Cool Quote For Bloggers and Writers

Here's a cool Star Trek quote Christine found. (And there's a sentence that, if you know Christine, sounds like science fiction.)

"It takes courage to look inside yourself, and even more courage to write it for others to see." - Capt. Benjamin Sisko

It's found in a Star Trek/Myers Briggs assessment.

The Value of the Blog

Is there value to blogging for writers?

Charles Gramlich and Stewart Sternberg have been discussing that with degrees of levity mingled with serious contemplation.

Let me weigh in with a yes. I don't know if anyone's bought a copy of my War of the Worlds, or listened to a free sample due to the link at the right, hint hint. Or if it's driven anyone to dig up some of my older stuff, but blogging's kind of an Emily Dickinson thing.

I think I'd write here even if there weren't eight or nine people reading it every day.

It's a little less disciplined, but this is pretty much what I used to do when I was a newspaper reporter.

I mean generally I talked to people all day and wrote what they told me. I had to, you know, be concerned more with facts than opinion, I guess. Though I did write a column for a while that was sort of like a blog. It was just once a week or so and a few more people scratched their heads as I mulled over things like Procol Harum lyrics. (Wayne Sallee's posting about six degrees of separation. I think Karl Edward Wagner once wrote a story called "At First Just Ghostly" taking a line from "A Whiter Shade of Pale." Maybe that's serendipity and not six-degrees, though it's one degree removed from yesterday's post, keep scrolling.)

Getting the junk out
An account rep for an ad agency we work with on my day job once said some of their creatives had to "get the junk out" of their heads before the really good stuff came. Stream of consciousness blogging certainly allows that. It's as free form as it gets, and I think serves a purpose similar to "morning pages" advocated in The Artist's Way. Before blogs, journals for writers were a must.

A sense of community
Beyond the rambling, blogging also allows a coast-to-coast sense of community and communication.

If I had to connect dots on a map to the friends old and new I'm now in regular Web 2.0- communication with, it would zig from the South to the West Coast to the Midwest with a long though occasional zag over to the British Isles. Maybe I better not draw all those lines, it might summon Cthulhu. (Speaking of elder gods and in keeping with stream of consciousness, wouldn't this make a great gift?)

"Wow, I thought he'd never shut up."
In conclusion, I think there's value in blogging, just in doing it. 'Cause someone said writing equals ass in chair. It doesn't have to be a means to an end other than that, no, uh pun intended, though I'm thinking Stewart's new "Weird Addiction" writing challenge could get me started on a pretty good short story.

Times it will always be

A meditation by the narrator of A Separate Peace by John Knowles notes there are moments that essentially get frozen in the memory. For him it's the era of his school days. Roosevelt will always be president, he'll always be in high school, he says, and so on.

I keep thinking about that passage as I contemplate a favorite story I need to re-read, Sticks, by Karl Edward Wagner. Wayne Sallee, who was close to Karl, has written eloquently about him in a couple of posts, including this one.

Wayne's notes and going through my books, still for Library Thing, thumbing my paperbacks of In A Lonely Place and Why Not You and I, have me thinking about the days I went to a lot of conventions. Karl Edward Wagner always seemed to be there, everywhere, and doing something crazy.

I remember him coming into a panel room once and grabbing a table cloth to throw it around his shoulders or opening a panel discussion on monsters by affecting an instructor's monotone and saying: "We are here today to discuss the care an maintenance of the CXL small engine..."

I remember him acting like a professional wrestler and trading insults, boasts and challenges with Charles L. Grant

In my mind, that's a time it will always be. A floating universe somewhere, where time hasn't moved along so rapidly.

I read "Sticks" first in that big collection of horror stories edited by David G. Hartwell. It's collected in In a Lonely Place, which I bought along with a couple of the Kull books right after KEW died, selfishly worrying they would quickly become hard to find.

Favorite Short Stories: Charles Beaumont - The Howling Man

Since we've been having fun discussing classic horror short stories and Richard Matheson and all that and since it's on my mind because I've been working on my Library Thing catalog, I thought I'd mention another of my favorites - "The Howling Man" by Charles Beaumont.

It's included in Charles Beaumont: Selected Stories from Dark Harvest, and was adapted into one of the most kick-ass episodes of The Twilight Zone ever.

If you've never seen it, wait up for it on Sci-Fi Channel the next time it airs! Seriously.

Originally published in 1959 in Rogue, which can be found on ebay listed as a "vintage men's magazine," it's a study of evil.

On a walking tour of Europe, the tale's protagonist encounters a group of monks who have the devil imprisoned, of course he's in his "angel of light" guise to the hero.

From outward appearances it seems they monks are a little off and the poor guy they have trapped is the victim of mistaken identity who won't shut the hell up! Hence the howling man nickname.

I finally got to see the TZ episode on WGN in the '80s and I've watched a few more times on Sci Fi re-airings. It's a wonderful black and white rendering with plays of light and lightning, skewed camera angles and SPFX as well.

The story is rich and symbolic, faithfully interpreted for TV but it should be read as well. If you've loved Beaumont, leave me comments.

If not get to a bookstore, mail order house or library. Now, do it. Don't just sit there.

What's On the iPod? - Lady Frankenstein

When I was a kid, my hometown had a drive-in multiplex. TWO BIG SCREENS! They were designated Showtown East and Showtown West.

I think showtimes were earlier on the west screen because it had the sun at its back.

Maybe it was the other way around and there was some advantage at the East screen. That part's fuzzy.

In the bleak early '70s
In the early '70s, the twin Showtowns presented second run flicks like True Grit often paired with new releases such as A Gunfight with Johnny Cash, but it was also the venue for the usual Southern drive-in fodder that was still floating around.

Newspaper ads trumpted footage of real births or vampire double-features so horrifying some guy who saw them had to be institutionalized.

We also got TV ads for all that stuff while we watched I Dream of Jeannie re-runs in the afternoons. Did they think 10 year olds were going to the drive-in? And people worry about toy ads.

Portrait of a Lady
I can remember among those spots was Lady Frankenstein's ad campaign - really, I can -- slightly sinister, slightly sexy and slightly scary with her big, folically-challenged creation lumbering across the screen. Can't remember exactly what the announcer said but it was something to the effect of "She had the stones to create a monster!" I guess that's kinda in keeping with the films intended feminist take on the Frank story.

Never got to go see any of those darker flicks in those days. My dad liked Westerns, don't you know? But the promos were always good for my Famous Monsters of Filmland-driven imagination, perhaps more exciting than some of the films themselves.

Better 35 years late than never
Nonethless, I was excited to discover via Mondo Schlocko that Lady Frankenstein with Rosalba Neri, aka Sara Bey, is in the public domain and available at archive.org.

If we can believe Wikipedia ;-), it's often compared to the Hammer Films Frankenstein cycle though lensed in Italy.

Back in the day I thought it was one of those becausee it had that costume-drama style. Also it stars Joseph Cotten who has a vaguely Hammer Films air about him. I didn't know who he was then but he looked vaguely like Peter Cushing.

I got the download MP4 of LF on my iPod now. I'll probably squeeze it in this weekend if I have to stand in many lines while Christmas shopping.

Books I need to get around to - Spindrift

Plugging books into my new Library Thing catalog has reminded me of some books I own that I really need to get around to reading.

One I've had on a "read-soon" stack for a while is Spindrift: Spray from a Psychic Sea. I picked it up at one used book store or another a while back, though I'm not sure when.

It looked like an Exorcist-era horror novel but it's actually labled non-fiction, the story of Broadway actress Jan Bartell and her experiences with a Greenwich Village townhouse where strange sounds and shadows turned into a belief of a "diabolical Possession."

If Wikipedia is to be believed ;-) Ms. Bartell was possibly clinically depressed, but I'm intrigued by delving into her account. It sounds a little like a real-life version of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House.

OK We're doing a poll

On the "Which Tarot Card Would You Be?" post below, Stewart Sternberg of the way cool House of Sternberg blog postulated that more creative "What Would You Be?" tests might be possible.

I've set his suggestions up as a poll at left. It's informal and non-scientific, but which would you most like to take?

If you vote, maybe Stewart will send you a picture of a radish. (He has a post about strange pictures he used to send in e-mails.)

Maybe a future poll could be a fill-in-the-blank variety.

What is the strangest thing you actually received in the mail in a letter from Chicago writer and moving-target blogger Wayne Allen Sallee? (Pictured at left is Wayne as his fictional character:The American Dream.)

If you received snail mail from Wayne at any time in the '80s or '90s, you know what I'm talkin' about.

If not, well let's just say Wayne used to pack interesting things into his envelopes.

Doin' the Library Thing

My buddy sent me a link to Library Thing and it's been keeping me busy. It also confirms what I have known for a while. If it's possible to own too many books, I do.*

Library Thing is like MySpace for book lovers with a little extra. It allows you to create a catalog of your books online.

I have seen the Library Thing User and He is Us - Sorry, Pogo
With cross links in your profile area, it also lets you see there are other people out there just like you.

Frighteningly just like you if you read the profiles. I think there's a guy that is me. He's the same age, grew up reading Famous Monsters of Filmland and has a lot of the same books as me. We probably have more books in common than is currently apparent because I'm not finished adding mine yet.

I've added a lot though, it's addictive. You can search by title, author, ISBN number or a few other ways. It relies mostly only Amazon but it has other sources to draw on as well. It can usually pinpoint the exact edition of the book you own, though sometimes there are a few flaws.

It usually finds cover art, though in my obsession I get a little frustrated if the picture doesn't match my edition. I find myself envious of people who have managed to display cover art of the same editions I have when mine displays only the simulated wood grain that is the default image if no cover art is available. Ahhhhh!

An aside
Note to Library Thing Creators: Fabulous job but if there's a feature to add your own cover art scans, I don't see it. And I would use it. I know there's probably medication.

Another cool thing is that the creators really seem to have their act together. While I was looking around on the site yesterday they apparently got Slashdotted, which may be better than being digged, I'm not sure. I think that is the right past tense of "digging" a site but I'm not sure. Maybe I should check the urban dictionary on that.

Real time communication
Anyway, they were overwhelmed and real time messages were appearing - "We've been Slashdotted, bear with us." Ah, the new words the web coins for us.

Guess there's a little sense of Big Brother going on there. The, uh one from Orwell or the Mac commercial, not the CBS TV Show, I guess.

Here's what's happening with that, though. The people who built this thing are obsessive book lovers too, and they're just watching to see if you added a book they want to read. Talk to you later, I'm going to IM the me from the parallel universe to see if he wants to do a "need it, need it, got it" book trade. View my online catalog here.

Addendum
Duh! There is a way to fix covers. Just had to read the FAQ. I think they officially thought of everything.

(*I'm not sure it is possible to own too many books - please reference the Twilight Zone episode "Time Enough At Last." If Burgess Meredith did not break his glasses he would then have just enough books. If something happens like in Stephen King's The Stand and I am one of few survivors, then I will need these books. Dish Network will probably stop working.)

Shock Waves

One of my favorite collections of horror short stories or horror and suspense stories is Richard Matheson's Shock Waves.
I don't know that it contains his best tales for there are many including a number of stories that became Twilight Zones.

But it's a book that got me through a whole lot o' boredom once, so I hold it in high regard.

It was near Christmas one day in the '90s and I was called for jury duty. I'd bought the Matheson book used fairly recently so I tucked in my jacket when I left home that morning.

And while I sat through the preliminary selection process and voir dire, I read Matheson stories - "A Visit to Santa Claus," "Finger Prints" and a host of others.

One that I remember vividly still is "A Drink of Water." It's not a horror story exactly, but it at least is a tale of desperation.
It's about a guy who's been to a movie one hot August night, had some popcorn and upon arriving home decides he needs a drink of water since the popcorn was salty.

Sounds simple, but when he reaches his apartment he finds the water's been shut off due to one problem or another.

He's got no water in the fridge, and every avenue he pursues fails him for the next six or seven pages. I was right along with him in that tale, desperate in my own way, trapped in one of those processes from which there's no escape.

You just have to endure and hope you come out the other side.

A good book full of cool stories can make the trip more bearable.

Did the story's hero ever get a drink? Well, I suggest you look up Shock Lines. It's well worth a read.

Burning Bridges

There's always a joke that kids will celebrate when school burns. That's not the reality. The school where my mother taught most of her career has been destroyed by arson. Age has wiped away most of her memory, but I can't help feeling a little sad that hallways where her footsteps echoed for many years are gone.

I never attended there, but we lived within walking distance when I was a kid. We used to stroll there in the late afternoons. I once found a discarded Hardy Boys novel on the campus and I think I still have it.

I went to a lot of functions with her also. She took me to a play called The Guy From Venus that was put on by the drama department in the '60s. Later I would see the guy who played the alien drive past our house on his way to classes every morning, and it was like seeing a celebrity.

Most of her time was spent in a free-standing home economics building, but faculty meetings and other matters took her to the main building frequently.

One more marker that time marches on.

I didn't hear any strange beeps but...

I got up this morning right after my cats woke me. This usually happens 10 to 15 minutes before the alarm clock goes off. It's like, well, clockwork.

Monty bothers Daisy who hisses to warn him to leave her alone. She continues to hiss until Christine awakens just enough to tell me to do something about it.

So I get up, switch off the alarm clock, feed them and start the coffee pot since it's still minutes before the automatic timer fires. Yet I stubbornely refuse to re-set it.

I did all that like always, the coffee maker wasn't already on or anything because I remember it making whining sounds when it started.

I let Oliver, the indoor-outdoor cat, out then sat down at my computer. (Christine's friend said recenlty: "You know four cats is getting dangerously close to `strange cat people' behavior.)

I got coffee when it finished brewing, read a few e-mails, blinked and it was an hour later than I thought it was.

I looked down at the time in the lower corner of the screen and thought something was screwed up with my computer. Then I discovered every other clock in the house had the same time.

Cue The Twilight Zone theme.

I don't know if I was abducted by aliens when I let the cat out or what happened but Holy Moses!

1. The alarm didn't go off.

2. The coffee maker didn't start automatically so I think I got up when I thought got up, yet boom suddenly it's an hour later than it's supposed to be.

If I mysteriously disappear, remember this post.

Books I'm Really Enjoying - Touch the Dark

I'm glad I picked up Touch the Dark by Karen Chance. I was prompted to buy it because it was featured in a sampler at World Fantasy, and it's really an enjoyable read.

I've been reading a lot of thrillers lately, and sometimes I forget what a blast a fantasy can be, especially one that has a vampire Mafia, werewolves, clairvoyants and even a golem.

The story is told by Cassandra Palmer, the girl pictured on the cover, though the pentacle on her back is stretched out a little more.

She's fleeing Tony, a vampire mobster, but she also has killer magicians and much more on her plate. Happily, a sequel's due in the spring.

War of the Worlds

My adaptation of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds for Mind's Eye Theater from Thayne Multimedia is now on sale in its first location, Teach Out Loud.

Eventually it will be available in more places, but it's ready for the iPod now! It's also available free to the blind at FearYouCanHear.com.

It's believed to be the first radio-style adaptation in the original period setting. Usually it's presented in contemporary settings like New Jersey.

It's done with British actors and features music from a Greek artist so it's an international production.

In Dreams

Charles Gramlich has a post about dreams over at Razored Zen. That made me think about my dreams from last night, which were a little more esoteric than the one he describes.

I'm not sure if there's meaning to be gleaned, and only a fragment remains but it is one of those fragments that carries over the eeriness of the dream world.

I saw a girl I used to know who was struck by a serious illness. She was looking at me, down through a glass or maybe backward through a glass. It was like an over the shoulder glance from the her before the illness.

Maybe I should look up one of those dream interpretation sites - there's probably a meaning for glass, a meaning for a glance from a distant friend.

But maybe there's more mystery in wondering.

Dreams can be our mind's way of forcing us to analyze things.

Maybe it's more important for me to work on it a while than for checking a guide of symbols.

What's on the iPod? - Professional improvement

I wimped out with my Audible downloads and opted for a professional improvement option.

All Marketers are Liars was a featured item on my start screen. Damn you clever web marketers!

I was intrigued by the premise, nothing exactly new, but it made the use of storytelling in marketing sound like the Power of Myth. The lie part is sort of for shock value.

I feel I draw on a lot of the same reservoirs for ad and marketing writing that I do for fiction, and if nothing else theory books can be inspirational and stimulating, so Twilight by Stephenie Meyer was postponed for next month.

The arc
The Liars book brought to mind a backburner radio script that I'm quite proud of that was absolutely storytelling. It offered a one-minute snapshot of a man's life.

It's one of the more satisfying things I've done recently and I guess I'll turn it into a short story or something since it got a pass from my boss.

Based on a true story
It involved a grandfather and his granddaughter and a party, but I based it on an uncle of mine and a moment of cleverness I never expected. When he was about 90 he participated in a husband and wife nursing home pagent.

I don't remember all the areas of competition but one area involved Q&A. You know the same kind they do with Miss America where they all want world peace. My uncle stood on the stage, leaning against a cane, his mind a bit fuzzy from his years. I sat in the audience wondering if he'd be able to respond.

"What's your favorite birthday?" the pageant host asked.

"I don't know which one to pick unless it's the next one," my uncle responded.

I think he took home a trophy for that quip.

Bond Trivia

I have to come up with James Bond trivia for a Bond-themed party my company is hosting. We'll be giving away some things like martini shakers and copies of the trade edition of Casino Royale then probably some DVD sets.

It's not as easy as you'd think because the questions can't be too hard or too easy. Here's what I have so far. Feel free to play at home, although I can't send any prizes.

1. In the films, how does James Bond prefer his martinis?

2. What handgun is Bond most known to use?

3. What Australian actor appeared in only one Bond film?

4. In what film did television's Kojak play the bad guy?

5. Bond villain Goldfinger was backed up by a hat-throwing henchman. What was his name?

6. How much did the Man With the Golden Gun charge?

7. Who sang the title song for The Spy Who Loved Me?

8. What star from Jaws appeared as a bond villain?

Answers

1. Vodka martini shaken not stirred. (OK if you didn't get that one you should really leave the room. Give yourself extra credit if you know the mixture described in the novel Casino Royale.)

2. Walther PPK is the answer we were looking for. (Extra credit if you know he was issued the Walther because his Beretta jammed.) What's he carrying now?

3. Oh come on, honestly, George Lazenby. You had to look? What? Have you been sleeping?

4. On Her Majesty's Secret Service. You'll note a certain tie between questions 3 and 4.

5. Odd Job - some of the people in the office didn't get this one, making me wonder how these are going to fly. He was parodied in Austin Powers. It should be another gimmie.

6. $1 Million a shot, according to the Lulu song, or $1 million per assassination. What other famous movie theme song did Lulu also perform?

7. Carly Simon. I once saw John Davidson perform it on the Tonight Show as "This Girl Who Loved Me. Ackkk!

8. Kind of a sneaky one since there was a henchman named Jaws. The answer we're looking for is Robert Shaw in From Russia With Love, who played the beloved boat-owner Quint in Jaws.

Thanks for playing - have a good day! Enjoy Casino Royale if you go this weekend.

Ray Bradbury Interview - Part 5 (intro)

(At last, here is the final part of my 1995 Interview with Ray Bradbury)

Science is not going in a direction makes hopeful the Bradbury who once longed to live in futuristic cities and loved the 1933 World's Fair for its exhibits that matched SF magazine covers.

"Not as far as space travel is concerned," he says when interviewed. "That's our own fault. We've given up our space flights to the moon, which is a terrible mistake."

The space shuttle, he says, has been relegated to a role that's like delivering mail.

Maybe another space race is what the world needs, and there's still one superpower left.

"I hope that some time in the very near future, we pick a semi-fight with Red China," he says. Then maybe they'll start heading to the moon, and the U.S. will get back on the launch pad. "We all need competition," he stresses. Read more...

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Ray Bradbury Interview - Part 4 (intro)

A grand tale that is as he expounds on it to the audienc. "He sat in a chair and got electrocuted every night," Bradbury explains, painting this illustration so the crowd can envision the barker on a long ago carnival midway: "We are now going to put one million volts into Mr. Electrico's fragile body!"

Bradbury and friends went nightly, checking to see if one time the electric chair would work, but Mr. Electrico always survived to take up a sword and aim it at his amazed patrons.

As he pointed the sword, the guests hair would stand on end. When he aimed it at Bradbury one night, and the charge turned his... Read more

Ray Bradbury Interview - Part 3 (intro)

(Continuing my article originally published in 1995.)

It was when he was 12 and living in Tucson that myth and metaphor began to come together and his search moved on, he continues in his crisp Midwestern tone as our phone conversation rolls along.

He sat down that year to write his first novel.

From that illustration others would blossom and over time he would reach millions. Read More

Part 1

Part 2

Ray Bradbury Interview - Part 2 (intro)

(This continues my interview with Ray Bradbury from 1995.)

It goes back further than that season of 8, back to the time he was 3 and collecting metaphors -- myths and fair tales and sips of dandelion wine. He offers those illustrations Tuesday night to the crowd of 1,500 at Centenary College's Gold Dome. Young and old have gathered. To some he's the longtime master of miracles, to others, he's required reading in the flesh; the freshman class has been studying Fahrenheit 451.

In his black suit, blue shirt and tie, Bradbury looks like a breathing version of his cover photos, standing beneath the dome's ceiling, a sky of white cubes. They seem appropriate as a backdrop. They look like building blocks for one of the futuristic cities of his dreams.

He draws laughter as he tells of how he "walked funny" after seeing Lon Chaney in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. "When I was 5, Lon Chaney made the Phantom of the Opera in 1925," he continues, then recalls the film's impact on his imagination -- he borrowed a relative's opera cape and fashioned it to his own needs, sported a set of fake fangs and dropped from trees to scare passers-by.

"There were plans afoot to drown me in Waukegan, IL.," he recalls with a chuckle. Read more...

Start with Part 1