for some, the fear of the Mythos might be a bit remote. So I created someone we all can relate to: namely, the bully; the person who uses others to satisfy his or her own needs. Valdis Damien van Dyne is that bully on a mega-scale. He is that egotist who thinks nothing of others — other than how they can best serve his needs.

We’ve all been bullied. We’ve all dealt with users. And when that bully or user has power over us, there is fear we feel deep in our gut. It is far more visceral than the fear of being nothing.

And just as we hope someone will come to our rescue, there is Pierce Mostyn and the OUP. A little bit of the cavalry coming over the hill just in the nick of time. And we like that.

You can get Van Dyne’s Vampires at Amazon, or read it for free if you are a KU member. Enjoy!

Comments are always welcome; and, until next time, happy reading!

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To the Stars

Astounding Science Fiction August 1940 cover for Lester Del Rey’s “The Stars Look Down”

Non est ad astra mollis e terris via.

The sentence translates to “There is no easy way from the earth to the stars.” It is line 437 of Seneca’s play Hercules Furens, and is spoken by Megara, the wife of Hercules, to Lycus, the tyrant who usurped her father’s throne.

The meaning is clear: there is no easy path to fame, to glory.

Recently Jackson Dean Chase posted a link to a blog article, “Stop ‘trying hard’ and produce more if you want to smash it as a writer”. The article could not have come at a more appropriate time for me.

In brief, the article notes that creative people have no concept of the quality or value of their own work. In fact, a creative’s own estimation is often at odds with that of the public.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s hatred of Sherlock Holmes immediately comes to mind. He thought the great detective frivolous and the stories not at all great literature. Yet history has proven him wrong. Of the vast number of novels and stories that Doyle wrote, it is Holmes who is associated with Doyle’s name and by which he’s remembered.

George Frederic Handel loved Italian opera and continued to write and produce operas for a London audience that no longer wanted them. He ended up bankrupt and in ill health. Forced by circumstances, he turned to English oratorio and wrote Messiah. Which by the way was hated by the librettist because Handel produced the sacred drama in concert halls!

Handel did learn his lesson and milked Messiah for every shilling and pound he could get from it.

HG Wells thought his greatest work was the world history he wrote. Today, no one knows he wrote one.

I observe my fellow writers frantically following one success guru after another in the attempt to become bestselling authors. They look like sheep in search of a shepherd. Like parrots, they repeat the supposed mantras of success over and over. Usually without giving them any thoughtful consideration.

Every now and then, I find myself caught up in the stampede until a friend graciously pulls me back to reality. It’s easy to follow the crowd. After all that’s what lemmings do when they run over the cliff into the sea.

Seneca is right. The path to the stars is not an easy one. Why? Because there is no easy formula to follow. There is no one how-to manual that works for everyone.

No one knows how a bestseller is born. No one.

What does that mean for us writers? Quite simply, it means we must write. And write a lot. Write until that bestseller is discovered.

Margaret Mitchell is very much the exception and not the rule. In spite of us writers wanting to make her the rule.

Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and probably had a hand in at least 10 others. But how many can we even name? Let alone the number that are regularly produced?

Because there is no one-size-fits-all formula for success, there is no external help for us writers. As Rainer Maria Rilke noted, there is no one outside of ourselves who can give us strength, encouragement, and support. It is all inside. We must look inside ourselves for what we need to succeed.

Of all that Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote (and he wrote a lot), the one character that stands out is Tarzan. The same for Lester Dent. He wrote hundreds of books and stories. His name, however, is forever tied to Doc Savage.

Handel wrote 42 operas and 29 oratorios (amongst many other works). Mention his name and everyone says, Messiah.

Burroughs did not set out to become famous by writing Tarzan. Nor Dent, Doc Savage. Nor Handel, Messiah. It was the public who decided what would be their claim to fame.

Because we writers, and creatives in general, are very bad at predicting our own greatest work, our only recourse is to write lots and give it to the public and let them decide.

In my own case, I expected Festival Of Death, with my private detective Justinia Wright (who I dearly love), to be my “bestseller”. Imagine my surprise when The Morning Star, the initial book in my post-apocalyptic cozy catastrophe series, has to date, outsold Festival of Death by an almost 5 to 1 margin.

Never in a million years would I have guessed that to have happened. So my writer friends, keep writing. The public will find your best book for you. That is one thing you don’t have to worry about. Just write and trust your public.

Comments are always welcome. Until next time, happy reading!

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What Type Of Writer Are You?

Not everyone is a writer, but every one of us has a book within. Of course, some of us have more than one book and even then there may not be enough for us to be professionals. But that is alright. Because in this wonderful day and age, we can get our books published and not worry about anything else other than sending them out into the world.

Every occupation has hobbyists, amateurs, and professionals and that includes writing. Let’s take a little deeper look into each of these categories and see what they mean.

Hobbyist

What is a hobbyist writer? A hobbyist is one who engages in an activity for the fun of it. I enjoy playing board games. They’re fun. They constitute one of my hobbies.

People can write for a hobby, as well. I think most fan fiction writers are hobbyists. They write for the fun of it. So too many writers who are on platforms such as Wattpad.

These folk enjoy writing. However, they have lots of other interests and little to no desire to make writing number one in their life. Perhaps like bike riding for me. I enjoy it, but I have no desire to go on a road trip or engage in racing or participate in a club. I just like to ride my bike every now and again.

Writing as a hobby twenty or more years ago was pretty much a solo activity. Perhaps you shared your poems and stories and novels with family and friends. Perhaps got the shorter works published in magazines or fanzines and got a couple contributor’s copies for payment. Anything beyond that was pretty difficult.

Not today, however. Today, it’s easy to share your work with the world. If you want to. And who knows? You might decide you like writing enough to move to the next level.

Amateur

I’m not referring to someone who’s a bad writer. As in Oh, my God. He’s such an amateur!

No, I’m referring to a dedicated person who loves writing, has to write, but chooses not to make a career of it.

Many vocations have people who make an interest an avocation instead of their vocation. Why? For any number of reasons. For one, unless you are a tech writer employed by a company, you will probably be self-employed as a writer. And not everyone wants the uncertainties of self-employment. Others may truly love their day jobs and don’t want to give them up for a career as an author. So writing may become a part-time job for them.

For many years the Victorian novelist, Anthony Trollope, was an amateur writer. Even after he started achieving critical acclaim and a sizable income from writing, he held onto his post office job. He liked working at the post office and he liked the security a regular paycheck gave him. It wasn’t until he was passed over for promotion that he became disgruntled and quit the post office. By that time, however, he was earning a very large income from writing and felt secure to make his living solely as a novelist.

Being an amateur isn’t a bad thing. It simply means you don’t want to write for your day job. Not that you aren’t good enough.

Professional

Many writers, however, dream of earning their living via the pen (or keyboard as the case may be). And many people do indeed support themselves by writing. But most do so by writing non-fiction, rather than fiction. And this has been the case for many, many years now.

I remember back in the ‘80s the sage advice, if you wanted to be a freelance writer, was to write articles for the women’s magazines. The market was large and the demand was high.

When Woman’s World was new, I recall an article on growing orchids. At the time I was a serious orchid grower, with hundreds of plants. What was quickly obvious was that the writer of the article didn’t really know anything about orchids. He made too many factual errors. I began tracking that particular writer’s articles and noted two things: he was good with a camera and he wrote lots of articles. He was a pro writer. Making his living selling to women’s and other non-fiction magazines.

Making a living from fiction is difficult. It isn’t impossible; there are, though, far easier ways to make a buck.

Recently, I’ve noticed more and more indie fiction writers moving over to non-fiction by offering lessons on how to write or market your books. Claiming Amazon or USA Today bestseller credentials, they offer to tell you (for a hefty price tag) how you can do it too.

Why are they doing this? Because it’s easier than writing and publishing and marketing 4 or 5 novels a year. All you do is create a course, video record it, and you’re done. Simply advertise said course, collect the fees, and press “play”. And then “repeat” for the next group and the next one after that.

Now I don’t mean to be cynical. I’m simply saying these writers have found it’s easier to make a living via non-fiction than fiction. Something pros have known for over half a century.

What Kind of Writer Are You?

I make no bones about it. I want to be a professional novelist. Hopefully, one day I’ll succeed.

However, I won’t be sad if I end up being a serious amateur. Why? Because, due to today’s technology and opportunities, even as an amateur, I can publish and market my books and make at least some money doing so. And which I’m doing right now. Every month I earn a few buck from Amazon and the outlets I’ve signed up for through Draft2Digital. And that is a nice feeling. A very nice feeling.

What about you? What kind of writer are you?

A hobbyist? Nothing wrong with that. Have fun and share your fun with the world.

An amateur? Good for you. Self-employment is not for everyone. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be serious about your poetry, short stories, or novels. And who knows? You might end up just like Anthony Trollope.

Maybe you’ve scaled the mountain. You’re on the peak. You’re a pro. Congratulations! Your hard work paid off and you deserve your reward. I envy you and also am inspired by you. Onwards and upwards!

As always, I look forward to your comments. And until next time, happy reading!

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