Jonathon Mast: Author

Farewell, Reading

In a normal year, I read a novel a week on average. I set them aside through the year to do an end-of-year review of what I’ve read.

I think I’ll be failing this year.

My year usually starts in July. That’s just how I count it. By this point I should have a good dozen novels. Right now I’ve got… two.

Granted, I do have a number of graphic novels I’ve read, many of which I picked up at a certain con I attended recently. Those have generally been a delight.

So, what’s going on? What happened to my reading?

I was a comic con booth babe.

And lo, I did enter the world of the con, and verily, it did assault my senses with much tumult and wonder.

Last weekend I got to sell books under the tutelage of my friend Lydia Sherrer. She writes the wonderful Love, Lies, & Hocus Pocus books. I highly recommend them. Lydia and her husband David were kind enough to allow me to serve as a sort of apprentice, learning how to sell books in a convention setting. Lydia usually has women helping her, so I got called “her lady” often enough, that I’ve accepted it. I’m a booth babe.

Anyway, I wasn’t there to be ogled. I was there to learn. And the biggest thing I learned was: I can do this.

Attending Cons for Fun and Profit

Time to start a new adventure.

This weekend I’m attending a con. I’ll be there among the cosplayers and conventioneers, finding my way among the tables, hunting for books and writers and artists I want to support.

The con will challenge me. I’m an introvert, and large groups of people rarely appeal to me. They drain my energy, and the bigger the crowd, usually the worse it is for me.

Then again, I attended this same con two years ago and had an absolute blast. I met a lot of writers and artists I’m eager to see again. I want to plunk down my cash to help support them.

Ah, but this year is different. I’m not just a con-goer. I’ll be sitting behind a table myself.

It Takes More than Writing to be a Good Author

I’d like to just write. Ideally, I’d type up masterpiece after masterpiece, and once each was done, I’d send them off to a magical publisher who’d pay me a slightly-better-than living wage. This fantastical publisher would never bother me for blog tours or interviews. I wouldn’t need to worry about marketing of any kind. I’d simply create worlds with words and leave the details to others.

Alas, I do not live in this ideal world.

The simple truth is that unless your name is immediately recognizable by the public, unless you’re someone like a Stephen King or a John Grisham, you need to market yourself and your books if you want to make any kind of money from your writing.

Ugh.

Grammar and the Good Writer

Do you need to know grammar to be a good writer?

No. Not really. But you do need to know it.

My mother-in-law is visiting. Among other things, she teaches English. She was talking about some of the grammatical things she was teaching students this year, listing off a bunch of terms. It was enough to make Mr. Miriam-Webster himself go cross-eyed. (Mr. Miriam-Webster is the fictitious child of Mr. Miriam and Mr. Webster who flings dictionaries at evil-doers.)

I commented that I was glad I never had to learn those terms. Honestly, I’m convinced it’s not necessary to know the terms to write well.

That said, you do need to know how to use grammar well, whether or not you know the terms. Grammar tells you how to communicate what you want to communicate. How do you form sentences? How do clauses come together to form thoughts? If you use bad grammar, you’re not communicating effectively. You leave your reader frustrated. (My editor notes that your editor also won’t kill you if you use good grammar. I’m in favor of non-homicidal editors, so please, use good grammar.)