Marco Etheridge Fiction

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A Citizen of the World Replies

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Chembra Peak, Western Ghats, Kalpetta, India

I think of myself as a citizen of the World. As a citizen of the World, I am saddened when anyone disparages folks from other countries or cultures. This kind of hateful speech is far worse when the person dispensing cultural slander is a so-called leader of the free world. To use derogatory terms when speaking of other nations, other peoples, or other cultures, is to speak from ignorance and fear. This, then, is my response to words spoken out of ignorance and fear.

I am an incredibly lucky human being. Over the course of my life, particularly the last fifteen years, I have traveled about the world. My motto has become: “Wherever, whenever.” During these wanderings, I have trod the soil of more than thirty countries on four continents and the odd sub-continent. The planet has become my playground, an enormous sandbox, with all of the folks in the world for playmates. Some of the places to which I have traveled would be considered incredibly poor, at least when measured by the ruler of ‘First-World’ standards. Yet everywhere I go, I am treated with generosity and kindness. The lesson that is reinforced for me, journey after journey, is that the human beings on this planet share a great deal more commonality than they do differences.

Shopping, Mekong Delta, Vietnam

I meet all sorts of folks whilst traveling. The people I meet hold all manner of beliefs, customs, and favorite local cuisines. These are peoples of all races. Despite the superficial differences, however, what I have discovered is that human beings all over the world want the same basic things. Folks want food to eat, clean water to drink, a decent place to live, a safe place for their family, and a better life for their kids. What I learn, time and again, is that there are far more similarities between people than differences.

As I wander about, I begin to learn more about other people and more about myself. For instance, folks all over the world love to laugh. They like to sit around and tell jokes, pull pranks, and have a good belly laugh. Sometimes you might find yourself to be the subject of a joke, which, given the differences in language and culture, can be a tricky thing. My experience has been that if I cut loose with my own big laugh, we all end up falling about the place and having a rollicking good time. Therein lies another universal human trait: we all love folks who can laugh at themselves.

Shopping, aquatic style, Mekong Delta, Vietnam

 Proud Butcher Stall Proprietor, Southern India.

Another seemingly universal trait amongst human beings is taking pride in what we do. Folks are pleased when someone expresses an interest in their livelihood,  their profession, or their work. Time and again I have been invited into workshops, stalls, and garages, simply because I expressed an interest in what folks were doing and how they got it done.

Across the globe, folks like to splash in the water.

Human beings love to play games. And what greater fun than to invite the goofy foreigner to join them in whatever the game de jour might be? I have been invited to join in pickup games of cricket, füssball, sepak takraw (Thai foot badminton), and even Old-Lady aerobics on the public promenade in Cambodia. Go ahead, join in the game. As long as one remembers the rule about being able to laugh at oneself, all will be well. Play well with others, and they will play well with you.

Gecko, Zadar, Croatia

Sometimes there might be critters who live in close proximity with humans. Get used to it, it’ll be okay. Besides, they eat the pesky bugs.

Village Wedding Party, Isaan, Thailand

Folks around this big green globe of ours love to party. Any excuse for a party is probably excuse enough. Folks really love it when a foreigner abandons reticence and joins the fun. Eating, drinking, and dancing are things all human beings can identify with. I have been lucky enough to take part in Independence Day in Panama City, Carnival in Cartagena, 500th Anniversary celebrations in Quito, and village parties in Thailand. Join in, dance, get sweaty, revel with your fellow human beings. Laugh like a maniac when you get squirted with water, colored with crazy dyes, or find yourself dancing with a seventy year-old granny in a bustier on the streets of Panama City. It’s all part of the grand pageant, and the sidelines are for voyeurs.

People Love to Dance and They Love to Help

Whether you are a Pooh, a Piglet, or a Christopher Robin, don’t forget to shake your booty like there is no tomorrow. And do not be surprised when help comes in unexpected ways. When I stupidly ran out of fuel in the jungle of northern Thailand, it was poor villagers who helped me, not only refusing any money in return, but making sure that I had a cold drink as well. When no one could find my bag in in India, it was a young Hindu kid who searched it out, despite the officials saying it was not there.

Everybody Loves Grub

Folks love to eat, and folks are proud of their local cuisine. Half of the fun of travel is treating your taste buds to exotic new flavors. Take the plunge, belly up to the counter or plant yourself on the rickety plastic chair at the street stand, and dig in. You might not like everything, but the local people will certainly like it that you tried everything.

Indian Shaman Woman, Cuenca, Ecuador

I have found it very important to remember that just because something is not of your culture, this does not mean that it is without value. I received a thorough tune-up from an Indian Shaman in Ecuador. She beat me with a bouquet of flowers and herbs, rubbed an egg all over me, sprayed me with a milky-white fermented drink (sprayed out of her mouth!) and rubbed charcoal on my forehead. Crazy right? I admit that it was. I am also here to tell you is that afterwards I felt great, all tingly and alive. Varied experiences broaden my mind, allowing me to incorporate new and different ideas and customs. Thus my world becomes both larger and more familiar.

Inca Highlands, Ecuador – or – People Love Photo-Ops with the Goofy Foreigner

In conclusion, my experiences across our shared globe have been those of commonality with our fellow travelers. The human beings who share this amazing planet also share the same hopes, dreams, and basic needs. I would ask you, dear reader, to try the following experiment. The next time you hear someone spouting hateful garbage about other countries, cultures, or peoples, ask them if they have a valid passport.

Thanks for reading! Travel often, travel well, and play nice with others.

The Reverend Squeaky-Eye

Marco Etheridge

Vienna, Austria

January 2018

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Sending a Novel into the World — or — A Babe in the Woods

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 This post was originally published as a guest post on Amber Gregg’s Blog “Judging More than the Cover”        Click here for the original Post

This is a guest post by Marco Etheridge.

You might be someone who dreams of writing a great novel, a novel that will hold readers spellbound. Taking up paper and pen, or more likely laptop and keyboard, you begin to write. Perhaps you are lucky enough to have some beta-readers, friends and family whom you can torture with a first draft. Fueled by their encouragement, you grind through the rewrites, the editing, the proof-reading. Then comes the happy day when you have brought forth a completed novel, a new and sparkling creation into which you have poured your heart and soul. Your baby, this fondling novel that you have created, is now ready to venture out into the jungle of publishing. Poor thing.

For an author, the completion of a novel is but the first step on a long road. In the halcyon days of my youth, back when double-spaced sentences were the norm, there existed the Golden Myth: The Big Contract. Advances! Royalties! Talk-Shows! The thing is, sometimes, for the very lucky and the very few, it actually happened. There were writers at the sharp tip of the iceberg, breathing the rarefied air of the NY Times Bestseller list. These literary lions had publicists and agents, marketing gurus and hotshot editors. At the heart of the Golden Myth was the debut author rocketing to a place amongst these giants of literature. What a lovely fable it was.

In the less-mythical world of modern publishing, the process is normally not so meteoric. Should you desire a traditional publishing contract, you will need a great pitch, a lot of research time, and a very thick skin. Several hundred query letters later, and possessing a file fat with polite rejections, you may have to consider other options. 

There are approximately 500,000 authors selling books on Amazon, and that is just one platform. Therein lies both the salvation and conundrum for debut authors. For salvation, it is quite possible for a debut author to publish on Amazon, Smashwords, and other eBook sites. The process demands determined editing, proof-reading, and hard-won lessons in formatting, but it can be done. For conundrum, your novel is now one small tree amidst a forest of other novels. Using a very conservative figure, more than 100,000 English-language novels were published in 2017. Thus your new novel, whether traditionally or self-published, is wandering in a densely packed jungle of other books, each one crying out for attention.

During those first intoxicating days following publication, you watch your novel’s progress into the world. As friends and family buy your book, hope wells in your heart. Electronic publishing allows almost instantaneous views of one’s book sales, which is both a blessing and a curse. There comes a day, alas too soon, when the friend and family pool runs dry. Sales of your book languish. Your infant novel is now truly on its own. 

Welcome to the world of modern-day publishing. Gone is the era when authors wrote and publicists publicized. It is now the authors who must do the selling, the trench work, the pimping. Publishing houses and agents want authors who have built a “Platform” of online presence, social media marketing, author websites, and the like. It matters not whether you are fortunate enough to have a traditional publishing contract, or are self-published. For both new and established authors the mantra of publishing is: “We are all in Sales.”

The reality of selling your book is that you must become an entrepreneur. The path of the Author becomes the journey of the Author-Entrepreneur. It is a journey full of new and bewildering twists and turns. Meta-Data, Categories, Giveaways, and Search Engine Optimization are just a few of the lessons that lurk along the way. The entire process can be boiled down to one simple question: How can I get my novel noticed by potential readers?

Lest I paint too dark a picture, new authors take heart. There is hope! The nuts and bolts of self-marketing a novel far exceed the scope of this blog post. Fortunately, there is a plethora of information available on how to market one’s book. Writers love to write, and they love to write about the perils of writing.  There exists a wide array of books, articles, blog posts, and podcasts, all dedicated to helping aspiring Author-Entrepreneurs. A simple internet search will reveal many tricks of the trade, tricks that will require diligent work, but which will yield results for your novel. I am obliged to extend my deeply heartfelt thanks to all of the writers out there who have so graciously shared their experience and knowledge.

Authors take heart! Thank you for writing new books. The world needs books, now more than ever. So write a book, publish the book, repeat as needed. Be well, be happy, and keep writing. 

  

An ex-resident of Seattle, Marco Etheridge lives and writes in Vienna, Austria. When he isn’t creating great fiction or being a good Hausmann, he explores the world with his lovely wife. If the sun is shining too brightly, or the birds are too chipper, Marco studies German grammar to create a suitably dark mood for creativity. Marco’s debut novel, “The Best Dark Rain: A Post-Apocalyptic Struggle for Life and Love” is available on Amazon.

 

Monsters

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A novel comes to life…

Umbrella

The original photo.  It was just a quiet night in Napoli.  What could go wrong?

A monster has been loosed on the world.  Formerly contained, it now has a much broader range, free to roam about as it wishes.  To be sure, it still returns to bite me on my unsuspecting ass.  It remains a monster; it has to bite.  But now it has other interests.

My monster seems a pint-sized demon to everyone save myself.  The scaly and taloned thing is a passing apparition to most folks, probably unseen.  The monster is, after all, only a first novel.  It is not worth even the briefest groan in an otherwise untroubled sleep.  Unless you are me.  In my eyes, the damn thing is eight feet tall (2.43 meters), with dripping fangs and burning eyes.

The novel, viewed as a fiend, is no invention of mine.  Spalding Gray used it in the title of his one-man play “Monster in a Box.”  In his wonderful, crazy monologue, Gray’s first novel lives in a box, travels everywhere he does, and tortures him unceasingly.  The novel is titled Impossible Vacation, and was “due to be published two years ago.”  The thing, this horrible book, becomes a monster living in a box. It is brooding and biting, trapped in the limbo of not-quite-published, gnawing to get out.

The Monster Morphs

Sometimes the monster becomes very real, very dangerous.  A Confederacy of Dunces was published eleven years after its author, John Kennedy Toole, committed suicide.  Toole’s mother found a carbon copy of the manuscript when cleaning out his house following his suicide.  Thelma Toole carried the monster around with her until she managed to land it on the desk of Walker Percy, a professor at Loyola University.  The story of how A Confederacy of Dunces became published is now a miracle tale, a mantra intoned by the ignored scribblers of the world.  We all know the story.  We whisper it around secret campfires in hidden forest groves.  The book killed Toole, but it went on to become an iconic American novel, a monster freed.

The Monster Morphs Again…

Am I comparing my writing to that of John Kennedy Toole or Spalding Gray?  No.        Well, you are actually, by implication.
Okay, maybe a little tiny bit.
But they were both suicides.  Are you sure you want to use that comparison?
Hmmmm, good point.  But both were great writers; insightful, funny, very weird.
Yeah, but look what happened. 
I know but…
Pssst!  Hey, people are reading this!!!
Ahem.  Apologies.

The world has changed.  (Don’t you love vague, stupid statements??)  For example, did you know that one is no longer required to double-space between sentences in the same paragraph?  Where was that memo?  I recently read some articles on the subject and, sure enough, one person wrote “Nothing says Over-Forty like double-spaced sentences.”  Ouch.  Note that the sentences in this blog post are double-spaced.  I’m old.  Get over it.

Not only has the world changed, publishing has changed.  In the halcyon days of my youth, back when double-spaced sentences were the norm, things were different.  A writer toiled away on a book, sent it off to publishers, waited, fretted, waited, and was finally rejected.  This process was repeated with different publishers until one was either published or, barring other options, offed oneself.

New Cover KDP

 Its Final Feeding Form

I must ask you to forgive my delusions.  I admit to having some notion that, once published, my little monster would easier to be a manage.  I believed that it would become what it was intended to be:  A Novel.  But this is not the case, because the world of publishing has changed.

Gone are the days when authors wrote and publicists publicized.  It is now the authors who must do the selling, the trench work, the pimping.  Publishing houses and agents want authors who have the “Platform” of an online presence, social media marketing, author websites, and the like.  This is the new mantra:  “We are all in Sales.”  And for ones efforts, the publishing house will dole out 7-15% of the gross.  Ones agent then gets 10-15% of the net cut.  Bookstores return the printed books that do not sell, the cost of which comes off of future earnings.  For their pains in writing a little monster, many authors see only the first advance check and nothing more.

Stay tuned for the next blog installment:  Pimping the Work

Hey, speaking of pimping the work, here is Rule #1:  Always include the link.

Buy the Book Here!

New Novel!

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The Best Dark Rain — It Lives!

It is difficult for me to comprehend, but I am finally able to announce that my novel has grown up and left home.  It seems like only yesterday that it was following me around the house like a tiny demon, a demon possessed by multiple personalities.  But now, after weeks of polishing its little scales and sharpening its talons, I have released my diminutive demon out into the world.  Poor world, so sorry.

The Best Dark Rain: A Post Apocalyptic Struggle for Life and Love is available on Amazon in both eBook and Paperback versions.  Order or download a copy today!  And, as a Call To Action for indie authors everywhere, if you like what you read, please leave a review on Amazon or GoodReads.  Reviews by “Verified Purchasers” are vitally important for indie authors.

Thanks every so much and keep reading!

marco

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