Confessions of a Logophiliac aka Chris Miller

Texting Through Time

2011-12-05T00:30:00.000-07:00

What I'm reading: Texting Through Time by Christy Monson.

Today, I have the pleasure of taking part in a blog tour on behalf of Christy Monson and her book, Texting Through Time.

Texting Through Time is a middle-grade novel that follows the adventures of Micah and Alicia as they travel through time thanks to a smart phone prototype developed by their dad.

The phone allows them to go back in time where they meet LDS prophet Brigham Young. They first meet him at his boyhood home then jump to later events in his life.

This is not just an adventure story. The phone also presents challenges for Micah and Alicia to accomplish. Through these challenges, the kids learn lessons on faith, courage, charity, and a host of other desirable characteristics. The phone does not let them return home until they figure out a puzzle built on the challenges.

Brigham Young led the Mormon pioneers west to settle in the Salt Lake valley. Because of this, some of his exploits are well known, especially later in his life, but Christy goes deeper. She has done extensive research and introduces us to little known gems from the prophet's life.

What's so unique about these stories is we are introduced to not only Brigham the prophet, but Brigham the man. We see his personality through the struggles and achievements in his life, both religious and secular. Again, it's geared toward middle-grade readers, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and learned a lot.

I could easily see this as the first book in a series of time traveling stories to the lives of other prophets.

~ * ~

In addition to this well told story, it includes some fabulous illustrations, by Rose Ledezma. These images really bring the stories to life. There are large, medium, and small pictures, some just tucked away in the corner of the page but they give additional depth to the work.

With her permission, I've included a few of my favorites:

Brigham Young covering his beard.

Micah, Alicia, and Brigham meet the Prophet Joseph Smith

Alicia learns to harvest syrup.

Cleanse Fire: The Kinir Elite Chronicles

2011-11-14T07:30:00.000-07:00

Today I have the privilege of participating in a Blog Tour on behalf of Anastasia V. Pergakis and her novel,

Cleanse Fire: The Kinir Elite Chronicles

Cleanse Fire is a fantasy adventure novel, with edge-of-your-seat action. Epic battles, suspense, and a bit of romance too! Follow the Kinir Elite as they track down a traitor and find more than they bargained for.

Complete the mission, no matter what…

Captain Derac Vidor has served Kinir for nearly twenty years. It’s his life, his blood soul. And then his Commander betrays everything Derac holds dear. Now he has to focus on his own life and his team instead of saving the citizens of Kinir.

Treason is only the beginning…

Fueled by rage, the team chases the source to their Commander’s betrayal – a powerful wizard bent on revenge. The wizard seeks to destroy the Kinir Elite, in both mind and body. No place is safe, even among their allies.

The past holds the key…

Derac’s tragic past may be the key to saving the team. But can he face the gruesome nightmare in time?

Some of the following information will never come out in the series, so I thought to share it with you all as a little "behind the scenes" info about the Kinir Elite and the type of elf it takes to be a part of their team.

The Kinir Elite are a special forces, "black ops", team with mostly top secret missions. They are still a very "public" group, unlike most black ops teams which are kept in secret, away from public knowledge. They are seen as the "super heroes" to young elves and are often the source of many bedtime stories. The majority of their missions are secret but when it's a hostage rescue situation, the news is spread around. Their country is rather small and limited in technology (compared to ours), so they don't have things like helicopters, cars, guns, etc. They use bladed weapons and bows, making for a more personal style battle/fight scenes. They use covered wagons, carriages, horses, and even dragons as their "vehicles".

They do work closely with their southern neighbours, The Tinally Elite, who are faeries. The faeries use magic and spells, unlike the physical weapons of the elves. But the inally are limited in what they can do depending on location (can't use magic or survive long without sunlight or moonlight) and strength (if they use too much of their magic, it can drain them and they will need to rest to rebuild their power again). This why the two groups work closely together. When there is a situation underground, the Kinir Elite will step in to help as the Tinally faeries cannot operate, even minimally, in such conditions. It is the same when the Kinir elves have a situation that requires flight and/or magic of some sort.

Female elves (elfas) only recently were allowed to join the Kinir Elite, while the Tinally Elite allow only male faeries. The members of both teams (6 on each) are chosen by the Captains and Commanders of the teams; members can not apply or request to join. In order to be "in the running", an elf or faerie must serve at least ten years in the Army and five years in the Kinir Rangers/Tinally Airborne. If they are chosen - and accept the invite - they pledge to serve another twenty five years. (They live for a very long time, being elves and faeries...)

During the time in the Army and Rangers/Airborne, a person that wants to have a chance to join the Elite, must learn the following things:

Be fluent in 5 languages - 6 if counting the Ancient Language;
Pass all intelligence tests with a score of 175 or better (out of 200);
Be an expert in all manners of weapons;
Pass the Elite Aptitude and Endurance Test (Only Rangers who have served 3 years and have all the other qualifications are allowed to take this test.)

BUT even with all that, the greatest test, and the one the Elite Captain pays the most attention to, is seeing the possible recruit in action - seeing how they think on their feet in a real situation.

The Elite Test is essentially their version of "spy training". They are taking away from the Ranger base and taken to a secret facility. In order to keep the facility hidden, the Rangers that go at that time are given a sleeping sedative. Then they are transported to the secret facility and spend anywhere from two to five years depending on what they choose to specifically train in. In order to keep this explanation brief, think of this facility as a combination of SWAT school, Navy Seals SERE training, and "spy school".

Given the strong military theme in my book, I want to honor real life soldiers with my writing. Portions of my royalties from this book, and the upcoming books in the series, will go to the Wounded Warrior Project. This organization helps wounded soldiers and their families heal when they return home. You can learn more about them and read true accounts of soldiers they've helped at their website, www.WoundedWarriorProject.org.

Excerpt from Chapter 8.

A groan escaped him as he unbuttoned his shredded tunic. His hand brushed over the crest of Kinir embroidered on the front. Two lions reared up on their hind legs, one of each side of a crown atop a letter ‘K’. Silver and green threads woven together to create a metallic green look. His fingertips felt each thread, each rise in the design. How could Palto betray us?

A ragged sigh left his lips and he tossed the uniform to the floor. He wiped the dirt and grime off his skin with a soft cloth. The water turned brown. Dried blood flaked off him and landed to float on the surface of the murky water. He couldn’t take his eyes away from the bowl. The liquid swirled, making his stomach churn.

Derac’s knees collapsed from under him and he landed hard on the floor. He dragged the cloth down his face in an attempt to wash the mines and everything from his memory. Nothing helped. When he closed his eyes he saw the tortured and starved faeries and Kie panicking in the dark.

He scrambled to his feet and dumped the murky water out the window. Full of clean water again, Derac plunged his face into it. Using the pitcher, he poured more water over his head. The dirt, he had to be rid of it. All of it.

Derac straightened and squeezed the excess water from his hair. Dried blood, chunks of dirt, and who knew what else turned the water to a thick mud. He threw the contents out the window again and wiped the bowl clean.

He yanked his brush from his pack and raked it through his black tresses. Tears stung his eyes. He told himself it was the tangles in his hair but it was a lie. How many faeries had died before the team could rescue them? How many lost their innocence at the hands of a dwarf?

Derac fell to his knees and bowed his head toward the open window. Moonlight poured in, but it did little to dispel the chill he felt in his bones.

Kie willingly entered the place of her childhood nightmares. How did she muster the courage? Why wasn’t she a wreck like him? He pulled on her strength and forced himself back to his feet. Breaking down was not going to help anyone.

~ * ~ * ~

Thank you Chris, for having me here today. I really appreciate the visit to your blog.

Purchase Cleanse Fire

Join the Kinir Brigade by signing up for our newsletter! Get exclusive deals, access to special giveaways, and inside information about the series! Join the Kinir Brigade now! And don't forget to visit our Facebook Page and Website too!

~ * ~ * ~

In honor of Veterans Day a few days ago, I’m giving away an e-copy of Cleanse Fire! Leave a comment on this post to enter into the random drawing by 11:59 pm November 20 (Eastern Standard Time). You MUST leave your email address IN the comment so I can contact you when you win!

Everyone who leaves a comment will also be added to the drawing for a chance to win a signed hard cover version of the book when it releases December 21.

I'm having more giveaways throughout the months of November and December! "Like" the series' facebook page to keep up to date on all the events!

Variant Book Bomb

2011-11-09T23:36:00.008-07:00

What I'm reading: Variant by Robison Wells.

Young Adult (YA) fiction is not my genre of choice, but I can be persuaded. Oh, I'll check something out if it gets enough play, like The Hunger Games. Plus I know a number of local authors who write YA and I'm all about supporting local authors (I plan to be one in the near future).

Because Variant was only released about a month ago, it hasn't had time to pick up traction. However, I have had occasion to listen to Rob speak at writers' conferences and met him before this year's Whitney Awards (his brainchild, btw). Oh and a good friend of mine is a good friend of his, Marion Jensen. So, Rob and I are practically BFFs and therefore I bought and read his book.

Variant begins as a bubbling creek winding its way through picturesque valleys and ends as a rushing torrent plummeting over class VI rapids. It is book one of two and we are left with plenty of questions for which there better be answers in book two. I'm sure we won't be disappointed.

To learn more about the plot line, check out the link above to Rob's website.

~ * ~

THE MOTHER OF ALL BOOK BOMBS

As I mentioned above, I'm only just getting to know Rob and the other amazing authors in this community. I know he's been instrumental in a lot of facets, like the Whitney Awards, and from others who know him much better, I understand there's much more admirable and amazing stuff I don't know.

In fact, go to Josi Kilpack's blog for some of those specifics.

Or check out Sara Eden on Twitter @SarahMEden

The following is taken from Larry Correia's website, NY Times bestselling author of the Monster Hunter International series. Larry gives an awesome account of how books/authors work and again how fantabulous Rob is.

I've included some of his post here, because it says it so well.

(Larry, my apologies for reprinting your blog here, but you say it SO well and I gave my $0.02 above . . .)

Mark your calender. On Thursday, November 10th, I’m going to book bomb somebody, and not only that, I’m going to ask all of you for help spreading the word because this particular author is in dire need of a boost.

Variant is an excellent read, sort of a sci-fi take on Lord of the Flies with a twist, and don’t just take my word for it, it made the Publisher’s Weekly list of the top books of the year.

Variant was one of the best books I’ve read this year. I stayed up late to read it in one sitting.

A little while ago he was diagnosed with a severe panic disorder. Basically, something in his brain chemistry has gone out of whack, and his fight or flight reflex is constantly switched on. As a result this has really screwed up his life. He has been trying to get it under control and his doctors have been experimenting with different treatments trying to find the one that will click.

Recently, Rob was laid off from his day job as a result of his illness. This is a real financial hardship for him and his family.

What many people don’t realize about writers is that we keep our day jobs until we have about five or six books in circulation, and sometimes longer depending on how well they are selling. Writing isn’t the most steady of paychecks. (I’m doing well enough now that I could just be a writer, but I happen to love my day job, so I plan on doing it for probably another year.) You’ve got to earn back the advance and even then you only get paid every six months. Variant is Rob’s first book on the national market. He had a ways to go before he would be able to quit the day job, but his illness totally wrecked that plan.

What is a book bomb? Well, Amazon has its own bestseller list. It is calculated hourly and you are given a sales rank based up on how you stack up against the other six million books on there. It's some sort of strange rolling average algorithm, but what it comes down to is the more books that are purchased during that particular time frame, the higher you rank. The higher you rank, the more of their top 50 or top 10 lists you show up on. The more of those you show up on, the higher you go, the more attention you get, the more books you sell.

By getting as many people as possible to purchase the book on a single day, it really kicks a book up the rankings.

So mark your calenders, this Thursday the 10th.
Amazon link to Variant:

Alien Presence

2011-10-02T14:46:00.006-06:00

What I'm reading: Kindred by Octavia E. Butler.

This is the second book of Ms. Butler's I've read. The first was Wild Seed. Wild Seed is in my top 5 of favorite books.

Kindred didn't resonate with me like Wild Seed did. However, it still effected me--and that's what we hope and expect from good writing.

It was first published in 1979. Thirty-two years later, it's still relevant, likely because the issues it addresses are universal and timeless. Additionally, it largely takes place in the antebellum South. The impact of that era of U.S. history is still felt today.

We might classify Kindred as science fiction due to its time travel element, however, I don't think I'd call it a science fiction novel. It's a story about the person we are in our given surroundings. If those surroundings change, do we change as well? A question posed by the protagonist is, (in part, in regards to her white husband) just how easily could one give in to the idea of slavery? It's also about family; in the sense that no matter how far we distance ourselves from them, we are also connected in some sense.

It's an important novel. One that I'm glad I read.

~ * ~

Alien Presence

Alien Presence is the title to my second piece of flash fiction I wrote for the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge 2011. Click here for my post on the contest. This is my second entry in the first round. There are three rounds. In each round, judges award you a place in your group and a corresponding point value. For instance, in the first round, I was awarded 12th place out of 24. This gave me 4 points. First place gets 25 points. The points from your first and second story are added together. If your total points are within the top 5 of your group, then you get to move on to the second round.

My assigned genre for this story was: Open. My location, a space station. The object? A glass eye. I found this more challenging than my first story, Orange or Pink, which had a genre of Drama, in a cell phone store, including a chicken.

Below is my new story. Comments and feedback are appreciated.

Alien Presence

Major Connor Jenkins closed his eyes and rubbed his left temple. You’d think I’d be able to feel it under my skin.

“Major, are you all right?” asked the shuttle pilot.

“When do we arrive?”

“We’re on approach now.”

“Thanks,” Connor replied. “You know how it feels when you’ve got something in your eye but you can’t quite isolate it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s what I’ve got, except instead of having something in my eye the something is my eye.”

“Come again, sir?”

Connor shook his head. “Never mind.”

Connor watched the air lock seal behind them, then descended the collapsible stairs of his shuttle. On the dock stood six people: two armed guards, two adorned in suits that probably cost as much as he made in six months of duty, a doctor of some sort judging by the white lab coat, and a fourth standing straight in a full dress uniform. Connor sighed and walked toward them, wishing for a breach in the air lock to suck him out into space, away from politicians and their insufferable prattle. I’d rather face down Chechtian rebels in the Kthetian quadrant than polish brass with bureaucrats.

Connor forced the corners of his mouth upward.

The man in uniform stepped forward. Connor gave a sharp salute.

“Major Jenkins, I’m General Lopez. It’s an honor to have you. We couldn’t hope for a better launch of our new facility than by a true war hero.”

“Thank you, General. I didn’t realize this space station is a military base.”

“We function as a way station, med lab, and hospital between military bases,” Lopez said. “Currently, we staff about a hundred—military personnel and civilians. We expect to be up to three hundred in the coming months. We keep a small force on hand for security, but we do our best work in research. Dr. Perrine is our chief medical officer. Her people are working on a number of research projects and military prototypes.”

“How big is it, sir?” Connor asked, looking about.

“One hundred and twenty-nine thousand cubic feet.”

Connor let out a long whistle. “Growing up my dad had a Buick. Felt about that size to me.”

Dr. Perrine reached across Lopez and took Conner’s hand. “It’s a pleasure. I’ve been eager to meet you.”

“How’s that doctor?”

“If I’m not mistaken, you have a prototype of your own.” She gestured to his left eye.

“My GLASS eye, of course. How did you know about that?”

“I have a friend on the surgical team.”

“I’m sorry,” said Lopez. “A glass eye?”

“Global Lenticular Auditory Synaptic Stimuli,” Conner said. “Unlike a traditional glass eye, this is wired directly to my optic nerve. Perfect vision with audio and video recording capability.”

“And you have no side effects?” she asked.

“It weighs a few ounces more than a regular eye. I can feel the difference but they tell me I’ll get used to it.”

“Major, let me introduce Senator Cosgrove and his assistant, Jack Carlton,” Lopez said, turning to his right.

Connor shook hands with both men. A small movement activated Connor’s left eye and drew his attention to the senator’s shoulder. A bug? Something akin to earth’s cockroaches. No, not earth, Chechtia. Could there be an infiltration?

The roach seemed to be looking right at him, evaluating him. Does nobody else see it? Connor scanned the others. They looked oblivious to it. When he returned to the senator, the roach was gone.

“You must be tired,” said Lopez. “Jack will show you to your room. Dinner will be at nineteen-hundred. If you need anything, let Jack know.”

Connor switched his eye to ultraviolet then pulled his sidearm and fired two rounds into the senator’s head.

Jack ran for cover behind the shuttle. General Lopez grabbed Dr. Perrine and pushed her to floor. The guards leveled their weapons at Connor and fired.

* * *

Dr. Perrine stood over the autopsy table in med lab. Connor lay naked on the table with multiple gun shots to the chest and head.

“Why does a decorated war hero assassinate a U.S. senator?” She pulled on latex gloves and turned on the recording equipment. “I don’t expect you to reply,” she said, leaning over and looking into Connor’s remaining GLASS eye, “but you will answer me.”

Scalpel in hand, she made several cuts around the orbital cavity and gently lifted the eye from its socket. It rested in her palm, still attached to the optic nerve. She could see how, if alive, Connor could disengage the eye, but she was forced to disconnected the delicate wiring from the sides of the orb. Connecting the eye to her computer, she downloaded the contents.

“Let’s see what you saw, Connor Jenkins.”

The files were time stamped. One file showed today’s date, just an hour ago. She double clicked. A video opened on the monitor. It played back the scene from the receiving dock. She saw the interior of the shuttle, the stairs, and herself alongside the senator and General Lopez.

The recording played out as she remembered it. When Connor shook hands with the senator, the recording zoomed in on a small bug near the senator’s collar. She didn’t remember seeing that. How would such a thing even get on board a space station? Then she saw it. Looking back at her through the flesh of the senator’s face was a Chechtian warrior.

She replayed the video—twice, before touching her com device.

“I need to speak to General Lopez, immediately.”

“He can’t be disturbed,” replied the voice. “There’s been a shooting and he—”

“I know,” Dr. Perrine replied. “That’s why I must speak to him—now!”

“I can try to hail him but I don’t think—”

The voice cut off, replaced by sounds of gun fire and the death cries of her crewmates. She screamed into her com in a futile attempt at what?

Then everything went silent.

No more screams.

No gun fire.

Eventually, they would find her, too.

fin

Orange or Pink

2011-08-26T19:59:00.000-06:00

What I'm looking forward to reading: The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson

Not long ago I started my first epic fantasy: Mistborn. I found it to be hugely satisfying. I've read a scant number of fantasy novels so it was a real treat to read this series.

There's always a bit of a let down when you finish a series, more so than a single novel. You get to know the characters and the lines between your world and theirs start to blur. Then it's over. Done. There's not even a Facebook page to catch up once in awhile. Brandon Sanderson, however, is attempting to ease my melancholy with a new book, based on the world of Mistborn.

From Publishers Weekly
Sanderson gives the world of Scadrial the Wild West treatment in this rollicking adventure tale set 300 years after the popular Mistborn epic fantasy trilogy. This “side deviation” gives up swords for guns, and while the three-part magic system of Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy continues to play a crucial role in the story, Scadrial itself is on the cusp of modernity. Wax, a lawkeeper gifted with both Allomantic and Feruchemical powers, has returned to the circular city of Elendel to take his uncle’s place as Lord Ladrian. When a gang of thieves known as the Vanishers begins stealing from railcars and kidnapping ladies, Wax, his miscreant buddy Wayne, and the intelligent and pretty Marasi decide they are honor-bound to uncover the perpetrators and save the victims. Part Sherlock Holmes, part X-Men, this exciting stand-alone adventure is full of close shaves, shootouts, and witty banter.

I pre-ordered my signed and numbered copy today. You can too, just click on his name at the top of this page. Click here to read the first few chapters for free at Tor.com.

~ * ~

Orange or Pink

Orange or Pink is the title to a piece of flash fiction I wrote for the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge 2011. Check out my previous post for more information on the contest and a bit of the genesis of this story. I'm posting it here now. This is my first entry in the first round. Comments and feedback are appreciated.

Orange or Pink

Synopsis

A man is caught stealing smart phones that he's been selling to help pay for his sister's chemotherapy.

I stood on the center line of the store, one foot in pink the other in orange.

“Orange or pink?” I said aloud, trying to determine which brand of phones to push. T-Mobile occupied the west side of the store, AT&T the east. A classic turf war.

Nobody responded. The store didn’t open for another half-hour so the only people around were my manager and my coworkers. As the senior sales rep on the floor, they all knew to defer to me. My manager, Tilly Scott, had yet to emerge from his office. Tilly was a bear of a man, but his temperament was as soft as his name was girly.

“I’m feeling awfully pink today,” I said.

Vanessa laughed. “No comment.”

I turned to her with a friendly scowl. “Better not be, missy. You’re only six weeks out of training. When you’ve earned a couple of stripes, come talk to me. I was pushing phones back before phones were smart.”

“Just wait,” Vanessa said. “You’ll be eating your words when we start selling the iPhone. I’m the app-queen.”

I pointed to my face, void of emotion. “This is my panic face. I’m so worried.”

I moved over to the pink side to prepare the displays. Not only was I feeling pink, but the manufacturer’s promos were better than what the orange side was offering—which makes them more attractive to customers. A couple more big sale days and I’d beat my quota by twenty-five percent, which meant a bonus.

By the time Tilly emerged from the back office, I’d made two sales and was due for a break

“Pete, can I see you for a minute?”

“Sure boss,” I said. “What’s up?”

“Not here. Let’s go to my office.”

I shrugged and followed him back. He opened the office door, and I’d have to say I was a bit surprised by the chicken. Tilly lumbered to his chair. He didn’t so much as sit in his chair as he did smother it.

“Close the door.”

I shut the door then propped myself on a red vinyl straight-back with cracks on the seat and looked across the desk at him. The chicken sat over his left shoulder on a shelf behind him.

“Boss?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Why is there a caged chicken in your office?”

He looked back at the bird as if he’d yet to notice it.

“Oh, that’s one of our hens. We raise chickens—best eggs you’ll ever eat. The rooster can get a bit cocky though.”

He chuckled at his own joke, and I laughed too, because I wasn’t sure what else to do.

“My wife had her checked out by the vet first thing this morning and then dropped her here for me take home, while she does some errands.”

“How many do you have?” I asked.

“Half a dozen or so.” Tilly leaned forward placing his forearms on the edge of the desk. “How’re you, doing Pete?”

I nodded. “Pretty good.”

“Did I hear that you recently took on a second job?”

“Yeah, I’m working evenings at Musician’s Friend. I take inbound orders and do a little customer support. Plus, I still work weekends at the baseball park whenever the team’s in town.”

Tilly whistled. “That’s tough.”

I smiled. “Hey, we do what we gotta do, right?”

“Right, right.”

He paused as if unsure what to say next.

The chicken clucked softly, seemingly unfazed by its surroundings.

Tilly sighed. “I’ve just finished going through our inventory and for the third month in a row we’ve come up short.”

My stomach started to flitter, and I’m sure my pupils dilated. Crap, I thought. I should’ve been more careful. Should’ve spread it out over more months. My chair felt terribly uncomfortable. I gave him my panic face.

“Can you think of anyone who might be stealing merchandise?”

Whew. Thank you, I thought. Someone is looking out for me.

“It’s hard to say. I might think Vanessa, because she’s new. I can’t imagine anyone else.” I tried to maintain eye contact and not look away. A tell-tale sign of liars, I’d learned from watching cop shows.

Tilly leaned back in his chair, the hinges squeaked in protest to his bulk, and rubbed his goatee. “I thought the same thing, but I ruled her out. After going over everything—shift rosters, who’d have the best access, and such—I’ve come to only one conclusion. How long have you been stealing from me?”

“Wha-wait. Me? You think I did this?”

“Come on Pete. Stop messing around. We’ve known each other too long.”

This time I did look away. “All right. I admit it. Crap. I didn’t want to, if that makes you feel any better.”

“Not really. Does it you?”

“No. I know it’s wrong, but it does make my sister feel better.”

“How’s your sister involved in this?”

“My sister’s fourteen.” I felt a catch in my throat. “She’s got breast cancer, at fourteen.”

Tilly leaned forward again. “That sucks. I’m sorry.”

“I stole the phones and sold them to help pay for her chemotherapy. Which is also why I work at the ball park and took the job at Musician’s Friend.”

Tilly rubbed his goatee for a long minute. He looked up at the chicken, then back at me. “I’ll tell you what.” He held out a piece of paper. “You see that?”

It was an itemized expense report. “Yeah.”

“See the bottom where it says three percent?”

I nodded.

“That’s an expense that the company has built into the budget. Three percent to cover lost or stolen merchandise. You keep your after-hour activities within three percent, and this conversation never happened. You understand?”

I nodded. My eyes started to water and I tried not to cry. “Thank you. I will.” I got up to leave.

“Pete.”

I turned around.

“Why don’t you take the chicken? Best eggs she’ll ever eat.”

“Thank you. I will.”

fin

Flash Fiction Challenge 2011

2011-08-21T23:31:00.004-06:00

What I'm reading right now: Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

WICKED above her hipbone, GIRL across her heart
Words are like a road map to reporter Camille Preaker's troubled past.

NASTY on her kneecap, BABYDOLL on her leg
Since she left town eight years ago, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town.

HARMFUL on her wrist, ~censored~ on her ankle
As Camille works to uncover the truth about two violent crimes, she finds herself identifying with the young victims--a bit too strongly. Dogged by her own demons, Camille will have to confront what happened to her years before if she wants to survive this homecoming.

Description above pulled from here.
Ms. Flynn has written a dark tale that moves like wild honey on a summer's day--slowly, dripping, crawling. At times awkwardly sticky and other times sweet to the tongue. For most of the novel, it feels like this is more about Camille Preaker's demons (she's a cutter unlike any I've ever heard of) than the search for the killer of two young girls, but by the end Ms. Flynn ties it all together satisfactorily. She looks like such a nice person and I'm sure she is. You'd never guess how connected to Dark Places she is.

It took some time to get through this, but it left some indelible images.

~ * ~

Flash Fiction Challenge 2011

On Friday, Aug. 19th, I noticed a Facebook ad for the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge. The early deadline to register for this event was July 14th. The final deadline was Aug. 17th. The final extended deadline was Aug. 19th. I found the deadline just hours before the last possible moment. I read the webpage and immediately signed up. I couldn't resist.

The Flash Fiction Challenge 2011 is an international creative writing competition, now in it's 4th year, that challenges participants to create original stories (1,000 words max.) based on genre, location, and object assignments. The competition was named the Creative Writing Championships in the 2008 and 2009 competitions.

The event is organized by NYC Midnight Movie Making Madness, an organization that has been holding unique creative competitions since 2002 and is dedicated to discovering and promoting a new wave of talented storytellers. NYC Midnight aims to provide the prizes and exposure necessary for writers to take their next big step towards writing professionally.

Once the challenge began, I was emailed my group number, my genre, a location that must be the predominant locale of the story, and an object that must be included. You have 48 hours to write and submit your story. A point system is used to judge each story and the winners of each round progress through three additional writing challenges until a winner is crowned. Check out the full details here.

For me, I got: Drama, Cell Phone store, a chicken.

Saturday was a busy day for me. The next day, Sunday, was my wife's 40th birthday and I had much to do to get ready. During my errands, yard work, and French instruction, I came up with an idea. Saturday night I wrote it out. It had some awesome descriptions which helped define a creepy character and it ended with a bit of a surprise. And I hated it. The descriptions were great, but it slowed the story. The inner conflict was not engaging so it felt boring and I didn't like the protag--why would the judges?

Sunday. Prepared a Sunday School lesson, went to church, came up with a new idea, hosted the party, entertained guests and finally locked myself in the den to write the story. This one, I like. I like it for all of the reasons I didn't like the first one. Flash fiction is no more than 1000 words but it still has to have a beginning, a middle, and an end (and you can't take long to get there).

My first story took too long. The second story brought conflict in right away. I wrote it. Let it sit. Read it aloud a couple of times. Trimmed it and submitted it with a little over an hour to spare.

This contest has four writing activities spread over four months.

That's a long time to wait, but you know what? I'm pretty excited.

Something Wicked My Way Came

2011-05-17T21:19:00.004-06:00

What I'm reading right now: The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson

I finished The Well of Ascension and have moved on to The Hero of Ages. Just for fun I included the UK cover. I like this cover a lot although my favorite of the UK covers is The Final Empire. It manages to be whimsical with an undercurrent of wariness.

I'm enjoying this book almost as much as the first. I'm eager to see how he ties all this together and what becomes of these characters I've brought into my life before they leave me forever. Fortunately, in November a new Mistborn/Steampunk novel will be released, Mistborn: The Alloy of Law; so perhaps my post-series-let down will not be so great.

Recently, I attended a writers' conference called LDStorymakers. After the conference they have an awards banquet called The Whitney Awards. Brandon's The Way of Kings won in the best Speculative Fiction category and tied with Dan Wells's Mr. Monster for Novel of the Year. The best part was the chance to meet these authors, winners and nominees, after the banquet. I can say that they were all gracious and congenial to a fanboy like me.

~ * ~

SOMETHING WICKED MY WAY CAME

Back in August of 2010, Bloody Parchement, the literary component to the annual South African HorrorFest, sponsored a short story contest. The winners will be compiled into an online anthology (possibly a hard copy as well) and Something Wicked magazine is publishing the top five stories over the course of the next two weeks. My story is the first to post and is currently on the home page. You can find a direct link here.

~ * ~

In memoriam of my father-in-law, Donald Gates Kilpatrick, I am participating in MS Harmons Best Dam Bike Ride 2011. Please join me in supporting the National MS Society by making a donation at this link. Imagine a world free of MS.

What to Do When Your Character Knows More About Fighting Than You Do

2011-04-14T14:25:00.005-06:00

Normally this area of my post is reserved for What-I'm-Reading-Right-Now. However, for the next few weeks it will be replaced with this:

My company is is sponsering a team to walk/run in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. Whatever the employees raise, the company will match it. The team members all raise funds independently and we hold an annual bake sale. This year I challenged the team, and my co-workers, to raise more. I told them that if they raise $5000 then I will cut off my ponytail to the base of my head and donate the hair to Locks of Love. For an additional 30% I will shave my head.

That's right!

I've had hair like this for nearly 20 years with the exception of an occasional minimum length donation to Locks of Love. If you're interested in donating to breast cancer research or would just love to see a hippie go bald, we would welcome your donation.

What to Do When Your Character Knows More About Fighting Than You Do

Today we start a three-part series on writing fighting scenes.
Back in February, I attended the 29th annual Life, The Universe, & Everything symposium.
LTUE is a 3-day symposium with panels, workshops, presentation and papers on writing, art, literature, media, science and other aspects of speculative fiction. It’s held at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. I’ve been going to LTUE for four or five years now. This year I attended one of the best presentations I’ve seen there. It’s called:

What to Do When Your Character Knows More About Fighting Than You Do.

presented by Adam Meyers.

I’ve included his PowerPoint below, but much of the information in the slides is bulleted and was used by Adam as a spring board for further conversation. After the deck, I’ve included my notes from the presentation, some of which include information directly from the slides but with additional comments.

Fights and Weapons Masters: What you need to know to write a character who knows how to fight.

View more presentations from Adam Meyers

Sources

Books and Movies that provide examples of good fighting and fighters.

The book The Princess Bride

It has well-written fighters, technically sound fights, and fights with reason behind them, not just fighting for the sake of fighting; including the scene where The-Man-in-Black fights Fezzik. Fezzik realizes that he's using the wrong moves because he’s accustomed to fighting groups of men, as he says, “You use different moves when fighting more than one person.”

Movie - Iron and Silk starring Pan Qingfu

I would call him the greatest martial artist you’ve never heard of. In 2002, he was honored with a special ceremony where he became the only person ever conferred with a Level 10 degree, from the Confederation of Canadian Wushu Organizations, an organization that only has 9 levels.

The movie Rob Roy has possibly the best movie depiction of a small sword fight. It is the final confrontation between Rob Roy and Archibald Cunningham. The movie was released in 1995 but as soon as Adam mentioned it, I knew exactly which scene he was referring to, evidence of a well-written fight scene. It was not a fight for the sake of fighting. There was purpose and emotion to it.

The Book of Five Rings

Describes the mentality of a warrior. It was penned by a samurai sword master and has application not only in physical confrontation but all confrontation.

The Bayeux Tapestry Embroiderers' Story

Gives an accurate visual depiction of medieval arms and warfare.

Terry Jones’ Medieval Lives

A historically accurate view of true medieval life.

Misconceptions

Particularly in movies, fights tend to go on forever. People get hurt and get right back up. In reality, depending on the weapons involved (the armor and style) fights will last between four minutes and four seconds. A trained fighter is not trained to fight you—he is trained to kill you. A distinct difference.

For example: Shotokan karate A confrontation with someone trained in Shotokan karate will generally last four seconds. Every strike is designed to shatter bones, even their blocks.

Another example is Fencing: A fencing match only lasts until someone lands one good hit.

Yeah, but what about armor? True, armor does prolong a fight, but not indefinitely, particularly if you have the proper weapons (more on that later).

Remember, trained fighters are not trained to fight. They are trained to kill, maim, or incapacitate.

Bodies will in fact break – Have you ever wondered how John McClane gets the crap beat out of him over and again yet the result of this continued pummeling is nothing more than cuts and bruises? And he keeps coming back for more? If you can suspend you disbelief long enough, then the Die Hard movies are highly entertaining, in my opinion.

Fights to the death have no time outs and no posturing to the crowds. It is possible to get back up from injury due to adrenaline; the catch is that in a true fight, your opponent does not allow you to do so.

Let's Eat Grandma! (Why punctuation matters and why it doesn't.)

2011-03-31T10:45:00.008-06:00

What I'm reading right now: The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

I'm still reading the second book in the Mistborn triology.

So far it doesn't have quite the same steam as the the first, but it's engaging in a different way. The only reason I'm not moving it through it as quickly as I did Mistborn is because I'm also reading The Child Thief at the same time. My Nook makes bouncing between novels far too easy. :)

P.S. Click here for a great deal on a Nook.

~*~

Why Punctuation Matters

Okay, so this topic has been done before, (hasn't everything?) from a panda wielding firearms to a Purdish Owl, but I've come across some humorous and poignant examples. Would this topic keep surfacing if we didn't continue to find egregious errors in the script of our beloved tongue? Seems like just the ticket for a logophiliac.

First, the humerous:

Example #1 (contributed by my friend Lady Blue):

Let's eat grandma!

or

Let's eat, grandma.

I'm thinking grandma would prefer the latter, as would I (my grandmother's a tough old bird).

Example #2:

Eat, Ray, Love

The October 2011 cover of Tails magazine draws our attention by the unique method Rachael draws on for inspiration. Rachael Ray finds inspiration in cooking her family and her dog. I always wondered how she comes up with all that energy!

Okay, truth be told, this is a hoax. The cover was produced with appropriate commas, but some rapscallion photoshopped-out the punctuation. You can see the actual cover here. Still, a fine lesson in the value of punctuation.

And finally, the poignant:

Example #3 Woman:

An English professor wrote the words:

A woman without her man is nothing.

on the chalkboard and asked the students to punctuate it correctly.

All of the males in the class wrote:

A woman, without her man, is nothing.

All the females in the class wrote:

A woman: without her, man is nothing.

Unfortuantely, I don't know to whom I should credit this. This is my favorite example not only illustrating the importance of punctuation but the power it can lend our writing.

And Why It Doesn't

That being said, don't let punctuation get in the way of your early drafts. Get the story out, then get the red pend out.

I feel we do need to give equal time to the other side. Once you know the rules you can effectively break them. Please note, I said effectively. There's probably no better example than Cormac McCarthy. He effectively uses a lack of punctuation in his books (at least the ones I've seen). His writing has merited him:

The Faulkner Award for The Orchard Keeper

The National Book Critics Circle Award for All the Pretty Horses

The National Book Award for All the Pretty Horses

And most recently The Pulitzer Prize for The Road.

When you reach the level of Cormac McCarthy, you can do pretty much anything you want. Until then, I'll keep following the rules.

Writers for the Red Cross

2011-03-24T09:13:00.005-06:00

What I'm reading right now: The Child Thief by Brom

A darker retelling of Peter Pan; Walt Disney this ain't. I get the impression though, that it's closer to J.M. Barrie's original. I've only just begun it, so I can't say too much just yet, but it's been awhile since a book grabbed me by the lapels and dragged me beneath its covers (and check out the Brom link, the illustrations--also done by the author--are stunning).

To give you an idea, The Art Department interviewed Brom when the book first came out. Check it out.

~*~

Recent events in Japan remind us that we are all living on the brink. The life we know, the life we've built can be wiped away in the blink of an eye and there's not a lot you can do about it. What happened there could happen anywhere at anytime. I live in the Rocky Mountains and scientists have long told us that we are well overdue for a crushing earthquake--today, all is peaceful.

One of the amazing things about us homo sapiens is our resilient spirit. We rebuild. We start again and again.

However, remember what John and Paul said . . .

"The apostles?"

"No, The Beatles."

We can all use a little help from our friends. This is what I did:

I'm not trying to blow my own horn, just trying to say, if I did it you can do it--the Red Cross accepts donations in all amounts (and to quote James, the apostle, faith without works is dead).

"As we’re seeing in Japan and around the Pacific today, there are some disasters and human suffering that are so huge that they can leave you feeling powerless to help. But as Amy and I told each other today on the phone, it is not the size of the gift but the very act of donating that can–and DOES–in the aggregate make a world of difference. Literally."

Here's what someone else is doing:

Writers for the Red Cross

What is Writers for the Red Cross? This online event celebrates Red Cross Month (March 1-31). It is intended to raise funds and awareness for the Red Cross and its work in communities across the country. We’re auctioning off publishing-related items and services donated by authors, publicists, agents, and editors. We’ll also have daily guest posts from authors about “What the Red Cross Means to Me.” All donors who give over $25 will also be able to select one free book from a range of books donated and shipped by publishers for the event.

From #LitChat: Disasters

Written by Holly Tucker and Beth Dunn in News

I am reposting this from the #LitChat website to make sure you all are aware of the #LitChat special auction on March 25th, beginning at 4:00pm EDT. For more information, check out this page.

It happened after 9/11. We saw it after the 2004 Tsunami swept through Southeast Asia and in the the wrath of Hurricane Katrina. It occurred following the devastating earthquake last year in Haiti and it’s going on strong now in Japan. It is the near euphoric unity that draws people together in the aftermath of tragedy. In A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster (Viking, August 21, 2009), author Rebecca Solnit describes this phenomenon and why it’s so important to the rebuilding of humanity in the face of disaster.

This week in #litchat we’re discussing books – fiction and nonfiction – which feature disaster scenarios. What expectations are placed on authors to write about global tragedies? How much time must elapse before authors of fiction can use a global tragedy as a backdrop for a novel or short story? Do authors with large public platforms have a responsibility to lead efforts in rebuilding communities struck by disasters? How does an author separate facts from emotions when reporting from disaster sites? Join us this week to tell how you respond to global, large-scale disasters and tragedies.

On Friday, March 25, beginning at 4 p.m. EDT, #litchat is joining the Writers for the Red Cross campaign with a special auction of books and other exciting offerings like a query letter critique by literary agent Jenny Bent; a leather, hand-bound journal by master bookmaker Susan Soleil, and more.

INVICTUS

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

~ William Ernest Henley

You Write Like a Girl! (but only when I blog)

2011-03-16T19:54:00.016-06:00

What I'm reading right now: The Child Thief by Brom

A darker retelling of Peter Pan; Walt Disney this ain't. I get the impression though, that it is closer to J.M. Barrie's original. I've only just begun it, so I can't say too much just yet, but it's been awhile since a book grabbed me by the lapels and dragged me beneath its covers (and check out the Brom link, the illustrations--also done by the author--are stunning).

To give you an idea, The Art Department interviewed Brom when the book first came out. Here's a snippet:

What is it about Peter Pan that drew you to this story?

Simply reading the original story (not the water-downed Disney version). I was amazed what a dark and disturbing tale it really is. Here's a quote from the original Peter Pan: “The boys on the island vary, of course, in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out; but at this time there were six of them, counting the twins as two.”

Thins them out? Huh? What does that mean? Does Peter kill them, like culling a herd? Does he send them away somewhere? If so, where? Or does Peter just put them in such peril that the crop is in need of constant replenishing?

That one paragraph forever changed my perception of Peter Pan from that of a high-spirited rascal to something far more sinister. “Thins them out,” the words kept repeating in my head. How many children had Peter stolen, how many had died, how many had been thinned out? Peter himself said, “To die will be an awfully big adventure.” Once I pondered these unsettling elements I began to wonder what this children’s book would be like if the veil of Barrie’s lyrical prose were peeled back, if the violence and savagery were presented in grim stark reality. How would children really react to being kidnapped and thrust into such a situation? How hard would it be for them to fall under the spell of a charismatic sociopath, to shuck off the morality of civilization and become cold-blooded killers? And these thoughts were the seeds for The Child Thief.

~*~

Now for something a bit more light-hearted. I was on Kate Duncan's site today, Write About, and she gave a list of some terrific tools for writers. They include:

1) A tool that checks for adverbs, weak words, "said" replacements, passive voice and ending with prepositions.

2) A tool that checks for "be" verbs, abstract nouns, etc.

3) A tool that gives you stats on readability, sentence length, etc.

4) A tool that counts the number of repeated words and gives you a most frequently used hit list.

5) A visual dictionary--awesome!

6) A reverse dictionary--equally awesome!

You'll have to go to Kate's website to get the links, easy enough, just use the link above.

And finally, the tool that prompted this blog:

7) The Gender Genie: A tool that uses key words typically used by males and females and tells you whether you write like a guy or a girl.

Obviously I had to check this out. From what I can tell, the Gender Genie analyzes your text for key words that are designated as male or female. There does not appear to be any psychology behind this. For instance "the" is designated as male. This is not to say that when men write we use the definite article because we are focused on concrete ideas and tangible objects and women are more abstract--I'm purely speculating.

The way I think it works is the creators took a bunch of source material that they knew had been written by women and and equal amount written by men, broke it down, found the patterns, and made an algorithm resulting in some broad (no pun intended) generalizations, which often times are an indicator.

I put in two fiction pieces, one non-fiction piece, and a sample from this blog. The fiction pieces scored strongly male and female but tilted the scales toward male. The non-fiction piece weighed heavily toward male, and the blog post I used weighed heavily female (but I suspect a review of all my blogposts would swing the vote--just sayin').

Sarah McLachlan: A 17-Year Love Affair

2011-02-20T20:26:00.003-07:00

What I'm reading right now: The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

I just started the second book in the Mistborn triology. I don't have much to say about it yet, other than I hope it lives up to the standard set by Mistborn.

~*~

Sarah McLachlan: A 17-Year Love Affair

I have a special guest blogger today, my alter-ego, fanboy!

Back in 1994, I received a gift certificate to a local record shop (that’s right, a record shop) called Tom Tom’s. I browsed the store for awhile, when I came upon a CD called Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, by Sarah Mclachlan. I had never heard of this artist from the great white north, however, I was drawn in by the cover art and the titles of her songs intrigued me. Titles like: Possession, Plenty, Wait, Hold On, Ice Cream, and Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. I decided to take a chance on it. And thus began a seventeen year love affair.

Sarah is on tour right now and the logistics fell in our favor to put her in SLC on Feb. 14th, Valentine’s Day. That night my wife and I went to dinner and then attended the concert.

The ticket said, Sarah Mclachlan and Friends. Her friends turned out to be Melissa McClleland, her husband Luke Doucet, and Australian chanteuse Butterfly Boucher (rhymes with voucher) and it is her given name.

Instead of having an opening act by the friends, followed by Sarah and her band, Sarah’s band turned out to be her friends. They all performed together. Sarah would do a few songs, then turn the stage over to one of her friends and she would sing back up or accompany on the piano. They are all friends, they know each others’ music, and most of all you could sense a genuine love for their work. There was no ego on that stage. Everyone knew that is was Sarah’s show, but she didn’t have to tell anyone that. They were all there supporting each other and grateful to be a part of each others’ music. You may have heard of a little thing called Lilith Fair. Same concept, bigger stage.

The first time I saw Sarah in concert was the first time I saw Paula Cole. A complete unknown with her first album, Harbinger (which I think is still my favorite). My wife and I instantly fell in love with Paula and have remained fans to this day. Fumbling Towards Ecstasy was Sarah’s third album and as it turns out her break out album in the States. She didn’t yet wield the power that she does now, yet still . . . Sarah told the story of how she wanted Paula to open for her and somebody who thought he was in charge said “no way” claiming that audiences wouldn’t come to a two woman ticket. To which Sarah responded, “Oh really? Then we’re definitely doing it.” I for one am glad they did.

To further connect with the audience, Sarah put a top hat by the merchandise stand where the audience wrote down questions and Sarah then read the questions and answered them on stage. She did this twice during the show.

Some of the questions were (I’ll paraphrase as best I can):

Q: Which comes first the music or the lyrics?

A: The music, always the music. Sometimes there’s a phrase or an idea which accompanies the music initially, but I work from such an emotional place that sometimes it can take me a month to do one song.

Continuing this idea, at one point she introduced a song by saying it was an older song that she’d stopped performing for awhile, saying that if there’s no emotional connection to a song then she can’t sing it. It doesn’t feel real; it doesn’t feel honest. In regards to that song, she said she’d recently revisited it and suddenly it all made sense again.

One of my favorite questions was:

Q: Is your love better than ice cream?

A: I don’t think I’m the one to answer that question. Then she said, yes.

Only two things came to my mind to ask her: 1) What would it take to get her to tour again with Paula and 2) to share something fun about her and her kids. She has two daughters. Fortunately, somebody else asked the latter. “Tell us about something silly you do with your daughters.”

A: We have a family bath so my daughters and I take a bath together and then chase each other naked around the house and smack each others’ bottoms. They have such cute little kid bottoms you can’t help but squeeze them.

Q: Ryan asks, “Are you really single?”

A: To this she responded that yes she is single and went on to comment about how this has been called the divorce album by some. But she also commented on how going through that difficult time has put her in a better place and she can now look back on it and be glad it’s behind her. She also commented on how she is enjoying getting to know herself as a single. She’s been with somebody since she was eighteen with the exception of about six months.

Which is interesting because on her last tour she talked about what happy place she was in and how her husband had really helped her through a trying time especially childbirth and those first few months after giving birth. She has some beautiful songs (Push, Answer) she wrote expressing her love and thanks to her husband.

In the second round of questions came this:

Q: My name is Allison. I’m eleven. I love your work. Can I have a hug?

A: “Oh, that’s sweet. Where is Allison? Sure honey, come on up.” They hug and it’s very sweet to see. “That was great. A kid hug is just right since I had to send my girls home for school last week and I’m missing them. Leslie followed Allison down to the stage also trying to get a hug, but security stopped her.

In a kind of follow up to Ryan, Leslie also inquired about her single status and gave Sarah her phone number asking Sarah to call her and if not would she please give her number to Butterfly. Somebody called out from the audience something about Ryan to which Sarah said, “Ryan didn’t have balls enough to give me his number.”

Little did we know that Ryan and submitted a second question where in he’d become more brazen. Sarah was sitting at the piano at this point. She read the question to herself then said, “Oh, Ryan. Ryan’s being cheeky. He says, Does the rug match the drapes?” By Butterfly’s reaction she seemed shocked but secretly approving. Most of the audience voiced their disapproval but I can’t help but wonder how much of that was just show, doing what they thought was the appropriate response when they too were curious to know. After the hubbub settled a bit, Sarah said, “No.” Her friends were surprised she said so but Sarah responded that her intent was to answer everything honestly.

I’m not one to gush, really I’m not. Behind the bright lights most “stars” are just people, like you and me. However, Sarah really inspires me. I love to see artists who beat the odds and are doing what they love to do. Sarah expressed her thanks for each of them to us, who enable them to perform and do what they love—how grateful they are to still have an audience. You can tell how much she loves it. When she sings and moves on stage you see the music just flowing through her as if it is a physical extension of her. I guess in a way it is.

But that is not all. I present to you other reasons to love Sarah:

She has done a lot of work with World Vision. She raised a ton of money for ASPAC, and the Sarah McLachlan Foundation whose sole mandate is to support and expand her music outreach program—a free music school in Vancouver, which serves 270 kids who otherwise would not have access to music lessons. At that she expressed her desire for all kids to have music in their lives of some fashion. I agree. If I had to name a regret in my life it’s that I didn’t do more with music than I did. I still want to learn the guitar and take voice lessons.

I tease my wife that if—God forbid anything were to happen to her—I could see myself with: Sarah Mclachlan, Diana Krall, or Wynonna Judd.

As if any of them would have me. They are all beautiful women, but what makes them attractive is the emotion they put into their music. How much of themselves they put in their work. Hey, even my wife commented on how sexy Sarah is. (It broke my heart a little bit when Diana married Elvis Costello. Just knowing that there was now no chance, as if. Which only further proves that chicks dig musicians. I mean, have you seen Elvis? Let’s just say he has an unconventional look.)

And although I’m sorry for Sarah’s divorce, a little part of me is happy she’s single.

Of any person I’ve seen in concert, no one else connects to her audience like Sarah does. She is honest, personable, and as my wife says, genuine. She makes you feel like she’s singing only to you, showed up only because you personally were going to be there. Which explains the audience. I’ve never seen such a diverse audience. There were fans there from age 11 to 60, mostly couples, both gay and straight, and we were all simply happy and grateful to be there.

Sarah, as long as you keep singing, we’ll keep coming.

Colonies of Bacteria and the WHO Rides Again

2011-02-12T22:44:00.005-07:00

What I'm reading right now: Popular Science March 2011 specifically, an article by Virginia Hughes called, Our Body the Ecosystem (hence the Colonies of Bacteria reference) with the amazing and iconic photography of Howard Schatz.

I once heard Dave Wolverton, aka Dave Farland say, parphrasing, "It always amazes me how many people tell me they want to write science fiction but they never read science magazines." Hence my subscription to Popular Science. I don't know that science fiction is where I want to direct my writing per se, but I certainly don't want to preclude myself from the genre either. I also have a long standing auto-recurring subscription to Psychology Today, great information in there about making your characters sound real.

(I'm eagerly looking forward to starting the Well of Ascension but I bought it on my Nook which I loaned out. I didn't realize how much I use it until I was without it.)

Plus, as a bonus, this month you get Howard Schatz. I would not have expected to find him in an issue of Popular Science. I have a number of his books.

~*~

To further our discussion on WHO vs. THAT, I've had some great comments and wanted to clarify a couple of things. I'm somewhat of a proponet of who clauses so I will generally lean to that side, however, before we go breaking any rules it is always prudent to know the rule.

Jordon was correct (as she usually is, check out her blog in my blog list to the left) in that sometimes you can use that when refering to a person, I just personally perfer not to and no one will ever fault you for using who instead of that (or likely notice), but I am a logophile and strive to use our maddening language to the best of my abilities. As a side note, the rules on WHICH vs. THAT are clear and immovable, but WHO vs. THAT allows for some wriggle room.

The following is from the reference book, A Grammar Book For You and I . . . oops, Me! by C. Edward Good.

p. 140

The Relatives: Mixing Them Up

We use who-whom-whose to refer to humans and that-which to refer to inanimate objects and abstractions. Thus:

The woman who became CEO was admired by all.

The idea that she suggested ultimately succeeded.

The report that she wrote cinched the deal.

Living things closely associated with humans often receive the honor of who-whom-whose:

Amber affectionately stroked her pet turtle, who curled up in front of the fire.

but:

Igor stomped on the cockroach that crawled along the floor.

Sometimes, however, we use that to refer to people, usually a generic type of person:

The writers that learn these rules will improve their work.

Or you could use that to refer in a restrictive way to an identifiable person:

The child that made the A addressed the class.

These days we never use which to refer to a person. Such usages as "Our Father, which art in heaven" are archaic.

< / quote >

As per the post in Wikipedia:

"[T]hat is found with both human and non-human antecedents. While some writers recommend reserving that for nonhuman antecedents, this does not reflect majority use. Examples can be found in Shakespeare (the man that hath no music in himself[1]), Mark Twain (The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg), and Ira Gershwin (The Man that Got Away)."

What most gets my attention in the quote above is ". . . this does not reflect majority use." That is the crux of my original post on WHO vs. THAT, the WHO is dying as the majority use THAT when it's appropriate and when it is not. I wonder how many realize the latter. I understand the evolving nature of language and that is one of the things I love about it, but there's also value in preserving our roots.

Mistborn and The Demise of the Who

2011-02-09T12:28:00.000-07:00

What I'm reading right now: Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

If anyone is paying attention, you'll remember that my last post said I was finally taking on the journey called The Lord of the Rings. And although I did start that journey, I became sidetracked and took on a different quest, a quest through the mist.

For those who know, you know that Mistborn is a fantastic read. The magic system is terrific and there are so many plot points that are layered and planted and eventually come together that I can't praise Brandon Sanderson enough. From what I've heard, the same can be said for the series. People much more versed in the genre than I am have told me that Mistborn elevated the genre. What all this tells me as a writer is that this stuff takes practice.

I was once fortunate enough to take a lunch with Brandon Sanderson, just about the time that Mistborn was released. Elantris had just come out in paperback and he was doing a book signing. I bought Elantris and got it signed--this was before I really knew the brillance that is Brandon. During that lunch, prompted by our questions, he mentioned how he'd received such praise for his "first" novel--Elantris. The reason why his first novel was so superior to debut novels of other writers is because it was not his first. He said he'd written six other novels before Elantris. And that was his point, that writing is a skill and an art that must be practiced like any other. Should you actively promote your first novel and query those agents? Absolutely. Should you be doggedly working on your next novel at the same time--absolutely.

~*~

People ~~That~~ Who Could Care Less

When I talk about the demise of the WHO, I'm not talking about the Pinball Wizard, that deaf-dumb-and-blind-kid will never die. What I am talking about is grammar.

I understand how language evolves and prescriptive vs. descriptive, I've done at least one post on both. However, there is one grammar rule that is consistently broken today that still grates on me a little:

Who vs. That

When I was in high school, I remember coming home from rehearsal and relating a story to my dad--something about someone. I don't remember the story or the event at all, but what did stay with me was when my dad corrected my grammar. I had something akin to, "So-and-so that did something." He stopped me and said, "No, people are whos not thats."

What I should have said was, "So-and-so who did something."

I hear this particular faux pas daily from co-workers, television anchors, and television shows, and I usually correct it--in my head. "Who" is elegant and appropriate for a person. When ascribing what is reserved for inanimate objects and metaphors to a person "that" is rendered vulgar.

Come on people, this was one of our earliest lessons taught to us by none other than the great Dr. Suess. I know I've whiled away many a day in Whoville, but I've never known a That from Thatville.

For an interesting look at the phrase "I Couldn't Care Less" and people who do or don't, check out this blog post by Brian A. Klems.

NaNoWriMo or How to Embrace Your Masochistic Side

2010-11-04T00:17:00.000-06:00

What I'm reading right now: Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

There's not a lot for me say here, is there? I mean it's Lord of the ephing Rings: L-O-T-R. My writer friends will be relieved to see that I'm finally taking it on. I admit it--I've never read it. I've only seen the movies is parts. Before you go Orcian on my a** let me say that I'm a late comer to this genre. I've only read a scant number of Fantasy books and although I've come to enjoy it, it's not usually my first choice in pleasure reading. In fact, I feel a little like this is assigned reading. LOTR is referenced so often at writers' conferences and workshops you'd think it was required reading--not just for the conference but for life. I'm finally getting on board if for no other reason than I can say that I've read it. Perhaps it will become pleasure reading.

I hesitate to say that this is what I'm reading now. I have started it mind you, the question is how much I'll read in it this month--see below.

~*~

It's November and what does that mean? Thanksgiving, epic college football match-ups (Utah vs. TCU Nov. 6--GO UTES!) and National Novel Writing Month aka NaNoWriMo.

If you're unfamiliar with NaNo the object is to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November, not a word prior to or after. The idea being to lock your inner-editor away for 30 days and allow yourself to simply create with no restrictions. Let the words fall where they may and grammar be damned!

Back when I was a young writer, okay a younger writer, I decided to try it, just to see if I could do it. I knew very little about writing so I didn't know enough to be scared. That was Nov. 2006 and I did complete it. It is largely a pile of refuse however it did merit me one thing for which I will be forever grateful. On June 10th 2007 I found out about Orson Scott Card's Literary Bootcamp. He was holding it in Salt Lake City that year. The first two days are open to anyone, but after the second night only the 15 Bootcampers whose applications were accepted stayed for an additional four days.

This was a Monday and the application deadline was Friday. I had to have a sample of my work to submit and it had to be the beginning of a story. All I had was my NaNoWriMo story. With no time to come up with anything else, that's what I submitted and it got me in. I remember thinking I would just do the two days and not apply for the bootcamp then I realize all they could do was say "no" so I applied and wouldn't you know it, I got in.

That experience altered the course of my life in a way that I'm forever grateful. Perhaps I'll make that the topic of my next post. For this post however, it's NaNoWriMo.

After completeing it in 2006 I said I would never do it again, at least not blind. If I were to do it again, I'd go in with a plan, an outline. This year, one of my best friends was soliciting someone to do NaNo with her. She and I dragged each other through it back in 2006. I did not intend to, because again, I was blind. Slowly an idea germinated in my grey matter and I toyed with the possibility. I discussed the possibility a bit with my friend Margot (names have not been changed in order to applaud their awesomeness) and I succumbed to her writerly charms.

Chris Baty, the founder of NaNoWriMo, has created a novel writing kit for NaNo called: The No Plot? No Problem! Novel-Writing Kit. It is really well done with all sorts of tracking and rewards and motivations. From that kit I scanned the following. It really sums up the escence of NaNo:

If you'd like a blank one of your own, I'd be glad to send you a digital copy, just LMK.

NaNoWriMo 2006 Winner's Certificate

Wonder Woman Bra

2010-10-20T22:42:00.000-06:00

What I'm reading right now: Odd Hours by Dean Koontz

I've read numerous books by Dean Koontz. He, like Stephen King, has received an unfair assessment by many. They both have been called horror writers. Although they have written in that genre, (Koontz claims to have never written in that genre--that's for another post,) they are both much more than that. Odd Thomas, our hero, is my favorite Koontz character (Jimmy Tock is my favorite narrative). His approach to life and response to his unique gift make him a memorable, if not unlikely, hero. If you need an introduction to Koontz, start with the Odd Thomas series.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month. eBay has teamed up with Bling My Bra dot Org to raise funds for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation. Here's the basic idea. Aquire a bra, either by generous donation or purchase, add some bling, and send it to Bling My Bra. They will list it on eBay and donate whatever they raise. You can get full instructions for bra blinging and submissions here.

I have participated in this fabulous event. You can see my bra donation here, and included some pics below. I attached each of the gold and silver studs individually and the stars are sewn on by hand. Why a Wonder Woman theme? Because every woman who battles cancer is a Wonder Woman:

I put a lot of long hours and love into this bra and I'll tell you, it feels great to take part in such a great cause (or two as the case may be). So what are you waiting for? Go check out my listing (and I guess you can look at the other bras, too).

Place a Bid

Win a Bra

Save a Life

Proscriptive vs. Descriptive Revisited

2010-10-18T11:45:00.001-06:00

What I'm reading right now: Odd Hours by Dean Koontz

~*~

Of all the posts I've done here at Confessions of a Logophiliac (I know--oh so many! {insert sarcasm here}) none has received more anonymous comments than the one I did about a year ago on Prescriptive language vs. Descriptive language.

Recently I came across a similar, though much more indepth post on Dan Wells's site called A rilly good blog post. I completely and totally unabashedly loved this post--loved loved loved (waving my nerd flag here). You can go to the link or, for your convenience, I've reposted it below.

----------------------------------------------------------------

A rilly good blog post by Dan Wells

I live in Utah, and in Utah, as in every region of every country on Earth, we have a regional accent. That’s kind of the way languages work: there is a single, overarching language (such as English), and then each area that speaks it will develop, through usage, different ways of pronouncing certain words, different ways of using certain words, and sometimes entirely different words. A native English speaker from Texas will sound different from a native English speaker from New York, or Boston, or Alabama, or Minnesota, or wherever. These smaller groups of linguistic differences are called dialects, and these can be broken down into even smaller groups, all the way down to an ideolect, which is the specific version of a language spoken by a single individual. There are many people who share your dialect, but you are the only person in the world who speaks your ideolect. The technical term for this uniqueness is called “being a precious snowflake.”

Spanish is a great example. Assume that a single, “correct” version of Spanish exists (it doesn’t, but assume it for the sake of this explanation); each country speaks a slightly different subset of this uber-Spanish, and each region of those countries speaks a different version of their nation-Spanish, and each city speaks a different version of their regional-Spanish, and so on. In Spain they pronounce the z as a th, whereas the rest of the Spanish speaking world pronounces it as an s, which is why everyone makes fun of Spaniards for lisping. In Mexico they have a lot of regional dialects: in the south, in Chiapas, they have a lilting, kind of sing-song quality to their sentences, thus changing the tone of the language; in the north, in Chihuahua, they pronounce the ch as sh (as in “Shihuahua”), thus changing the phonemes of the language; in the middle of the country (I forfeit [sic] the exact region), they use the word “buscar” to mean both “to look for” and “to find,” thus changing the vocabulary of the language. And those are only a tiny handful of examples.

Each new generation learns to speak their language the same way their parents speak it, while also adding new variations of their own, which both perpetuates the dialectal differences and creates new ones, thus drawing the dialect even further from the hypothetical uber-language it descended from. This can eventually create an all-new language—Spanish descended from Latin via this exact process, as did French, Italian, Portuguese, and others. This is why it’s not only impossible but ridiculous to tell someone from Chihuahua that they’re saying the ch sound wrong because it differs from “real” Spanish—you might just as well say that the entire Spanish-speaking world is wrong because their language differs from “real” Latin. For that matter, you might just as well tell a sparrow his biology is wrong because it differs from the standard dinosaur template his biology is descended from. Things change, and we have to deal with it. That’s why most linguists just look at France’s attempts to legislate their language and laugh.

A great modern example is the word “hopefully,” which used to mean “in a hopeful manner” but now means “I hope.” This modern definition breaks ever grammatical rule we have in English, and yet it is still “correct” because that is how everyone uses it, and usage creates correctness, not the other way around. There’s actually two schools of thought on this, called prescriptive (linguistic rules should prescribe the way people speak) and descriptive (language rules should describe the way people speak). I obviously fall into the latter camp, but there are an astonishing amount of gray areas and exceptions and corner cases in the issue. If I decide that “shnoogenblat” means “blue,” am I wrong? Not within my own ideolect, but no one else will understand me. What if a whole city starts using it? What if a whole nation does it? At what point does it become correct, and is there a point in the middle where it’s still not correct but isn’t really incorrect, either? If everyone in the whole country uses the word “ain’t” instead of “isn’t,” is it still wrong? Who decides? How does a proofreader know when to correct them? What does it mean, if anything, that my spellchecker not only accepted the word “ain’t” but actually suggested it when I wrote a-i-n? Even the modern definition of “hopefully,” so commonly used that most people don’t realize it used to mean anything else, is painful to allegedly-descriptive ears. I’ve forced myself to stop correcting people when they use it, but I haven’t yet been able to say it myself.

So anyway, I was talking about the Utah accent. I find this stuff fascinating so I get off on a lot of tangents. Anyway. One of the things we do in Utah is shorten our vowels, for example turning ee into i, and the ay into eh. “I got a rilly good dill on some still-belted tires. They were on sell.” We also drop the Ts from a lot of words, replacing them with glottal stops so that the word “button” turns into “bu’un”, and “mountain” turns into “mou’un.” Most regions of American English drop the Ts from these kinds of words, but it can get really exaggerated here: “I was si’in on the mou’un at Brigh’in, ge’in ready to ski.”

The thing I love about Utah, though, is that people think our accent sounds irredeemably hickish. People in Boston pahk their cahs, dropping their Rs all over the place, but that’s okay because they’re from Boston; people in the south are happy to git somethin done fer ya, but that’s okay because they’re from the south. I knew a guy from New York who named his son Don and his daughter Dawn, and he pronounced them completely differently. I knew another guy from Louisiana who explained that “yall” meant “several of you” and “all yall” meant “all of you.” These are accepted, even “cool” accents and dialects that most people hear without even thinking about, and have no problem understanding or accepting. Tell someone their tell light is out on their car, though, and suddenly you’re a backwoods yokel who doesn’t know how to talk.

Which is not to say that I’m any more accepting of dialectal differences than anyone else. My wife is from Wyoming, where “to be” is a fully optional verb (“The car needs moved”), and I make fun of her and her family all the time. And it still gives me a jarring, ear-gouging headache when people itch something instead of scratching it, or ask me to borrow them some money. I’m a descriptivist, but I also have a degree in editing, and so help me if you say something “wrong” I will love the opportunity to get all up in your face over it. I appreciate, support, and vehemently the defend the concept of linguistic change, but I still love telling people they’re wrong. I guess in the end it’s like freedom of speech: “I do not agree with what you say, sir, but I will defend to the death your right to say it incorrectly.”

Banned Books Week & SPEAK

2010-10-01T14:16:00.002-06:00

What I'm reading right now: Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Here is another one where I cheated. I'm not actually reading it now; I've finished it. However, it is particularly relevant this week, being Banned Books Week. It was the focus of Wesley Scroggins, an associate professor of management at Missouri State Univeristy, who considers the book to be pornographic and as such wants it pulled from school libraries and curriculums.

I first read the book after a recommendation from James Dashner, author of the Maze Runner. I found the book to be poignant and honest. Something I never could have written. The subject matter aside, try writing a novel where, for the majority of the book, the protagonist has little to no dialogue. Speak: an impressive novel by a skilled writer.

I found the following from the blogulator dot com:

Laurie Halse Anderson is considered one of the most formidable talents in children's literature. Popular with teens, teachers, librarians, and booksellers (and, one would imagine, her publisher), Anderson debuted with Speak, a grim, sad, but redemptive novel about a young woman who is slowly coming to terms with having been raped. Speak won the Michael L. Printz award, a coveted YA prize, and was a New York Times bestseller (. . . Kristen Stewart starred in the 2004 indie film based on the novel). Naturally Speak garnered negative attention as well, from potentially well-meaning but ultimately misguided folks who, confusing "protecting the children" with "censorship", tried to have the book removed from public libraries, especially those in schools.

I don't know a single author who can abide censorship. Anderson herself wrote, "[C]ensoring books that deal with difficult, adolescent issues does not protect anybody. Quite the opposite. It leaves kids in the darkness and makes them vulnerable. Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance. Our children cannot afford to have the truth of the world withheld from them."

You'll want to read Ms. Anderson's own blog about it here and here.

That second link contains a link to the Springfield, Missouri paper (who ran Scroggins's story) and also ran a rebuttal from Ms. Anderson, where she said the following:

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 44 percent of rape victims are under age 18 and - shockingly - 15 percent are under the age of 12. Every two minutes, someone in our country in sexually assaulted.

Our teens need us to be honest with them about the harsh realities of life. Knowledge protects them. Truth gives them power. I have heard from thousands and thousands of readers who feel that this book saved their lives. It gave them permission to speak up about a terrible thing that happened to them. This book gave them hope.

That's why it is taught all over America. Some districts feel it is appropriate for 12th graders. Others teach it in seventh grade. It is taught by priests in Catholic boys' schools and by college professors preparing teachers to connect with their future students.

If you use Scroggins' technique of cherry-picking lines from books, you can falsely accuse any story of just about anything you want. That is a destructive and shameful practice.

Some of these and other great links regarding Banned Book Week can be found at the Dystel & Goderich Literary Management blog.

~*~

Now, instead of just reiterating stuff that I think is important and just plain cool, how about an original thought?

Along this same theme, the laudible folks at BannedBooksweek.org have documented more than 1,000 books that have been banned or challenged at U.S. schools and libraries since it was first launched in 1982. To illustrate the geographic distribution of these book bans and challenges, they’ve created a Google Map documenting the location of books that have been impacted over the last three years:

Here comes my original thought. Judging by this map, there appears to be three states who did not report an attempt to ban or challenge a book: Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah--my own Utah. Why do suppose that is? Are we really that much against censorship? Do we really embrace the idea that values and mores are taught by parents and we should talk about important issues with our kids and thus make our own decisions rather than foist them upon others? Or are we oblivious to the whole thing?

I'm Not Bitter

2010-09-23T09:01:00.008-06:00

What I'm reading right now: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Okay, who am I kidding? Like any fan of The Hunger Games I pre-ordered the book and finished it pretty quickly. I know there were those who felt the third book was "disappointing" but I imagine they felt that way because it didn't end as they hoped or though it might. I was not disappointed.

The great thing about fiction is you can do anything you want, provided you justify it. I thought Ms. Collins justified everything she did. I found the series to be quite satisfying. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then 1) shame on you and 2) get on board--it's not too late!

As a side note, this past weekend I attended the League of Utah Writers' annual conference. At these conferences, presenters often reference either Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings to illustrate a point. Since I have read neither, sometimes the example is lost on me (although I can usually surmise the point.) This time reference was made to The Hunger Games and I was able to contribute.

~*~

As mentioned above, I attended the League of Utah Writers' annual conference, called Round Up. I don't know where that title came from, but I'd be up for changing it, if I have a vote. Anyway, The keynote speaker at the dinner/awards banquet on the last night was Anita Stansfield.

As part of her address, she mentioned a study she had once read (I Googled to find this study, but my Google ninja skills failed me. I got the impression this was in some univeristy journal or the like.) In the study, they did a comparison of musicians. Group 1, musicians deemed successful by their peers and society in general. Group 2, musicians not deemed successful, but who felt they should be considered so and were "bitter" about the disparity.

The study found that the members of Group 2 (the bitter group) had devoted approximately 5,000 hours to their craft. Those of Group 1 (the successful ones) had devoted . . . wait for it . . .

70,000 hours to their craft.

Drawing my own conclusions, do you suppose the members of Group 1 were more talented than Group 2? There may have been a few prodigies, but the numbers suggest that talent was likely equally distributed; it was hard work that differentiated the two groups.

I've mentioned this quote before, it's one of my favorites from Stephen King:

Talent is as ubiquituous as table salt. What separates the talented writer from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

As I reflected on Ms. Stansfield's address, I realized that I don't even work hard enough to be bitter. I have new resolve to, at the very least, become bitter (not really but you get what I mean) on my way to successful. Here's hoping I sustain it.

In addition to that, it was a great weekend. I got to hang out with my writer friends, read to each other from our works, learned a few things, and shmoozed with published authors like James Dashner (he's so awesome to allow a plebian like myself to hang with him.) Speaking of published authors, Elana Johnson gave two fantastic workshops and I got to rub shoulders (literally) with her as she cut in line in front of me at the buffet table because she forgot the ranch dressing for her salad. I told her I would explain it to people just like this!

The First 13 Lines

2010-08-05T14:48:00.002-06:00

What I'm reading right now: Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

~*~

If you came here via Facebook, thank you. If you otherwise found your way here, thank you. Please take a couple of minutes and read the following thirteen lines, then leave a comment. I'm grateful for any feedback you leave, but mostly I want to know if after reading these 13 lines, do you want to read more? Don't be shy, tell it to me like it is.

~*~

Rayne felt cold, despite the bed’s warmth. Next to him, Aebigal shifted her body, again. Great with child, she struggled to find a position wherein she could sleep. He hadn’t wanted to stop, not even for one night, certain the duke’s men would converge on them at every bend in the road. Weariness besieged them, more so his pregnant wife. He’d known Aebigal needed rest, although she would never have said so.

Their main encampment lay two days out. He’d taken a great risk returning to their abandoned homestead, but other than the cold stone of the catacombs, there was nothing else nearby. One night, then they would push through until they rejoined the rebellion.

He stared at the crossbeams. With an absence of regular upkeep, sections of the roof showed signs of thinning. Even now, the wind desired to penetrate and invade their sanctuary. He longed for a time when his greatest concern was patching the roof. With the stores full of blessed wheat and the bellies of his people satiated with enchanted bread, Duke Kiergaard’s allegiance spell no longer enslaved the people.

~*~

Again, my sincere thanks.

2nd Annual Writers' Cramp Retreat - Part 2

2010-07-18T16:11:00.021-06:00

What I'm reading right now: Odd Hours by Dean Koontz

In my previous post, I mentioned a bit about Dean Koontz and Stephen King. I was reminded of a quote by SK today and thought I'd share:

Talent is cheaper than table salt.

What separates the talented individual

from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

~*~

In the previous post I explained how my writers' group went on our own retreat/workshop weekend. This is a continuation of those three days.

Part 4 - You mean agents don't come to my door asking for my manuscript?

Margot led the group in a terrific workshop on writing query letters. She gleaned and culled this information from a workshop that Elana Johnson presented as LDStorymakers 2010. Brave and forthwrite, Margot offered up the original version of her query letter that she'd presented to Elana at LDStorymakers. She read it, with all of Elana's comments included. Then, she gave us a revision, and finally the final draft. We compared all three and I was amazed out how much better we can make a query letter (or a draft of any written work) even after it's already pretty darn good.

Part 5 - Open Mic

The standard operating procedure of our writers' group is for each member to bring about 5 pages each week. We say about 5 pages because if you've got a scene that runs 7 pages, we'd rather get the entire scene than have it split up. You make copies of your five pages for everyone else. At the end of the night, we gather the pages and take them home to critique them. What this equates to, is in addition to preparing your 5 pages for the following week, you also read and critique 40-50 other pages. At the meeting, we then go around the room and take 2-3 minutes giving our feedback--both things we loved and things we thought could be improved.

At this retreat, we wanted to give an opportunity for each of us to read our work aloud and then talk about it together. It's great to hear the author read his/her work. It is also beneficial to read your own work aloud from an editing aspect. You'll find things you otherwise missed or the fix for that troublesome scene will suddenly present. Someday each of us will do readings while on our book tours. These are some pictures I took during open mic:

Part 6 - Special Agent

Toward the end of the retreat, we were lucky enough to receive a special guest. Art and Margot have a long time friend, Shaughn. Shaughn is an FBI agent. For several hours we sat in rapt attention as he answered our questions about his work (those that he could talk about anyway) and shared stories from his adventures. This guy is the real deal. Action, intrigue, espionage, terrorism, life and death--he has lived it. Edmund Burke is credited with a well known phrase regarding "good men." Shaunghn is one of them.

If possible we would have let him go on all night. Just when we thought it couldn't get any better, we were favored to hear one of his original short stories--and it rocked! We all loved it and talked about it again and again for the remainder of the retreat. There are scenes from that story that still linger in my head.

I first met Shaughn a couple years earlier at a similar event. He shared an experience with us then that I later used as the basis of my own short story. The highlight of the weekend for me was reading to him the story that he inspired.

When Shaughn arrived at our little retreat, he and Art unexpectedly came through the door. I am the unofficial/official photographer and documenter of our retreat, but I did not have my camera at the ready {fail}. I leapt for it in the hopes of recording this joyful reunion between old friends, alas, all I got was this:

I'll take what I can get.

Part 7 - I can't sing

Toward the end of the weekend, we had a special treat. Both Margot and Rose brought their husbands along, Art and Nefi, respectively. To that point they had both been great company as well as fantastic enablers. They both took on a lot of the non-writer responsibilities so we could focus on the written word. This included driving us down there, cooking and clean up, plus witty repartée. This night, though, we got a special treat. Art presented a workshop on the similarities of sing and writing. He shared his journey of song and how he eventually joined the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. One thing he pointed out is the learning process in both disciplines and how constructive feedback is critical to improvement and deconstructive critisim can kill the dream. He punctuated his comments by singing to further illustrate his point then wrapped it all up with a short performance. You would do well to acquaint yourself with the Hovelys.

I love that one of Margot. I watched her watching her husband sing and the look on her face was one of pure love and admiration. Further proof that chicks dig musicians/rockstars.

Part 8 - The Papparazzi

Since I'm a bit of a camera fiend, or camera-o-phile, I spent a good deal of time wielding the lens to catch candid shots as well as document the events. For the sake of fun, here are the candids:

Part 9 - The Broken Glass: Non-sequitor

On day one, when we were just getting settled into the condo, we heard the clink-clink of a glass bouncing on the tile floor. This glass bounced at least 8 times. Each time it hit the floor we expected it to break. Each time it didn't, we thought that one of us would catch it. We didn't. It finally broke. These are the pieces:

How does this relate to writing or our weekend? I don't know. I said it was a non-sequitor. Maybe you can come up with an analogy and post it in the comments.

2nd Annual Writers' Cramp Retreat - Part 1

2010-06-27T22:14:00.006-06:00

What I'm reading right now: Odd Hours by Dean Koontz

I've read numerous books by Dean Koontz. He, like Stephen King, have received an unfair assessment by many. They both have been called horror writers. Although they have written in that genre, (Koontz claims to have never written in that genre--that's for another post,) they are both much more than that. Odd Thomas, our hero protagonist, is my favorite Koontz character. His approach to life and response to his unique gift make him a memorable, if not unlikely, hero. If you need an introduction to Koontz, start with the Odd Thomas series.

~*~

The 2nd Annual Writers' Cramp Retreat

About four years ago, I decided to look into the craft of writing. One of the first things I did was join the League of Utah Writers. I'd taken a couple of writing classes through the Continuing Education courses offered by Davis County. The classes were taught by Adam Olsen who, at the time, was the President of the Bountiful chapter of the League of Utah Writers.

I started attending the monthly meetings held at the Bountiful Davis Art Center. As luck would have it, or perhaps providence, a local writers' group was looking for some new blood. They'd lost a few of their regular attendees, so they sent an email to the League, who forwarded it on. I received this email and decided to take a chance. In retrospect I realize how fortunate I was then. I had little to offer in the way of experience, other than a few short pieces and a desire to know more. They tenatively listened to what I had to offer and gave me a chance to contribute to their little group, The Writers' Cramp.

For over four years now (hard to believe it's been that long already) my Thursday nights have been wonderfully occupied. This month, June 11-13 we held our second annual Cramp retreat. This one was in St. George. It was a fabulous three days.

Each member of the group (we are up to 9 now--although a few couldn't make the trip {sad face}) came prepared with a workshop to present as well as a few activities that only writer nerds like ourselves could enjoy.

We knew we were in the right place when we found this:

Part 1 - The Food

The first matter of business was to shop for food. We had delicious homemade meals, including to-die-for Rosemary Peasant bread, as well some great treats:

Part 2 - Guess Who

Our first activity was to present pictures of each others' characters and see if everyone could guess the character. Some were of known actors others were not. We had a great time presenting our idea of each others' characters. Now, you might ask, what sort of writing value is there in that? We've been together long enough that we know each others' main characters so well that we have our own idea of what they look like. The cool thing is these ideas are not so much based on physical characteristics as described by the author, but behaviors, attitudes, and motivations. It was interesting to see how similar many of the images we each had were--indicating the impression each character had made on us and thus highlighting the talents of the writer. Here are some pictures:

Part 2 - Stephen King

Workshops: I presented a workshop on Building a Character Bible. This was originally done by Scott Savage at the 2010 LDStorymakers conference. He graciously sent out the presentation to anyone who asked. Another workshop was done on Stephen King's On Writing. Prior to reading On Writing, I'd read two other SK novels, and that was many years ago (Thinner and The Eyes of the Dragon.) After reading On Writing, I realized how talented SK is as a writer. He is so much more than I ever realized.

Cory presented this workshop and shared some of her favorite insights from On Writing. We all got comment on what she presented then, we each went around the room and talked about the scenes that each other had written that just grabbed us and never let go. How amazing it was to hear other writers talk about the different scenes, and aspects of my writing that led to those scenes, that struck a chord with them, that resonated with them, I can't begin to express. I also appreciated the chance to directly tell these other writers/friends how much I admire their work. Here's a few shots from that session:

Part 3 - A peasant king, a gifted prescient youth, and a vampire hunter all walk into a bar...

At what may be considered our pinnacle of nerdiness, was the Character Draw. We each selected three of our own characters, wrote them down on slips of paper, and dropped them into a hat. Then, we each drew three characters out of the hat, the only caveate being we could not have our own character. Based on these three characters, we had to create a story. Again, you may ask what value would this exercise hold? Well, we couldn't just write a story with that character's name, the story had to stay true to the character's profile, attitudes, and backstory, yet we had to weave them together in some sort of coherent tale. I think this takes tremendous understanding of character development and creativity. We drew the names on Saturday night, just before bed, then had a couple of hours the next morning to compose.

These pictures are us preparing, then reacting, to the crazy and exciting tales our own characters endured.

As indicated in the title of this post, this is but one of two parts; come back soon, more greatness awaits.

~*~

Easy Come Easy Go

2010-06-06T23:30:00.017-06:00

What I'm reading right now: Dexter in the Dark by Jeff Lindsay

If you're a fan of the show, the novels take a somewhat different approach.
It's interesting to make the comparison.

~*~

Well, easy go, anyway.

What scenario would prompt this photo?

Let's consider the possibilities, shall we?

A) Investing in British Petroleum?

B) Twilight: The Twilight Years starring Helen Mirren and Clint Eastwood?

C) Selling timeshares in the Eyjafjallajökull region of Iceland?

D) Entering the 79th Annual Writer's Digest Competition?

Although you may argue for all of the above, the most correct answer is D: Entering the 79th Annual Writer's Digest Competition (in fact, given the strength of the series, the talent of those actors, and the diehard fans, B, might be the most incorrect.) I submitted three pieces this year, in three categories, at a total cost of $65.00 in entry fees. (But check out that cuticle!)

I believe this was the first writing contest I ever attempted, years before I took a serious approach to writing (and before I knew enough to know what I was getting into) and I believe it is the stand alone writing contest that has received more of my entries than any other, not sure why that is. Perhaps it seems to be such the coup that it's worth the entry fees? In all honesty, I have spent as much on less honorable pursuits, so why not?

The all-time leader for me is the League of Utah Writers' annual Round Up competiton. I put that in a different category because that is combined with a weekend of workshops and panel discussions. There, I've had a taste of success. This will be my fourth year The deadline for submissions is June 15th, so if you've not submitted yet, get on it!

Back to the photo that inspired this post. I have no idea what the odds are for the Writer's Digest competition, but I imagine they are staggering. Again, perhaps I keep submitting my work to their contests because the reward would be that much greater. Each year I feel as though I've submitted some quality work and each year I feel like my work is better than the previous years'. Likely there are others with that same thought who've been writing for a lot longer than I have; it could be a long wait. Maybe one day I'll break through, who knows. Not trying is no by default.

To maintain balance in the universe, here's a bit inspiration from this year's LDStorymakers conference:

Lest We Forget the Cost

2010-05-31T21:54:00.001-06:00

A bit of a departure today.

Memorial Day 2010

Enjoy the day.

Enjoy the freedoms.

But please, take a moment

to remember the cost.

Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer

2010-05-23T22:15:00.001-06:00

What I'm reading right now: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

If you haven't caught on to this series, you're missing out. Don't be thrown off by the YA (Young Adult) label. Suzanne Collins creates complex characters that win you over and a unique plot that never lets up. When you stop to consider all of the characters she has created, the depth each one brings, and this interwoven plot, you start to understand what a ~~talented~~ skillful writer she is. (I'm sure she has loads of talent too, but I don't want to discount all of her hard work.)

Book one is The Hunger Games. Book Two is Catching Fire and Book three, due out in August, is Mockingjay.

According to Mockingjay.net, a movie of The Hunger Games is underway.

~*~

I'm sure we'll return to The Hunger Games in a later post. For now, I want to share something a friend of mine shared with me, it's an Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer. Watch it. Then watch it again.

Now that you've seen it a couple of times. Think about how this applies to your writing. I'll give you my thoughts in a follow up post.

Kill Your Darlings

2010-05-02T20:05:00.002-06:00

What I'm reading right now: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind

~ * ~

Last weekend, I attended LDStorymakers often referred to as Storymakers. From their own website:

LDStorymakers (pronounced "LDS Story Makers") started as an online e-mail group, the brainchild of best-selling author Rachel Ann Nunes. Originally called ldssmallpresswriters, our group was designed as a home for published writers who were associated with small publishers—particularly those associated with the LDS market. From the comfort of their own homes, our members could offer help and seek advice from each other, polish their writing skills, and socialize with other authors who knew the ropes.

This annual conference has become one of the most highly regarded gatherings of authors, writers, and graphic artists in the state. Although the Latter-day Saint element of the conference is still present, it is no longer solely focused on the LDS market, attracting agents and editors of major publishing houses.

I attended many fantastic workshops and panels, but the best part was networking, meeting new people in the industry and introducing them to what I have to offer. I signed up for an optional workshop called Literary Bootcamp.

I've attened bootcamps before and although they can be challenging, I question whether they measure up to the demands of actual bootcamp. What bootcamp is, is you basically put yourself at the mercy of others. You give everyone a sample of your writing to critique. At this event, we were set up in groups of 4 or 5 people, designated by genre, and each table had a published author to guide the activity. My group was presided over by the fabulously talented Stephanie Black, a terrific writer and a genuine person. Who heralds our boot camp group as "awesome."

What happened next was each of us read our work aloud while the others followed along and left feedback/critques on their copy. When it comes to this type of activity, the best way to get through it is to remember to separate yourself from the work. A critique of your work is not a critique of you, the person, even though it can be difficult to separate the two. This is something I learned years ago as a sign language interpreter. We had "activities" where we did the same thing.

Why is this so difficult? Well, often what we put down on the page are our darlings. The things we have written are the most wonderfully splended bits of prose ever to grace the page. Not only our page, but perhaps any page--hence, it is your darling. When someone shows how it is not as wonderful as we initially thought is was, well, that can be hard to take. Such activites are done with the best intent and hopefully each participant received constructive feedback on how to make the work better.

As darlings go, sometimes what we've written is in fact wonderfully clever and down-right cool. The problem arises when we go back and edit and find that a particular bit of "darling wonderfulness" no longer fits with the story. As a stand alone darling, it's still fabulous, but it no longer serves the story and as such you have to cut it, despite how poetic/lyrical/paradigm-shifting it is. It is this that is referred to as killing your darling, sometimes referred to as murdering your darling. I love the phrase and ideology so much, that I had a shirt made up:

This can lead to awkward encounters when I forget I'm wearing it and head off to the grocery store. As a phrase, it's not well known outside of writers' circles.

One other high note, during the Saturday afternoon lunch, artist/writer Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary, pulled out his sketch book and started sketching people in the audience. I was fortunate enough to be one of his subjects. He was gracious enough to give me a scan:

I was in complete fanboy-mode. He said it was no big deal as it was only a two-minute sketch. No big deal to him! To me, pretty awesome.

This is MY STORY

2010-04-13T21:09:00.002-06:00

What I'm reading right now: I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells

Self - This is who I am. All of my parts in one place in the order I specify. A collective whole of my lineage.

Tenacious - My life is what I make of it and although there are those who wish me well, no one cares how my life evolves, devolves, or ends, but me.

Orator - If I don't speak, who will?

Resonance - When my actions coalesce with the actions of others, the impression is magnified, for better or worse. Choose wisely.

Yet - Each day is a new chapter, each hour a new paragraph, each thought a footnote toward a decided end-but I have yet to reach my potential.

This is my STORY.

Interested? Want to know more about the impetus behind this post? Click HERE to go to Chris Brogan's website.

How to Train Your Dragon

2010-04-07T21:46:00.005-06:00

What I'm reading right now: I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells

I did see a great movie tonight, which I will tie into writing before this is done, but first I want to comment on a situation I observed directly after the movie.

When I exited the men's room a woman asked if I'd seen a little boy in a green coat. I said that I hadn't but I'd check the stalls for her. I found nothing. When I came out again, she said nevermind. I saw that the boy in question approached. This mother then proceeded to do what all good parents do in this situation--berate her son for wandering off (in case you need a refresher, I included a link to the definition of berate, it's pretty harsh.)

I watched from the corner of my eye while taking in a poster for the new TRON movie due out in December. The boy didn't realize what he'd done was a problem. He did not get upset until mom got upset, both due to her anxiety and her tough love. Given that combo, he started crying, sniffling that quickly escalated to wailing. At this point, mom realized the effect she was having and tried to soften her verbal onslaught.

"Do you know why I'm angry?"
"No." wail
"You scared me. You wandered off and I couldn't find you. But I'm glad I found you. Are you glad I found you?"
"No." wail
"Come on. Let's go sit down and talk about it."

I thought his answer, that he was not glad she found him was hilarious. If you ever want truth, ask a kid. In case you're wondering, I saw them later in the parking lot and everything seemed fine.

I am a white personality. Which means I loath confrontation and seek out harmony. I'm sure that I've reacted in a similar manner when having lost track of one of my kids, but I've blocked out that experience. What I do remember is a similar experience where, upon seeing that my child was fine, I did not explode, but calmly explained what I was feeling and why what she did was wrong.

Why do I bring this up? 1) I want to remember the details so I can possibly recreate this scene in a story of my own. 2) I was reminded that kids don't always know to be upset or scared until they see their parents in that state--so keep a cool head. 3) As I mentioned, I thought his answer was darn funny.

~ * ~

Now, on to the show. We did see How to Train Your Dragon and it was terrific. There were a couple of minor elements that I briefly questioned (coming from a writer's perspective) but quickly granted a pass, as it did seem possible, if not likely. The show was really well put together, and I'm talking from a story structure/plot development angle.

The biggest thing I noticed was the try/fail cycles. In any good ~~adventure~~ story, the hero has to try and fail many times before achieving his desire, otherwise, why bother trying in the first place? Kind of like writing a novel--if it were easy, everyone would do it. We also need cause to empathize with the hero. To root for him. To feel sad, to despair, and to rejoice with him. None of this can happen without failure.

There were moments in this movie and others where I wanted to say, "Oh come on. Just work for him. Let it happen." But I recognize a try/fail cycle and know I have to let it go. I recognize it so much now, that at a climatic point in the movie where it looks like success has been reached, I knew there was more coming, it was a cycle and there needed to be more to wrap up the themes of love, regret, and forgiveness that had been woven into the story.

At one point I thought, "How would I write something like this? How would I convey that?" Turns out Cressida Cowell already did. She wrote the book as well as 7 others in the How To dragon series. I find that usually movies based on books tend to be better movies. There are many fine examples of screenplays that made great movies, but the ones based on books tend to standout more for me.

Two things to wrap this up: 1) Good luck to my friend who is preparing to submit her portfolio to Dreamworks (good vibes coming your way.) 2) Here's a some pretty cool concept art I came across:

How to Build a Novel Out of Snow

2010-03-31T20:11:00.006-06:00

What I'm reading right now: I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells

That's right. It's finally here. It's been available for a couple of years (maybe even three) in Europe. I've recently heard Dan speak at a couple of venues, one of which he mentioned that Serial Killer is in its fifth printing in Germany. When I say that I'm reading it, I just picked it up today (it was released yesterday, March 30th.)

I don't have anything to say about it other than it's had some terrific and unique reviews. I'll keep you posted.

~ * ~

On to the pulp of this post, How to Build a Novel Out of Snow. There is a popular website/blog out there called Advanced Fiction Writing. Popular for good reason, plenty of stellar stuff there. In fact, it was recently mentioned on a blog I link to on this page, There Are No Rules.

It's run by a bloke (bloke is my word, he's not English) by the name of Randy Ingermanson. He's published a few novels as well as recently released Writing Fiction for Dummies. Randy has created a software program called Snowflake Pro. It takes you through the process of outlining your novel, creating characters, and even composes your pitch.

This is the welcome page. You can see the tabs across the top which guide you through the process of refining your idea, helping you set up the bones of your story so you when you're finished, all you have to do is flesh it out, so to speak (which still leaves plenty of room for improvisation as your muse directs--hey, Martin Short and Arnold Schwarzenegger both have a skeleton of 206 bones. You get my point.)

For a complete overview of what the program does, click here. At the bottom of that page, there's also an offer for 50% off the cost, which carries a pretty reasonable price tag to begin with.

I bought it and I'm going to try it out. I've been working in my comfort zone for awhile now (which is the zone of the short story) but I'm anxious and eager to have a full-length novel under my belt. I let you know how it goes.

I Wish I'd Said That

2010-03-20T18:35:00.014-06:00

What I'm reading right now: American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Ah where would we be without Facebook? Well, personally I'd be my brother, who has yet to succumb to the world of FB, claiming he has no interest in what you had for breakfast or which farm animal you just acquired. Honestly, to that end, neither do I.

However, FB has enabled me to keep in touch with friends who otherwise I would not. You know how you meet people, you share an experience, and you say "Let's keep in touch"? When you say it you honestly mean it, but then the realities of life get in the way and despite your best intentions you fall back into your own cirlces of life.

{insert road map to hell HERE}

Facebook keeps those circles touching, even overlapping some. If you've read any of my previous posts then you know that hardly a post goes by without a mention of Orson Scott Card. He was once a FB holdout as well, but finally gave in when he came to this realization, "After vowing I'd never join MySpace or FaceBook,[sic] I finally realized that I was missing out on a lot of contact that doesn't come through ordinary emails."

Back to my brother, I wouldn't mind if he joined up, but then I might only be more frustrated because he would probably check his FB less often than he checks voicemail. I do have friends whose circle do not overlap with my own, but on rare occasions. Facebook lets us keep those relationships alive, no matter where life takes us and for that I am grateful.

Remember when you first set up your FB profile and filled out the "info" tab. You put oh so much thought into what you wanted to say and how you wanted people to perceive you? Which are my favorite movies and TV shows? Books? And what about quotations? You really had to think about those, right? Because more so than television and books, your favorite quotes (if you really did put yourself out there and post your favorites) reveal a more intimate you than anything else on FB, even more than pictures.

I was reviewing my info page the other day and found that I'm still satisfied with my quotes. I thought I'd share a few here and you can decide what these quotes reveal about me.

1) "...and her body broke out so painfully in gooseflesh that she writhed on the bed."

This is from Stephen King's Lisey's Story. I read about the first 75 pages of this book and just could not get into it. As is SK's way, he spends a good deal of time setting things up in the first half of his novels so the characters can respond in the second half. In this one, he lost me. However, I was compelled to revisit it, by all things, the cover, both the one on the left and the one on the right. On my second go around, I went with the audio version and I was able to complete the book. Probably didn't hurt that I pictured Diane Lane as the main character, Lisey.

2) "...and then, with her stories, she ravished me."

This is from The 13th Tale. When I was attending a workshop by OSC,
he called this book by Diane Setterfield, "Brilliant...not a word is wasted." High praise indeed.

3) Two for this entry, Also by Stephen King, not from any of his books.

"The road to hell is paved with adverbs."

"Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work."

4) And the last one, a quote from novelest and acclaimed memoirist, Augusten Burroughs.

"I regret that I stayed in a career for years and years even though I was unhappy. I stayed for the money and I stayed because I was afraid to follow my gut. But finally, I reached a point where it was life or death. And I decided to write. I decided, I might live in a cheap rented room somewhere in the Midwest and I might own nothing but a computer and a pair of jeans and a jacket, but for the rest of my life I will write and I will not stop."

Got any quotes of your own you'd like to share? They don't have to be from your Facebook page. Share with me the words that inspire you, that evoke your passions.

Pleasure Coated Nuggets of Pleasure

2010-03-07T15:25:00.007-07:00

What I'm reading right now: Wild Seed by Octavia Butler

After an exploration into alternate URLs and redirecting and masking that yielded nothing but techincal difficulties and ultimately just kept this blog down for a week or so, I'm back. And with my rentré I'd like to make a bit of a departure from my standard fare.

This blog was built on my passion for language, writing and specifically words - using words to convey emotion. In an earlier post I talked about how Orson Scott Card moved me, literally right off the treadmill, with his amazing organization of words that, when taken as a whole, amount to his novel, Lost Boys.

It is that type of emotion that I seek. I seek to experience it and to create it. So far I've had more success in the former than the latter, but truly believe my best days are ahead of me. Last night I experienced it again. To my great pleasure I get to experience this particular event each March, just a bit before St. Patrick's Day and the great news is, you can too--next year. I'm talking about The Young Dubliners.

The Young Dubliners started out as two young lads, Keith Roberts and Paul O Toole, who moved from Dublin to Los Angeles in 1988 and were essentially dubbed The Young Dubliners by their fans. Keith has said, "Had I known then that we'd have such longevity and would still be out there doing 180 to 250 shows a year I probably would have come up with a different name. When people say were no longer so young, I reply, well, the Fine Young Cannibals never ate anyone! . . . The cool thing is, we've stayed young at heart, doing our best to grow into the name rather than let the name grow out of us."

I must agree. My wife and I have been going to their show for the last three years now and we will continue to go as long as they continue to come. Their live performances are nothing short of frenetic. Even if you aren't into Irish rock, you can't help but get swept away by rhythms, melodies, chords, and sheer power of their music. It's not hard for me, I'm a ginger, thanks to my full-Irish grandmother (more evident in my beard than my hair, but it's there.)

What's even better, and why I've chosen this topic, is their lyrics. Their songs tell stories and relate Celtic culture. Combine it with guitars, drums, a fiddle, an assortment of pipes, and a love of story and you leave having been moved. It's an experience that will stay with you long after your ears have stopped ringing.

For nearly two hours we gorged ourselves on pleasure coated nuggets of pleasure dipped in a mixture of light and dark pleasure with a sprinkling of delight. When they first came on stage, Keith started with a guitar riff and then thanked us, "Salt Lake City. One night. Whenever we feel like taking a break or getting off the road for awhile, all we have to do is play Salt Lake City for one night and you remind us why we do this."

Does he say that to all the girls? Maybe. Probably. But we don't love him any less.

He thanked us. Young Dubs, I thank you; for giving me a night to let my hair down, to let my soul and my feet dance, and for giving me one of those moments in life that take your breath away. And to the young lass in the suite directly across from me, who was so proud of her red bra, well, I thank you, too.

I've never seen an author resonate with a room full of people the way musicians do, but I have seen people pack conference halls to listen to their favorite writer, stand in line for hours to have a book signed, seen a wheel chair bound veteran give his purple heart to an author who, through his writing (Tracy Hickman,) inspired him to save the lives of his unit, and seen the lengths that one person will go to, to say to an author, I love your writing.

Yes, we write for ourselves. Yes, we write because we are compelled to. Yes, it's great to hear those four words, I love your writing. But not out of pride, but because somebody is better off because you did.

How Orson Scott Card Ruined My Workout

2010-02-22T21:00:00.001-07:00

What I'm reading right now: Lost Boys by Orson Scott Card

Okay, that's not entirely true. I just finished Lost Boys.

For this post, I was planning to write about my fabulous writing group and their awesomeness and how I don't deserve to be among them until I really start earning my keep. Then, I finished Lost Boys--the awesomeness of the writers' group can wait. I'm sure it will make for a fine post, later.

I am a late comer to the OSC camp. It was probably 20 years after Ender's Game was published that I first read it (even then it was only after a prompting from my wife--funny how they just know, isn't it?) Well, Ender's Game is a gateway drug and I was quick to understand the brillance that is OSC. I was even fortunate enough to attend Uncle Orson's Literary Bootcamp and spend a week with him. Everytime I think I've got a handle on it, he hits me upside the head with more brillance. But how did he ruin my workout?

I spend an hour to an hour and half driving every work day. I spend most of that time listening to books (a bit less during football season, then I do indulge in some sports radio, but still.) Recently, I've been listening to Lost Boys. Before heading home, I went to the gym and hit the treadmill, while listening to Lost Boys. I was only about a third of the way into my workout when I figured it out. I had to step off the treadmill. The last chapters have such emotional resonance that I had to stop. It became clear rather quickly that the workout could not continue. If I were driving I would've pulled over. I'll have to switch to something else during my workouts, otherwise I'll be fat, then again, at least I'd be fat and happy.

I know a lot of people don't like this particular novel. Some kind of like it, while others didn't like it but eventually came around. I love just about any novel that moves me--that has a lasting impact on me. That makes me feel like I know these characters. I read The Da Vinci Code and I was entertained, but I can't hardly remember any specifics about it. I don't think the Lost Boys will fade from me for a very long time, if ever.

Some of the subject matter will not appeal to everyone, but it's a credit to Card to make a compelling story out of Mormons going to church, although there's certainly more to the book than that. As well, I've yet to read an author who can do deep penetration like he can. What he achieved with this book is what I try to do in my own writing, make an emotional impact, show sacrifice and love. He did it beautifully.

I thought this quote from his website sums it up perfectly:

"Orson Scott Card's forthright, moving prose, his remarkable gift for chronicling everyday tragedies and triumphs, and his uncanny ability to conjure up emotions-his characters' and his readers'-all blend together in a poignant, masterful novel." ~ Lost Boys

It is said that every author leaves a bit of himself in everything he writes. In this story Card leaves more than a bit. I remember him saying at Bootcamp that this is essentially an autobiography. At the end of the audio book he gave a brief interview and talked about how difficult it was to write because it is such an intimate telling of his life and how he will never do such a thing again. "I did it too well," he says. "I will never do it again because the cost is too great."

I'm grateful that he dared write it. Aside from the amazing writing itself, I found much that I could relate to.

This will probably sound corny, although it sounded pretty good in my head, but I'm reminded of that line from the movie, As Good As It Gets. Melvin and Carol are at dinner and in order to compliment her, he explains that he took his medication that day. Carol doesn't quite understand so he puts it another way, "You make me want to be a better man."

OSC, you make me want to be a better writer.

Life, the Universe, & My Everything

2010-02-16T07:41:00.000-07:00

What I'm reading right now: Wild Seed by Octavia Butler

I had the opportunity of attending LTUE: Life, the Universe, & Everything this past weekend. It is the longest-running, largest student-organized science fiction and fantasy symposium in the US. Indeed, this weekend was the 28th meeting of LTUE. It is hosted by Brigham Young University and not only does its longevity speak to its uniqueness so does its cost to attend: it's free.

To quote from its Mission Statement:

"The purposes of this symposium are first, to provide a venue for scholarly examination of these genres; second, to accommodate and facilitate personal contact between aspiring and professional practitioners in the field; and third, to combine the depth of an academic symposium with the excitement of a science fiction convention. We are passionately devoted to the premise that the thought experiment of speculative fiction, in its breadth, variety, and color, is a rich personal and social laboratory for exploring the spiritual foundations of our temporal world."

I have attended this event for a few years now. I have some great memories of interesting panels and amazing keynote speakers, this year's Brandon Sanderson was no exception.

In fact, anytime you find yourself with the occasion of listening to Brandon Sanderson, it's an event you should endeavor to attend. A couple of years ago, Brandon was on a booktour for Elantris and, thanks to the efforts of a good friend, I had the fortune of lunching with Mr. Sanderson. Even then, a causul meeting over french onion soup, left an indelible impression.

As you may know, I'm a big fan of Orson Scott Card. It was OSC whose quote graces the cover of Elantris saying, "Elantris is the finest novel of fantasy to be written in many years."

This year's conference was as satisfying as ever. Brandon Mull was a big draw, hosting several Q&A sessions. James Dashner was as insightful and entertaining as ever, even adding his unique flavor to a live recording of Writing Excuses: Pacing with James Dashner. Not to mention a guest appearance by 80's hearthrob Richard Hatch, Apollo, of the original Battlestar Galactica series. Seen here with my good friend Sabine:

What was my overall take on the weekend? It was well worth my time, but here's the biggest thing I took away from a weekend rich with writing advice: stop talking about it and do it. Personally, I feel like I have many of the trappings of a writer: I have an alphasmart Dana for on-the-go writing. I've been a part of an amazing writer's group for several years now, I've attended a number of conferences, heck, I even painted a white board on the back of the door to my den, but what I have not done is write a full fledged novel (nanowrimo doesn't count.)

I don't take anything away from those who gave of their time and talent to LTUE; I am grateful for their selflessness and willingness to share, but the biggest impression left on me this year was just how much I haven't done. It's time to stop posing as a writer and make the decision to actually be a writer.