Jack Stocker

A friend of mine by the name of Jack Stocker has died. He passed away this morning after having a massive stroke on Monday. He was 85, and long retired from teaching chemistry at the University of New Orleans.

Jack was not the kind of friend I saw every week, or even every year, but he was far more than an acquaintance. I met him at an SF/Fantasy con and that’s usually where I saw him. He often had a used book table at the local cons and would sit on a panel or two. I was on a few panels with him, and bought a lot of books from him. In the early days I got about half my Burroughs and Howard collection from him. Many of those were outright gifts. Jack loved to share with others his passion for good reads.

Jack also sold my books for me at the cons where we both were guests, and I often helped him pack up his books after the festivities were over. That stopped after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, because Jack lost his house and every one of his 20,000 plus volumes to the storm. Another man than Jack might have despaired after that, but Jack didn't let it beat him down. Although I know it hurt him.

Jack was instrumental in helping get me invited as a guest to my first con. He was a fan’s fan. Even in his 80s he was as eager as a little kid to talk about books, and his knowledge of SF/Fantasy was encyclopedic. I had many fun discussions with him over the year, and though I didn’t always agree with him there’s no one whose opinion on SF/Fantasy that I respect more.

Jack, you are missed, my friend.
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There’s No Pleasing Me

Sometimes I guess there’s no pleasing me. Back earlier in the year I posted about gratuitous violence and singled out the Edge Western Series for criticism. I also criticized the main character of the series, Edge himself, as a unrepentant sociopath. That post was “How Much Violence is Too Much?”.

Now let it be known, I do think the author, George G. Gilman (Terry Harknet), is a decent writer. The stories had a strong narrative drive and there were some pretty funny moments of black humor. But in general, I was just bothered by the unnecessary violence, and I found out later that at least some of this violence was included at the behest of the publisher and was not Gilman’s idea.

So then a friend told me that Gilman had written some later books in the series, long after the original run of the books had come to a close, that featured an older and less violent Edge. He pointed me to a website where I could download six of these as ebooks. I did so, and just finished the first one, called The Quiet Gun, on my Kindle. The verdict is: “I didn’t really like it.”

That’s where the title of my post comes from. I wanted Edge less violent and less sociopathic! Well, I got that in spades, and more. By age fifty, it appears that Edge has turned from a complete sociopath to a generally mild mannered fellow bent at all costs on staying on the right side of the law. He doesn’t even wear his gun anymore—he carries it in a carpetbag—and he’s dressed more like a “dude” than a gunslinger. He was trying to buy a wagon to get into the freight business, and didn’t even like to ride a horse anymore. In the first part of the book, he walked everywhere. It definitely felt like an alternate universe Edge. In fact, if I’d met the character in this book for the first time I would have thought he was something of a wimp.

As the book continued, Edge toughened up again and began to show flashes of the old Edge. He never, however, returned to the complete disregard for human life and decency that he’d shown in the early books of the original series. By the end, he’d become something of a gunslinger again but with apparent respect for the law and with some internal integrity. That was more in line with the kind of character I was looking for, but I was still reeling from the early story of the “meek shall inherit the earth” Edge. I guess there’s no pleasing me.

If you’d like to download the ebooks of the Older Edge series, the link is here.

And for a different view from someone who really liked the Edge series, the writer R. J. Dent, here’s another link.

As with anything, don’t just blindly accept my opinion on these books. If you’re curious, follow-up yourself. Your reading experience may vary!
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Friday's Forgotten Books: Five-Yard Fuller

For quite a few years I’d been keeping an eye open for a book called Five-Yard Fuller, which I probably last read when I was around 10. I finally found a copy through Amazon’s associates program and ordered it. As soon as I opened it up and saw the interior illustration of a tall young man in overalls running through a crowd of football players with the ball over his head, the memories came flooding back. I just had to reread it.

Five-Yard Fuller was written by Bob Wells. It features a young man named Clarence Fuller who decides he wants to play football for the Knights, a professional football team very much down on its luck. In fact, their rather hapless abilities reminded me a lot of the New Orleans Saints in their heyday of mediocrity. Fuller has never played organized football, only sandlot ball, but he tells the coach of the Knights that it looks pretty easy. You just “take that little ball in your hand and move it down to where them two posts are standing.”

The coach decides to teach Fuller a lesson and lets him try it. The result is that Fuller scores a touchdown by running over the entire defensive unit. And thus a star is born.

I first discovered Five-Yard Fuller in my local small town library. I don’t know exactly what year I read it but it was published in 1964. To my amazement, and some slight irritation, I found there were actually some sequels to this book. I sure would have liked to have read those too back in the day. One was called Five-Yard Fuller and the Unlikely Knights. Another was Five-Yard Fuller’s Mighty Model T, and yet another was Five-Yard Fuller and the NY Gnats, which, from what I’ve been able to glean on the net is actually about Fuller playing baseball. All were published in the sixties.

I had not realized, until I reread the book, that the Adam Sandler movie The Waterboy was apparently based pretty closely on the Wells book, although the book is much, much better. There are just too many similarities to be a coincidence, although I never heard of any acknowledgement from the movie folks that this was the case. Maybe Wells should have gotten some of the $160 million that movie was supposed to have earned. I don’t know if Wells is still living but my guess is not. I couldn’t find out much about the author on the net. The problem seems to be that there are too many folks named Bob or Robert Wells who have been authors. If anyone knows anything about this Bob Wells I’d appreciate you letting me know.

This is definitely a young adult/kid’s book. It’s probably not the cup of tea of many of you out there, but it sure did bring back some pleasant memories.
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In the Beginning

Beginnings are exciting. Moving to a new home. Launching a new career. The first weeks or months of a new relationship. (In many ways, my relationship with Lana still seems new after years of togetherness.) There is promise, hope, and some uncertainty in beginnings. I even like the beginning of a meal at a new restaurant, or the first sip of a strange new brew. It could be that something wonderful is in store.

For readers and writers, the beginning of a story, whether one they are reading or writing, has the same promise, hope, and uncertainty. I love openings. I love to read good ones and I strive to write them. It’s not easy.

To me, the single best opening sentence of any book I’ve read is from Fred Saberhagen’s First Book of Swords. “In what felt to him like the first cold morning of the world, he groped for fire.” Perhaps inevitably, the rest of the book did not quite live up to that promise.

Two great openings that did live up to the promise are from Joe Lansdale’s The Nightrunners, and from Peter Straub’s Ghost Story, a masterpiece of suspense.

Here’s Lansdale: “Midnight. Black as the heart of Satan. They came rolling out of the darkness in a black ’66 Chevy; eating up Highway 59 North like so much juicy, grey taffy.”

Here’s Straub: “Because he thought that he would have problems taking the child over the border into Canada, he drove south, skirting the cities whenever they came and taking the anonymous freeways which were like a separate country, as travel was itself like a separate country.”

These openings captivated me; I had had to read more. But I’ll tell you one opening that shut me down immediately. It was to Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire “’’I see-‘ said the vampire thoughtfully, and slowly he walked across the room towards the window.” I put this book down immediately and have never read any of Rice's vampire/witch books. It just seemed so completely lame.

There are those who will accuse me of liking purple prose, but I don’t. I like intensity. I like emotion. I like to be dragged in by the power of the prose. I like to be made uncomfortable. The Rice book opened with a complete lack of threat. We seem to be sitting in a comfortable chair, perhaps having a cognac and a cigar. That’s nice on a cold winter night, but it’s not what I want to invest my reading time in. It’s not what I want to invest my writing time in.

Here's the opening to the first short story I sold, called “Still Life With Skulls.”

“There were eyes in the canvas that I had never drawn, desert eyes of bronze, sulfur eyes like cicatrixes, and river eyes of green--eyes full of dark wings and teeth. There were round mouths open to the night air, and sanguine tongues whose dance burned with holy words. And in the chiaroscuro wastelands of the unfilled canvas there were ruins whose outlines I could not yet trace. I knew only that they held a bitter rapture and smelled faintly of ashes.”

This is the beginning to the second vampire tale I sold, called “A Cold of Snow and Ghosts:”

“He ran northward across the frozen tundra, with the pure light of the Aurora streaming above him in broad arcs that sparked green and red with ionization. His flying feet seemed barely to skim the ground, leaving behind prints in the snow that were as delicate as fallen petals, and as ephemeral. Over his shoulder hung a caribou stag with its throat wrapped in a necklace of frozen black blood. He hoped that he would be in time.”

What about you? How important are beginnings for you? Whether in reading, writing, or anywhere else? What are some of your favorite openings?
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Taken

I finally got around to watching Taken tonight and I really enjoyed it. I’d call it the feel good movie of the year. The story is about a father whose daughter is kidnapped by slavers in France and who then hunts the kidnappers down and kills them. Liam Neeson plays the father and the old man can ‘do’ some action moves. For a while, Lana and I were having bad luck with our movie picks, but the last couple, Taken and Gran Torino, have been pretty good.

The scary thing is, of course, that such evils do happen and too often are allowed to happen by the corruption in our governments and police forces. I see in Greater New Orleans the police setting up speed traps to catch working people on their way to and from their jobs, and to ticket those who aren’t wearing their seat belts. I see them arresting taggers and throwing them into jail where they can clutter up the courts rather than just giving them fines. I see them setting up stings to arrest prostitutes and Johns rather than getting the pimps and organized crime figures who run the prostitutes. The police are gung ho on the small time criminals. Generally they seem to leave the big ones alone, and almost certainly it is because someone’s palm is getting greased.

A week ago we had two interesting police related events that happened only a day apart. It was announced one day that many thousands of dollars had gone missing from the evidence lockers of the NOPD; the very next day we heard how the police department needed a big increase in funding in order to keep our streets safe from criminals. Maybe they should just check their evidence lockers for the criminals. They could cut crime a lot faster and wouldn’t need any additional funding. Hell, they wouldn’t even need cars. The crime is happening right on their own premises.

Of course, there are plenty of good police officers. But where are the priorities of those who are assigning those officers to duty? The person without the seat belt is likely to hurt themselves before they hurt anyone else. The taggers should be fined if they deface public property, but do we need to clog up the courts with such cases? Set the fines, make ‘em steep if you want, but put the focus of the court and law systems on the big time criminals who fester like ticks on the body of the country.

Seems to me, we’re all being “taken.”
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Snakes and the Wild West

Despite the brutal heat here in southern Louisiana in June, I’ve been getting out occasionally in the late evening for short walks. And it appears from my walks that our local snake population is doing quite well. Almost every evening I’ve been out, I’ve seen a small snake on the road. I don’t believe they are the same snake, although they look close enough alike to be kin. I’ve seen them in at least three fairly widespread locations. I finally took the camera with me and snapped a few pics. They all look like the one featured here.

The most disconcerting thing about these wee ones is that they look a bit like copperheads to me, although I’ve not gotten down at eye level with them in an attempt to verify that. Even a small snake can cause a man to dance a jig when you nearly step on one. And snakes hardly ever invite you to pull up a patch of ground and visit. They just don’t seem all that friendly a creature.

In other news, I got my copy of The Tarnished Star, by Jack Martin (aka Gary Dobbs), and finished it in a couple of days. It’s really good. Fast paced, and well written in a straightforward, no nonsense style. The characters are clearly defined and you know who to root for. There’s the sheriff, a true upholder of the law, and his fiancé, who is actually a school teacher. There’s a local big rancher who runs roughshod over his opposition. He isn’t completely a villain, but he hasn’t done a good job of raising his spoiled son and therein lies the rub.

There’s considerable action in the book but not a lot of gore. I’ve been thinking lately of the “sub-genres” of western fiction. I’d certainly include The Tarnished Star as a “traditional” western. Think Louis L’Amour and James Reasoner. This is in opposition to the “spaghetti” western, such as the books by Joe Millard featuring the Eastwood character “blonde,” the “hyper-violent” western such as the Edge series by George Gilman, or the “adult” westerns such as the Trailsman or the Longarm series.

All in all, a very promising debut novel from our blogosphere friend.
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Father's Day, Sushi, and Talera

G., over at Cedar’s Mountain has a review of the second Talera Novel, Wings Over Talera. He is apparently an extremely discerning fellow, seeing as how he liked the book quite a lot. Thanks for the kind words, G.

My son came out Saturday for Father’s Day since he had to work a double shift on Sunday. We had a great time. We went to my favorite sushi place. We had our first official beer together while out to eat. After that we did some target shooting with my air pistol, watched Pale Rider, and then he helped me set up my DVD with surround sound. He also bought me the five disk collected works of White Zombie, which to me was better stuff than the material that Rob Zombie has produced separately since. Good kid!

I’ve been on a real sushi kick lately. I had it twice last week on Monday, then Saturday and Sunday this weekend. Love the stuff. Maybe part of it is the variety of the meal. There are many different flavors to a typical sushi meal. I’m a big fan of tuna in all its varieties, especially tuna tataki and pepper tuna. I’ll probably go again tomorrow.
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There's Rules, and There's Rules

My post today was triggered by something I read over at Writtenwyrd’s blog. Particularly, she posted Lawrence Watt-Evan's “Laws of Fantasy.” Thanks, Writtenwyrd.

Although I agree in principle with most of these rules, I do have a pedantic bone to pick here and there. Here’s my response to the rules:

1. Watt-Evans' First Law of Fantasy: Stories are about people.

-- I’m afraid this isn’t always true. Nor should it be. Personally, I generally prefer stories about people. But fantasy can also be a literature of ideas, in which the people are secondary. I think this happens more in SF than fantasy, but I can see it in fantasy. And, what of those writers who truly try to imagine an “alien” people. Certainly, most races in Fantasy are thinly veiled humans with pointed ears etc., but does that have to be? Mr. Watt-Evans may, of course, be defining people broadly, and that would dispense with most of my objection.

2. Watt-Evans' Second Law of Fantasy: People are never wholly good or wholly evil, and therefore characters should never be wholly good or wholly evil.

-- Here we have a problem with logic. Mr. Watt-Evans is absolutely correct in saying that real life people aren’t wholly good or wholly evil. The second part of his law doesn’t necessarily follow, however. The problem is that, by his own statement, these laws deal with “fantasy.” That means we’re already outside the realm of “real life.” Magic doesn’t work in the real world. So, if we are not allowing “unreal” characters then how can we allow unreal magic? One of the great powers of fantasy, of fiction in general, is that it allows us to contemplate and experience that which isn’t real. There is not only room in fantasy for unreal characters such as those who are wholly evil or wholly good, but one could argue that there is a demand at times for exactly that kind of character.

3. Watt-Evans' Third Law of Fantasy: The basic human motivations are universal.

-- I agree completely with this one. It does not necessarily follow, however, that all human characters in fantasy should have only real life human motivations. See my commentary under #2.

4. Watt-Evans' Fourth Law of Fantasy: Everything other than the basic human motivations will vary, depending on the cultural setting.

-- I agree. Culture is very powerful and most fantasy writers (including myself) struggle in developing realistic seeming cultures and properly predicting what the humans in those cultures will do.

5. Watt-Evans' Fifth Law of Fantasy: Magic, like everything else, has rules.

-- Again, I generally agree. Personally, I much prefer stories in which magic has clearly defined rules (although they don’t have to agree with the normal physical laws of our universe), and has a cost attached to using it. I’ve actually seen a literary writer deliberately break this rule for effect, however, and though I didn’t like it, I could accept it as an experiment. This is pretty much an exception, though, and doesn’t disprove for me the validity of this fifth law.

6. Watt-Evans' Sixth Law of Fantasy: If a story can be written without a fantasy element, then don't bother with the fantasy element.

-- I agree that fantasy elements should not just be thrown in. They should be integral to the story. However, doesn’t most “magical realism” violate the sixth principle? Many of the magical realism stories I’ve read could have been told without the fantasy elements. But they would have lost something, something I couldn’t necessarily define.
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More Ultimate Wisdom

Are you ready for this? Tell me what you think. The writing book that I’m very slowly making my way through just gave me another gem.

The writer’s running coach wanted to be a writer himself. Her advice: “Terry, you know everything about writing because you know running. If you go deeply in one thing, you know everything else. Just apply what you know about running to writing.”

Now, I wonder why she didn’t put this advice on page 1. I wouldn’t have had to read further. I’ve gone quite deep in eating, so I must know everything there is to know about writing as well. Whew, that’s a relief. No more study for me!

I’ve actually been able to translate some of the things that this author has said into common, everyday language. But this one I can’t even make the wildest guess at.

And while you're contemplating your navel and today's wisdom, here's the opening of the western story I just finished yesterday. It's called "Showdown at Wild Briar."

“You Josh Allen Boone?”

Leaning back in his chair in the Bucket Of Blood saloon, a man looked up from under the brim of a battered Stetson. His gray eyes studied the speaker, noted the briar-scarred chaps, the faded red bandana at the neck, worn smooth and soft with many washings, and the sun-worn face under a sweat-stained hat. The gun was worn high on the right hip. Except for the boots, which were hand-tooled and expensive, the outfit shouted cow puncher, but didn’t provide a name.

"Who's asking?"
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Brew Tour and Buzz Time

Well, sorry I didn’t get around to anyone’s blogs yesterday, and only to a few today. My writing discipline mostly fell apart on Saturday after drinking all day. Lana and I took a tour of the Abita Springs Brewery with some friends and all that free beer was too much for me to say no too. And after scoring a good buzz there, I knew I might as well tie one on because the writing day was shot anyway. Sunday I was recovering but was just too lazy to do any writing. I also had a moment to realize that I’d let quite a few school related things pile up, so Monday and this morning had to be catch up time. Even in the summer, the IRB committee that I’m on can generate labor. I did go to my Borders writing group Monday night and it was fun, especially since my friend Elora was back with us after a few weeks off for health reasons. It was good to see her.

Some Odds and Ends:

Lana and I watched Gran Torino Sunday and it was a pretty good movie. The ending surprised me and wasn’t quite the expected Clint Eastwood finale.
I’m reading two short story western collections, The Fatal Frontier and Best of the West II.

Fatal Frontier has been a bit hit and miss for me so far, although I’m not very far into it. There’s a great story early on by Marcia Muller called “The Time of the Wolves,” but unfortunately I’d already read it and it isn’t the kind you’d likely forget. There’s also a very fine story by our own James Reasoner called “Hacendado,” which I hadn’t read before. There’s also just a really, really weak story by John Jakes called “The Woman at Apache Wells.” This one started out to be one type of story, changed to another type of story, and ended as a third type. It contradicted itself throughout, and the main character and the ‘woman’ of the title were totally unbelievable. The tale might have been included for marketing reasons since Jakes’ name was listed first and prominently on the cover.

In regards to the other collection, all I can say is: “James Warner Bellah, where have you been all my life? Man this dude can write. I don’t remember ever reading anything by him before. Apparently he wrote mostly short stories, although quite a few of his tales were turned into movies by John Ford, including “Fort Apache,” and “She wore a Yellow Ribbon,” and “Rio Grande.” Bellah wrote mostly stories about the Cavalry fighting Indians it appears, and man he slams you down on the saddle with the column and you smell the leather and feel the hot wind. I’m gonna try to find out more about this guy.

That’s it for now. I should be back on track with visiting blogs tomorrow.
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Two Projects at Once

I admire those who can work on multiple fiction projects at the same time. I’ve discovered, once again, that it’s virtually impossible for me. I’d been rolling pretty well on the novel, Razored Land, and then, while reading some great Louis L’Amour western short stories, a sweet idea occurred to me for a western short. I thought: well, do both at once. I thought I’d work on Razored Land in my home office during the afternoon and early evening, then in late evening work on the laptop in the living room on the western, which is currently entitled Showdown at Wild Briar. The first day went well, 3 pages on Razored and almost 4 on Showdown. For day 2, I managed 1 and a half pages on Razored and 4 on Showdown. Day 3 (today), about 2 pages on Showdown and maybe 3 sentences on Razored.

It’s not the writing time that’s the problem. It’s the thinking time. The first couple of days weren’t bad because I’d already done quite a bit of thinking ahead on Razored Land and was working from that material. But as soon as the western idea occurred to me I began spending almost all my thinking time fiddling with it. The result, as soon as I dipped out the water (thoughts) already present for Razored Land, that project came to a screeching halt. I’ve decided my best bet now is to spend the next two days smashing the western home to a finish, then getting back fully into Razored Land and not letting myself be distracted further.

Guess I’m a one-project kind of guy.

In other news, did any of you watch a TV series when it was on called Invasion? It’s about a hurricane hitting Florida, followed by what appears to be an invasion of the body snatchers type of story. I never heard of it before but they were running “Invasion Week” this week, with back to back episodes every night, and I actually got hooked on it. Unfortunately, only one season was filmed and it ended with a big cliffhanger. I would have liked to see more. Anyone see this thing?
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Four Play My Way

Randy tagged me. Thank goodness because I wanted to play. It looks kind of fun. So here goes.
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Four Movies You Can See Over and Over

Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan
Once Upon a Time in the West
John Carpenter’s: The Thing
Alien

Four Places You Have Lived

Arkansas
Arkansas
Louisiana
Louisiana
Or, Farm, Fayetteville, AR, Metairie, LA, Abita Springs, LA.

Four TV Shows You Love to Watch (Now this is hard since I hate most TV)

Star Trek (original)
Nip/Tuck
Gunsmoke (Used to watch it)
Andy Griffith (Used to watch it)

Four Places You Have Been on a Vacation

Cross Plains, Texas
Disneyworld or Disneyland, whichever is in Florida.
Universal Studios
Silver Dollar City

Four of your favorite foods

Chicken (in all its infinite goodness and diversity)
Pork Chops
Steak
Turkey
(Is my carnivorous nature showing through?)


Four Websites You Visit Daily
Everyone on my Google Reader who Post every day. You know who you are.


Four Places You Would Rather Be

(This one is also hard. I love my house and yard and deck and Lana is here right now. But:)
Motorcycle riding
Trey Yuen Chinese Restaurant
A book signing for my NY Times Bestseller
The last one involves Lana


Four Things You Hope to Do Before You Die

See the Mayan ruins (almost got there this year but for the flu)
See my grandchild (but not quite yet)
See Meteor Crater, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon
Write a dozen more books, read at least 5,000 more


Four Novels You Wish You Were Reading for the First Time

To Tame a Land, by Louis L’Amour
The Swords of Night and Day, by David Gemmell
The Hour of the Dragon, by Robert E. Howard
Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke

Tag Four People You Believe Will Respond

I don’t do tagging actually.
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More Advice Gone WTF?

“Before you enter the writing each day, you may want to take a long drink of water or a walk around the block. Do something to let you sink into yourself, so you may write from that quiet place of equanimity and truth. You are safe, go ahead. Stay simple.”
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This is another quote from that writing book I’m reading, but I just have to ask, what the hell does it mean? Again, it sounds kind of nice. But do you understand it? Even if you do, I rather doubt you understand it in the same way I do. I take walks often, which allows me to think about the story I’m working on, but I’ve yet to sink into myself with a drink of water. Frankly, I don’t really know what “sink into” myself means. I’m guessing it is intended to suggest something like mediation. I meditate, or daydream at least, quite often but it’s a very different mindset for me than I experience while actually writing.

And where exactly is that “quiet place of equanimity and truth?” And why should I want to be “safe” while I write? I always think the best writing comes when I’m feeling unsafe, feeling the same kind of emotional intensity that my characters are feeling. “Safe” writing sounds like boring writing to me.

I get the feeling that this whole passage is meant to convey a very simple idea: In order to write you need to “focus.” Is that how you read it?
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Long Haired Country Boy

If you don't like the way I'm livin',
You just leave this long-haired country boy alone.
--Charlie Daniels

“Mommy, why does that man have long hair?”

I overheard this from a little girl, probably about four, as I walked through the library the other day. I didn’t hear her mom’s response but I thought the girl’s comment was pretty cute. I get this kind of thing a lot and in almost all cases it’s just hilarious. When my son was playing little league there was a kid on his team who had a little sister about that age. She used to stare and stare at me, but would hide behind her mom if I smiled at her. Finally, her mom explained to me one day why she stared. “She calls you: ‘Jesus at the park.’” That’s one of my favorite stories about my long hair.

Another favorite is when I went for the first time to set up my electricity service in Abita Springs. After paying, I stopped in the restroom right around the corner in the office, but the two ladies behind the counter thought I’d left. I came out of the bathroom only to hear one lady exclaim to the other about how “ridiculous” my hair length was. At that moment I passed in front of the counter and waved to them as I headed out the door. The look on their faces was…to steal a phrase…priceless. I chuckled about that one for days.

Last week, having lunch at a local sushi establishment, I became aware of a woman staring at me from across the tables. I kind of watched her from the corner of my eye as she leaned forward and whispered something to her friend while continuing to look in my direction. Instantly, the friend spun around and looked right at me. Laughing under my breath, I made eye contact with her, and she immediately blushed and began looking past me at the wall behind me as if that was the reason she was looking my way. Her friend should have told her, “no, no, no don’t turn around.”

Occasionally, though, I find comments on my hair irritating. About ten years ago, when I was chair of the Psych department, we were meeting our new freshmen students. I actually had quite a bit shorter hair then but I was shaking hands with one of the parents when he just bluntly made a gesture at my hair and said: “What kind of statement are you trying to make here?” Here was a guy who was dressed in a silk suit, with carefully matched tie and diamond tie pin, with a gold watch on his wrist, and he’s asking me about “my” statement? I wanted to say, “you’re a ween,” but instead I said: “I didn’t realize I was making a statement. I just like long hair.”

That’s the thing, really, my hair is not a statement about anything. At least not anymore. I originally grew it long for two reasons. First, for all of my childhood life my father cut my hair himself and never let it get more than a quarter inch long even though I begged him to. When I became a teenager, after he died, I let my hair grow. This was, at least in part, a rebellion, I’m sure, but the rebellious phase faded out back when my hair was barely shoulder length. Another reason I let my hair grow was because that was the style back in the seventies, and because I was in a band. But by the time I was 20 I had long hair for only one reason. I liked it. The fact that it seemed to irritate some people to no end was just gravy.

My mom has always seemed to believe the hair was a rebellion, and at least one of my “sister’s in law” seemed to make it her goal in life for years to get me to cut my hair. She told me once something along the lines of “You’d be a really good looking man if you got your hair cut.” I just laughed and told her, “well, I’m not trying to attract you.”

The strangest thing about it all is that I just can’t for the life of me imagine why anyone cares? What is it about long hair on men that seems to “threaten” some people? Why is it worthy of a stare or a snide comment? Seems to me there are a lot more interesting things to observe about people than their hair.
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Harry Potter

Well, I’ve finished the entire seven book Harry Potter series now. I’m sorry that it’s over. I have to give J. K. Rowling high marks, both for the individual books and for the overall arc of the series. In fact, I’ve never been so caught up in a series that I read them all one after another after another. The last two, particularly, put the reader through an emotional roller coaster, and as a reader I appreciate every minute of such an experience. Even three days after closing the cover on the last volume, I still feel that sense of loss that comes with being finished with a beloved book. And although I normally leap right into a new book after one is done, I waited a day before starting something different (a Star Trek book if you must know.) A day is a lifetime for me where reading is concerned.

I’m not going to give details of the books here because I don’t want to reveal any spoilers. The books are too good for that. But I will tell you my overall impression of the story arc. The first two volumes, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets are indeed books for young, young adults. They’re good, but they only hint at the more mature development that picks up with volume 3, Prisoner of Azkaban. After that, for me, it was a straight run to the finish, with each book capable of standing on its own but also laying the ground work for the next. At first I thought book five, The Order of the Phoenix, marked a fall off. I didn’t much like Harry at the start of that one, but in retrospect I think Rowling simply turned him into a true teenager in that book and handled that task deftly. I was also pleased to see that Rowling’s action scenes substantially picked up, although these are definitely character books and not truly action driven.

It’s hard to say which book was my favorite because in this case I really think you have to judge the whole series together. And as a series it is outstanding. However, for me, the last two books, where the overall story is coming to its climax, stand out in my mind. I wish I still had them left to read.

Thank you, Ms. Rowling! Not that you need it, but you have another fan.
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Good Advice Gone Bad

Ever hear a piece of advice that sounds great at first hearing but starts to look pretty lame when you begin to dissect it? I found just such a piece of advice in Wild Mind, a book on writing that I’m reading along with my Harry Potter fix. The advice was essentially, find a line you like, then just add the next line, and the next. “Don’t think further ahead than the next line. Don’t think back. Just build that story.” And: “Place those sentences down, as if you were laying bricks. Keep each one true.”

Man that sounds good. Or does it? As I began to think about it, two problems with these statements quickly occurred to me. First, if you build a piece line by line you’re not building a story. A story goes somewhere. It has a destination, even if that destination is rather vague and different for different readers. I’ve started stories the way this author suggests, and I think it can work to find a beginning, but unless I soon begin to think ahead, and back, and sideways, the piece ends up nowhere and either gets stuck in my “writing pieces” file or gets reworked from the beginning with more thought given to it.

Second, although the bricklaying metaphor works perfectly for the suggestion the author makes, I don’t think it works as a metaphor for how stories and novels really get written. Many successful writers I know work from outlines; a much better metaphor, then, might be a blueprint. And if you just lay one brick after another after another you’re going to end up with a wall, not a building. I don’t write with an extensive outline, but that means I constantly have to stop writing and start thinking. At some point you just can’t proceed until you know at least partly what has happened before and what is going to happen next. At least I find it to be so.

Turns out, the author of Wild Minds seems to have gotten this advice from Raymond Carver, and this was an epiphany of sorts for me. That’s why I can’t stand Carver’s stories. They begin in a random place, meander about for a bit while repeating themselves, and then end up nowhere. They’re walls of bricks, with no windows or interiors. They’re not really stories.

Whew! Now I can rest easier.
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Poe's Ravens

The American gothic movement is often said to have begun with the book Wieland by Charles Brockden Brown, which was published in 1798 and was based in part on an incident in which a New York farmer murdered his wife and children after he was told to by voices. The next two big names to appear on the American scene were Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Poe worked mostly in short stories and poetry. Perhaps his most gothic story was “The Fall of the House of Usher,” which he wrote in 1839. His classic gothic poem was, of course, “The Raven,” which saw print in 1845. Hawthorne’s classic gothic novel was The House of the Seven Gables, published in 1851.

Poe and Hawthorne represent early extremes in how they expressed the gothic impulse in their writings. Poe reveled in the dark emotional excesses of the field, in grisly murders and wild madness. Hawthorne’s work was more subtle and ironic, with his revenants harnessed toward literary, moral, and political ends. But it was Poe whose influence was felt most strongly in the development of the early twentieth century horror pulps like Terror Tales and Weird Tales, the latter of which took its very title from Poe’s poetry. And it is Poe to whom most modern American horror writers look to as their primary literary ancestor. I certainly think of him that way, and I can hardly see a crow or a raven without being reminded of Poe’s darkness.

I was pleased back in 1995 to have two pieces in Once Upon a Midnight…, a poetry collection honoring “The Raven.” Now, not quite fifteen years later, I’m very happy to be involved with another of Poe’s Ravens. A new print anthology of short stories and poetry inspired directly by Poe’s own work has just been published. It’s called, Return of the Raven. My contribution to the anthology is a story called “A Curse the Dead Must Bear.” The book is published by Horror Bound Online, and if you’re interested you can find out more about it here. It’s kind of nice to see my name listed on the cover rather than lumped in with, “and others.”
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The Mouse that Stored

I haven’t worn my boots much lately. And when I slipped them on yesterday my foot discovered what felt like a pile of dirt and pebbles in the right one. Now, I know when you’re camping you always dump your boots out in the morning before putting them on, because sometimes scorpions or rattlers or other unpleasant creatures will have made them a snuggly home during the night. But these boots were sitting in front of our fireplace. I did not expect scorpions or rattlesnakes.

Curious, but unalarmed, I pulled my foot out of the boot, carried it over to the trash can, and upended it. A small hoard of sunflower seeds spilled out. It seems our house mouse had been storing up some food for a rainy day and had chosen my long unused and dusty boot for a larder. We have sunflower seeds in the house because we feed the birds with them, and of course there are always a few spills. No wonder the mouse (mice) has moved in. Imagine how gleeful he or she was to discover the rodent equivalent of King Tut’s Treasure.

Then I began to wonder. Was it truly a mouse or mice? One of my favorite books as a kid was The Borrowers by Mary Norton. If you haven’t read it, you should. It’s incredibly charming, about little mouse-sized folks who live in the houses of big people and “borrow” things they need. I always thought it was as good a reason as any for why you lose things in your house all the time, like safety pins, needles, thread, fingernail clippers, etc. Maybe my borrowers like seeds. And socks. Yeah, what’s with all the missing socks? Good bedding perhaps?

At least I haven’t “misplaced” any guns yet. I’m not going to start worrying until the borrowers borrow a pistol.
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Gifts

“A sunfish, in one spangled moment
Beating with Light the throttling air”
Loren Eiseley

“…man has gotten lost in a desert of terrible freedoms.”
Loren Eiseley.


My cat brought me a gift once. He left a dead sparrow at my doorstep. I understood his act. I even understood why he’d eaten the heart and other tidbits out first. Don’t we humans almost always save the choicest bits for ourselves? How many of us truly offer gifts to others without keeping the heart for our own?

But sometimes I remember my mother, who claimed all through my childhood to love the neck and back of the chicken most. “Those were her favorite pieces,” she said. That’s why she always ate those instead of a breast or a thigh or a drumstick. For years I believed her.

Until I had a child myself.
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Readin’ & Writin’ Updates

Well not every one of my posts these days will be experimental stuff. Tonight’s is an update on what I’ve been doing in the reading and writing arena.

Writing, I’m pleased to say, has been going well. Since returning from vacation I’ve averaged three pages a day on Razored Land: The Blackest of Hates. I just hit fifty pages tonight.

Reading? I finished Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which was very good, and almost immediately started book five, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I’m enjoying it, but not liking Harry as much in this one. He seems to have turned into a true teenager. I suppose that’s the point.

I watched two movies this weekend, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and The Spirit. The Day the Earth Stood Still wasn’t bad. There were some pretty bad plot holes, especially early in the film, and I wanted to personally strangle the kid character, but it generally held my interest and Lana felt much the same way. The Spirit, on the other hand, was just profoundly silly. It’s got to be one of the worst movies I’ve seen in the last 10 years, and that’s saying something. Lana only lasted about 20 minutes but I stuck it out. Lord knows why. Perhaps it’s because I really liked Sin City and expected this to be more of the same. I was wrong.

Finally, let me review Mysteries of Von Domarus, a chapbook of gothic tales by Gary William Crawford, which I also just finished reading. Crawford is well known as both an author and editor in the small press. He’s best known for his poetry, but is also a student of gothic literature and the five short tales in this collection evoke the gothic sensibility to the utmost. The best story is the title piece, “Mysteries of Von Domarus.” There are elements of poetry and even the nonfiction essay woven throughout this “story,” but it works on a gut wrenching level. It has been a long time since I’ve been so emotionally touched by a tale. The second best story is the last one in the collection, “The Change in Him.” A subtle ending, but one that’ll stay with me for a long time.

Throughout the collection one feels the stories working on different levels, and the surface level is the least important. It’s the same kind of feeling that comes through in Crawford’s poetry. Especially with “The Change in Him,” I felt I was being told something profoundly important, but every time I tried to focus on just what that importance was my understanding morphed into something else. I only know I won’t ever look at a stranger quite the same way again.

Crawford’s stories are not in any way graphic horror. You won’t find blood or gore here. You will find a sense of disassociation, a sense of loss, and a sense that there truly are mysteries in the world. It definitely “shook up” my perceptions.
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Do You, Darkness

The ceremony was brief. Darkness never looked so lovely. She swept down the aisle in her velvet gown with the twinkles of stars sewn into its folds. Her crescent moon smile was radiant. I have to admit, her husband-to-be did not look quite so happy. I imagine he just had a bad case of the nerves. A lot of men are scared of the dark, though they seldom want to admit it.

The vows were simple and elegant. Death presided.

“Do you, Darkness
Take this man
To be your mate
To have and to hold
To carve and to mold
In sickness and despair
Till never do you part”

There wasn’t a dry eye in the place when the ceremony was over.
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Rorschach Scarecrow

The wind purrs through the trees. A crow caws at a distance. A cardinal darts for a feeder in the yard, its wings not quiet silent. On the deck, I hear the clack of the wooden wind chimes, the tink tink of the copper ones. My ears are attuned to this world.

But my eyes are lost in greenery. Not twenty yards away the woods rise. Pines. Oaks. Magnolias. Other trees I cannot name. And blackberry brambles drip with yet unripened fruit. Things are hiding there, though with a little effort I can see them.

Shadows sweep past with wings. Perhaps there are birds high in the air casting them. My mind tells me there are birds. But I do not see the birds; I cannot swear they are there. A moment ago a long silken blackness raced down the bare trunk of a pine. I saw it clearly, an animal shape some three feet long with a sleek head and long tail. It took a while for my mind to say anything about that. It told me I’d seen the shadow of one pine swaying past another in the wind. But I don’t believe it.

I don’t believe it because of the Rorschach scarecrow who conceals himself just below that spot in the bushes. He is painted shades of green and black, and blends so well with his surroundings that the wind blurs his outline. Sometimes I see only his eyes. Sometimes I see the ratty top hat he wears. I’ve never seen his mouth. I don’t know if he smiles. I wonder if he has teeth.

But he is watching me, very very quietly watching me. I suspect the silk-black animal is his familiar.

I wonder if the scarecrow and I can be friends. Should I invite him up on the deck? Would he come? My mind is divided on this subject. One part says the scarecrow cannot leave the woods or he will die in the bright sun. Another part says he’s already here, standing at my shoulder.

I wonder if I should turn my head.
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Perception and Creativity

It’s been said that creativity is not about seeing the world; it’s about seeing the world in a way no one else does. I first heard that saying a long time ago but it had been years since I’d given it much thought. Then it came back to me while I was reading The Lost Notebooks of Loren Eiseley.

Eiseley made his writing career out of just such unique perceptions. Listen: “I would never again make a profession of time.” Or, “…every bone that one holds in one’s hands is a fallen kingdom, a veritable ruined world…” Or: “…man has dragged out of the Ice Age with him and older and lower brain that reemerges in the mists of alcohol or which I have seen snarling on the bed of madness. There are claws in it by now fantastically extended.”

I realized that this issue was what I was tiptoeing around in my posts about needing to “shake-up” my own perceptions. Lately I’ve been seeing the world too much like everyone else. And I’m beginning to realize that it has nothing to do with the material I’m putting “into” my head. I’ve got to alter the way I “combine” the elements that go in.

Too that end I’m going to go back to doing something I used to do when I first started writing. That is, just playing more with language, experimenting more with perceptions as I strive to tear my normal thoughts down and rebuild them askew.

In the next few weeks I’ll be sharing some of these with you folks. Aren’t you lucky? ;)

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Vacation Return

We’re backkkk!

As you can see, I caught at least one monster bass! The pictured fish, of course, is the minnow that I used to catch the monster bass, which would not fit in to the frame of the photo.

Actually, I didn’t have much fishing luck. I caught two small ones. The pictured one is by far the biggest of the two. I did, however, have some fishing “fun.” It was enjoyable to slip my way around the lake, fishing from small cove to small cove with hopes high. Lana often accompanied me and I’m sure she’ll show you some of the great photos that she got, including delightful pics of some Canadian goose chicks, and lots of herons and egrets.

It was unfortunately hot during the middle of the days so we tended to nap at those times and get out during the morning and evening hours. We saw lots of interesting plant life and in a night walk I saw many hundreds of fireflies, a sight I haven’t seen since childhood. We also visited the park’s deer research facility where we saw many ear-tagged whitetails.

I didn’t do any writing during the trip, but I read a lot, including The Saga of Swamp Thing by Alan Moore, a Star Trek novel called “Time for Yesterday” by A. C. Crispin, and The Force, a 1987 horror novel by a friend of mine named John Edward Ames. The Swamp thing piece was interesting but I felt it was fairly flawed. I very much enjoyed the Star Trek book, which was a sequel to Crispin’s Yesterday’s Son. That book introduced Spock’s son, who had been born without Spock’s knowledge in the past, after the events of the very last original Trek Episode, “All Our Yesterdays.” I also enjoyed The Force, which took me back to those enjoyable days of 1980s horror.

Another book I started reading was The Lost Notebooks of Loren Eiseley. Eiseley, who is dead now, was my favorite nature writer. He viewed nature with both the eyes of a scientist and a poet, and it was an effective combination. Eiseley was a compulsive writer and note taker but didn’t have his first book published until he was fifty years old. I found that inspirational and it’s renewed my commitment to my own writing. I plan to dedicate this summer to writing and reading, and that may mean somewhat less blogging. But I’m not giving up blogging and will be visiting blogs again starting today. Writing must again become my focus, though.

A final thing I realized is that I’m very lucky to have most of the things I want right here in my house. It’s good to be home.

Now, I'm off to make my blogging rounds. I got a big kick out of the comments on my last post, and I must single Wil out for most creative response to my vacation. I better check there first to make sure he's still alive!

By the way, I just checked Google Reader and found 407 posts. No way I'll be able to catch up with all of those so I'll have to just pick up from today. Sorry about that, but I don't want to die of finger cramps.

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Vacation

Well, we're leaving on Tuesday for vacation and won't be back until the end of next weekend. Since we'll be in the wilds I won't be doing 'any' blogging, and won't be able to visit everyone's blogs. I'm sure you'll all survive. I probably won't be getting around to blogs tomorrow even, seeing as how I have a lot of things to do before we head out. I'm getting my fishing gear ready in hopes of doing some fishing while I'm gone.

In the meantime, I finished Harry Potter 3: The Prisoner of Azkaban and found it to be very much fun. I think it's my favorite so far in the series. I have the fourth book on order bu tunless it gets here tomorrow I won't be taking Potter along with me. I've got plenty of other books, though, including those on my Kindle 2.

I also read a book entitled: Why Evolution is True, by Jerry Coyne. Excellent book. I wish I could get every creationist to read it, although I'm not sure even this would change their minds.

I'll miss you folks. Take care.
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Friday's Forgotten Books: Teot's War

“Heat beat down on my shoulders, my face cloth. My armor dragged at the riding sores underneath. Little sparkles danced behind my eyelids, and the strains in my joints were cramping to knots in the muscles. It had been a long ride. A grating call made my shoulders twitch. The carrion crows, who glided after us day after day, were waiting.”

Thus begins Teot’s War by Heather Gladney, published in 1987 by Ace Fantasy. It was followed by a sequel, Blood Storm, in 1989, although I understand the two were originally written as a single book and were broken up at the publisher’s behest. The first part, Teot’s War is one of my favorite heroic fantasy novels, and by virtue of its stellar prose owns a rare place on my inspirational shelf. This is the shelf I select from when I want to read some truly fine and fantastic prose as an inspiration to my own attempts to construct beautiful language.

Teot is the last name of the main character of the book, Naga Teot. Naga is a desert warrior, known sometimes as “Dance of Knives.” He carries twin short swords called scaddas and uses them with the grace of ballet.

Teot’s War creates a fully realized world that combines elements of Frank Herbert’s Dune, Glen Cook’s Dread Empire series, the Hyborian World of Robert E. Howard, and the real world of Earth’s Bedouin tribes. It contains a delightful and realistic created language. But the best element is the superb writing--“The blades hung tight a moment, swung free in a spray of red with a gasping sound”--combined with a wonderful attention to the details of the world’s politics and art.

Teot’s War is not only something of a forgotten book, although it has a strong fan base, but Heather Gladney is also a bit of a forgotten writer for many fantasy readers. That’s almost to be expected when you’ve only published two novels, both in the 1980s. For years there have been hints of a third book in the saga. So far nothing has seen print, although I’ve found out from Ms. Gladney’s website that she has actually submitted sequels to big publishers and had them rejected. It sounds to me like she should consider going with a smaller publisher; I would certainly be one person who would buy the book. I know Gladney has produced some short stories but I and many of her other fans would love to see the third book in her series. In my experience, few writers had such an auspicious start to their careers. I’d love to see her ignite a new surge in that career. Whatever it takes.

See Patti Abbott's blog for more Forgotten Book Friday.
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The Nightmare that Wouldn’t Quit

I’ve mentioned before that I seldom have truly scary dreams. There are a lot of monsters in my dreams, vampires, devils, psychopathic killers, and so on, but it usually turns out that I’m the worst thing in the dream. Not so last night.

I had gone to stay at a bed and breakfast for some relaxation. The place was a very large old house with beautiful grounds and a forest all around. My room was a stunning old den, with dark, mahogany panels. The bed was covered in an old fashioned quilt and the place should have been comfortable. I was immediately uneasy.

There were noises that didn’t sound like mice in the walls. Things seemed to move from where I’d put them and I couldn’t quite convince myself I’d moved them myself. A door slamming behind me stitched cold chills up my spine and I immediately left the room and went to ask for another. They gave me one, with an explanation that, for some people, me included apparently, the room I’d been in was haunted by a young woman. They couldn’t tell me for sure whether something bad had happened in that room to the woman, but that was the legend.

The only problem was I had to go back in that place to get my clothes, which I’d not yet taken out of the suitcase. Once I got back in the room things took a turn for the worse. I closed my suitcase and started for the door and it wasn’t there. Instead there was a corridor, and as I went down that I came to rooms that had not existed before in my original room. And the sounds! Doors slamming. Birds singing strangled songs. Clocks tick tick ticking. Everything loud.

I became very aware of some entity watching me, as if floating just behind my shoulder. I began to panic and run. And I woke up. But that wasn’t the end of it. I don’t mind bad dreams typically so as I got up to go to the bathroom I thought about the dream. And as I lay back down the strangeness began. I fell back to sleep, and was soon in the same dream. I was still trying to get out of the “room,” but I was no longer running. People began to appear in the corridors but they were insubstantial and would simply melt into the walls as I passed them. I began to think I was somehow “out of phase” with the real world. And now I heard babies crying, and hysterical laughter, and a woman’s voice droning on and on in an emotionless but incoherent mumble. I woke up again.

And when I returned to sleep this time the dream came back again, like an uninvited guest who doesn’t know he’s overstayed his welcome. And then it happened after a fourth awakening as well. Now, I’ve had dreams before that returned one time before fading, but I’ve only had one other time in my life when the same dream stayed with me all night. And that one wasn’t a nightmare.

At one point I’d actually escaped the room somehow and was sitting exhaustedly outside the building on a bench before a silver fountain. I saw two workmen pass me and walk into the building. Suddenly, I realized they were going in that room. I leaped to my feet, but before I could yell a warning the door had slammed behind them and the screaming began. I watched, horrified, for what seemed a long time, and then the door opened and a man walked out and came toward me. He wasn’t one of the two workmen but I had the feeling he’d been caught by that room too. He sat on the bench where I’d sat. He was gaunt as a lich, and though I spoke to him repeatedly he said nothing but just sat staring with unblinking eyes. In World War II they used to call that the “thousand yard stare.”

The worst occurred right before my next to last awakening of the night. I had managed to escape the room but the entity was still pursuing me. It had gotten out of the room too and was spreading through the building. I decided that, as I’d been able to do previously in my life in dreams, I would stop the “monster” through the force of will. I was standing at the door to a safe room and I could feel the entity coming down the corridor toward me, like a wave of blistering heat. I held out my left hand; my right hand was on the door ready to slam it. I put all my strength into willing the entity to stop. It paused; I could feel it straining against my strength, boiling like smoke as it sought a way past.

For a moment, I held. Then the door was ripped from its hinges in an explosion of sound. There was no need to run now. The entity was all around me. I’d not escape again. I suppose that’s what it wanted all along. After that the dream stopped recurring and I managed the next sleep cycle in peace. I was rather glad of that.
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End of Term Chores

Well, the good news is that I've turned in all my grades, except for 2 students who didn't show up for the final test and who I've been unable to get in touch with. The bad news is we still have graduation ceremonies on Friday and Saturday. At Xavier, all faculty are required to show up in academic regalia to take part in the graduation process. I didn't mind so much the first ten years, but the last 13 have been a little harder to take. Graduation speeches and marches don't change much.

Academic regalia, by the way, means that we have to wear those long black robes and a dainty little square hat with a tassle on it perched on our heads. I look so extinguished (and no that isn't a typo for "distinguised"). For the first few years I always wore a suit and tie, sans jacket, under the robes. Then I started wearing dress slacks and a dress shirt with a tie. Then the tie went. Now I just wear some kind of lightweight slacks and a t-shirt. No one's going to see what's underneath anyway. At least not till I get home to Lana.

The other bad news is end of the semester chores. I finally got around to cleaning out my car today. Stuff has been piling up for a couple of semesters. Next I have to tackle my office. I hate chores. And it's already HOT down here for doing outside chores. I was sweltering.

Maybe I'll have a nap instead!
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The Shakeup Has Begun

Well, the first thing I’ve been doing to shake myself up a bit is read things I don’t normally read. To that end, I’ve finished the first two Harry Potter books and will start on the third this evening. I have read Young Adult fiction before, but almost always science fiction or animal stories. This is the first fantasy oriented YA I’ve read in quite a few years. I must say I enjoyed both Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets quite a bit. I gave them both 4 stars on Goodreads. They were easy reads, with interesting characters, and though the action scenes were few and far between and were not terribly well written, the stories held my interest anyway. I think I can see why youngsters would love them, and I probably would have loved them more when I was a wee tyke. I was going to order the third book on my Kindle this morning but these aren’t available on Kindle. I guess they are still selling too much in printed form. Lana and I are going out to dinner tonight, though, right next door to Barnes & Noble, so I’ll pick up the third book there. I certainly wouldn’t be going out deliberately to buy the third book if I hadn’t enjoyed the first two, and I feel comfortable recommending them for adults as well as kids.

I also picked up a couple of graphic novels. I’ve read only half a dozen of these in my life, but since I very much enjoyed Watchmen I’ve been eyeing such works with a bit more respect. So far I’ve read The Darkness: Ultimate Collection. Although the artwork was fantastic, I was much less enamored of the writing and the story. This essentially included the first few issues of the comic, and then a second, slightly later set of issues. I really liked the first half, which was another “origin” story. I don’t really know what all the “Pencils,” “Inks,” etc. means as far as people’s involvement with the story, but I’m assuming (someone correct me if I’m wrong) that Garth Ennis, listed as “Story,” is the main writer for the first half of this work. I thought he did a very fine job. Unfortunately, the second half of the “Ultimate Collection” had a different person, called “Writer,” and it seemed to undermine much of the good stuff that had gone before. Carefully nurtured characters had their personalities twisted and were used as plot fodder rather than acting consistently with the setup for them in the first issues. Other characters were spent cheaply when they could have been much more effective alive, and there were plot twists of convenience that mainly served to irritate me. Although the promise of the first part might have persuaded me to spill more money (These things are expensiveeeee), the drop off in the second part has ended my association with The Darkness.

I have another graphic novel, which I’ll probably start today, called The Magdalena. And just to let you know how out of it I am where graphic novels are concerned, I just realized as I was looking through it for this post that this is also an issue of The Darkness. I guess I’m not through with that series, after all. This is part of that universe apparently, but featuring a different main character. It’s also written by a different person from either of the first two I read in the series so all bets are off as to what I’ll get. I’ll let you know.


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Going Stale

Do you ever feel the need to shake things up? To shake yourself up? I've been feeling a bit that way lately. It's not boredom. I don't get bored when left to my own devices. It's more like I'm in a bit of a rut. Particularly in my imagination. I seem to be running the same scenarios over and over in my head, putting myself into the same old scenes. That doesn't bode well for writing a novel.

I’ve had such things happen to me before, usually after too long a period of sustained work that isn’t challenging to my imagination. But I’ve got a plan. Over the next few days I plan to 1) read stuff I don’t usually read, 2) listen to music I haven’t listened to in a while, 3) do some physical exercise, 4) write some stuff I don’t normally write, and 4) play. Let’s hope this knocks the cobwebs out.

How about you? What do you do when you want to recharge or realign? How do you shake yourself up?

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I'm Back, again. For a Bit.

I’m back for the weekend. I’ll be making the blog rounds today. Then the grading starts again on Monday. We’re nearing the end, though. I’m looking forward to a break.

Unfortunately, plagiarism reared its head on some papers. Very, very disappointing. I covered the problem of plagiarism numerous times this semester but not everyone listened. That’s about all I’m going to say about that.

On the positive side, I got a nice surprise in the mail yesterday. It was a neat book entitled Dragons Composed, and it contains a story by me called “Dragon Lost.” The check was nice too.

The book has a great cover, with a kind of an old-timey parchment look. It’s published by Kerlak Publishing, and was assembled by James Ferris. There are 33 stories, some 330 pages. It combines the fantasy and literary genres. These are dragon stories, but unusual ones. My tale features a chess playing dragon but is more surrealism than fantasy. The specifics about the collection are about halfway down on the left side of the screen.

Here’s a taste of my piece: “The dragon came out of a distant rain that spilled like threads of taffy from concrete-gray sky to sober earth. I watched him cross the purple sage toward me, with his gleaming iridescent hide and the triple horns that stabbed from his head like accusing fingers.”

The newest Illuminata was also published. I’ve got a short essay on poetry in it. Click on Volume 7, Issue 2, April 2009 if you’re interested. The link’s at the bottom.

And for another positive, "G" over at Cedar's Mountain has a very nice review of Swords of Talera. Thanks "G!"

And now it’s off to visit my blog friends. I’ve missed you folks.
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What I Do For a Living

Some of you are faculty type folks, or have been, and know the kinds of things a college teacher does on a day to day basis, but even among faculty members there is a wide range of duties. We don't all do the same thing. Also, although I've mentioned my job here quite a bit, I've never really taken you through a blow by blow account of my version of academic life. Here's the nutshell version.

Normal faculty load at Xavier is four courses a week with at least three different "preps," meaning different courses. I only teach three courses (3 preps) a week because I have "release" time for a committee I'm the head of. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I have two classes of 50 minutes each. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have one class that lasts 1 hour and 15 minutes. That's not a lot of hours in the actual classroom, but there are quite a few additional hours involved in preparing for class, going over notes, doing background reading, preparing examples or demonstrations, etc. And there is a lot of time spent grading student papers, although that isn't usually an everyday thing.

Most bigger universities require two classes, 2 preps a week, but they also generally require a greater amount of orginal research productivity. This is where that famous dictum of, "publish or perish" comes in. At big universities, Ohio State, Stanford, Yale, etc, this is the rule and most faculty put a lot of time in on research and correspondingly less time on teaching. At Xavier the rule is more "publish or languish." You have to publish some to get tenure, but you don't necessarily have to publish on a regular basis, and the university is a little more general in what it considers scholarship. Still, unless you publish within your "field" fairly regularly, you are unlikely to receive promotions or merit raises. For me, this means that the nonfiction articles I do on writing and writers do not generally count. Only articles published in psychology count, and preferably articles in peer-reviewed journals on the subject of biological psychology. Peer-reviewed means that experts in the field review submitted articles and judge them acceptable, unacceptable, or in need of revision.

Besides teaching and scholarship, faculty members also must engage in "university service." This means either being chairperson of a department, or, most commonly, serving on university committees. Some committees are so time consuming that faculty actually get some release time from teaching to manage those committees. At Xavier, the Rank and Tenure Committee, which decides on tenure for faculty, is such a committee. I'm also chair of the Human Subjects committee (IRB), and I get a one class teaching reduction because of how time consumming it is.

Today was a pretty typical Monday for me. I got into the office around 8:20, and first responded to emails. There weren't many this morning but sometimes there are a lot. I then made some calls concerning IRB issues to Xavier's research supervisor, and picked up a 70 some odd page IRB proposal from a researcher at Boston College that had been mailed to me. I took 15 minutes to prepare for my first class, at 10:00, in the Psychology of Learning. Sometimes it takes me a lot longer to prepare but the topic for today is one I know very well. Lunch ran between 11:20 and 12:15/12:20 and I came back to prepare for my 1:00 class. This was again lighter than usual because we were getting ready for final exams and most of my class today was reviewing.

I picked up 26 assigned essays from the 1:00 class, which is called Historical and Applied Perspectives, and will grade those as soon as I finish this post. Then I'll start on the IRB proposal. I'm unlikely to finish going through that by the time I leave around 4:30, so I'll be working on that tonight and possibly some tomorrow.

A major difference I see between an academic job and most other jobs I've held (Dishwasher, Librarian Floor Supervisor, Chicken House Manager, Factory Worker) is the "feast or famine aspect. There will be weeks here and there where I'll have little grading to do, no IRB projects to approve, and no committee meetings. Those weeks are nice and it's then that I write most of my nonfiction and fiction. Other weeks are feast, in the sense of having a lot to do in every aspect of my job: reseearch, teaching/grading, and committee work.

I'm entering one of those "feast" times now. I'm getting final papers from my writing class tomorrow, giving a big exam on Wednesday, and giving two big exams next Monday. Just to let you know, I probably won't be posting much on my own blog, or visiting others' blogs after today. I'll be back once most of that grading is done.
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Fan Fiction

OK, I’ve been getting an education since I posted my “Ich bin ein Trekker” piece. I knew there was fan fiction out there, and that there was a lot based on Star Trek, although I’ve never read any of the Trek zines where this kind of thing has been typically published. I’ve certainly read professionally published stories by folks who began their writing lives as Trekkers and I’ve always known some of their story lines came from their own fan fiction.

I also knew that other TV shows had their own fan fic, including Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Stargate SG-1, and I found out a few years ago about the beginnings of fan fic in the Harry Potter universe. I was also aware that certain characters, most notably in my experience, Conan the Cimmerian, Tarzan, and Sherlock Holmes had been the subject of many pastiche stories in small fanzines.

There were a number of things I did not know. First, I had no idea of the “extent” of the fan fiction that has been and is being published for all kinds of shows and characters. By Crom, but it is huge! Second, I had no idea that the “vast” majority of fan fic written for TV shows is written by women. It seems to be different where pastiche stories about characters in books are concerned; many of those writers, perhaps most, appear to be men. Third, I had never heard of “Kraith,” which is a whole subgenre of Star Trek Fan fiction set in a related but not quite canonical Trek Universe. It focuses on the Vulcans, and at least one story has Spock administering a sound spanking to Kirk. Fourth, until two days ago I had “never” heard the word slash associated with fan fiction and had no idea what it meant. I had heard, many years ago, that a story or two had been written about Kirk and Spock as gay lovers. It is apparently a LOT more than a couple of stories. (The name “slash” comes from the way in which “Kirk/Spock” is often written when referring to these stories.)

When I first heard about the Kirk/Spock stories I assumed they were written by gay men who were Star Trek or SF fans. Turns out the vast majority of these stories are also written by women, primarily heterosexual women. I have to say that confuses me a bit, although I’ve become aware in the last few years that there is a pretty big market for male on male erotica and that most of it is written by women for women. As a psychologist, I find that rather fascinating, although I can’t quite come up with a theory as to why it occurs. I would welcome input.

As for fan fic, I’d also be interested in hearing from folks who write it as to why they enjoy it. I can certainly understand the enjoyment of taking part in a kind of imaginative game using established characters in an established universe. I’ve imagined myself in the universe of Star Trek myself, although I never had much urge to write those stories down.

I’ve never written fan fic myself, although I once rough drafted a Conan pastiche for the REHupa group that I’m in. I think, in my case, it has most to do with the fact that I really like to have complete control over the creative aspects of writing myself. I don’t want to be constrained by someone else’s imagination, although I’m not above borrowing the good stuff.

Anyway, thanks to those who have helped educate me on fan fic over the last few days, and thanks to Wikipedia for the help in discovering more about Kraith and Slash fiction. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all, and I’m desperately trying not to imagine Kirk over Spock’s knee with his pants down for a spanking.

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Book Roast: Cold in the Light

I forgot to mention that the Book Roast is going on all this week. That means a chance to win free books, as well as have some fun answering strange questions and feeling free to make off-the-wall remarks. So check it out.

And, especially, please check it out tomorrow, Thursday, April 16. I’ll be the grillee, or grilled, or whatever it’s called, and there’ll be a chance win a copy of Cold in the Light. Even if you have a copy drop by for a visit. I’ll be popping in and out all day to answer questions and respond to comments, which means most of my blogging tomorrow will be over there.

Chris Eldin and the Book Roast crew have done a wonderful job with this project, and I know it's been a lot of work for them. They grilled Swords of Talera back when it came out so they have also been very, very good to me.

Yeah Book Roast!
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Ich Bin Ein Trekker

"Trekker!" That's Trekkie to some.

Star Trek, with the original crew, remains one of the very few--perhaps only--TV show that I've seen every episode of, and is certainly the only show I've seen every episode of multiple times. Star Trek: TNG is second. I have exactly two autographed photos of stars on my bookshelves. Both are for Star Trek actors. Over the years I've picked up individual tie-in novels from several TV shows, including Highlander, The Rat Patrol, Alien Nation, and Man from Atlantis. I have one volume of each, and have only read the first two. But I have and have read close to 50 tie-in books for Star Trek Classic alone, including for the animated series, and I just ordered a few more. I have never read a biography or autobiography of an actor. Not one. Except for Star Trek. I've read both Shatner's and Nimoy's biographies about their Star Trek experiences.

In fact, I've just started a Star Trek Mini reading spree. I finished Spock Must Die! by James Blish this weekend and really enjoyed it, and am now happily immersed in Star Trek Lives!, a nonfiction book about the Star Trek phenomenon, which was published in 1975. I have a couple more Trek books ready to go next. You might think it was the upcoming release of the new Star Trek movie that turned on my Star Trek button, and I'm sure that had some influence, but I've experienced such sprees before. Numerous times. I love Star Trek.

Star Trek Lives! has made me ask the question again as to why? Why is Star Trek the only TV show that I am actually a fan, in the sense of fanatic, of? The book talks about the "optimism" that infused the show, about the dynamics between the characters, about the philosophy. I'm sure all those played some role in hooking me. But I frankly am not sure exactly why this show among the many connected so strongly with me. I'm going to give it some thought and get back to you.

In the meantime, Live Long, and Prosper, and tell me why you, too, are a Trekker. And tell me: If you're not a Trekker, why not? Or are you a similar fan of some other show? I don't see how that could be, but I'll try to forgive you anyway!
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Movies and the Shaky Cam

I watched a couple of movies this weekend while off for Easter: Lakeview Terrace and Quarantine. Both were sadly flawed. Lakeview Terrace had some interesting characterizations and I thought it had the makings of a pretty good movie, but it was very slow to develop. The model for this kind of urban thriller to me is Pacific Heights, and this one had nowhere near the suspense of that movie, although to be fair it didn't have as clear cut of a bad guy either.

Quarantine's flaws were of a different sort. The premise and setting were interesting, although not terribly original, and there were some cool gory sections, as when a badly injured man tries to walk on a broken leg. The problem was the shaky cam. The premise was that a TV night show crew consisting of a woman reporter and a camerman ride along with a fire crew who are called out to treat a sick woman. Once the firemen and camera crew are inside the building, along with a couple of cops, the feds lock the building down because of the disease, which seems to develop into uncontrollable rage.

Unfortunately, all we see of the events is the "camera eye," (Shaky cam) view. I suspect that someone somewhere thinks the shaky cam adds realism to a movie. The opposite is the case. Whether shaky cam or not, we all know at the beginning of a movie that we're just watching a movie. With the regular camera set up, we only have to suspend our disbelief once, and then we're into the movie. With the shaky cam we are constantly bombarded with the realization that this is only a movie, and, unfortunately, we're only seeing bits and pieces of that movie. In Quarantine, for example, I could not suspend my disbelief over and over as to the fact that a "real person" was supposed to be filming all this, and I could not get past my irritation that at times the movie I paid for consisted of running feet. Had I known it was shaky cam I'd never have rented it.

Just say "no" to shaky cam.
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Forgotten Books Friday: Short story

First, I'm sorry I haven't been around visiting blogs much this week. Besides feeling a bit down, I got the rough drafts from my writing class on Tuesday and spent a LOT of time commenting on and correcting those. But here's my post for Forgotten Books Friday for this week. I'll head out to look at blogs after I get this up.

Pattinase has suggested that this week’s Forgotten Book Friday feature a forgotten short story. Since I love me some short stories, I am so happy to take part. And man was it hard to narrow down my choices. There are so many wonderful short stories that I could talk about: The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin, Surface Tension by James Blish, Nightfall by Isaac Asimov, Hangover by John D. MacDonald, The Jaunt by Stephen King, The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke, Riding for the Brand by Louis L’Amour, A Relic of War by Keith Laumer, Valley of the Worm and Worms in the Earth by Robert E. Howard, etc. etc.

But I’ve decided on a story by Ray Bradbury. Bradbury has had so many incredible stories of course, The Veldt, The Fog Horn, The Golden Apples of the Sun, The Small Assassin, The Wind, and many more. But there’s one that I’ve never seen reprinted and almost never see anyone talk about. This is “Frost and Fire,” a longish story from the collection R is for Rocket, which was first published in 1962. I first read this collection sometime back in the sixties and “Frost and Fire” stayed with me for years after, although I forgot the title and the collection it was in. For several years in my late 30s I searched and searched for the story but was unable to remember the title or even who had written it until a friend of mine identified it for me. I believe that friend was Steve Tompkins. I immediately read the story again, and just reread it this week in preparation for this post.

Although it’s in an anthology whose title suggests science fiction stories, and it involves a space ship, “Frost and Fire” is very much a fantasy. Physically and technically it is an impossible tale, but it’s still wonderful for all that.

Imagine a world where humans are born, grow, mate, age, and die in 8 days. It’s a world where the sun kills and the ice at night freezes the very marrow, where for only two hours a day, at dusk and dawn, are people able to leave their caves and run and play and gather food amid the rapidly growing plants.

Imagine though, that in the distance, winking in the early morning sunlight, the people see a ship, the last intact ship from the space fleet that brought them to this nightmare planet. A child named Sim is born into this world. He is born with the racial memory of all his people, and the telepathy that lets them learn quickly what they need to know to survive. A girl named Lyte is born at the same time, and comes to love Sim. And all this happens quickly, quickly, quickly. Because death is only days away.

Sim yearns to reach that ship, although no one has ever survived such an attempt. And Lyte is determined to accompany him. I won’t tell you the ending, but the story is well worth the read if you can find it.

There was a brief revival of interest in this story in the 1980s. In 1983 it became the basis of a short film called Quest, and in 1985 it was adapted as a graphic novel by Klaus Jansen for DC comics. I have not seen the film or read the graphic novel, and didn’t even know that either existed until I started researching this post. I’ll begin looking for that graphic novel, though. “Frost and Fire” is definitely a forgotten story these days, though, and it shouldn’t be. It shows Bradbury at the height of his powers.
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Memoriam

Robert E. Howard fandom has lost two tireless supporters of late. And I’ve lost two friends.

First, Steve Tompkins died March 23rd, although I didn’t find out about it until Friday, April 3rd. Steve was in REHupa with me, the Robert E. Howard foundation. We found out from his brother that he had been admitted into the hospital after a bout with food poisoning, but then had a heart attack, which is what killed him. He had been rallying from the food poisoning when the heart attack occurred. Steve lived in New York City where he worked for The Bank of New York. His parents and three brothers are still living and I know they must miss him terribly.

I only met Steve once in person, in Cross Plains, Texas for Howard Days, but we corresponded many times over the years. Steve was the most erudite person I’ve ever known, with a prodigious memory for literary works and a wonderfully witty style of writing about literature. He single-handedly raised the level of Howard scholarship with his many essays for REHupa, as well as his blog posts and his beautifully researched introductions and/or essays for a number of recent Howard books. He will be missed by many, and I’m one of them.

Then, on Saturday, April 4, I found out that Joan McCowen had died after a year long battle with cancer. Joan was a member of Project Pride, the local Cross Plains group that bought and restored the Robert E. Howard house and turned it into a museum. She always supported Howard's Legacy, and the Howard fans who trooped through Cross Plains every year. Joan was a strong presence every time I went to Cross Plains for Howard days. She was a personable and energetic woman, although in the last year or so she had really been hit hard by her illness. She too will be missed, and everywhere I look in Cross Plains this year there will be a blank spot hiding part of the world.

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My Writing Class

I haven't talked about my Writing in Psychology class as much as I thought I might this spring, but I just gave my class an assignment that I hope will turn out interesting.

I told them I wanted them to write a "tip article" directed at a novice writer. In other words, I asked them to write an advice column/essay about writing. Tell someone else what you think is an important thing, or the important thing(s), that someone new to writing should know. I hope this will really make them think about what we've covered so far this semester and about whether it was good advice or not.

I did this last time I taught this class as well, several years ago, and I got some really good pieces. I even edited two of the papers and published them in my Writer's Block column for The Illuminata. Those students were very excited to see their names in print, and those papers deserved to be there once they were given a bit of editing.

I didn't mention this to my current class, but if I get some good articles I might do the same this year. It all depends on what I get. The fact is, writing out one's thoughts remains one of the best ways to truly understand and clarify one's thinking. It also helps you learn the material better. It's why I started writing articles about writing in the first place, so that I could myself understand what was important about the act of writing. And it's why the core of ideas that I first explore here on the blog sometimes get written up more formally later for my column.

I sometimes think I don't really understand anything until I can write about it. How about you?

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A Story about a Story

One book I picked up at garage sale day was The Colorado Kid by Stephen King. I can’t say I’m enjoying it much so far. I’m about 40 pages in, and it’s been very slow.

The main problem is that it’s a story about a story instead of just being a story. Let me explain.

The tale begins with two older newspapermen, both Islanders, and a younger female reporter talking to a mainland reporter. The mainland fellow doesn’t get what he came for, a story about some unsolved mystery, and leaves. The young woman begins to ask whether there are any unsolved mysteries on the island, and the two older men begin to tell her the story of the “Colorado Kid.”

Do you see the problem?

Fiction is already a second hand report. We begin reading with the clear knowledge that we’re being told a story by someone else, the invisible writer. If the writer does his or her job well, we soon forget we’re being told a story and start to live it.

But now, with “Colorado Kid,” I’m being told a story by Stephen King about two guys who are telling a different story to a young woman. It seems like I’m trying to hear the primary story of the “Kid” with a loud conversation going on in the background. So far I’ve not been able to slip inside the story. I’m outside looking in, and I don’t much enjoy it.

Last week I read a tale set in ancient Rome that was told in a “letter” written to someone else. I kept thinking, why not just tell “me” the story, instead of telling someone else and letting me listen in? You could have saved a few hundred words. Now, I can enjoy stories told in letters when the story is “inside” the letters, when it goes back and forth between the letter writers. But this was just “one” letter, explaining everything that happened to one person. Why distance readers further than they already are?

With “Colorado Kid,” at around 35 (its actually 50) pages we read about a couple of young joggers who find a dead body on the beach. Bingo! There’s where the story starts. Show us the joggers, show ‘em seeing the body, approaching the body, realizing it’s a dead man. And I’m with you. I’ve already forgotten the writer. I’m living the tale. Cut out the prelims.

Maybe there are times when the “story about a story” technique is useful, and maybe old Stephen has a plan up his sleeve. I’ll go ahead and read some more, because at least the book is pretty short. But it isn’t a good sign when I pick up the book I’m currently reading, and instead of opening the cover to where I left off, I gaze longingly at my pile of to-be-read books. The “Colorado Kid” cut ahead of a bunch of books on that pile, and so far I’ve regretted that rash decision.

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