I still don't know who's reading about Garison Fitch. I can check my account at Amazon and see that—this month—I have sold several copies of my books about Garison (and even a couple copies of the books about his grandson ["All the Time in Our World"]) but other than the one friend on Facebook who told me she bought a copy, I have no idea who these people are.
Yes, I realize that's SOP for most authors. John Grisham probably gets a lot of fan mail, but I doubt that he gets a letter from every one of the millions of readers each of his books have.
Still, I'd like to know. Part of it is curiosity. I'd like to know where they heard about my book and whether they would recommend it to a friend and if they prefer Kindle or actual paper. I'd like to ask those questions.
There's another aspect to it all, though. I wrote and re-wrote "First Time: The Legend of Garison Fitch" for over a decade. And then, there was the publishing mishap, followed by another majore re-write and the adventure in self-publishing. That was followed (many years later) by my foray into publishing with Kindle (which has worked out better than I ever imagined!).
Over that time, and through it all, Garison has become something more than an imaginary character to me. My brain knows he's a fictional person, but I've also gotten to know him so well that when writing "Lost Time" or other, unpublished, works wherein Garison appears I have occasionally run into walls. Not that I don’t know how to write for Garison, but that I know too well! I write a bit of dialogue, then think, “Garison wouldn’t say that.” Or, “Garison wouldn’t say it that way.” Or, I’ll put Garison into a situation that I know he wouldn’t get into.
Same with Heather. I know these characters so well that writing about them is less like writing fiction and more like writing biography. I think part of why I want to hear from people who have read my books is I want to know if they Garison and Heather (and Sarah, Edward, Marianne, Bat, Jody and Joe and Ellen) seem as real to them.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Time of Why
Jerry Seinfeld said that when you walk into a bookstore you have the fiction section and the non-fiction section. In other words, one group is telling the truth and one group is lying.
So, why lie about time travel?
I have always been fascinated with time travel. Who doesn’t have something in their life they would like to go back and change? I have made stupid mistakes I wish I could go undo. I have also done things that I really enjoyed and wish I could enjoy them again. Let alone “big” things like go back to Dallas in 1963 and prevent a presidential assassination—or just back to 1980 and somehow have the Astros win that one-game play-off they should have won anyway.
What if, though, I were to travel back in time and make things worse? This is the dilemma of Garison Fitch. He has traveled back in time and, when he returns to the future, the world has changed. Should he go back and try to change things back to normal?
Of course, in Garison’s world, the strange new world is the one you and I are used to. Garison grew up in the Soviet Americas, where the Republic of Texas existed just across the southern border and Japan ruled the western half of the continent. His decision is whether to live in this whacked-out world of the United States, or see if he can undo what he’s done.
Why write about this? Because I find it fascinating. What if I went back to 1986 and treated the girl I was dating then better? I’d like to not be known (at least to her) as a jerk, but what if in so doing I somehow messed up meeting my wife in ’88? I think I’d hate that. What if I could somehow prevent my wife from having a miscarriage in the summer of ’96? Well, then I wouldn’t have my youngest son. I know I’d hate that, even though I’m sure I’d love the other child.
And, of course, I wouldn’t know about any of these changes if the change were made.
It’s probably just as well that I can’t change the past. But it’s still fun to think about.
So, why lie about time travel?
I have always been fascinated with time travel. Who doesn’t have something in their life they would like to go back and change? I have made stupid mistakes I wish I could go undo. I have also done things that I really enjoyed and wish I could enjoy them again. Let alone “big” things like go back to Dallas in 1963 and prevent a presidential assassination—or just back to 1980 and somehow have the Astros win that one-game play-off they should have won anyway.
What if, though, I were to travel back in time and make things worse? This is the dilemma of Garison Fitch. He has traveled back in time and, when he returns to the future, the world has changed. Should he go back and try to change things back to normal?
Of course, in Garison’s world, the strange new world is the one you and I are used to. Garison grew up in the Soviet Americas, where the Republic of Texas existed just across the southern border and Japan ruled the western half of the continent. His decision is whether to live in this whacked-out world of the United States, or see if he can undo what he’s done.
Why write about this? Because I find it fascinating. What if I went back to 1986 and treated the girl I was dating then better? I’d like to not be known (at least to her) as a jerk, but what if in so doing I somehow messed up meeting my wife in ’88? I think I’d hate that. What if I could somehow prevent my wife from having a miscarriage in the summer of ’96? Well, then I wouldn’t have my youngest son. I know I’d hate that, even though I’m sure I’d love the other child.
And, of course, I wouldn’t know about any of these changes if the change were made.
It’s probably just as well that I can’t change the past. But it’s still fun to think about.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Heather Dawson Fitch
Heather Dawson Fitch is based on several real-life people. She is this incredibly pretty woman, with Olympic-caliber volleyball skills, and also a lawyer. So, how does she find happiness living in a canyon halfway between nowhere and nowhere else?
Because Heather has never felt in charge of her own life. Her looks made people automatically assume things about her that she didn't agree with. She was too good at volleyball not to be noticed (especially when her ability was combined with her looks). She was a lawyer because she was smart enough and because she came from a family of lawyers.
Heather, more than anything else, would love to be average. She would love to be able to walk down the street and not be noticed. She'd love to join an organization--any one--and not be almost immediately made an officer. She is constantly at war on this score with people's assumptions and her own natural abilities. For all her desire to be anonymous, she can't help but do whatever she does better than anyone else. She sees her inability to combat this streak in herself as her one great weakness.
It's part of why she fell in love with Bat Garrett. In him, she thought she had found someone who was almost immune to her looks and was only interested in her inner being. What broke her heart was not just his leaving her, but the sudden realization that--all along--his seeming indifference was really because he was in love with someone else.
Because Heather has never felt in charge of her own life. Her looks made people automatically assume things about her that she didn't agree with. She was too good at volleyball not to be noticed (especially when her ability was combined with her looks). She was a lawyer because she was smart enough and because she came from a family of lawyers.
Heather, more than anything else, would love to be average. She would love to be able to walk down the street and not be noticed. She'd love to join an organization--any one--and not be almost immediately made an officer. She is constantly at war on this score with people's assumptions and her own natural abilities. For all her desire to be anonymous, she can't help but do whatever she does better than anyone else. She sees her inability to combat this streak in herself as her one great weakness.
It's part of why she fell in love with Bat Garrett. In him, she thought she had found someone who was almost immune to her looks and was only interested in her inner being. What broke her heart was not just his leaving her, but the sudden realization that--all along--his seeming indifference was really because he was in love with someone else.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Quantum Reality
Most modern time travel fiction that I've read or seen is based on the idea of multiple realities. From a fictional standpoint, this resolves the old time travel connundrum of "Could I go back in time and kill my grandfather because wouldn't that cause me to cease to exist?" If we say there are multiple realities, then the person who travels has not so much traveled in time as to another reality, one in which they are free to kill their grandfather, shoot their dog or whatever, but the outcome in that reality won't in any way effect the outcome in their "starting" reality.
The "logical" conclusion of this idea is that there are an infinite number of realities out there, each spawned every time a decision is made. This morning, when you had to choose between strawberry jam or grape jelly for your toast, you spawned several realities. There's the reality where you chose grape, the one where you chose strawberry, the one where you decided not to have jelly at all, the one where the toaster caught fire and burned down the house, leaving just a charred reminder of your sorry existance underneath the rubble of the kitchen table, etc.
People who support this theory of multiple realities will often say there is theoretical math that proves the possibility of multiple realities. The possibility. You see, it's not really provable (as normal people define "provable").
Therefore, the universe of Garison Fitch (which includes "All the Time in Our World" as well as anything else I've written) assumes that the possibility is not a possibility and works from the assumption that there's only one reality and one timeline and Garison somehow altered it. This makes some people mad. They have so fully bought into the concept of multiple realities that they cannot conceive of a story based in and on a single reality.
What strikes me as funny about this is: "Dude! It's fiction!" The nature of fiction is to tell a story that isn't in such a way that the reader thinks it could be, or--at the very least--understands the premise. So if I, as the author, want to tell a story predicated on a single timeline (or on the concept that the sky is plaid or that politicians are innately altruistic) then a] that's my right and 2] it behooves me to stay true to my premise within the story (unless it's part of the story that the character is finding his assumptions challenged or changed).
The "logical" conclusion of this idea is that there are an infinite number of realities out there, each spawned every time a decision is made. This morning, when you had to choose between strawberry jam or grape jelly for your toast, you spawned several realities. There's the reality where you chose grape, the one where you chose strawberry, the one where you decided not to have jelly at all, the one where the toaster caught fire and burned down the house, leaving just a charred reminder of your sorry existance underneath the rubble of the kitchen table, etc.
People who support this theory of multiple realities will often say there is theoretical math that proves the possibility of multiple realities. The possibility. You see, it's not really provable (as normal people define "provable").
Therefore, the universe of Garison Fitch (which includes "All the Time in Our World" as well as anything else I've written) assumes that the possibility is not a possibility and works from the assumption that there's only one reality and one timeline and Garison somehow altered it. This makes some people mad. They have so fully bought into the concept of multiple realities that they cannot conceive of a story based in and on a single reality.
What strikes me as funny about this is: "Dude! It's fiction!" The nature of fiction is to tell a story that isn't in such a way that the reader thinks it could be, or--at the very least--understands the premise. So if I, as the author, want to tell a story predicated on a single timeline (or on the concept that the sky is plaid or that politicians are innately altruistic) then a] that's my right and 2] it behooves me to stay true to my premise within the story (unless it's part of the story that the character is finding his assumptions challenged or changed).
Thursday, December 31, 2009
The Answer is ...
No.
That's the answer I got from eReader. They will not be publishing any of my novels. eReader will only publish writers who have 10 or more (!) titles to their name, all published by established publishers who already have a track record with the eReader parent company. That definitely lets me out!
So, if you want to read what I have written, you'll have to order the paperbacks (available through my web site www.tuttles.net or www.garisonfitch.com) or read them on Kindle.
Go Kindle!
That's the answer I got from eReader. They will not be publishing any of my novels. eReader will only publish writers who have 10 or more (!) titles to their name, all published by established publishers who already have a track record with the eReader parent company. That definitely lets me out!
So, if you want to read what I have written, you'll have to order the paperbacks (available through my web site www.tuttles.net or www.garisonfitch.com) or read them on Kindle.
Go Kindle!
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Selling books
Someone asked me why my book was only available on Kindle and not for eReader or Nook. There's a simple reason for that: Kindle.
Kindle (and the people at Amazon) is very easy to upload a book on. Got something written out and saved in MSWord? You can upload it to Kindle as is. Kindle will use all the italics and everything and your book will be available in less than 48 hours. Uploading cover art (assuming you've created it) is simpler than uploading a picture to Facebook. Same with all the other info you want to put out there.
Not so with the other platforms. Nook only wants books from publishers they already recognize (which eliminates all the people like me who are self-published and--probably--most of the niche publishers). They have a "contact us" button on their web site, but they don't write back so it's rather useless.
eReader has a nice web site and a big sign/button about converting your book to a format that can be read on any eReader platform. It is an easy program to use and converts your book in a matter of seconds (did for me, anyway) ... and then it stops. There's no button or instructions or anything for how to upload your newly converted e-book to the eReader web site. An email to their "Contact Us" address resulted in an email telling me they were on vacation and would be back after the New Year. I'm not holding out much hope for an answer, but I'll keep you posted.
From an author's standpoint, my vote goes enthusiastically for the Kindle.
Kindle (and the people at Amazon) is very easy to upload a book on. Got something written out and saved in MSWord? You can upload it to Kindle as is. Kindle will use all the italics and everything and your book will be available in less than 48 hours. Uploading cover art (assuming you've created it) is simpler than uploading a picture to Facebook. Same with all the other info you want to put out there.
Not so with the other platforms. Nook only wants books from publishers they already recognize (which eliminates all the people like me who are self-published and--probably--most of the niche publishers). They have a "contact us" button on their web site, but they don't write back so it's rather useless.
eReader has a nice web site and a big sign/button about converting your book to a format that can be read on any eReader platform. It is an easy program to use and converts your book in a matter of seconds (did for me, anyway) ... and then it stops. There's no button or instructions or anything for how to upload your newly converted e-book to the eReader web site. An email to their "Contact Us" address resulted in an email telling me they were on vacation and would be back after the New Year. I'm not holding out much hope for an answer, but I'll keep you posted.
From an author's standpoint, my vote goes enthusiastically for the Kindle.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
The Origin of Garison Fitch
As has been mentioned in another blog, Garison Fitch's first appearance in my writings was in the third (or fourth [see other blogs]) book about Bat Garrett. But that wasn't necessarily the genesis of the character that you read about in "First Time", "Saving Time" and "Lost Time".
The character who appears in "Up to Bat" was originally conceived as a one-shot. I thought he might show up somewhere later just because Heather went to work with him and I thought Heather might show up again in another Bat story (so far, she hasn't).
Way back in college, though, I cooked up this idea of a theoretical lawyer. He lived in a small town, was very unconventional in his practice of law, and he was a confirmed bachelor. He was also tall and rather thin. And one day, the name "Garison Fitch" just came to me.
What never came to me was something to do with the character. Like a lot of my ideas (like the comic book character "Dumas Duck" ... ask me sometime!), he was a good concept, but concepts only go so far.
So, flash forward a couple years when I'm re-writing the Bat Garrett stories for the umpteenth time and I need a name for a JP/lawyer. I was convinced by then that I would never come up with a good story for Garison Fitch but I still liked the name, so I gave it to the throwaway character in "Up to Bat".
It was shortly after that that the story for "First Time" popped into my mind and I knew, from the moment it occurred to me, that the character in "Up to Bat" was perfectly suited for the lead.
One thing did change, though. In "Up to Bat" Garison is fairly gregarious. For "First Time" I decided I liked the character better if I had this guy who has every talent in the world--in addition to good looks--but is really kind of anti-social owing to his rapid rise through school and the loss of his parents. I think it makes for a much more interesting character than the one who first appears with Bat.
The character who appears in "Up to Bat" was originally conceived as a one-shot. I thought he might show up somewhere later just because Heather went to work with him and I thought Heather might show up again in another Bat story (so far, she hasn't).
Way back in college, though, I cooked up this idea of a theoretical lawyer. He lived in a small town, was very unconventional in his practice of law, and he was a confirmed bachelor. He was also tall and rather thin. And one day, the name "Garison Fitch" just came to me.
What never came to me was something to do with the character. Like a lot of my ideas (like the comic book character "Dumas Duck" ... ask me sometime!), he was a good concept, but concepts only go so far.
So, flash forward a couple years when I'm re-writing the Bat Garrett stories for the umpteenth time and I need a name for a JP/lawyer. I was convinced by then that I would never come up with a good story for Garison Fitch but I still liked the name, so I gave it to the throwaway character in "Up to Bat".
It was shortly after that that the story for "First Time" popped into my mind and I knew, from the moment it occurred to me, that the character in "Up to Bat" was perfectly suited for the lead.
One thing did change, though. In "Up to Bat" Garison is fairly gregarious. For "First Time" I decided I liked the character better if I had this guy who has every talent in the world--in addition to good looks--but is really kind of anti-social owing to his rapid rise through school and the loss of his parents. I think it makes for a much more interesting character than the one who first appears with Bat.
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