Driving, Reading and Re-Reading Runes and Yellow Wallpaper

The last few days, I've been driving across the Southeast by day and continuing my reading and re-reading of mystery and weird fiction by night. Planning a creative writing class has its perks.

The drive
As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm going to be teaching in Florida. Christine and I decided not to red line the car trip from Texas. We broke it up over a few days, a few hotels along the Gulf Coast and quite a few chain restaurants.

A long car journey  took me on more than a geographic trip. I went back in time a little, to vacations of my youth, with my old man at the wheel of  a series of Fords.

Christine and I took a different tunnel under the Mobile River than my folks did in the sixties, but I recalled the thrill of the old days as we took the plunge then drove the bridge across Mobile Bay.

I kept thinking of my parents and their era as we drove. Destin was the destination in the old days, a vacation spot with beaches and Western ghost towns as well. How did that get to be so long ago?

Christine and I drove further, through some of the mid-week storms in fact. The Florida panhandle sure is long, but overall we had fun.

The reading
I've been re-visiting, or in some cases visiting, some of the genre classics. I won't be using each and every one for class, but I wanted to make sure I was well versed in some of the seminal pieces.

Those took me back as well.

I don't remember when I first read "Casting the Runes" by M.R. James, but it was a great one to delve into again. Re-reading removed some of the blur from various old time radio adaptations I've listened to since we got the Internet, and since I first saw Curse of the Demon, Jacques Tourneur's tampered-with masterpiece.

The original tale makes clear how perfect the film would have been without the tacked-on creature, who always looked cross-eyed to me when I encountered his features in Famous Monsters of Filmland, long before I got to see the film.

I'm not sure I'd ever read "The Yellow Wallpaper," though I've listened to various audio versions over time.

Engaging with the words allows a  better immersion into the narrator's madness, I believe, and I picked up a bit of trivia. Character actor Silas Weir Mitchell of "My Name is Earl" and "Grimm" is apparently named after his ancestor -- the doctor whose treatment methods Charlotte Perkins Gilman was attempting to influence in penning "Yellow Wallpaper."

All in all, it's been an interesting few days, and the journey continues.

Lovecraft Is Missing - A Web Comic I'm Reading

I've  been reading, re-reading and seeking out new things as I prepare for my teaching gig. I'm thinking of  a Serverus Snape wardrobe too, but that's a different discussion.

Lovecraft is Missing is an interesting web comic I ran across via the io9 blog. If you haven't discovered it ahead of me, it's an intriguing, ongoing tale, and it's perfect for tablet reading. Check it out.

It's written and illustrated by Larry Latham, who posts status updates about new pages in his production schedule.

That may generate some cliffhanger suspense for you down the road because he's running a little behind, but there are hours of happy reading in store before you get as far as having to wait for new content.

The story focuses on a Brown University Scholar, a pulp writer and a priest. When Lovecraft goes missing, possibly with illustrations from an occult volume, the protagonists become embroiled in occult battles and investigations.

So far I see hints of Innsmouth and other familiar Lovecraftian tropes, so I'm anxious to keep reading.

Start here, at the beginning, in Boston's North End, 1926.

Third Act

Long ago, my freshman English comp teacher told me if I decided to pursue teaching, I should look at a special focus. He didn't use the marketing term differential advantage, but that's what he was suggesting.

I'd written a paper on the American detective and Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan in particular, springboarding from ideas in The Great American Detectives edited by William Kittred and Steven M Krauzer. Their acknowledgements had led me also to Saint with a Gun: The Unlawful American Private Eye by William Ruehlmann. For my paper, all appropriate footnotes were copiously indicated and formatted in MLA style with the help of Liquid Paper.

A specialty such as detective fiction, my prof noted, might make me more viable in the halls of ivy. I cataloged that notion, and went off to be a writer, with day gigs as newspaper reporter, librarian and  corporate communications specialist and webmonkey.

Now I find myself rewinding that old conversation, as I contemplate whether to include Raymond Chandler's "Red Wind" in reading assignments for my new teaching job.

I'm taking a position teaching creative writing at Full Sail University in Orlando. My emphasis is mystery, suspense and horror.

I guess since freshman English, I've been subconsciously heeding that advice indirectly and shaping myself, impulsively and intuitively following interests and opportunities as they've come along.

I corresponded with Vance Bourjaily in the late eighties about pursuing an MFA at LSU, but that never came about. I told myself I'd try to sell a novel, and if that didn't work out then I'd pursue a higher degree. I sold Azarius, a mixture of the mystery tale and horror, and that afforded me a lot of opportunity to write and meet people and move in different directions.

I didn't know until it was mentioned at the AWP conference last year that Raymond Carver wanted to study with Bourjaily. Oops.

I was on vacation in Portland in 2007 when I learned of Goddard College's low residency MFA program. I was staying in a boutique hotel with Bogart photos in the hallways, and we went to a literary festival called Wordstock where I found the brochure. That finally led me to a graduate degree, and a fresh perspective on writing.

Now, how can I help but think about that Green Day tune "Good Riddance"? Since the Seinfeld finale, it has become a standard in the American songbook, pop culture edition, category: transition tunes.

"Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go..." 

Roland Mann, who edited a lot of the comic book work I've done over the years, e-mailed me last September to tell me he'd taken a position at Full Sail. I think we both completed MFAs around the same time, but I was only in the thinking stages about whether or not I wanted to teach.

Then came word of an opportunity in their creative writing program to shape and teach a bachelor's course on mystery, suspense and horror.

It's an interesting challenge, an interesting opportunity to dissect and contemplate great genre works and pass on elements to students who've been struck with that infectious blood disease of all those cursed with the need to put pen to paper.

I could quote another line or two from Green Day, but that would be cliched.

I'll just note that at the moment it feels right, and it seems a better fit for me than my current day gig.
There are details to work out, but I start June 4 if all goes well.  

The Dusk Society on BlackBerry

I can't really testify as to the reading experience. Christine is the BlackBerry user in our household, but Campfire has released the graphic novel I created, The Dusk Society for BlackBerry devices.

Actually Christine uses a Storm, and I'm sure this is targeted more to tablets, but if you're a digital comics reader you now have one more option. It's also in the iBooks store, if you're among the few who happen to own iPads.

Someday, I may do a post detailing editorial changes made to my original script. For example, I didn't telegraph the monster on the first page, and some of the more "expository" dialogue isn't mine.

Still, my core story is in the pages, however you get to the tale, and I particularly like the way one of the young heroines gets chemistry class dismissed, before focusing her intelligence on more meaningful pursuits like monster hunting.

The BlackBerry version is here. 

77 Shadow Street by Dean Koontz - Spooky Slight of Hand

(Disclosure: I received a review copy of the British edition of 77 Shadow Street. This look inside includes mild spoilers, though no more than the Amazon entry on The House of Thunder.)


Things are always incredible, but an ah-ha is usually in store somewhere in the pages of a Dean Koontz thriller. A slow reveal often twists and explains seemingly supernatural events in a rational or scientific manor, or there's an inversion you weren't expecting.

77 Shadow Street, his latest novel, features many Koontz hallmarks juggled into new alignment. It's a standout among his recent offerings, though Koontz novels never fail to entertain.

When the book opens, odd things are going on at the luxury apartment building known as the Pembleton, conveniently located at the title address. Could you expect less than strangeness if you were living on Shadow Street?

In the opening, a drunken ex-Senator boards an elevator for his floor only to be whisked to a basement of terror. We're talking Buffy-style hell mouth.

Then Bailey Hawks, one of the protagonists, is menaced by a strange creature in the swimming pool, and retired attorney and Pembleton expert Silas Kinsley is awakened by a building tremor.

Odd voices are heard in apartments and hallways, and soon an assemblage of distinct Koontz characters are seeing Victorian-era people appearing from nowhere, more odd creepy crawlies and shimmers of blue electricity pulsing from ceilings and floors.

The Characters
Bailey, a financial advisor with a military background to give him heroic cred, almost takes a back seat to Shadow Street's eccentrics.

Mickey Dime is among the most notable, an assassin who's psychologically scarred by his upbringing. His mom was a rigid and stoic intellectual more focused on self aggrandizing than true philosophizing. You can speculate on who she might be based on. He's a bit like the villain from Koontz's The Husband, whose inspiration can also be a fun speculation game.

A novelist, a country songwriter, elderly female entrepreneurs, an autistic girl who communicates using the novel Bambi and a precocious young introvert round things out.

Their paces
Koontz keeps his band busy once the set-up is complete, and about mid-book answers begin to come as more devilish doings unfold.

To say more would really be unfair if you're going to pick this up, but I will note what you probably think's going on ain't what's going on. But then, if you're a Koontz reader, you'll know that.

With rumblings of Crichton and Vonnegut, the author delivers a page-turning and thrilling tale with a mask-off scene in the final pages that delivers the payoff. That makes up for perhaps just a bit of a fizzle in the climactic action. 

Overall, this is my favorite Koontz book since Life Expectancy. Koontz is a master story craftsman, and it's always fun to experience his latest effort.

Tagged: 7-7-7

(I actually got tagged twice - drop by the blog of Robin Ashe also)

Jalisa Blackman (@J_M_Blackman) hit me with an interesting meme arrow on Twitter a little while ago. You've seen them before they're always interesting little experiments.

Here are the rules as I was given them:

1.) Go to page 77 of your current MS.
2.) Go to line 7.
3.) Copy down the next 7 lines/sentences, and post them as they're written. No cheating.
4. Tag 7 other victims ...er, authors.

So, no cheating means no editing or tweaking, eh. OK, here goes. This is from a work in progress that's been in progress for a while, and I'm doing more research than writing on it at the moment. Still, it's what's at the forefront in the middle of here and now.

Those 7-7-7 coordinates within the 24,000 words I've written lead to a bit of dialogue that hopefully works as a snippet, though perhaps a little cryptically. This is roughly seven lines from Word:

“You could have stood up fa’ me a little more, couldn’t ya?”

“I tried to explain it was religious beliefs. My boss wouldn’t listen. Besides religious beliefs don’t justify theft.”

“I was going to get them blessed and bring them back, and besides it was for the good of the customers.”

“I told her that. I don’t know she doubted the `get them blessed’ part. It was the `bring them back’ she was questionin’.”

She stares at him for tense seconds, her eyes ablaze, her expression an angry mask. It melts in slow motion, like a time-lapse photograph, her shoulders and arms relaxing simultaneously.

“It’s a bygone,” she says. “I found a better job anyway.”

Now to try and tag some people who might be up for the game:
 
1. Natasha Oliver
2. Charles Gramlich
3. Icess Fernandez
4. Avery Debow
5. Stewart Sternberg
6. Kate Sterling
7. Larry Enright

What's on the iPod? - Gnelfs - A Dark Fantasy

My dark fantasy novel Gnelfs is now available as an audiobook. It's read by Derek Hames. If you have an Audible credit, spend it now.

For a taste of the tale of a single mother struggling to protect her daughter from spiritual attack, you can read the short story that grew into the novel here.

And, of course, the novel is available from Crossroad Press in ebook format wherever you buy ebooks.

E-reading

Got to talking e-book reading on different devices with a guy the other day.

Before the iPad or the Kindle, I used to read e-books using the Notes feature on my iPods. My iPod with video is still going, though the clock appears to be a little off.

There's a little more surface area for the text view on newer devices.

Miss D Abides

I haven't done an update on my cat, Miss Daisy, for a while now. She was diagnosed with kidney disease a few years back. Hard to believe how long its been.

Happily she's still hanging in and going strong. We do subcutaneous fluid treatments every night. Just takes a few minutes with an IV drip. She forgives that and sits on my lap afterwards. 

She's less forgiving of Oliver, the first rescue cat from the woods behind our home. Him, she keeps on a short leash. Infractions draw hisses. 

She's done far better than we expected when we first received the diagnosis. As I write this, she's strolling past me, headed back to help Christine work on the household budget. 

She has opinions about everything, and she's happy to express them.

Awake Early

I heard talk of "Awake" a few weeks back. It's an NBC series starring the great Jason Isaacs of Harry Potter etc. Until recently it didn't have a slot on the network's schedule.

That's changed. It's due now March 1, or you can watch the pilot ahead of time on Hulu.

Seems to have a cool if complicated premise. Isaacs is a cop who has the misfortune to crash his car. When he awakens after the wreck, he faces two realities, or perhaps a reality and a dream state that seems real.

In one, his wife is alive, his son a victim of the crash. In the other, his son lives, and his wife is gone.

Amid the confusion, he solves crimes.

Watching the opener, you start to see how it call all work, and how you can follow it. It's not as hard as it sounds.

The realities are just different enough, and there are enough cues to help you keep things straight.

Couple the slightly surreal set up with stunning visuals and Isaacs on the side of the angels, and it makes for interesting viewing.

Will it catch on? I'm afraid odds are against it, but it certainly would be fun to see it get a decent run. 

Claustrophobia and a Little Imagination

Years ago I was in St. Louis to cover a meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention as a reporter. I didn't make it to the arch because I stayed in neighboring Frontenac. It used to be hard to get a room in a town where they had a Southern Baptist Convention. 

Last week I had to go to a conference in St. Louis, and I stayed a short hike from the arch, so I finally got see it. And make the trip to the top. 

The small tram cars sure are tiny. With just a little imagination, it's possible to envision many things that could go wrong. I have more than a little imagination.

What if this gets stuck?

What if there were a nuclear strike while I'm locked in here?  

How long would it take to gnaw through the door and climb down the elaborate network of metal steps, ladders and spiral stair cases?

While I was at the top, something came up I hadn't thought of. "What was that?" a staffer asked when something sounding like a plane flew over.

Then they explained that the arch is a no-fly zone.

That gave me a whole new cause for sweating on the way down, but I'm glad I got to take the trip, plus get the view of the Mississippi and the City of St. Louis from above.

 

What I Like About Haunted Manor HD: Lord of Mirrors - A Quiet Horror Game For iPad

A lot of hidden object games exist for the iPad and tablet universe. I've picked that up even though I'm fairly new to this magical land.

They seem perfectly suited for the devices since they lend themselves to tapping the screen a lot and require a time-killing level of engagement by the brain.

I've become a bit enamored with one of the many games offered by Big Fish Games.

Haunted Manor HD: Lord of Mirrors has the same impressive and eerie graphics found in other Big Fish Games. Unlike some titles from other companies, it also features something beyond spotting things mingled among other things: a story.

Poor Stan Riddle
The tale focuses on Stan Riddle, catchy surname, who has the misfortune of running afoul of the title villain. Stan's image is captured in a mirror, and he's forced to travel through a number of rooms and puzzles in order to reassemble the shattered shards of his image and escape.

That means a series of beautifully realized graphics plus encounters with a host of spooky characters also trapped in the manor. Think of this as a participatory Hammer Film.

I find it superior to some other found object games in another way. The business model seems to be toward unit sales, so you can play a level or two for free to decide if you want to spring for the full game.

Some other hidden object games rely on sales of in-game currencies and totems with play becoming increasingly difficult or unsatisfying without some sort of purchase.

The flat-rate theory
I like the flat rate approach, and I'm sure after I've found my way through the manor, I'll be making some other purchases from Big Fish. That's a nice way to earn repeat business. It's available for PC and Mac as well as the iPad, by the way.

It's not as immersive as the old Infocom games, which had no graphics, but it still draws you in. Can you escape?

The Woman in Black - a ghostly thriller

I was fortunate to see The Woman in Black in a Carmike Cinema "BigD" theater, offering a big screen and enhanced surround sound.

That meant the haunted house Danial Radcliff was exploring filled one wall of the cinema, and all of the creaks and bumps were right next to me.

It was a good way to see a ghostly thriller that puts some of the eerie tropes that have been making audiences jump anew,in flicks like Insidious and Paranormal Activity, back in the Edwardian era in creepy style. 

The tale focuses on Radcliff as grief-stricken lawyer Arthur Kipps who's sent to an isolated seaside village to organize the papers of a recently-deceased client. Despondent over his wife's death, the assignment is sort of a last chance from senior partners.

He finds most villagers unreceptive to his presence and is soon working to unravel a dark mystery that ties the history of his firm's client to contemporary deaths that appear accidental. His one ally is the great Ciarán Hinds in a non-villainous role.

The film's at its best when Kipps is alone in the house, piecing together past events amid encounters with strange presences including the title figure, a well-realized image of darkness.

Eerie moments including the sudden gaze from a ghost through a zoetrope device deliver real chills even to a jaded film viewer.  Other period toys in general are used to great effect.

It's all wonderfully unsettling, with some intense moments and a period set-piece that provides a tense climax.

In the end, the plot may not be 100 percent satisfying. I've not read the Susan Hill novel nor seen the original BBC adaptation, but I wondered if the ending was from the page.

It's still a great ride, though, especially for those who appreciate the roots of the modern horror genre. It's also a great chance to see Radcliff transition to non-Harry Potter roles with a character that shouldn't disappoint fans.

The Boy Who Shoots Crows

The Boy Who Shoots Crows by Randall Silvis is set in a small Pennsylvania town, but its style and grim tone make me think of atmospheric British crime fiction, or perhaps a little of Patricia Highsmith.

Silvis, author hisotrical thrillers including On Night's Shore and other novels, introduces his small cast of characters quickly, starting with Charlotte Dunleavy, an artist who's fled a bitter divorce to recover in the quiet countryside.

She's familiar with the boy of the title, a sullen youngster given to taking out frustrations in nearby woods by blasting at crows and shattering Dunleavy's peace, especially on days she suffers migraines.

When the boy, Jess Rankin, disappears, Sheriff Marcus Gatesman arrives on Dunleavy's doorstep, to begin an investigation that opens a study of dark  places within each character's soul.

Dunleavy is damaged by her divorce, Gatesman by the deaths of his wife and child years ealier. Loss, regret and sadness are explored as the disappearance triggers grief and suspicion.

Perhaps, under other circumstances, the two might have become lovers, but life has dealt them different cards. Silvis explores the depths of regret as he sprinkles clues about what might have happened to Jess throughout the narrative.

It makes for an immersive reading experience that may not be for fans of action-packed mystery thrillers, but it's a rewarding for those who appreciate a literary tale with dark shadows.

A Writing Prompt - The Mardi Gras Mask

(Since festival time is approaching in Louisiana, this seemed like it might be a fun prompt.)

The local museum is offering an exhibit of Mardi Gras art. It's a stunning display of those familiar festival hues -- purples, greens, golds. Posters, feathers, costumes and, of course, beads, are spotlighted in glass cases.

You stroll amid the displays, bolstered by the carnival spirit the artifacts suggest. You can almost hear jazz tunes and the shouts from the crowd.

Then you come upon a showcase with a full-head mask, displayed on a mannequin bust. It's a full face and skull of silver beads so shiny they seem to send back flares from the spotlight.

You're staring into empty spaces where eyes might be, but you're entranced as you gaze into the emptiness. You realize there's something unusual about this mask, or the person who wore it. Your thoughts begin to swirl, and then they seem to fill with images...

(Feel free to use as you choose. If it takes you to somewhere creative, that's wonderful.)

Midnight Eyes In the Spotlight

Midnight Eyes is featured on The Indy Spotlight today with a brief Q&A.

View it here.

What's on the Kindle?: Fer-de-Lance - A Brief Appreciation of a Mystery Classic

I probably read about Nero Wolfe and his leg man Archie Goodwin long before I ever read a Wolfe story. Sherlock Holmes was plentiful in school libraries when I was a kid, but, despite creator Rex Stout's output, the Wolfe titles weren't as accessible.

Ironically, in the first story I encountered--a reprint in an issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine--Archie became embroiled in a case and actually convinced Wolfe to leave their Brownstone. Threw the whole armchair detective business into question for me.

Wolfe's rigid schedule and other eccentrics are entact in Fer-de-Lance, the first novel in the series from 1934. I read it recently on my Kindle, having purchased it a few months back. (At the moment it seems to be unavailable, not sure what that's about.)

Pricing on the Wolfe novels is unfortunately a little high for e-books, especially since the paperback editions can be had much cheaper, but I'm glad I bought the first title.

Everything from Archie's Panama hat, which Timothy Hutton duplicated in many of the A&E series adaptations, to Wolfe's orchid and appetite obsessions are in evidence along with a plot that twists as much as the Fer-de-lance of the title.

The Plot
Wolfe is drawn to the novel's core murder in a twisting opening that notes Depression era conditions and introduces a specially-designed golf club, one of those devilish devices so often found in classic mysteries.

Wolfe's faced not just with solving a murder but also with getting paid for his investigation, an effort that makes for a rollicking ride for Archie. He has to yank the chains of D.A.s and other public officials, provide Wolfe with an array of clues and face down life-threatening situations.

The title, incidentally, has a dual meaning, but the literal instance makes for an intense scene.

A few non-PC moments are found since this novel is from a different era, but it's generally a blast.  I read recently that Stout said he knew he was not a great writer, but that he was a great story teller.

The latter's definitely true here. 

A Writing Prompt - What's in the Bag?

(I've always found writing prompts fun and sometimes inspirational. When I taught a writing class a while back, everyone seemed to enjoy them, so I thought, with the new year, that might be an interesting, occasional thing for the blog.)

The Black Bag

You're awakened from a sound sleep by a shrill but hard-to-identify sound. You move to the window to gaze toward the wooded area behind your home. It's bathed in silver moon glow, and through the planks of the tall wooden fence, shadows suggest movement. Perhaps a couple of rickety figures are there, but you can't tell.

Choosing not to go outside, you return to bed for a fitful sleep, rising again only after dawn.

Then you're tugging on a robe and heading outside. When you reach the fence, you curl your fingers over the planks and hoist yourself up to peer over.

Resting on the ground in the woods is a large black bag. It has no markings, and it's cinched closed with a dirty length of rope.

Before you lower yourself back to your feet, something inside the bag moves, and there's an odd sound.

What's in the bag?

7 Points For Keeping the Backside In the Chair - Thoughts on Keeping Those Writing New Year's Resolutions

With the burgeoning number of self-published success stories, and the discovery of new writers going full force in traditional and indy publishing, it's clear the world is filled with people with the discipline to put in the time at the keyboard required for producing finished work.

Yet "Backside in Chair" is always the challenge for writers. The allure of not writing is fierce.

I do pretty good in getting myself to the keyboard at a fixed time every day, but making things meaningful is still a challenge. I thought some techniques and thoughts  I've picked up from a variety of sources might be useful as everyone is setting goals for 2012.

1. Forgive yourself. 
Victoria Nelson, one of my teachers at Goddard College, has written extensively about writer's block. When she offered a session during one of the residencies I attended at Goddard, I was quick to sit in.

I was surprised how many of my classmates were also on hand. I thought I was the one getting a little slower and less driven, but I discovered all those fresh-faced fellow students who I assumed were chipper and devoted and knocking out 20 pages in the morning before breakfast were also wont to creative struggles. The best advice Victoria gave all of us was to be lenient on ourselves.

We all get tired. We all have conflicts that zap creativity. Don't be so demanding on yourself that a walk outside becomes the trait of a malingerer. Be gentle and kind to your creative self. You're nurturing a gentle spirit. You shouldn't try to motivate it by becoming the sales manager from Glengarry Glen Ross.

2. Relax
Sometimes it's good to go with the flow or let the muse push you rather than resisting. I've had a project on my plate that hasn't ignited for me the way I'd hoped.

I recently decided to stop forcing it for a while and do a couple of projects I wanted to work on. I wrote a couple of short stories, and a 10-minute play, which is an interesting thing to try. Having some parameters within which to focus creativity proved invigorating. It was a blank page with a few lines to color inside. That kind of got me ready to focus again on the other project.

If there's a stone in the stream, the water moves around it. Going with the flow can be a way to stimulate yourself creatively. Look for the wanna.

3. Tomatoes!
When the backside, all right the ass, is in the chair, that doesn't mean the fingers are being effective on the keyboard. I learned about The Pomodoro Technique® in a podcast all writers should listen to, KCRW's Martini Shot. Storytelling techniques may differ, but creative foibles are universal as TV writer Rob Long reveals each week.

He mentioned trying the Pomodoro Technique® (means tomato in Italian) some time back. It involves a cooking timer and concentration goals. A timer on a smart phone will probably serve also.

The goal is to stay focused for a set period. Set the timer and then, coffee is for people who've written for 25 minutes. Don't browse your Netflix queue, set a task for your Sims or check e-mail, just write until the tone sounds.  It's a good way to nudge your consciousness into that creative zone where sparks ignite.

4. Just do it.
You have to nurture the spirit, but don't be the malingerer you accuse yourself of being either. Years and years ago in Writer's Digest, Lawrence Block wrote a "just do it column." That's what it boiled down to anyway. It's probably in one of his books on writing as well. They're worth checking out as is is fiction. See No. 6.

Everybody has bad days. Almost anything can throw a kidney punch to the creative spirit. Take a deep breath. Hold it. Let it out and put something on the page. Wipe the blood off it later. Sometimes in writing you're just getting the shapeless clay on the table so that you can begin sculpting.

Another of my Goddard teachers, Selah Saterstrom, had another great metaphor for polishing a first draft manuscript. She called it wrestling with an angel, working to bring a book or work into its best form.

Whatever the metaphor, get something down so  you can hone it.

5. Don't worry about your neighbor's work
Another great podcast from KCRW is The Business. It's usually a mixture of film industry news and an interview with Matt Damon. But sometimes other snippets are woven in, such as advice to film animators collected by an aspiring animator. In a recent 'cast, one animator noted he was always encountering better animators. That only nudged him to be better.

There are better writers than you. There are gonna be better writers. Worse ones exist, too. So what? This really is all about you. Cheer on your compatriots. Celebrate excellence. Look in awe upon brilliance, and do what you can. Be inspired by the great. Don't let any of it hold you back. As basketball coach John Wooden said: "Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."

6. Always be reading.
Goes without saying.  Maybe it's the writer's version of that Glengarry Glen Ross bastard's "Always be closing." E-books have really made this easier. There's good and bad to the electronic universe. One good is that you can have a library in your pocket now, not just one pocket book that doesn't really fit in a pocket. I find it hard to read on a smart phone, so I have some cargo pants. My Kindle will fit into the larger pocket on the thigh.

I try to click through a few percentage points on a book in any down time. I'm not as good at it as my friend Katie, but then she is topped bya friend who puts her Kindle in a zip-lock bag so she can read in the bath.

You learn by reading others. You get inspired by reading others. You figure out what works and what doesn't by reading others. And when you read something bad you think "I could do better" and that gets the backside where it belongs.

7. Always be submitting
Maybe this point is more the Glengarry equivalent. Rejection isn't fun, but it's part of the process. E-mails aren't as much fun as rejection slips used to be. I pinned rejection slips to my bedroom wall back in The Pleistoscene. Michael Avallone once suggested "build bonfires with rejection slips."

Whatever you do with rejections in whatever form, they should serve as a kick in the pants. They're often indicative of one person's taste or a market's particular need.

Or if they suggest something truly wrong with the angel, then it's an opportunity to get back in the ring.

Hope if you found your way here that those are helpful ideas. May 2012 be a wonderful, productive year for all those compelled to create.

Further reading

• Advice on Writing from Modernity's Great Writers

Image: healingdream / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Red Cardigan

I was slipping on my red cardigan this week, and I realized how long I've owned it, and how long things last even as time marches on.

I also realized that Christmas in my adult life has become a series of fragments and impressions, of moments that come back to me in no particular order.

I had the sweater when Christine and I were only recently married. I wore it to Christmas lunch with my folks, and I wore it later when Christine and I went for a walk in the (thankfully) cold Louisiana air at our apartment complex. Best guess '91.

I had the sweater the year the highway to my parents house was being resurfaced. You had to take a detour, and it was like going through war-torn territory. A few days before Christmas I drove out anyway and visited around lunchtime. The Bold and the Beautiful was on, and my mom's old Christmas tree glistened beside shots of Brooke walking in the snow. Best guess, '94.

I had the sweater when I worked as a librarian and got low pay but abundant time off. I took several days of leave ahead of Christmas, burned logs in our fireplace, read and relaxed in my sweater. Best guess '98.

I had the sweater after we moved four-hours from my folks. I remember driving home around Thanksgiving then returning on the weekend. Best guess '01.

I had the sweater a little later, the Christmas of the year my old man died. He went into the hospital in late August. As we got him settled in a room, the nurse strangely said, "In four months, it'll be Christmas." My old man didn't make it quite that long. For sure, '03. I'd bought him a series of big band CDs the previous Christmas, the music of his youth. I'd wondered then if it might be his last as his house was filled with Benny Goodman. '02

I had the sweater after my mom was in a nursing home. We went to see her Christmas Day that year and hung out with her in her room even though she wasn't quite sure it was Christmas, but she held up the stuffed animal she'd acquired and smiled. Best guess, '05.

I've had it for Christmas dinners Christine and I have prepared. And for trimming the tree and holiday outings and for Christmas walks we still take if the weather allows.

It's a simple cardigan. Plain, a single color, but it holds a mosaic of memories.

Happy holidays, my friends. 

Biblioholic's Bookshelf - A Christmas Carol - Classic - Tor Paperback Edition

Charles Dickens is in the public domain, so editions of his classic works are in great supply. E-book editions abound, along with many hard and soft cover editions.

Regardless, I loved the cover on this Tor edition when it turned up in a local store a number of years ago, so I added it to my shelves. It's a nice volume to slip out on the years I don't re-listen to Patrick Stewart's one-man rendition of Scrooge's redemption.

 

Doctor Who Christmas Wallpaper 2011

Happily, the Doctor Who Christmas Special, "The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe" will be airing in the U.S. on BBC America on Christmas Day, as it's supposed to.

Since a lot of people drop by in search of Doctor Who wallpaper, I thought I'd do an updated link for the new special. Wallpaper including a great wintry shot of Matt Smith holding a sonic screwdriver can be found here.

A prequel to this year's special has just gone online also. Happy Who Holidays!

Holiday Blog Tour: Credible Threat - A Christmas Story

Listen to Blog Tour participants on KPFT radio, Houston, MP3 starting around 31:30

Welcome to my dark little stop on the Holiday Blog Tour.

I love the holiday season and all its trappings, so I was happy to receive the invitation to participate from Icess Fernandez of Writing to Insanity.

As soon as she contacted me, I knew I wanted to offer up a story as a holiday gift.

It's a little grim, though not horror. It's also slightly longer than flash I sometimes post here, so I thought I'd provide it in a format ready for easy digital reading.

Jump to the story on ScribID now.

Or read on to get an idea of what it's about and how it came to be, then jump over to the tale via the button below.

The Back Story

My wife and I vacationed in New York City several weeks back, and the idea for the tale sprang to me as we began our journey home. I sat in the waiting area at my gate, knowing I had a story to write for this blog tour. I began flipping through the battered idea notebook I've carried for many years.

What if it fell into the wrong hands and was read out of context? How would it be interpreted in this paranoid age?

The tale that developed is representative of a kind of dark-humored short fiction I'm writing and beginning to submit in these days of my post-MFA writing life.  It has  reverberations of my early horror writing while going in a slightly new direction.

It's where the muse is pushing me at the moment, and perhaps there'll be a collection of these twisted tales including the one that's in, shameless plug, Soul's Road. A few of the pieces in the collection of my early stories, Scars and Candy, hint at the style, though they're more visceral.

Click below to read "Credible Threat: A Christmas Story," and see if you like it.

And be sure to continue the blog tour tomorrow with a visit to Toni Margarita Plummer, author of The Bolero of Andi Rowe. See all the stops on the tour here.

• E-pub
• Kindle

Credible Threat

Credible Threat by Sidney Williams is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at sidneywilliams.blogspot.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sidisalive.com.

The Holiday Blog Tour Has Started

The Holiday Blog Tour mentioned in my previous post has begun. Keep up with all the stops at Writing to Insanity, and be sure to keep up with us all month.

Julia Amante, author of Evenings at the Argentine Club, began technically yesterday.

Be sure to check back here Dec. 10 for my post. It'll be a special holiday gift from me, a twisted holiday short story called "Credible Threat" available for download. I'm working on the cover art now.

Biblioholic's Bookshelf Black Friday Edition: 12 Frights of Christmas - Holiday Horror

I break this book out every other Christmas season or so to re-read a few tales. It includes a real chiller by Robert Bloch plus stories from H.G. Wells, Ramsey Campbell and H.P. Lovecraft in addition to the intro by Isaac Asimov.

Mine's an ex-library edition, so it's tattered a bit, but still very readable. 

Apparently a 13 Horrors of Halloween anthology exists also, but I've unfortunately never run cross that one. Need to look for it.

More on the Holiday Blog Tour - The Details

As mentioned earlier, the holiday blog tour organized by my friend Icess Fernandez Rojas  of Writing to Insanity is approaching. 

Icess is a writer and journalist living in Louisiana, where I'm from. So of course, we met in Washington state. Both of us journeyed to Washington to pursue MFA's. You'll find many of our friends and classmates from Goddard College reflected on the tour as well, though that's not all. 

I've been working on a 10-minute play and my story for the holiday tour during my writing time of late, so I haven't had a great deal of time to post here, but let me share the listing of bloggers on the tour for now. 

Hopefully I'll be back with pithy or profound musings before my holiday post, but in the meantime, browse the blogs below in anticipation of the holidays. 

Visit now:

Dec. 1 Julia Amante

Dec. 2 Valerie R.

Dec. 3 Radames Ortiz

Dec. 4 Deborah Grace Staley

Dec. 5 TBA

Dec. 6.Danielle Klenak 

Dec. 7 Lupe Mendez

Dec. 8 Natasha Oliver

Dec. 9 Maria Ferrer

Dec. 10 Sidney Williams

Dec. 11 Toni Plummer

Dec. 12 Mayra Calvani

Dec. 13 Kristy Harding

Dec. 14 Thelma Reyna

Dec. 15.Sylvia Mendoza

Dec. 16 Regina Tingle

Dec. 17 Teresa Dovalpage

Dec. 18 Mirta Espinola

Dec. 19 Kim Brown

Dec. 20 Gwen Jerris

Dec. 21 Paula Altschuler

Dec. 22 Caridad Pinero

Dec. 23 Teresa Carbajal Revet

Dec. 24 Icess Fernandez Rojas

Holiday Blog Extravaganza Coming Soon

One of my friends has organized a blog event for the holiday season. It will include quite a mixture of participants.

As my contribution, I'm at work on a short story about the holiday travel season, with a few dark turns of course.  It hovers between flash and short fiction, so I'm thinking of offering the whole piece as a ScribID download or something like that, making it a holiday gift.

I'll post details and blogs that will be involved soon.

Signing Az

As mentioned in my previous post, Azarius, my first novel, is rolling out in a new e-book edition from Crossroad Press. As one buddy once put it, it's the tale of an arch-demon menacing a small Southern town. I like the way that sums it up. 

I picked up a personal copy of the paperback the other day in telling a friend of the new edition, and a clipping I'd tucked there long ago fell out. 

I think it's probably my first book signing ever at a Waldenbooks in Alexandria, Louisiana. I think it was fun, but it doesn't quite seem like yesterday anymore. 

I didn't much updating on this book, as I did with some of the later ones that have already seen e-print. It's as it was created in that raw burst of energy as the ideas flowed when I was 26. 

I saw an interview the other day with William Peter Blatty. He said that as he recorded the audiobook of The Exorcist he read a passage and said: "Who wrote this garbage?"

I think every writer does that, finds flaws, longs to change things. I've decided to save the energy of sweating over words and phrases for new work.

As I recall, Az is a good tale. I worked to make it an exciting excursion into the world of demons and darkness. 

Now it's new again.

Get Azarius:

At the Crossroads Press store

On Smashwords

For Nook

Happy Halloween All!

Hope it's appropriately fun and scary. 

The New Cover for Azarius

Azarius, my first book, will be re-issued in an e-book edition from Crossroad Press any minute. David Dodd did the cover for the new edition. 

Now on Amazon!

The Making of a Halloween Story

I may have mentioned here or on Twitter that travel usually produces creative energy for me. As Halloween approaches, I've been reminded of a Halloween horror story I wrote a few eons back. It's called "Like Candy From a Baby," and it's a tale of an evil man who gets his just desserts, quite literally.

It was eventually slated for an anthology Edward Lee was working on, and he noted it almost made him throw up after he read it. That anthology never came about, but "Like Candy From A Baby" is now available in my collection Scars and Candy.

Dark stories inevitably lead to the question: "Where did you get that idea?"

I don't have a specific nucleus for the story, but it came about after a trip to the World Fantasy Convention in Seattle one year. World Fantasy is always held around Halloween, and I drove down from Alexandria, LA, that year to Robert Petitt's house. He lived in Baton Rouge in those days, before a Louisiana version of the Sons of Anarchy led to his relocation.

From there we drove to New Orleans and hopped a flight to the Northwest, and I read Razored Saddles on the plane, especially, at Robert's urging, Chet Williamson's "Yore Skins's Jes's Soft 'n Purdy He Said."

World Fantasy is a great con, and those were great convention years for me. Tons of friends were always on hand, and activities were non stop.

Robert was always a good traveling companion for me, more outgoing than I and thus better at meeting people. That was the year we met Wayne Allen Sallee, Yvonne Navarro, Beth Massie and many others. Dean Andersson and Nina Romberg were in Seattle that year as well, and many, many cool people were on hand.

When it was over, we headed home, and I was buoyed by the energy of being around new and old friends, kicking around ideas and attending readings and the like.

I'm not sure exactly when the tale sprang into my imagination.

Maybe it was while I slept on Petitt's couch and dreamed, but at any rate, as I started home I had a Halloween tale in mind and I picked up a pocket tape recorder I kept with me in those days and dictated the first lines about an awful man named Frank Church who had insidious plans for a Halloween house of horrors.

It's about an hour and a half from Baton Rouge to Alexandria. By the time I'd made the trip, I had a story on my tape recorder. It was a little verbose and badly worded in parts, but I transcribed and polished later.

Maybe creativity is confluence.

Biblioholic's Bookshelf: Straw Dogs AKA The Seige of Trencher's Farm Seventies movie tie-in-edition

I haven't seen the recent Straw Dogs remake yet, but the original is a brutal Sam Peckinpah tour de force with Dustin Hoffman and Susan George. I found this movie-tie-in edition of the film's basis, The Siege of Trencher's Farm, a few years ago.

Back from the Apple

Christine's wanted to spend a few days in New York City for about an eon, but conflicts kept prohibiting until we said "Dammit, we're wedging it in." 

It was a good decision, since NYC is such a smörgåsbord for eclectics. 

Christine's in a bit of a "Colonial-influenced" place at the moment, so we spent a while at the Museum of the City of New York on a docent-led trip through an exhibit called The American Style: Colonial Revival and the Modern Metropolis. That dovetailed into a visit to the MET and the American exhibits where re-created rooms from many eras almost let you step into the past. A room from a Frank Lloyd Wright mansion was a highlight.

We planed a couple of shows, off Broadway's Relatively Speaking--a series of one acts by Ethan Cohen, Elaine May and Woody Allen--and War Horse at Lincoln Center, thinking those represented a pretty nice spectrum. They did, of course. Tight, funny comedy-dramas peopled with stars-you-know make up Relatively Speaking, while War Horse, is, of course, a spectacle that's emotionally engaging from the start and you really do forget those are puppets and not real horses.

But we also wanted to be flexible and open to opportunities. We watched a good chunk of the Columbus Day Parade, and, on a whim, we managed to catch John Lithgow being interviewed (by Bill Moyers) about his memoir Drama: An Actor's Education at the New York Public Library. That opened with inspiring remarks from NYPL's president about keeping ideas and knowledge accessible to all in the digital era. 

We  spent a morning at James Robinson Inc. as well getting deep insight into the history of silversmithing from one of the proprietors. 

I've been a bit creatively fatigued of late, so it was really a wonderful trip that worked without a hitch or hiccup. It was nice to let everything inside relax a little, let my brain decompress and just absorb for a while. 

I enjoyed getting familiar with the subway again, with hoofing it through neighborhoods and along the edge of Central Park and through shops in Soho. 

I don't have anything eloquent or profound at the moment. It's just good to recharge in a spot where the energy is so high. 

Further reading

More on Relatively Speaking

Biblioholic's Bookshelf: Miss Finney Kills Now and Then

I've seen a different cover on this book. The edition I own's a second printing, I believe. The inside credits indicate the tale is based on a screenplay by several writers working with Al Dempsey, though I don't believe a film exists.

When Darkness Falls - The New Cover

Here's the cover for the e-book edition of When Darkness Falls, originally published by Pinnacle in mass market paperback. Love the mood it evokes.

It's done by David Dodd from Crossroad Press and really captures the fog-shrouded small town/rural setting of the novel.

It makes me recall the writing of the book. More than ever I felt immersed in the setting during the writing. It was like I knew every turn and storefront in the little town. When the book was finished I felt a little sad that I wouldn't be visiting the shops and houses there any longer.

Crossroad will be posting the book wherever e-books are sold this week. Look for it on Nook, Sony, Kindle and at Smashwords. 

Here's the original cover:

Trailer of the week: 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (U.S. book trailer)

My week's been a little off kilter, so I didn't hit any of the post days I've been trying to maintain. Let me round things out with a post.

As you know if you drop by here often I'm a huge fan of Haruki Murikami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

1Q84 is his new book coming soon to the U.S. Looks exciting.

Biblioholic's Bookshelf: The Devil Rides Out and Gateway To Hell - Thirties and Seventies Horror

Early and Dennis Wheatleys novel are brought together in this hardcover. They're both entries in his Duke de Richleau series. The movie version of The Devil Rides Out starred Christopher Lee as de Richleau.

Trailer Tuesday: The Night Shift

The Night Shift Trailer by FightingOwlFilms

I just got word of an indy film that looks interestingly pulpy, fun and off-beat, so, of course, it seemed right for Trailer Tuesday.

It's described as a "supernatural-adventure-comedy" called “The Night Shift.” It's being distributed by R-Squared Films and will be released Oct.  25. It's also available for pre-order on Amazon, hence the associates link.

The Synopsis
Here's the blurb: “The Night Shift” is a supernatural-adventure-comedy about Rue Morgan, the undead night watchman at Pinewood Oaks Cemetery.

Rue, along with his buddy Herb, a limbless corpse, spends his nights trying to keep the cemetery’s cantankerous residents in, and his days dreaming of a date with hard-nosed day-shifter, Claire. It’s an okay afterlife until a scourge of supernatural occurrences leaves Rue not only watching the cemetery, but also watching his back!

Loudon Wainwright III No Sure Way

I've mentioned it in past years on the anniversary of 9/11, but Louden Wainwright III's "No Sure Way" still captures the way we felt the hour, the day, the week, the month after and now 10 years after.