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Apr 27 2012
19 Comments
censored opinions, creativity, Entertainment, Writing

Quitting Facebook

 

Monday April 30th (my birthday) I’ll be deleting my Facebook account. I do this now and again when I need to lazer-focus on my work, but this hiatus might last longer than a month. I might even stay off of Facebook forever. If you want to keep in touch, subscribe here to lanceschaubert.org, follow me on most sites @lanceschaubert or be really freaking hip and join my growing list of pen pals.

Here’s seven reasons why:

  1. The Facebook Sonnet by Sherman Alexie speaks truer than I would like. I’m unsure if it’s healthy to unmend the present by putting everyone I’ve ever known from everywhere in the same room. If this were real life and that happened and there were some battle axes lying around, they’d send in the National Guard before the night was over. Continue reading →
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Apr 25 2012
2 Comments
book review, Cities, Entertainment, gergia, gilded age, history, literature, movie review, New York City, Writing

Of Gangs and Pickpockets

In my Storyssentials post on Research, I talked about how a storyteller must assign himself homework. Mine involves a decent amount of gilded age reading (and viewing). Some might assume I want to write steampunk. Though this coming series employs some steamy elements, I wouldn’t classify it that way. For one, few use steam. For another, I focus more on that period in American history and the issues that arose for us as a people, issues we still wrestle through today. Some of the things I’ve shared in the past were homework like the Houdini biography. Recently, I finished the film The Gangs of New York and the book A Pickpocket’s Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York.

Gangs brutalized and soiled what few glimmering pictures I had left of Nineteenth-Century New York City. Had I not just finished Tale, I would have thought the violence and prostitution a bit overdone—the thing of Hollywood sensationalism where we glorify violence and devalue sex. Unfortunately, the movie treated Five Points mercy, glimpsing the crest of the iceberg of gilded age government corruption. Boss Tweed, as Gangs hints, ushered in the peak of corruption in New York City, brutalizing the poor with his police forces and gangs. I guess it’s really not that different from today’s brutality, only with shootings and stabbings and lynchings poured over the top like tar.

Timothy Gilfoyle in Tale follows around historic George Appo–the son of an Irishwoman and a Chinaman–as he works his way from Donovan’s Lane onto a juvenile delinquent work-ship called “The Mercury.” From that floating death trap (or “floating Sodom” as the people called it back then), Appo hopped in and out of prisons like Sing-Sing, Clinton, Eastern, an insane asylum and less serious places like Blackwell’s Island—DiCaprio’s prison at the start of Gangs. In reality, Blackwell’s was a joke. Prisoners checked themselves in for better living conditions than what slums like Five Points offered and checked themselves out with nothing but a couple of chums and a rowboat. Continue reading →

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Apr 23 2012
2 Comments
Entertainment, poetry, impulsive pastimes, music

Oh My God

Since this is a platform first for my business, I try to keep spiritual/political/inflammatory things from here. I typically fail in an epic sort of way. However, as many of you saw on the sociable networkings this week, I — a soon to be twenty-five-year-old man — came down with THE SHINGLES. I capitalize it so it feels like crappy horror film from the forties.

I’ll spare you the details and the complaining.

INSTEAD

I’m posting lyrics from a song I discovered this weekend. Sharing it for four reasons.

  1. It refreshed my soul when I was down and if we can’t share what moves us, then what are we doing?
  2. The 20th Century Poetry post was well-received by some newcomers, and I think the last half of this song does some interesting things poetically as far as song lyrics go. The first half’s not that great, but it’s necessary to set up the end.
  3. Last year, I changed the subtitle of this blog to “Crossing Every Threshold.” Though you all will one day find out how that fits into my novels, I try to cross the lines people put up to divide one another. I’m not talking about petty edginess or rebellion. I just know all kinds of people and care about all kinds of things. Under that assumption, this is just one more threshold for us to walk across together. You might be surprised at what you find.
  4. I typically care little for this band, but for songs like this we have a song-lyric book market. I’ll save the band name till the end:

Continue reading →

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Apr 20 2012
7 Comments
censored opinions, creativity, literature, The Writing Life, Writing

A Secretary and a Rocking Chair

Hard chair, soft chair.

That’s the dichotomy my greatest rhetoric professor taught me. For a twenty-minute talk, spend ten hours of research in the hard chair and the soft chair’s for the ten hours of reflection on the relevance of your talk. Hard chairs discipline us to grind through the big books. Soft chairs encourage us to think like the people. He uses both when he writes oral manuscripts.

For me, I’ve isolated my work away from my office desk and dining room table to what’s called a secretary, this wall-mounted fold-out writing desk with shelves on top for incoming and outgoing letters. (I’m still hand writing to my pen pals for those of you who want to get in on it). At first, I used this striped, low-backed wooden chair with padded seating. Hard chair with a slight cushion. Good blend, I figured. My chiropractor disagrees… vehemently. So I set that one to the side to hold my satchel (something else my chiropractor hates. He seems to think I’ve got the spine of a retiree. What does he know?)

I fell into the rocking chair by accident. It was one of those days where you’re on a roll and need to make a quick change Nascar style. I switched out chairs and went back to work. Over time, I noticed more back support, but that’s not the only thing that came…

Hard chair and soft chair. Research chair and “so what?” chair. These are the chairs where we nurse and rock our kids to sleep. Soft chair. And yet these are the chairs of old men in old English wings who still tell the old stories to their students. Hard chair. In rockers fathers hold daughters as they cry. Soft chair.A rocker tested Benjamin Martin’s carpentry skills at the start of The Patriot. Hard chair. Continue reading →

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Apr 18 2012
19 Comments
literature, book review, Entertainment, poetry, impulsive pastimes

The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry

I used to be a poet. Of sorts. At least I used to think of myself in that way when I was young. Now as an adult I rarely find time for poetry, rarely make time to think high thoughts and enjoy language for its primary purpose: intimacy. We tend to favor language for persuasion and information, but those came long after its first purpose of raw communication. When people say “Did I use that right?” or “Is that even a word?” they’re worried about information or persuasion. Typically in those moments where we worry about the “right” word, communication was already achieved and the usagery of proper-fide grammatics matters little. Ironically poetry, one facet to the language of intimacy (a space shared with coos, sighs, moans and prayer), depends on “the right words in the right order.” At least to Coleridge…

That realization and a tip on poetry reading threw me back into the game. Now I’m reading again, but not to sound smart or to get information or to persuade some girl to date me. Now I read to find those garnets and emeralds in the riverbed of poetic thought that show the way to diamonds—those phrases, those thoughts that express what it means to be human.

I started with my American anthology, moved to my Major British Writers tomes for  Rime of the Ancient Mariner and the version of Faerie Queen edited by none other than Clive Staples Lewis. Eventually, however, I started to realize that other than the New Yorker and the Missouri Review, I’ve yet to read work by living poets who influence the craft. My poetic imagination (until this week) grew no older than 1967–the death of Langston Hughes. That was forty-five years ago. That discovery threw my poetic imagination into a mid-life crisis. Continue reading →

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Apr 16 2012
1 Comment
Entertainment, movie review, impulsive pastimes, film

Titanic: The Real Heart of the Ocean

Took Kiddo to the centennial showing of Cameron’s Titanic Saturday. I got my money’s worth-it held up well after all of these years. Not the boat, the film. Boat still sank.

I expected the post-production 3D rendering to ruin the experience for me, but I conceded to take Kiddo anyway. After all, she never saw it in theatres and she’s a Titanic FA-REAK. One project in a college history class – that’s all it took. That and the terror that I might die from hypothermia. I still remember working night shift at the hospital on a relatively slow night and getting this call:

“Baaaabe!”

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Who died?”

“I don’t want you to!”

I laughed. I’m not the most sensitive person when I’m caught off guard. “I’m dying?”

“No, but you could. Can I see you?” I could hear her crying.

Continue reading →

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Apr 13 2012
4 Comments
censored opinions, Entertainment, The Writing Life, Writing

Automate Your Second Draft


If you’ve ever written a paper, story or speech, you’ll want to learn how to do this. Elsewhere I’ve ranted about the benefits of reading your words aloud or having someone read them back to you. Things sound different when spoken into the air, when you hear words exist as they were intended – audible symbols representing meaning. When we hear our own words, we discover otherwise invisible rewrites waiting to aid our work.

Yesterday, I was playing around with the new gestures on OS Lion. Doing the two-finger-click-look-up thing, I saw the Speech > start speaking menu and tried it out.

Now I’ve known about the Apple reading voice at least since the iMac days. Even still, it was nice to find I could hear audio versions of the blogs I was reading yesterday via one highlight and one click. But that wasn’t enough. That little automator bot with his lead pipe/RPG taunted me yet again, standing his ground on my dock. Continue reading →

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Apr 11 2012
11 Comments
book review, Entertainment, fantastic points of ignorance, literature

A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin

Martin should have named it A Wreath of Weddings. Yet again by content alone, I can recommend this book to no one. In fact, I hated it. I loathed this book. That’s why I’m giving it five out of five stars. I can’t call it “good” – inherent goodness exists nowhere in the pages. But “well-written” or “well-told” or “brilliantly executed” all fit. Any book that can evoke the kind of emotion this one yanked out of me deserves five stars. I was pissed when I finished.

At the close of the last book, five contended for power and one died, another settled into disfavor all during wars that rampage through the lands. Alliances connect and break. Little Joff sits his tush on the Iron Throne while the Red Lady victimizes Lord Stannis. Robb holds the North and Dany scourges her way west. Not to mention the wildlings move south to take on The Wall with The Others on their tail. Everything sets this book up for a great telling, especially the news of three weddings. Martin delivers by letting all the hope and joy collapse in on itself. Go figure.

Continue reading →

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Apr 10 2012
6 Comments
literature, book review, Entertainment, impulsive pastimes, creativity

The Independent Book Blogger Award

Goodreads believes book bloggers start and energize that conversation we all love: “Have you read anything good lately?” To reward those of us who keep that conversation thriving, Goodreads created the Independent Book Blogger Award. Four bloggers in four categories (Adult Nonfiction, Adult Fiction, Young Adult and the Publishing Industry) will win a FREE pass, airfare and hotel room for BookExpo America in New York City.

There’s no way I’m gonna win this thing, but I’m all about underdogs. I cheered for Kansas this year like I cheered Butler on last year, and I’m not a basketball guy. At all. I’m pretty sure of all the things I do in the world, my basketball skills are way in the negatives. If there was a character sheet for Lance Schaubert and all his skill points were distributed according to what I’m good at and what I’m terrible at, I’d be so colossally terrible at basketball that the moment my character tried to shoot a free throw, he’d crit-fail and accidentally kill himself. Under. Dog.

As I was saying, so many fantastic bloggers exist, I won’t win. However, I entered anyway because, well, underdogs should always enter. When enough underdogs enter things like this, eventually we get some inspiring David-verse-Goliath story worth a retelling or two. This underdog entered in the fiction category because we talk about fiction here more than children’s, nonfic and the publishing industry combined. There’s five sample posts, five glimpses at what we do here. As always, I love you guys. I’ve got the most supportive readership in the world, small as you are. You’re great people.

Voting opens today and lasts a paltry thirteen days. That leaves us little time to shock and awe the world with our dogged under-ness. Three ways you can stand with the underdog:

  1. Vote [for me].
  2. Share [this post].
  3. Revel [and bask in the glory].

Vote for this blog for the Independent Book Blogger Awards, because you’re an underdog kinda person too.

Vote

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Apr 09 2012
9 Comments
Writing, The Writing Life, impulsive pastimes, Storyssentials, creativity, production

On May First, I Work For Free

What May Day means for me:

From Chicago to Paris to New York City, the History of May Day seasons our past with workers’ revolutions. This May first, millions of people worldwide will take part in a General Strike against a broken system, asking the question: what would a day be like without 99% of us? Those who suffer under economic injustice will refuse to work, go to school, do housework or even shop. Instead they’ll hit the streets.

Those who enjoy their work – freelancers like me – will still work all day, but for free. Consider it a one-day jubilee where everyone gets a holiday and a hall pass. On May Day I will offer my writing, editing and story consultation services but I won’t charge you a cent.

What May Day means for you:

Some of you have procrastinated hearing critique on your screenplays and stories. Others of you wanted my help, but because of life circumstances you couldn’t afford my rates. On May 1st, I remove the roadblocks of procrastination and price so that we can get your ball rolling together. You get what you need, but for free.

Here’s how it will work:

Continue reading →

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Apr 06 2012
1 Comment
censored opinions, creativity

Motive Matters?

In one of the circles I run in, fads spring up like croci—bright and yellow and cute and dead in a week. This time around, they overemphasized the Hartman Personality profile test. For those caught unawares, Motive Matters uses the color code to test your motives in your relationship and then gives helpful pointers on how that might hurt others. They sift people into four categories: red, yellow, blue, white.

  • Reds yank power from relationships and find ways to get it done – regardless of what “it” is.
  • Yellows wanna PARTYPARTYPARTYPARTY.
  • Blues sort of need to kind of spend time talking through things just to make sure that they’re okay with you and if they aren’t they’ll need to spend the next few evenings staying up until midnight eating junk food and coming up with new inside jokes so that they can be okay with the way your relationship is going these days, you know?
  • (Whites come in peace).

After yet another person takes this test, conversations sprout up everywhere about how they would do or say this or that but don’t say or do that or this because they’re a [certain color]. Tons of Joplin people took this test in the last few years and have resorted to using their color to excuse their actions. This shouldn’t surprise me. Typically after taking a psychological profile, people use it to excuse their actions. Good practice for fiction characters based on psychological archetypes. Bad practice for life. Continue reading →

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Apr 04 2012
3 Comments
creativity, Entertainment, fantastic points of ignorance, film, literature, news

Why I Never Check the News

I can hardly regret having escaped the appalling waste of time and spirit which would have been involved in reading the war news or taking more than an artificial and formal part in conversations about the war. To read without military knowledge or good maps accounts of fighting which were distorted before they reached the Divisional general and further distorted before they left him and then “written up” out of all recognition by journalists, to strive to master what will be contradicted the next day, to fear and hope intensely on shaky evidence, is surely an ill use of the mind.

Even in peacetime I think those are very wrong who say that school-boys should be encouraged to read the newspapers. Nearly all that a boy reads there in his teens will be known before he is twenty to have been false in emphasis and interpretation, if not in fact as well, and most of it will have lost all importance. Most of what he remembers he will therefore have to unlearn; and he will probably have acquired an incurable taste for vulgarity and sensationalism and the fatal habit of fluttering from paragraph to paragraph to learn how an actress has been divorced in California, a train derailed in France and quadruplets born in New Zealand.

– C.S. Lewis reflecting on World War I in Surprised by Joy

When I crack open a copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost, I’m reading the news. When I watch All the Presidents Men, Take Shelter or Citizen Kane, I’m watching the news. When I ask friends what they’ve been thinking through, what they’ve felt recently, what they’re reading or what movies struck a chord with them, I’m asking about the news.

Oxford’s American Dictionary describes “news” as newly received or noteworthy information. I’d switch out that or for an and. Most of Lewis’s last line describes newly received information, but none of it is truly noteworthy. Trains derail. Californian actresses divorce. Women give birth to quadruplets. What’s noteworthy about any of that? Nothing. Continue reading →

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Apr 02 2012
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Entertainment, impulsive pastimes, video, music, music review

William Fitzsimmons & Denison Witmer Live

At the jewelry store we used to call them A.B.C. gifts: anniversary, birthday, Christmas. My bride Kiddo included Valentine’s, New Years and St. Patrick’s day in this one, but A.B.C. V.N.Y. St. P. sounds like some store acronym for a New York city shop or a military outpost. As A.B.C. gifts go, this one was iconically Kiddo.

A man one inch shorter and three pounds lighter than my smallest friend walked out and played “Little Flowers.” Oh. That must be Denison Witmer. He looks good. Thought he’d be taller. The song chilled my bones. Was I really at a concert after all these years? More than that, at a Denison Witmer/William Fitzsimmons concert? Wait, better – was I really sitting on top of the stage next to my wife at said concert with only the length of a man between me and the musicians? I’m no fanboy nor groupie and I refuse to idolize people. That’s not what I’m getting at with the questions.

I’m talking about intimacy and soul.

Continue reading →

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Mar 30 2012
9 Comments
book review, censored opinions, creativity, Entertainment, literature, production, Proper Usage, Storyssentials, The Writing Life, Writing

Twenty Three Reads for Writers

My writing journey continually morphs this list. At times it included books like this or this, while at others it held books like this and this. These twenty-three whip me back into shape more consistently than any others. I classified each into one of nine categories – story construction, literary symbolism, poetry, editing, writing & life, fear in writing, philosophy, literary agency or social media.

(I’ve also peppered minimalistic images throughout from great stories).

  1. The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell (story construction) first clued me in to the basic arc within all stories – the voyage and return. The hero journeys out from the norm into the unknown, suffers trials and returns to society with some gift like enlightenment or a magic item that will somehow help society. Campbell can be best described either as a panentheistic transcendentalist or as a neo-western Hindu.
  2. The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker (story construction) takes Continue reading →
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