{"id":1645,"date":"2011-05-10T11:38:13","date_gmt":"2011-05-10T17:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/?p=1645"},"modified":"2012-03-23T17:06:25","modified_gmt":"2012-03-23T23:06:25","slug":"raising-the-freak-flag-with-guest-nick-mamatas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/2011\/05\/raising-the-freak-flag-with-guest-nick-mamatas\/","title":{"rendered":"Raising the Freak Flag with Guest Nick Mamatas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Nick Mamatas<\/a>, who will be guest posting this week here at Booklife.<\/p>\n

Mamatas has been freelance writing and editing for little over a decade now.\u00a0 His experiences have been, to say the least, varied<\/em>.\u00a0 In fact, his CV reads like a cut-and-paste from 12 different writer’s bibliographies.\u00a0 His list of credits is all over the map.<\/p>\n

On his blog<\/a>, in his essays, and especially in his new book, Starve Better: Surviving the Endless Horror of the Writing Life<\/a><\/em>, Mamatas writes with wit, honesty, and openness.\u00a0 Even when he’s getting himself into to trouble, he’s wide open and funny about it.\u00a0 (Or maybe that\u2019s part of the reason why<\/em> he\u2019s getting in trouble?)<\/p>\n

Sometimes I don’t agree with Mamatas, but I keep reading–whether to see what he\u2019ll say next, to be convinced by what he has to say, or to find out how he’s going to get himself out of this<\/em> one!
\n
\nIndeed, his openness sometimes makes him a target.<\/p>\n

“I write, and publish, for the abuse as much as anything else,” says Mamatas in a guest post over at the Apex Book Company blog<\/a>. “Which is lucky for me, since I get so much of it.”<\/p>\n

Starve Better<\/em> is as much about craft as it is about career.\u00a0 And the message from the start is clear: Freelancing is not just working the tightrope without a net; it’s working the tightrope without a rope… yet the writer keeps writing.<\/p>\n

“The only thing I can guarantee for readers of Starve Better<\/em> is this: your checks will not arrive on time,” says Mamatas in the introduction to Starve Better<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If you’ve had at least one invoice go unpaid, one publication go under before your story ran, or one typo printed under your byline… you’ll be doing the “so true” shudder from page one of Starve Better<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If you haven’t had any of these things happen to you…\u00a0 heads up.<\/p>\n

Here’s a paragraph, again from Mamatas\u2019 Apex guest post, that ought to keep you coming back this week to see what Mamatas has to say: “I keep writing because I want to raise a freak flag and see who salutes, and see who prepares counter-protests. If I can keep my material out there despite the nasty emails and the occasional invitation to a parking lot punch-up, then there\u2019s hope. If editors or publishers will still take a chance, and accept my work though it doesn\u2019t \u2018quite fit\u2019 or exists \u2018outside the box\u2019 or \u2018pushes the boundary of profanity for what I am most comfortable printing\u2019\u2014to quote from some acceptance letters\u2014then the inevitable nastiness that follows is worth it. Anyone can write what the market or the public wants, after all. The trick is to write what nobody should want\u2026but which gets published anyway because quality still matters more than propriety or profit. That\u2019s how one starves better.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Nick Mamatas, who will be guest posting this week here at Booklife. Mamatas has been freelance writing and editing for little over a decade now.\u00a0 His experiences have been, to say the least, varied.\u00a0 In fact, his CV reads like a cut-and-paste from 12 different writer’s bibliographies.\u00a0 His list of credits is all over the map. On his blog, in his essays, and especially in his new book, Starve Better: Surviving the Endless Horror of the Writing Life, Mamatas writes with wit, honesty, and openness.\u00a0 Even when he’s getting himself into to trouble, he’s wide open and funny about it.\u00a0 (Or maybe that\u2019s part of the reason why he\u2019s getting in trouble?) Sometimes I don’t agree with Mamatas, but I keep reading–whether to see what he\u2019ll say next, to be convinced by what he has to say, or to find out how he’s going to get himself out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1645"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1645"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1898,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1645\/revisions\/1898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booklifenow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}