The good news is that there are some new Shenanigans!-related items on the web available for your personal perusal!

First, the lovely J.E. Reich from Art Faccia was kind enough to interview me (hooray!!). And honestly, my only real goal was to not make a complete ass of myself — the jury is still out as to whether or not I succeeded there.

I also got to participate in (recently-announced) Best American Short Stories author, Mike Meginnis’s interactive literary text-based role-playing feature, “Exits Are” over at the Artifice Books‘ site! Click here to read “I Was a Dead Red-Shirted Ensign“. It was awesome!

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Although AWP ’12 is now done and over with, I have more to do than ever, which is a good thing. “It’s better to be busy than bored,” etc. etc.

Work on my novel has picked back up. I’d taken a small hiatus away from it while prepping materials for AWP and finishing a couple freelance editing gigs. The ultimate success of the latter two items was really hit or miss. It might be March, but a resolution I’m setting for myself is to be more clear with my communications with others. In trying to please everyone with too much flexibility, something invariably gets lost in translation. I wrote that down so I’d remember it.

I’ve been reading some great books lately. Two of the best have been Adam Levin’s Hot Pink (my review of Levin’s book goes live on [PANK] March 20th) and Leigh Stein’s The Fallback Plan. It would certainly behoove you to read these two books at your nearest convenience. Or cancel other plans to read them. You’ll thank me later.

Tumblr is fun!

If you haven’t checked out Mike Meginnis’s simulated text adventure series EXITS ARE over at Artifice Books, you should do so ASAP! And don’t forget to congratulate Mike for having a story accepted for next year’s Best American Short Stories (BASS) anthology while your at it!!

Speaking of next year’s BASS anthology, I’d also like to congratulate Roxane Gay (who I’ve — not even secretly — got a huge literary crush on) for having a story accepted as well — this is truly BIG news for the small indie presses!!

And speaking of Roxane, it’s no secret she’s really into The Hunger Games (scroll down). “Really into” is perhaps a complete understatement. Because of Roxane’s wholly infectious enthusiasm, I was this < > close to starting the postapocalyptic trilogy myself. I’d even bought all three books and everything. That’s something i do with books, by the way — if it’s a series, I’ll buy all of them at once to A) have them all because I might possibly be a hoarder-in-the-making, and because B) I like to be prepared for the off-chance a stranger approaches me on the street and gives me a drug that turn me into a super-genius (like what happened to Bradley Cooper in Limitless), in which case I could read all of them back-to-back in a sitting or two.

But something happened…

Game. Of. Thrones.

I discovered that the fervor Roxane feels for The Hunger Games, I feel for Game Of Thrones (so many good books with “Game[s]” in their titles!).

Yes, I know the first book was released in 1996, but I was introduced to the series via the live-action drama on HBO. I’m late to the party. Sue me. In roughly one 24 hour period, I watched all ten episodes of season one. When it was over, I felt sad and gloomy. After my binge, I wasn’t ready for it to end. My solace was knowing season two starts April 1st. But i couldn’t wait that long, so I went out and bought the books (except for the newest one; it’s still an expensive hardcover). Pacing myself has been difficult. Ideally, I’d take a sabbatical from life and just read the remaining books, one after another.

Where The Hungers Games is postapocalyptic (YA) fiction, Game Of Thrones is adult high fantasy. [N.B. I only mention genre because I really like both.] Typically, I’ve been more of a fan of “the classics” in each genre such as 1984, We, and Brave New World for the former, and any/everything by Tolkien for for latter (countless movies, notwithstanding). However, I presently must be more in the mood for warring kingdoms, knights, magic, and dragons since I’ve been unable to stop thinking about Game Of Thrones.

It likely also has something to do with the fact that I’ve been playing a veritable shitload of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on my Playstation 3 lately. In fact, I’m currently working on an essay focusing primarily on the similarities between Skyrim and Game Of Thrones for InDigest in between blog posts and “paying-the-bills” work.

Because I am a worrier, my first though after the credits rolled on episode 10 was: “OMG! What will happen next?! What if they aren’t able to film all of the books for one reason or another?! How can I possibly hope to convey my anxiety without using multiple interrobangs?!”

Because it seems impossible for this show not to sink its hooks into most viewers the way it did to me. Shit is captivating yo! When the show opens up north of The Wall and you see the Others/White Walkers for the first time? Intense. When Bran Stark climbed the castle tower and saw the Ser Jamie Lannister nailing the Queen, Cersei (who is King Robert Baratheon’s wife, not to mention — ZOMG — Jamie’s own f**king sister!), you knew something bad was going to happen. (Which it did, Jamie shoved Bran from the tower’s window, which was, from what I could tell, pretty damn high up. When King Robert asks Bran’s father, Robert’s longtime friend, Eddard “Ned” Stark to leave his home in Winterfell to become the “Hand of the King” far to the south in King’s Landing, you immediately wonder how it’s going to play out (since the Queen is having coital relations with her brother, who also happens to be the guy who shoved Ned Stark’s son from a very high tower).

There are just so many combustible elements in such an ostensibly tiny space!

I submit that Game Of Thrones is incredibly testosterone-fueled, and some of the gratuitous violence and nudity may not appeal to everyone. But they appeal to me, and if that stuff doesn’t put you off, then you’ll probably like it too. A lot.

Now I just need to finish A Clash of Kings (i.e. book 2) before season two starts on HBO!

***

OK, forget what I said about posting here once a week for a hot second. I’d like to rephrase it as “I will post here 1+ time(s) a week.”

I’ve been offering freelance editing services for a while now but am still fairly new to the enterprise. Most of my work has come by referral (thanks KB!), and none of it has been what I’d consider “easy” editing. I’m not going to go into detail about previous edits, but I’d like to recount my last experience, omitting/changing the client’s name.

Needless to say, this has all certainly been a “learn as I go” kind of endeavor.

I would argue—and perhaps one of Specter and [PANK] Magazines’ contributors/editors, Alicia Kennedy, can maybe confirm or deny this—that every editor has their own unique editing style, just as every writer has her or his unique writing style. Or, more specifically, every editor has her or his own unique style of initially approaching a new manuscript.

My latest project was one I was indeed excited to work on. After a preliminary read through of “Mr. Smith’s” manuscript, I thought: OK, here’s a chance to finally utilize most of the implements in my editing toolkit. By which I mean that it seemed like Mr. Smith was looking for the kind of feedback and editing advice a writer typically gets when workshopping her or his piece. Having previously attended a large number of these workshops and earning an MFA along the way, I felt confident I could offer Mr. Smith exactly what he was looking for.

However, this turned out to be…how should I put it…incorrect.

I think it came down to my editing style not being compatible with the desired results Mr. Smith had envisioned for his manuscript. This is fair—different strokes for different folks, and all that. A mistake perhaps made on my part was offering to be as communicative as possible throughout the whole process, in order to give Mr. Smith a full sense of involvement in his project. That seems like it’d be a really good thing, however, I can testify that the reality of such author involvement is “not always.”

Mr. Smith, from the get-go, wrote very long and detailed expectations of what his thoughts were, i.e. what he had questions about, what other editors had told him previously, what he was ultimately going for, etc. I subsequently set out with the information of that first email and dove into the manuscript. My style of editing for a first read through is to ostensibly do a line edit as I go and provide a running commentary by asking questions, pointing out word choices that don’t work, identifying awkward or clunky phrasing, and other edits along those lines. Pretty standard stuff. I also try to keep in mind what the client has asked for and address it in addition to my own edits.

However, by offering to keep the lines of communication open, Mr. Smith would send three or four emails during every phase of the process, which made it extremely difficult to address all of his questions, at least in any kind of order other than chronologically. One of the more difficult obstacles I’d encounter was when Mr. Smith would invariably decide items he’d asked about earlier were no longer as important as new questions he’d come up with (after I’d already addressed them earlier in the manuscript). It became difficult to go back and address each new comment/question and also have the resulting “fix” make sense with subsequent comments or edits I would make (of course, after the fact) that referred back to the changed comment (does that make any sense, or am I explaining this poorly?).

The point I’m getting at is that there were a few of my comments that were either redundant or ostensibly non-sequiters, in that they referred to—or rather, back to—nothing, comments/edits that no longer existed. Of course this caused frustration for both of us, and I take the blame for not having a more concrete game plan. I also experienced a perfect storm of health issues between a stubborn respiratory infection and a screwed up lower back, so some of my responses took longer to compose than they really should have.

I think it’s important to make sure, as an editor, you fully understand the client’s goals from the onset and how your particular skill set can help the client achieve those goals. It’s probably a good idea to also set guidelines; let the client know what you think her or his manuscript needs in order to become publishable.

Because that’s the ultimate goal, right? Writers want their work to get published. Editors should be able to help writers do that. I don’t profess to know everything about the publishing world given that I’ve only had a handful of stories/essays published, and a single book (though maybe I should profess to know everything to increase my freelance editing volume? …nah), but I do think i know some key factors that contribute to increasing a given piece of writing’s chance to find a home somewhere. Friction is inevitable when a writer is married to an idea that an editor feels is ultimately handicapping the writer’s work.

So anyway, I feel like this was a learning experience for me. Number one, I need to be more clear with what my intentions are going into a project. In the end, my goal is to increase a work’s publishability. I need to explain up front how my particular style of editing lends itself to that goal. I also need to set up some sort of concrete agreement about emails between edits. I feel like trying to change sections on a client’s whim makes my editing work seem much more disorganized than it really is. Ultimately, I want to be seen as a professional and I want my work to reflect that. I take responsibility for my work coming across to Mr. Smith as second-rate. He unfortunately got the impression I was purposely trying to avoid his questions and divert him toward other aspects of the manuscript, but I was simply trying to make sure we’d covered the issues that had already arisen before moving on to new questions.

We parted ways after only the first couple chapters.

Perhaps I should be discouraged, but I’m not. I plan to keep going with freelance editing, to keep on keepin’ on! I enjoy editing, truly. I like working on a writer’s manuscript and taking it to the next level, even if that next level isn’t quite ready for Barnes and Noble (manuscripts arrive in all stages of readiness).

What I’m trying to get at is this: send me your stuff; I’d love to read it!

(thankyouforyourvotegoodbye!!)

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I was also thinking of the other bazillion social media feeds to which I’ve attached my name: Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

I’m trying to figure out how to keep things from becoming redundant. This is trickier than it sounds.

My thought is to keep the blog updated once a week, Tumblr once a day, and Twitter, well, if you follow me (@JoeMOwens) you know keeping up with that won’t be a problem. Facebook, I’m just saying whatever to. It’ll probably get updated close to every day but it might not. We’ll see.

I’ve got a problem when it comes to parsing out what I want to post where. It causes me anxiety and paralysis by analysis.

I have to make sure I’m creating my share of content for InDigest and Specter, while also posting stuff on Cat13. Tricky, tricky…

This would be an entirely less significant problem if only I were a more prolific writer. But I’m not.

So we’ll just have to see how it goes…

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Punctuality and good timing are not the same thing. I’m fantastic at the former. But the latter? … Not so much.

For example: This is my first actual blog post in a month–a month in which my first book was published (Shenanigans!, Grey Sparrow Press, 2012) and another edition of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference came and went in Chicago. The word from Category Thirteen? Nothing.

Radio Silence.

To call my timing “bad” is perhaps an understatement.

However, all is not lost! The book is 100% available and in-stock, and can be purchased from Amazon for $9.99 by clicking here. Initial reviews and word of mouth feedback are good, so we’ll see how that trend holds up… ( :: drums fingers nervously :: )

My AWP 2012 experience can probably best be summed up as “minimalist.” By that I mean, I spent something approximating 90% of my time laid up in my hotel room with 7th-Level-of-Hell back pain. Which, i should mention, stemmed from tripping–and subsequently rolling my ankle–over a curb while walking to my hotel, before I even ventured to pick up my customary AWP registration swag(!!). The clumsy trip/stumble/ankle-roll maneuver was enough to *tweak* my back in such a way that carrying a heavy backpack over the next couple days would exacerbate the pain to the point of incapacitation.

In other words, instead of doing fun conference-y stuff, I spent almost 24 hours just laying in my hotel bed the day before I flew back to Omaha.

The upside is that, in the small amount of time I got to spend at AWP actually conferencing, I “met” a shitload of rad people! I put ‘met’ in quotes because they were people I’d spent a great deal of time chatting with on Twitter and Facebook, but had never met in real life (a phrase quickly losing its concrete meaning).

From Specter Magazine/The Specter Collective, I got to (finally) meet mensah demary, Libby Walkup, Molly Laich, and J. Bradley. From [PANK] Magazine, I met the truly wonderful Roxane Gay and her infamous partner in crime, xTx. From MudLuscious Press and The Lit Pub, I met J.A. Tyler and Molly Gaudry, respectively. I got to meet Mike Meginnis from Artifice Magazine (who might be the nicest guy ever and whose new feature EXITS ARE is totally friggin’ awesome!). I got to meet Alexander Chee (author of Edinburgh) and Leigh Stein (author of The Fall Back Plan), both of whom are brilliant and outstanding people!

I met Sam Pink (author of Person), who it turns out I actually already knew before in a previous career when we were both secret agents!

I also got to meet Christian TeBordo (author of The Awful Possibilities) and talk to Adam Levin (author of The Instructions, who I’ve actually met before) for a while. Which was as completely fucking awesome as you’d expect! And of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my former University of Nebraska MFA peeps I saw there: David Atkinson, Natasha Kessler, Stephanie Austin Gillingham, Natalia Trevino, burntdistrict‘s Liz Kay & Jen Lambert, Jenna Lucas, Richard Duggin, and Jim Peterson.

So of course there’s no way you could call my AWP ’12 experience a total wash. There was just a whole lot more I wanted to do and see!

(And one quick N.B.: If I forgot to mention anybody, I’m totally sorry! I’m trying to write this from memory being that I didn’t take any pictures…at all.)

Oh yeah, (please) keep an eye on my Tumblr, I’ve just started “Tumbling” (correct verb choice?) so we’ll see how it goes. I’ll probably dedicate it mostly to flash fiction and hilarious random errata.

I’ll keep this short(ish) and end here–well, after the next sentence, I mean. The bottom line is that, despite a little minor back injury, 2012 is shaping up to be a pretty kickass year; I hope to see more of you guys!

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Well, the day has finally arrived! Shenanigans! is available for order from Amazon.com for $9.99!!

Initial reviews are indeed favorable. Here are a few of the blurbs:

“The voice in Shenanigans! is muscular, rhythmic, and full of whizz-bang linguistic energy. The stories view the world with the kind of self-deprecating humor that makes you want to spend an afternoon just wandering around in Benjamin’s mind. Read Shenanigans! You’ll laugh, you’ll think…you’ll have a great time.” — Amy Hassinger, author of Nina Adolescence

“Shenanigans! is the textual photo-album of Anna and Ben, language made to Polaroid the gentle tangle of coupling and maturation. This is a collection wonderfully tinged with humor, beautifully tempered with landscape, and soaked in the genuine.”
– J. A. Tyler, author of Girl With Oars & Man Dying

“The charm of Joseph Michael Owens’s debut collection, Shenanigans! can be found in his voice. At heart, these are a young man‟s stories of love and loss, of life and death. There‟s a sincerity that flirts with retro yet feels like innovation. Each one reads like a conversation … unscathed by the unsentimental tone that too often passes for hipness in this day and age, yet clearly of his own time. These are honest stories.” – Karen Gettert Shoemaker author of Night Sounds and Other Stories

“Between Hunter S. Thompson and David Foster Wallace‟s essays, Joseph Owens‟s stories will take you through a caffeinated romp through his life, its exciting highs and frightening lows. Dogs, horses, bicycles come alive with as much love and empathy as the people he holds dear. Owens’s voice, spirited, crackling with energy, is too fierce, and engaging to be ignored.” – Catherine Texier, author of Russian Lessons, The Breakup

(originally posted at http://biblioklept.org/

David S. Atkinson posted a truly wonderful review of Shenanigans! on Goodreads.com. I am humbled by his kind words!

I’ve heard that by the time Bukowski was really into the swing of things as a writer he had stopped reading much of anything because he did not feel that most of what he came across had life. It felt dead and, as such, was worthless. I can’t really say for sure because I didn’t know old Buk’, but I believe he would have felt very differently about the writing in Shenanigans! If there was ever writing with life, Shenanigans! is it.

In some cases, I mean this quite literally. The writing in “Contemptibly, A Hair” blasts out of the page with more energy than a hyperactive toddler on meth, though with much more pleasurable results. It dances, it spins, it screams. In short, it is the language equivalent of class ten rapids.

Read more HERE: