Let Us Sleep Now - My Influences

The dystopian-thriller film Children of Men (directed by Alfonso Cuarón)

It’s been a very long time since I last posted here (much longer than I intended), but I will grant myself some leniency since most of my time and effort was spent finishing my second book and first full-length novel Let Us Sleep Now. The reason I’m posting now is because we’re approaching the final days before my book releases into the world and I thought it might be fun to discuss the various artistic influences/inspirations of the book.

As you might have guessed from the picture above a significant influence on my upcoming novel’s tone and genre was the 2006 dystopian-thriller Children of Men. The film is set in a near future where humanity has become sterile resulting in a sudden end to pregnancy and childbirth. In the following decades society has started to collapse as humanity prepares for its inevitable end. Though my book deals with overpopulation and a global one-child policy, a problem on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, I was greatly inspired by the film’s gritty tone and portrayal of how such an issue becomes yet another way for those in power to widen the racial and economic divides already present in our society.

When I first started writing Let Us Sleep Now I didn’t initially picture it as a crime-thriller, but it gradually began to morph into one as some of my favorite crime films, such as Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight and Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, surfaced in my well of inspirations. In retrospect it makes sense though since the two main characters that drive the plot forward are a Population Control officer and a protestor turned guerrilla/freedom fighter. So while this isn’t your typical “cops and robbers” tale by any means there are definite parallels to those types of stories.

Psychedelic-horror film Mandy (directed by Panos Cosmatos)

I’ll do my best to avoid spoilers for the film, and my novel as well, but another unexpected inspiration that one of my editors picked up on is the 2018 film Mandy starring Nicolas Cage. It is a very trippy horror film and those familiar with it may notice certain similarities involving terrifying drug hallucinations and bizarre religious sects. That’s all I dare to say about that for now…

On the more bookish side of things, since this is a novel after all, it would be remiss of me to not mention the two literary giants of Philip K. Dick and Flannery O’Connor. If we’re being honest pretty much any urban-dystopia/cyberpunk writer is indebted to Philip K. Dick whether due to his prolific number of novels or the many film adaptations of his works, such as Blade Runner, Minority Report, or A Scanner Darkly. He’s been given the retrospective moniker of “Grandfather of Cyberpunk” due to his overwhelming influence on the genre though his work predates the term by several decades.

According to Wikipedia, “cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a ‘combination of lowlife and high tech’, featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cybernetics, juxtaposed with societal collapse, dystopia or decay.” While I wouldn’t consider my novel Let Us Sleep Now to be a cyberpunk novel it does share some similarities with the genre. Some aspects of my book that are inspired by Philip K. Dick’s novels are: unique religious movements, fictitious mind-altering drugs, questioning what is real, and philosophical dilemmas of morality.

Those familiar with Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation of Minority Report may also notice the inspiration for my novel’s mechanical arachnid named Franklin.

The “Queen of the Southern Gothic” also known as Flannery O’Connor has always had a significant impact on my writing. O’Connor’s work shined a light on the darker areas of Southern life exposing the religious hypocrisy and the moral/cultural decay of a region living in the shadow of an overwhelmingly ugly past. Speaking as both a Christian and a Southerner herself, O’Connor once said, “I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted.”

As someone that was born and raised in the South, I’ve also seen aspects of its darker side as well. Many of the same folks that will hold the door for you and end their sentences with a polite “yes ma’am” or “no sir,” common hallmarks of ‘Southern hospitality,’ will be the same ones that single you out and turn on you the moment you display the first indications of nonconformity. I’ve often joked that in the South even the serial killers are devout Christians. In my novel Let Us Sleep Now a faction of domestic terrorists known as “the Revenants of the Confederacy” use a unique blend of historical revisionism and corrupted spiritualism to justify their heinous acts of brutality.

Let Us Sleep Now releases on Amazon in paperback and e-book on July 1st! I hope you’ll join me on this journey into an alternate future that could share glimpses into a world not-so-different than our own.

The Underrated Joy of Camp

The Marvel film Guardians of the Galaxy exemplifies camp in its unusual cast of characters and zany world

Upon the publication of my first book Black Flowers I anxiously awaited the reviews as well as the reactions of my friends and family. With a short story collection that covered such a wide variety of genres and topics I was curious to see which stories really connected with people all the while fully expecting to ruffle some folk’s feathers. To my genuine surprise, the story that received the most polarizing reaction was not the one dealing with systemic racism or the one dealing with gender fluidity, but instead it was my nostalgic ode to the campy blockbuster films of my childhood titled “Pulp Mythology.”

The story is an outlandish noir/sci-fi romp contrasted within the setting of a small, Mississippi town during the Reagan Era. The entire story’s events take place over a single night as a punk rocker named Leaf searches for her missing friend, Bennie, who’s gotten in way over his head with the theft of a historical artifact involving a shadowy, ancient cult.

The story’s humorous tone and elevated action scenes are like nothing else in the collection, which most likely played a part in the polarizing response it received. Initially, several people told me it was the low point of my book (which was disappointing since it was by far the most fun for me to write), but in the time since then I’ve had some people tell me that “Pulp Mythology” was their favorite story, leading me to believe it’s more of a matter of taste rather than poor writing.

So using this story and experience as a starting point, what exactly is meant when something is called “campy” and is this style still relevant in a time where every film and novel is being praised for its commitment to “gritty realism”?

Camp: Definition and Origins

In Susan Sontag’s book of essays entitled Notes on “Camp” she says, “The essence of Camp is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration.” There is a “spirit of extravagance” and a bold willingness to be over-the-top, often pushing the boundaries of what’s considered good taste. She continues, “The whole point of Camp is to dethrone the serious. Camp is playful, anti-serious . . . One can be serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious.”

In an effort to trace the origins of the camp style or aesthetic one will find a strong historical association (especially in its early years) with queerness and the gay community. Many believe the word “camp” comes from the term “se camper” used among the French gay community meaning “to pose in an exaggerated fashion.”

The 19th century writer Oscar Wilde is most often considered to be the forefather of camp. Wilde is known for his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, which caused an uproar among the prudish Victorians for its homo-eroticism, as well as for his flamboyant lifestyle, controversial opinions, and bristling sense of humor. Wilde famously commented on Charles Dickens’s novel The Old Curiosity Shop concerning the overly-sentimental and melodramatic death of a child character by saying, “one must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing.” Wilde considered Dickens’s book to be an unintentional comedic masterpiece specifically because it was meant to be taken so seriously, laying the groundwork for the genre of “accidental camp comedies” of the future.

Ernest Thesiger as Dr. Pretorius in The Bride of Frankenstein

Another important link in the history of camp and gay culture is James Whales’s 1935 film The Bride of Frankenstein due to the director’s sexual orientation and the exaggerated, eccentric performance of the film’s antagonist Dr. Pretorius, portrayed by the openly bisexual actor Ernest Thesiger. Whales reportedly instructed Thesiger to play Pretorius as an “over-the-top caricature of a bitchy and aging homosexual” setting the stage for the (somewhat controversial) ‘sissy villain/queer antagonist’ trope used in innumerable films in the decades that followed.

Another, arguably the most influential, connection that camp has with the gay community is that of drag queen culture. Drag queens are (typically) gay men impersonating females in an exaggerated or caricatured manner. Drag queens rose in popularity due in large part to the campy/trashy films of writer/director John Waters. Waters’s early films, most notably Pink Flamingos, starred the drag queen icon known as Divine and were full of boundary-pushing, gross-out humor, and intentionally over-the-top acting.

John Waters and Divine at the New York premiere of Female Trouble

Camp Goes Mainstream

In the 1960s camp, both as an idea and a style, really began to take off and reach larger audiences far beyond the gay community with its most mainstream exposure being the Batman television series starring Adam West and Burt Ward. The Batman series was massively successful and influential despite what one might expect due to its cheap costumes, eccentric performances, outrageous scenarios, and hammy narration. The public’s growing awareness of tongue-in-cheek humor and irony (both important elements in intentional camp) allowed the tv series to become a hit. Camp had now become the expression of the ‘hip kids,’ thanks in part to the subversive antics of Andy Warhol in the art world and Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay “Notes on ‘Camp’” which defined the word in an academic sense for the first time.

In her essay Sontag separated camp into two general categories, “Camp is either completely naive or else wholly conscious (when one plays at being campy). In naive, or pure, Camp, the essential element is seriousness, a seriousness that fails.”

In the writing world, the acceptance of camp style into the mainstream allowed genre fiction, typically considered a “low art” and relegated to the cheap, pulp magazines of the past, to break down the barriers of the “high art” world and intermingle with the lofty concepts of literature.

A prime example is Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five which mixes the historical war novel with dark comedy and science fiction. Slaughterhouse-Five was chosen as one of the Modern Library’s 100 best novels of all time, received a fiftieth anniversary edition from Penguin’s prestigious Vintage Classics imprint, and is taught in high school English classes all while containing time-traveling aliens that resemble upright toilet plungers with a hand on top and a single green eye called Tralfamadorians.

Left: Penguin’s hardcover Vintage Classics edition of Slaughterhouse-Five; Right: an artist’s interpretation of a Tralfamadorian

As the decades passed, camp, of the naive and intentional variety, could be seen everywhere. For those looking retrospectively there were the earnest yet cheap and hastily-made horror and sci-fi films of the ‘50s, such as Ed Wood’s Plan 9 From Outer Space. The dedicated cult following of “midnight movies” like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which proudly celebrated drag queens and the great B movies of yesteryear, further cemented camp’s cultural status throughout the 1970s and beyond. The term “midnight movie” originates from a time when low-budget, horror films were shown on late-night television because the rights were so cheap and easy to obtain that it could make up for the relatively small viewership and less-coveted time slot for advertisers.

Another element associated with camp and midnight movies is that of the horror host. Horror hosts (beginning with Vampira in the 50s, continuing with Elvira in the 80s, and later Joe Bob Briggs in the 90s with TNT’s MonsterVision) would introduce the films peppering their monologues with horror puns and using their own extravagant personas to help foster a sense of community in the viewership and give them a reason to keep tuning back in week after week. The concept of the horror host was most likely inspired by horror comics such as Tales from the Crypt’s use of a humorous narrator known as the Cryptkeeper.

During the 80s, big-budget, blockbuster films even got in on the fun. Successful film franchises like Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids created a blueprint for many movies of the following decade with their intentionally zany premises, quirky humor, and overall light-hearted tone while delivering large, elaborate action sequences. In the 1990s, there seemed to be a return to many of the concepts that were popular in the Fifties (such as alien invasions, secret government organizations, and monsters terrorizing society) though updated with new technology, better special effects, and modern perspectives. Like any self-respecting kid of that era, I absolutely ate this stuff up so when it came time to write a short story collection I couldn’t resist penning a nostalgic homage to the influential stories of my childhood.

Conclusion: Is Camp Still Relevant?

So, amid the Christopher Nolan-esque landscape in which we currently find ourselves, is there still a place for the silly, tongue-in-cheek antics of the camp style? Well, looking to the resounding success of the colorful and playful Guardians of the Galaxy franchise it appears that a significantly large audience still thinks so. In fact, Guardians was such a big hit that it caused Warner Brothers Studios to hastily re-edit the nearly completed film Suicide Squad in a desperate attempt to reshape its dark tone into a more fun and irreverent one.

One can also look to the popularity of the television show RuPaul’s Drag Race which takes camp humor back to its early roots in the gay community. On a related note, last year the prestigious Met Gala Fashion Show (a fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art) was centered around the theme of camp fashion, which was pioneered by the drag queen community. Just like Slaughterhouse-Five, this is yet another example of the “high art” world embracing something that was once viewed as “low art” for weirdos and degenerates.

The tradition of midnight movies is still going strong as well with Tommy Wiseau’s unintentionally campy film The Room, which many people lovingly refer to as the “best bad movie of all time,” becoming a cult classic. Tommy Wiseau and the making of The Room were later the subject of James Franco’s Oscar-nominated film The Disaster Artist. The Syfy channel has basically built its entire reputation on low-budget schlock such as its surprisingly popular Sharknado film franchise. Looking to online culture, there was also the crowdfunded, short film Kung Fury (a hilarious send-up of 80s police action movies) by David Sandberg that more than tripled its initial Kickstarter goal culminating in a budget of $630,000.

Left to Right: Beni from The Mummy; Aqua-fluorescent alien tech from Independence Day; The tiny yet powerful weapon (The Noisy Cricket) from Men In Black

Pictured above are elements from three campy blockbuster movies I grew up watching that directly inspired my story “Pulp Mythology.” The main character’s best friend is named Bennie, all of the futuristic tech emits an aqua-fluorescent glow, and one character carries a small yet immensely powerful weapon that she wields throughout the story. So, yes, I made my story intentionally and proudly campy because I love camp. It was a hell of a lot of fun to write just as, I imagine, many of its cinematic inspirations were.

The joy of camp, at least for me, is that it allows your sense of humor and imagination to run wild without always having to be concerned with strict realism. There is nothing wrong with grounded, dark and gritty stories, in fact many of my favorite stories have those traits (including many of the ones I write), but let’s not force all stories into those restraints simply because it is the prevailing trend. Artists should have an abundance of paints on their palette that they are permitted to work with, whether they are of the darker variety or the brighter ones.

So in summation:

¡Viva La Camp!

The Artist and The Critic: Part II

“To my home girls here with the big butts,

Shaking it like we at a strip club,

Remember only God can judge us,

Forget the haters cause somebody loves ya”

-Miley Cyrus

I started the first part of this essay with a quote from Aristotle and now I’ve begun the second part with a Miley Cyrus lyric to illustrate something they share (other than a poetic way with words, of course) and that is that they both received criticism.

In Part I we discussed Professional Criticism, that is, people that do it for a living or receive monetary compensation in some form for their critiques, their relationship to artists, and how they influence the way art is received by culture.

In Part II we’re going to cover Non-Professional Criticism by the general public, the “wannabe” critics, haters/internet trolls, and overly-sensitive/moral outragers and their relationship to art, artists, and censorship.

Much like the first part, this can be used as a primer for any aspiring artists out there if you’re wondering what to expect. I’ll be sharing some of my own experiences with non-professional criticism I’ve received with my debut, short story collection Black Flowers.

Non-Professional Criticism

A month or so after my book was released it had received a positive professional review from the online review site Reedsy Discovery and it was selling fairly well, but I had only received a handful of customer reviews on Amazon and I felt that I needed more to boost the book’s reputation (as well as its ranking in the mysterious Amazon algorithm) so I posted a free copy on another website for honest reviews by the general public. That’s when I had my first real encounters with negative criticism and I won’t lie, it hurt a little bit. The first two readers I got did not finish it and left comments stating why, the first was vague and the other quite detailed. I was starting to feel a bit down until my first full review came in and it was quite charming, the reviewer admitted that she liked the book so much that she actually purchased it in paperback after reading the digital review copy for free (for me that was the highest of all compliments). The next review I received, though rating it three out of five stars, seemed to be the most nit-picky and negative of all. This reviewer I would consider to be a case of the “wannabe” critic, which I will explain further in a bit.

As this was taking place I also took impromptu polls from friends and coworkers who had read my book to ask them their favorite and least favorite stories and received completely contradictory advice from one person to the next. One person’s favorite story would be the next person’s least favorite story and so on until I realized that these conclusions were mostly coming down to genre preferences rather than anything inherently wrong with any of the stories. Thankfully though it seemed that the general consensus was that I was a skilled writer, some people just don’t care for open-ended stories or particular genres very much and that’s fine.

My book is still receiving reviews as we speak, but my current take on the general public is partially what I already knew and that is that most readers prefer to read only one or two genres and rarely venture outside of those. The majority of people seem to prefer action-heavy, plot-centered stories with unambiguous endings. These are the same traits you will find in most commercial fiction that tops the best seller lists each week. There are readers that prefer a more flowery, “literary” writing style that centers more around character development and the complexities of identity, but I would say these folks are in the minority though a higher number of these books will go on to become lasting classics than their commercial brethren.

Black Flowers contains commercial, mainstream stories alongside more “literary” stories, which can be a mixed bag for those that prefer one or the other, but since I like both it’s exactly the book I wished to create and I couldn’t be more proud of it. With that being said let it be known that if you are going to try something different or be experimental a lot of the general public may be confused, not “get it,” or simply just not like it because it’s not what they expected or what they’re used to. If you’re lucky public perception may change with time, as for myself I think it’s still a little too early to tell because a good portion of the reading public has yet to read my book but that’s just the way of life for the indie artist.

Now I’d like to discuss the “wannabe” critic, the “wannabe” critic has mistaken their pretentiousness and negativity for true criticism. Unlike actual critics that can often appreciate skillfully told stories even when they exist outside of a genre they personally prefer, these “wannabes” consider something bad if they simply don’t care for that genre. Instead of having a list of pros and cons like many actual critics and attempting to provide constructive criticism for the artist, the “wannabe” takes pleasure in mercilessly tearing apart other people’s works while hiding behind the veneer of “elevated language” that they stole from an actual critic’s review that they read online one time. Another common aspect of the “wannabe” critic is that they often operate in anonymity not realizing that actual critics, much like artists, build a following based on their reputation and are held accountable for the things they say. You can’t take pride in providing “brutally honest” reviews when you shield yourself from any criticism or no one is going to take you seriously.

This lack of accountability paired with their negativity creates a very thin line between them and the haters/internet trolls currently plaguing the internet who merely wish to antagonize and demean others due to their own low self-esteem.

Let’s talk for a second about the importance of accountability when it comes to artists and criticism, if you hide behind a fake name and fake picture and harshly criticize or insult the art of someone that put themselves out there, I’m not going to mince words here, you’re a coward. You fire shots from a safe distance then slither back into the shadows while others put their names and reputations on the chopping block for their work. If you have a harsh critique to give then stand by it, put your name and face on it, otherwise you’re proving you can dish it out but you can’t take it.

Though the internet has made it much easier, the cowardice of the anonymous critic is nothing new, as this quote from the 19th century preacher Charles Spurgeon illustrates:

“Never write what you dare not sign. An anonymous letter-writer is a sort of assassin, who wears a mask, and stabs in the dark. Such a man is a fiend with a pen. If discovered, the wretch will be steeped in the blackest infamy.”

One of my personal favorite responses to anonymous critics, online haters, and internet trolls is the music video for “The Sound” by The 1975. The video shows the band performing in a glass box as a crowd of people gather round hurling insults at them while humorously flashing quotes pulled from the internet. The video ends on a high note with the band calmly watching from outside the box their critics have now placed themselves in:

Since this has been a hot topic as of late, the last thing I’d like to discuss is the overly-sensitive, moral outragers and their relationship to art, artists, and censorship.

Before the film Joker was released it received a standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival, which made it seem like it would have a smooth, easy road ahead on its way to the box office. Then came the controversy…

During the film’s pre-release viewings for critics both Time and Vanity Fair published reviews calling the film “irresponsible” and worried that the film’s depiction of a mentally ill loner turning to violence would inspire real-life acts of violence. Later, the military stirred the pot even further by issuing warnings to law enforcement based off of online threats that resulted in an increased police presence at theatrical showings of the film. Ironically, all of the controversy only seemed to help the film rather than hurt it since, at the time of writing this, it is on the verge of making $1 billion dollars worldwide.

I bring up the Joker film controversy in order to show the latest example in a long history of moralists attempting to censor art that they disagree with or that makes them uncomfortable. This type of moral outrage over art is not exclusive to either side of the religious/political spectrum. For example, conservative Christians have a long history of boycotting/protesting musicians they disagree with, such as Marilyn Manson, Judas Priest, Slayer, or even the Beatles.

On a personal note, I’ve received criticism for sex in my book from both sides. Prudish Christians don’t like the explicit nature of some of the sex scenes while one “hyper-woke” reviewer apparently felt I wasn’t explicit enough when she commented that I used a “problematic” sexist trope by closing a scene when the female character was about to receive pleasure. This would be a perfect example of the old adage “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” Something I’ve learned as an artist is that people are going to bring their own personal baggage to their interpretation of your work. They sometimes interpret something you do as a political or moral statement when it actually isn’t meant to be one. There are genuine cases when issues need to be discussed and people should be called out for things they do and/or say, but for some people these days it seems like getting offended is their new favorite hobby or like it’s some new type of social currency. In many cases I think it is just a cry for attention and the need to feel “better” than someone else.

“You’ve got to always realize that you’re being criticized by the fashion of the day and when the fashion changes everyone forgets about that.” -film director, Brian de Palma

Ultimately, if you ever want to feel empowered as an artist when the critics, professional or otherwise, are trying to tear you down just tell them the same thing that football players say to those on the sidelines:

“I’m making plays on the field as you make comments from the bleachers.”

On Criticism: The Artist and The Critic

“There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” -Aristotle

So I’m going to do my best to avoid ranting or being petty here but I do want to be upfront about my bias for the artist or creator. There are several professional critics whom I greatly admire and hold their opinions in high regard and while I find art criticism/art curation a valuable and worthwhile enterprise I simply don’t believe that being a critic requires as much courage, effort, or risk on their part as it does to be an artist/creator. That’s not to say that critics risk nothing because an authentic critic will go against the grain even if it means putting his or her reputation on the line, but honestly artists do that with every work they release to the public.

With that said I want this to be an encouragement and act as a sort of primer of what to expect for all of my aspiring artists out there, whether you do painting, sculpting, writing, filmmaking, musical performance, etc. It takes a lot of guts to put yourself out on display and bare your soul to the public knowing full well that it’s not going to connect with some people and others will even ridicule you for trying (even more so if you are hoping to make a living out of it). Though if everyone listened to those small-minded people, there would be no more art and what a sad, empty world that would be.

In this essay I intend to explore two different forms of criticism:

Professional Criticism - as in, those that cover and critique art for a living or, at least, receive some form of monetary compensation for it and their relationship to artists as well as how they influence the way art is received by culture.

Non-Professional Criticism - the general public, the “wannabe” critics, haters/internet trolls, and overly-sensitive/moral outragers and their relationship to art, artists, and censorship.

Professional Criticism

In Alejandro Iñárritu’s 2014 film Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) Michael Keaton plays washed-up, Hollywood actor Riggan Thomson. A couple of decades prior Thomson was the star of the extremely successful, superhero film franchise Birdman (a very meta role for Keaton since his real-life career mirrored his character’s at the time). In the film’s storyline Thomson is now trying to revive his career by writing, directing, and starring in a Broadway play in hopes it will cement him as a “true artist.”

There are countless obstacles in Thomson’s path but the biggest one is the influential theater critic Tabitha Dickinson. At a chance meeting in a bar Thomson attempts to get in the critic’s good graces by buying her a drink when she informs him that she hates him and his kind (Hollywood actors) and she’s going to give his play a terrible review without having ever seen it.

The following exchange about the differences between the artist and the critic ensues:

(Warning: Graphic Language)

I love this scene because as childish as Thomson might behave in it I believe every artist has wanted to say something like this or felt this way toward those critics that harshly and thoughtlessly review works of art without respecting the time, effort, and money that has often gone into them. I also believe this scene brings up an important aspect of the world of art criticism and that is the subject of “gatekeeping.”

Gatekeeping in the art world is when a person, thing, or institution keeps others from having access to something, that something often being exposure to a larger audience. Exhibition directors at museums, wealthy collectors, and, of course, well-known critics are all good examples of gatekeepers in the art world since they are often the deciding factors of who receives the acclaim and recognition and who gets shoved aside. Major book publishers, Hollywood film studios, and major record labels can also be considered gatekeepers as well, but a positive review from an established critic can greatly help a writer, filmmaker, or musician break into all of these industries.

This illustrates the power wielded by some professional critics and, just as portrayed in the film Birdman, that power can be abused causing much resentment toward these critics by many struggling artists, especially when artists often feel that those same harsh critics do not have the talent, patience, or work-ethic to create the very art that they disparage.

Artists’ often antagonistic relationship with critics will occasionally boil over into humorously barbed statements such as this one by writer Brendan Behan:

“Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it’s done, they’ve seen it done every day, but they’re unable to do it themselves.”

This is a widespread sentiment among many in the art community, but is it actually true? Are there instances where critics have turned into artists?

An example we can look to is film critic Chris Stuckmann. Stuckmann has been uploading film reviews on Youtube for a little over ten years and has gained quite a significant fan base, myself counted among them. Within the last few years he has begun making very small-scale independent film shorts and taking them to various film festivals.

The following are some of his comments on transitioning from a film critic to a filmmaker:

“…film criticism has never been my goal in life, filmmaking was always and still is my goal… The internet, and honestly I’m a part of this, takes so much focus on whether or not what you created is a masterpiece and it might not be. More than likely it isn’t, but you still got together and you made something and that’s just insanely inspiring.”

I really like seeing a critic learn what it feels like to be on the flip side of that coin and coming to the realization that everything you create won’t necessarily be utter perfection but understanding the significance in having the courage to put yourself out there and make something, which is so much more than most people (critics included) can say.

As I mentioned earlier, many critics also don’t understand or respect the fact that a lot of money, time, and labor has been spent on the artists’ part, and this is especially true for the smaller, independent artists that are funding their own projects. Stuckmann saved up his own money and spent $17,000 for his film short Auditorium 6. Now I don’t believe that working on a smaller scale or a micro-budget should make your project free from criticism but I do think that should be taken into account when it is being compared to the major productions with massive budgets.

For example, I’m sure most critics (professional or otherwise) that read my book Black Flowers will compare it to the works published by the major publishing companies with massive budgets and marketing teams never taking into account that I wrote, published, and marketed it funded by the money out of my own pocket. Altogether, I spent just over $4,000 hiring freelance professionals: two editors, an interior designer, and a cover designer; then created my own publishing business, Dark Currents Press, in order for my book to stand a chance in competing with the big dogs in the marketplace. And to be honest, I think I did a damn fine job and I would do it all over again because this is the culmination of a life-long dream for me.

Now that I’ve covered the art community’s relationship with the world of professional criticism and how much established critics can help or hinder an artist’s reach, I want to end this section on an uplifting note for all of my frustrated, struggling artists out there. The following are a few examples of when an artist or piece of art was not initially well-received critically, but the art/artist has withstood the test of time, been re-evaluated, and/or gained a cult following:

-The crime, horror, and science fiction/fantasy writers that got their start writing for the cheap pulp magazines of the 1920s-30s were once considered “low-brow” or “lesser” artists than their literary counterparts at the time. Now these writers, such as Raymond Chandler, H.P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Rice Burroughs, are published in the Penguin Classics series which is reserved for works considered to be enduring literary classics.

-The director John Carpenter’s horror/sci-fi film The Thing was initially a critical failure and box office bomb when it was released to theaters in 1982 with critic Roger Ebert referring to it as a “disappointing,” “barf-bag movie” with “superficial characterizations.” It is now considered an extremely influential horror classic with groundbreaking practical effects and scenes of unparalleled tension and suspense.

-The British indie-pop band The 1975’s self-titled, debut album was a commercial success but was panned by the majority of music critics. British music magazine NME named them the “Worst Band In The World” only to perform a complete 180 two years later with their second album I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It by awarding it their “Album of The Year.”

The artistic landscape is littered with thousands of other examples I could use, but I believe I’ve made my point. If you are an artist that has labored and struggled over your work only for it to be met with harsh criticism and rejection don’t throw in the towel and give up. The aforementioned artists were once there as well, but all of them were either re-evaluated with time, took a while to find their audience, or came back with an explosive piece of art that made those critics eat their own words.

“…When courage dies, creativity dies with it. …fear is a desolate boneyard where our dreams go to desiccate in the hot sun.” -Elizabeth Gilbert

Next week in Part II of this essay on criticism I’ll cover Non-Professional Criticism in the age of the internet, what to expect, and some of my own personal experiences with it. Catch ya later, folks!

On Writing and Mental Health

It’s been a few weeks since my last post because I needed some time to deal with some of the worst anxiety I have ever had. The timing was pretty terrible too since book marketing advice says the time right after a book launch is the most important, but I decided my well-being was more important than a book. Unfortunately the book was the cause of my anxiety, though in retrospect I now know that I have always been dealing with anxiety this was just the thing that brought it all to the forefront. Anyways following a severe panic attack a few days before Black Flowers released my wonderful and supportive wife made me promise to go to a doctor, which I did. I am now happy to say that I have medication for it and I’m doing much better now.

This whole experience got me thinking about how the act of writing affects writers’ mental states in both positive and negative ways.

Disclaimer: I am not a mental health professional. This is just a layman’s point of view so take anything I say with a grain of salt.

I’m sure most people are aware of the examples of writers with severe depression that have committed suicide, such as Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, David Foster Wallace, and so on. There is also the stereotype of writers being alcoholics thanks to a few well-known ones, such as William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, and so on. While I am aware other types of artists and creators have also dealt with depression and alcoholism, why are these so strongly linked to writers in the popular consciousness? Is there any real connection or is it just a popular misconception?

I don’t intend on providing any definitive answers on this topic (since I don’t think I’m qualified to do that), but I do want to examine it and provide my own viewpoint as a writer. Does writing create depression and alcoholism or does it draw people that are already prone to these things?

I believe that writers tend to already have these problems and turn to writing as a way to deal with them. There are obvious exceptions but many writers are lonely introverts, many turn to writing for an escape similar to the reason many people abuse alcohol, many use writing as a way to conquer their fears and remove the filters for honesty, and to gain self-confidence and the courage to say the things that others won’t. I know from my own personal experience that I am much bolder in my writing than I typically am in everyday life. I feel like my writing represents the truest, most honest version of myself since I have had the time to consider all of my feelings and experiences before putting words to paper. I can be more thoughtful than the snap judgements people often make in daily conversations even when dealing with tough or sensitive topics that they haven’t had the time to fully think through yet.

In modern psychology there is a form of treatment called “writing therapy” or “journal therapy” where patients are asked to write about their emotions and past trauma they have experienced to gain mental and emotional clarity and come to a deeper understanding of oneself. This is another thing I can attest to as a writer, as an angsty teenager I often felt that the only way I could deal with my inner turmoil was by expressing it through poetry. Now as an adult I still often feel that my writing is a form of therapy for me to work through my feelings toward the conservative, religious upbringing that I had and now strongly disagree with. I also feel that writing gives me a safe form of escapism, gives my life purpose, and allows me to leave something behind as a sort of testament to my short time spent here on earth.

Now that I’ve listed many of the positives I think it’s time to cover the negatives of writing as a profession or at least in a public forum. The negatives come from societal pressures and the fear of public backlash. In this extremely sensitive age where every aspect of public figures’ online history is being dug up, scrutinized, and judged with the intention to “cancel” their career or publicly “drag” them on social media it can be a nerve-racking experience to put yourself out there. This is made even worse for someone that is already prone to having anxiety to start with. While I do think it is wonderful that the internet has allowed many voices that have long been dismissed and ignored finally be heard, I’m not going to pretend that there also isn’t a lot of groupthink and mob mentality occurring as well.

Many writers have a fear of being labeled “problematic” for dealing with sensitive or controversial topics, especially if they discuss issues still ongoing in society today. To bring things back to my own personal experiences much of my anxiety concerning Black Flowers had to do with the last story in the collection called “Coda.” This story deals with a teenager caught between the dangers of racial profiling by the police force in his city and his friend who has turned to drug-dealing to escape a life of poverty. I feel that this story is one of the most important and relevant things I’ve ever written, but it has also been a constant source of anxiety for me and the main contributor to the panic attacks I experienced recently.

I’ve also received some criticism from the more conservative, religious people in my life for some of the sexually explicit scenes I’ve written. Ironically, one of these stories’ themes is about overcoming religious guilt and shame to live a more fulfilling and authentic life, but that must’ve been lost on them. I don’t regret having written those scenes since I feel they were essential to the story and I’m not ashamed of writing about sex since I don’t think it is dirty or wrong.

Not to mention that the bible has some pretty explicit scenes as well despite what many uptight Christians would have you believe. “But she added to her promiscuities, bringing to mind her youthful days when she was a prostitute in the land of Egypt. She lusted after their male consorts, whose sexual organs were like those of donkeys, and whose ejaculation was like that of horses. She relived the wicked days of her youth, when the Egyptians touched and fondled her young and nubile breasts.” Ezekiel 23: 19-21. Or “Onan knew the children wouldn't be his so when he slept with his brother's wife, he wasted his semen on the ground, so he wouldn't give his brother children.” Genesis 38:9.

Now why didn’t my Sunday school teacher ever go over these verses, I wonder? If this level of detail is important to God then I think it should be important to me as well. And here is an excerpt from an article in Psychology Today titled “Overcoming Religious Sexual Shame” by clinical psychologist David J. Ley:

“Religious people are at heightened risk of developing sexual disorders, and feeling at a loss to deal with them or get help. Sadly, when people within religious communities seek help for their sexual concerns, they are most often told to suppress or ‘battle’ their sexuality, or sent to pseudotreatments such as sex or porn addiction programs, where their sexual desires are portrayed as a form of sickness. Shame creates a feedback loop of pain, fear, dysfunction and self-hatred, which is the true root of most sexual problems.”

Now I know it may seem like I’m being a little harsh here but I grew up in the Bible Belt and went to summer camps as a child where I was lectured about the evils of masturbation and having lustful thoughts. So this is me taking back my piece of mind and letting everyone know that I will not be bullied or guilted into censoring my art for you. That’s precisely how writers get driven into alcoholism and depression to begin with. I want my writing to continue to be therapy for me and if I can make some money from my art then that would be great too, but the former is far more important to me and my mental health than making a living off of it will ever be.

What is southern weird?: Part II

Okay so in my last blog post I described and gave examples of the southern gothic genre, similarly in this one I will attempt to explain what the genre of weird fiction is in order to demystify what I mean when I describe my upcoming book Black Flowers as “southern weird.”

Firstly, let me begin with a quick description of weird fiction that I will later expand upon. Weird fiction is a somewhat slippery term used for strange, dark stories that blend horror, science fiction, and fantasy together often exploring the limits of humanity’s knowledge or individual encounters with the unknown.

When we left off I mentioned how HBO’s crime anthology series True Detective was a good example of the more grounded, realistic side of the southern gothic with only possible hints of the supernatural. In season one, those hints at the supernatural and occult were actually writer/creator Nic Pizzolatto’s nods to a somewhat obscure work of weird fiction. Fans of the show may remember the cryptic mentions of the “Yellow King” and “Carcosa,” which sent fans off theorizing in a million different directions similar to the show’s two lead detectives, Rust and Marty.

True Detective ended up having its own explanations for these terms, but in real life these are references to Robert W. Chambers’ book of short stories, The King in Yellow, that was published in 1895. In The King in Yellow the titular character is an ominous, shadowy figure in a play that shares his name and he lives in the kingdom of Carcosa. The reader is only given brief, albeit disturbing, excerpts of the play throughout the book and it is rumored that anyone that reads the entire play will completely lose their mind . . . so pretty creepy if you ask me.

Anyway, The King in Yellow‘s importance to the genre of weird fiction has less to do with its own contents and more to do with who it later influenced, which was a writer by the name of H.P. Lovecraft. Howard Phillips Lovecraft, though not the earliest writer of weird fiction, is by far the most well-known and most closely associated writer with the genre. Lovecraft was one of the first writers to popularize the term “weird fiction” as well as one of the first to define it and explain what made it distinct from the gothic ghost stories of the old days.

The majority of Lovecraft’s stories were first published in the cheap, fiction magazines known as the “pulps,” referencing the poor quality of the paper. Pulp magazines reached their peak of popularity in the 1920s and 1930s with such titles as Unknown and Weird Tales.

Weird Tales is the magazine that published the majority of Lovecraft’s fiction and seemed to be the one he connected with the most. Though I have not found this explicitly stated anywhere, I suspect the magazine’s title and content might have played a big part in why Lovecraft referred to his chosen genre as “weird” since it was in the very title of the magazine. In the time period when Weird Tales was first being circulated the genres of horror, science fiction, and fantasy weren’t clearly defined, distinct classifications as they are today. So in magazines like Weird Tales they were often lumped together and seen as a “lower” art form separate from the “higher,” more respectable art form known as “literary fiction.”

Lovecraft’s extremely influential contributions to weird fiction include a pantheon of ancient extraterrestrial gods known as the Cthulhu Mythos (the most famous being the octopus-faced god Cthulhu) and a pessimistic philosophy known as Cosmic Horror concluding that humanity’s existence and any of its actions are completely inconsequential in a vast and uncaring universe.

Recently many modern-day critics have stated that weird fiction was merely an insufficient placeholder term for the three, now, very different and distinct genres of sci fi, horror, and fantasy. Mostly due to the fact that the publishing industry has been using these terms for decades to classify and sell certain books. Others disagree though, some readers love the thrill of the unexpected and strangeness that comes along with reading a “weird” story and writers of the “weird” enjoy the freedom that comes along with being able to blend various ideas into new forms to create original concepts and stories.

In 2012, Jeff and Ann VanderMeer compiled a collection of 110 stories by various writers spanning over a century of time that was titled The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories. Many have seen this massive collection as the definitive book of so-called weird writing. On a side-note, some of you may recall the recent film starring Natalie Portman called Annihilation which was based on Jeff VanderMeer’s weird fiction novel of the same name.

… So this ended up being a bit longer than I had originally planned so I’m glad I decided to split it up into two parts. I hope I did a good job of explaining what southern gothic and weird fiction are so that people can understand where I’m coming from with my own literary-hybrid of “southern weird.” In summary, I take the misfit characters and dark Southern settings of the southern gothic and combine them with all the scientific, fantastic, and horrific ideas of weird fiction.

Okay, so we’re clear as mud, right? Right! See ya next post.

What is southern weird?

All righty, here we go with my first blog post and I know the question everyone is just begging for the answer to is “What do you mean by ‘Welcome to the Weird South’?” and “What is southern weird?”.

…Okay so probably no one was actually asking themselves that question, but I like being nerdy and analytical so bear with me.

Southern weird is my own amalgamation of two previously existing fiction genres (southern gothic and weird fiction) that I feel best describes my book Black Flowers. First, I’m going to describe these two genres and provide some examples of their seminal works, some literary and some not, then tell you how I’ve worked to combine these two genres into something, hopefully, new and unique.

Southern gothic fiction is a subgenre of the larger category of gothic fiction, which I imagine most people are probably somewhat familiar with already. Gothic fiction is the literary genre that later evolved into horror, but was originally far more subtle and populated with mostly upper-class, Victorian folks. The timeless classics Frankenstein, Dracula, and the majority of things written by the goth-father himself Edgar Allan Poe are all good examples of your standard gothic fare.

Southern gothic is similar to those works in atmosphere and darkness of tone, but takes place specifically in the American South. The setting, instead of simply being a backdrop for the stories like in traditional gothic, is essential to the messages, characters, and values discussed in southern gothic works. It is thought that the reason Southern literature took this turn towards the “dark side” was due to its loss of the Civil War. The Civil War left the Southern economy in shambles, since it had formerly rested on the backs of the unpaid workforce of slaves, and many Southerners were dragged kicking and screaming into a new way of life, one where they were forced to face their sins of enslaving their fellow human beings when they should’ve treated them as equals, you know, as originally stated in the Constitution.

Anyways, this new moral territory for many Southerners eventually led to some classic works of literature, such as Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, William Faulkner’s “A Rose For Emily” and “Barn Burning,” and Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard To Find.” Many southern gothic works dealt with the lingering racism in the South and typically had strange or unusual misfits as their main characters often used as a way to reevaluate what should or could be considered “good” or “normal.”

Some more modern, non-literary examples of the southern gothic are HBO’s vampire drama True Blood or their crime anthology series True Detective, (especially season one and season three).

While True Blood is a good example of the supernatural side of the southern gothic genre True Detective, and no I don’t know why HBO is prone to naming their stuff True this or True that either, is a good example of the more grounded, realistic side of the genre, only hinting here and there at the possibility of something supernatural occurring.

True Detective also serves as a good segue into the next part of this explanation of the southern weird, which I will continue in part two next week when I delve into weird fiction . . .