November 17 , 2009

sabbatical

from

ROLAND'S RULES OF FOUR - A WINNER'S GUIDE TO SUCCESSFUL SELF-PUBLISHING

To view previous posts in this series on successful self-publishing, go to:

Roland's weblog archives

Listening To A Wolfpack On The Move

The letter wasn't short, but it certainly was to the point. It was, of course, unsigned, but the Dec 9, 1996 postmarked envelope indicated the letter was probably in response to a newspaper column I'd written stating that someday I'd like to hear a wolf howl. The writer told me in several--uh--colorful sentences . . . but why don't I let him tell it:

Mr. Roland Cheek:

In reading your usual enviro-whacko drivel in Sunday's Tribune it makes one wonder why, if all you people want is to hear a wolf howl, you don't just cross the border? Columbia Falls is just a short way from the border and we promise not to miss you if you decide to stay. I have spent time in Canada and heard the wolf howl and have yet to understand why your kind finds it so fascinating. I have many Canadian friends that go into fits of laughter telling about Americans that actually pay to take the vermin pest that they would happily give us, to get rid of them.

Mr. Cheek you really should get out more, smell the roses, separate the real from what you and your whacko friends want it to be, and quit re-living your yesterdays. If you were the outdoorsman you would have your readers believe you would know what a small population of the killers have done in a deer herd not far from where you live. In the Lewis and Clark days the state of Montana wasn't selling hundreds of thousands of big game tags and all the land was habitat. You and yours say"people die and predators live".

The game has yet to be played out . . . we will see who wins!

Perhaps the poor guy would be disappointed to learn that 13 years later, though I had in fact seen upwards of a half-dozen of the animals, my lust to actually hear a wolf howl remained unabated. Then an Oregon friend who, along with his wife, had visited both Glacier Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness with Jane and me dropped by our home while returning from a North Dakota pheasant hunt. In order to not conflict with Montana elk and deer hunters, Lacy and I opted to take a little stroll in Glacier. It was while we were on our way back to his vehicle that he seemed to run into a glass wall. "Did you hear that?"

"No-o. What?"

"I . . . I think I heard a wolf howl!"

"Howl back."

He did. The reply was immediate. Lacy said, "I'm going back and see if I can spot 'em on the hillside."

I didn't have enough energy left to return, so I waved him on and plodded away. Then the wolf howls came again--closer! Separated now by some distance, I turned to see Lacy peering at me. I pointed to where I thought the howling came from and he changed direction. I considered my options and decided the clearing I was in was as good a place to watch the partially forested hillside as any I would find. So I perched on a log and lifted my binoculars.

Several minutes later I lifted them again to look at what I thought was a white rock at the meadow edge. It was indeed a rock, but suddenly something flitted through the fire-killed timber beyond--unmistakably a gray wolf! Then, while I had my glasses raised, another gray wolf trotted past! Then a black wolf!

One of the gray wolves leaped atop a downed log, lifted his muzzle and howled. The black one joined him while I watched. Other howls came from my right--in the direction my friend had gone.

I watched for a good half-hour. A white wolf limped up to join the two grays and the black. The white--sort of cream colored--was crippled in a back leg. Then another black and a gray trotted up. From time to time one would lift its muzzle, then another. Sometimes all of them. What music!

All the time, unbeknownst to me, my friend was trying to film the animals with his camera. Unfortunately, Lacy hasn't sufficient film credits to make it with Disney, but there's nothing wrong with the sound rendition. We both--Lacy Sayre of Springfield, Oregon and Roland Cheek of Columbia Falls, Montana--would like to share the sounds Lacy recorded with you. Simply turn up your computer volume and click on the button below for your own minute-and-a-half treat (be advised that the first--louder--howl is my friend's triggering effort to the wolves):

Last night, Jane and I went out for dinner to an Oriental restaurant. After completing the meal, the waitress laid a couple of fortune cookies on our table. Wanna know what mine said? "VISIT A PARK. ENJOY WHAT NATURE HAS TO OFFER."

How did they know?

Next week we'll return to our regular series on successful self-publishing. Meanwhile why not click the flashing red button at the top of this post and listen to one or two of Roland's radio programs? Perhaps read a few of the testimonial about my books and programs.

It's not too early to think Christmas!

All Roland's titles can be viewed, first chapters read, reviews scanned by going to:

www.rolandcheek.com

REVIEW

It's not uncommon for aspring writers hailing from beyond the hallowed Hudson to believe there's no sectarian provincialism as confining as that displayed by the New York publishing industry. Why, they ask, is so much attention showered on writers from the five boroughs, when they, by and large, share such limited tastes and experiences? Why the editorial bias toward topics of sex, violence, racism, stock manipulation, and incest? Because it sells? Or because those are topics overwhempingly offered as America's popular fare by major publishers, and pushed successfully through the system via chain marketing insistence?

Even when talent will out, as is sometimes possible, even in today's climate of editorial nepotism and literary incestualism, advertising dollars and promotional efforts are manifestly skewed to insiders who live across town and are readily available for three martini lunches and evening theater tickets.

Michael Shaara might be considered a poster boy for fervent believers in Manhattan monomania. Shaara worked in the trenches for decades, wrote award-winning science fiction short stories for pulp magazines of the 1950s, then graduated to short stories for major magazines, Playboy, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, the Saturday Evening Post, et al. One would think somebody in New York would take the feverish writer seriously.

But no. His first book about a returning Korea War veteran, The Broken Place, was critically acclaimed but a commercial flop because the book wasn't adequately promoted. Undaunted, the Florida writer spent seven years crafting a story of the Civil War battle of Gettysburg told through the eyes of the leading officers in the battle.

The Killer Angels was rejected by the first 15 publishers to which it was offered. Finally he received a contract from a small publisher who sold their firm to Random House while Shaara's story was in the process of publication. Random House, who had already rejected Killer Angels, failed to promote the book.

Then, to everyone's surprise, The Killer Angels won 1975's Pulitzer Prize for fiction. But because of the book's initial lack of promotional effort by its new publisher, The Killer Angels remained a commercial disappointment.

Shrugging off the blighted hopes, Shaara, an avid sports fan wrote another manuscript, this one a baseball story that no one in New York wanted to publish.

On May 5, 1988 Michael Shaara's long and frustrating writing career was laid to rest with a life-ending heart attack.

The real tragedy of Shaara's career was that in 1993 the film "Gettysburg," based on Michael Shaara's great story, was released to widespread acclaim, propelling The Killer Angels to Number One on the New York Times Bestseller List. Then to add insult to injury, Shaara's charming baseball story was finally published by Carroll & Graf and For Love of the Game, was optioned by Universal Studios and released in theaters in September, 1999 as a major motion picture starring Kevin Costner.

I guess nobody said life was fair. But New York's publishing industry may have a lock on the crown jewels of regional partiality. Certainlly, in the case of Michael Shaara, the publishing industry stole from the reading public the best creative years of one fine writer's life.

for previous posts in

ROLAND'S RULES OF FOUR - A WINNER'S GUIDE TO SUCCESSFUL SELF PUBLISHING

visit

http://www.rolandcheek.com/weblog archives.html