ATWN Interview: Arlo Aldo's Dave Manchester

Alt-folk. Alt-country. The new Americana.  Some of my favorite recent music finds have been dancing around somewhere between those labels.  Neko Case, The Avett Brothers, The Low Anthem, and The Lumineers to just name a few.

A new discovery is Arlo Aldo hailing out of Pittsburgh.  We were lucky enough to get in touch with David Manchester to get to know a little about the band and to catch up on books and music.

Arlo Aldo's album, Zelie, was released this past February and you can buy it (and give it a listen) right HERE.

First things first, tell our readers a little bit about Arlo Aldo.  I'm certainly getting a taste of the new Americana upon listening to Zelie.

Well… we're a down-tempo, melodious, extremely attractive, intelligent, and modest band based out of Pittsburgh, PA. We like long walks on the beach, candlelight dinners, and can easily be bribed with bottles of good whiskey.

Give me a book that lines up well with the themes/stories that you're speaking to in Zelie.

That's a great question. I don't' know if I can come up with just one book. Perhaps "Welcome to the Monkey House" by kurt vonnegut? Our songs cover so many different themes involving love, loss, growth, birth, hope, and a man walking across a high wire in New York City. I feel like Vonnegut's collection of short stories does the same? 

Let's get right to the nitty-gritty, if we are snooping around your house (or tour van) and start to peek at the books you have lying around, what are we going to find?

I'll be honest, you'd be way better off snooping in our drummer, Brandon's, house. He's way more literary and is a writer himself. I'm terrible at reading. It's one of those things I wish I had more diligence for. I love Haruki Murakami and have read almost all of his books. I went through a Nick Hornby phase, Tom Robbins was a popular one on my night stand, too. My largest collection, though, would be by Joeph Loeb and Tim Sale. They collaborated on several Batman graphic novels. Yup… I'm a comic nerd.

If there were an author that you could collaborate with on a song, who would that be and what would you hope that they'd bring to the experience?

Haruki Murakami, hands down. His depiction of depression in Norwegian Wood was one of the most accurate and beautiful things I've ever read. Havingstruggled with depression myself, it seemed to reflect my own experience amazingly. I'd really hope that he would bring his ability to capture emotion and a person's internal struggle. Those are pretty universal themes throughout a lot of my songwriting.

As aspiring writers, our readers are always looking for people to commiserate with through the struggles of telling stories.  Can you give us some insight into your writing process and then how does that eventually translate into a finished song?

Writing lyrics has always been a source of pride for me. Probably because I can't write anything else worth a damn. My poetry is abysmal, and I don't think I could even comprehend what it would take to write an actual story. As for my lyrical process, though, I usually start with singing along to whatever chord pattern I'm fiddling with. I find the notes themselves help guide me as to what the theme of the song will be. Once I get an idea of my subject, I just sing. I see what comes out, what feels right, and then when something seems to click, I frantically search for any kind of scrap to write my ideas on. After I have a first draft, I give it a day or two and then look at what I've written. That's when I really start to think about what I'm trying to say. What words are better suited? What sounds more intelligent, less obvious? Is there a better way to say what I'm trying to convey to the listener? That's when things really get flushed out and perfected. Sometimes this happens quickly. Other times, the process leads me to realize that it's just a bad song.

What are some of your struggles as a songwriter?

I'm constantly afraid I'll run out of songs. I'll run out of chord patterns, transition, and nothing original will come out anymore. I'm worried about my lyrics being trite and obvious. But I think those are normal concerns with anyone involved in any kind of creative endeavor.

For our readers who are working on writing books for younger readers, what is a book that really stands out for you from your childhood?

Honesty time… I was a horrendous reader growing up. I was "that guy" that was too lazy to even read the Cliff Notes and just fudged my way through tests in junior high and high school. I wish I could go back and tell my younger self to suck it up and read. He'd be better off for it.

What was the last book that you bought?

Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn. I'm a stay at home dad, so my reading priorities have shifted a bit.

Who is an author that you find yourself consistently going back to?

Haruki Murakami, hands down. For some reason, his style and quirkiness just appeals to me.

What do you think that aspiring writers can learn from musicians such as yourself/yourselves?  And, to piggy-back on that idea, what do you think that musicians can take from writers?

What can writers learn from me? Hmm… Do it because you love it. Don't worry about how many people have read your piece or how many places you've been published. If you enjoy writing, write. Don't' take yourself so seriously and don't necessarily be too focused on the end goal. I'm on my 6th album and have yet to receive my phone call from Sub Pop, but playing and writing music is too much fun, and too much of a passion for me to stop just because I haven't hit the "big time." As far as what I can learn from writers, that's easy. Read more. Learn from other people's writing and experiences. I've been trying to do that more with my song writing, but I believe that there is so much more out there that I can glean, and I respect writers that can really get into someone else's head to create a story.

I'm a Bust A Move Kind of Writer

I'm one of those people who's wanted to be a writer since I was old enough to understand what it meant. Throughout my childhood, I wrote story after story and shared them with everyone I could. 

And then I stopped.

I mean, I wrote all sorts of dramatic emo journal entries and some pretty terrible, angst-filled poetry throughout my high school years. But stories? No way. 

It's not that I didn't have ideas. Characters, plots, and settings were constantly tumbling about and weaving themselves together in my mind. But nothing seemed big enough. I was convinced that if I was going to write a book, it had to be amazing. It had to be absolutely life-changing for every single person that read it. People would read my book and WEEP. They would share it with their friends. It would be studied in schools and quoted in daily conversation. Hemingway? Steinbeck? Faulkner? Chumps. 

Whatever I wrote had to be a masterpiece, and if I couldn't achieve Nobel Peace Prize Level Greatness, I was wasting my time.

I quit creating stories for years. YEARS. I kept reading, of course, but I gave up on writing completely. Why even try to live up to the kind of pressure I was putting on myself? 

Then one day, it hit me--sometimes, it's enough just to be entertaining.

Think of it this way: 

Does anyone think Young MC was trying to create life-altering art when he was writing Bust a Move?

It's a song about a guy who tries and tries to get a girl and fails because he can't dance. There's no deep,  hidden message there, but come ON. It's Bust A Move. It was a huge hit. Young MC won a Grammy for it and and people still love it, over twenty years after its release. 

Compare that to John Lennon's Imagine.

This song challenged listeners to imagine a world "with nothing to kill or die for." It was a message of peace, asking all of us to look past our differences and come together as one. It's listed as number three on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

One is fun and light, the other is a poetic, political statement. The two songs are different in nearly every way possible, and people loved them both.

There's just as much value in writing an entertaining story that the reader can escape in as there is in writing the Next Great American Novel. Every book should be entertaining and engaging, but not every book is going to make the reader feel all the feels and end world hunger.

That's it. That one, simple realization changed my life, you guys. I gave myself permission to tell whatever kind of story I wanted to tell in whatever way I wanted to tell it, and BETWEEN was born.

Trust me. BETWEEN is of the Bust A Move variety, not Imagine.

Writing is hard enough without putting unreasonable expectations on yourself. Whether or not you're the next J.K. Rowling, your writing still has worth. You'll never know if readers will connect to your world, your characters, or your prose until you finally take the plunge and commit to your story. Don't give yourself excuses to quit--look for reasons to keep going. 

Radiohead - An Interview with Author Evan Roskos

Today at ATWN, author Evan Roskos stops by to talk about his love of everything Radiohead, his critically acclaimed book Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets, and Evan offers up some fantastic giveaways for our readers, and Radiohead fans. Let’s get started…

How did you get introduced to Radiohead?
A UFO descended from the stars and landed in my backyard. A small creature, looking basically like the stereotypical grey alien creature of popular culture, only with a more pallid face and the crackling voice of an English adolescent, placed a cassette tape in my hands. The creature left without a word. The tape contained no markings, but the music needed no words to tell me it was the glorious sounds of some far off land. Also, I borrowed a copy of Pablo Honey from my friend Valerie, dubbed it, and started saving up to buy a legit version after the first listen. I never looked back, but I yearn for that alien to return and apologize for knocking the limb off of our tree.

How many times have you seen Radiohead play live?
Five times, all post Kid A. (They only played one Philadelphia show when I was in college, but it was during the summer so I didn’t get there.) I have dozens and dozens of phenomenal bootlegs thanks to the internet. Even though you didn’t ask.

What is one song by Radiohead you couldn’t live without?
Oh, man. I don’t know. There’s so many. I mean, “Let Down” is pure and wonderful. “Bloom” is amazing. “Arpeggi” and “Street Spirit” and “There There” and “Paranoid Android” -- I can’t choose! I won’t choose! I’ll just say “Creep” or the cover of “Nobody Does it Better” to annoy people.

Are there lyrics to a Radiohead song you wish you had written?
Not really—writing is so particular to a person’s sensibilities that I’d never be able to match what someone like Yorke has written. I mean, I’ll always love my own writing best of all because it’s mine. But I’d rather have Yorke’s lyrics with the band’s phenomenal music.

Kid A or The Bends?
There’s this really obscure German import of the band jamming to some Miles Davis that’s better than both of them, but you probably haven’t heard it.* The Bends. But not by much. I mean, it’s like picking between two different but perfectly wonderful desserts. Some days I want chocolate pudding; other days I want mint chocolate chip ice cream. Either way, I win. With The Bends there’s a stronger nostalgia for me, though I introduced Kid A to my wife and that’s her preferred album. So maybe I should say Kid A to avoid marital strife. No! I’ll remain true to my inner Radiohead nerd, who will always be single and awkward around women! I felt that the live versions of Kid A had a better tempo than the record. A little more raw and aggressive. After listening to the concert bootlegs all summer in 2000, I was surprised that the album itself had a slower pace, despite how layered and beautiful it sounds. So, The Bends.
*This is a fabrication.

Atoms for Peace or Thom Yorke’s solo album?
Yorke’s solo album, The Eraser. But in this case it’s like picking room temperature tap water or room temperature bottled water. I have no issues with Yorke’s interest in his side projects and I do enjoy The Eraser. I have yet to really fall in love with anything related to Atoms for Peace.

Paranoid Android or Fake Plastic Trees?
PARANOID ANDROID. Paranoid Android is easily a top 3 Radiohead song. Fake Plastic Trees is the song I play on my acoustic guitar when I’m reminding my wife I’m sensitive and poetic. It’s basically the pale, British version of Colt 45.

Have you ever been caught dancing like Thom?
Caught?
No.

What did you think of the “pay what you want” formula Radiohead did with their album “In Rainbows”?
I actually bought the special edition with all the cool artwork and the bonus CD, which was a great deal since worldwide shipping was included. I remember talking to a guy I knew who worked in the music industry and he chalked the whole thing up to a publicity stunt that overcharged fans for the special edition to subsidize the people who were going to clearly pay nothing for the album.  That conversation...sickened me.
I thought it was a cool idea and certainly an idea that would work for a band with a huge, web-friendly following. It fit with Radiohead’s various online experiments (the TV station, the webcasts, the rabbit-hole website designs). I was disappointed that they didn’t release full information on the results, as they had claimed they would. The reports were that the average price paid was pretty low. I expected that, since there are plenty of people who don’t believe in paying for music, but hoped for full disclosure anyway.

What were you listening to when you wrote Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets?
It was 2010 when I wrote it and my son had been born that spring. So, lots of upbeat stuff: Los Campesinos!’s Romance is Boring, Jonsí’s self-titled debut; Murder by Death’s Good Morning, Magpie; and Menomena’s Mines. Also, obsessively and less upbeat in many ways, The National’s High Violet.

Would James, the MC in Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets, like Radiohead? What about the imaginary pigeon therapist, Dr. Bird?
James actually has a moment where he puts on a Radiohead shirt but is hesitant to wear it to a party he’s attending that night for fear it’ll seem like he’s trying to be cool. (Though, I suspect RH doesn’t get teenager cool points. They seem like REM in the 90s: dad rock. YES, I SAID IT. LET’S ALL JUST ADMIT IT’S PROBABLY SOMEWHAT TRUE PERHAPS.) Anyway, James’s friend Derek sees the Radiohead shirt and makes a face. “I just find them boring,” he says to James, who replies: “Well, is the SHIRT boring? It doesn’t play music.” That exchange in the novel is 100% for my friends who know I’m a huge Radiohead nerd. Dr. Bird prefers the work of Andrew Bird not only because it’s an easy joke, but because the work is atmospheric and lyrically complex and most importantly: sounds great on sunny days. Have you ever see a sad pigeon on a sunny day? Hell no you haven’t.

Photo Credit: Radiohead

Favorite album cover by Radiohead?
OK Computer. That album cover is carved into my eyeballs. I have a print of the artwork from that era on my wall. I also once made a Windows 98 theme based on Radiohead artwork from The Bends and OK Computer. It even had sounds. Spent a week perfecting it. What a horrendously awesome waste of time. I could’ve been talking to girls!

What other bands/artists do you like?
I have a weird collection -- it’s not deep or hipster-obscure. It’s somewhat commercial and random. I can listen to any of these bands in the same week: Andrew Bird, Neutral Milk Hotel, System of a Down, Björk, Murder By Death, Menomena, PJ Harvey, The Mars Volta, Talking Heads, DEVO, David Bowie, Beck, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Los Campesinos!, Jónsi…. Nevermind the 90s standards (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains) and other classics (REM, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin).
So. Yeah.

Photo Credit: Poetry Foundation

We couldn’t have an interview with you and not bring up Walt Whitman. Tell our readers, who may be unfamiliar with his poetry, why they should read his work.
Simply for this line: “Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious juice” More seriously, though: Walt Whitman is a tough sell -- he doesn’t write short, compact poetry, so it’s not like a Robert Frost poem where there’s a clear point in a compact number of lines. Whitman uses archaic language and the structures of his poems don’t make themselves apparent immediately. He writes about America in all its variety -- the good, the bad, the true, the gory. He celebrates everything. He’s in love with the human body, its strength, its sexiness, its vigor. He never really gets pessimistic, even when he starts writing about the Civil War. He celebrates the passion of soldiers, the bravery. He says it is lucky to die just as it is lucky to be born. The universe is a vast, fascinating thing just as a blade of grass is a vast and fascinating thing. He believes we should learn from experience not from books. And yet he writes a book to tell us this. “Do I contradict myself?” he asks. “Well, I contain multitudes.” There’s something so vital and exciting about his poetry, especially when digested in snippets as James does in the novel. Whitman has little mantras, nearly perfect life-affirming, glorious statements that don’t require that you decode. He’s often smashing you in the brain with these truths. He’s not for everyone, but he’s one of the most positive poets I’ve ever read, constantly looking to the world and celebrating something. The perfect poet to read on difficult days or bright sunny days. I highly recommend the site http://whitmanarchive.org. Especially to read the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass which is, in my opinion, the superior version (Whitman revised the book a number of times in his lifetime, but the poetry gets a little stodgy as he ages). Also, Walt Whitman’s America by David S. Reynolds is a great book about 19th century America and how it influenced the poet.

******

Thanks to Evan Roskos for taking the time to stop by All The Write Notes, and now it's time for the giveaway! Evan has graciously offered our North American readers two chances to win...
First: The Mega winner will receive a signed copy of Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets + Radiohead postcard from Amnesiac promotion + 1 copy of a high quality Radiohead bootleg from the winner's preferred era (Bends/OK Computer OR Kid A/Amnesiac OR In Rainbows).
Second: Our second place winner will receive a signed copy of Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets and a journal featuring a Walt Whitman quote on the cover.
Amazing!!! Now,  if you aren't one of the lucky two to win, or you just can't wait to read Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets, it can be purchased at any local indie-book store, or through Amazon, or Barnes & Noble. Now if Evan has you craving more Radiohead, then check out the amazing fan-site At Ease on the web, or on Twitter.

Jay Spencer is a MG/YA writer, Visual Art teacher, music and book blogger, an extremely tall husband, and father to two amazing kids. If not at the rink or on the court with his young kids, he would gladly talk to you about any genre or decade of music, and anything Marvel or Star Wars.

a Rafflecopter giveaway *The Giveaway is for North American addresses only. Sorry.

Do you have a band like Radiohead is to Evan? If so, we at ATWN would love to hear about it. Leave us a comment below...

The Write Frame of Mind

I know a lot of writers really love the revision process.

In general, I'm not one of them. I love drafting (and I do it SLOWLY), and revisions are typically on a shorter deadline and I stress and I procrastinate and I write and I rewrite and I CRY.

(I do not actually cry.)

(I mean, not usually.)

I generally get to a point where I become a little insane and incapable of normal social interaction, especially when someone asks, "Are you finished with your revisions yet?"

Luckily, I know about this delightful personality trait of mine, and try to do what I can to make myself a pleasant person to live with while I'm revising. When I started my first round of post-book deal revisions on Between, I created a playlist to help me get into the right frame of mind for revising (or the WRITE FRAME HAHAHA WORDS ARE FUN)--just a mix of happy, upbeat songs that didn't really have anything to do with my book. I'd listened to my Between playlist roughly 435928405 times by the time I actually signed my contract with Spencer Hill Press, so I was a wee bit tired of it. I wanted a playlist I looked forward to listening to every day, that would play in the background and keep me happy.

As I dive into the second round of revisions this week, I decided to create yet another playlist and I'm pretty sure I've outdone myself with this one.

IT IS A THING OF BEAUTY.

Based on my research, you cannot be stressed and/or sit still while you listen to these songs. It is scientifically designed to make you happy. It's magical. And even if you're not writing or revising or doing anything you find stressful, it's a great mix to celebrate the end of dumb, gray winter and the beginning of bright,warm spring!



Hope you enjoy it! Do you have any favorite feel-good songs? We all know I could've made an entire mix of my favorite 90s rap songs and been just as delighted by that, right? Stay tuned for Monday--I've got an interview with the lovely Kelsey Macke about her amazing project, Damsel Distressed, a YA novel that includes it's own soundtrack, Imogen Unlocked! 

Pacing Perfection in 4:20 Minutes Flat

Plot.

Pacing.

They go together like cookies and milk. Good pacing reflects a well-plotted novel, and poor pacing? Well, it's a plot (and novel) killer.

Now, in writing circles, there's heaps of talk about pantsers versus plotters. About whether you write the story as it comes to you, needing that creative freedom, or whether you write better with structure, using an outline, a beat sheet, or an entire wall filled with post-it notes with your key plot points. Either way, it's all good, as long as it works for you. (Me, I'm a panster, but I use an editorial road map during revisions.)

This post isn't about your method, or any method, good or bad. It's about feel. As I've said before, I believe good writing is like good music--that good writing is effortless for the reader, and that prose should have a rhythm that lets the story flow and keeps the reader engaged.

Pacing is the same.

You can graph and chart and plot your novel all day, but you will know you've hit the pacing sweet spot when it feels right. When it flows and keeps the reader engaged at every moment.

The best example I can give is the cover of Taylor Swift's song "I Knew You Were Trouble"  by the amazing group Walk Off The Earth. Their a capella-beatbox version blows me away every time I watch it. Why? Because their pacing is genius. Yes, they have T. Swift's brilliant storytelling and melody to work with, which deserves top credit. But WOTE's arrangement is pacing perfection in 4:20 flat.

The clip opens with one pure and distinctive voice to start...perfect for hooking the listener and setting the tone. Then, one at a time, members join, adding their vocal talents, letting the melody rise and fall and each addition and sound is perfectly timed.

It feels right.

Take a look and judge for yourself. :)

Amazing right?

This video has 9, 972, 747 views. Um, yeah. So I think it's pretty fair to say it hits the pacing sweet spot.:) And now Walk Off The Earth has their own record deal, which I think is pretty cool too.

So, how's your novel coming along? How does it feel? Have you hit the pacing sweet spot yet?:)

And Entertainer of the Year Goes To

Every November the CMA Awards come to Nashville and the whole city loses its mind over it. For good reason, it's a pretty awesome event. And while every artist nominated would be happy and honored to receive one of the show's awards, what everyone really wants is the award to end all awards: Entertainer of the Year.

Current reigning CMA Entertainer of the Year is Blake Shelton, who won it back in November 2012. He was nominated alongside Kenny Chesney, Taylor Swift, Brad Paisley and Jason Aldean.

Entertainer of the Year isn't about having the best voice or the best album that year. According to the CMA, Entertainer is about, "displaying the greatest competence in all aspects of the entertainment field. Voter should give consideration not only to recorded performance, but also to the in-person performance, staging, public acceptance, attitude, leadership, and overall contribution to the Country Music image. Award to artist."

So, sure, the Entertainer probably has a great album. But it's so much more than that. They know how to promote it, they understand their audience, they conduct themselves as a leader and as someone who the public can approach. They just WOW you.

To be honest with you, I wish authors thought of themselves more as entertainers, because that's what we are, you know? We're storytellers, just like musicians. We want our stories to be great! But writing, just like singing, isn't always about having the prettiest sentences or the catchiest hook. All of that is important, to be sure. No one wants to listen to something off-key or hear cliche rhymes. But you have to be able to do more than tell a nice, fresh story. If you're a writer, you're in charge of your brand, so to speak. People are watching you along with your stories, whether you're aware of it or not; and most successful writers seem to figure this out.

In fact, I've got a few writers who I think deserve an Entertainer of the Year nomination:

JK Rowling. Rowling shows up, she's involved in her career, as all entertainers should be. When it comes to her work, you feel like she gives 110%. She is not passive about what happens with her stories. She was involved with all the Harry Potter films, developing personal relationships with the actors. She oversaw how her work was interpreted through media and did her best to make sure it stayed true to her pages. She was the leader, she had the vision. Her readers trust her because of it.

John Green. Green not only writes amazing YA, but he has cultivated his fans in this unbelievably cool way. Green and his brother Hank, started something years ago called Vlog Brothers, which has become something of a internet phenomenon. Look it up on YouTube. Green takes questions from fans, offers writing advice, life advice, sometimes dating advice. He's not afraid to give faces to his readers and let readers see his face in return. He's invested in them. Talk about understanding your target audience! I'm sure most of his fans feel like they know him, not just his books. Even if you've never met him, he feels totally accessible and approachable, which I think is a key element for an Entertainer of the Year.

Nicholas Sparks and Stephenie Meyer. Even though they're two totally different writers, I put these two in the same category because I think they have the same trait that makes them so great. They're polarizing. You either love Sparks or you hate him. You either love Meyer or you hate her. They don't typically have lukewarm fans. Their work almost always sparks a conversation whenever it's mentioned–even if it involves two opposing view points. But this never seems to rattle either one. These two illustrate that not everyone is going to like what you do and that's okay. What's more important is knowing your strengths and capitalizing on them. Are you really great at building love stories and then breaking everyone's hearts right before the final buzzer? Awesome, write it. Are you fantastic at crafting the ideal sparkly boyfriend that somehow makes girls from 9 to 99 swoon? Rock on. Know what you're good at and run with it, don't worry about becoming polarizing. It means that people care enough to have an opinion about what you do.

And that brings me to how this applies to you. What? You're not published yet? That's okay. I'm not either. But guess what? You can still work on being Entertainer of the Year! Here's how:

Show up and lead. Have a presence outside of your desk and your word documents. Talk about your work with others, talk with others about their work! Pick a few people that you trust and let them read your MS. Listen to them and improve what you've written. Do things that are outside of your comfort zone. Never designed a website for yourself/your books? Try it out! Never started a blog? Try it out! Never found beta readers? Do it. Get involved in the writing scene whether it's online or at conferences. Half the battle of being an Entertainer is being willing to work for what you love. If you have a go-getter attitude, you're on the right path.

Know your audience. Think about what they want and how you're communicating with them. Do they use Twitter? Tumblr? Wordpress? Do they like to interact with you? Do they know what you're working on? How accessible are you or do you want to be? JK Rowling has twitter, but hardly ever tweets, while John Green tweets and RTs daily. Whatever you do, whatever your working on, think about how you're building a reader's trust.

Be conscious of what you put on social media. Make it personable to you, but be mindful of how you're branding yourself. For example, Blake Shelton can pretty much swear all he wants, his audience expects it, they don't mind. He runs his mouth every chance he gets. But I don't think Taylor Swift would have quite the warm response from her fan-base if she followed those Shelton guidelines. What works for one person on social media, doesn't necessarily work for everyone. So make sure that what you're doing works for you. Every tweet you post, every blog you write, builds your image so make it count.

See your work in new inventive ways. Think outside of the box with it. John Green did when he started Vlog Brothers and founded Nerdfighteria. Need another example? Think about it this way, singers think about their lyrics and their melodies, but they also have to think about what those songs would like on tour. Will it be theatrical? Stripped down? One crazy light show? Is there a massive dance party before intermission? They have to think about how their staging and cheoreography will interpret their songs. Think about your work. What if you made a cool interactive map for your readers? What if you just made it for yourself? Character-sketches! Websites! Photography! Use Pinterest to make storyboards! Your work is only constrained to the page, if you let it be.

Don't try to please everyone. It's impossible and if you start trying to do that, you'll please no one. Write want you want to write because you have to because you love the story you're telling. Be mindful of the advice of beta readers, agents and editors but don't let negativity from others bog you down–whether its family members, friends or strangers. If people take sides, know that you were able to hit a big enough of a nerve to get a conversation started.

You don't have to win Entertainer of the Year to be great, but it'd sure be cool if you did.