The Writing Tips of James Champagne (Collected)

[Frater_Tsalal]

After a number of years of people asking me for advice in regards to writing/publishing, I decided fairly recently to begin posting a series of writing tips on social media, namely my Facebook and Twitter accounts. Realizing that not everyone uses such platforms, I also today collected the entire series and posted them on my blog for posterity, which I now present here as well. Although the end result is somewhat irrelevant and tongue-in-cheek (and I should stress merely constitutes my own opinions on various aesthetic matters) I do think there are some helpful gems buried in the mix: "seek, and ye shall find" (Matthew 7:7):

The Onyx Glossary: James Champagne's Writing Tips: The Collected Edition

[In A Dark Light]

Interesting reading your thoughts on author bios. I've never really considered them too deeply before, even though I've had cause to write a few of my own (on the very rare occasions something of mine has been published...Hey! Stop sniggering at the back there, please).

I find myself entirely agreeing with your conclusions. The latter example, or the bad example, is really quite irritating, with literally only the final sentence being of any relevance whatsoever.

As somebody who struggles to write I welcome any advice. This is more a declaration of your own creed than advice, unless your advice is to be you, in which case my options are limited. I don't want to be that kind of writer/human. I used to be into chaos magick, but grew incredibly disillusioned and tired with its elitist occlusion of potentially helpful psychological techniques. I find being edgy for its own sake -- rather than to fight for something -- largely tedious. I probably disagree with every single aesthetic stance -- down to using obscure dead words for their own sake or Friends being one of the great comedy shows -- apart from the Nicolay bio being too rambling.

[Frater_Tsalal]

For the record, I do not presently identify as a Chaos Magician (indeed, my span of time self-identifying as such was fairly brief, maybe around 2002-2003). Having said that, I did learn some useful psychological techniques from my sojourn in that area that I've been able to employ in my life to the present day.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

This was fun; a few comments...

- The "overweight" dig is unnecessary.

- I've seen quite a bit of discussion about talking about works in progress. Some writers (Bradbury, was it?) believe you can talk about a book until you lose the fuel to actually write it; but I recently heard that (maybe) Roger Zelazny could describe a book in detail to his friends before he even written it. I think I'm in the former camp because talking about my future work can be a form of procrastination or even just talking the talk when I was younger.

- I have a fascination for how mid-list and even lesser known writers from the 70s-80s-90s present themselves and their work (often in print-on-demand), as they are semi-forgotten authors. SP Somtow has in the back of his recent reprints a biography of a few pages, a long list of accomplishments in both music and writing and I think it's justified to inform those who don't know. Pynchon can easier afford to be modest.

- Anna Tambour wrote an intro for Jayaprakash Satyamurthy, praising him yet rubbishing something from his author bio. I thought that was funny.

- A lot of people find Jack Sparrow completely tedious and I don't blame them.

- Goth cowboys are not that uncommon. That was exactly the concept for the band Fields Of The Nephilim.

- I do find creators who dress up quite interesting. It slightly puzzles me because I can't be bothered clothes shopping but I enjoy it when I see it often enough and it sometimes helps me buy their stuff when I see intriguing creator photos.
See this Bongwater photo that made me NEED TO HEAR THEM
https://iscale.iheart.com/v3/url/aHR...7vDsRyssXL0ljE

- I say a life without illness would be just plain better, a life of plenty and luxury for all would simply set different standards for pain and unpleasantness.
I never complain when every song is an absolute stunner. I've never experienced a great work and then thought "this needs more dull and bad bits".
But the flawed story might be worth including and it does annoy me when stories are never collected but I would prefer people try to make everything amazing.

I see more and more extremely beautiful people than I have time for online and and the areas of excitement evolve and I find less and less people unpleasant to look at and more and more people beautiful that I didn't previously. It just keeps expanding. I'm not sure I have a totally coherent point here but I think beauty is endlessly complex and tends to be defined and understood poorly. We generally don't have enough language and understanding for it.

- Agree about getting the widest possible influences. I am a fan of trying to get some map of the whole of everything that might interest or benefit one as an artist. I would like it if young artists all got a disc or memory stick including maybe 5000 or 10,000 images with the broadest possible survey of visual art of every conceivable style.
And the good thing about those kind of art history books is that it really doesn't take that long to look at it and get a grasp of the possibilities.
A writer reading thousands of books takes thousands of times longer.

- I completely reject the feuds and enemies thing. They can be fun and fascinating to read about but they are mostly pointless and silly.
A true people person is a joy to behold and I think that however much or little we socialize, we should try to be able to talk to any type of person constructively. It's a valuable skill to cultivate.
I understand the fear of being constrained by others expectations and sensitivities but I think it's best to try to get on with people while being fearlessly yourself.
A lot of punk attitude simply springs from the fear or not being able to coexist with other people, giving up before you've tried.

I look at a lot of erotic art that fascinates me on a fetish level but not on an artistic level and for a very long time I wouldn't follow these artists on social media because I feared offending them with my honest appraisal of their techniques (should they ever ask me) and my stupid idea that I shouldn't look at any art that doesn't reach a certain level of aesthetic power.
This year I've tried to be fearless in my potential interactions with other artists. Trying to be both honest and considerate if I'm ever asked my opinion.

- Definitely agree about the set design. To me the setting is usually the most important character.

[Frater_Tsalal]

I kind of brought Jack Sparrow up because recently my brothers and I watched all 5 of the POTC films. The first 3 I had seen a few times but I had never seen the 4th and 5th ones. Oddly enough my favorite Sparrow performance was probably in the 5th one, which was also his most panned one by the critics: but I'm not entirely sure how much of that was "acting" considering Depp's physical and mental state at the time.

I think it's important to bear in mind though that I kind of wrote this series as a spoof of the oh-so-earnest "how to write" articles one often finds online, many of which just parrot the same generic advice. Hence why there's some stuff in here that probably won't help one very much (or, put another way, helps ME at least). I do stand by most of it though, especially the imperfection one, but then again, much of my aesthetic is inspired by Warhol, who is pretty much my favorite visual artist by a huge margin. I like how a lot of Warhol's films/art have mistakes that he kept in anyway because he found them interesting...

I wasn't being entirely serious about the writer feud segment (which was somewhat inspired by Justin Isis' notion of "Platonic Enemies"), and most of my own literary feuds are pretty paltry as I tend to get along with most people I meet... incidentally it's when I "fearlessly be myself" that I tend to make enemies.

Quote Originally Posted by Robert Adam Gilmour

This was fun; a few comments... - The "overweight" dig is unnecessary.

The dig at fat ugly people and emphasis on fashion etc. is pure pro-conformity, botching the attempt at counter-culture rebellious swagger, along with the other call-outs of people being ungainly or uncool. These are the default social views of the world. I don't like it when Justin Isis does this stuff either. I think it's tedious and mean. I relate more to fat nerds than I do Jack Sparrow or the cast of Friends, so it comes across as another aggressive call for people to be boring. I would legit rather not be a writer than be somebody like this.

[Frater_Tsalal]

I would argue that in many cases pro-conformity is a good thing, especially in the biological realm. Even the ultimate anti-everything rebel is still trapped in a body that generally speaking needs to do all the things that bodies need to do to stay alive (such as breathing, the beating of the heart, and so on). Whereas the true non-conformist would train their body to do their opposite. But they don't, so it's hard to take them seriously.

Quote Originally Posted by Frater_Tsalal

I would argue that in many cases pro-conformity is a good thing, especially in the biological realm.

I'm going to bed.

[Justin Isis]

Quote Originally Posted by Sad Marsh Ghost

Quote Originally Posted by Robert Adam Gilmour This was fun; a few comments... - The "overweight" dig is unnecessary. The dig at fat ugly people and emphasis on fashion etc. is pure pro-conformity, botching the attempt at counter-culture rebellious swagger, along with the other call-outs of people being ungainly or uncool. These are the default social views of the world. I don't like it when Justin Isis does this stuff either. I think it's tedious and mean. I relate more to fat nerds than I do Jack Sparrow or the cast of Friends, so it comes across as another aggressive call for people to be boring. I would legit rather not be a writer than be somebody like this.

Mainstream capitalist culture is a culture of “fat nerds”; at the very least it is a culture that rewards the repetitive ideas of the past being repackaged by people who think it appropriate to combine a blazer or vest with a T-shirt. Here is a recipe for financial success and widespread acclaim under the present conditions:

1. Mildly expand or outright remake a proven property from the past (scary weird stories from the 1930s, fantasy worlds with dragons and magic, superheroes and villains).

2. Wear poorly-fitting disposable clothes from chain outlets because caring about fashion is “conformist” (said with a straight face while you wear the same cheap, rapidly degrading garments - produced under exploitative conditions - as everyone else).

3. Discourage any real life change or concrete action other than small tweaks of consumption choices (i.e. make a known superhero fat so more people can “relate” to them).

Environments in which people are consciously trying to improve themselves or change things are generally positive environments in which people push each other to succeed. Environments in which everyone has a stake in the status quo being maintained are generally environments in which taboos are quickly established (“You can’t say that!” “That’s mean-spirited!” “You have to accept me as I am,” etc.).