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May 21 2012
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impulsive pastimes, lancelot's roundtable miscellany, life, The Writing Life, Writing

“Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.”

Recent Work Miscellany

The following articles by yours truly will come out next month, this month or next year at this time:
  • “To Prevail or ‘How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Flak’” in Hollywood and Vine (article, May/June 2012)
  • “Poker in the Pokey” in Poker Pro (article, June 2012)*
  • “Stamping the Name” in Encounter (article, May 2012)
  • “Choices Make the Man” in Encounter (article, Spring, 2013)
  • “The List” in Encounter (article, Spring 2013)
  • “Remember My Death” in Encounter (article, Spring 2013)
  • for older stuff, see published works and projects under the Writer tab
*This was cowritten with another writer under the pseudonym Thom Schriver

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May 14 2012
6 Comments
Entertainment, gergia, impulsive pastimes, life, The Writing Life, Writing

On Being a Public Figure Before Peforming

This post is one of my unicorns.

What I mean is I have inched toward this post without warning of its approach for years. In Southern Illinois, as is the case in other parts of the world where they don’t junk cars but “let ‘em rust down,” high school morons hill hop. Hill hopping fits onto the roster of hick track and field, those games that need “don’t try this at home” stickers. Young sixteen-year old men (and women on the coasts) rev up their car engines and catapult over hilltops on country roads, daring other cars to meet them head-on. Thing is, not all other cars are chicken–some just play chicken. Another dozen teens will die this year meeting unseen cars while hopping hills.

Somewhere between hill hopping and unicorns lies this post. No one can catch a unicorn. Unicorns find you. No one expects to die hopping a hill in a Pontiac, but it happens. I’m blindsided by this post because for the last seven years, in the midst of all of my other writing, I have worked on my world of Gergia. No other novel existed–only Gergian books and notes and maps. If Rowling and Rothfuss can work on one series, win a writer’s contest and instantly publish a best seller, anyone can, right? That’s what I thought anyway, and so I pushed off all other projects — twenty novel ideas, dozens of short story ideas, screenplays, journalistic things — for THE SERIES.

The last few weeks, my writing slowed and stalled. I… Was… Crawling… Through… Sentences. It was block in the proper sense of the word–my discipline was trying to force words like water through a clogged toilet. I stalled at the 52,000th word. I would rework scenes, attack the story from another angle and stop at the same place. Another angle, more resistance. It was like trying to chop down a cherry tree with a brand new axe WHILE circling the tree like a foe from some spaghetti western. Only the tree was no bringer of cherries. It was this colossal inbred monster of its cedar mother and redwood father. My axe also turned out to be a cheap camp hatchet.

Something happened this weekend that changed all of that. This week I was armed with an axe and a maul…

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May 11 2012
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censored opinions, Storyssentials, The Writing Life, Writing

Storyssentials: Sentence

Brevity and depth–that’s what you can expect from this post if you reflect.

It would seem trivial to call “sentences” essential bits of story. Part of this comes from people who assume that writers toil for words. Photographers use photoshop, but they toil for photos. Graphic designers use illustrator, but they toil for graphics. Writers use words, but they toil for stories. The medium of a writer is story-essence, not words. Because of this, I ask one thing today: what do stories teach us about sentences and what can sentences teach us about stories?

Three key parts of a sentence follow:

  1. Subject
  2. Verb
  3. Ending

That sounds stupid, but hang with me. We’re building off of what we assume. By “ending” I don’t mean “object.” I mean what word ends your statement? Sentences are microcosms of story. Your understanding of how they work reflects your story-consciousness. The most important part of the story is the subject, or the protagonist. The second most important part of the story is the verbage, the escalation of conflict, what the subject chooses to do. The third is the climax and resolution. What goal is the protagonist working toward? Do they succeed? Continue reading →

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Apr 20 2012
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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 13 2012
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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 09 2012
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creativity, impulsive pastimes, production, Storyssentials, The Writing Life, Writing

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:

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Mar 30 2012
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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 →
Mar 23 2012
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Critique the Critics, Entertainment, humor, literature, The Writing Life, Writing

Rejection Letter Fail

Therapeutic to watch a writer tweak this rejection email sent CC: by mistake from agent to 238 of us:#amwriting #fail pic.twitter.com/MRF2qhFf

(This email thread went on for hours as we all bantered back and forth about it. They call themselves “The 238″).

Mar 05 2012
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article review, book review, C.S. Lewis, Cities, Entertainment, film, humor, impulsive pastimes, literary interpretation, literature, movie review, New York City, news, poetry, Religion, Storyssentials, The Writing Life, Tolkien, travel, Writing

Small Demons Preview

Thanks to Yewknee for sharing Small Demons with me back in October. I refrained from sharing with all of you Literators back then because, frankly, there was so little to share. Sometimes beta-testing looks like questing with your half-orc across frozen wastelands until the game glitches and dies, sometimes it looks like stress-testing Google Wave.

At other times it looks like this:

…

…

…

So I’ve been waiting and waiting for Small Demons to put enough content up for me to share it with all of you. Today’s the day.

Here goes:

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Mar 02 2012
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censored opinions, Entertainment, Storyssentials, The Writing Life, Writing

Storyssentials: Inciting Incident

Pull the trigger. Boy meets girl. Light the fuse. Revolution. A specific baby is born. Car wreck. Card turns face up: Ace of Spades.

All of these start something. They jar the reader or viewer or listener by radically upsetting the equilibrium in the world of the protagonist, turning over tables, shifting everything over the top of a fault line. We might call the inciting incident an “exciting event” or a “kindling circumstance” or even an “arousing affair.” I choose these three combinations for more than just synonymous relationship. The inciting incident must excite, kindle and arouse. Continue reading →

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Feb 24 2012
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censored opinions, literature, The Writing Life, Writing

The Short Film and Serial Novel Comeback?

In the latter part of 1837, Charles Dickens published the first portion of a book that he would finish piece-by-piece in a magazine. He was twenty-five the year he ended each successive part on a cliffhanger. His audience waited, often jittery through half-contained excitement for the next issue. Bit-by-bit he orchestrated a novel whose last words greeted public eyes in 1838. They later compiled the book into the single volume we know as Oliver Twist. Commoners could afford the weekly installments while the aristocracy enjoyed complete volumes.

Sixty-four years after Oliver, Georges Méliès complimented his career as an illusionist with Le Voyage Dans La Lune. The innovation of Trip to the Moon shattered the time-boundary of two-minute shorts with its then stunning fourteen-minute runtime and later inspired Selznick to sketch Hugo. Granted, moving pictures eventually added enough film to keep an audience seated for a couple of hours plus intermission but there was enough room on the screen for short films all the way through Chaplin’s era. People paid a cheap price for several shorter films and then talked about them over ice-cream at the nearest diner. With the rise of the television, however, short films tapered off. Rising ticket prices made it unfeasible to go to short films. The industry exiled small-budget directors to festivals and college film classes. Feature films made the money. Good news for the average joe, bad for the struggling screenwriter.

In the late fifties, the paperback revolution made it cheap and easy to buy a full novel. Why pay for shorts or serials when you can get the whole thing for a dollar? Book production skyrocketed, despite the hollow warning from Publisher’s Weekly. The serial novel fell into… well… novelty. No, more than a novelty. Serials became a thing for antique road shows and pawn stars to get their grubby paws on. Good for the common man, bad for the struggling author.

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Feb 22 2012
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book review, Entertainment, fantastic points of ignorance, literature, The Writing Life, Writing

The Thinker’s Thesaurus

We like words here, don’t we?

Chuh-huh… yeah! That’s why today’s fantastic point of ignorance goes out to all of you wordsmiths, literators, storyweavers and spelling bee champions out there. I asked for free stuff this Christmas, things like carols and cider and snow cones and oral stories involving hearts five sizes too small but my Grandma’s a gift giver like most of my family. She bought me a copy of The Thinker’s Thesaurus.

Touché, granny. Touché.

Here’s the thing, I’m a recovering academic. I root out ivory tower talk when it rears it’s out-of-touch head. I also doubt I’ll be publishing a story, a non-fiction feature or even a poem in the New Yorker any time soon. Though I’m an avid reader, they’d scoff at my work if it ever managed (against all odds) to land a manuscript on their desks. Because of these disqualifications, I find little practical use for such a book as The Thinker’s Thesaurus.

Don’t even care.

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Feb 20 2012
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fantastic points of ignorance, impulsive pastimes, literary interpretation, The Writing Life

Firefly: Power and Poise

Saturday, February 18th, I lost my Firefly virginity.

I waited right around seven years to do this – ever since I stepped onto the college scene and my newfound friends began badgering me to watch the show. I borrowed the series from a friend, sat down on my Saturday at 7:45am and watched the series straight until 9pm. Yes, I was that hooked. This show’s amazing, and I completely understand why Firefly fans beg so often, so long and so convincingly  about making a second season.

It’s like all of you told me all these years that there was gold in them there hills, but I blew you off because, let’s face it, there’s always gold in them there hills. But seven years later I walk over the tops of them there hills on the first open Saturday it crosses my mind and find out what you meant was “there’s gold on them there hills.” Lying around. In hunks and nuggets and bars. What you meant was “take a walk over this hill and pick up all the friggin’ gold you want, dummy.” That was Firefly for me, walking around and finding gold everywhere. That’s why I imbibed all of it in a single day: gold rush. Three things stood out to me: a lesson, an interpretation and a longing.

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Feb 17 2012
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censored opinions, Entertainment, literature, Storyssentials, The Writing Life, Writing

Storyssentials: World Building

Ever look at one of these, these, these or these?

Fantasy writers perfect cartography. We have Tolkien to think for that, for he coined the phrase “cartographic writing” – writing from the map. You create the world, the mythology of the world and then you write with a character inside that world. Unfortunately, many fantasy writers focus so long on the what and the where that they neglect the who and the why questions. Good answers to these questions create great stories. Today, we turn to the fantasy writers to teach us about trade, authority, ceremony, and ethics.

Trade

What can your characters do to make a living? Awhile back on Twitter, I asked people to list out medieval professions. Piper, Karl, Matt and I came up with the following list:

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