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Mark Rodell
Trad climber
Bangkok
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Topic Author's Reply - May 5, 2009 - 04:41pm PT
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I like the suck up idea, Sully, and Piton, I won't forget to add a bolt gun. But perhaps I will first follow up on some other leads and ideas first. And I don't know if I can squeeze in any more sex, but I'll try.
The Naked and the Dead has climbing? I'll read it. I met Mailer here in Bangkok. Wish I had known, but I can see him on a wall with a BFH. And I loved A soldier of the Great War; in part because the climbing did not overshadow the story and the characters. Mark Helprin must be a climber. In his novel Winter's Tale, there is great comic climber who rolls onto a train that's going over Donner Pass.
But couldn't we use a Melville or a Dana...Two Years Before the Captain.
And of allegory. I read The Hunger Artist once in El Cap meadow next to turons and a scattering of dirtbags.
Of myth. Sisphus released from his endless task, yet cruel as the Gods are, they give him the desire to climb before they depart. Elated he begins his tick list only to find he cannot rest, in whatever he sees is a climb and is filled with ambition to ascend, even a pebble.
Is Sometimes a Great Notion about logging?
Normal people in ordinary settings.
Years ago, I read the short story: The Worlds Greatest Climber. Later in an AAJ, I believe, there was a passage, a belayer, bored, is looking at the granite before him and this belayer starts to notice these beautiful tiny red bugs. Climbing seems to allow us to see the upmost in nature. Cimbers often intentionally place them self in beautiful places. This too is part of our storyline.
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troutboy
Trad climber
Newark, DE
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Maybe you could just ask this guy:
http://www.clintonmckinzie.com/
Seriously though, I have read them all. Great works of fiction they aren't, but they are all centered on climbing and a climber/protagonist and have sold pretty well.
Let's see, climbing, action, sex, yep that should do it.
TS
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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I guess I should chime in here, because I know it can be done.
Parts of my first novel "orbited around climbing" and like you, I wondered if that would cause problems. In the end, I did find a publisher and the book was quite successful. It was the first runner-up for the Boardman-Tasker prize in the UK (1991?), and was shortlisted for a best first novel award in my native Canada. It was initially published in hardcover, but subsequently appeared as a paperback, was anthologized, has been serialized (in a Japanese magazine), and was also published in translation in five foreign languages. Never became widely available in the US, but did well enough in the rest of the world.
As to what would prompt someone to buy your book, well, there's no simple answer to that other than "because they think it will be a good story." And what one person believes will be a good story, the next person will believe likely to be garbage. Best advice I can give you is to leave the marketing mostly to your publisher (unless you think your publisher is doing something really wrong). And on that subject, don't try to tell your publisher that your work doesn't need editing -- that you've already had it edited. That will be an instant ticket to rejection.
And finally, on the subject of rejection: You will be rejected. Get prepared for it now. But don't give up when it happens. The world is full of wildly successful books that were rejected by sixteen agents or publishers before finally being picked up by the seventeenth.
Go for it!
And just to show I ain't joshing you, here's a scan of one of my proudest possessions:
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nutjob
climber
Berkeley, CA
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Fiction is a powerful platform for sharing some ideas, life lessons, and "wisdom" we accumulate in life. It lets you cut through the red tape of citing references, proving your viewpoints, and so on. Instead, you can focus on transmitting whatever your gut tells you, talk about bigger and more important issues, and the reader can decide for themselves how meaningful or important it is. And sometimes, you don't even have to have a specific point or pass a judgment... it is enough to share what you have and let others draw their own conclusions or make their own reflections that hold importance for them. Maybe the better books do a good job of just being a mirror for a reader's introspection.
But not every book has to test the foundations of your basic beliefs. Sometimes light and fluffy is good. It's a matter of taste, of mood, and consistency. It's nice for the first paragraph to broadcast what will be demanded of the reader... but sometimes it is also nice to be taken by surprise!
But really the space of good writing is so bewilderingly huge that nobody can wrap their mind around it. We can try to fit it all into categories that make it easier to discuss, but there will always be stellar exceptions that break whatever rules or guidelines or categories we create. This is where creativity and the human spirit shine through. Thank goodness we ain't all robots.
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nutjob
climber
Berkeley, CA
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Mark, just based on what little of your writing I have read in this forum thread, I like the way you think. The things you would call to the attention of a reader, seems like it would make for a good read.
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mooser
Trad climber
seattle
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Ghost: I just ordered a copy of Deadly Vortex. Can't wait to read it!
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Ghost: I just ordered a copy of Deadly Vortex
You did? Is that piece of crap still for sale somewhere?
Actually, your post reminds me of another thing I should have mentioned to Mark, and that is that while best-selling writers like Stephen King and Dan Brown are probably treated like royalty by their publishers, you can expect to be treated like a piece of merchandise, with about as much say in what happens to your beloved story as a cow has about how she'll be cut up and packaged. Case in point is the title Mooser mentioned above. I called my story Vortex, but the publisher decided to add the word "Deadly." I thought that was incredibly stupid, but my opinion wasn't really something they considered in their decision.
Which is not to say I was unhappy with my publisher (Hodder & Stoughton in the UK). Just the opposite, in fact. They treated me very well and worked hard for me. But once I had signed on the line that was dotted, control was in their hands.
D
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mooser
Trad climber
seattle
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So...there's no deadliness involved? Dang!! I'm sending it back as soon as it arrives.
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nita
climber
chica from chico, I don't claim to be a daisy
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Mark, Good luck with your book.... Sorry -I missed connecting with you in Chico. ;-(
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Delhi Dog
Trad climber
Good Question...
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I knew this group would pull through and offer some fine advice and insight.
Tami- you crack me up.
and I think you've got some gems in your post (fer sur).
Graphic novels-bring 'em on, these are becoming certainly more popular and they're real fun change...
Seems I need to add to my "to read" list.
Alpinist-publish! Yeehaw if...
Cheers,
DD
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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There really is no such a thing as "mountain literature" or "climbing literature."
There is only literature.
The only writer that uses climbing as a background structure and then delivers a profoundly aesthetic experience is James Salter. He is a remarkable master of style and prose and with a simple unexpected, seemingly tossed off sentence he can break your heart.
"Solo Faces" addresses climbing only peripherally yet communicates that experience beyond just a sweaty palm adventure story or a reportage of tragedy. Salter exposes the human sole for what it is and explores the grave and constant in human experience. And he does it with sentences that aspire to the quality of poetry.
A great novel is waiting to be written with American climbing, particularly Yosemite climbing as it's background. The subject is perfect because within it are the elements of beauty and the sublime that define all astonishing works of fiction.
Who's going to do it?
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jbar
Social climber
urasymptote
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Ghost - Ditto on Vortex. Seems they have it listed on Amazon as Vortex or The Deadly Vortex.
Tami - please write a graphic novel. I have always thought that would be great
Mark - When you get it published please post up so we can all buy it. Just don't do to climbing what Clive Custler did to diving.
Didn't John Krakauer write a climbing fiction??
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Mark Rodell
Trad climber
Bangkok
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Topic Author's Reply - May 6, 2009 - 05:38am PT
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It is over a hundred, it has got to be, and the humidity is equal. I just had six contact hours with my students and my house is being remodeled. The noise, the heat and your ideas. I going for a walk. I'll post up later tonight, but for now...yeah Tami it is all so serious and as I think I said, Solo Faces is a gem.
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Anastasia
climber
Not here
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As a person who hangs out in bookstores, I say if the book is good people will buy it. You do know that people buy regularly books on the civil war/world wars. Just because they never experienced these events doesn't mean they can't appreciate them. Climbing could have the same effect as being a facinating backdrop, a stimulating catalyst for a great story.
Wishing you all the luck and more,
AF
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slobmonster
Trad climber
berkeley, ca
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Good luck; I can't imagine many things harder than focusing a storyline on climbing, yet keeping the activity itself neither sacred nor profane.
It might be a worthy experiment to start w/ short fiction, if not not black comedy, as some small element of gallows humor (even implied) must imbue any climbing tale.
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scuffy b
climber
Bad Brothers' Bait and Switch Shop
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Mark, you pose an interesting question, almost invisible in one
of your, posts:
Is Sometimes a Great Notion about logging?
Wildly guessing, ten pages out of 300? And of those ten, they
are 25% about logging? No, it's about people, as you say.
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Mark Rodell
Trad climber
Bangkok
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Topic Author's Reply - May 6, 2009 - 11:24pm PT
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A few climbing lessons, Basic Rockcraft, and a fortunate meeting that led to a climbing partnership, these got me off the football team and into the mountains. Mountain Mag.,The White Spider, The Savage Arena and many more non-fictional texts inspired me and fueled my ambition - first my ambition to get better, later to be great. In C4 I made many friends but there were hindrances to me fully recognizing the full potential of these friendships: my insecurities, fears, envy, lust and swelling ambition. These also filtered my full appreciation of the grand places I was climbing. I'd brought these aspects of my personality to climbing and they weren't going to go away just because I rattled up some jam crack or moved up a grade. Still, climbing was fun, and I must have sensed good for me. I didn't drop it, and added skiing. Slowly the rough edges of some of these negative characteristics wore down a tad. Friendships widened and deepened. My appreciation of place and the achievements of others ran through my soul more freely. Would this have happened if I had stayed with football or taken up golf or had become a surfer? Perhaps.
I believe the novel is well suited to explore issues of living, and living includes living with ourselves, living with others and with the land and water. Climbing is living, nothing more or less. It can amplify but it cannot create.Climbing was an amplifier I played my life through. What is interesting about climbing is the same as what is interesting about living. Reading, writing, climbing, living - all means to the same end - understanding.
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TomT
Trad climber
Aptos.
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I climbed with Mark. Starting at 16, the car took us to the hallowed spots, breaking the hold of high-school, home and for me church. Weekends and summers got spent in places that spilled out like movie sets, Gone on a road trip aiming for a mountain epic every week, and eventually for whole months at a time. Mondays could barely get out of bed, so sore after the first grade 4 or the first off-width,
A whole other life, with different places, friends, jobs, values. Sometimes we pulled completely free, with no return tickets, for a while...till the rest of the world came back into focus, family, real work, the wider world. Yosemite and the Sierra, the center, would shift, becoming a provincial backwater in my mind. So then to go back, enroll in college or get a job and get back in the normal world. For me it was always that (and still is).
Mark can write stories about it, I seem to be forever stuck commuting between the two worlds.
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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If Jello's impressed, I am too.
Go for it Mark.
I wanna read it too!!!!!
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scuffy b
climber
Bad Brothers' Bait and Switch Shop
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I find the last posts by Mark and by TomT worth rereading.
I suspect that climbing is more suited to the development Mark
speaks of than, say, football or bike racing.
It's been said before, Tom, but you might consider posting more
often.
thx
sm
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