Welcome to the home of the very worst of the meretricious poetasters!
number 49 for 9-9-05
Neal Bailey FAQ
Q: What is the purpose of this site?
A: That's mixed. For most authors, the purpose of their website is to make money by selling books. I either can't seem to do that or don't want to that much. It's a 50/50 mix. Honestly, what I want is to have readers and be able to purvey to them media in the styles that I find appropriate. Very Ayn Rand of me, I know, but it's the truth. So I guess the stated purpose would be to share my art, good, bad, or ugly.
Q: Why do you hate money? Why do you not pursue book contracts with all of your might?
A: Ah, how poorly you know me. In fact, as of this FAQ, I have sent out over 225 submissions in an attempt to get a book contract.
Q: Sellout!
A: No. In fact, it's not about selling out, it's about the first question. If I get a book contract, I can communicate my art to more people. Like the decision Green Day made back when they were local and punk (before the stadiums, anyway), I have decided that it's worth it to play the game a little if it means I can forsake profit and make a shitload of copies of books to give to the few who want to read them.
Q: So what, you either don't want my money, or you're too good for my money?
A: Neither. That's why I accept paypal. But the point is, I'm not in this for personal glory. I'm in it so that I can share what I do with people. The best way to share books and poems are not the internet, because the internet is for the attention deficit disorder instant gratification poster children, and my preferred audience are the people who still like real ass books. I can't print books for those people, so I need money for that. All that I want is to write and not work. Even though writing is work, but you'll never see anyone admit that, despite my 12 hour days in the face of most people's 8 hour days.
Q: Okay, so what's the problem there? Why aren't you published yet?
A: I'm remarkably bad at marketing myself, that's why. Yeah, I work at the Superman Homepage, which has a buttload of readers, and yeah, I've managed to cull a good audience there with articles that I love, but it's not the vein of thing which I believe I am best at, the poetry, the novels, the short story, the screenplay, the comic. These things are largely ignored by my reader base at the Homepage. I don't know how to (nor do I believe I should)advertise. I don't find it appropriate or kosher to pander to a suit who would no more know how to write a book than tell JK Rowling what direction to send Voldemort in. Though I wish to get a book contract, I hate the system, I hate the impression or the actuality of selling out, and I hate, quite honestly, most books in popular publishing. It's the rare gem of fine writing and compelling issues of the human condition that gets me going. Well, that and comic books, but comic books are my mental masturbation, and by god, I earn it.
Q: What do you do in a given day?
A: It's boring as shit and rewarding as shit. I wake up at about noon. I stagger to the computer, where I sit cursing waking up for about five minutes, because I hate doing it. I then crank up my music and/or 100.7 The Buzz, a local radio station that talks to the philosophy of male independence, getting laid, and shit I actually care about as opposed to most of the bullshit on the radio, including the music. Commence writing.
I write whatever's on my plate, which I usually put on a post-it next to the computer. I ALWAYS have something I'm doing or should be doing, and when I run out of stuff, I always have novels to do and concepts on the backburner. Usually I work from noon until about 5 on whatever strikes my eye. Often this goes to 7, 8, or 9, but basically I call it the first block.
I am then usually famished. Sometimes I'll eat a bowl of cereal in that block, but mostly, I wait. So when I get really hungry, I go downstairs and make the poor man's slop, which consists of one part rice-a-roni and one part vegetables and one part cream of mushroom, cream of chicken, or vegetable soup. I then eat it, watching the Daily Show and Too Late with Adam Carolla (at least, of late).
If it's an exercise day, I immediately jump on the exercise machine as soon as the food has settled and run for an hour.
After this, depending on what I've done of late, I take a bath, then I get my ass back to work.
I then write whatever else I have to write until about one, two, three in the morning. Then I goof around for about an hour...I play World of Warcraft or a video game of choice, then I stop. I lay down to read, and usually get one to two hours of reading in, fall asleep between 4-6, and do it again.
I repeat this process until I can't possibly take it any more, then I take a few days off, rarely. They're usually working breaks.
This schedule is often broken, say, one in every four days, by construction work. Since I have to pay for the privilege of writing, I do things to my houses to make them better, then I sell the houses at a profit so I can write.
That's about all I do, with rare exceptions. Every few months I go see friends for a few days, but that's about it.
Q: But you're just a pussy writer. How the fuck did you learn construction?
A: Because, you condescending prick. I've been a paperboy, a bus boy, a host, a waiter, a short-order cook, a caregiver, and a construction worker. It took a long ass time, a ton of scheming, and a busted ass and head to get to this blessed condition of working as a writer. I took appx. 3 dollars an hour for 10 months of construction work so that I could learn to build a house from the bottom to the top, and I paid attention and did. I found out what the rich yuppies want in their structures, and I strove to emulate it that I might build my personal salvation. My boss fired me for whistling on the job...Peter and the Wolf. But brave boys aren't afraid of wolves, so I took my knowledge and I beat the system. I recommend you do the same. Put your mind to it, and you can do anything.
Q: Yeah, that and fifty cents will get you a bus pass.
A: True. So get on the bus and think of something you can do to better yourself or further your art. It's not impossible. Shit, I believe in you, and I believe in little.
Q: What kind of novels do you write?
A: This is what barbers ask me, and people who just meet me. The answer is a question: What the hell kind of novels don't I write? I write everything. I used to play a game, "Guess the topic." And outside of personal specificity, "Have you written about my Grandma?", any topic you present I've usually written about, in some form or another. Right down to anthropomorphic silverware. Someone actually tried that one, and I owned their ass. Allegorical poem, 1995, bitch!
Q: Where do you write?
A: I write for this site. I write for SupermanHomepage.com. I write for Majestic, a comic company that's getting off the ground. I write for Portent Comics in England (they're a label/facilitating group for new and coming comic teams). I write for Camp Horror. I write for Felix Vazquez's Cinema-crazed.com (an awesome site). I write projects for fans and readers (though admittedly, I've had to cut that back for the volume of work).
I also write in a state of manic insanity broken only by the promise of sex or amusement mentally.
Q: Will you read the things I write?
A: Probably, yeah, until it slows my writing pace. I'm not afraid of getting sued for stealing ideas, because number one, I don't, I appropriate for novels, but that's it, and number two, even if I get accused of it after not doing it, what the hell can be taken from me? You can't get blood from a rock.
But that's comedy. Truth is, I read most anything a reader who wants an impression sends my way. It takes TIME, it takes PATIENCE, but I do it.
The caveats being, don't bitch when I am brutally honest, and try not to send me it before it's ready. I've read fantastic fan fiction and horrible novels, though mostly it's the other way around, and the bottom line is that I'm not concerned with ideas, but execution.
I do not read books like I read comics. Like I said, comics are my mental masturbation, so I'm really particular if the titties aren't round and proportionate, metaphorically speaking. With books, I'm more about the structure, the grammar, the word, and the poetry in the language. I don't think there are many original ideas, and usually the idea doesn't matter. It's the believability and newness of the prose coupled with an understanding of form and a point to the story. There must be a point. Character is my highest priority, but the characters must portray a clear and definitive message by the end, even if that message is that messages suck or there is no message. Most stories I end up reading suffer from being great ideas with no editing…meaning, yeah, the three people are running from X, and they get away in the end, but there's no symbolism, no subplot, no sense of anything beyond the story. I need that.
Again, I also stress, please understand it'll take a while, too, unless the work is incredibly compelling from the first sentence, mostly because in the height of reviewing I get about 80 letters a week, and generally I get about 30 emails a day, so I have to struggle to get any free time for recreational reading beyond my own. But it happens….
Q: Why are you such a prick/so wrong/saying the things you say in X?
A: Because this is America. I can say fuck. I can say cunt. And until they drag me away, and even if they make a law against it, I will continue to follow my gut until I am stopped. My gut tells me that everyone says fuck, cunt, and their euphemistic equivalents in their head, and my greatest virtue is my honesty in my work. Most people bullshit their way to success. They know how to market themselves.
I know how to see white women being kidnapped alongside black girls, where black girls have double the kidnap rate as white girls, and yet white girls get all the media coverage, and instead of saying, "My, how disturbing, this paradigm!", I find more efficacy and commonality in saying
FUCK THAT SHIT!
And it is my belief that with a bit of rationality, you do too.
Q: You're an atheist. Can I have a conversation with you about that?
A: This precedes the conversion letter.
Yeah. Go ahead. Tell me about your experience with God, because I do want to hear it. I am open minded and I read religious texts all the time, mostly to understand my constant opponents, but also because I wish we were in a world with a God. I just don't believe we are.
But realize, I have read the entire Bible. Twice. I've written a book that took five years of reading and research about the relation between fictional God and man. I know more about religion than most priests, outside of theory and in the philosophical (as opposed to theological) realms. I even read Left Behind until I barfed blood and couldn't continue. I am about as hard a sell on religion as you will ever find, for two simple reasons (among the multitudes of others):
1) All religious people, when asked to define and explain God, must insist that he is unknowable. Eternally dual.
Ergo, to believe in God is to believe the logically absurd: That one can know something about something that is unknowable.
Ergo further, the pursuit of God is as valid and fulfilling as pursuing whether or not eventually we'll have technology that will let us walk into the air, into space, and jog to Venus. Might happen. Yeah. But it's about as likely as catching the moon on a string.
2) Most of the people I know who are religious (the exceptions, you know who you are) are ridiculously ignorant, don't know why they believe what they believe, and are behind most of the wars, hate, and suffering in our world.
No, I am not agnostic because I will consider the existence of a God. An agnostic is someone who believes in God but doesn't know anything about it's nature. In other words, a theist without dogma, which I think is generally a cop-out so that you won't disappoint your mother who wants you to be Catholic, Protestant, whatever.
I am an atheist. That means I deny the existence of God. I have no evidence to believe it exists. I do not believe a religious life is any more moral or pure than the life of an irreligious person, because we are all bound by the same moral paradigm: Do no harm.
Q: Can I help you with your construction work?
A: Yes, if you're not a ninny about it.
Q: Can I call you/write you/will you talk to me?
A: Fuck yes! Who the hell do you think I am? I live to talk with the people who read my work. It's the only reward I get.
Q: I'm a female fan.
A: Yes, I'll bang you.
Q: I'm a female, and I hate your fucking guts, you misogynistic atheist amoral pig?
A: Yes, I'll bang you.
Q: I have no legs, no arms, and one of my eyes pop out.
A: If you're female, I'll bang you.
Q: I'm a female fan. Why should I bang you?
A: Ask Kristen. She knows.
Q: Isn't that a bit desperate?
A: No. I really don't give a shit. I actually get asked that. So it's a FAQ.
Q: Why don't you write a biography?
A: I am. But it's hard. It's probably the most compelling story of my life, but it also causes me to realize the depths of suffering that I've been through. I mean, I've had some horrible shit happen to me in my life. I've had to put my finger up a man's ass for money, I've had my mom chase me with a knife, I've lived on 20 dollars a month spending cash, and I've worked as a writer for 10 years with no compensation. I've drilled through my own nuts. I've been betrayed by loves of my life. I've seen the worst schools and the best schools that Tacoma has had to offer and skated the edge of death.
And I haven't had it as bad as half of the people I love and admire.
So the short answer is I'm getting to it. The long answer is it's hard and self-aggrandizing, which, outside of joking, I'm really not that down with.
Q: How many novels have you written/poems?
A: The sections speak to that very well...read!
Q: Can I collaborate with you?
A: I'll listen to all proposals, but usually collaboration is not my bag, outside of comics.
Q: How do you end a FAQ with any poignancy?
A: Fuck if I know.