Fleas of a 1000 Camels

Something Old, Something New

2012-01-04T10:51:00.002-05:00

So, this is it. 2012. The end. At least according to people with a bad understanding of Mayan cosmology and a stubborn refusal to acknowledge that the modern Mayans don't share this idea of impending doom and gloom just because their ancestors ran the clock out and didn't bother to start a new one. Needless to say, I really don't think 2012 is going to be the last year for all of us.

It being the new year, it is of course traditional to talk about making resolutions and some such. I'm going to buck tradition this year. It's not that I don't have resolutions; it's just that they were the same things I resolved to do a couple of months ago. They are fresh and new for the new year, which is probably for the better seeing as how so few of those self-made promises we all utter at the start of the new year make it past the end of January. That's part of the illusion of this time of year - that we will, somehow, make good on the things we didn't make good on last year.

Of course, New Year's itself is a bit of an illusion. If you're Chinese, the New Year doesn't officially kick in for another month or so, on the traditional calendar. Not to mention that, simply because we've started a new calendar, it's not as if there were great changes from Dec 31 to Jan 1. I got snow here on the 2nd, but aside from that there wasn't much else to mark the transition once you discount the traditional things like champagne and the Rose Bowl parade. It's a month, like any other, and while people go back to work and students go back to school, these are rituals repeated at other times of the year, too.

About the only thing that is new is the attitude and the optimism. We are somehow inclined, despite all past experience to the contrary, to assign the goals we make at this time of year a certain hopefulness. We will accomplish the things we want, this year, no matter how far short we fell last year. Some of us will no doubt do this, though often by taking a different approach from the past years. Sometimes it isn't the resolution but the execution.

I'm not trying to be gloomy here, despite the surprisingly depressive tone I see as I glance back through what I've written so far. I think where I'm going with this is that it doesn't have to be just this time of year when we make the attempt to better ourselves, and that it doesn't have to be doomed to failure. I would suspect that if someone out there has done a study, and they likely have, that resolutions we make to improve ourselves at other times of the year might have a better chance of success. Those are the ones we come to after looking around and assessing what needs to change, rather than just off the cuff promises made over that first sip of the bubbly stuff.

So that's where I'm aiming this new year. Not with brand new things, but with old things, brought forward into the new year with, perhaps, new determination.

That should get me to March, I think.

In the Spirit

2011-12-22T13:58:00.003-05:00

"There are some upon this earth of yours," returned the Spirit, "who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all out kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us." - Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol."

Someone asked today if Christmas was cancelled. I'm not sure the impetus behind the question, only that it echoed a fair amount of anti-Christmas sentiment I've seen bandied about in the past week or so. Now, while I understand some of that, and sympathize and even agree - seeing as when I was in Walmart the week after Halloween, when they had already started playing Christmas music, I made the comment to myself that it was way too early, and made the comment out loud, no less - it's never struck me as a legitimate reason to get down on the holiday.

I'm not sure there is a legitimate reason to dislike Christmas, unless you have one of those Phoebe Cates in Gremlins kind of stories. Then it's understandable. Barring that, no matter how drunk and disagreeable Grandma gets off the eggnog, I don't think you should let anyone get in the way of holiday spirit. You are responsible for being your own Ghosts of Christmas, and while I disdain the rest of the Dickensian oeuvre, he had things right with that one. You should celebrate, and make the best of it, regardless of circumstance.

This is not a pollyanna, as is well with the world kind of response. This has been a hard year on my end, and I'm not under any illusions Santa's going to gift me with everything I want. I'll settle for another hooded sweatshirt. Others have it worse, and there have been past Christmases where I've had it worse, certainly financially if not in terms of family. But for all that, it's a time to remember that you've gotten through another year, whatever the challenges, and celebrate that if nothing else.

So yes, it's been over-commercialized, and yes, you've probably heard the Carol of the Bells or Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer at least one time too many. And yes, every year someone breaks out the tired religious arguments, whether they are for the holiday or against it, which makes the rest of us who are sane want to beat them senseless with a yule log. (Okay, that last part may just be me.)

But you know what? The holidays are not about them, the ad execs or religious fanatics, or the just plain greedy. It's about the rest of us, who once a year rise to the better angels of our nature, and manage to set aside something for someone else, even if it's just saving up for that one present for a child who otherwise might not have much else to look forward to. Sure, it would be nice if the spirit filled everyone all year round, as it is said to do with Scrooge at the end. But that's asking more of human nature than we're capable of, if you ask me, at least for right now.

As Dickens' says, elsewhere in the book, "But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round [...] as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."

So never fear. There shall be no cancellation. Christmas is better than the Post Office (and in less danger of being shut down). It has survived wars, disasters, cheesy Hallmark movies of the week, and other sundry difficulties and horrors.

As long as there is someone willing to wander about in a Santa hat, sing a few carols (however badly), and wish all their fellow travelers upon the globe a Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays if you aren't Christian) in the true, full spirit of the season, Christmas will exist.

And I, for one, have a Santa hat, and intend to proudly wear it.

Ghosts of Libraries Past

2011-12-14T11:57:00.003-05:00

I was wandering downtown a couple of months ago when I found myself walking past the old library. That statement implies that there is a new library, which there is, and which I have been in recently. The new library is nice, certainly, and this is not going to be a blog post in which I rail against the shiny and the new. I'm not that old, yet, even if some days I think I'm getting there faster than I'd like.

Then again, the shiny and new had a pretty dismal science fiction section. But that's not the point.

The new library is a good library (lack of genre fiction aside), but there is a certain something that the old one had that the new one lacks. Of course, the old one lacked things, too. Like computers and windows and light. What it had though, was charm and aesthetics. The old library looked exactly the way old libraries looked, and I kind of miss that.

It had large Roman columns out front. They might have been Doric or Ionic, but frankly I don't remember the columns - or the classifications - well enough to really say after all these years. You walked up the big stone steps outside, and then there were more steps inside until you got to the central atrium. A dark atrium, because there was no window overhead (which, come to think on it, does it still count as an atrium then?). The center circle of the circulation desk sat in the middle, and there were stairs leading off to one side, along with half a dozen entrances to half a dozen different rooms scattered around.

Including what I remember being a pretty decent genre fiction section, in a room of its own towards the front.

I also remember the children's section was downstairs, and without question the new children's room is better.

As I said it was dark, especially in comparison with a modern library, but somehow that just added to the appeal. As a kid, this was the closet thing to what I imagined a castle to be like that I got to visit. It was the oldest building, or at least the building that felt the oldest, out of any I knew. I spent a fair amount of time there, too, even if it was rather inconveniently located downtown in a city with poor public transit. I loved the way everything echoed in the main chamber, and the narrowness of the research stacks, and the odd hallways that didn't seem to go anywhere (which probably led to the library offices), and even the various artworks scattered along the hallways and in dark corners.

It was a building with personality, and character, and history. A building that could have ghosts, though as far as I know it did not. A building that could leave its own ghost, create its own afterimage in the environment.

It still stands, obviously, but is now used for federal offices. I've heard you can still go in and look around, but I don't think I want to do that. I'd rather live with the old memories.

A Convert on the Stairs to Damascus

2011-11-16T21:45:00.002-05:00

Okay, the stairs weren't anywhere near Damascus. Instead they were to my new apartment. Which has many things I like about it, starting with the affordability of it. It also has one thing I really don't like, which is the eighteen stairs it takes to get up to my deck and my front door. It's a nice deck, and the steps are necessary because it's a second floor apartment... but they are somewhat steep, and there are eighteen of them.

I counted.

Which is just something I do with steps, not specifically just for the Mount Everest that leads up to my apartment. It's a habit that has come in handy any time I need to know how many steps there are supposed to be under my feet. Like, say, for example, when I am moving boxes of books up the steps.

Many, many boxes of books. Heavy books. In heavy boxes. Up the steps. Many times.

Not each box, many times, of course. Just one time each. But they had to come down the steps in the old place - from the third floor.

Somewhere around box number five (out of how many? I'm not sure, but it was less than last time. Last time I moved I wound up donating seven boxes of books to the library, and selling two more to a local store. What I have now is mostly what I am left with) I came to the conclusion that the switch to e-books is a good thing.

I love my books, I truly do. However, one of my biggest complaints against e-books was how they looked. Having seen the new generation of them.... well, they look like they were printed on paper. Hard to argue with that. My other complaints against them was their non-bookness. They lacked heft, they lacked smell, they lacked feel. All of which remains true.

I've just realized that lack of heft, when you have only an apartment that you will eventually move from, is not a bad thing.

Balance

2011-10-12T17:13:00.004-04:00

It's been a rough year here. Granted, there are two and a half months to go, but even so. I'm not going to tempt fate and say "it can't get worse" because, as I discovered last week, it can. Very suddenly so, in fact. I'm not going to into details, because this has never been that kind of blog, and also because for all the problems I've been through, many out there had it worse, and I won't pretend otherwise.

Even so, I'm having a hard time of late sorting through all of it, and expect that's going to be a long process. Motivation, for a great many things, has been in precious short supply, as has any sense of determination to go with it.

Yet the part of it all that intrigues me is the fact that, for all that went horribly wrong this past year, had that stuff not happened, this would have been a pretty good year. Even the summer, which is when things well and truly imploded, there were plenty of positive things I did that under other circumstances would have had me feeling great. I got accomplished just about all the things I wanted to, and had a good time doing them. I suspect without those things I'd be a wreck by now, or living with my parents again. (Been there, done that already and not looking forward to doing it again unless I absolutely have to. Which I still might before the year is out. One never knows.)

So what do I make of it all? How do I put this year into the grand scheme of things? Do I wait and see how things turn out? Do I judge it in the short term, or the long term? Do I seize it as an opportunity, however unwanted, to make changes - some of which I'll even admit are needed?

The truth is, I don't. Not just yet. Even for the short term there is still too much in flux. I'm trying to, of course. Certain changes have to be made, others, like writing here again, are more voluntary. So ask me again at the end of the year, then at the end of the year after that, and after that. Life is cumulative, and I'm not done adding it up just yet.

And at the end of things, if the worst I can say is that the good things balanced out the bad things, I think I'll be forced to say that's not such a bad thing after all.

New and Buzzworthy

2011-05-02T08:00:00.002-04:00

A shameless plug for a fellow writer, and something to satisfy your inner cool sci-fi geek.

From the official blurb:

"2042. Bay City, California Free State.

Kat and Mouse are ronin--street mercenaries--who like cake runs. Simple jobs with quick and large payouts.

That's what these were supposed to be. Cake runs.

But when the Duo sign on, they suddenly find themselves targeted by a biker gang, a team of corporate commandos, a cybernetically-enhanced special ops agent, a stalker, a band of kidnappers, and a Japanese crime syndicate.

And they all want the Duo out of the way. Permanently.

Now these sassy sisters-in-arms must survive the onslaught and still get the jobs done. Because in the Biz, it's get paid or get dead.

As usual, Kat and Mouse are going to do things their way.

Heaven help Bay City."

And the official site: http://www.abnersenires.com/katandmousebook

Cooking Up a Good Story

2011-04-29T12:53:00.002-04:00

I was going to title this one "The Muse Wears an Apron" but realized that while that would be a cool concept for an ongoing blog, this one already has a title. Which I happen to like very much. And those kind of blogs where every title starts the same way start to feel a little gimmicky after a while. Also, and probably most importantly, this one had nothing to do with a muse or inspiration anyway.

As I was in the kitchen the other day, pursuing one of my other passions (no, not opening a bottle of wine), I was struck by the similarities between the two separate creative processes - that is, making a meal, and writing a novel. While the former takes a great deal less time, being able to prepare a meal inside the span of an afternoon, and I've yet to write a novel inside the span of three months (more like six) - they nonetheless undergo a similar arc from beginning to end.

Like a novel, a meal takes preparation and planning. You have to have some idea where you're going. At times, this can be quite clear, particularly if you're working from a set of recipes or planning a menu. When writing, this is akin to those times when you know where the story is going. You have your plot laid out, more or less, and know what you want when you sit to write. Other times, however, you find yourself staring into your pantry and wondering what the heck you're going to make for dinner that night. A full pantry makes that easier, just as a full stock of story ideas or brainstorming techniques makes it easier when you have the same experience when writing.

And then, just as the various elements of the plot come together, so too does the meal. You assemble it bit by bit, following a set process. Unlike writing, where you can (and I do) write the ending first, cooking forces you to go from beginning to end. However, plenty of times I've written an ending as a starting point, so if you view the end product as the finished novel, it still holds.

(Hey, it's not the first time I've put a metaphor up on the rack in this blog. Won't be the last either.)

Subplots are like the appetizers of the side dishes. Satisfying and delicious, they help round out the meal, making it a more thoroughly enjoyable experience. The more ambitious the meal, the more prep, the more that has to come together, and, in my case, the greater the satisfaction at the end.

And of course, at the end, you have to present it to your audience. You ultimately hope they like it, and can be reasonably confident in your skills, but still you know in the back of your mind that no matter how many meals you've pulled off flawlessly, every once in a while something goes wrong. Then, you shelve the recipe until you're willing to take it out and tweak it later.

Though, unlike making a meal, when you finish a novel there are no dishes to wash.

The Muse Also Moos

2011-04-14T15:30:00.004-04:00

(Try not to think about this week's entry too much in conjunction with the last one. Cows in scuba gear is a subject best left for a Far Side cartoon. Though, having said that, I am picturing a Gary Larson-esque cow in a swim cap.)

I was reminded the other day that I live in the country. This is not something I generally forget, especially as the local grocery store closed and the next nearest place for a half gallon of good ice cream is ten minutes away by car. Yet there are times when it is less prevalent in the forefront of my mind, made easier by my home being in a small community where I do actually have neighbors that I can see out of my own windows. Well, their homes, anyway, lest someone think I am spying on my neighbors. Which if you'd seen my neighbors you'd understand is a scary concept. Real life is not Hollywood, and my neighbors have never, ever been the kind of people I'd want to even catch a glimpse of running around in their underwear.

Nonetheless, it was brought home to me when as I was making the commute into work, there were cows alongside the road. They were on their side of the fence, thankfully, but they were as close to the road as they can get. Now, within a ten minute radius of my house (and each other) there are cows, sheep, alpacas, and buffalo. It's quite an eclectic mix of grazing livestock. Certainly not the kind of assortment you'd expect to find in an urban environment.

As I drove past the cows, I mused to myself about the bucolic environs, and how conducive it is to easing stress and such. In short, the usual cliches. Which was going to be what this post was about. Only I realized that not only did I not want to do that, but that it wasn't accurate. While I like being out in the country, with the flowers (to which I am not allergic, or my reactions would be very different) and the green and the cows and yes, even the sheep and the alpacas and the buffalo, I have been equally inspired in any number of places in the city. There is an overpass in downtown Chicago, towards the waterfront, for example, where as a pedestrian once I stopped and watched the traffic humming back and forth in the evening gloaming. Not to mention the half dozen other places in Chicago, or Boston, or even Pittsburgh, where I have done much the same.

It occurred to me that this is what it is to be an artist. My medium is words, of course, so I call myself a writer not an artist, but that is what writers and poets are, just as surely as anyone who works with paints and brushes or a camera and a lens. And as such, our muses tend to take on a myriad of forms. We have the gift of looking at the world in such a way that many things inspire us. Some more so than others, to be sure, but we retain some of that childlike sense of wonder at the world that allows us to appreciate not only the joy of chasing fireflies, but the firefly-like blinking of road construction signs along a road. (Provided we aren't stuck in traffic because of them.)

And so, while we tend to speak of a single muse, this is perhaps misleading. Possibly even incorrect. We have multiple muses, who inspire us in a multitude of ways, providing that we are willing to listen to them when we do.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to reread my Far Side collection.

The Muse Wore Neoprene

2011-04-04T08:59:00.003-04:00

I find myself thinking about my writing in places where I'm often least able to actually write things down. You'd think, if I was being smart about this, I'd set aside some time before I write to plan things, plot things, brainstorm about things, and all the sort of things that come before the actual moment of typing. That would be the smart thing to do, when I'm at the keyboard, or at least within easy each of pens and paper.

Now, I know, inspiration can strike anywhere. I carry a notebook. Have carried the same notebook for over a decade now. (I know this because the very first thing I wrote in it had to do with the smell of cows in the parking lot of an Illinois Barnes and Nobles.) It is slowly but surely getting filled with ideas, some used, some not, that have mostly come to me when I wasn't deliberately musing.

And I have had enough ideas in the shower that I am tempted to buy a package of bath crayons - yes, there are such things - just to be able to write them down as they hit instead of having to wait until I'm dried off and won't drip all over the paper, causing the ink to run and smear.

But, as I have resumed swimming these past few months, I have discovered that it makes an excellent place to think about my writing. Unlike jogging, or any other exercise activity that's dry, I can't plug in headphones and listen to my NPR podcasts or other inspiring music. (I will confess that, long ago, I did in fact jog to the various themes and montages from Rocky.) I don't really have a choice but to be alone in my head. And while this is not always advantageous to the workout, particularly when I lose track of whether that was 150 or 200 yards at that last turn, there isn't much else to concentrate on.

There is something about being able to achieve that disconnect that I can't manage anywhere else, where I can put my body on autopilot - mostly - and let my mind roam where it will, that I find conducive to the idea process. I won't claim I'm spending all the time thinking about writing. It's a good time to think about other things, too, especially anything I might need to ponder over or decompress about. But I can think about such things as the direction of my subplots, the motivations of my characters, and take them in directions for a duration I don't normally have the time to do. And I can do so without feeling like I'm neglecting something else, like my taxes, for example, or those worksheets I'm supposed to be looking up for my students.

It's a time strictly for thinking, for musing, for indulging in purely academic thought exercises even as my arms cycle and my legs kick. Each train of thought interrupted only by the approach of the wall, and then resumed again as soon as I push off.

I just wish I had a place to write down the really good ideas that come to me in the water. ... Maybe they'll let me bring my crayons next time.

Whatever Happend to Mayor McCheese?

2011-03-27T21:03:00.003-04:00

I was in McDonald's the other day (and lest ye judge me, I was there with my daughter as a reward for her being very good during a day of necessary shopping) when I noticed something. It wasn't the expanding waistlines that make for a nice physical model of the expansion of the universe and/or demonstration of how the bigger the object the bigger the gravity it has. It wasn't the secretly addictive power of the Shamrock shake. Nor was it the woman who looked entirely too much like she would have been at home on the cast of Jersey Shore. Which no, I don't watch, but I'm not completely ignorant. This woman belonged to the tribe of Snooki, and it was far, far scarier to observe in real life.

This isn't about any of that. No, this is about something far, far more sinister. This is about missing people. Missing, important people, and how despite their conspicuous absence no one acts like they are missing, and no one's mounted an investigation or anything else. It's almost a conspiracy of silence, and its victim is Mayor McCheese.

I don't remember the last time I saw him, or some of the other McDonald's anthropomorphic menu items that have also slipped away along the wayside. (Talking chicken McNuggets, anyone?) For that matter, I don't remember the last time I saw any of the McD's crew, other than their eternal leader, in any television commercial. I could be rational here, and point to the changes overall in advertising, particularly children's advertising, that has become necessary as the Saturday morning bloc of cartoons broke up and the target demographic scattered across the cable channels, many to networks that run limited - if any - commercials during their programming for the younger set. Or how changing ideas on proper diet and exercise have also taken their toll, and a visible symbol of greasy caloric consumption probably sends the wrong kind of message.

I could, but that would be less fun. And absent an official announcement from the Powers That Be, I'm going to go with the more nefarious explanation.

Mind you, not all of the mascots have vanished. Grimace, Birdie, even the Hamburglar can still be seen painted on the walls of the various Playplaces, or they turn up on the in-house items. They may not get their moment on the television screen anymore, but they are still around. Contractually bound to silence, or perhaps threatened with the same fate as the Mayor should they attempt to break ranks.

Maybe this, then, is the story of the lone dissident, the one who would not go quietly. A mayor of a land whose silence would not be bought (obviously not a Chicago mayor), who refused to be intimidated when others came to shush him, and who paid the ultimate price for it, being buried unceremoniously in an unmarked grave in some landfill, forever preserved in a giant version of those styrofoam containers McD's used to package all their products in. Maybe Mayor McCheese paid the ultimate price for his integrity by being tossed, piece by piece, to a flock of ravenous seagulls or park pigeons.

If so, I'm willing to bet his fate was meant to serve as an example to the rest of them: cooperate, tow the corporate line, OR ELSE. Hence the Fry Guys went quietly, and Hamburglar hasn't stolen a thing in years. Grimace keeps his politically incorrect overweight self well out of the spotlight, and Birdie has been encouraged to fly south and stay there, except for the occasional public appearance or photo op.

And the orchestrator of all this? The person behind this scheme, so callously disposing of once beloved icons behind the scenes? Well, ask yourself? Who has the spotlight all to himself now?

Oh sure, it can't be him, you say. To which I reply: he is a clown, after all. And we all know, when clowns go bad, they go really, really bad.

So, I say we should observe a moment of silence for Mayor McCheese, to take a brief pause and remember a man/food item of integrity, who paid the ultimate price for his principles.

And then I'll take mine with extra pickles, please.

In Like a Lion

2011-03-22T09:21:00.003-04:00

I hate March.

Okay, "hate" is a little strong. Truth is, I don't have anything against the month other than the weather. It can't quite seem to make up it's mind, at least in my neck of the woods, whether it wants to be a spring month or a winter month. (And why can't I ever remember if seasons get capitalized? One of these days I will break down and invest in the Chicago manual of style, but for right now my little tiny style manual is woefully silent on this.) Even if the day starts off with "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood," it will often end with "It was a dark and stormy night."

It's the old "In like a lion, out like a lamb" proverb.

Writing a story or novel can be like that, too, especially if you're not sure where it's going when you begin. (If you are one of those writers who outlines everything before they start and then actually stick to that outline all the way through the process, I have but one thing to say to you: go away. I'm not talking to you.) You get a certain idea in your head, and you charge in, ready to get it down on paper. So you roar, figuratively speaking I hope, and then tear into it. Only to get maybe halfway through and realize things aren't going entirely in the direction you expected them to. You slow down, you sputter a bit, you back up, you rewrite. And maybe you recapture that initial thrust, and maybe you don't, but eventually you skip across the field and leap the fence of the finish line.

(Yes, I am aware I have just badly tortured that metaphor. I'm not done yet.)

Conversely, a story may start slow, grazing about in the field of ideas, and then at the end it turns into the snarling, ravenous beast that seizes the ending of the story in it's jaws and devours it until it's finished.

There are times in writing when it never changes. Times when either the entire story goes slow and gentle. Here I'm talking strictly about the process, mind you. The page can be strewn with blood and guts but behind the scenes there was more bleating at the keyboard than roaring. Or, the ones I really like, when it's all charging ahead from start to finish, committed to the chase once the idea has been properly stalked.

For the most part, though, it seems to be one or the other. Not just with myself, but among the other writers I have talked to. Even the more workmanlike amongst us, the ones who sit down and churn out five pages a day, have their stories that they find themselves varying on in terms of their enthusiasm, their ideas, their ability to sit down and really churn. Some days those five pages come easy, after all, and some days they barely come at all.

Do I have a preference in my writing, which I'd prefer to start with? While I'd like my month to go out nice and gentle and preferably warm, I tend to find the stories that write best are the ones that end the most aggressively. The ones that are slower towards the end - again, in terms of the process, not plot or pacing - are a little bit more like work, a little bit less like fun.

I suppose the only thing that really matters is that, like on the calendar, eventually it comes to an end.

And in case anyone is worried, I shall not compare rewrites to April showers.

Maybe taxes, though.

Resolutions

2011-01-02T14:37:00.002-05:00

It's that time of year again. Time to reflect on all you accomplished last year and congratulate yourself for having done so well. Time to reflect on all you meant to accomplish but didn't and berate yourself for not doing better while pledging to improve (again). Time to reflect on all you didn't accomplish and wring your hands over all the self-improvement tasks you failed out.

Or alternatively, a time not to worry about any of that and realize that if you're really going to improve upon yourself, it takes more than one night's promises and it helps to set realistic goals. This last bit can be especially tricky as a writer. Even if you don't belong to some sort of writer's group or website, you have probably walked into a bookstore in the past year and picked up something that prompted a jealous reaction. A "why has she/he made it when I haven't yet?" kind of thing. Even when you know why, and know full well it's mostly about persistence and a small smattering of talent.

For the most part, I don't begrudge anyone their success. My failing lies more along the line of somehow charting my own success alongside theirs. This, I have come to realize, is unfair. I don't work at the same pace as other people. I do not have the same amount of drive and ambition as other people. I have enough, I think, so long as I do not put myself on some sort of artificial and unrealistic schedule just because someone else did it in that amount of time.

And looking back on 2010, I did pretty well. Not as well as I would have liked, perhaps, but well enough. I finished another book. I started querying the one before that, even if there's been no acceptances yet. (I even got a partial request. That's all I've gotten so far, other than fodder for the lament of common courtesy. How hard is it to just send a simple form email, after all?) I subbed out some things, again, no acceptances, but they went out. Did I do as much as I could have? Honestly, probably not. Did I do as much as some other people? Definitely not.

Did I do more than I did the year before? Absolutely.

Is that enough of a benchmark? Absolutely.

Can I do better? Sure I can. (Yes, I could have said "absolutely" there. But you were expecting that.)

But on the other hand, if I match those goals this year, then I think 2011 will have been a pretty good year. There are other things going on in my life besides writing (heresy though that may seem to some people I know) and all in all, 2010 was a good year. Not great, but good.

And that's good enough for me.

Writing Spaces

2010-12-17T11:22:00.002-05:00

Ray Bradbury used to open his half-hour anthology series with a quick narration answering what may well be the professional fictionalist's most commonly asked question, “Where do you get your idea's from?” His answer, via narration and a long camera pan, was his writing space. I hesitate to call it an office, because if anything it resembled a small museum of knick-knacks and sci-fi doo-dads. There were a couple of robots, probably an alien or two, and I seem to recall one of those generic t-rex-like green plastic dinosaurs. I doubt it was his actual writing space, and suspect like the little vignette of Stephen J Cannell's desk at the end of the credits for each of his shows it was staged more for cinematic effect than verisimilitude, but even if it wasn't I suspect Bradbury had a space that at least resembled it.

Writer's seem to need their space. I know of more than a few authors who have written their first novel (or two or three) at the kitchen table or tucked in next to the laundromat. There is the old cliché about the writer working in the attic or the basement, and like all cliches there is a certain amount of truth to it. The subject of writers working down in the dark or up in the rafters came up at the conference I attended, and there seemed to be a fair proportion of the writers there who did, in fact, work in such spaces. (I happen to work upstairs on the third floor, in what is, essentially, a converted attic.)

I would posit, however, that a writer's space is slightly different from a home office, in at least one regard. This has nothing to do with the level of organization, as I am sure that varies from writer to writer. (I spent two hours organizing my own space the other day when what started as an attempt to find a particular document became a whole-scale exercise in sorting and filing. But it looks a lot neater now, and I did eventually find the document.)

Rather, a writer's space has that little extra something in the way of inspiration. I am not talking about the inspirational posters with the black borders and blasé scenes of sunsets and mountains. (But if you have a few of those I'm not going to point fingers. They are pretty pictures, for the most part.) No, these are the extra items, the pictures, the posters, the figurines, the what-nots and whatevers that line the shelves or the edges of the desk or hang on the walls. They are different for every writer, and they are often the kind of thing that you wouldn't decorate your corporate office with. These may even include posters, as I have my space lined with movie posters of various genres.

They are also the books. I don't know of any writer with their own space that doesn't include books. The usual manual of style, of course, and a couple of writing tomes, of course, but then the other books as well. The ones that probably don't serve any professional purpose even if they were bought under the rationalization umbrella that afflicts all of us when we look at something neat and think, “Hey, I could use that!” knowing full well we probably never will. I have an entire shelf of those. They do get opened from time to time because I still enjoy looking up things the old-fashioned way, but by and large they are there for inspirational purposes only. And because I like books.

These are the kind of things that say, "There's more going on here than bookkeeping." They provide that extra sense of personality, that little hint that while serious work goes on here, it's also a place of imagination and fun. Where ideas are given free reign in an environment that probably wouldn't exist in a stuffy corporate office.

Come to think of it, has any writer ever written in a stuffy corporate office? I may have to go look that up. Somehow. Might even be in one of my books.

Serious Fiction

2010-12-10T11:15:00.000-05:00

I attended a conference some time back. A small, more or less regional affair on the outskirts of Baltimore, I went because it was close enough to get to on a budget (by car, in other words) and for some of the ancillary benefits that come from a trip to the greater Baltimore/D.C. area. Also, I needed a mini-vacation. More on that some other time.

It was a good conference, and worth the drive for sure. It was the first writing conference I've been to, and I know I didn't get as much out of it as I could have since I wasn't able to do as many workshops as I wanted to. Those will have to wait for the next conference. There was only a small crowd there, which helped give it a more intimate feel. If I was going to compare it to something, it was like a first date of writing conferences: nothing too fancy, mostly low-key, and mainly a way to see if this was something I'd want to do again.

It is, though next time I will attend one more genre-specific, just to contrast. That said, like a lot of first dates, there was the inevitable misstep. That moment where your date says something, and you just know it's over. Maybe you'll give them another chance, maybe not, but you're essentially tuning out the rest of the conversation in favor of contemplating the dessert menu. (Of course, I've been on the other side of that too, though usually you don't realize that until you get home. Unless it's a really good dessert menu.)

In this instance, it was one of the speakers. Not the key-note speaker, she was a well-known author and her speech and reading were spot-on. No, this was one of the warm-up acts. I tuned him out, more or less, the moment he uttered the phrase “serious writer” and meant it as a stand-in for all those writers who do not write genre fiction. This is not a case of my being overly sensitive, a quick to take offense against the literary establishment hack genre writer – though I proudly admit to being a hack genre writer. The speaker was quite clear in laying out exactly what he meant by the term... and then proceeded to continue using it.

It would have irked me less if he'd said “serious fiction” or even “serious writing.” I take less issue with those, as I have heard any number of popular genre authors freely admit – albeit somewhat self-deprecatingly – that they do not engage in serious writing. I imagine that comes with a bit more freedom, and a bit more enjoyment on their end than when they do attempt serious writing. (Stephen King, for example, writes very well on baseball, even if he is a Red Sox fan.)

This is not to say that more literary writers don't enjoy what they do, too. I suspect they wouldn't do so otherwise. This is, however, an argument that they do not deserve the term of “serious writer” to the exclusion of non-literary writers. All of the successful authors I know or know of tend to take it pretty seriously. They have to, as this is how they earn a living after all. If they didn't take it seriously they could well be stuck having to work a regular office job, or worse, and frankly one of the reasons we all write is so we don't have to do those things.

(There are exceptions, of course.)

I would make the argument that anyone who keeps at it, makes a concerted effort, day in and day out, to get words down, stories out (or poems, or plays, or whatever) and does so even knowing the odds against success and despite the sheer volume of rejections that come as payment for every sale, no matter how small, is, by definition, a serious writer. And this is regardless of what they write. I cannot, for the life of me, take the whole sparkly vampire thing seriously, and many of the arguments against them and their creator are legitimate ones, but I would never suggest Stephanie Meyer is not a “serious writer” no matter how much she tried to suggest otherwise in the interview I heard her give some years back.

A concept which, no doubt, would have caused the speaker's skin to crawl, and why I was left metaphorically contemplating the cheese cake.

Moonshot

2010-10-30T16:42:00.001-04:00

I'm a bit of a history buff. More than a bit, actually. If wool weren't so hot and scratchy, I'd be one of those guys giving up my weekends to re-enact Revolutionary War battles. (And may still end up there one of these days.) That said, I wouldn't want to live in Colonial America. Visit? Sure. I'd be first in line to hop in a time machine - preferably a Delorean - and head back to walk around, see the sights, experience some things first hand. But live there? Not a chance. Leaving aside the entire issue of wool being hot and scratchy, there are a host of other reasons why these are not times I want to live in. I like my modern conveniences, which should not surprise anyone as I sit here writing on my laptop, listening to a radio program, intending to publish this on the internet in a few minutes.

There is an exception to this general rule. Two, possibly. However, I'm only going to talk about one of them today. I would really haved liked to have been around for the Apollo Program. And I'd be willing to put up with all the craziness of the 60's to be able to watch even just one launch.

Mind you, I wouldn't mind being an astronaut, but I know full well I lack the right stuff. Starting with my vision. I still hold out hope that before I die there will be at the very least commerical low-Earth orbit flights into space, but that's as much as I am expecting. Even if I grew up expecting more than that (Arthur C. Clarke I blame you) I'm very aware that kids in the 1950's and even earlier grew up expecting jet packs. Which they don't have yet, either.

With the shuttle program winding down here, and no successor to it in sight, my brief hope that I might personally witness a moon launch is dwindling. There were leanings towards that for a few years, but between the economy and shifting priorities, I think that's all but dead for now.

Which disappoints me. So, I would gladly go back and live in the 1960's, despite the politics, the civil unrest, and the horrid fashion sense (especially at the end of the Apollo Program in the 1970's) to be able to watch one launch in all it's ground-shaking glory.

I've seen my share of shuttle launches. I grew up during the heydey of the program, when every launch was still televised, and confess that as long as I know when they will launch and can get to a television, I still watch them. Even on television, they are awesome. But, for as spectacular as they are, they lack that certain something of the Apollo launches. Different rockets, perhaps, but there's more to it.

Most of it is, I think, that sense of collective awe and wonder that held a nation (possibly even the world) spellbound as we sent these three-man crews into space. They weren't going very far, in astronomical terms, and yet... they were going to the moon. And for those lucky few who got to land there, they could stand on the surface of another world - small and lifeless though it may be - and look back at Earth. To be a part of that, if only as a spectator, to watch it unfold as it happens, that's something I'd like to be able to do.

(Okay, I take it back, I would want to be an astronaut. As long as we're delving into pure fantasy anyway, unless someone has my Delorean, I might as go all the way.)

So while there aren't too many places in history I'd be willing to live, that is one of the exceptions.

And in fairness, good wool clothes aren't very scratchy once you've broken them in.

Bus Stop to Nowhere

2010-10-18T16:32:00.002-04:00

There is a bus stop to nowhere. It sits outside a nursing home somewhere, and from time to time someone from inside wanders out to it. But no bus ever shows up, and no one ever goes anywhere (other than back into the home). In all other respects, it looks like a regular bus stop, and no doubt the people who wander out to it expect to go somewhere. They may not have any particular destination in mind, and even if they do it doesn't seem to bother them that the bus itself never shows.

As much as this might sound like the concept for a short story (or the initial set-up for some sort of bizarre anthology series, much the way Rod Serling would intro the Twilight Zone) it is completely non-fiction. The bus stop was the rather ingenious solution one nursing home came up with to keep their residents from wandering off. Before they put up their faux bus stop at the end of their sidewalk, when those residents afflicted with wanderlust would manage to slip out the doors, they would walk down the street to the actual bus stop, where they would congregate until someone from the home showed up to collect them. One or two of them might have even wound up on the bus.

Someone noticed that this was where the residents were winding up, and got the idea to put up the fake bus stop out in front of the nursing home. It seemed a much more simple and humane solution (and cost-efficient) than putting ankle bracelets on all the residents likely to wander. Surprisingly enough, it seems to work. They no longer have residents wandering down the street to a functional bust stop. They all congregate out front, where the staff can easily collect them. It seems to be enough for the residents that they manage to get that far.

It's a simple, elegant solution, and the reason why it works has to do with a number of psychological things that are not within my purview. What struck me about it, though, was that it was the sort of idea that we, as writers, are supposed to have. We're supposed to be good at looking at something - doesn't have to be a problem - and positing an unusual "what if" approach. Sometimes the answers will work, sometimes they won't. But it's the process of sitting around and playing with each idea, at least for a little bit, and giving it a chance to work that is just as important.

Somone could have, and probably did, laughed at the idea of a non-functioning bus stop as a preventative measure. And perhaps if there had been more funds for alarms and other traditional security measures, it would never have been built. But someone had the ability to look at the scenario and give it just the right sort of spin in their head to come up with an unusual, and ultimately effective, solution. And then they put it into practice, to see what would come of it. The most they would have been out was the funds and time for a bench and a sign.

The most we are out, as writers, when our ideas fall flat is the words on the page and the time it took to put them down. Like most writers, I have written my fair share of things that ultimately turned out not to work. But I've also had more that did, more times when I sat down and thought "what if" and approached something in a new (or new to me) way that might have seemed a bit unconventional at first. This is how, even though we are all told there are only five basic stories - at least I think it's supposed to be five - we are also told we can put our own spin on those five plots and make them work.

Yet I don't ever regard those words that didn't work as a waste (possibly an idea for another entry) even when they don't go anywhere. That, of course, is perhaps the irony of this comparison.

Unlike the bus stop to nowhere, when our ideas work they take us places.

I Blame the Little Undead Doggie

2010-10-11T16:13:00.006-04:00

A fellow writer foisted this upon me, for no good reason I think other than my name alliterated nicely with his two other choices. But that's as good a reason as any, I suppose. Normally I eschew these kinds of things, as they remind me a little too much of those character profiles you're supposed to fill out. I've never seen much utility in those. If my character collects stamps, well, that's all well and fine if the story involves stamps or some crucial plot point hinges on knowing when the first Elvis stamp appeared. Otherwise, it's mostly just an exercise that doesn't put words on the pages.

On the other hand, the style question was too good to pass up.

1. If you could have any superpower, what would you have? Why?

Aquaman's. That whole super-swimming breathe underwater talk to the fishies thing. Or possibly Namor's. (I don't need to talk to fish, and flying in addition to swimming might be fun.) I just love the water, though, and that would be what I'd go with.

Assuming I can't get my hands on a power ring.

2. Who is your style icon?

Paul Bunyan. I embrace my inner flannel.

Writing? Raymond Chandler. Prose ought to alternate between being so crisp it snaps, and descriptive enough to envelop you in one of those famous noir fogs.

3. What is your favorite quote?

Without resorting to quoting Yoda, that would likely be the quote at the top of my blog. I rather like the idea of drawing on my inner child.

4. What is the best compliment you’ve ever received?

I was complimented once on my humanity. It would take too much to explain, but it was by far the best thing anyone has ever said to me.

5. What playlist/CD is in your CD Player/iPod right now?

A mix of the blues: Chris Thomas King, Robert Johnson, R.L. Burnside, etc. Tomorrow it might be something completely different.

6. Are you a night owl or a morning person?

Depends. Is it a school night or not?

7. Do you prefer dogs or cats?

I like both, but my cat has never rolled in something that smelled like it died in the Truman era and just kept getting riper. Cats are also easier when you rent, so until I can afford my house in the country, felines it is.

8. What is the meaning behind your blog name?

I explained this, way back when, in one of the very first posts. It was a curse made up by a co-worker. "May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits." It stuck with me.

And, in the spirit in which this came to me, I foisted it upon others:

The Ace (who assures me he'll have his answer up soon)
The Antagonist

Rediscovering Children's Lit

2010-09-28T10:53:00.002-04:00

Neil Gaiman once made a comment on his blog about passing stories on to his children. I don't remember exactly what he said, as though I took the time to write it down once upon a time, it got subsequently lost in an internet shuffle with another project I was working on (I blame Yahoo). The essence of it boiled down to the importance of sharing stories with your children, and how it's not only good for them but for yourself as well. It wasn't just about parental bonding, either, but the importance in and of themselves of stories and their telling.

I was reminded of that recently when I started reading The Wizard of OZ to my little girl. We have been reading books for years, but she's recently started to move from the standard picture books into more complex picture books. I've had OZ on my shelf for years, along with Alice and Pooh, since before I had or had even considered children. With regards to Alice and Pook, they were stories I enjoyed, and as for OZ, it was bought with the notion that maybe someday I'd have someone to read it to.

While Dorothy will never replace Alice, or Pooh, for that matter, I did enjoy the story. I was also surprised from the start to discover that the change from a black and white world to one of technicolor was not something done just for the movie. For those who haven't read the book, I don't think I'm giving anything away by saying Kansas is written by Baum to be literally grey. Everything he describes in Kansas is said to be dull and grey, so that the colors explode when Dorothy arrives in Oz.

(Not literally explode, mind you, at least not until Michael Bay does the remake.)

I don't plan on ever writing for children - though there is one idea clanking around in my head - but I think the sense of fun that is imbued by most children's stories is a good thing to interweave into any story, no matter the audience. Even if you're writing horror and want to scare the socks off of your readers, they should still have fun even as they're losing their footware. I also think it's probably not something that comes with trying to do it. Like humor, it will likely lose a lot if you try and actively make your story fun.

Just as importantly, there is a sense of discovery that seems to come from these books. Baum and the others have a real gift for crafting worlds where each corner turned brings something new. In an adult work it would be too much, and I noticed there were inconsistencies and things that just didn't make sense (in Through the Looking Glass it can be hard to follow the geography of Alice's travels, and there is supposed to be one, for example). But it was still nice to see an entire world where, unlike in a lot of modern works, the author made it up as they went along. Nowadays "world building" is it's own thing, and maybe Baum and Caroll could teach a thing or two about that.

Almost every writer I have ever read who commented on what it takes to be a writer has stressed that they read. A lot, and all kinds. It wouldn't hurt to put a few children's books on that list, even if they are things you read once as a child. Take it from me, they take on new life reading them as an adult.

The Writing Diet

2010-09-21T13:20:00.001-04:00

This is not about food. Just wanted to get that out of the way up front, lest anyone expects recipes or exercise tips here. (I could give those out, but once down that path forever would it dominate this blog. Here endeth the Star Wars reference.) Instead, this is about how the general smart and sensible approach to diet and exercise ought to work just as well for writing. I point out, in advance, I am an expert on none of those three. I try and eat right, I try and exercise, and I write. And while I have done the third well enough to be paid for it, that alone does not make one an expert, as any tour of the bookstore and DVD rentals will tell you. I struggle at all three (including a recent bout of homophone issues in my writing).

My particular issue is with adverbs, and how they have become the poster child for bad writing. I'm not sure where or when it started (Stephen King, who I think in general probably knows a bit more about the craft of fiction than I do simply by sheer weight of experience, mentions it in his writing memoir On Writing, so it's been around at least a decade), only that it seems to be the default position of all and sundry. Fellow writers have offered up critiques of things I thought were perfectly passable - which I didn't write - based solely on the presence of adverbs.

I'm here to say I think they're wrong. I'm not saying all adverbs are good, and like anything else they can be overused, but they are hardly the harbringer of impending writerly apocalypses. Like diet and exercise, I think it comes down to proper mediation.

Every so often, a new diet or exercise trend comes down the pipe. It never lasts (anyone remember Tae-bo? Anyone still doing it?) but while it's around it's the end-all be-all for all conerned. Until the fad fades or the supposed science behind the diet is disproved. Take that whole Atkin's thing, for example. Carbs were bad. Carbs were evil. Carbohydrates would lead to the dark side, which apparently meant cake. (Is cake a carb?) Or at least potatoes and pasta. Consumption of carbs would lead to dirigible-sized pants.

Only... it turns out, this is not so much the case. Now, at the time, there were enough people saying "Hey, wait, this is wrong and probably a little unhealthy," but they were by and large ignored by the dieting populace. Like all dieting fads before, the experts were ignored in favor of celebrity endorsements, and the themed cookbooks flew off the shelves for a while. And where are they now?

As in most things, the key turned out to be moderation. Sure, you don't want to gorge on pasta, and like most things on the American menu portion size is an important determinant, but carbs themselves were not inherently bad. Several million Italians can't all be wrong, after all.

Adverbs, I think, are like carbs. Or a glass of wine. A glass with dinner is considered a good thing. Two isn't bad. Downing a bottle on certain occasions is also okay. Emptying your wine cellar in a single outing is usually frowned upon, however. There is a line to be drawn, a balance to be struck. Some might argue otherwise, as I know there are places where even a glass of wine a night would be viewed as the moral equivalent of a bender, or a single dish of spaghetti as an all you can eat deep friend Twinkie binge.

(And on a complete aside, I think no single food more sums up everything wrong with current American dietary trends than the deep fried Twinkie. No matter how good they may be - and I have heard they are quite good.)

Adverbs are good things. There, I said it. They can be overused, certainly, and they aren't always appropriate (pasta doesn't go with every meal, for example), but they are a valuable part of speech. You can't really write without them. Sure, they can become a crutch in lieu of better descriptions, and they do facilitate the slide into "telling" as opposed to "showing," and I will adamantly agree they don't belong in dialogue tags, ever. But they aren't inherently bad.

If, by chance, you think I'm wrong about this, I encourage you to pick up any classic novel. Gatsby, for example. Now go through and look at all the adverbs. The text isn't drowning in them, by any means, but Fitzgerald certainly uses them. (Do not highlight or underline in your book. Just don't. Your librarian will thank you.) As does any other writer, even that master of spartan sentences, Hemingway. I am nowhere near their league, but I figure if adverbs were good enough for them, they are good enough for me.

And then there were none....

2010-09-14T11:28:00.002-04:00

Words are important things, especially for writers. Not exactly an earth-shattering kaboom of an idea, I know. What few readers I have (assuming any of them have stuck with me) know I listen to Radiolab, a radio science program. Back in may they did a program on a study someone did on the use of vocabulary in the works of Agatha Christie. I'm not sure if it was done intentionally to try and diagnose her, but by studying the words she used, and the frequency with which she used them, they were able to determine that Christie suffered from some form of mental degeneration, beyond what might be expected from simple old age. Alzheimers or a similar form of dementia were mentioned as likely candidates.

Now, while such a disease is scary in its own right, and I speak here as one who's seen too many close family members afflicted with it, as a writer this story carries a particular horror with it. The disease took away Christie's use of words. Her later novels, especially those towards the end, are far less complex and varied in word choice. She relies on more generic terms, less descriptive language.

Moreover, as in many cases of these kind of diseases, she seems to have been all too aware of it. In her last novel, it seems very likely one of her characters became a stand-in for herself, leading to the implication she knew what was happening to her. Knew, and was powerless to do anything about it. As a writer, I cannot imaging being forced to watch as my ability to express myself clearly and vividly was slowly taken from me, word by word.

The actual decline was somewhat less dramatic than that, of course. It's not as though one day she woke up and was able to use one word less. The study talked in frequencies of occurrences, and complexity of ideas, and how those could be charted to demonstrate Christie's failing mental faculties. But it's the idea of such a thing happening, of sitting down to write each day and finding, day by day, that your skills were a little less, and that there was nothing you could do about it, that is at once sad and terrifying.

Writer's High

2010-09-07T15:46:00.004-04:00

You always hear them talk about the "runner's high." I have often pondered why that's limited to runners - in the lexicon, that is, as I know full well the effect isn't just experienced by runners alone. Anyone who does that kind of exercise gets the same sort of effect, which makes sense once you consider the biochemistry of the whole thing. I think runners just get all the press because they are both the most visible and the most vocal members of the exercise community. (In part because in television land, other than the gym and the exercise studio, running is the easiest to film it seems. At least judging by the number of tv characters who jog or run anyway.)

Now, while I have no idea if the biochemistry is the same, and greatly suspect it isn't, in large part, I am putting forth the idea of the "writer's high." No sneakers required. Also no shower afterward, and no heavy duty cycle on the laundry.

I discovered this - or if that seems to smack too strongly of ego-centrisim, I realized this - after a particularly good writing session the other day. I don't remember how many words I got out, and at any rate I am of the opinion it can be something of a trap to focus on the number of words, but however many of them there were, they were good words that day. The first set of good words in a while, as lately they've become something of a slog. Something to get through, get words down, even if they're all going to die later in the rewrite.

And they felt good. Really good. Not just the act of writing itself, but the afterglow when I was done, when I had walked away from the computer to go do something else. I have noticed that with a really good workout, that sense of accomplishment follows me the rest of the day, long after my heart rate has subsided. This was the same thing, where it followed me throughout the remainder of my day, making the day seem that much better.

It's not the first time this has happened, and it is that feeling which helps me get through the days when it is more of a slog, when it seems almost like a chore to sit at the computer and try and crank something else. It's the rememberance of that feeling, of knowing if I can get past the warm-up (so to speak) and into the main workout, when it's all done I'll feel better. Maybe not a whole lot better, but better. And the memory of that feeling, of knowing it's there on the other side, makes it easier to try and tackle it each day.

It doesn't always work, as just with my exercise routine there are days I fail, but it gives me something to chase, something to seek, a little reward each day for sitting down and doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Something that, unlike with exercise, I can continue to chase my whole life, regardless of failing knees or joints or whatever else in my body decides to betray me as I get older. So that, when I'm 70, while my days of earning that "runner's high" - which I never, ever actually run for - may be gone, the "writer's high" will still be waiting for me.

Value-Added

2010-09-01T15:48:00.001-04:00

Have you ever noticed how it's "A penny for your thoughts" if someone else wants to know what you're thinking, but if you just opine on your own it's your "two cents?"

I'm not sure if this reflects a growing inflationary trend between when the two phrases entered into the lexicon, or if it's perhaps an indication that for most of us, whatever it is we have to say is a little less valuable than we think it is? I realize the irony of espousing such a position here, of all places, but nonetheless I stand by my contention that for the most part what we say is of somewhat less importance than we are oft inclined to give it.

Especially writers.

This is not always the case. I can think of a couple of writers who seem more than aware of the limitations of their own musings, whether in giving their opinions or in the pages of their stories. Of course, for every writer who claims to be just a humble author - who may even live up to that most of the time - there's always usually at least one story or incident where they do take themselves a little too seriously. There's that theme, or moral, or just their magnum opus that by the time they're done with it you can tell it had taken on a life and importance of it's own, particularly in the author's head.

Now, guilty as I am of this myself, I would also posit it's a necessary conceit. Somewhere along the lines we decided that, whatever it was we had to say, it was worth sharing. Beyond just conversation with friends or families or co-workers, beyond whatever social circle we may inscribe around ourselves on the internet, we have the need to share what we write. You can quibble over whether the need to entertain equates with importance (and there are certainly arguments to be made on both sides of that, though for myself I would state in strident terms the importance of entertainment), but you can't argue that we feel our stories are worth sharing.

Not always more so than anyone else. For those of us who know other writers, unless you're being harsh - which sometimes you ought to be - we're by default associating with others who have the same conceit as we do and may well be more justified in that. We establish something of an equal footing, wherein we say "Yes, you're good, and worth sharing, but look at me, too." In part this may simply come about because unlike other, non-writers, we're willing to put in the time and effort to get it out there in the first place. While there is some satisfaction that comes in admiring your own work for a job well done, we are conditioned as human beings to want that external pat on the head or hearty "good job" from someone else.

Certainly more so than say your Uncle Bob, though. Maybe you have one of these (apologies to you if you do). He's the guy always telling jokes or stories at family get togethers. Might not even be Uncle Bob. He (or she) might be co-worker Bob. Or friend of a friend Bob. Whatever. He's always got stories to tell. But not beyond the confines of that small group he inhabits with you. It's the same reason someone who tells jokes on the golf course doesn't go into stand-up comedy. That impulse to share it with a wider audience, the self-confidence to believe it's worth putting out there, that's lacking in Uncle Bob. He doesn't need it, and doesn't think what he has to say is worth that extra penny to the world at large.

(Even if he thinks it's all worth it's weight in gold amongst his relatives/friends/coworkers.)

This applies to far more than just writers, of course, as the entire industry of talk radio and cable news seems to run on this. In some cases you could make the argument that their audience values the thoughts of the hosts more so than their own, thereby reversing the analogy, but it still holds for all the pundits.

So are our own thoughts really worth the extra penny? I think perhaps that depends on whether we're asking others to assess our opinions at that higher cost, or whether it's more a case of how much we have to chip in to get them to listen in the first place. But that's another entry entirely.

The Joy of Browsing

2010-08-28T14:31:00.005-04:00

I miss the CD store.

Which is not to say that they're all gone, though to the best of my knowledge a lot of the major chains have either folded or closed up a lot of shops since the 1990's. There are still places where you can go to buy CD's, should you be so inclined. I am not including the big box stores here, or even the more specialized retailers like Borders or Barnes and Nobles. I mean the CD store that, aside from a small smattering of posters and other music paraphernalia, only sold music. I know that there are fewer of them, where once they were almost as prolific as Starbuck's.

Perhaps not quite so numerous, but close.

I don't even listen to most of my CD's anymore, honestly. Most of the time I'm on my laptop, and so that's where most of my music is. Not all of it, by any means, as storage limitations mean that the large items like operas or the complete Beethoven's symphonies have been left on CD. The vast majority of what I listen to on a frequent basis is, however, stored digitally, and I confess most of those are the music of known quantities. Musicians where I was already familiar with they're work, and wasn't taking a chance.

Not that some of it doesn't work like that. There are any number of places where I can find new music, and for a not unreasonable sum even purchase it and take it home. (Or download it, if the artist is giving it away for free. Which some of the more esoteric ones I listen to do.) Yet browsing through a blog or an online music store doesn't have quite the same feel to it. Maybe it's not having the CD in hand, or being able to - sometimes - turn to the store clerk and ask about the music in question. Maybe it's the lack of those sections where they say "if you like this, you might also like this."

A lot of it is simply not being able to find those rare gems you might otherwise overlook. One of my favorite blues CD's, for example, came from this little store in downtown Chicago, found while I was getting lunch and killing time until my train arrived. It was a small store, less than the size of the 7 Eleven across the street from it, but it had a steady stream of college students browsing the aisles. It aimed at mostly jazz and blues music, and while I know there are plenty of blogs out there devoted to that stuff, there is an inherent problem with those.

Mainly, they rely on someone's opinions. If a person is posting about music on their blog, it's a reflection of their tastes. And while, for a professional reviewer, that might mean a broader sampling, it still imposes certain limitations. Limitations you were less likely to find in a music store. Even simple things like crossing genre lines, and browsing jazz and blues over here, then new age over there, are made a bit more cumbersome online. Maybe not more difficult, as there is built-in convenience from shopping from home and all that, but you have to hunt in more locations rather than just going to the one spot.

Mostly, I miss being able to walk in and hear something over the speakers which you might never have listened to. Sometimes it was crap, sometimes not, and just sometimes it was something which, after asking the clerk what it was, you'd walk out of the store with. You don't get that online.

An 18-Minute Gap in My Memory

2010-08-23T23:31:00.004-04:00

This is one of those times where, quite some time back, I jotted down a brief bit of notes, consisting of less than a sentence. At the time, I had a clear idea of where the idea was going to go, what I was going to say, and how it was all going to make sense. I freely admit that sometimes I only manage two out of three... and sometimes only one. But I always have at least one.

In this case it had something to do with the coincidence between the length of Arlo Guthrie's most famous song and a corresponding amount of blank tape from the Nixon White House. That's a subject that has been tackled elsewhere, and at length probably exceeding the eighteen minutes of the song. I heard it while listening to a version of the song - and it would count as "a" version because it seems to change upon each telling - that included a commentary about that coincidence. The song itself remains a remarkable bit of largely extemporaneous storytelling, I must admit, enough so that the last time I heard it on the radio I was content to listen to the whole thing instead of searching elsewhere.

But whatever I had originally intended to say about that has long since vanished into the ether. Which is the problem with taking only sparese notes, or jotting down random one or two line ideas. Most of my idea book is filled with stuff like that, and for the most part I elaborate more than just one line. I may include a short little description, or a list of things, or something else to help jar my memory and get my mind back into whatever groove it was in when I wrote the idea down in the first place.

For example, I have the phrase "Dr Doolittle with insects" which came from a dream I had about a boy who could talk to scorpions, among other things. (Yes, I am well aware that scorpions are not insects. Regardless, the dream was of the boy and bugs and things in terrariums, including scorpions. .... Yes, I have odd dreams.) That story idea may not be written out completely, but I haven't forgotten it, and it's still there.

It's different when I lose an idea completely. That has happened, and I can remember one such instance clearly. My memory of that incident is helped by the fact that I wrote about it shortly after, but I also distinctly remember it. Precisely because I can't remember whatever it was I thinking at that moment, just what I was doing. While frustrating, it's less frustrating than staring at a line in my notebook, knowing I took the time to write it down, and being completely at a loss for why I wrote it down.

(Which is not the same thing as being at a loss for words, obviously.)

It may eventually come back to me, what it was I meant to say with this post on that topic. Or it may not. Odds are, having written this about it, whatever else I meant to say will get shunted to the side, replaced by this set of thoughts. That's just the way my mind works, and I know it.

If it does come back, I promise to make sure I write it down more completely in my notebook, so that I don't end up back here again.

Real Life Fiction

2010-08-20T10:50:00.003-04:00

I read a little bit of everything. And I do mean everything. I've been known to read a romance novel or two, even. (Admittedly, one of those two was accidental, as I had no idea it was romance when I ordered it off of Amazon.) I run through phases where I read poetry or non-fiction or philosophy, and while those often coincide with there being nothing new from my favorite authors in my local library, sometimes I'm just in the mood.

The one thing I tend not to read much of is "literary" works. Those quotes around it are mandatory, as that category has taken on a life of it's own, often to the exclusion of other works that would be "literary" were they not written by the wrong sort of author.

Now, unlike some other genres, there's no real reason for this omission. I don't read much romance because it all tends to be rather formulaic. Which I understand is the appeal of the genre, to a certain extent, but boy meets girl gets a little old when it follows the same formula. (Case in point was the accidental romance novel I read, which was some sci-fi thing. It was well written, and I had no complaints about that, but the next installment in the series was a carbon copy of the one I had just read, only with new characters.) I don't read much chick lit because, well, because I'm not a chick and I found Sex in the City to be, by and large, shallow and uninteresting.

On the other hand, most of the literary works I have read I do enjoy. I find them to be the thought provoking exercises they are meant to be, and that, I've decided, is half the problem. Generally I read the genre books I read because I'm not really looking to do a whole lot of thinking. I want a smart read, don't get me wrong, but I read novels as an escape. If I'm looking for mental gymnastics, I'll pull down one of those aforementioned philosophy texts, or some of the poets I read. (Poetry, for me, seems to straddle the escapist and intellectual reads, but that's another post entirely.)

My other issue with them is that they aren't very escapist. One of the things that separates the genre is that, by definition, they are supposed to deal with real life things. Updike does not write about Martians, and by the same token one would not expect Bradbury to talk about middle-class, middle-age life without resorting to Martians. I like the escapism. I like reading about things that only nominally resemble my own life, in terms of the themes they deal with. I may not be middle-aged yet, but I know enough about the humdrums of modern American life to want to get away from it when I read.

Of course, that is also part of the appeal of the more literary authors. That examining of the life we all lead. More or less, of course. I recently read - well, more appropriately would be to say I was turned on to Philip Roth, and while one of his characters was in a profession and a life that is actually plausible as a path my own life might have taken - sans Martians - there were definite aspects that would just not happen to me. Or anyone else I know. Which is a good thing, considering.

But, it's that deconstruction of modern life, the examination of the mundane, the requirement that you think a little (or so I would hope) about what you're reading and what it all means and the themes involved, that makes the genre of "literary" fiction a pleasure to read. I can get something out of it that, for the most part, I am not going to get from King or Kellerman. Not to say the two, and the rest of the genre fiction crowd, don't make me think, but for the most part if they're dealing with themese I'm ignorning them, not poring over the text to examine them.

Does that mean I am going to be checking out more "serious" books from the library? Probably not. As I said, I read to escape, and for fun, mainly, much the way I watch movies. I like my fiction smart, but not necessarily requiring a mental warm-up before I engage with it. Yet when the mood strikes, as it does for poetry and philosophy and non-fiction, I won't be adverse to wandering through different sections of the library than I normally find myself in.

The Mascot

2010-08-18T15:24:00.003-04:00

There was a commercial some time ago that, as part of the montage of scenes, featured a cat jumping on to the keyboard. In a classic case of Hollywood realism, the person at the key board made no attempt to shoo the cat off, or gave any sign that the cat had just typed gibberish into whatever the person had been typing just seconds before. No, instead the human just reached down and scratched the cat's ears, all lovey-dovey. It might have been a cat food commercial, now that I think on it.

Of course, that sort of help would still be far more welcome than that "Clippy" character from whatever incarnation of MS Office that was.

My own feline assistant doesn't put paw to keyboard all that often. In what's either a reflection on the state of my desk, or the training of my cat, she stays off the top of my desk. Despite being a lap cat, my office chair is not one she's inclined to share with me, either. Mind you, I'm not complaining about that, but the commercial did get me thinking about the unofficial role my cat plays as my writing mascot.

She has a bed in my office, and during the day that's where she'll curl up while I sit pounding away at the keys. She may not offer much in the way of constructive criticism - unless I so interpret her attempts to trip me coming down the steps - but she does keep me company. Which is nice, because writing is for the most part a somewhat solitary occupation. There is an online community to which I belong and participate it, but that's not the same as having an actual physical presence here in the house. (Especially once summer vacation is over.)

I'm not the only author with a cat, and certainly not the most famous author with a fondness for felines (mine has the normal amount of toes). But I think I'd rather be a writer with a cat, than without. Or a dog, or just something to keep me company and for me to bounce the occasional idea off of, even if that bouncing doesn't get me much more than a twitched ear. It's nice knowing no matter how frustrated I get at times, there's a fuzzy ball of stress relief over in the corner.

Just so long as she stays there, and not on my keyboard.

A Loss of Ideas

2010-08-15T16:34:00.002-04:00

I have misplaced my notebook. My writer's notebook, to be precise. Something I've carried around now for literally over a decade (I know, because I know where I was when I jotted down the first item on the first page). In this notebook go all my odds and ends, those ideas that are either about things I am working on now, or possibly might be, or just have no home beyond having popped into my head and my having determined they were worth writing down. I have even gone so far as to color code it, using different color inks depending on whether it's a short story idea, or a poetry one, or for which novel it might be intended.

(Yes, I am aware that I am more than a little odd, and possibly somewhat compulsive. But the colors are pretty, and provide me with a quick visual organizational tool.)

It also contains a list I keep of possible blog topics. And I seem to have put it someplace other than where it belongs. (This is not an excuse for why there's been almost nothing here for the past few months. I have no excuse for that, it simply didn't get done.) I have my ideas about where it might be, but for the moment those are unconfirmed. All I know is, it's not where it should be.

I could use this to reflect on both the perils and pluses of being organized. On the one hand, when you are, you know where to find things and, to my mind, your workspace looks better. On the other hand, when you put something where it doesn't belong - and it will happen, sooner or later - it can result in a fair amount of disorientation. I know my notebook is in the house, somewhere, and I have a couple of guesses as to where those somewheres might be. Regardless, it's going to take some searching for, most likely done while wearing a very perplexed expression on my face.

Story elements can get misplaced, too. I am not someone who outlines, as for the most part I don't find them useful. Before I get much beyond a chapter or two in a novel, whatever I had outlined will be long since detoured away from. Certain things do have their place, though, and if you put them down somewhere else, it can take you off on tangents that you didn't want to go on, far away from the crux of your story. I have had this happen in a couple of stories. A line of dialog, no matter how well crafted, just doesn't fit. Or a scene. Or a confrontation. Or, heck, an entire sub-plot. Though it's been a while since I've mislaid a sub-plot.

Which, yes, I recognize may be an argument for outlining, and one may wonder why someone who color codes his idea notebook - nay, buys different color pens specifically for the purpose of color coding his idea notebook - does not find outlining useful. To which I answer: life is full of things that don't make sense.

Like my notebook, eventually these misplaced elements turn up, often during revision. And like my notebook, once found, they will then be returned to their proper place - which, unlike my notebook, includes the option of the great big idea folder in the sky. Not all misplaced elements get a home. Some, sadly, are deleted. Eventually. Most of them find homes, though. They will end up where they fit, where they belong, so that I can sit back, with satisfaction, and revel in how neat and organized it all is.

Until the next time it happens, of course.

The Exotic Familiar

2010-08-12T10:43:00.001-04:00

We're told, as writers, to "write what we know." There are, I am sure, entire chapters in writing books devoted to this or some variation of it. Like all advice, it only goes so far, and often times it might be felt it doesn't go far enough. For example, what if you've never gone anywhere? What if all you know is middle of nowhere small town America? That hardly seems like enough of "what you know" to be able to hang a story on.

"I don't know enough to write anything interesting," some might cry. "It's all so boring and familiar."

Well, of course it is if you've lived there all your life. But to an outsider, someone who hasn't been there, it may seem as much an exotic locale as Paris seems to the small-towner. Case in point: Las Vegas is not someplace I would ever consider "exotic." It is so not exotic, so familiar, that in fact I feel comfortable referring to it by the short version of it's name: Vegas. (No one does this with Los Angeles, though, at least not to my knowledge. That may well be another topic for discussion some other time.)

Some of this comes from it being an American city. While it's not one I have ever visited, it's certainly shown up in a fair amount of movies and television shows, some even eponymously titled after their locale, so in some way I feel I know it. It's not even like New York City, which I recognize as being so large and complex that despite being a loyal Law & Order fan, other than a generic sense of where things are I don't know anything about it. I couldn't begin to tell you where Brooklyn or the Bronx is.

Vegas, though, tends to reduce itself down to one main feature: the Strip. And the Strip I have seen, from it's early incarnations - courtesy of The Godfather - to it's more recent trend towards themed, family-friendly casinos - courtesy of both CSI and Ocean's Eleven. The remake, that is. I wouldn't exactly file this under "what I know" if we're equating that with having walked it's streets. But I am inclined to suspect that, armed with a map, I could, to paraphrase Neil Gaiman's comment about being a Brit writing about the US, do as good a job as any other person who doesn't live there.

All of which simply points to the fact that, to me, Vegas does not seem exotic. Mind you, it's got show girls, which my home town doesn't have (nor, come to think of it, have any of the places I've ever lived) but it's still not enough of an "other" for me to qualify as exotic. Not the way that even someplace that shares a similar culture and language, like London, for example, would fall under that category. London, to me, is exotic. Part of this is that I half expect it to still retain some intangible connection to the late Victorian-era London of Sherlock Holmes and Charles Dickens. I know full well modern London no more resembles that than Boston still retains any of its Colonial American feel - with the exception of historic markers and the occasionally still-standing structure. But, to me, it's someplace that I could feel safe in calling exotic.

Then again, I'm not Helen Mirren. (Which really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.) In an interview I was listening to about a month ago, she raised this exact point in discussing why she'd taken on a role as a Vegas madam. To her, Vegas was someplace exotic. London, and by extension England, was the familiar, the thing she knew, whereas Vegas was the unknown other. Listening to her explain this, and actually referring to Vegas as being "exotic," got me thinking about all those times - including for a current project - where I have critiqued my own work as being too dull, too boring, too familiar to be of interest to the reader. Those times where I feel compelled to take a place and make it more interesting, when the truth is, it could stand just as well on it's own, provided I do a good enough job capturing the place.

The truth is, writing what I know may not seem very exotic or interesting to me some of the times, but for someone else, if I do it well, I can transport them someplace that, to them, will be a completely new experience. And that, I think, is at the heart of the exotic. After all, it's all familiar to someone out there.

Power of Words

2010-08-10T14:23:00.003-04:00

By coincidence, and the beauty of podcasting, I listened to two similar stories about words and what they stand for in the space of less than 24 hrs. One of them was also a video, so I suppose I did more than just listen, I watched, but it was still largely about the expressive ability of words. Plus there isn't a verb I know of that would allow me to convey the fact that I listened to one and watched another without resorting to complex compound sentences.

Which would probably have been more succinct than the above paragraph. However...

In a piece on NPR, Alix Spiegel (who until just a moment ago I had always assumed spelled her first name with an "e") looks at our use of symbols, in an effort to understand what makes us modern. The whole piece is a bit long, coming in the second half of All Things Considered's first hour, where lately they seem to be doing 20 minute stories as part of the regular format. It's not entirely about words, and language, either, instead focusing more broadly on symbols in general, of which language plays just one part. It is an important part, though, and it makes you think about the nature of language as well as how we understand it.

And then, in a video, one of my other favorite NPR programs, Radiolab (which is one word despite the insistence of my spellchecker), produced an entire hour-long episode also devoted to words. However, I've not listened to that yet. That won't stop me from recommending it, as I would any of their shows, but in particular I wanted to call attention to what I did listen to/see: the short - only about three minutes or so - film that went along with the episode. This short film is also about words, and it seemed to me to be as much about the symbolic meanings we associate with many of our words ("fall" being an excellent one, with a three-second shot it took me a moment to make the connection for), as was the piece from ATC yesterday.

So I thought I would share.

When Did We First Become Modern?

Words

Back to the Beginning

2010-08-09T13:56:00.002-04:00

Sometimes you just have to start over. Not saying that's always an easy thing to do. In fact, sometimes it can be downright painful. It can hurt. A lot. Even when you know it's the right thing to do, the knowing, in advance, of just how much it's going to take out of you can be enough for you to want to put it off. That is part of the appeal of procrastination, as we tend not to put off those things we enjoy, but instead delay those things we do not want to do, the things we dread.

I'm convinced there is also the tendency to not want to erase all the work that has gone into a project right up to that point where it becomes necessary to start over. No matter how deep the quagmire, there is the belief that some of what went before could be salvaged. A complete overhaul isn't really required, no, instead it will only take a little tweaking here and there, a couple of edits, and then it'll be easy to pull free of the muck and mire.

That Hollywood seems to defer to a re-boot every time a franchise stalls out may be part of the problem. For every Star Trek - which I still haven't seen - or Batman Begins - which of course I have - there are countless other attempts to rejuvenate a storyline or character just be starting over with new faces. Comics are guilty of this, too, often in the interest of sidestepping a particularly thorny plot issue that the writers backed themselves into. It very rarely goes well.

So the temptation to not hit the universal delete, and start afresh, is a strong one. It can trap even the most well intentioned author. You plug along, you edit, you move things around, but you do not start over because you have already done all this work, and it would be a shame to waste it. Not to mention disheartening, because why, oh why, did you invest all those days/weeks/months (years?) into something only to throw it all away?

All of which belies the fact that we all know it's not only necessary, it is at times the only way out. There was a Micheal Douglas film some years back, Wonder Boys, in which he plays a writer. A famous writer, who has been laboring for years on his latest opus. Laboring and not going anywhere, which as you might expect has not left him in the happiest of moods about writing in general. Ignoring the merits of the film - though I liked it - it stands out for me because of a scene, near the end, where this manuscript he's been working on for years is suddenly, literally, thrown to the wind, with hundreds of pages flying everywhere.

(This was the year 2000, when it was perhaps more conceivable that a manuscript would be in paper only format. I suppose there are still some writers out there who work that way, but I also suspect most of us would view such a scene and ask "why didn't he just save a back-up copy?")

The manuscript, as overblown, tiresome, and voluminous as it had become, was lost, leaving him with no choice but to start over. One jump cut later, we see him typing away on the final pages of his new, much shorter - and presumably much better - manuscript. More importantly, he seems happy again with the writing process, thus ending that part of the movie on a high note. (There's a great deal of other material to the plot, so this is hardly a spoiler if you haven't seen the film.)

Most of us will not have such a divine intervention. Any windstorm strong enough to blow away my laptop is going to leave me with far larger problems. Yet it needs to be noted there is nothing stopping me - or any other writer in a similarly stuck vein - from being our own winds of renewal. I rarely completely delete something, because you never know when you might want to mine that dusty idea for new inspiration, or those few gems buried in the dull dirt of the rest of your prose. However, this is not to say I cannot start over, that I cannot, instead of staring at the same text that has vexed me for days/weeks/months (years?) call up a new document, a blank slate, and take those initial ideas that I found so exciting back in the beginning for a brand new spin on a brand new surface.

Because sometimes, that's what it takes.

Twitter Verse and the Rise of Poetry

2010-07-07T10:45:00.000-04:00

Poetry seems to be enjoying a bit of a resurgence, at least in the headlines. Aside from the appointment of the new poet laureate, there was the Wimbeldon Poet (as heard on Only a Game), and then, about a month ago, NPR ran a story about Twitter verse. Not as in the "Twitter Universe" but as in verse - poetry - on Twitter. Given the format of Twitter, this isn't sonnets or odes, but haiku.

I happen to be a fan of haiku, always have been. One of the poetry volumes on my shelves is dedicated to Japanese poetry, so there are a fair amount of haiku on the pages. (At least I think it's still on my shelf. I'll have to check to make sure it didn't get donated somewhere along the way.) Now, in translation, they don't exactly adhere to the rules we all learned back in middle school, but they are all short, succinct, and evocative.

That they have started cropping up on Twitter should probably not be surprising. The 140 character limit necessitates a certain brevity of expression, and while I suspect the vast majority of Twitter users are not waxing poetic, it heartens me a little to think that some of them either rose to the challenge or saw the opportunity for more creative expression. I myself have trouble writing flash fiction, which is less than 100 words (or so), let alone getting things down to haiku level, so I am a little bit in awe of those that can not only do so, but do so with regularity.

I suspect not all the poetic entries on Twitter are intended. The confines of the media lend themselves to accidental poetry, if you will, where in the effort to convey as much as possible in as little as possible, some people are going to craft gems. Some of them may not even realize the poetic possibilities in their Twits - or is that Tweets? It's Tweets, isn't it? - unless it's pointed out to them.

Which I think is just fine. Truth be told, I think a lot of the more traditional haiku were the traditional equivalent of these Tweets in the first place. You have a poet, sitting at a pond, or beneath the leaves of trees (yes, most haiku have some sort of nature theme, but this is in keeping with various aspects of the country they come from, including the heavy presence of both Shinto and animism), who then tried to convey, as briefly as possible, not only what he was seeing but also the emotions and thoughts that were going on at the same time. It's not quite the mundanity of "Walked the dog, did the laundry" but it is in the same spirit.

It is also this trend for poetry on Twitter that has me easing off a little bit of my criticism of Twitter and other social update media (like Facebook) which, on reflection, I think are somewhat overextended, overused, and over-hyped. That's another entry, however. Or two. Yet if it can foster a resurgence in creative expression, I can't really decry it as all bad.

It's not enough to get me using Twitter again - that experiment is firmly in the "tried and died" category - but, then again, I'm not much of a short verse poet, either.

The Power of Felt and Ping Pong Balls

2010-05-18T14:02:00.000-04:00

[This was inspired by someone else's article, which, along with a film clip, can be found here: Saying Goodbye 20 Years Later You don't have to read that article first, but it provides far more historical context than I'm going to, and I think it's worth your time.]

Jim Hensen was my introduction to the idea that you didn't have to shackle your imagination. The idea that if you could dream it, and believe in it enough, you could make it real. You could turn it into something you could share with other people, even entertain them with. The idea that the stories clamoring to get out of your head had a place to go where they would be welcomed and where you could revisit them.

I don't remember how old I was when I first saw The Muppet Show. I doubt I watched it during it's initial run, given the time frame and my age, so almost certainly I saw it rerun in syndication. There were, of course, Muppets on Sesame Street, but to this day they feel slightly different than the rest of Hensen's creations. They cater to an audience that is primarily children, and in short spans at that. The average Bert and Ernie segment probably doesn't last more than five minutes at most, and even if there was a running storyline - such as the time the Count stayed over at Bert and Ernie's - it was broken up across the hour. (Such is my age that I remember when this was the format of Sesame Street, in the days before Elmo.)

Fraggle Rock was different. So was the Dark Crystal. The latter is one of the first movies I distinctly remember being in a theater for. (My mother insisted I sat rapt through Star Wars, but being about five or six at the time of the first re-release just prior to Empire, I don't really remember it.) The Dark Crystal I remember. It blew me away then, and aside from being one of my earliest movie memories, it was also my first real introduction to the fantasy realms. The Fraggles were one of the first shows I made it a point to watch, each and every week. I can still sing the theme song.

Just as importantly, these were worlds. Complete, whole, and though in the case of the Fraggles occupying a space alongside ours, they were entirely different places. (We can't eat our architecture, for example, and my trash has never spoken to me. For which I am both grateful and yet disappointed.) Here was a lesson for a young creative mind like myself. You could give free reign to your imagination, and more importantly, if you worked at it, you could see it brought to life. Labyrinth just reinforced this a little later. (While also giving me a lifelong appreciation for David Bowie, and a lifelong crush on Jennifer Connelly. But, again, another entry.)

The non-Muppet movies didn't do very well, of course, and the Fraggles eventually went into reruns themselves. By that time, I had sort of out grown them, having hit an age where the bright colors and generally upbeat messages (though at times serious) were something I was disdaining a bit. I wasn't done with all things Hensen, though, because then came the Storyteller. Like the Fraggles, this was must-see tv with me before such a phrase had been coined. And I remember the Storyteller being the first series cancellation that bothered me. This was the first series to have the plug pulled where not only did I miss it, but I wondered what idiot had made the foolish decision to yank such an incredible show off the air.

(Wasn't the last time I had that thought, just the first.)

And he was the first celebrity whose death I mourned.

Hensen's legacy lives on, of course, and the Muppets continued. Yet, to me at least, these post-Jim projects have lacked some of creative vision of the mind behind the Fraggles and the Storyteller. They have been "Muppet Treatments" of other things, and even the original storylines have not had the force of imagination, nor the completeness of story that came with Hensen's works. There have been no more worlds. (There is another Dark Crystal movie in the works, though, so we'll see.)

More so than anyone else, and as much as I can claim to have been inspired by anyone, Jim Hensen is it. (Yeah, sure, George Lucas is in there somewhere, but he's a one trick pony.) Hensen had multiple worlds in his head, and expressed them in a media that few else would have dared to. I'm sure someone, somewhere, early in his career told him there was no future in puppets, and I think on that every time I hear someone say there's no future in print, either. You can't separate them, either, as Hensen's vision and his legacy would not have been the same if he'd been a cartoonist, or just used actors. He worked in the format that called to him, making the stories that called to him, regardless of the critics, and while I have read that he took a lot of the criticism to heart, he kept at it anyway. There are lessons in that for anyone.

I said at the beginning that this entry was inspired by another article. I said you didn't have to read it. You still don't. But, if you do, I would call your attention to the video clip at the end. If there is a better way for someone of such imagination to be remembered than by being mourned and missed by his own creations, I don't know what it is.

Smells of Spring

2010-05-13T12:39:00.000-04:00

They say April showers bring May flowers. Around here, the seasons and the months aren't quite so clear cut, and this year it seems to be going backwards. We had April flowers first, and now we have May showers. Still, Spring has sprung, and aside from the usual harbringers of the season, I can tell it's here because of the way it smells.

All seasons have certain smells associated with them, of course, but I have found that Fall and Spring tend to be the two where the aroma of the season is most easily detected out of doors. The kinds of things you can have waft into your nostrils just walking around town. Winter is more indoor smells, such as fireplaces and the smells of the holidays. Summer is more localized, as for me at least nothing says Summer like the smell of the beach or the pool. In small town where I make my home, those smells aren't likely to be just wafting my way unless I hop in the car and do some driving.

Spring smells are sidewalk smells, and not really those of most flowers. There are exceptions, as some blooms are either close enough to the sidewalk or in a big enough bush that you catch them when the breeze is right, but for the most part you have to get your nose down into the flowers if you're going to smell them. (I was taken off guard by one such flower the other day, but that's another entry.)

Grass is different. Even when it isn't being mowed for the first time, the smell of it changes when it starts to grow, especially after it rains. That may sound crazy, but having lived most of my life in a place where we cycle through all four seasons, the Spring grass smells differently, even from that of a Summer lawn. It's slightly more earthy, in part I think because you also get the smell of the ground coming out from the Winter freeze. There's also the added smell from people putting down mulch and other fertilizer around their plants, which adds to it rather pleasantly, I think.

There's also something in the way the air itself smells just after a Spring shower. Rain has a scent. Yes, it's more accurate to say that the weather patterns that come before and after a rain storm alter our ability to detect certain smells... but this is one of those times where even though I'm a science geek, I'm going to take poetry over science and just say it has a scent all it's own. A thunderstorm in summer smells different, starting with the heavier ozone, and one in Fall carries different odors, too. Spring showers have a unique smell.

(Probably why shampoo manufacturers turn to that season when they market things. I have seen shampoo and body soap scents labeled "Spring Shower" but never one that said "Autumn Shower." Might also be the visual of showering in the cold as opposed to the warmer temperatures that supposedly go with Spring.)

It may also be that I am more apt to notice the smells of the outdoors in the Spring, especially when all Winter I've been most indoors. Even when I venture outdoors in the Winter, my nose is usually covered, and snow doesn't have a smell to it that I've ever noticed. Not clean snow, anyway. So Spring represents the first time the windows have been opened in months, the first time breathing outside air on a regular basis, even when inside the house. I think that circulation has as much to do with the association as anything tangible in the air. (All smells are based on particulates. It's really best if you don't think too hard about that.)

Whatever the reasons, Spring is firmly here, and aside from the dandelions and the little daisies, I intend to enjoy all the olfactory options the season has to offer.

Coming In Last

2010-05-10T17:09:00.000-04:00

I realize the Winter Olympics are long since over, but I had occasion the other day to think back to them. Specifically to the Nordic cross-country event. I think it was on the last day of the Olympics, and for a change NBC was sticking with the coverage of the event all the way through the very last competitor. (Due, in no small part, to it being the last event and therefore there was nothing else left to cover.) The leaders had long since come in, and for that matter so had most of the pack, when the last competitor came into the stadium. Dead last, way behind everyone else, and yet the moment the crowd caught sight of him they erupted, just as much as they had for the medalists.

To his credit, whoever he was, he crossed that finish line as hard as he could. He could have slacked off, knowing full well he wasn't going to catch the person in front of him. At 48th, he was so far out of contention that the leaders had their skis off. Even 47th place was waiting for him across the finish line by the time he could see it. But he went at it anyway, competing as hard as he could until the end. And while he didn't come close to medaling, I feel confident in wagering that the sound of that Olympic crowd (granted, a small one, as it was the Nordic cross country event and the last event of the last day) made his struggle worth it, and perhaps inspired him to just a little bit more speed as he crossed the line.

A lesson in perseverance, and in sportsmanship, and a little bit in the spirit of the Games which, romantic that I am, I choose to still believe exists even in these modern times of pro-athletes and big name sponsors.

As for what this has to do with writing, and why I'm bringing it up several months after the fact, the event that triggered it came with one of those little community support rallies that occurred in the online writing community I hang out in. (Link is to the left) I don't remember the exact event, only that it wasn't anything big like landing an agent, more of a small victory, and the way everyone rallied around this person and offered congratulations - like they had, in fact, landed an agent or book contract - brought the Olympics example back to the forefront of my mind.

(In complete honesty, I had jotted the skier's victory down as a potential blog entry all the way back in January. It just never materialized.)

Now, the analogy with the Olympian only goes so far. I have in other entries here decried the existence of those "cheerleaders" who cheer on everyone and everything, regardless of actual merit. As I have also mentioned before, not everyone can write, and the numbers are far less than those who persist in thinking they *can.* We'd all have been spared some really bad poetry if enough English teachers had the guts to take an aspiring poet aside and politely suggest they ought to write just for themselves. Certainly that creative writing class in college would have been a lot less painful for me. The equation may only be 10% talent, but it's an important 10%.

The Olympic skier was no Eddie the Eagle. Because of Eddie, there are certain standards you have to hit in order to compete at the Olympics. So you have to have a basic level of talent and ability in order to compete in that venue. No backyard skier is going to be getting there, let alone coming in 48th (out of 52, by the way, so not everyone finished). However, armed with those caveats, I think it's an apt analogy.

As long as you have what it takes to get there, and are willing to push for it and keep at it, you can find some measure of recognition and adulation. Not everyone gets a medal, and not everyone gets the multi-million bestseller book deal, but that doesn't mean you can't celebrate the small victories you do achieve.

The Case for a Reread

2010-05-08T11:21:00.000-04:00

When I moved a little over a year ago, one of the challenges I didn't face was what to do with all my books. This had been an issue in moves past, but this time around it was much less so, because a few months prior I had finally given away a lot of the books on my shelves. I donated them to a library, and this was done to get the boxes out of my closet. At one point they had all been on shelves, but I had simply run out of room.

I also realized I was probably not going to get around to rereading most of them. Not because they weren't good books, because they were, but simply because they weren't really books I was going to re-read anytime soon. Eventually, yes, but in the meantime they were taking up space, and with a few exceptions when the time comes I'm sure I can find them in a library or used book store all over again.

I did hold on to my collection of Stephen King books, but I confess that at one point I belonged to that "King book of the month" thing. Not quite as bad as some other things I could confess to, sure, but I still feel a little foolish about it. Most of those I won't reread any time soon either, but there are two exceptions.

That there are only two is not a reflection on my fondness for the author. Truth is, most of the things I read get read once and then shelved. Part of that is just that I remember the plot for them, and so I won't get more than thirty pages in before everything clicks into place. With the mysteries I like to read, that takes away some of the joy. (I say this as someone who skips ahead to the end of the book, but that's different.) Part of it is just sheer voraciousness on my part, reading lots of different genres and authors and subjects.

Which means that I have no shortage of new books to read. So why go back at all, then, to something I've already read?

The short answer is that some books are just so complex, they require a reread. This is why 'The Stand" is on my list of books to go through again this summer. It's been far too many years since I read it last, and I think this is the summer to amend that. It's also why every few years or so I drag Tolkien, or Herbert, back off my shelves (or the library shelves) and read through stories I am quite familiar with already.

That familiarity is also a part of it. While reading new books by favorite authors reunites me with their voice and mannerisms, it's not quite the same as stepping back into a favorite story by a favorite author. The first is like reconnecting with an old friend, the second is like reconnecting with an old friend in the places you used to hang out, sort of recapturing the past. Of course, it's never quite the same because you're in a different place than you were then (which is why nostalgia only goes so far), but it's close enough to provide a certain kind of pleasure you just can't get anywhere else.

Which is why some books will always be on my reading list, no matter how many times I've been through them. Sure, I'll continue to read new things, yet it's comforting to know that, should I ever come up empty at the local library - only because my local branch is quite small - there's something waiting for me at home.

Wait, That's Not My Voice

2010-04-17T10:32:00.000-04:00

Every once in a while I will go an author spree, usually with an author I have either just discovered or perhaps rediscovered. This is when a trip to the library finds me coming home with several titles, all by the same writer. (Used to be the bookstore before the economy tanked.) It doesn't have to be that the writer uses the same characters, as I've been known to do this with author's who invent new characters and stories every time out.

When I get deep into an author like that, I find I have to watch myself when I write, otherwise something I think of as "authorial voice creep" comes over my work. This is when, even though by now I have well-established my own voice in my work, the words I'm putting down on the page start to sound more like someone else. Specifically, whichever writer I'm currently reading.

It's not always a question of just voice, either. It may also be style. I may find myself writing more lyrical descriptions than is normal for me. Or writing more descriptions, period. Or I may suddenly find all my characters have taken on a philosophical tone to their conversations, where beforehand they spoke in sentences that were short and to the point. Sometimes this is even a conscious effort on my part. I learned much of what I know about dialog from reading Robert Parker, and I can see that influence in more than a few - though not all - of my characters.

There have been times, however, when I look down at the page I've just written and realize to my chagrin that instead of it sounding like me, it sounds like someone else. I did this once with Mark Twain. Now, Twain's not a bad voice to emulate, but his voice isn't my voice, and attempting to copy him is not something I'd recommend for anyone. I've also done it when I've been reading poetry. For a while, some of what I wrote had a very James Dickey quality to it. Until I went back and edited it so it sounded like me again.

It's not a conscious effort on my part. I'm not trying to emulate these people, I just am. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery (a dictum television and film clearly take to heart and beyond... but that's another entry entirely) and in a way I suppose it's a reflection of my enjoying the voice of the author. On the other hand, some of it's just what happens with any immersion, which is why if you live some place long enough you eventually pick up the local accent.

Unless you're my freshman calculus teacher who had an incurably bad French accent. Not that her French was bad, just that her accent was tougher than day old French bread.

So I wonder, does anyone else do this, and does it ever stop?

Writing Longhand

2010-04-14T09:13:00.000-04:00

I am a byproduct of modern technology. Without it, while I'm pretty sure I'd still be a writer, I have my doubts about whether it would ever go anywhere. I know there are plenty of people out there who could and do get by without a laptop or word processing software when they are writing, but I could never be one of them. They have my utmost admiration, as I think it takes real dedication, but writing a story or a novel long hand is something I don't think I could ever do.

Mainly because I can't read my own handwriting.

This little foible of mine was brought to mind because of something I jotted down in my notebook. An idea, for a blog post, that, well.... I have no idea why I wrote it. I can read this particular note, I just don't know what it means and whatever idea it was meant to jar loose has faded so far into the background as to be irretrievable at the moment. There have been instances where I have been unable to read my writing, however, so it's a very real and tangible problem.

On the one hand, I think I'm missing out on something. I have written a short story or two longhand, or at least written long extensive notes for them, and so I understand the appeal of sitting down with nothing more than pen and paper and seeing what comes out. As I recall, Stephen King wrote one of his more recent works that way, purely as an experiment. I don't think he's stuck with it over the course of successive novels, but the impulse was there, and he went with it. As near as I could tell, it didn't make any difference in the final story. Perhaps it mattered more in the creation of it, though if so then King didn't expound on that.

I am in awe of him and the other, less famous (for now) writers I know who do this. Some of them write consistently in longhand first for their rough drafts, only committing it to type in the rewrite and edit phase. Aside from my issues with legibility, I don't think I'd have the patience to write an entire book twice to get it down in a more permanent and marketable medium. It's an extra step I just don't think I'd be willing to take.

Mind you, without the computer I'd rely on a typewriter, so it's not as if my writing aspirations couldn't materialize before the late 80's (though my spelling would suffer tremendously without those little red squiggly lines to help guide me). Yet Dickens, Shakespeare, Poe, any of those went about their craft without aid of anything more then pen and paper. They didn't even have ball points. It doesn't necessarily add anything to their work in terms of its literary value – Shakespeare would still be Shakespeare had he written on a Mac – yet for me it does add to the respect I have for their accomplishments.

Perhaps the final reason for me to eschew writing it all out by hand is that there's no need. Unlike a typewriter or a desktop computer, I work from a machine that is designed to be portable. If I want to go write outside on my deck, or at the park, or anyplace else, I am limited only by my battery life. Which in my case is sufficient to get me through a few thousand words before I have to quit. Moreover, I don't need a table, I can put it... well, in my lap. Hence the name. With pen and paper I would at least need a notebook with a solid back, and I can carry my laptop just as easily (though admittedly not as lightly).

So I raise my coffee cup to those of you who can do this, knowing full well I shall never join your ranks.

And if anyone wants to take a look at my notes and see if they can help me decipher them, I'm accepting volunteers.

De-Twitting

2010-04-12T15:51:00.000-04:00

I am officially getting old. Technology has finally come up with something that, like my grandparents and the VCR, I just don't get. Now, mind you, I am not as digitally attuned as I could be in the first place. I don't have a cell phone. I don't have an iPod or any other mp3 player. I don't have a flatscreen television. The only reason I have a DVR is because it came with my satellite dish. However, those are all things I would have if I had the wherewithal to purchase them. It's not lack of will, it's lack of funds.

Twitter, on the other hand...

Well, I tried. I really did. On the advice of someone I trust, I thought I'd give it a go. I confess as social marketing I wasn't on it long enough for it to go anywhere, but I was on it long enough to see that, while it had its uses for me, it was going to be frustrating and confusing. Those two characteristics are the death knell for any technology in my life.

In terms of use, it became a good way to keep track of my writing, in terms of what I was getting done each day. This, in turn, helped me stay on track and keep with my goals. It also made adding up my word count much easier. I suspect, eventually, it might have become a good way to make various announcements to my adoring public. (Hey, it could happen.) Then Twitter went and ate some of my posts. It didn't eat them completely, but they vanished off the page with just my updates on it.

Which became a problem when I started trying to follow other people. Because then on my home page, I had to scrawl and scrawl to find my own posts. So instead of helping me keep track of my word counts, it was eating my posts (or should that be twits?) and actually increasing the amount of work I had to do in the one area I thought I had found a use for it.

My only solution to this would seem to be not to follow anyone. Which there were two problems with. One, there are some people I wouldn't mind genuinely following, and knowing what was going on. However, I discovered choosing wisely could be difficult. Get someone who updates only a little, and it doesn't clutter things up. Get someone who tweets everything... and suddenly your home page is drowning. Not to mention it starts to feel a little voyeuristic, and not in a good way. I really don't need to know everything some people seem to feel compelled to tweet about.

(One of these was one of my favorite authors, who, if you ask me, could spend less time writing twits and more time writing his next book. Which I'm still waiting for.)

The second problem with this became apparent once other people started following me. I was raised with a certain ethical/moral code that say, if they extend this courtesy to me, I ought to do it to them. Only, this got me back to the first problem. I don't really want to follow all these people, and besides, it started to feel more like a numbers game than anything else. I abhor popularity contests of any kind, always have. (Yes, yes, childhood issues.)

So when those two things combined with the sudden decline in usefulness that occurred when my posts disappeared... I decided I'd had enough. Maybe, given enough time, I could manage it better and learn how to do so. For right now, I'll stick with the resources I have. I can keep track of my word counts the old fashioned way, and anything I really have to say will go here.

Besides, I tend to get wordy, and 140 characters isn't a lot.

The Joys of Research

2010-03-22T09:00:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I had to do anything resembling serious research for a book or story. Much of what I write leans heavily enough towards science fiction and fantasy that I can, in the main, get away with maintaining an idea file as opposed to having to do any actual research. Years ago - by which I mean decades - when I first started my idea file it was little more than clippings from the pages of Popular Mechanics. They had a section in the front that was all about upcoming future tech, and I found it inspiring enough to clip them and save them. I have no idea where that folder disappeared to over the years, but that was my first effort at keeping ideas from outside sources together in one spot.

In the intervening years, the internet has made it a little easier. I have a folder of bookmarked stories and reference web sites that contain items I might one day use, or have an ongoing need for (such as a story done by the Boston Globe on the future skyline of Boston). Most of those, however, are reference materials. The kind of thing I consult when I need to verify something, or have to put a little dose of realism into something.

For the current project, however, I'm back to actual research. This is a warm-up for the next project, I think, which will require much more hard research and possibly note-taking. That's the next one. For this one, I'm essentially browsing through a number of resources, tracking down ideas and concepts while I play around with various plot elements and characters. I'm looking for things off the beaten track, too, which makes it a bit more interesting (and also challenging).

In some ways, the internet makes this a lot easier. I am in need of monsters, and a quick Google search for "monster encyclopedia" netted me a number of places to start. All neatly categorized and organized alphabetically, too. This makes it nice when I have a rough idea of what I'm looking for, but there are drawbacks. I have books on my shelves that are the print equivalent of a lot of these internet sources (if not quite so complete and thorough) and what I find useful about them is being able to grab one and sit down with it over lunch, browsing through the pages to see what catches my fancy.

It's also easier to set a book aside on the desk, and write something with it open. For some reason switching back and forth between program windows just doesn't flow as smoothly for me, and something always suffers in the process.

Then, of course, there is the siren call of all those linked items in an article. It's far too easy for me to go wandering down the digital rabbit hole chasing link after link. In a book this is much less of a danger, in part because it means flipping back and forth, and in part because I have noticed that in books they are more likely to offer a brief explanation. On the web, the tendency is just to provide a link, and assume people will click it if they want to know more. Which, of course, I do, and hence the passage of hours before I realize just how much time I've spent.

However, while that doesn't help my productivity, it does satisfy my curiosity and desire to learn. Sure, it adds to the already massive library of useless and random items stored in my head (picture that warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, only bigger. Much bigger.) but I operate on the philosophy that, as a writer, I never know when one of those little nuggets might come in handy. Details count, after all, and even if something doesn't become a major plot point, being able to flesh out the small stuff makes the big stuff better.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have more research to do.

Deja Vu All Over Again

2010-03-18T16:38:00.000-04:00

During my trip to the library this week I was perusing the limited selection they have (it's a small town library, and I wasn't up to making the trip to the nearest large library this week) and found myself reaching for a book by one of the authors I read. Only, I was pretty sure I'd already read this one, which is why I hadn't picked it up the last time I saw it. I read the inside cover... and it seemed familiar, but the first few pages did not.

I am now convinced I haven't read it, mainly because a quick perusal of pages in the back revealed a scene with a bulldozer, which I know for a fact I have not read before. It did leave me wondering why it was I was so convinced that I had read it, though, and I think I've come up with the answer.

Or at least what I hope is the answer, because the alternative is that I'm reading books and forgetting that I've read them. (Some of you may be thinking to yourselves, "That'd be great!" because you could go back and rediscover old favorites. I am inclined to think this would not be great. After all, how else would I know to skip all those chapters on cetology in Moby Dick?)

One of the drawbacks to getting books from the library is that, unlike a trip to the bookstore, I can't stock up. I know about how many books and by what authors I can read through in the alloted time, so I generally don't have to renew them. But this means that in any given trip, I have to make choices. Which means I may pick up a book, read the inside cover - which I do even when I know the author and have a good idea what the book will be about - and then opt not to get it that trip because another book/author does a better job of capturing my fancy for that trip.

Which leaves me in the position of sometimes having picked up the same book, and read the same jacket copy, multiple times. Creating the impression that I've read the book, when in fact I haven't read anything more than the inside covers. I'm not sure if this says something about my mental acuity, or the art of writing good jacket copy, or just that the passing of time is catching up with my brain. But it was good to solve this little mystery.

Even if it still leaves me with that nagging feeling that I've done it all before.

Somethings Just Don't Work in Translation

2010-03-16T11:42:00.000-04:00

If you've been reading steadily here - which would be difficult to do as I've not been posting steadily by any means - but if you have you'll probably have noticed I have a slight affinity for comic books. (Or "graphic novels" if we want to sound more adult about them. But there's a distinction between the two, and I'm not going to indulge my inner geek in that debate. Not in this post, anyway.) I am also a fan of Stephen King and a few other authors, who have recently found themselves translated into the more visual medium of comic panels.

Not always successfully.

Sometimes this is simply a question of the visuals presented on the page not working as well as the ones in my head. Movies are subject to this as well, and I could list a few that failed to live up. (So too television shows - I like Joe Mantegna as an actor, but he was just not Robert Parker's Spenser in those A&E movies. Robert Urich is a different story.) I recently picked up a comic version of one of my favorite King short stories, N., which is a somewhat Lovecraftian homage that was for me genuinely creepy. Some of that was simply having come upon empty country fields - none with odd stone circles, thankfully - when I've been out and about, and appreciating the sometimes inherently spooky quality those places have.

The comic didn't convey that same atmosphere, and it was simply a clash between what I had in my head for the story, and what the artist put on the page. Sometimes the imagination works better when it has less to go on, even a normally visually-oriented imagination like mine. The stone circle on the page, and the field, and everything else, just didn't match up what was in my head, and the result lost all of the creepiness I'd felt reading the short story.

Other times they can be a disappointment because they simply rehash old material. Another series given the comic treatment was King's Dark Tower books. I was at first ecstatic, because here was a world where I thought there should be lots of potential. King wouldn't be writing them, but he had signed off on them, and here was a chance to learn more about that world. Alas, they lost me after the first two issues, in part because rather than do something brand new, they started by retelling a story already told in the books (specifically the events of Wizard and Glass) and so they lost the advantage of starting fresh.

The logistics behind that decision have become apparent now that they've moved on to their next installment in the DT comic series, which is a brand new story, the events of which were set in motion by the events in W&G. So if you were a new reader, you need to read W&G first, but... I wasn't. As I suspect a lot of fans out there were not. And I also suspect I was not the only one disappointed by the retread.

(I have not, as yet, picked up the new DT comic series, though it's on the list of things to get around to reading.)

There might also be retreads that I might actually want to read, were it not for the sloppy artwork. Marvel is retelling the early Anita Blake stories in comic form, and I was looking forward to rereading those in that form, until I realized all the characters in the comic looked almost exactly alike. It was nigh impossible to tell who was who, aside from the lead heroine. Which is a drawback to any medium that relies on the visuals - if they're not of the same caliber as the story, it's going to detract from the end result. (Vice versa, too, of course.)

There are also those comics that were really good, and innovative, even though they were based on source material from movies or films.... that then got trashed and made irrelevant by the continuation of the movies or television series. The Star Wars comics come to mind, and that's a whole other series of rantings from me, especially in the wake of the last set of movies. This particular gripe is also why I generally don't read any of the fiction set in any of the sci-fi universes (Star Wars/Trek in particular). The movies or television shows are regarded as canon, and it's too easy to follow a certain set of events only to find out they "didn't happen." This takes some of the joy out of it for me.

None of which means I'm going to stop reading comics, as even those based on original stories can be just as disappointing. (Yes, yet another rant there. Especially regarding my beloved Spider-Man.) It just means I have to learn to temper my hopes sometimes, and realize that for some stories, I'm going to be better off with the original.

The Guilt of Putting It Down

2010-03-15T14:42:00.000-04:00

I have no problems turning off a bad tv show. Or changing the channel on a boring movie. I've started to listen to an album only to realize there's only one decent song on it, and switched to something else. All of which I do without remorse. Books are another story. For some reason, putting down a bad book is hard to do.

Putting down a mediocre book is almost impossible.

I'm not sure why I feel guilty about not finishing a book, about taking the bookmark out when it's only half completed it's march to the last page. It seems to be much stronger when it's a book from the library. (Certainly there were books I was assigned to read that I put down without compunction, nevermore to pick them up again nor feel a twinge of regret for having done so. Even so, those were few and far between.) I think part of it is the idea that I picked this, I chose this particular book, so I owe it to myself to validate that selection by reading through it.

Sometimes I think it's a question of just the wrong book at the wrong time. There have been one or two books where the first time I checked them out I wound up returning them unfinished, only to get them again some time later and take them to completion. I don't often give books second chances. Usually it's only when I know it wasn't the fault of the story, or when it's a particular author whom I'm trying to give another redemptive shot to. In part this comes with the recognition that once I've put a book down from an author, I'm much less likely to get another one from them. (This has kept me reading authors who have long since managed to lose their spot on my "must read" list, by sheer hope that someday they'll pen something to find their way back onto that list.)

So I know, when I put a book down without finishing it, that author just got a black mark from me, and the odds of my getting another book from them have dwindled significantly. This means it is a major undertaking, a severing of either a well-established relationship, or the ending of what might have been a promising long term endeavor. I don't set a book down without consequences, and as a reader I tend not to be very forgiving.

Some of the guilt is also tied up with other people's expectations, especially if it's a story I'd heard good things about. Then it becomes a question of, everyone else loved this. I don't. Ergo there is something wrong with me, as a reader, that I don't get how awesome this is. It's not really a valid argument, I know, and speaks more of my own insecurities than anything else, but hey, we all have our neurotic ticks. This just happens to be one of mine.

Sometimes it's simply the reluctance to abandon a project once it's started, and often for reasons that make up only part of the whole. I'm finding myself struggling through Under the Dome right now, for example, because I absolutely cannot stand one of the major characters. I just want someone to put a bullet through his head, and suspect instead I am stuck with him for the next thousand pages or so. Abandoning the book now just because of one character feels slightly treasonous. Yet I have a hunch I may do so, and know also I'll check it back out again eventually.

Only to perhaps feel guilty all over again if I put it down a second time.

The Slog

2010-03-12T11:02:00.000-05:00

There are times when, even though you know you need to do it, even though you know you're going to do it, you still don't want to do it. You might be tempted, as I am frequently, to simply not do it and be done with it, but then you get to thinking about it, and you know what happens if you procrastinate, and put it off, and eventually you're just not doing it, and that makes it twice as hard to get back into the habit of doing it in the first place.

"It" can be lots of things, but it applies to anything you should be doing on a regular basis, from exercise to writing. In my case I've been doing pretty good at both, but this isn't about those times when you just sit down at the keyboard and the words flow, or you hit the gym or the pool and before you know it your workout is done. No, this is about those other times. When, yeah, you're going to do it, but it's going to be an uphill battle all the way. A long, long, long uphill battle. Like trying to roll a marble uphill by blowing through a straw.

These are the times I think of as the slog. (No, I didn't make that up. It's a real word, I swear, you can go look it up and everything. Go on, I'll wait. ... See? Told you.) Slogging does imply progress, of course, so it far beats not doing it at all. But it takes a fair amount of discipline to get through it, or even to just get started. Especially when you have distractions calling you. Not just calling you but enticing you, reminding you that you could be doing something else that will not require slogging. Like watching television. Or reading a book.

Although there have been some books where I could make a counter-argument to that, but that's another post.

This voice is especially tempting when you know, you just know, that no matter what you do you're not going to get into the rhythm of it. The slog is not one of those things that you shake off in the first ten minutes of your workout, or with the first 200 words on your daily wordcount. No, the slog will slap leg chains and iron balls around your ankles and drag you back every single step of the way. There will be no shaking it, and the last ten minutes or hundred words are going to be just as much of a struggle. There is no groove to find, no zone, no flow. Just the slog.

I suppose this is one of those things where having set goals comes in handy. If you're workout is only so long, you can set the clock, and watch the seconds tick slowly, inexorably by, tick by tick, until at least you can hop down off the treadmill or the stationery bike or whatever. With words, you just keep checking until you get there. If you go by page counts you can probably hedge some if you write dialog like I do, which means sparsely yet able to take up half the page in a heartbeat, but at least you're meeting a goal. Even if you have to trudge and plod and hack away to get there.

There is a reward at the end of the slog, but it rarely feels like it. This is the other factor to this in that, even when you're done, it still feels much the same as when you started. Yeah, you burned some calories, you wrote some words (or paid bills, or cooked dinner, or ran errands, or whatever it happened to be) and you know, intellectually, that you accomplished something. But it tends to lack that satisfying "hurrah!" moment that you might get from overcoming adversity under normal circumstances, those days when you start slow but then it's flying and you feel great afterwards.

No, the only cure for the slog is to just get through it, and then press on to another day. I take comfort in knowing that while the immediate after effects aren't any different, if I get through it the first day without giving up or procrastinating, I'm much more likely to do better the next day. The slog rarely strikes two days in a row. (That would be it's slightly more evil sister, the blahs.) The trick is to step up, or sit down, and just get it done, no matter how hard it feels or how long it seems to take.

And then do it the next day, and the day after that. Because eventually, that way lies real progress, and meeting long-term goals can do an awful lot to help overcome the slog the next time it strikes.

No Sparkles, Just Very Long Ears

2010-02-24T09:37:00.000-05:00

A random comment made by a friend the other day brought to mind a book I hadn't thought of in ages, which was a shame because the more I thought on it, the more it occurred to me just how influential this book was in shaping my own writing. Which seems an odd thing to say, given that the subject of the book is a vampire rabbit.

Yes, you read that correctly. And those of you who knew you read that correctly are probably doing what I did the other day when the book came to mind, that is to say jumping up and down and squealing with delight while saying "Bunnicula!" way too loud so that the entire room turns and looks at you as though you've suddenly sprouted fuzzy ears and fangs yourself.

Okay, maybe that was just my experience.

For those of you who have not read it or heard of it - and I suspect there are many more of you in that category than in the squealing with delight one – the plot is simple. It's a children's book, one of those early chapter books that I think is too young to qualify as YA but older than picture books. The tale is told by the family dog, Harold, and there's a family cat, Chester (I think), and into this happy household comes a bunny. A white bunny with a peculiar black patch on it's back that looks a lot like a cape. A bunny who sleeps most of the day. Add to that the sudden appearance of vegetables drained white, and you have the makings of a vampire bunny.

Or so the cat believes. The dog is less convinced, and despite there being three books in the series, I don't think it's ever completely stated one way or another that Bunnicula is, in fact, a vampire bunny. (Unlike in the ABC Saturday morning cartoon movie which is where I first learned of Bunnicula. That ends with a very definitive answer to the question.) This does not stop the cat from attempting to remove the "evil" influence from the house.

As you might expect, there's a lot of humor in the book. The horror aspect is limited to the potential for zombie vegetables (expressly stated in the title of the third book, "The Celery Stalks at Midnight") and the general air of paranoia as expressed by the cat. I'm not sure why anyone would ever find the idea of a vampire bunny threatening, especially as all the victims seem to be vegetables, but that doesn't stop Chester from trying to "steak" the bunny through the heart with a side of beef.

The vegetables are put down with toothpicks, lest they, too, rise from the compost heap.

Now, what does something I read when I was back in the fifth grade, possibly earlier, have to do with what I write now? Well, as I said this was my first "horror" book. Most of the rest of what I read at the time was either fantasy or sci-fi, and it would be years before I picked up my first Stephen King, despite my peers reading him early on. (My first King was "The Stand" when it came out unabridged, but that's another entry.) Most of my attempts to write horror fall much more in line with the image of toothpicked vegetables than people having their body parts removed. I also seem to be more or less unable to write anything straight. Eventually, somewhere, somehow, a wisecrack remark will work it's way into my fiction.

In my life, to the best of my knowledge, I've only ever written one thing that actually creeped someone out. Everything else has been somewhat tongue in cheek, and not the zombie kind of tongue in cheek. I won't make the case that this was the only influence on the way I write, as there were other things. Nor will I say that much of what I write also has to do with where my own talents and authorial voice just naturally lend themselves. I cannot, for example, write Tolkien-esque fantasy. I tried, once. Once was enough.

It was, however, something that stuck with me, even if I didn't always consciously remember it. For that I am grateful, and I think my next trip to the library may have me wandering the children's section. I could do with a re-read of my favorite fuzzy vampire.

Snow Angels

2010-02-23T00:00:00.001-05:00

There are some things you should just never outgrow. Enjoying yourself in the snow is one of them. Mind you, I am aware that as I get older the onset of winter isn't quite filled with all the joy it used to carry when I was a child. For starters, I have to drive in it now. I also have to contend with heating bills, shoveling the walk and the driveway, and other related chores that go a long way towards making me more likely to swear at those first flakes than to rush out and catch them on my tongue.

That said, there are certain things that go with the season that help me maintain some of the childhood fascination. There is of course Christmas, but as that is now long past and winter's not yet over - no matter what the groundhog says, it's always six more weeks at least – I have to look for joy elsewhere.

One of those is something I rediscovered only last year. Now, I've made at least one snow man every year for the past four years, ever since my little one was old enough to walk out into the snow. And while I've yet to achieve a Calvin and Hobbes level of sophistication and perfection in my snowmen, there's still something to be said for being able to stand back and admire your handiwork. If I don't put my back out trying to lift the middle section into place.

Snow angels, on the other hand, weren't something I hadn't attempted for probably decades. You reach a certain age and suddenly flopping around on your back in the snow doesn't seem like the cool and awesome idea it was when you were six. Probably right around the time wearing a hat in the winter seems to much of a trade-off between being cool and being warm.

For some reason though, maybe having to do with the transcendent levels of joy it seemed to bring my little one and her cousins, I gave it a go last year. After making sure the snow was properly white (we were on a farm, after all) I flopped back, waved my arms and legs, and stared up into the falling snow.

There was no choir of angels, no revelations from above, and I got snow on my glasses.... yet... there was something quietly Zen about the whole experience. I'm not saying it ranks up there with rock gardens and tea ceremonies, but it was calming and rather peaceful. (Until my daughter launched herself onto my midsection.)

I think it has as much to do with the perspective you get as it does the quieting effects of all that snow and garb. Having a hat pulled down over your ears drowns things out, and for a brief moment you're left with nothing but you're contemplation of the open sky - and a couple of trees - way up above you. On a clear day it almost feels like you could fall into it.

Like all such moments it's fleeting, and eventually you have to get up. I suppose I could just lie back in the snow and not make a snow angel at all, yet like the tea ceremony there is something inherent in the process that makes it an important part of the experience, not just the end results. So I'll flail my arms and legs, and try and get up without making a mess of the pattern, and then stand back and contemplate my snow angel.

Then hold onto that memory until the time comes to do it again.

A Field Guide to Your Common Critiquers

2010-02-19T10:40:00.000-05:00

In a discussion with a fellow writer, the merits of letting other people read your work came up in conversation. I don't recall there being betas (or alphas) when I wrote my first book, though there was no internet or online writer's forums either. The most you had was your local writer's group, if you had one, and of course any of your friends and family that you could foist your work on. I got really lucky in that I was able to work with someone to help improve what little craft I had at that age, but otherwise there were few places to go for that outside perspective that is, let's face it, rather useful when you're trying to evaluate your own work.

However, not all critiques are created equal, and it can be a daunting task for the novice trying to sort out all the different opinions they might get from varying people. So as a public service, I present the following guide. (Doing the "Attenborough voice" in your head while reading is optional.)

~~~

Critiquous Pollyannaish - This well-meaning species is often the least helpful, because no matter how bad the drivel you write is, these people are still going to tell you they think it's a wonderful story. Or idea. Or character. These are the cheerleaders, which it should be pointed out that even really bad teams have. Sometimes they will be right, of course, but all too often they tend to foster the continuing exploits of bad writers. Often because they themselves can't write their way out of a paper bag, and live in dread of someone forcing them to face the truth. Unwilling to do so with their own work, they gladly help others persist in their own states of delusion.

These are probably the people who thought a story about sparkly vampires that had no real plot was a good idea, so as much as it might be desirous to do so, their opinions can't always be discounted.

Critiquous Pretentious - This species is good to consult only if you're interested in writing something Literary. With a capital "L." And possibly italics. Otherwise anything you write will be seen as drivel, catering to the masses, hopelessly commercial, and lacking in any sort of real value. These are the people who keep insisting popular authors are just hacks, no matter how many awards those hacks win. Selling books doesn't count, unless you're on the New York Times Bestseller list, preferably in any category other than popular fiction. Often former English majors.

Critiquous Green-eyed Monstrous - This species can be difficult to spot, as they often masquerade as one of the other species on this list. They can be identified most often not by their actual critiques, but by the snide commentary they are often fond of offering up unasked for and free of charge. Such commentary may include remarks disparaging what you write, how you write, or even that you write at all. Usually stemming from the deep-seated and possibly sub-conscious jealousy that they themselves have no creative talent at all and are stuck in a dead-end career they absolutely hate whereas you are doing something you enjoy. Even if you're stuck in a dead-end career to pay the bills while you do it.

When they do read your work, they may offer damning praise along the lines of "That was much better than I would have expected."

This naturalist is not entirely convinced that c. pretentious is not, in fact, a subspecies of c. green eyed monstrous, if only because the arguments from that species so often center around the tenet that if it sells well and makes the author boatloads of cash, it obviously can't have any literary merit.

Critiquous Familial (also sometimes found alongside critiquous amicus and/or amorous) - Friends, family, lovers, they may all want to read your stories. Tread carefully around this species, as they can exhibit traits from all the other species, and even the most well-meaning members may not be of much help. Especial care should be taken with amicus and amorous that the end critique doesn't end the relationship with unwittingly harsh comments such as, "This was a great parody," when, in fact, it was not meant to be.

Critiquous Honestus - Often the hardest species to find, these are the ones that tell you, in no uncertain terms, the merits and pitfalls of your current work. Recognized most often by their willingness to explain their critiques and have you bounce ideas off of them in order to address the issues they find at fault. Considered the most valuable of the species because once you find one, if they tell you something's good it generally is. Somewhat perversely, they are often the species least likely to be believed by many struggling authors still dealing with nagging self-doubts.

Critiquous Professional - An elusive species, especially for the fledgling writer, and one that can wound even the most seasoned veteran without the proper approach. Often seen as a harbinger that the author has "made it" to a certain level - even if the end critique is somewhat scathing. One positive remark from this species can, if well-timed, make even the most denigrating comment from any of the other species fade into obscurity.

~~~

This is not meant to be a comprehensive guide, by any means, as there are numerous sub-species lurking out there in the vast literary wilds, but I hope it has provided some guidance for determining which species you're dealing with in your own habitat.

When Tragic is Better

2010-02-18T11:48:00.000-05:00

I'm normally all for a happy ending. This does not mean I necessarily want everything to work out for the "happy ever after." Given my preferred genres for writing - namely sci-fi and horror - I am all too aware that sometimes what you're left with is the "happiest possible ending." Let's face it, at the end of an apocalyptic film, it's still the end of the world. Mad Max does not get to settle down someplace with a wife and kids. The world still sucks. Sometimes that's all implied, especially in a horror film. Yeah, you've survived, but you've also watched several people get whacked. Usually in horrible fashion. So there's going to be a bit of mental trauma, I think.

But on the whole, especially with movies, I prefer not to have things end on too down a note. This is why I eschew a lot of foreign cinema. Everything I know about Chinese cinema can be summed up as follows:

The girl dies.
The boy dies.
The girl goes crazy.
The boy goes crazy.
The girl goes crazy and then dies.
The boy goes crazy and then dies.
They both go crazy and/or die.

Which, seeing how most of the movies I watched to determine that formula were either two hours or longer, seems a bit more of my life than I want to invest in being depressed. If I'm going to sit down and give up two or three hours of my life, I'd like it to end on a good note.

Which does not always me everyone walks away in the end. Sometimes the tragic ending is the better ending.

And fair warning, there are spoilers below.

Take 1408, for example, which is based on one of King's best short stories (in this humble reader's opinion, anyway). In the original story - this is the spoiler part, so consider yourself forewarned and stop here if you don't want to know - the ghost hunter protagonist does not make it out of the hotel room alive. I can't remember off the top of my head if we learn exactly how he dies, only that he is, in fact, claimed by the room.

In the film, he gets out. He "beats" the room, so to speak, and survives his ordeal, reconciles with the important people in his life, and everything goes on, with our hero in theory a better person. Which was fine, I didn't mind that, only there was an alternative ending, a tragic ending, in which he still "beats" the room only he doesn't get out. Instead he dies, but he takes the room with him.

Now, aside from giving Samuel L Jackson more screen time, which as a general rule I am always in favor of, I thought the tragic ending had more weight to it. Aside from reuniting our character with his dead daughter - as having her taken from him twice was a particularly cruel touch and the kind of thing that even if you survive it will truly mess with your head - it seemed more fitting with the overall tone of the movie.

(I suspect the ending was changed for much the same reason that I Am Legend and The Forgotten went with the weaker ending - it tested better. )

There are some other instances I could think of if I put my mind to it where, for whatever reason, the ending needs that little bit of tragic element to it to make it work. It's not the same thing as a tragedy where everyone dies, like Hamlet (and if that was a spoiler than you need to write a letter of apology to your high school English teacher), it's just tragic in one fashion or another. These are also often the more realistic endings, I think, the ones that more often make sense within the framework of the given story and are less likely to feel merely tacked on at the end.

Sometimes that happy ending just doesn't feel right.

Where's My Flashback?

2010-02-17T17:22:00.000-05:00

They say during certain moments your life flashes before your eyes. There are presumably moments when you know or think you're going to die. It's a cliche at this point, one used and abused and occasionally handled with a deft touch and a hint of humor. (The current Burger King commercial with the chicken sandwich is not such an example. The one line that commented that, even in those last moments, "A.I. still felt too long" was such an example. Only wish I could remember where that came from.)

It's also completely untrue, at least in my own personal experience. Mostly what happens at those moments when things go completely sideways (literally, but I'll get to that) is that the adrenalin in your body shuts down everything but your focus on the moment and trying to get through it. Your brain, I suspect, does not want to be diverted from it's task of trying to save your ass just to take a nostalgic trip down memory lane.

Afterwards you might have cause to reflect on your life and the choices that you've made, perhaps in that moment when you're waiting for the ambulance, or if you're more fortunate just counting your blessings that you've come through the whole thing intact. But during? Nope, not so far, not for me anyway.

I had cause to put this to the test the other day when I lost control of my car. This makes two winters in a row, and I suspect it's due as much to my being out of practice driving in the snow and ice as it does to local conditions. I am not looking for the hat trick next year, so I'll have to see what all can be done about that, but this time around was far less scary than the first time. This time it was just my little coupe, and even though it was on a bridge over an icy creek, the bridge was solid concrete and I never once considered the car was going over the edge. As it turned out I was supremely lucky, the air bags didn't go off, and the damage to my car, while not cheap, is relatively minor.

At no point did I flash back to that fourth grade play where I had to dress up like a leprechaun. That got played on local access over and over and over again, and earned me an unfortunate nickname from one of my friend's parents which I have as yet to live down. You'd think that would have made a sufficient impression to flash by at least once.

All I was thinking was first, trying to steer my way out of it, and then second, when it became obvious that wasn't going to happen, going with the flow. I might have been praying, but if so it wasn't conscious. There is a second trope of hyper-awareness during events like this, and that one I will confirm. I remember every second of it vividly.

As I do for the accident last year, which in terms of just how badly it frightened me beat this week's accident hands down. Last year was in an SUV that I was unused to driving, and I ended up off the road with snow coming up and over the hood. That one scared me, and remains the longest ten seconds of my life. I doubt it was actually ten seconds, it was honestly more like a couple of seconds between the time I felt the back end go and when we plowed sideways into the snowbank on the far side of the road. But it'll always be ten seconds because that's the most my brain is willing to reduce it to. I suspect if it was up to my subjective experiences, the whole ordeal took minutes.

And again, in that space, there was no life flashing before my eyes. Just a whole lot of adrenalin that took me nearly an hour to fully come down from. After which I went to church, which is where I had been headed in the first place. I missed most of it, but that didn't really matter.

Now, perhaps, neither one of these was serious enough to qualify for having my life flash before my eyes. I wasn't worried about dying this week on the bridge. A year ago... that's another story. I didn't have time to think about it during the actual event, which I suspect might be key to this. If I was skydiving and my chute failed, and I had a minute or two to ponder such things, then perhaps my brain would conjure up images from my life. Hopefully not that fourth grade play, though.

I suspect, however, that it is nothing more than a convenient literary device which does not apply to the real world. Like being blown back by the force of being shot, or sound in space. Things that make for good fiction, if not for real life.

All things being equal, however, I'd just as soon not put it to the test again.

Housecleaning

2010-02-15T11:22:00.000-05:00

Just a quick warning: this post is on a topic that, in my experience, many of you out there find distasteful. You've been warned. Those of you who don't mind housework, read on.

I was cleaning house this morning. Just one of those things that had gotten away from me. I'd been staring at the dust on the television, the little bits of paper or whatever on the carpet, and meaning to get it done. For whatever reasons, I hadn't, and then this morning after breakfast I just went and got out the vacuum. When that was done, I grabbed the dust rag and polish. Half an hour later, I had a clean house.

Okay, I had a clean first floor, more or less.

While it's not like the place was a sty or anything, or even my sister's room, it certainly looked a lot better having been cleaned. It's funny how the little things can add up, and pretty soon you forget it can look a lot better than it does. Or maybe it's just the contrast between the before and after. I happen to be someone who likes things neat, even if the state of my desk sometimes gets away from me and makes it seem otherwise. (Speaking of which, as I look around, I see a project for this afternoon or perhaps tomorrow.)

It's also something where if you keep at it, doing a little bit each day, it seems less daunting than when you let it go for a while. Which is sort of like writing. The longer you sit and stare at the blank screen, sometimes the harder it becomes to put words down on it. On the other hand, if you manage to get in a little each day, it adds up, and pretty soon it's going smoothly and you're no longer faced with the overwhelming horror of the blank page. At least until you let it go again.

They say you should write a little each day. It's one of the reasons I keep this blog (along with another that's been sadly neglected). I have a couple of projects that are ongoing, and numerous ideas in my head. There's no reason, really, why I can't sit down and get at least something out each day. Just as there's no reason not to spare the thirty minutes or so it takes each week, at most, to get things clean. (Maybe an hour if I really get going and clean everything all at once.) No good reason at least.

I'm tempted to think sometimes that I ought to be able to channel my slightly obsessive nature more effectively than I do. Having a house that's less than neat bothers me, so too does having an empty page. But all too often it's too easy to walk past the vacuum or the keyboard and get sidetracked elsewhere. Then it starts piling up, and before I know it what was once a simple task now seems monumental.

Then I tackle that task, and realize it wasn't really so monumental after all. It just needed to be done.

Messing With the Classics: Musical Edition

2010-02-01T11:49:00.000-05:00

Every time someone announces they are "updating" a beloved classic, I tend to cringe. Sometimes these go well, but more often than not you're left with something like "Kill Mo' Mock: Boo Radley in the Hood." (And if you've never read Bloom County, that reference may well be lost on you until the day comes when I shall explain. Which is not today.) This happens most often with film or literature, but the music world is not immune. The results are, sadly, about the same.

In pop music this is known as "the cover," a term which I, being non-musical myself, have often failed to grasp the nuances of. Sometimes it seems as if a cover is simply the same old song being sung by someone new. This can range from bland and uninspired to changing the way you interpret the song, even if the vocals and the music stay the same. In the hands of anyone else, "I've got you under my skin" doesn't have quite the same resonance as when Sammy Davis Jr sings it. In my mind that has to do with things outside of the song which lend themselves to different interpretations.

Sometimes those wander far afield. The stylizations of the national anthem (for which I blame Whitney) are, technically, not covers. I suppose because they aren't made for commercial distributions. I do however feel, each and every time some current pop sensation feels the need to belt and warble their way through the "Star Spangled Banner," that they are most definitely guilty of messing with a classic. And messing it up.

William Shatner singing "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" is in a class all by itself.

On the other hand, unlike in movies and books, in the music world it seems to me that the true classics are often, for the most part, sacrosanct. Sure, a composer might alter an arrangement here or there, or arrange a piece for instruments different than the composer intended, but you don't usually get the kind of "reinventing" that so often afflicts literary and film classics. There just isn't really much you can do to the "1812 Overture." Cannons are cannons, after all. Same with "Ode to Joy." (Having Beaker from the Muppets sing Beethoven does not fall in quite the same category. I doubt that's meant to be taken seriously on a musical level. Nor am I making that up.)

So it was with some trepidation, mixed in part with curiosity, that I listened to an album that put a modern, semi-electronica spin on Beethoven. It was, for the most part, a good listen. I shelved it - metaphorically speaking - in with the rest of my classics and will listen to the album again. It wasn't groundbreaking by any means, but it was respectful of the source and entertaining. The only tarnished spot for me was when the composer took on the 5th.

Now, I shall insert a caveat by saying of all of Beethoven's works, the 5th is the one that least impresses me. In part this is just the musical stylings of it, but it is also due to the fact that, of all of Beethoven's pieces, this is the one that has been most often abused and maligned. It was even once pressed into service for a series of answering machines messages. It is therefore forever associated in my head, not with the original the way it was intended, but all the "reimaginings" or "revisitings" or "updatings" or just plain "it was in the public domain and free so we took it and used it" recordings that have been perpetuated in Beethoven's name.

Which is the risk with doing this to any piece of classic work. Should the newer piece be sufficiently bad enough, no one remembers the power of the original. Instead you get the knockoffs. I think this may explain the treatment of the national anthem by almost every celebrity who has sung it since Whitney. They've forgotten the original, and only remember Whitney. In film I think you can thank Kenneth Branagh for bringing Shakespeare to new audiences, but I for one hold Frankenstein against him. The maligned monster hasn't had a decent big-screen or literary debut since. (More on that some other time.)

Does this mean the classics should never be open to interpretation? Probably not, as then you'd have to include pieces which were re-written for the piano or some other instrument, and some occasional tweaking can keep things fresh. But as for the rest, well....

I say we keep those cannons handy.

Death of a Character: The Show Must Go On

2010-01-29T16:38:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I touched on this topic. I've covered a bit of ground in this little ongoing theme I have here. I've dealt with replacements, the "really really truly we're not kidding they're completely dead," and resurrection. Yet there's another kind of character resurrection, and that's when an author dies but his most beloved creation lives on. Which is why it seemed appropriate to dust off this last little bit I had to say on it in the wake of an author's passing. Robert Parker died earlier this month, and I for one shall miss him.

Parker's most iconic creation was, of course, Spenser - spelled like the poet and no first name ever given. (Except maybe once, but I think perhaps that was a typo in one of the early books.) Much has been written elsewhere about that, and he penned other characters as well, most of whom I liked and enjoyed. I have read all the books, and read that there were, I think, two more books ready for publication. I will look forward to them, and be sad when I finish the last one knowing it is the last one, but I must also say I hope that's where it stops.

Ironically, Parker himself took on another author's creation post-mortem. He finished Raymond Chandler's Poodle Springs and then wrote one more Marlowe book based on Chandler's notes. However, he didn't keep going after that, and if any author can be said to be a reincarnation of another one, or a reinvention, then Parker was that to Chandler. Spenser wasn't Marlowe, but he was a Marlowe for his times. And he had the good sense to let Marlowe rest in peace once his creator's ideas were done.

Other characters have not been so fortunate.

James Bond is an example, so too now is Jason Bourne. Neither character ever died, but with the death of their creators I think they should have been allowed to. On paper, anyway. I love the Bond and the Bourne movies. Just not as fond of the later books, even though I like Lustbader, who has taken over the Bourne helm. The Bond books are another story altogether. There were (perhaps are) rumors that there was a final "Travis McGee" story, penned by the author in anticipation of his eventual passing. To the best of my knowledge that's just a rumor, and thankfully McGee's been left alone. Sherlock Holmes has also been penned once or twice by other authors.

Never successfully, in my opinion. Not for the caliber of writers that have attempted it, mind you, and not because they weren't good stories. Some of them were very good stories. But they weren't quite Holmes and Watson. Close, perhaps, and an excellent imitation, but never quite the real thing.

Bond, Bourne, and Holmes were all resurrected for one simple motive: money. The series are money-makers, and the new Bourne books didn't appear until Matt Damon built a franchise. I suspect for that reason there won't be any rush to hand Spenser's reigns over to someone else. (The Tom Selleck CBS movies based around one of his other characters are different. Like the Robert Urich Spenser for Hire series, they have established their own universe, more of a "based on" than anything else. There is apparently one more Jesse Stone book, and I shall mourn him after putting down his last tale, too.) There isn't the oodles of money to be made from it that there are with the others.

I do think, however, that characters like that ought to be left alone. There is no way to capture the original voice of their authors, not completely, and so they come off as the imitations they are. When the only reason not to come up with your own character - as Lustbader has done in the past - is money, while I can't begrudge an author for taking a pay check (heck, I'd take it), I wish the powers that be behind it would have the good sense not to offer it in the first place.

As the horror cliche says, sometimes it's better to let things rest in peace.

Luddite Lite: The Elevator

2010-01-23T15:02:00.000-05:00

I hesitate to call these posts a series, as this is only the second time I've visited this topic, but as I have a few more ideas in my head on it, and as they are all more or less the same subject, we'll call them a series anyway.

This one is about the elevator. I admit to being a big fan of the elevator, under the right circumstances. When I was moving furniture into my current home it would have been helpful to have one to the third floor, especially with the narrow stairs. I've lived in apartments where without the elevator getting up and down to my apartment each day would have counted as serious exercise. And if all else failed, there is that scene in Ghostbusters to remind me what a good thing stairs can be.

Where do these stairs go?
They go up, Ray.

However, there are plenty of times when the stairs will do just fine. If I'm only going up one floor, it seems rather a waste to take the elevator. My legs work just fine, and I certainly can't make the argument that I don't need that extra bit of exercise that will come from climbing a flight or two of stairs. Sometimes the biggest challenge in taking the stairs is simply finding the stairs in the first place. Elevators are given pride of place in the floorplan, while the stairs are often shunted off to the sides.

There are also the slow elevators. There is a building on the campus where I currently work where, even going up three stories, I am generally faster on the stairs than the elevator is. It seems to have a permanent case of the slows. I suspect I might be able to go up and down before the elevator makes a single trip, and do it without breaking a sweat.

Most people know this, I would think, and I would expect any reasonably health-conscious person who can use the stairs would do so. Like so many of my expectations towards me fellow human beings, this one is often proved wrong. I saw someone waiting at the notoriously slow elevator the other day. A university student, who looked to be in good health, and who was even dressed as if they were on they're way to go jogging or some other workout. (I say on the way "to" because I was close enough that they didn't smell like it was on the way "from.") They even had a water bottle in their very streamlined little back pack. And yet, there they stood, waiting for the elevator. And waiting, and waiting.

Me? I took the stairs.

Just Because I Write It, Doesn't Mean I'd Survive It

2010-01-21T15:50:00.000-05:00

I was having a conversation with another writer about something that happens in her story to her main character. There's a portent in this other writer's story, one of those "bad things will happen" moments - though as is so often the case it's more like "bad things have happened but worse is coming" - and it got me thinking about heeding the warning signs. I write, sort of, within the horror genre and certainly read a fair amount of it. I've seen my share of zombie movies (some good, others not so much), vampire movies (ditto), and werewolf flicks (mostly bad), and know everything I probably ought to know when it comes to dealing with these things, assuming it would ever happen.

For example, there's the horror staple of the spooky shopkeeper. You know, the one that runs the shop in the basement, where it's kind of dark and dusty, or badly lit with flickering bulbs, and even if the shopkeeper looks reasonably normal, you just know something is off. Surely, having written and read enough stories where this is just the beginning of bad things, I'd know better than to buy anything in such a store, right?

Wrong.

Because I have bought things, or at least browsed and wanted to buy, in places just like that. All the time. (Heck, it sums up any number of comic shops I used to frequent in my younger days.) And quite honestly, as these objects are always something slightly old and slightly odd, they are precisely the kind of things I would buy at a flea market or antiques shop, no matter that the purveyor looks like a gypsy who was around selling trinkets for the crusade.

Or zombies. Never actually met one, but I don't own a flamethrower. I don't own a gun. I only nominally know how to fire any weapon, and that would mostly be the kind of weapons without enough firepower to do anything other than annoy a zombie. Assuming zombies get annoyed. Sure, there's the baseball bat... but honestly, my athletic skills are kind of like my combat skills. In other words, they are really limited. I might get in a lucky hit, but odds are, I'm toast.

As for staking a vampire.... Yeah, right. Sure. My best hope would be to keep running until daylight, and hope like heck that works. Which would not be a great hope, because I don't run very well. I'm not a jogger.

Nope, my athletic skills are mostly water-based. I'm great in the pool. Trouble is, all the horror nasties that are in the water are a lot faster than I am. I've see Jaws. Heck, I've even seen Deep Blue Sea. I'd definitely be more Samuel Jackson than LL Cool J in that one. So unless the terror is, oh, say, a sea urchin, or better yet a turtle, I'm probably dead in the water there, too.

And I strongly suspect yoga's absolutely useless as a monster survival skill.

All of which leads me to conclude that in real life, I'd much more likely be a sheep to the slaughter than the last survivor.

Thankfully all the monsters are staying where they belong. For now.

Odd Combinations

2010-01-18T10:37:00.000-05:00

I was staring into my freezer the other day at what little remained of the mint chocolate chip ice cream. (Which is no longer green, much to my disappointment. Granted, I think the coloring is purely a result of food dye, so it doesn't need to be green. Nor does white mint chocolate chip ice cream taste any different, at least according to my mouth. However, it was missing... something. More on that in another entry, I think.) There wasn't much left, maybe a scoop and a half, which is about all I eat anymore anyway in keeping with my general philosophy on "moderation in all things." Which I abandoned New Year's Eve but hey, some occasions are worth it. This occasion, however, was mostly an "I feel like ice cream" occasion.

More specifically, I felt like an orange juice float. Now orange juice (or soda, but honestly I prefer juice) and vanilla ice cream is, as far as I am concerned, one of the greatest taste creations of all time. My wanting for one on this day came from having acquired a very simple recipe to create an Orange Julius at home without paying for the trademark. That said, I wasn't in the mood to bother with even the simple recipe - mostly on the strength of not wanting to dig out and then afterwards wash the blender. So I opted for a simpler float. Only the only ice cream I had in the house was the aforementioned mint chocolate chip.

Now, in theory, there was nothing about the combination that shouldn't have gone well together. I've had those chocolate oranges, which are great, and orange mint, and chocolate mint. It was just putting all three of them together, in the forms I had, that might have yielded strange results. Erring on the safe side, I opted to try it first with a spoonful of ice cream and a shot glass of orange juice. Which is the most action my shot glasses have seen in quite some time. Anymore I think they're just decorative in my house.

The combination, as odd as it might have sounded at first, came out very well, and it got me thinking about other slightly odd combinations, but in writing. Now as what few followers and/or faithful readers I have here will already know, I tend to write things that fall into the interstices between genres. There tends to be a bit of dark humor and comedy that creeps into things, even if I'm writing something that might ostensibly be horror. My ongoing works are also a mix of science fiction and other things, as I busily write along creating my own genres. Sort of.

I'm not the only one who's done this, though, and certainly not the most famous example. The best example that comes to mind for me is when Dean Koontz penned a children's book. Now Koontz is one of those authors that I invariably read while freely admitting that his catalog is somewhat hit or miss for me. (Though I recommend the "Odd Thomas" series to anyone.) He is also, along with King, one of the few authors I have ever read who have managed to scare me just by reading a book. I don't remember the title, though I think it was "Night Chills," and it had to do with rats. Large quantities of evil rats, in the dark, crawling over everything, and peering out from shadows so you could only see their eyes. Gives me shivers just thinking about it.

Yet not only did he write a children's picture book, he wrote one about Santa Claus. Having read it, I will affirm that it works well as a children's book and a piece of horror. Slightly more humorous in that vein is a book we have home from the library in the Skippyjon Jones series. It's not really horror, per se, but parts of it lean toward that end, and yet, again, the combination works really well.

Horror and comedy have also been put to good use, even if sometimes it's black humor. The zombie sheep movie was... well, just hilarious on the face of it. Zombie sheep? Who comes up with these things? Shaun of the Dead also falls into this category.

Odd combinations can also get you reading other genres you wouldn't normally venture into. I picked up a romance novel once thinking it was something else from the description. It was, but it was also clearly romance. It was also a good read. (And the sex scenes steamed up my glasses.) I didn't continue to read the author because her emphasis was on the romance genre and hence her plots were somewhat formulaic, but it broadened my horizons some. (Literary-wise, mind you, not karma sutra-wise.)

Often times these ventures get labeled cross-overs, but I don't think that really fits. Especially when it's what the author regularly does. "Cross-over" to me implies a once only foray into a genre. Lack an actor who normally does action flicks attempting comedy or romance or something. I'm not saying there needs to be a new terminology, at least not yet, but I think there ought to be more room to exist between the labels. We tend to have to package things as "either/or" in order to convey what it is, and tend to rely on the old adage that as long as it's good it doesn't matter what it is, but it does matter what you call it, especially when you're trying to get someone to try it.

As for me, I'm off to buy more mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Too Much Information

2010-01-08T12:25:00.000-05:00

(Feel free to hum along to the Duran Duran song as you read, though the point of their song is somewhat different from the following smattering of thoughts.)

I have too much clutter in my head. And by "clutter" I mean absolutely useless bits of trivia and information which, aside from those random moments where I can pipe up and say "I know that!" serve no other purpose in my head other than space filler. If you read or saw Dreamcatcher by Stephen King (and if you have to choose the read it, the book was far better) there is a section that takes place inside a character's head, where everything he's every thought is filed away. My head is like that, only combined with the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I've always been aware of this, but it was brought to the forefront the other day when I was reading something on various TV themes. They mentioned one in particular - a short lived show from the 80's that was born of the "heroes in/on vehicles trend" spawned by Knight Rider and Airwolf. Which show, you ask? It was called Street Hawk. What, you don't remember it? Don't worry, you're likely not alone. I retained it primarily because I was 11 when it came out and to an eleven-year old, the idea of a vigilante riding around on a souped-up motorcycle was cool.

So was KITT. I was eleven.

Which in a complete aside, was old enough to notice and be bothered by an eventual plot continuity problem with Street Hawk which had to do with how he maintained his secret identity. But I digress, and that could be an entirely separate entry on it's own.

As I said, it came up in conjunction with a discussion of TV themes. It turns out that this particular theme was written by Tangerine Dream, which I did not know. It also turned out that, even without clicking the link that was so generously provided, I could hum the theme. No words, so no singing, but I had the tune down. In my head, I was even in tune. (Reality was slightly different.)

The show ran for all of thirteen episodes, not even a full season. When I was eleven. It spawned no spin-offs, and while it wasn't as bad as, oh, say "Manimal" or the show with the computer guy and the cursor that followed him around - which was apparently bad enough for me to have forgotten the title completely* - it's not exactly the kind of thing that should have formed a lasting influence.

And yet, inexplicably, it did. Or at least I retained enough of it to make the connection reading about it again all these years later.

That's just one example. My head is full of those little tidbits and snippets, and while I could make the argument that, as a writer, you never know when one of those little things will blossom into something bigger and more important... I suspect they are just largely useless for anything other than taking me down random tangents at random moments.

Or the occasional moment when I can pipe up and say, "Hey, I know that!" even when no one else is in the room.

*An hour after I posted this the title occurred to me as I was making lunch: it was "Automan."

Ghosts of Novels Past

2010-01-06T08:39:00.000-05:00

I keep a notebook, as any good writer should do. It's there for me to jot ideas in when they occur to me at a time and place where I can't implement them, or simply have no use for them. (I once came up with what I believe is a lovely pastorally poetic line in the little boys' room at a Barnes and Nobles. I haven't used it yet, but it's there.) It's not a fail-safe, as the ideas have to be written down in order to be recorded, and they have to be written so that I can read and decipher them later. A failure on both counts has occurred more than once.

After jotting something down the other day, it occurred to me that I've reached the point where I ought to figure out a way to organize what's in it. Far beyond that point, really, but the easiest solution for me is using different colors. I keep pens of different colors on hand anyway as a holdover habit from my teaching days, and color-coordinating would provide the visual clues I work best from.

Besides, it's pretty.

As I was flipping back through the pages - occasionally scratching my head over an entry - unsurprisingly the bulk of the entries were for what is now the completed novel. (Not my first overall but the first that's worth doing something with.) I spent the better portion of a decade and a half with that book in my head, working on it in various incarnations, so if the notebook - which I've had about half that time - wasn't packed with notes and ideas on that book, it would probably be a sign I wasn't thinking about it enough.

I didn't read through all of it, but I noticed some things that I had once contemplated that were, in the end, left in the notebook. Other items are things that have found there way into the subsequent work, which is set in the same universe. (In a small-scale "world of my own making" meaning of universe. I'm not Herbert or Asimov.) Some of what I had written down was bits of dialog I was trying to make work, or descriptions of items I'd had ideas on in the name of world-building. It was funny to see how something I had reduced to a single, non-descript line to fuel a necessary plot event had at one point taken up an entire page in the notebook.

Though I point out it's a small notebook, 8 1/2 by 5 1/2. It seems a size that suits me, as I use a similar size for my freelance notebooks. Those are one per project though, unlike the writing one which acts as a catch all.

It just felt a little odd to be looking at notes for something which was no longer an active effort, creatively speaking. Sure, I'm agonizing over the query, and hoping like heck I won't have to write a synopsis, but the work itself has sat, largely untouched and unmessed with, since I put it through the editing process and pulled it out the other side. I'm not a tweaker, and once something is done, it's done, and now in it's wake it leaves all those unused notes.

Maybe some of them will be resurrected later, but I suspect most of them will be lovingly packed up and tucked away (metaphorically speaking - the notebook stays out), taken out only occasionally to be reminisced over before being set aside once more. Not all ghosts are restless ones.

Revolving Resolutions

2010-01-04T16:09:00.000-05:00

Start of a new year, start of new lists, new resolutions. Quick show of hands: how many have the same thing on their list this year they had last year?

I'm as guilty of that as the next person, though it's not always a bad thing. Some resolutions are things you ought to keep to, year in, year out. You could argue after a certain point they stop being resolutions for improvement and just become things you do, and therefore shouldn't count as goals, but I don't buy that. Some things are constant goals, and there's always some room for improvement even on the perennial ones.

Sometimes things drop off the list one year for various reasons, only to end up back on it at a later date. Maybe it was something we thought we outgrew, or something we put away for a bit and have only now come back to. Maybe it was just something we stopped codifying at the beginning of each year only to realize we needed it on that list to reinforce it.

One of mine this year is taken from a poster I had up in college. I came across it when I moved this year and have put it back on my wall. I was going to quote the whole thing but then realized that it's copyrighted, someone might object, and starting the new year of with a bit of plagiarizing - or at least unauthorized reproduction even when credit is given - was probably not the way to go.

It bills itself as the creed of the sociopathic obessessive compulsive, and while I no longer agree with all of it as wholeheartedly as I did in college - though the one about using a bulldozer to deal with bureaucracy still sounds about right - there is a comment about patience and persistence that I find pertinent. It reads, "Patience is a virtue, but persistence to the point of success is a blessing."

Which is part of what this whole writing profession is about. You have to keep at it, else you're not going to get anywhere. It's not guarantee of success, as other things go into that formula, but it is an integral part. You have to keep at it. And if it helps to put it on your list of resolutions, year after year, then I say by all means move it to the top of the list. (Another on the list on my wall reads, "If it's worth doing, it's got to be done right now.")

Just as long as it actually gets done, and isn't being recycled year after year because you never fulfill it.

Bright Copper Kettles

2009-12-23T14:07:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure it counts as a Christmas song, or rather, why it counts as a Christmas song, but nonetheless it seems I hear "My Favorite Things" every Yuletide season. Generally I find the song overtly sentimental and sappy, especially when sung from the seminal musical it derives from (it's not one of those songs that was redeemed in later versions, like "Over the Rainbow" which takes on new poignancy when sung by... by... by that guy who sings it whose name I wrote down and now can't find). However, while I was waiting for the water to boil for some tea the other day it occurred to me I do have a mild attachment to a bright copper kettle.

I'm presuming they meant tea kettle, though of course you can buy copper cooking implements of all kind. I have heard that while they look nice, they are not ideal for serious cooking, so I don't own any. I think simply to boil water in, however, they would do just fine. Plus, they're decorative, so it's a bonus. I don't have one, though I do have a tea kettle, and perhaps it's because mine seems to be falling apart and I am in need of a new one that my thoughts turned to the shiny versions.

I own a microwave, so I am aware I could boil water in about a minute, maybe two. (It's an old microwave and the display is long since burned out.) Yet, in defiance of the rest of the patterns in my life in which I almost always embrace the more modern option, when I need water for tea I still prefer to boil it. Or if I need water for a single cup of coffee. I can't say for certain that it really tastes better – or even different – if I boil it the old fashioned way, just that I think it does. I also think the water out of the bathroom tap tastes different than the water from the kitchen. Yes, I am aware of my issues.

It certainly takes longer to boil water using the kettle, and when I didn't have a stove (back in college) I used the microwave. So it's not as if I have a complete aversion to it. As long as I have the option, though, I prefer the non-tech version. I think it adds something to the kitchen as well, and a kitchen without a tea kettle seems somehow incomplete to me. If I visit someone else's home I confess I am always a little skeptical if they don't have one. If you can't take the time involved to prepare a decent cup of tea, what else have you skimped on, culinary-wise?

I could draw a few cultural and historical allusions to the Japanese Tea Ceremony... but that would be stretching things far out of proportion. I don't have any ritual to the process, just boil, pour, and steep. I even use tea bags. (Because they're cheap, mostly.)

So while I could - and have - gone without a microwave, I think I'd be much more out of sorts without a tea kettle. Even if mine is stainless steel with a black plastic handle.

Twelve Lords Milking?

2009-12-21T12:22:00.000-05:00

As the holidays are upon us, it is time once again to dwell upon the mysteries and conundrums of the holiday. Such as whether some new musical atrocity shall replace "Grandma vs the Reindeer" on the "most hated" list. Or where all those camels come from for the live Nativity scenes. Or what we're going to do with the bad fruitcake we'll inevitably get. (Doorstop? Anchor for the boat? Keystone for that new building?)

And, of course, what the heck is the order for the Twelve Days of Christmas?

I figure most people out there can make it up through five with out any problems. Singing it properly, without belting out "Five G-O-L-D rings!" at the top of your lungs and in tune is another matter entirely, but we do all seem to know the carol from the partridge and the pear tree through those rings. (Speaking of which, who needs five gold rings? Given what a gold ring symbolizes these days, one is left to wonder if the male caroler is perhaps spreading a little too much Christmas cheer under the mistletoe.) It's what comes after the rings where the trouble lies.

Which is a little odd, given that every year some of us will be bothered to look it up. There's that joke about the restraining order that makes the rounds, and it's played on innumerable carol programs and sung in countless schools. There are even many picture books devoted to illustrating the carol in fashions both wacky and sincere, and if you have a little child that you read to you've got that reinforcement. All of which should firmly ensconce in our heads what order everything comes in.

And absolutely none of which seems to make any difference, because year after year, Yuletide after Yuletide, we get it wrong. Then proceed to argue about it, debate it, insist that we're one hundred percent sure there are only ten pipers – or is it twelve? – and inevitably be called upon to sing it when we really have no idea what comes after the five gold rings. (I myself only ever manage to retain the song through the coterie of birds. Beyond that I'm lost.)

Which is why we belt it out at the top of our lungs, in the sincere hope that no one will notice we're just mumbling our way through the next seven days.

To that end, as a public service announcement, I present to you, courtesy of the Muppets, "The Twelve Days of Christmas." In proper order.

So that next year, you can look it up here, again, and stop mumbling.

All I Want for Christmas

2009-12-19T13:37:00.000-05:00

I could turn this into a shopping list but, let's face it, most of you don't know me well enough to buy me anything in the first place. Besides, it's been a while since I actually sat down and thought about what I wanted, as opposed to how I was going to get what my little one wanted, that I'm not sure I could come up with a whole lot that wouldn't be filled by family. (You know, like warm socks.) There's probably a few literary gifts out there I wouldn't mind, and a few I'd even like, but the majority of my wants this year are practical and dependent on my getting paid.

Other than a few intangible things that aren't really sold and therefore can't be bought.

None of which detracts from the season. As a public service warning, this is the one time of year I cast off my usual bitter, cynical, and pessimistic self. So if you're expecting some snarky treatment of the holiday, look elsewhere. This is going to be steeped in things like Holly and Misteltoe. (Come to think of it, both of those are poisonous and therefore probably not the kind of thing you should steep something in.)

Christmas is my favorite holiday. Something which is undampened even by the most lack-luster tv holiday special. "Olive the Other Reindeer" is a new favorite book... the hour-long cartoon was a terrible disappointment, not least because they felt the need to embellish the book. Whereas no matter how often I see it, "A Charlie Brown Christmas" gets to me each and every single time.

I listen to "A Christmas Carol" sometime during the weeks leading up to Christmas. Have every year now for the past decade or so, and it's just become a tradition. I have Christmas carols of every sort, and they will play on my speakers pretty much non-stop between now and the day itself.

I like wrapping gifts. I'm even pretty good at it, and it doesn't phase me knowing that big box that took me ten minutes to get just right will be reduced to shreds in the time it takes me to blink. It's part of the fun, and being around kids on the day itself is something I wouldn't want to part with.

I buy egg nog. I even like a decent fruit cake. Last year I even got to try some mead courtesy of my local liquor shop. I'm hoping they have it again this year. And in this final week I will very likely go shopping for everything and anything while wearing my Santa hat. It's not terribly cool, but I don't care.

And not least of all is the general sentiment that pervades the season. Yeah, it would be nice to have the feeling of goodwill towards are fellow human beings all year round, but I would contend most of us who are inclined to give and volunteer do so regardless of the season. Yet there is something a little extra in the air this time of year, and people who might not otherwise do so are willing to part with their time or that little bit of extra change. And do so gladly, and with nary a complaint. Many will do so solely for the chance to spread a little holiday joy where there might not otherwise be so much. Or any at all.

So that's my take on the holiday. If you want to shoot holes in my Yuletide traditions and spirits, you're welcome to try. I'm hanging lights and stockings and setting out that plate of Christmas cookies anyway. Maybe even some carrots for the reindeer.

Happy Holidays.

Personification of the Muse

2009-12-17T12:34:00.000-05:00

Amongst the writers and other artists I talk to, there is frequent discussion of the muse. And while I learned the other day that there is in fact no muse for art (though ones for history and astronomy, which made the oversight seem even more strange) there are of course muses for literature and poetry and other such endeavors. I doubt any of us actually envision our muse as the classical version in the toga and sandals, but I have noticed that many do tend to envision their muse in a particular personification.

This may be a practice which is more prevalent among the poets I know. They seem more inclined to attribute their muse a specific appearance. Sometimes I think there's a blurry line between muse and inspiration, because there's been plenty of poetry out there inspired by specific people. Just look at Shakespeare's sonnets. I think the muse can inspire you with regards to having a certain person in mind, which also means at times, if you view your muse as an individual entity, it's probably going to take on the attributes of that inspiration on occasion.

I generally don't see my muse as a person, least not a specific person, but I find it interesting that the past few times I've actually been moved to write poetry, the muse has taken a definite form and personality. I'm not sure why, though I could speculate. And the poems aren't the only thing I have written where I've had a person in my head for inspiration - indeed, the same person who seems to be serving as my poetry muse has inspired some non-poetry pieces. Yet in those instances, this person doesn't seem to be acting specifically as muse, just merely as one of those sources I draw on in my head for my prose.

Maybe some of this has to do with the difference between poetry and prose, at least for me. Poetry has always felt more personal, more emotionally invested. As to why no one else has ever served as a muse before I can't answer. This isn't a scientific endeavor by any means, and as with any art form certain flights of fancy just are, in defiance of a concrete explanation. I could say something was different about this person - but each person we meet tends to be different, even if we form similar relationships with them.

So no, I don't know why, but I do know that now when people talk of their muse as being someone tangible to them, I can nod my head in agreement.

(Would just be nice if the muse would inspire better poetry from me, since that's the form the impulse seems to be taking in this muse's presence. As it is... well, there are reasons I don't write much poetry in the first place.)

The Exercise of Writing

2009-12-15T09:59:00.000-05:00

I've managed to stay on a regular exercise regimen for the past few months, more or less. (You try exercising with a head cold. Not fun.) Part of my reason for doing so is that, well, it's necessary. I had my doctor actually mention the word "cholesterol" during my last physical, and frankly I thought it was far too early to that. I also have a little one who is steadily getting heavier and doesn't understand why this should affect Daddy's ability to carry her up the stairs.

So I've been trying to do better. Lately that has me down in the living room in the evening watching "Good Eats" from the Food Network as I do my thing. Yes, I am aware of the irony of working out while watching a food show. But it's fun, it's educational... and perhaps in it's own way even motivational. Besides, it's 30 minutes and I don't have a clock in the room I exercise in.

What does this have to do with writing, you ask? Two things.

First of all, it gives me head space. (Even if I'm sort of watching tv. That's what commercials are for.) One of the things I like about the particular modes of exercise I do is that they can be done alone. Mind you it might be more fun to have some company - yoga comes to mind as better with a friend - but by doing so alone it gives me time during the day when I can just be by myself and largely let my mind do whatever it wants. Exercising is all muscle memory, and as the nature of what I do tends to be repetitive, there isn't much else to think about.

I don't always use it to work out writing-related issues in my head, but there have been more than a few plot points solved in that half an hour. Swimming was by far the best for this, but as I don't have a pool either in my house or conveniently close by, that's out for now.

The second aspect of what this has to do with writing is that I have found if I can establish and maintain a routine in one area of my life, it becomes much easier to do so in others. It doesn't directly translate, as it has not imposed a housework schedule on me. That hasn't happened since I moved out of mom's house, though it does get done. But by being able to create a schedule that I stick to, even on the days when I think I really don't want to, it encourages me to know that I can do this.

Writing is somewhat like exercise, only without the need for a shower afterwards. (Usually.) It's something that if you're going to do it, and have any illusions at all about being any good at it, you have to do it as regularly as possible. Someone whose opinion I respect reminded me of this recently, and I mulled it over as I was working out later on that day. This person was right, of course, because writing is a discipline that must be engaged in every day. Otherwise it's too easy to let those writing muscles sag and you add on those extra pounds of procrastination and ... and I think that's as far as I can comfortably stretch that metaphor. Possibly farther.

In my case, it's also done alone, as that's when I work best. Not that I don't have interruptions, but it works best when I can be in my own space.

Though having the tv on when writing does not help at all.

Stage Fright

2009-12-13T14:53:00.000-05:00

I have performance anxiety. No, not that kind. (In case you were wondering.) The kind that comes from having to get up in front of a large group of people. Doesn't much matter what venue it is, either. I haven't been on an actual stage in decades, not since whatever grade it is they stop doing school plays in. I think my last "star" role came back in the 4th grade. It was a musical, as much as that pains me to admit it.

Other than that, there was a brief span of years as a musician. Clarinet, not the guitar or something cool. In a school band, not rock and roll. Which meant I wasn't up in front of people performing solo or anything. Frankly, being part of a large ensemble was much easier, because then you're just another face in the crowd. Your parents and friends can pick you out, and your name will be in the program, but most of the time you're looking at the music in front of you and not out at the audience. Which is much easier, believe me.

Stage fright sticks with me even so. As much experience as I have in a classroom, in all the different venues that I've taught in there's still a bit of nervousness involved on that first time out in front of a new class. I know it will all go well, and that my having done the same thing - more or less - hundreds of times before makes things go that much more smoothly. There still remains something slightly unnerving about walking into a room full of strangers knowing they're all going to be focused on you.

I think some of this has translated to my writing. Specifically the part where it needs to go out into the world and be shown to people. You would think, based on the largely positive comments I've received and a certain awareness of my own abilities that this would not happen to me. It's not like I'm unpublished. Granted, my fiction publications are more limited than I would like, but my name is out there. Heck, I'm a contributor to a book that's actually on Amazon. (Don't buy it, though, they still owe me money.)

And yet... just like walking into that classroom, there's a certain amount of paralyzing fear that grips me before I can muster up the courage to hit the "send" button on a submission. It's different than a classroom or somewhere else where I have no choice and must go on. It's voluntary, and if I don't then no one else will be left wondering where I am and why I haven't shown up. Still and all, there is a price to be paid if I don't overcome that paralysis.

I'm getting better at doing so. Not great, but better, and expect that even if I succeed beyond my wildest expectations, there will always be a trace of that apprehension. Even if I'm sending off the next sure-fire bestseller where my name will be bigger than the title to an agent who's been with me for decades... I'm still going to have that little bit of stage fright.

The show must go on though, right?

Ups and Downs of Being Free

2009-12-11T09:55:00.000-05:00

Most of the time I like the freelance work I do. It's interesting, I get to learn about all sorts of topics I otherwise wouldn't - such as the Orient Express and Great Lakes lighthouses - and it's something I can of course do from home. A part of me misses having to go to the library to conduct research, though I suppose if I wanted to I could still go and do that. I just don't see the point of being on my computer in the library when I could just stay at home. Unless it's for the ambiance.

Mind you, if something required a lot of research I'd probably still head to the library, but so far I've not had an assignment large enough to require it. Some of that is that I mostly do small articles, and the other part of it is that the last few major assignments I had were for textbook publishers and came with their own books to use. Which was made much easier via the internet, otherwise I'd have several volumes of books I'd never ever use again and a postal carrier who would hate me.

I can't claim to make a living at it just yet, as mostly my freelance work has been supplemental to other jobs. Even that in this current economy - despite the news insisting we're out of the recession - has been rather slim pickings. However, there are times when having that extra paycheck is not only nice but somewhat required. The holidays are, for obvious reasons, a time when extra cash on hand is a good thing.

This is one of the perils of freelancing: getting paid. I've been burned once before by non-paying clients. I made the mistake early on of working without a contract, and needless to say have not been paid. I did get a published credit out of it, and have made attempts to get the money I am owed, but it's become one of those things where it would cost me more to pursue my legal options than it would net me if I was finally paid. I do take satisfaction in ignoring requests from the client to help her publicize the book. (I'm a writer, I think being petty comes with the territory. To some extent.)

That one has continued to vex me for a couple of years, but it was for a small non-profit group essentially run by one person, so I tend to write it off as a failing on the part of that person. At the moment, however, I'm dealing with another client who seems to have difficulty paying me. This one is a university, and despite having billed them back in September I am still waiting. It's been an endless stream of red tape and bureaucratic hoops, all of which I've patiently endured.

Only to be told earlier this week that, in fact, they can't pay me without my fulfilling some sort of banking Catch-22.

I was not amused.

I'm exploring options on this one still, starting with contacting the department I worked for instead of the department that is handling the payment. (I mentioned the bureaucratic nonsense, right?) I know that eventually I should get paid, if only because in this case they are a university and I can't see them flat-out not paying me, no matter what the paper-pusher I've been dealing with is now saying. Also, I think the person I worked for on the project is not the kind of person to let something like that happen, which is why I've turned the matter back over to them.

Still, it's frustrating, and there isn't a whole lot I can do about it other than patiently try and solve it. (And make several phone calls to my bank and send emails to various people.) And I know, having grown up in a self-employed household, that these kind of things happen anytime you work for yourself. I presume it happens even to big corporations, but they at least have lawyers that can be sicced on the offending parties.

It does, however, make me further appreciate the consistency that comes from having a steady paycheck, and not having to file invoices that are, at best, only the first step in the process of getting paid.

Guest Stars Who Ruin the Plot

2009-12-08T10:38:00.000-05:00

Maybe it's the recession, but I'm noticing more and more recognizable stars in bit parts on television lately. These aren't huge stars by any means, and for the most part they are people who've mostly made their career in television to one extent or another. They are, however, a step above the usual nameless extra that might have filled the role in days gone by. There are two cause and effect type things related to this phenomena, at least in my household.

The first is the "where do I know this person from" question. My computer is not in the same room as my television, so while I can and do eventually go look up the answer to this question, while I'm watching I am left to scratch my head. This can be quite frustrating, especially when I can almost see a person in the last - or most famous - role I've seen them in. More often than not, the answer kicks in before the show is over, but not always.

The second is more detrimental to my viewing pleasure. It happens when not only do I recognize the person, but realize that the brief two lines they just spoke to the detective (or whomever) was surely not enough to justify the paycheck they picked up for the episode. Which means they're going to figure much more prominently into the plot at some point. They aren't always guaranteed to be the killer - unless it's Law and Order - but watching the show you just know you haven't seen the last of them.

Which kind of takes some of the suspense and intrigue out of things. Granted, you could argue that instead of the "is this person the one" it becomes "ok, how will they fit into this" but I much prefer the first question over the second one. I have yet to see any show take this and exploit it by making the actor in question a red herring, where as the viewer I sit there and think "they're going to be important" and then they aren't. I suspect that's more a question of "we paid for so-and-so which means we need to get our money's worth" than it is a failing on the part of the scriptwriters.

In fact, given that the script is written long before the actors are chosen, that's pretty much a given. So perhaps the fault lies with the individual directors for the various episodes. Or as I said in the beginning, with the recession that leads these people with more famous faces to find work where they can.

People I Thought Were Already Dead

2009-12-02T09:03:00.000-05:00

As we're coming down to the end of the year, it's time once again to remember all those who died during the past 11 months. There will be heartfelt tributes, moving montages, and plenty of weepy moments.

Just not in this blog.

Nope, this is about those people who, when reading through such lists, I discover had only just died, instead of having been long dead and gone as I presumed them to be. Like Andrew Wyeth. Don't ask me why I thought he was dead, because the best I can say is that he's an artist, his pictures hang in museums, ergo he was probably dead. Plus I had this impression that he'd been painting around the turn of the 20th Century, which made it even more likely that he was long since dead. Shows what little I know about modern American art. Or just modern art in general.

Ditto with John Updike. Though in his case it was primarily because as a child I remember seeing the Rabbit books on my dad's shelves - and they already looked pretty dusty and old. If I'd thought about it, I would have remembered that Updike had just published something not too long ago, but again, this was a case of seeing his obituary and thinking, "He was still alive?"

In both cases, it's an instance of having formed certain impressions early on, which were for one reason or another never dispelled. I took an Art History class, I know Wyeth was in there, and I'm pretty sure - though I didn't look it up to be sure - that they didn't list him as dead. Yet, just about everyone else in that book was dead, so at the time it seemed a logical enough assumption.

You have to have just a certain level of celebrity to get away with this. Clearly it was not going to happen with Michael Jackson, even if he'd lived to be a hundred and two. His death would always have been big news (unless in the next fifty years we revamp the way we look at what is and what is not newsworthy... but that seems unlikely). So you can't be so famous that your passing is automatic headlines. It also helps not to go before your time, assuming that's a valid concept to start with. I've always found it to be a bit of an oxymoron, though I get the sentiment behind it.

No, you have to have just the right amount where your passing gets noted, but not with a lot of hoopla, so that someone like me can be forgiven for just assuming they missed the news. You also can't have done anything to attract a great deal of attention, at least not recently. As mentioned, Updike had recently published, but I don't think that was this year. Or even last year. And his biggest claim to fame, the Rabbit novels, were with one late exception mostly penned long before I was old enough to read them. (It would also have helped if I'd ever read them at all. I knew when Tony Hillerman died, after all.)

So it helps to have faded some from the immediate public awareness. Which, although I've never achieved it myself, would I think be a worthy goal for most who do achieve celebrity. You shouldn't have to spend your last years being hounded by the press, and aside from Paris Hilton I don't know of anyone on the celebrity A list who wouldn't enjoy having their private life back.

I suppose there's a certain ignominy in being presumed dead when you are not. Being dead, though, I also suppose they're probably beyond such concerns anymore. It might also help with that late in life anonymity as well. I have to wonder what Mark Twain thought about the rumors of his demise, given the famous quote on the subject. You could probably either be bitter about it, or wryly amused, and which way you went would say a lot about you as person.

I'm sure this coming year will bring a few more people whom I thought were dead into the realm of the actually dead. And I will, as before, scratch my head - metaphorically - and reflect on why it is I thought they were dead when in fact they weren't. Yet.

Watered Down and Twice as Marketable

2009-11-30T10:40:00.000-05:00

When did Tinkerbell stop being a bitch? I remember watching Peter Pan, the Disney version of course, and noting even as a kid that Tink was a nasty piece of work. As an adult watching the movie again, I could take it further and realize she was a vain, self-centered, conniving, and mean-spirited fairy. This was not the happy go-lucky make a wish kind of fairy. This was the bite you on the finger kind from Labyrinth.

However, in this day and age of the Disney Princess Marketing Machine, that personality type probably doesn't sell so well. So instead, Tink's been repackaged and redesigned into some plucky little heroine. There are still aspects of the old Tink, and as a writer I'm curious to know how this new Tinkerbell becomes the version we see with Peter Pan... but I have my doubts that Disney will ever tell that story.

Not when they have the Disney Fairy Marketing Machine to consider.

This isn't the first time a character's been rehabilitated to make a buck or appeal to a wider audience. Vampires have been getting this treatment for years, long before they started to sparkle. The George Clooney Batman movie was made primarily to sell toys. Or at least it looked that way, so I hope that was the intent. And there are any number of other examples I could probably think of if I was inclined to do so at the moment.

Which I'm not.

Now I can't really fault the House of Mouse, because they've been doing this for years. They built an empire on it, and really, if you watch Steamboat Willie the Mickey Mouse you see there is a far different character from the Mouse my little one watches on Playhouse Disney. Same for Bugs Bunny and the rest of the Looney Tunes. I could probably blame the societal impulse to make everything "wholesome" but the cynic in me says it's probably more just marketing than anything else.

I don't think you could turn the original Tinkerbell into a very marketable franchise. She doesn't exactly espouse the values we want our little girls to emulate, after all. While this requires me to admit I've seen the first Tinkerbell movie - her origin story, naturally - the bad fairy in the film reminded me far more of the original Tink from Peter Pan than the titular character did. In other words, she was vain, self-centered, and self-serving. Naturally she got her comeuppance, because we can't have the villain get away with it in a kid's movie.

In a way I'm disappointed. While the new Tink has been repackaged to teach a couple of different important "moral" points, I think they could have used the old Tink to teach how not to behave. They would have stayed true to the original character - at least in her original Disney manifestation - and I wouldn't have been scratching my head wondering what happened to her.

Plus they could have done tie-ins with that old Elton John song. ... Though on second thought, that probably wouldn't go over very well with the parents.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like....

2009-11-29T18:09:00.000-05:00

The holiday season has officially arrived in my house. Not only are the lights and the tree up, but I've had my first candy cane. The candy cane is one of those things were somehow the season just feels incomplete without it. It's like winter without a snowman, summer without a trip to the beach, Easter without the Cadbury Bunny. Egg nog is necessary too, though I am content to purchase that rather than make it.

It's those little details that sell the season for me. Granted, the commercials can run it into the ground, but I don't watch a whole lot of television anymore, so I miss most of that. Add to that I gained an appreciation for the Holiday Spirit after living abroad in a place where they didn't really celebrate it, and it's safe to say the Ghosts of Christmas don't need to be visiting me.

All of which reminded me of how adding the little details into your writing can really help sell a scene. Someone once commented that Stephen King does this really well, mostly with the sort of grounding details that make his stories more real, more relevant, like a TV guide on the nightstand of a character - usually right before said character gets carted off by the monsters. Getting those details right can be the difference between achieving verisimilitude and leaving your reader going "wait, that's not right."

I wrote before about movies getting things wrong, from the howl of a wolf in the Carolinas to the car that explodes every single time it drives off the cliff. But mostly we accept those. Even though we know they're wrong. It's like sounds in space: yeah, it should be completely quiet... but how boring would that be? (For the most part. Sometimes that quiet in space works really, really well.) Yet even when we accept them, for a brief moment they can take us out of the reality of the narrative.

Good details help keep you deep in that narrative, so that for all intents and purposes it's as real as it can get. (It shouldn't feel completely real to you, because then you've lost touch with reality. And while some people I know would make that argument about me, that's an entirely different topic.) This is where research helps, as well as that time-worn/honored piece of advice to "write what you know."

So for me, if the story takes place during the holidays, there ought to be a candy cane in sight somewhere.

The L-Factor

2009-11-27T11:05:00.000-05:00

I don't play video games. In part this is just because I tend not to do very well at them. I've enjoyed the occasional first person shooter, and was suitably wowed by Halo (which I played in tandem with someone else who was very good at video games, on his system) ... but aside from a foray into the realms of Final Fantasy, and a couple of sports and racing simulations, that's been about it. As I said, mainly it's a lack of skill, as I was never able to master all the various combinations and things you were supposed to use, and then also in part it's just lack of interest.

I also have a very, very limited musical ability.

So it should come as no real surprise that I don't own a console of any variety, and have also not had a desire to play Rock Band or Guitar Hero. I have entertained the notion that it would be fun to learn to play the guitar, and yes I've fantasized about being an actual rock star - but without the screaming fans I think it would lose some of the appealing ambiance. Performing for a virtual audience does not hold the same interest for me.

... and yet...

There is a caveat. Yesterday I saw a commercial that may have me rethinking my lack of a modern gaming console, and the desire to invest in a mock guitar. What was this road to Damascus for me, you ask?

Freddie Mercury as a Lego person, singing "We Will Rock You."

Yes, I love Legos. Grew up on them. Was seriously disappointed that I did not get to Legoland when I lived in Europe. (I've been to Disneyworld. It was fun, I enjoyed it... but Legoland is my personal Mecca.) For the chance to rock out as a little yellow Lego person I could be seriously, seriously tempted to revise my Christmas list.

It's always been this way with Legos and video games. I owned a couple of racing games when I had a Playstation. The one that got played most often was Lego Racers. I was abysmal at Tomb Raider the few times I attempted to play it. But Lego Indiana Jones just calls to me. (Also helps that I am a huge fan of Dr Jones.) And Lego Star Wars?

My geek cup runneth over for that one.

I haven't gone so far as to actually purchase any of those, and it's unlikely I will. I have neither the funds nor the time to invest in video games these days. However, the prospect of little Lego Freddie Mercury is enough to keep me quite amused - and hunting around Youtube for clips. That's likely to be as far as it ever goes.

.... and yet ....

The Santa Dilemma

2009-11-25T15:51:00.000-05:00

As it's nearly Thanksgiving, I thought I'd take a moment and do what the entire retail industry does and skip ahead to the next holiday. This is actually something I wrote a few years back, not that any of my few readers here would know this had I not just mentioned it. The spirit of full candor has, for some odd reason, fully gripped me so I will also admit, from the start, that I did eventually cave in and go along with the mass deception.

The holiday season has arrived, and now that I have a very-inquisitive pre-three year old on my hand, I find myself in a bit of a dilemma. You see, my little one knows what Christmas is, or at least the basics of it. She's certainly aware that there is something in it for her. She'd have to be blind, deaf, and considerably less bright than she is not to have noticed the holiday push. (Which started back in October. I think Santa handing out Halloween candy is stretching it a bit.) And while we haven't been to church often enough for her to even begin to grasp the religious implications, the fat guy in the red suit is a different manner.

I'm not trying to be a Grinch (trademark, copyrights, etc., please don't sue me Seussians) about this, but I'm not sure perpetuating the myth of SC is something I want to do. At least not as the jolly old elf who actually comes down the chimney. I do believe in Santa (insert Peter Pan allusion here), as the representation of the spirit of Christmas. I think the fat guy serves a noble purpose in that, and I'm not about to argue otherwise.

But lying to my daughter about where the gifts under the tree comes from? I know, I know, every parent does this. And we don't view it as lying. Except it is. Sure, we say it's all in fun. We get to smile, laugh covertly into our egg nog, while they rejoice... up until that moment when they learn Santa's one big con job, and realize that Mom and Dad have been perpetuating a delusion for the past several years.

My daughter's going to realize Dad has no idea what he's talking about soon enough, triggered no doubt by the onset of her teenage years. I don't need to add fuel to that fire. Sure, no child I know of has ever turned to their parents in the midst of an argument and shouted, "You lied about Santa Claus," but I think there's that voice, perhaps subconsciously, somewhere in the back of every teenage head that says: "You can't trust them. Remember Santa? Or the Easter Bunny? A rabbit that lays eggs? No wonder we're failing biology!"

[The Cadbury Bunny, on the other hand, is quite real. No arguing.]

On the other hand, while I don't want to lie, I don't want to face the wrath of other parents down the road when my kid exposes the cover-up to her pre-school classmates. I don't need that, being labeled as the anti-Christmas backstabber, revealing the secrets of the inner parental cabal. Nor do I need my daughter being ostracized as some conspiracy nut when the other parents convince their children that she's just a little weird.

"Which," they'll say soothingly to little Jimmy or Jenny, "is not unexpected. Look at her father."

So I'm stuck. I think I have one more year of wiggle room on this, before I have to start tackling the hard issues like this head-on. This year she can just enjoy the holiday without worrying about metaphysical things, like, what happens when the Reindeer have to go? And why does Santa eat the cookies but leave the carrot sticks for the Reindeer? Is he starving his animals? And was Tim Allen more than just a little creepy in the fat suit and beard?

In the meantime, does anyone know a good recipe for egg nog?

Why I Will Survive the Apocalypse

2009-11-23T18:33:00.000-05:00

I am apparently well equipped to survive the Apocalypse. I say this not because I have a storm cellar stocked with dry goods and water (though I do know a guy who has such supplies) nor because I possess some unique skills such as the ability to grow crops, hunt game, fashion my own clothes or fly a rocket ship. No, apparently, I possess these skills because I am a writer. Or at least, so Hollywood tells me.

Mind you, I've not seen this latest parable, but according to the plot summaries I've read, in 2012 John Cusack's leading character is a writer. This follows a long line of rather ludicrous and unlikely heroes in Hollywood. I remember one reviewer commenting on Will Smith's lawyer in Enemy of the State. But that was Will Smith, so a certain leeway applies. As much as I like John Cusack, however, I have trouble believing any of the writers I know are equipped to survive the end of the world.

(With the possible exception of Stephanie Meyer who has clearly made some sort of deal with demonic powers. There's no other explanation for it. Then again, maybe that just guarantees she'll be among the first collected.)

This is not to say I haven't learned things that might not be useful in my writing career in the event of the impending end of the world. But there's a wide gap between researching something to write about it, and actually doing it. I wrote a couple of short articles on edible plants, but without the guides I used as a reference in my backpack, I'm as lost as the next guy. Maybe a little less lost, having been a Boy Scout, but even then there's a limit to my abilities.

The bulk of the things I have written on I just can't see being any help should an asteroid strike, or a supervolcano explode, or nuclear war break out, or any other number of doomsday scenarios occur. Though I might possibly survive the invasion by a large lizard type critter that breathes radioactive fire, based solely on Orson Wells surviving Godzilla. But as I don't live in Tokyo - or for that matter within five hundred miles of the nearest oceanic coast - somehow I foresee my having plenty of time to get out of the way should something come ashore. (Nothing ever comes ashore in the Great Lakes, not even in Hollywood. ... Okay, there was one exception, but I challenge anyone to name it.)

None of which matters to Hollywood. I'm not sure there's a reason why the main character in the latest disaster flick is a writer. Part of me suspects there's a jar someplace where Hollywood writers reach in and draw out a random career for the hero. How else do you explain Arnold as a kindergarten teacher?

Or maybe it's just wishful thinking on the part of the screenwriters, attempting to get themselves on that doomsday list in the event of the end of the world.

Either way, should we reach that point in my lifetime, I will cling to the hope there's a reason for it, and that whatever reason it is will be made manifest when the time comes. Which beats cowering under my desk, which is most likely where I'd really be.

Not so Classic Classics

2009-11-18T16:44:00.000-05:00

Once upon a time, which is the way all good stories should start, I thought that the best use of my summer vacation would be spent in reading through the classics. Mind you, this was back when I still had a summer vacation and figured there was no point in letting my brain sit idle. It wasn't just the classics, either, but any number of philosophical or spiritual or historical texts, some of which still sit on my shelves. Some of which still sit, unread, on my shelves.

This, however, is about the literary classics. The Dickens. The Twains. The Faulkners. The [insert famous author here]s. Some of which I really like. I have yet to read a Robert Louis Stevenson story I don't like. Same thing with Twain. Faulkner's a little harder, but like Hemingway I think he grows on you. Whether he grows on you like a fungus I can't answer, but I have come to appreciate both of them. That may also be tied simply into growing older. "The Old Man and the Sea" was enjoyable back in high school, but it took me a decade thereafter to enjoy "For Whom the Bell Tolls."

Some of the classics failed to meet expectations, but were nonetheless enjoyable. James Fenimore Cooper's "Last of the Mohicans" was weighed down by the style of the time and the fact that I saw the movie first. And expected the book to have similar pacing. Which it did not. In the least. And my subsequent attempts to read the rest of the Leatherstocking series did not go terribly well, but I suspect that I may have picked the wrong book to read next. Which says more about my need to do things in order than it does about Cooper's literary skills.

Other classics just... well... they were bad. Really bad. Defied all expectations bad. Even though they should have had a great story. I've ranted some about Dickens in this blog before, and he is my favorite whipping boy in this regard. I think "A Tale of Two Cities" took what should have been one of the best set-ups in the history of books and just muddied it and batted it around aimlessly until it lost all appeal. I suspect my 1oth grade English teacher realized this when he let us watch the PBS movie version before we took the test. Which is good, because I failed to finish the book.

The one that really stands out for me, that tops them all in the "worst of the worst" was "Robison Crusoe." I borrowed the book from an English major friend of mine between my junior and senior summers. He gave me an odd look when I requested it, asked me why, and it was only after my own attempts to read it that I understood the look. Having only been familiar with the movie/television versions and spin-offs, I had expectations of some grand, jungle island adventure. The basic plotline buoyed up those hopes.

The actual book dashed them. Now, I can't say for certain that the book didn't get better - although my English major friend averred it did not when I gave the book back to him in the Fall - but it lose me in the first hundred pages. That was it. That was as far as I got before the book bored me to tears. Instead of the adventure I got piousness and prayer. I'm sure there was a treehouse in there somewhere, and encounters with hostile natives or pirates or something but it was all... buried. In what amounted to a really long, really boring sermon.

Not sure what all that proves, mind you, and it may say more about me than the book, but in my opinion, sometimes the best way to appreciate a good book is to see the movie.

Twenty Minutes Into the Future - in 10 Seconds

2009-11-14T16:56:00.000-05:00

The tri-corder has arrived. For those who have no idea what I just said, the tri-corder was this little hand-held doohickey (yes, that's a technical term) the doctors in Star Trek could use to scan someone, anytime, anywhere, to figure out what was wrong with them. Think of it like a portable x-ray/MRI/"other medical things I can't even begin to identify" device. Pure science fiction.

Back in the 1960's, that is. Turns out, modern technology has caught up with Star Trek, more or less, and it's no longer a fantasy. The portable medical scanner is, in fact, a reality. It may not be the complete diagnostic tool the tri-corder was supposed to be, but it's darn close.

Then, too, consider the modern cell phone. Which does just about a million and one things besides make calls. It is, for all intents and purposes, a portable computer. I remember back when the best thing to do with a computer was to turn the cursor colors and make pretty patterns on the screen. (I was in grade school, and it was one of those Tandy machines.) Now, if I could afford one, I could have something in my pocket that does most of what I rely on my laptop for. Not perfectly, and frankly, I prefer my laptop, but it's the possibility that blows my mind.

It's the unexpected pace at which the "future" arrives that provides something of a perilous pitfall for those of us in the science fiction genre. You've got a limited number of options when it comes to "when" in the setting - either it's the near future, or it's the far off future. There's kind of a middle ground, something like Star Trek, for example, which is only a few hundred years away, but that kind of falls into the latter category with the space ships and the aliens.

I say "future" as a stand-in for futuristic. After all, my favorite bit of science fantasy takes place a long time ago. And my second favorite turned out to... well, let me stop there before I give away any spoilers. (Hint for those who want to know: Toasters)

Near future stuff is most often the domain of cyberpunk and a few other things like it. "Max Headroom," which gave the particular sub-genre the setting device I appropriated for this entry's title, was something which was clearly in the future without being all that far away. Like most such near future efforts, in some ways it came up a little short. In others... well, sometimes as a writer you get lucky.

Some things kind of fall in between. 2001 looks, on the surface, like a far off future. with spaceships and AI and the like. And considering it was some 40 years away, that seemed like a bit of distance. Now, of course, we've been and gone. Bladerunner is set in a scant 9 years from now, and while I want my flying car I seriously hope the rest of it doesn't come true. And it looks unlikely to.

As a writer who dabbles in science fiction, I tend to set things rather nebulously in the future when I do. I am well aware that whatever I write, even without narrowing down a date for it, will very likely either seem silly or hopelessly outdated just within my lifetime. For example, I wrote an internet-based bit of fiction - as in the internet figured into the central plot - back in the early 1990's. When I blew the dust off it here a year ago, I had to laugh at most of what I'd written then. The reality of the internet had turned out to be far different than the predictions and what all the sci-fi of the time was envisioning. I reworked it, and made it more in keeping with what we know now... and also toned it down a bit so I don't laugh at it in another ten years.

I think if you're serious about it - like William Gibson or Philip K Dick - that near future can actually be a bit more challenging, because you can't make those great leaps that writers like Heinlein and Herbert did. I'm not serious about it, at least not at their level, so I freely admit my own stuff is either a blatant pastiche or a carefully crafted homage, depending on how generous my reader is inclined to be. And you have to write it with the knowledge that no matter what you might predict, the future could catch up with you a lot sooner than you think.

All that said, now that the tri-corder is here, where's my phaser?

Very Superstitious

2009-11-13T13:44:00.000-05:00

I'm not, mind you, but the Stevie Wonder song popped into my head as I was thinking about the date today. Hopefully, it's as stuck in your head now as it is in mine. If it's not, you can click here and give it a listen, as well as watch a clip that further illustrates what I was saying about Sesame Street. I like to spread the misery around. Not that it isn't a good tune. Quite the contrary. But after two hours of hearing it round and round in my head... well, any tune gets old fast that way.

I can't really afford to be superstitious anyway, as I am the provider of food, snuggles, and a clean litter box for the resident black cat here. She crosses my path frequently on any given day, more so if her water dish is empty. (I have tried to explain to her that if she trips me and I hit my head, her water dish will not get filled, but she's a cat. Reason is lost on her.) Also, if I had the amount of luck that was supposed to go with finding a penny... well, then I ought to be winning the lottery. Or at least have the Prize Patrol on my doorstep.

Neither has happened. Of course, I don't play the lottery, either, and only ever once bought something from Publisher's Clearing House, so that might have something to do with it as well.

Still, I'm not completely dismissive of superstitions. In part this is because I attend church, and while we refer to it as "religion" I am well aware that in large part that's a "po-tay-to, po-tah-to" kind of distinction. Also, because I happen to be a word geek, I love finding out the origins of various words and phrases, and know that some superstitions were rooted in good measures.

Not that any spring to mind, at the moment. But I know some were.

Friday the 13th has historic origins, and if you've read Dan Brown or watched the movie, you'll know what those are. (Yes, he got that right. Blind pigs and acorns and all that. Actually, that's a little unfair. I'm sure he does some research, and the book was entertaining.) Though I have to wonder how that became spread across any Friday the 13th, and not more like the Ides of March wherein it's a particular day associated with a particular event. Maybe because Shakespeare didn't encapsulate that one into snazzy rhyme and meter? Hmm, possible.

Aside from that event though, and a series of ultimately silly movies and one, slightly less silly and slightly more entertaining short-lived television series, I think the day is in large part like any other. I am even inclined to agree with Garfield the cat in that Monday the 13th seems far more ominous to me, having been once in a Monday-Friday kind of job. Mondays were definitely scarier. Especially because of the weekly meetings. *shudders*

Anyway, I don't have a rabbit's foot, or other charms - heck, I haven't even had a bowl of Lucky Charms since college and expect by now I'd find them too sweet. So if this day does hold inauspicious things for me, I guess I'll just have to weather them as best I can. Somehow, though, I don't think it does.

Knock on wood.

Lonely Place of Dying

2009-11-11T17:02:00.000-05:00

There was a disturbing item in my local news a while ago. A local senior citizen had passed away, in her home, alone. Now that particular scenario plays out far more often than it should anyway, but what made it more tragic was that her body went undiscovered for about a year and a half.

Think about that. The woman was dead, for over a year, and no one noticed. No one missed her. No one thought to wonder where she was, or if they did, not enough to check on her. Her utilities were, one by one, simply turned off for non-payment. Whatever mail she received disappeared into a mail slot and piled up, flier by flier, junk mail by junk mail, until at last the Post Office cut her off, too.

I say this as someone engaged in a largely solitary profession. Unless you work in-house for someone, as a writer chances are you're alone at your desk most of the time. At the moment I can't claim much of a social life, either, without admitting that most of what I do have exists on-line. (I haven't had cause to get out much lately, okay?) Even so, I don't think I could be dead for more than a few hours before someone would notice.

Other than the cat. Which is small comfort, really.

To some extent, this is because I have a family. Even in the days when I didn't, while I could extend that time frame to a few days - possibly - eventually someone would notice. Again, it probably would have been family, just more extended than the members I live with now.

But what if I didn't have any family, at all? As of right now, my only work occurs here, at my desk. I have no boss to report to. If the ladybugs finally overwhelmed me (dealing with a minor infestation at the moment), presuming they didn't devour me in some horror movie-esque special effect, at most it would be about two months before I was found. Only because I rent, and my landlord would show up to evict me.

(Wonder if I could finally get him to fix that leaky shower that way...)

And if I didn't rent, if I owned my home? Then, like the woman left alone, it would depend largely upon the weather, I think, and the season in which I died. In the end, that wasn't even how the local woman was found. She was discovered because looters thought her home was abandoned. Not that the looters reported her, but a neighbor noticed them.

My point is, I think it's all too easy for us to isolate ourselves. I'm not going to turn this into a rant against cell phones and tweeting and whatever else people like to point to as a scapegoat. The truth is, we make our own connections. Even if it's just the local person behind the counter when we pick up our Sunday paper. Which is more difficult to do at Walmart, but, again, not getting off into a rant on that, either. If we have no one in our life who would notice our passing, I think we ought to make an effort to do something about that.

It's not even always on us to make those connections, either. As with so many other relationships in life, for good or ill, it takes two. The woman in the article had family. Distant, extended, but family nonetheless. One of them, I think, should have noticed. Should have tried to pick up the phone over the holidays, or something. She had neighbors, too. I don't know if the blame lies with anyone source, and I suspect there's more than enough to go around.

So as we approach the holidays - and I know we do because the commercials have started - I think it's a good time to look around and take stock of our connections, and those of others. And perhaps ask if, in the coming season, the best gift we can give might not just be that of our company.

[If you're inclined to read it, the original article is at: www.goerie.com - just click the link for the full url.]

Can You Tell Me How to Get

2009-11-10T16:41:00.000-05:00

Going to do something slightly different with this post. Before you read, click *here* and that should provide the proper musical background for this post. I could have gone with a number of clips, but this one happened to highlight one of my two favorite cast members - Oscar, not the dog - so it seemed more appropriate.

Sesame Street is 40. Like most urban neighborhoods, particularly those in New York City, it's undergone a few changes and more than a little gentrification. I don't clearly remember it from the days when I watched it, but even from my little sister's days it had changed some when I tuned in so my own little one could watch it. Evolution is a big part of why the show is still going, and still relevant, even amidst the competition. Kids like me and my sister could count to ten in Spanish long before Dora came along.

I learned a lot from Sesame Street, beyond the fact that having no impulse control could be amusing. (Which is why Cookie Monster remains my favorite. If you've never seen it, look up his NPR interview. Yes, Cookie Monster was interviewed by NPR.) I can't begin to quantify the more prosaic academic stuff, as I don't think Sesame Street's designed to actively teach that sort of thing. Reinforce the alphabet and numbers and other learning bits, yes, but not as a substitute for the primary role of parents and educators.

Sesame Street is not a babysitter, but it will help you with the sing-a-longs.

No, I rather think the bigger impact Sesame Street had on me was simply introducing me to the wide expanse of culture at large. Their roster of guest appearances reads as a sometimes quirky melange of the performing arts, and any child watching can guarantee an exposure to things like country music and classical performances (the orange singing opera has stuck with me all these years). That harmonica during the end credits is an example of the more subtle ways they broadened my horizons, taking a simple tune and interpreting it in a myriad of different ways. My favorite remains the slightly bluesy harmonica, but in any version the tune - and the themes behind it -are recognizable. If you've not heard the current incarnation of the theme song you'd likely be in for a bit of a shock - it, like the rest of the Street, has adapted with the times.

It wasn't just the music, either. Big Bird went to China long before I did, and brought a foreign culture home to me in ways other shows didn't. And I would argue still don't - Dora rarely strays that far from her roots, and even when she - or Diego - does, it's usually to visit places and people that are merely slightly transported versions of themselves. The Street is, and has always been, multi-culturalism at it's best. The inhabitants of the Street are just different, and everyone accepts it and for the most part doesn't feel the need to comment on it or analyze it.

Beyond skin tones (or furry hues) there was just a sense that it's okay to be different. There is plain old silliness that is never mocked, always accepted. Sesame Street taught me it was okay to retain that sense of childlike wonder, and that people are people, even when they're green and fuzzy and grouchy. It also reminds me, as an adult, that children are people, too, and it's okay to let them hold onto their ideals and expectations. They'll have to grow out of it soon enough, so while they can they should be encouraged to embrace the idea that their neighborhood includes a guy in a trash can.

As a reminder of that, the man inside Big Bird was once approached by a photographer. Carol Spinney was half in the costume, and he asked the photographer to wait, and let him get in full costume first. He didn't want to undermine the illusion for the kids, didn't want to muck up the idea of who Big Bird is by introducing the man inside the costume. It is that respect for children and their perspective that I think is the lasting impact of Sesame Street.

I hope they have a cake big enough to celebrate all of that.

Real Life... Only Better

2009-11-07T23:15:00.000-05:00

The movies never get it right. History, that is. Now, as a historian (technically, anyway) I could turn this into a rant about that, and I have a book on my shelf that is, essentially, just that: a collection of articles that examine what movies get wrong when they turn to history. As interesting as the book is, though, I think it misses the point. The movies aren't about teaching, they're about storytelling. And while a good history film - or book - has a strong narrative, there's a difference between those and what a movie - or a novel - is trying to do.

In fact, one of the best historical novels I ever read was "The Killer Angels" which was pretty accurate, and made into a pretty accurate movie. But I wouldn't recommend using either to study for a test on the Battle of Gettysburg. By the same token, I love the movie "Glory," which the book on my shelf ripped to shreds. Admittedly, it is inaccurate. Highly so. (Watermelons, in Massachusetts? At that time of year?)

On the other hand, citing it's inaccuracies misses the point. It's not like Hollywood was going to green light multiple movies about African-American Civil War regiments. So while, yes, it's true the 54th was educated Blacks and not slaves, by making the movie 54th a more diverse mix I think it conveyed a broader message. And anyone who missed the symbolism of the watermelons wasn't paying attention.

Hollywood gets a lot of things wrong. Ask any cop, forensic scientist, or plain old physicist. There comes a certain point where certain sacrifices get made for the purpose of a good narrative. There's a line there, mind you, as do too much and you venture over into the realm of the truly silly. Also, sometimes, as a historian I do think that Hollywood could have and should have gone with the truth, and it would have made for just as good cinema. (It's Stirling Bridge, Mr Gibson, Stirling Bridge. Which brings me to...)

With a few examples, Hollywood gets most of it wrong. Braveheart is a great film. One of my favorites and I've watched it many times. As history... it's hysterical.

Apparently though, Hollywood isn't the only one that does this. Shakespeare, it turns out, may have over-stated the odds in Henry V. To that end, some NY Times op-ed person thought to rewrite the famous speech. You know, the "hold their manhoods cheap" speech. Which, in turn, is the real reason for this post. I'm reasonably certain Shakespeare new his facts. I'm also reasonably certain he knew a better story when he thought of one. As fiction, mind you. I don't think Shakespeare ever made any claims to be a faithful chronicler of history, which I kind of thought the NY Times piece overlooked in it's mock-up of the speech.

If you're going to write history, actual factual history, then yes, you need to be accurate as much as possible. But if you're sticking that "Based On" label, or better yet the "Inspired By" in front of your work, I think you ought to be granted some leeway with the actual events.

So long as you're telling a good story.

Death of a Character: Resurrection

2009-11-05T17:17:00.001-05:00

The dead don't always stay dead. This is a lesson I learned early on in fiction. I read Sherlock Holmes, who may not have been the first hero to die only to be resurrected, but was surely one of the most famous and probably one of the first instances of the "fans" keeping something alive. (There are a few other parallels with Star Trek I could mention, but those will keep for another time.)

For those who don't know, Arthur Conan Doyle got tired of his consulting detective after the initial run of short stories. Feeling the character was at an end, he crafted a suitable ending for Holmes, letting the detective meet his end locked in mortal combat with his nemesis, Moriarty, at Reichenbach Falls. Having penned and published the story, Conan Doyle moved on to other projects. The fans would have none of it, and eventually Conan Doyle caved in, resurrected his hero - who it turned out had only faked his death - and went on to write more stories. Holmes wasn't done yet, and did eventually earn his retirement as a beekeeper in Suffolk (or was it Suffix?), England.

Sometimes, characters just won't stay dead. Comics are notorious for this, Spider-man's parent company Marvel in particular. No one stays dead in the Marvel universe, not for very long anyway. Which, in my opinion, has lead to some rather silly things and has robbed death of much of its impact. Yeah, they killed Captain America. Whatever. You knew they were going to bring him back eventually. Heck, they brought Bucky back. (And if that makes no sense to you, consult the Wiki gods.) So if you do this in your story-telling, you run a very real risk of boring your readers. They know their beloved character isn't really dead, after all, so it's all kind of ho hum.

You can't even keep the shock value of a good death going if everyone knows it's not going to stick. (Even if it should, Marvel comics being an example yet again of having brought back a few people I thought should have stayed gone.)

I think there are times when death and resurrection serve as appropriate motifs. Sometimes a role just isn't the same when another person takes up the mantel, say in the case of the new Batman. (Though I am reserving judgement.) You run a storyline with someone filling in, but eventually that runs it course and the main act needs to return. Achieving that return is tricky, and can be as alienating as the original death if either of them is handled badly.

All that said there are moments when the sacrifice of a character serves a need of the plot, as well as their return. I think in those moments it's important to have the character come back slightly different. You don't get to die and come back unchanged. Gandalf's demise in the first part of the triology still has tremendous impact on me, even though I know every time I read/see it that he's going to return. In part it's because Gandalf the White isn't quite the same as Gandalf the Grey, and so something was lost in that death.

Of course, if you right in the right genres, death never needs to be permanent. There are always clones or zombies.

Though I don't know that anyone has ever done zombie clones, or cloned zombies. Might be something to consider.

Getting Outside Your Range

2009-11-03T14:19:00.000-05:00

Placido Domingo is singing as a baritone. Mind you, I only know he's a tenor, normally, because of that thing he did with the other two guys - only one of whom I can name off the top of my head. Not that I don't listen to opera, as I do, but I don't listen to it frequently enough to really know much about any of the stars or recognize them by voice. In part because my local radio doesn't carry that "Sunday at the Met" program, assuming it's still airing at all. Also in part because I just don't listen to that much opera.

None of which really relates to my point today. It turns out that Placido started as a baritone, and then early in his career moved up to a tenor. Where he proceeded to make his career. Now, in part because his voice is aging, and in part just because he wants to, he's come back down (musically speaking) to a baritone. By the sounds of it, he's just as comfortable as a baritone as he was as a tenor, but I am reasonably sure it took a bit of an adjustment. I'm also sure, because the guy on NPR said so, that having sung as a tenor Placido now brings a little extra something to being a baritone.

That's the part that got me thinking about how at least once in your life you ought to try something outside your normal range. Speaking as a writer, you could probably substitute "genre" for that last word without too much trouble, as that's really what I'm talking about here. However, it also applies to dabbling in poetry if you normally writer novels, or short stories if you write poetry, or something that requires you to follow a different set of guidelines than you normally do.

It does violate the old trope of "write what you know" but let's face it, in this day and age research is at the tip of your fingers anyway. There are limits on the usefulness of any rule like "write what you know" anyway, at least if you're going to be too much of a stickler about it.

This has a couple of advantages, not least of which is exercising some of your creative muscles that you might not normally use. If you spend most of your time thinking about spaceships, writing about a modern-day setting, or even getting historical, presents brand new challenges for you. Good writing is, of course, good writing, regardless of genre. And you don't necessarily need to come all the way out of your normal comfort zone to make it work. Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series contains elements of the Western and high fantasy that don't show up much at all in his other works, for example, and it remains I think some of his best writing. (Hated the ending, no matter how much it fit, but that's another entry altogether.) Robert Parker has also written some fine westerns that are far removed from the streets of Spencer's Boston.

The results aren't always good, of course, and sometimes writing exercises are just that and no more. But another advantage to when they do work is a fresh perspective. When you normally write in a particular genre, you can get too accustomed to the trappings of that genre. Switching can help shake you out of those trappings, and not just by getting you to work within a new set of guidelines. A different mode of writing can liven up some of the tropes - which every genre has - not only in the genre with which you are experimenting, but then when you return to your comfort zone. It's like taking a vacation, appreciating the change of scenery, and then coming home and appreciating what you have anew.

Then again, some people go on vacation and decided to stay.

In Your Dreams

2009-11-02T16:26:00.000-05:00

I was reminded last night as to why I don't normally look to my dreams for inspiration - they don't make any sense. Which is not to say that my dreams come free of narrative, because they do not. I'm not sure if it's a by-product of my being a writer or what, but for the most part, those dreams I have which I am aware of come with a certain narrative flow. Not necessarily a plot, mind you, because I think if you say plot it implies certain things about structure which are most definitely not the case. Rather, it's more of a free form prose device, where one thing flows into the next without any real regard for the larger story.

Most of the time.

On occasion, I will have a dream that could be translated into a complete story, or that at the very least provides some sort of kernel that could be nurtured into something more. They've even been written down. The ideas, mind you, not the full-fledged stories. So far I'm not sure I've put any of them into so many words as to count for a full story. It may well be that they aren't meant to be, either. I tend not to have whole stories pop into my head anyway, as things almost always occur to me in just lines or even more nebulous ideas.

I'm generally not one to interpret my dreams, either. Sometimes I have a dream (or more recently a nightmare) that even a Psych 101 student could decipher, but those are in the minority. Moreover, I am inclined to think that Freud rather over-stated the whole dream imagery aspect of our heads, though whether he was inclined to think that way or not I don't know. I suspect if he'd lived to see the cottage industry built around the idea that all our dreams have meaning... well, there were those cigars.

Most of the time I think our dreams are mostly a clearing house for all the various thoughts and tangents and other mental detritus we accumulate. Our brain sorts through it, making sure there isn't something useful, before simply dumping it. It might also all just be a bi-chemical byproduct of the brain's releasing various things to help us recharge and relax. My cat dreams, after all, but I don't think she's too concerned over what they mean.

On the other hand, maybe sometimes for her, a mouse isn't just a mouse.

Shadowrun

2009-10-30T19:17:00.000-04:00

The only role-playing game I ever seriously thought about playing has turned 20. I never did actually play the game, but if there was something that was going to get me to buy multi-sided dice and huddle around somebody's card table in their basement or rec room, Shadowrun would have been it. I actually owned the guidebook up until my last move, and it provided a fair amount of inspiration for me. (I've never thought of it before now, but it occurs to me the blend of the supernatural/paranormal and sci-fi that is the hallmark of the game may well have been in part the inspiration for my main body of work.)

For those not familiar with this particular RPG - back in the days when that meant dice and well-worn books and card tables and not fancy CGI effects - the premise was a simple one: in a "Twenty Minutes Into The Future" type device, sometime in the near future magic returns to the world in all its forms. Dragons, wizards, orcs, trolls, etc... in short, take your standard Dungeons and Dragons motifs, all the sci-fi trappings of a cyberpunk convention, mix them all together with a mercenary-based system of gaming, and you have the basic gist. The actual setting of the game as played was a bit farther into the future, I think, about mid-point or so in the 20th Century, but the turning event in their particular history had already occurred some time back, so trolls carrying lasers was commonplace for the inhabitants.

Of course, some of the technology that was supposed to be in the future now looks kind of... quaint. Which is also an issue if you're trying to do near-future sci-fi. (The topic of a forth-coming post.) Very few people foresaw the revolution in cell phones and those little hand-held computers so many of us carry now. (Better known as iPhones, Blackberries, and the like.) On the other hand, I don't think anyone who played the game ever expected the future to be like that anyway.

At least I hope not, as it was all rather dystopian. In that regard somewhat unoriginally so, as it was all big corporations ruling the future, but I'm guilty of that particular trope myself. I say trope rather than cliche in a hopeful tone, there, but certain aspects of it carried a somewhat dismal tone. Which makes sense in an RPG, because after all if it's all sunshine and rainbows, what is there for characters to do?

I also have to wonder how many of the guys writing urban fantasy - and possibly some of the women - were in some part influenced by the game. It occurs to me that the whole "magic and tech don't mix" motif was one of the rules of the game: magic users in the game didn't get any of the nifty cybernetic enhancements the non-magic characters could get. Of course it was all set in a more futuristic time than the majority of urban fantasy, but there's some of it out there. I think. .... If not there will be when I publish. So there.

Anyway, as I said at the outset it provided some inspiration for me, and used to sit on my bookshelf. I think I may have to go out and purchase the anniversary guidebook, just to put it back on my shelf again so that, when the mood strikes, I can mine it for ideas.

.... Still not buying the dice, though.

This is Supposed to Scare the @#$% Out of You, Right?

2009-10-29T14:40:00.000-04:00

During a recent trip to the library, my little one decided to rent Disney's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." I presume this decision was based on the picture of Esmerelda on the cover, and my daughter's fondness for Disney Princess movies. Now, I should have known better, because I am familiar with the story, but in my defense it is a Disney film and it did carry a G rating. Pixar's "The Incredibles" has a PG rating, and my daughter has seen and enjoyed that film. (So have I, for that matter, but that's another story entirely.)

All I have to say is, the MPAA dropped the ball on Hunchback. Or else Disney bribed them. Something. Because about half an hour into the film, around about the time of the carnival when things go from good to bad, I turned it off. With my daughter's approval. She's only 5 1/2, and the film was scaring her. Badly. And this is a girl who doesn't flinch at the dragon in "Sleeping Beauty" which let me tell you made an indeliable impression on my young self. (I saw that one again recently, and am pretty sure I've already commented here on some of the hidden meanings I saw in it.)

It was dark, it was scary, and we hadn't even gotten to the bit where the Judge lusts after Esmerelda yet. (Though Tony Jay is an excellent villain, had they stuck to the story and kept the archdeacon the villain, I think listening to David Ogden Stiers would have been far creepier.) This was not a film meant as a horror outing, unless the executives at Disney wanted to see how far they could push the envelope with the ratings board. And it masquerades as a typical Disney flick, right down to the talking gargoyles. Yet, as dark as it was, I know adults who would have a hard time with it.

Which got me to thinking that it's often these kind of horror outings that are most effective, even when they aren't intended as such. I freely confess that the majority of the slasher films out there bore me to tears. Or worse, amuse the heck out of me. Saw was so preposterous, so ridiculous, that I fast-forwarded through the better part of it just out of morbid curiosity to see how they were going to end the train wreck. Give me a subtle, creeping horror any day over some whack-job with a sharp blade and too much free time on their hands.

Some stories just seem to have an inherent creepiness, again even if they weren't originally designed to scare. Sometimes it's not even the story itself, but one of the characters in it that sends chills down your spine. The kind of character that you just wouldn't want to meet in a lit hallway, never mind a dark alley. Aside from the Judge in Hunchback, I can't think of any off the top of my head - but I know they're out there. I've seen them. And they can turn anything they're in into a "don't watch this in the dark" experience.

Definitely not the Dream Castle

2009-10-27T14:06:00.000-04:00

Barbie's gone homeless.

All right, it's not really Barbie, but rather one of those American Girl dolls that come equipped with a history lesson, a morality lesson, various trimmings and trappings, and a price tag that makes Barbie look like Raggedy Anne. And it's not even one of the main dolls, but a side character from one of the stories that comes with the main doll. But, from what I understand, you can purchase her (and thereby give her a home - though that's a cynical approach and might even be a bit of marketing irony lost on the company, as they don't seem noted for subtlety), and this has apparently caused a bit of an uproar.

Now, before I get to what I really want to discuss, I'm going to say that the uproar over this particular doll strikes me as somewhat silly and misguided. I'm the parent of a little girl, and frankly given all the hundreds if not thousands of images about femininity she is bombarded with on a weekly basis, there seem to me to be lots of other things to get upset about. Body image and unreasonable life expectations are only the start of it. (A Prince? Really? Marrying someone you've only just met is really going to fix your life? Sure, thanks for that lesson Disney.) But no one seems to get much up in arms over those topics.

Let one little doll be homeless, however, and suddenly it's some sort of moral crisis or something, as if we're now exposing our daughters to something we ought to have shielded them from.

Which, again speaking as a parent, is crap. If you ask me, the American public as a whole is far too shielded from the reality of life on the streets, let alone our children. Because as much as it may be a shock to some people, there are plenty of our children who are living on the streets. They, and there parents, have no where else to go. Yet we don't think about them when we think about the homeless.

Take a moment, just a moment, and do a mental exercise with me. If I say "homeless," what do you picture? If it's some bushy-bearded guy in rags - pushing a cart is extra - who mumbles to himself and/or smells of alcohol, chances are you're in good company. It's what a lot of people think. And to be fair, many of our homeless do suffer from mental and addiction issues. But it's not all of them, not by a long shot, and the difference between some of "them" and most of "us" isn't as far off as we might like to think.

In this one regard I will defend Dickens, whom, as I may have mentioned before, I generally loathe. But my lack of esteem for his word-craft aside, the man raised public awareness about the plight of children living on the streets and working in factories and being raised in dismal orphanages in ways very few others managed to do. (And it wasn't just Oliver Twist, either. Read enough Dickens and you will notice the recurring theme. Even in "A Christmas Carol." Pay attention to the little caroler who comes calling on Scrooge early in the opening act.)

We could use another Dickens in this day and age. That Will Smith movie wasn't a bad attempt, but I don't think it went far enough, and it wasn't the point of the story anyway. The sad reality is, especially in these economic times, homelessness is something that entire families have to deal with. Some, probably most, manage to ward it off through various means. I know that if it came down to it, I have family I can turn to. Even friends. But not everyone does. And anything that raises awareness of the issue, even if it wasn't the direct intent, is something that I think is worth talking about.

Not ranting about, mind you, in some misguided argument over the "appropriateness" of a doll, but actually discuss. In ways that might someday bring about a change in attitudes, or preferably still, a change in reality.

Reality, Not TV

2009-10-25T13:36:00.000-04:00

I confess I don't watch much reality television. I watched one season of American Idol, and that was mainly because I was overseas at the time and my options for English language programming were slim. My main impression was that it reminded me far too much of the popularity contests I remembered from high school (also known as choosing the Homecoming Queen or King or whatever). It also seemed, like most reality television, to be an exercise in personal vanity more so then anything else. When "Survivor" goes "Lord of the Flies" - or at least Bart Simpson at Kamp Krusty - that will be the season I watch. Otherwise I tune out.

The exception to this is the home makeover show. You know the one, it's on ABC, SEARS gets major publicity out of it, and all the guy designers seem ... well, like the stereotypical designers except they can also wield a hammer. I make no claims to regularly watch it by any means, but on those times when I have watched it, aside from giving me ideas what I would and would not do with my own home were money not an obstacle, it never fails to strike a chord.

Mostly this is not because of the donations of the corporate sponsors. I have no doubt SEARS is motivated by more cynical, market-driven concerns than any real desire for charity. (I may be wrong about that, but like I said, it's cynical.) Granted, they are donating, which they don't have to do, but it's the real volunteers, the ones making the biggest donations, that move me. These are the ordinary local people who show up to help, including the local building contractors.

(My cynicism about them is tempered by the knowledge that, being local, simply being on television isn't going to make a big difference in their bottom line. It may be free advertising, but let's face it, local homebuilders don't do a lot of advertising for the general public. Think about it. When was the last time you saw such an advertisement? I used to, but I grew up in that industry.)

The sheer outpouring of volunteers from the local community when these things happen is always staggering. Putting up a house in a week is no small feat anyway, but that they can do it - and do it with the numbers they do, is nothing short of remarkable. And it proves to me at least that no matter how jaded, how cynical, how simply misanthropic I am inclined to be about my fellow human beings on average, we are capable of extraordinary acts.

It doesn't have to be on television, either. Habitat for Humanity builds homes all over for people who couldn't otherwise afford them, all with volunteer labor. People volunteer their time in soup kitchens and shelters, and various other enterprises that, as winter sets in, become even more important to those in need. These volunteers remind that no matter how out of touch the average American might be with the reality of life on the streets (which is an issue for another blog), there are still many people in each and every community willing to give of their time and energy to help.

That's something to be cheerful about, even if there isn't much cause for cheer elsewhere at the moment. It's also something that everyone could be a part of. So I'm going to do something I don't normally do here and urge those few readers I have to consider finding a way to make a difference this holiday season. It doesn't take much, not really, and no matter what your circumstances I think we can all make time to help out somewhere, even if it's just through donations to the Salvation Army, the Food Pantry, or other organizations. I think that, if you do, you'll find you have something in common with all those people on television, week after week, community after community.

And it's not something you can get from just watching television.

Steampunk Music

2009-10-24T16:28:00.000-04:00

A quick definition, for those not in the know, borrowed from the Wiki gods:

Steampunk is a sub-genre of fantasy and speculative fiction that [...] denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used [...] but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy [...]. Other examples of steampunk contain alternate-history-style presentations of "the path not taken" of such technology as dirigibles, analog computers, or digital mechanical computers [...] with a presumption of functionality. (original article here)

This is one of the concepts that may be best understood with a visual, so take a moment to look here and then again here, and you'll get the idea.

Now, the concept appeals to me for a number of reasons, not least because the first bit of adult fiction I ever really got into was Sherlock Holmes. (Tolkien and Herbert were in there, too, but their worlds had more limited entries.) Steampunk seems perpetually stuck in a semi-Victorian era level of society. A bit more advanced, as I think dirigibles came slightly later, but with about the same feel. So it appeals to me for that reason alone, as there is just something about that era that I find fascinating.

Also, I find dirigibles incredibly cool, and think that even though it would be slower, modern air travel would be so much more enjoyable if we'd stuck with blimps. Which, yes, is wholly impractical given the number of travelers and the speeds with which they must travel, but really, can anyone argue that a slower pace would really be a bad thing in today's world? And besides... blimps! Blimps!!

Ok, that bit of personal geeky self-indulgence aside, one of the other reasons the genre appeals to me is it has such a visual element to it. Which was pretty much where I thought it began and ended - as a visual medium.

I was wrong. (Probably not for the last time, certainly not for the first.)

There is musical steampunk.

I'm not sure if it expands beyond the band that was introduced on the radio the other day, via one of the NPR programs, but it does exist. The group, whose name eludes me - and we all know how I feel about research on this blog - is primarily a jazz-oriented outfit. Now for whatever reason, they decided to attempt to do modern era music on more traditional instruments. In other words, rock and roll without the standard rock and roll set of instruments. Big band meets Led Zeppelin. Sort of. (Yes, blimps again.)

It was not muzak by any means, which might be the first comparison that springs to mind. They managed to retain the edginess that defines steampunk, and convey that on a musical level. I won't claim it was music I'd run out and buy, but it was decidedly different, and I thought it added another dimension to this particular genre. It reminded me that if you're going to get into world-building, which is sometimes an integral part of both fantasy, sci-fi, and spec-fic (with all the over-lapping those genres do lately), there are always multiple layers of elements to consider.

Which, if it didn't look so cool might be enough to get me to eschew the unfamiliar future for the known element of the present.

Only... there are those blimps to consider.

Smells of the Season

2009-10-22T16:02:00.000-04:00

The turn of the seasons here is accompanied by a variety of visual clues. Changing leaves, darker clouds (usually rain but every now and again snow instead), and of course shortening days and warmer clothes. Each season also comes with it's own set of smells, and these for me help me to get more into the season than almost anything else.

Spring and Summer, for example, are accompanied by the smell of mown grass. The other day it was warm enough for someone to be getting in one last mow. (Not me, though my lawn could probably use it, but I have decided now that we've had a frost not to worry about it.) Even though it was October, it brought Spring to the forefront of my mind. Cookouts are one of those Summer smells, as in the unique smell of the beach - which around here is normally a pleasant thing.

Winter's smells, by contrast, are almost all indoor smells. Snow, for example, doesn't have much of a smell. Unless you have dogs, and in that case you shouldn't be out and about in that snow anyway. White snow only. Pine might be an outdoor smell, but of course in Winter you usually get that indoors around the Christmas tree. Being out in an actual pine forest has the same smell, but being evergreens it doesn't matter much the season. Other smells include those of holiday foods, such as pumpkin spices.

For Fall, that smell is a combination of things, but none are more prominent, more welcome to my nose than that of wood smoke. Something about catching that first whiff on the breeze lets me know that fall has truly arrived. Couple that with the smell of apples, particularly apple cider, and even if I couldn't see the leaves change I'd know what season it is. Now, I realize this may be a regional thing, and that if you live in Southern California the smell of wood smoke might mean something far less pleasant, but up here (relatively speaking) that smell means the temperature is dropping and people are turning to their wood piles once again.

That, for me, is one of the biggest appeals of a fireplace, too. Yes, they're pretty and provide warmth, but it's that lingering smell, especially if you're burning more fragrant woods, that really sells the experience for me.

Omega Reader

2009-10-20T13:15:00.000-04:00

I seem to be the last one to read just about everything. This is, of course, a slight over-simplification, as people will come after me who have not read the same things I myself am behind the curve on, but it feels that way sometimes. I remember buying "The Firm" many years ago, after the movie had come out, and the person next to me remarking she was glad to know she wasn't the last person who hadn't read it. So I suppose it would be more accurate to say I am behind the popular curve, that I tend to pick up books long after they have become "hot" and while their authors may or may not be on the cultural edge.

On the one hand, there are a few advantages to this. Well, actually, there probably aren't any, really, other than I get to feel like I'm not following the herd. Though you could argue that I am, in fact, following the herd - I'm just really, really far behind. In the case of where Hollywood has made a movie out of the book in question, I've usually seen the movie before reading the book, so I also don't have to deal with being disappointed by casting choices.

Case in point, I am reading "The Da Vinci Code" finally. While not great literature, I confess it is a fun book, and admit that it also contains one of the most blatant attempts by an author to influence casting for the potential movie. Possibly ever. But that's another entry entirely. My point is, I saw the movie first, so despite the book's description - it's Tom Hanks in my head. Though I have given him better hair in my imagination.)

You might think that having seen the movie would spoil the book for me, knowing how it all comes out. Especially a book with puzzles or a mystery. And somewhat, of course, it does. But books often diverge from movies, or vice versa. There are those where I actually prefer the movie, with "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" making the top of the list. I like Dick's books, but they are often convoluted, and I'm not entirely sure "DADES" was his best outing. "Bladerunner," however, with the exception of that pointless unicorn dream that makes no sense at all, is one of my most favorite movies of all time.

And besides, I tend to look at the back of a book before I actually get there, anyway, so there's little to spoil. (Hey, I could get hit by a car, and then I'd never know how it ends. It would bug me. I presume there will be books or something in Heaven, at least in my version, but that's not the point.)

Another advantage to being behind the times is that I can usually avoid all the hype around a book and go in only with the usual expectations. Now, there remains some buzz, but no more so than around any other best-selling book or author that all the reading public gets excited about. Sometimes even that level of expectation turns into a bust, as "Meg" was sadly a bitter disappointment for me despite the anticipation of a "Jurassic Shark," but other times I start to see why everyone was so excited.

And then there are books that just fall in the middle, and are good reads, but aren't going to turn me into a stark-raving fan.

Not sure where I'm going to end up yet with Dan Brown, but I'll let you know.

Grammar Text Rantings

2009-10-17T15:49:00.000-04:00

I hate Strunk and White's "Elements of Style."

There, I've said it.

I know I'm not alone, and I suppose to be completely honest I don't hate the book, per se. What inspires the loathing (I decided "hate" wasn't strong enough) is that the book is treated in literary circles much like the Bible at a fundamentalist's convention. It is regarded as sacrosanct, unassailable, and unimpeachable in its authority. People who quote Strunk and White at you often do so with that self-superior air that says, not only were you wrong, but they're going to beat you with the good book just to make sure you grasp just how wrong you were.

Now, I will admit that some of the times they are correct. Often, however, it's a lot more subjective than any of the "Elementals" will ever admit to. If that was not the case, why would there be more than one manual of style in official use? (I'm more of a "Chicago" person than an MFA myself.) Yet, even when these die-hard Stunk & White cult members have other manuals on their desk, it's the little slim volume they choose to beat you with.

(Which is actually fortunate. The Chicago Manual of Style is a big, heavy book. It would hurt. A lot.)

It's that unwillingness to adjust to the changing and adaptive nature of the English language that most often irks me when I get into discussions with Elementals. English, like most modern languages, is constantly evolving, and subject to certain vagaries of style. Mike Royko once put the Gettysburg Address through a grammar checker for one of his columns, with predictable results. Strunk first penned the initial version of "TEOS" in the early 20th Century. Things have changed.

This is not to argue that there shouldn't be guidelines. There should be. And it's a good idea to know the rules before you attempt to bend them (or altogether ignore them) in you're own writing. As an editor, I relied heavily on having a set style to adhere the authors to. Without it, an editor's job would be twice as hard as it is.

The problem is that unlike the Chicago manual and others like it, which get updated periodically, Strunk & White has been left alone, intact, since its initial publication. No one has bothered to revise or update it, in part I think because unlike those other manuals it has the name of two authors attached - one of whom was fairly prominent. If the book had been generically published by a college or some other entity, I think by now it would be it it's fourth of fifth version, at least.

The progression of time will only serve to heighten these shortcomings in the book. As a historical look into the nuances of early Twentieth Century English, I think it has its place. It's not even a bad place for the fledgling writer to start if they are unsure of the rules. But at a certain point, it needs to be shelved in favor of books that are more flexible.

And if I should disappear after this post, I urge the authorities to look into the nearest holder of a copy of Strunk & White. It'll be dog-eared, well used, and the owner will lecture you on the proper use of commas and semicolons

Everyone Can't Do It

2009-10-15T14:02:00.000-04:00

Had a conversation come up elsewhere about responses from editors when they reject stories with form letter responses. As someone who works both sides of the aisle, I understand there are times when it's simply not worth the effort to try and get an author to resubmit something. In the nonfiction field where I worked, this was less often the case, as we would send things back with requests for rewrites. But there were times when the author just didn't get it, and we ended up having to write it ourselves or give it to someone else. In fiction, of course, you don't get to have someone else write your story, so when editors reject it that's pretty much the end for that piece with that publisher, and you move on to the next one.

Some people, though, don't seem to get the message when editor after editor, critique after critique, their work keeps being rejected or torn apart. They keep writing in spite of all evidence to the contrary that they should quit. And while yes, this is the hallmark of all writers, and that the pattern holds for everyone, and that you have to be persistent... I have read things that have prompted me to think some people should just know when to stop.

I realize this is practically heresy among online writing communities (one of which I happen to belong to) but there are people who just flat out should not write.

At least not for anything more than an audience of one.

It's the one thing where I think writing, as an artistic venue, seems to differ from all the others. Most of us know we can't make it as an artist, or a singer, or multiple other disciplines. We know it, we recognize it, and generally don't argue it. Yet writing seems to be the one field where everyone is convinced they can do it. I don't know if that's because, unlike in the visual arts where you can see that you can't draw, or hear that you can't sing, somehow when it's words on paper you don't ever seem to grasp it quite as clearly that no, you weren't meant for this.

I'm all for encouraging people who have talent, and recognize that sometimes that talent takes one heck of a lot of polishing and practice to get to something good, but there are people for whom that kernel of talent just isn't there, and as an editor - and sometimes as a reader - you just want to put them out of their misery.

Though as a single editor you just can't do that, in part because of that idea that everyone can write again. It takes multiple rejections before someone gets the idea that they can't, in fact, write. If ever. So unless you're the tenth editor to reject them, you don't get to be the one that spares the next poor unfortunate sole the wanna-be author will inflict their masterpiece upon.

Is this subjective? Of course it is. Lots of people adore James Patterson, and I wasn't impressed. Lots of people hate some of the authors I happen to like (Jonathan Kellerman comes to mind). So while I might read something and think the author needs to have their pencils, pens, or keyboards taken away, someone else might disagree. It doesn't change the fact that some people just don't have what it takes, and never will.

All I can do is hope that they get that message before they send their stuff my way.

Gone Too Soon

2009-10-14T16:56:00.000-04:00

SyFy is running mini-marathons leading up to Halloween. These are, as you might expect, all supernaturally themed. They kicked it off with "Brimstone" which I saw, loved, and mourned when it first aired and then unceremoniously had the plug pulled early on. The other day they ran a show I'd not heard of (in part because I'd been overseas when it aired), "Haunted," that I enjoyed enough to park my butt in front of the television most of that. (My laptop came downstairs with me, so I didn't completely waste the day.) Like so many other shows, it died quickly, most likely due to ratings and other factors, and like so many other shows, I found myself lamenting it's short run.

This is one of the problems with television as a medium to tell stories in. With books, where once an author has been published, it's a good bet they'll be published again, and so if they have a continuing character you can be guaranteed further exploits. Spenser has been going for nigh on thirty years at this point, and I expect will continue to do so until Robert Parker finally puts down his pen for good. With some ongoing characters that means more growth than others, but is also means there's either a sufficient back catalog to keep you busy, or the promise of future works to happily devour.

In television, however, once the plug is pulled, that's it. (Unless it's a Joss Whedon show, whereby cancellation just leads to a change of media. Though I could use more "Firefly" and less Buffyverse from his comic empire.) The story is done, the actors move on, and whatever interest you had in the story has to make do with either reruns on cable or buying the DVD packages. When they exist. (Which a "Brimstone" collection does not. A serious oversight in my opinion.) You're left with fan-fiction, which is sketchy at best and weird and badly written at worst (recently lampooned to excellent effect in "Supernatural" - which I recommend to horror fans), or crafting your own "what if's" in your head.

If the story ends on a cliffhanger or something like that it can be even more frustrating. I remember a very short-lived series called "The Fifth Corner" that was a spin on the concept behind the "Bourne Identity." It was one of those shows where, for every answer you get, more questions popped up. I liked it, it was well done, and it got far enough where you could tell it was only going to get better ... and then some international something or other happened, I don't remember what, and it got pre-empted for news coverage, and once the something or other was over, the show was gone.

Watching "Haunted" also got me thinking in reverse about some book series. There are a couple I have read where, for whatever reason, as a reader you start to wish the last few books in the series hadn't been written. Books that would have "jumped the shark" had they been television shows. You read them anyways, unless they get really bad, just like you watch them anyway (last season of the "X-files" comes to mind), but you know that pretty much every time you go to read a new installment, it's going to be a disappointment. If the author keeps going, you may even just abandon them entirely. It's enough to make you wish that some series and/or authors were dependent on ratings, and that once they fell below a certain readership they'd be asked to pull the plug on it.

With books, though, unlike in television, once you've managed to get your pilot show aired you're pretty much guaranteed to keep going for as long as you can churn them out. There's always another publisher out there willing to take an author with a proven track record on, even if there last few outings don't get the critical acclaim of the initial forays. (As in television when another network picks it up, that doesn't always mean you get the same quality of stories. If anyone remembers "Sliders" - the version on cable wasn't the one on Fox by any means.)

I suppose it's like that Billy Joel song - "Only the Good Die Young." Only without the whole "rock groupie Catholic girl sex" thing going on.

In the meantime, there's cable television reruns and DVD rentals. And knowledge of the inevitable - that other shows, other stories, will come along, only to be gone just when they were starting to get really interesting.

Mind Games

2009-10-13T16:04:00.000-04:00

I have rediscovered my love of crossword puzzles. Well, that might be a little strong. I have always enjoyed crossword puzzles, it's just been awhile since I worked on them with any sort of regularity. However, living in a town where not every source of employment is posted online, I've taken to buying a Sunday paper to peruse the classifieds. (Also helps keep me informed of various local going-ons.) And with the Sunday paper, of course, comes the Sunday puzzle.

As a writer I find these kind of word puzzles useful not just for brain stimulation but also as vocabulary improvement aids. I'd never have learned what "dorp" meant if it hadn't shown up in a puzzle. Mind you, I've had very few occasions to then turn around and use that word in real life, or even in my writing, but I have always been of the opinion that knowledge ought to be acquired for it's own sake. If it's useful, that's an additional bonus, of course, but just knowing things makes my life a little bit richer.

Plus it's useless trivia that can come in handy when watching "Jeopardy" or dropped into conversation. I am a font of useless trivia and otherwise little-used knowledge.

Beyond that, it's just a good way to keep the brain limber. My local puzzle doesn't seem to be the NYTimes one, so it's not as challenging as it could be, but it's enough to get me thinking for a while and doing some mental gymnastics I otherwise wouldn't be doing. I like the bigger puzzles on Sunday, not least because of the theme clues. The smaller weekday puzzles, especially the small ones with mostly three and four letter answers, tend to vex me. I don't know if that's a reflection of my vocabulary being too reliant on more complicated words, or just an inability to think small.

The jumble eludes me completely, even though I do pretty good at Scrabble. I think the difference there is being able to actually move the tiles in the game and shuffle them around. When it comes to shuffling the letters in my head, for some reason it's just not that easy.

(Sudoku? Not a chance. Math is evil.)

So while it does, technically, take away from time I could spend writing, I think it provides a needed and helpful distraction. Besides, all work and no play makes _____ a dull boy. (4 letters)

Wasting Villains

2009-10-09T09:15:00.000-04:00

No, this isn't about shooting the bad guys with an oversized gun designed to compensate for the hero's masculinity issues. This is about when a villain's potential goes to waste. When, despite the hype, they're barley on the screen (looking squarely at you, George Lucas, for Episode I) or in the book. When the author makes a big deal about just how evil, and powerful, the villain is, or has created a really great villain... and then doesn't do anything with them.

I have a particular author in mind for this little rant, but I won't name names. (Other than George Lucas... because, really, as much as I like Christopher Lee, Darth Maul deserved more screen time.) Mostly, in the case of the unnamed author, it seemed as though the villain had been relegated to the role of sub-plot, and if you're going to do that, it's all well and good providing that 1: it's the kind of thing you usually write so the audience has no reason to expect otherwise and 2: you don't create a really cool villain that you normally would have done lots with.

This was something I thought Silence of the Lambs did well. Aside from the screen presence of Lecter, he lived up to his potential. He wasn't just the scary guy safely in the glass cage. He gets out. Better still, though he is the subplot, the main villain is also satisfying. (Neither the movie nor the book would have worked half so well otherwise. Sub-plot should never completely overshadow plot.) It was also something the movie sequel screwed up, namely because the director, whom I normally enjoy, went for the shock ending. Only the Lecter we all know and love would never have allowed himself to be in that position.

(Not to mention he doesn't have to amputate his hand. Far less risky to simply take off the thumb, if it comes to that.)

Which illustrates another peril here: you can waste your villain with a single mis-timed scene. Something that doesn't ring true to character. At that point, you leave audiences scratching their heads and wondering what happened to the villain they've been watching all along. Hannibal isn't the only film guilty of this. (The book avoided this pitfall, but fell into another one.)

Mind you, some of those wasted villains have provided me with fodder for my own evil characters. I fully plan to steal the concept for one villain from a certain author who didn't know enough to use what she'd created. Well, "steal" is such a harsh word. I intend to appropriate and use for my own ends.

If you're going to create a strong villain, then you ought to use them appropriately. If not, you might want to start asking yourself if your story needs a villain at all, or if perhaps the motivation for your characters is something else entirely. Villains should be treated like the famous gun Chekov talks about: if they're there, they ought to be used.

The Appeal of Cemeteries

2009-10-08T16:21:00.000-04:00

I like cemeteries. Which I realize might sound kind of creepy at first, but as I think I've mentioned I'm a bit of a history buff. So I'm not hanging out in cemeteries to do anything creepy or occultish. I like roaming amongst the headstones, particularly ones that are old, and thinking about the history that is more or less buried beneath my feet.

Obviously older cemeteries are better for this kind of thing. There's a small local cemetery here in town, not very big, and while some of the stones are new, the town itself dates back to Colonial times. I think the town wasn't officially founded until after the Revolutionary War, but there's a historical marker where George Washington passed through on some sort of campaign. None of the headstones in the cemetery were quite that old. There is a marker for the town's founder, who is buried there, but it's clear he was reburied some time long after the initial internment.

Which I did not deduce from some careful historical study, but because I read it on the marker accompanying the grave site.

There are a number of stones that went back as far as the mid 19th Century, and possibly some that went even farther back but which had sadly been worn past the point where they could be read. Part of the appeal is simply knowing I'm looking at something that was put in place over a hundred years or so before I was born. I like being able to touch history, it's one of the reasons old architecture appeals to me.

Of course, the appeal of cemeteries in fiction and other media is usually based on other ideas often associated with them. Those would usually be the creepy aspects. Interestingly, most of those cemeteries all look about the same on celluloid. One of the things I have noticed in my travels is that cemeteries come in all shapes and sizes. On film, and in illustrations (with the notable exception of Mike Mignola of Hellboy fame) they all tend to follow one common layout, with the round headstones and the more spaced-out layout. This was the practice in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states, like my neck of the woods, because space and cultures allowed for it. But it's not always the case.

Asian cemeteries are much different, in part I think because they often cremate and thus have no bodies to bury and take up space. Despite another stereotype, not all Native Americans had a "burial ground." Some cultures wandered off into the woods, others made biers. And Eastern European cemeteries are just... cool. Lots of differing headstones and tombs, often with a great deal of iconography. And of course, even cemeteries around where I live are often a mix of different styles. There are no angles or cherubs in the cemetery here, but there are some obelisks and crosses, along with more traditional slabs. (Including one depicting a golf scene that looks to be from the early part of the 20th Century.)

All of which just illustrates the point that research is important if you're going to set a scene in a cemetery and have it matter what kind of cemetery they're in. Which sometimes might matter even if you don't think it does. No one's robbing graves in New Orleans with a shovel, after all.

Defending the Litte Guy

2009-10-07T12:00:00.000-04:00

Everyone hates the Ewoks. This seems to be the universal consensus among legions of Star Wars fans, and one of the reasons why Return of the Jedi was thought to be the weakest of the three films. Then, of course, Lucas made three more films, thereby elevating ROTJ from the bottom of the pile and dropping the Ewoks from "most hated" status. I expect they're at least a distant third now.

I have to admit, I'm not everyone, and I think some of that is rooted in my academic background. One of the chief complaints I've heard about the Ewoks is how they managed to overcome the obviously technologically superior Imperial Forces. (Speaking of which, why is it "Imperial" with an "I" when it's "Empire" with an "E"? Have to find that out one of these days.) This, more than any other argument I've heard, seems to be the main source of ire. I suspect some of it may also be that it was Ewoks, not Wookies, but given the FX constraints of the day I've heard that was largely budgetary more so than anything else.

There might also be some lingering resentment that, for the longest time, the only post Star Wars offerings were a couple of television movies featuring, of all things, just the Ewoks. No mention of any of the rest of the Star Wars universe. Other than the Ewoks, it could have been set anywhere else. But I think a lot of it is that the Ewoks manage to overcome the Stormtroopers.

If we were talking a long, protracted campaign, then I think the critics would be right. There's no way the Ewok would be able to withstand a coordinated campaign. The Empire isn't the Americans in Vietnam, after all. Assuming the planet was worth the effort, they'd wipe out the Ewoks in a heartbeat. Superior numbers, superior technology. If all else failed, they'd just vaporize the planet. (Which I suspect would have happened the moment the Death Star was finished anyway.)

But that's not what happens in the film. It isn't an entire war. It's one battle. Against an indigenous, obviously prepared guerrilla force. Yes, it's a force of three foot tall natives who look suspiciously like a marketing ploy. (It is George Lucas, after all, a marketing mastermind... to a certain extent... and it is Star Wars, which changed the movie marketing game forever.) Yet they know the terrain, they've put together various defensive/offensive efforts that are clearly aimed at the occupying forces - unless there's some T-rex sized predator roaming around that requires the smashing logs suspended from trees - and they aren't entirely alone. They have the Rebel squad assisting them, too.

As someone who's studied military history, I know this isn't the first time a smaller, less-armed force has managed to defeat a large, more technologically proficient force. Little Big Horn comes to mind, among other instances. Guerrilla warfare works for precisely the reasons the Ewoks manage to put a dent in those shiny white uniforms. Smaller, more mobile force, that knows how to use the local terrain to their advantage. In the long term, against a more ruthless force willing to use all the means at their disposal (which most opposing forces aren't - hence the reason we didn't firebomb North Vietnam into a wasteland) those advantages can be countered and overcome.

So, again, in the long term the Ewoks would be toast. Fuzzy toast, likely with the smell of burnt hair which, if you've ever smelled it, is highly unpleasant. But for one, short, pitched battle, with the element of surprise and advanced planning, there's no reason why it couldn't have gone their way. They might have even won a few battles before the Empire razed the forest and hunted the little pseudo teddy bears into extinction.

Hate the Ewoks if you must, but don't begrudge them their victory.

Although if Lucas ever comes up with a Jedi Ewok, then I, too, may be on the anti-Ewok bandwagon. Or would that metaphor work better with a Sand Crawler?

Hamlet's Last Words

2009-10-06T09:34:00.000-04:00

The podcast that inspired today's post can be found here. (And while you're there, I would recommend perusing their other podcasts. Then supporting your local public radio station.) I listened to it a while back, but it was brought back to mind today by another story on NPR about Jude Law stepping into the role of Hamlet. Not sure how I feel about that, but then every actor approaches the role somewhat differently. It is arguably one of the most famous plays in existence, probably #2 behind Romeo and Juliet I would think - though I much prefer Hamlet, and has been subject to much interpretation.

I would hope I'm not giving anything away by saying Hamlet dies at the end, in, arguably again, one of the most famous death scenes of all time. His last words are "the rest is silence." Which is generally the last thing he says. Only, there's another version, where it isn't the last thing he says. Added after Shakespeare's death, they may or may not represent an editorial decision made first by an actor interpreting the role. Given that Hamlet is a role that is open to much interpretation, this seems a small thing, but I found that the idea of Hamlet having a death rattle not only pretentious and presumptuous on the part of the actor who thought to do it, but also unnecessary.

Before I go too much further, I should say there are times when just because an author chose to end the story arc one place, it doesn't mean that it's forever sacrosanct. That said, you have to pick and choose your moments, and your story before you decide the original ending just wasn't good enough. I've never read "Gone With the Wind," nor seen the movie... and have no desire to. That said, I'm familiar enough with the ending, and think it remains one of the better endings in literature. Ambiguous, sure, but at least with a heroine who stands on her own. Only to end up with a "happy ever after" in the sequel.

Which invalidates the original ending, I think.

Which is my problem with Hamlet's death rattle.

You take what is, essentially, a perfect ending. A poetic ending, especially given Hamlet's penchant for wordiness (exceeded only by Polonious). And then you undo all of that for no good reason other than someone else's hubris. (Which is a major Shakespearean theme, so it kind of fits.)

I'm not saying you can't ever mess with something. The Lego version of the Bible is at once both faithful to the text and somewhat irreverent. There's a couple of riffs off the Lord of the Rings that made me laugh out loud. But those were meant to be what they are. With Hamlet and GWTW the add-ons were serious efforts. Completely extraneous serious efforts.

I'm not even saying you can't continue the story. I'd like to know what happens to Rick after the end of "Casablanca" and think that would make a good story. Might even be tempted to write it someday. But I wouldn't have Ilsa get back off the plane, or come back to Rick. Because that would undo the power of the original ending and, if I may say so, be disrespectful of the text. I won't say that "Scarlett" was disrespectful of GWTW - as I said, I've not read it so I won't presume to comment too extensively. I have read, and watched, Hamlet. And I cannot imagine it with a death rattle.

All I am saying is that if you feel the need to mess with a classic ending, or the story in general, maybe you ought to think twice about it.

Death of a Character 2: He's Dead, Jim

2009-10-02T15:50:00.000-04:00

That will likely be the last Star Trek reference I make - in this entry, anyway, and only because I can't think of any other way to tie Star Trek into this particular topic. My geekdom knows few bounds. But the death of the redshirts (okay, so that's another reference) doesn't really apply to the topic today, despite the high turnover rate in their ranks.

While this is about people who die and stay dead, it's also about when significant characters die and stay dead. Not the incidentals or the guest stars. There can be any number of reasons why an important character might die, not all of which are good reasons, if you ask me.

The first reason, and the best, is when it's necessary to further the story. Sometimes it's just necessary for someone to die. If you write horror or mystery, this is probably a given. Most murder mysteries circumvent this some because the character usually starts dead, or is given only a brief introduction before being killed. (Unless you're in one of those Agatha Christie type stories where people are slowly but surely killed off.) They become a central character of sorts because they're dead. In contrast, in a horror story characters tend to die to illustrate the idea that no one is safe. Sometimes, though, someone simply has to die. Would Luke have put his faith in the Force during the Death Star run without the death of Obi-wan? Possibly, but likely not, and it would have carried much less gravitas to have Obi-wan telling Luke to "Use the Force" over the intercom.

Sometimes a character dies simply because the writer has run out of uses for them. They create a character who serves a purpose the plot, but then it becomes murky as to what purpose the character continues to serve once they've fulfilled their function. I happen to think that killing off such a character represents poor planning on the part of the author, and that killing them is the easy way out. Rather than having figured out how to integrate the character into the whole story, they only plotted it out so far, and when things got difficult they pushed the character out of the moving vehicle and into traffic. There are times when this gives the story a bit more of a realistic feel, especially if the death of the character taints the "happy ever after" of the ending, but they can irritate me some when they happen.

What really irritates me, though, is when characters are killed for no good reason other than shock value. An instance that comes to mind is Sirius Black in the Harry Potter series. Dumbledore, too, to a certain extent, although I think that falls more into the second scenario detailed above - the final battle needed to be Dumbledore-free so he couldn't somehow save the day, and killing him off is the surest way to accomplish that. Also set up the whole thing with Snape. However, it was somewhat undermined by Sirius's death in the previous book.

After the fourth installment, it felt to me as if J.K. Rowling felt the need to end the next two books with a death. (The final book was a series of deaths in and of itself, and, honestly, most of those took the easy way out. I didn't feel the loss of any of them, really, except Hedwig.) Sirius was probably the logical choice, by which I mean the biggest shock value. May also have been a case of not knowing what to do with him, though I think that could have been solved. I didn't feel it served any purpose to kill all of Harry's family (except the Dursely's... and really, if there were people who needed killing...) other than just the shock value.

It seemed to me that by killing the character the author in fact marginalized the character. Just watch the movies and this becomes apparent. Other than to die in the fifth installment, what else did Gary Oldman really have to do? And there was a great deal of potential in the character, particularly as a darker foil to Harry, someone he looked up to who wasn't the ideal of the other mentor figures in the book. (Course, maybe that was sort of the moral point. In which case I really dislike his death.)

The Harry Potter series aren't the only case of killing a character for shock value with no other discernible purpose, but it was the one that came to mind. So I guess the moral of the story here is, if your character is going to stay dead, it ought to be for a good reason and not because you wrote yourself into a corner, or wanted to shock the audience.

Death with a purpose, in other words.

There's a third part to this series, and I'll put it up as soon as I remember what it was going to be.

Homophone Troubles

2009-09-30T17:06:00.000-04:00

I'm being plagued by words. Specific words. "Know" and "now" are among them. Which, it occurs to me, aren't homophones. Or even homonyms. So I may have just invalidated my entire point right from the get-go. Or not, because the other words giving me fits lately are, in fact, homophones.

As opposed to homonyms, which if I recall correctly are the ones that are spelled the same but sound different, so even if you got them confused it wouldn't make any difference in your writing. Might make a difference if you switch them up while talking, but I don't know anyone who's ever done that. Confusing homophones is a different matter. There are whole sections of grammar books dedicated to this issue.

My current nemesis is "your" and "you're." I don't know why. I know the difference. Heck, I know the difference between "who" and "whom" and can even use them correctly. Which these days is saying an awful lot. Yet somehow, when the words are flying and the fingers are typing, inevitably the wrong one comes out. I catch it, most of the time.

As mentioned in the opening, "know" and "now" are also currently vexing me. I know which one I want in my head, but somewhere between my frontal lobe and my fingers, the signals get crossed. Again, most of the time I catch it but not always. Depends on what else I am doing while I type.

And of course the spellchecker is no help. I have no idea if the grammar checker would catch it, but as I turn that off on every single word processing software I own, it's also of no help. So I just have to pay attention, and hope that my current dilemma goes away on it's own. It should, as it has happened before, but it's just a question of how long it will take.

In the meantime, maybe someone will come up with a pill for it. The side effects would, if all those commercials I see are any indication, likely kill me, but hey, that would solve the problem.

Dark and Stormy Night

2009-09-29T15:58:00.000-04:00

This is a line most people are familiar with, either because of its literary origins or as a result of the endless variations Snoopy penned from atop his doghouse over the years. It is a real line, from a real book, though don't even begin to ask me from whom or from what. (Yes, I could google it, but I've established a tradition of not doing so with this blog and don't intend to break with tradition now.)

It's also, supposedly, the worst opening line, ever.

I take issue with that classification. I understand that it's redundant, if taken literally, and that you're not supposed to start with setting. On the other hand, it's short, it's not that redundant when taken in the proper context, and what's wrong with establishing a spooky precedent? Now, I don't think it was meant to be spooky, so that could be a problem with my reasoning, but as with the checking of facts I try not to let logic undermine the points I'm trying to make.

Even absent the need to create an appropriate atmosphere, there are varying degrees of darkness at night. As anyone who has been outside during a full moon will attest, it's not always completely dark. In fact, during a full moon, it's actually kind of bright. Especially if there's snow on the ground. Add in other modern factors such as lights and when was the last time you experienced a truly dark night? With a storm, of course, it would be darker, so perhaps it could have just been left at "It was a stormy night."

THAT line sucks, however. It has no punch, no poetry, and is dull and lifeless. That would have gotten no argument from me about being the worst line ever. Which is another reason the line works as is, in my opinion. It has a certain narrative panache to it, that many other lines lack.

Like "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." This is often regarded as a classic opening line. Leaving aside my general dislike of all things Dickens (with a few notable exceptions), the line has a few flaws. Most notable among them being it doesn't end there. The actual first line goes on, and on, and on in true Dickensian fashion, as contrast after contrast after contrast is laid on. Had the line actually ended with that first contrast, it might be higher in my esteem, but by the time the period comes into view it's become more of an opening paragraph. And the rest of it is all redundant, because the point's been made.

(Dickens got paid by the word, though, so there's a certain understanding to why he wrote the way he did.)

It does have a bit of poetry to it, though as it's more of a head scratcher than anything else, and requires further explanation, it doesn't do much to draw me in. Plus, it's one of those large view statements, and you just know the book is going to deal with massive themes. (Which it does. Badly.) With "It was a dark and stormy night" my curiosity is piqued. What makes it so dark (other than it being night)? Why is the storm important? What's going on in this setting?

All of which makes for a line that, if not great, isn't the worst of all lines.

Muzak on the Space Elevator

2009-09-26T16:27:00.001-04:00

I was listening to a program the other day... not sure which one (program, that is - day, too, for that matter) and they were talking about the concept of a space elevator. For those unfamiliar with the idea, it was first conceived by Arthur C Clarke, of 2001 fame. At least I think the idea is his. Might be some other sci-fi guru's, but I'm pretty sure. And lest anyone dismiss the concept as a flight of fancy, it should be pointed out that Clarke came up with the idea of a communications satellite. Designed one, too.

The space elevator hasn't been built yet, but it's an elegant and simple concept. You stretch a thin yet high-tensile cable up to a geosynchronous position in orbit, and then use that to haul an elevator up to orbit, carrying all manner of things that can then be put up there. It would ultimately be cheaper and easier than a rocket, and probably comes with other advantages I'm not grasping at the moment. (Because I'm not bothering to look it up, per usual, and going with what I can remember at 11:30 at night.)

I've heard about the idea before, and I should mention that it's being discussed as a way to haul cargo, not people, for obvious reasons, starting with the ending destination. I suppose if someone does build it, there would be ways to make it carry people, though, again, I'm a writer, not an engineer. However, it occurred to me ask if it does carry people, would it have elevator music?

It was initially a silly question, but it raised an interesting issue nonetheless: as much as I enjoy sci-fi and technology, for all the fantastic things it does there are still the mundane aspects of life that just never go away. It's like the story of Alan Shepherd having to pee his suit because no one had thought to deal with that particular problem (in part because he was only supposed to be in it for a short while and ended up stuck on the launch pad). People have to go the bathroom in space, just like they do here.

Then there is the tech that becomes commonplace. Think about it. As much as I adore modern communications, I was among the last group of students to come of age without email. I remember using the fledgling version of it on campus. If you'd told me then about all the stuff I can do now, a mere 15 years later, I wouldn't have believed you. Not that we have everything. I want my flying Delorean, dang it. Though I fully expect that if we ever have flying cars, there will be bumper stickers on them.

It's those little touches, when they go into a work of sci-fi, that help ground it for me. I can accept the fantastical if the noodle shop guy is still getting the order wrong because of the language barrier. (Noodle shops, like yellow taxis, apparently being a cultural artifact that survives long into the future. Both Harrison Ford and Bruce Willis have told me so, and they wouldn't lie to me.) It's those little touches that, if a writer can integrate them skillfully enough, manage to work wonders with the believability of the story. Even if the rest of it is just so out there as to be ridiculous - deliberately so or otherwise.

So there is a part of me that hopes that, should the space elevator be built, and should it carry people, it will have muzak.

I just don't want to have to ride it if it does.