Follow-up to Hot, Blue, and Righteous

Well, I’m scrounging for blog posts at the moment, not having a lot of time outside of work to “think.” So, here’s a follow-up to my last post.

Those who guessed this poem is about ZZ Top, also known as “That Little Old Band from Texas,” are correct and win…uhm, well, nothing. The poem contains numerous references to the Top, mostly in song titles, or occasionally in lyrics. I’m annotating the poem below with the references, in brackets []. As you can see, if you care to read through it, some of the references are clear and concrete while others are oblique or downright vague. But this is how my mind works sometimes while I’m drinking, especially when I get to just the right level of buzz. As you can also see, the moral of this piece is “Drugs are bad. Okay. Kids, don’t do drugs.”

HOT BLUE & RIGHTEOUS [song title]

Three [3 members in the Top] went blind [Song title is “Arrested for Driving while Blind”] to Texas [the Top’s home state]

Down to the forest and the [lyric from “Jesus Just left Chicago”] plains [“Plains” is a common mishearing of the real word, “Pines,” in “Jesus Just left Chicago.” In fact, I thought it was “plains” for years.]

Drew a last “got paid” from the bank [Song title, “Just Got Paid”]

Bought one hellraiser [from “Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers”] bottle of black [ref to “Black Fly” song + a twist on the line “drink down a bottle of midnight red” from “Groovy Little Hippie Pad”]

Carried a siphon under pressure [“She’s Got Me Under Pressure” is a lyric from a Top song]

Cause gas cost too much nationwide [Song title, “I’m bad, I’m Nationwide”]

And they bummed [“Bummed” is a frequently misheard lyric for “bombed” in the song “Pearl Necklace”] in sparks and beer [from the songs “Master of Sparks” and “Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers”]

And smoked the butts gone [ref. to the song “Mexican Blackbird”]

Drank the Rio Grande to dregs [“Rio Grande Mud” was the Top’s second album and the first one I bought. Also, drinking is common in a lot of Top songs." The Rio Grande also borders Texas]

While the Top played the radio [for ZZ Top, of course, and you hear ‘em a lot on radio]

And they dreamed women [Most Top songs seem to be about women]

Blackbirds and pearls [Ref’s to song titles “Mexican Blackbird” and “Pearl Necklace”]

Francine with legs [“Francine” and “Legs” are both ZZ Top song titles, and both songs are about women, as referenced in previous line]

But when momma called [Next few lines, down to “Boogie Woogie,” are only slightly twisted lyrics from the song “Backdoor Medley,” one of my favorite Top pieces]
On that long distance cell-o-phone
And daddy didn’t tell ‘em

To Boogie Woogie [Papa said “Let that boy Boogie Woogie.”]

They brought their blue jeans [from song titled “Blue Jean Boogie”]

Home to Mississippi [several songs, but mainly “My Head’s in Mississippi”]

What’s up with that? [a song title]

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Hot Blue and Righteous

Some of you will get the references in this drunken piece of drivel, but only if you're a fan of a certain Little Old Band. There's even a tie-in between the band and the second part of my post for today.

HOT BLUE & RIGHTEOUS

Three went blind to Texas
Down to the forest and the plains
Drew a last “got paid” from the bank
Bought one hellraiser bottle of black
Carried a siphon under pressure
Cause gas cost too much nationwide
And they bummed sparks and beer
And smoked the butts gone
Drank the Rio Grande to dregs
While the Top played the radio
And they dreamed women
Blackbirds and pearls
Francine with legs
But when momma called
On that long distance cell-o-phone
And daddy didn’t tell ‘em
To boogie woogie
They brought their blue jeans
Home to Mississippi
What’s up with that?

Also, a good friend of mine, Scott Hall, has just started to blog. He’s a fellow REHupan, a fine writer, and another “longhair.” Please give him a welcome over at Blog of the Beast. And no, beast is a nickname for him, not anything to do with him being the son of Satan. Although, I swear a time or two in Cross Plains, Texas I’ve seen the outline of horns under his Viking hair. Coulda just been the beer. And the mead.

BTW, Scott and I have another thing in common. We’re both married to women far higher on the looks scale than we are. Talk about beauties and the beasts they married.

*Waves at Kim and Lana*
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Politics

I’ve seen quite a few blog posts lately on political issues. It’s understandable, given the times and the upcoming election. But I’m often at a loss as to how to comment on such posts, and I hope folks don’t get upset with me if I disagree with them. People often express very strong feelings, and it’s usually clear that they really “don’t” understand how anyone could believe differently from them. Of course, I’m the same way. If I view a candidate in a certain light, it seems obvious to me that my reasoning is correct. I like to tell myself that I make my decisions based on reason, but I know that isn’t always the case. Everyone wants to think they are being rational, but humans can’t escape their emotional natures. And this means you too, I’m afraid. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.

I also find myself to be an incredible cynic these days where politics is concerned. I mean, when have we seen a politician who really seems to care about people in the modern world? Oh, they all give lip service to it. But do you believe their words? I’m afraid that most of the time I don’t. And I’m talking about Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. There’s an old adage: how do you know when a politician is lying? Answer: when his, or her, lips are moving. Well, I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that there’s a lot of truth in that.

Many of the folks I see posting on politics are idealists. They honestly want to make the world a better place. I admire that. But I always want to warn folks that idealists are the politician’s favorite prey. If one can focus passion, then one can accomplish one’s goals. Unfortunately, the politician’s goals may not be the same as what the passionate believers “think” those goals are.

Cynics are not necessarily the enemy of politicians, however. If they’re so cynical that they do nothing, then the politicians can freely discount them. So, I’m going to vote. And I’m voting for the candidate that I “believe” best offers a chance for a change in the direction our country has been heading. Do I believe the direction will really change? Nope.

But I have hope. I suppose I just have to. It’s part of my irrational nature.
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Mood In Writing

The response to my Monday post suggested how important mood is to writing. It started me thinking that one of the primary goals of writing is, in fact, to create a mood in the reader—happy, angry, frightened, melancholy. A writer’s success at hooking the reader, or lack thereof, depends to a large extent on whether readers are experiencing the mood the writer wants them to experience. But how can words create a mood?

Fortunately, human beings are emotionally expressive. We’re wired for emotion and most of us like it. We read fiction to be emotionally involved. So, the writer has a partner in the drive to create a mood. I know, as a reader, I desperately want the writers of the books I’m reading to be successful. I’ll meet them halfway, but they are the ones driving and the first move is theirs.

I find that most writers have strengths and weaknesses in their ability to create mood. Personally, I find it easier to create melancholy moods than happy ones. I’m not exactly sure why. I’ve definitely experienced sad times, but I’ve had plenty of happy ones as well. I’m not generally a sad kind of guy. But an important aspect of creating mood in writing, I think, is for the writer to be experiencing the very mood they are trying to induce. When I’m happy, I tend to spend less time writing. I’m doing other, happy things. I express myself with laughter maybe, but happy moods don’t send me to the keyboard. In contrast, when I’m feeling a little down I seem to naturally gravitate toward words in an attempt to express the feeling.

I also find that certain words or phrases have the strength to evoke certain moods in me. “Gray rain.” “Barren trees.” “Cemetery.” “Coffin.” These shift my mind toward melancholy. “Zephyr wind.” “Clear stream.” “Cicada.” These tend to create a summer mood, peaceful and relaxed. A lot of this is the power of association. Cemeteries are associated with loss, and loss with sadness. In Arkansas, I remember hearing the Cicadas’ strident song every summer when I was working on the farm. To create mood we need to find the words that are associated with the experience of that mood. And those words and phrases, if we let them, will shift our own mood toward the one we’re trying to convey.

So, if you’re a writer, what mood do you find easiest to evoke? Which one is hardest? As a writer or a reader, or just a person in general, what words or phrases create mood for you? I’m curious to see how different your words are from mine.
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Gray as Hearth's Ashes

Drove through a cemetery sky the color of steel-wool this morning. And "through" is the exact word. On the Causeway bridge over Lake Pontchartrain in the rain, with the clouds sewn gray around you like a tattered shroud, you are part of the sky. And alone. Oh, there were other cars on the road with me. But they were separate coffins. Each one set apart. Each one isolated.

And on such a day, the radio played only sad songs. Bound within the car's frame with my thoughts, it was impossible to believe that the music came from elsewhere, from far away. It seemed to arise wholly out of the bubble of space I occupied, transmuted from the whine and hiss of the tires on wet cement, and from the metronomic swish of the wipers.

My mood deepened, darkened. Why at such times do you always remember the wrongs you've done? I tried to weigh my contributions this morning, subtracting the bills that others have paid because of me. I'm afraid I found the balance sheet wanting. I’m in the red.

I wonder sometimes if the world will end this way for me, and I’ll be left driving on into the rain, driving on forever on a bridge that goes nowhere. I imagine the other cars sliding away, one by one. I feel the sky closing in until my wheels turn only on wind. Do you think there will be a moment when the music stops and I am caught in a world of gray amber, left to listen to gathering silence?

Will I know it when it happens?

I'm a Winner

How cool is this! I just won a $25.00 gift certificate over at the Book Roast for a t-shirt slogan idea I posted. There were some great entries so I’m amazed that I won. My entry was: “Reading: It’s not just for the bathroom anymore.” Thanks very much to Moonrat for selecting me, and to Chris Eldin for organizing these roasts, which must be a lot of work. I’ve already been poking around at Amazon to see what I want. Well, who am I kidding, I really kind of want them all. But I’m looking forward to narrowing my selection down.

As for the local conditions, we’ve had a lot of wind yesterday and today due to Hurricane Ike passing underneath us, but nothing serious has happened. But this is a big storm so I hope all our friends in Texas are bracing for impact or getting the hell out, depending on where they live.

In writing news, I’m working right now on the update for the Neuropsychological article and it’s getting close to done. I still have two original pieces to do, though, which will take longer, and I’m going to have to cut back on blogging a bit. This morning I had 50 new posts on Google Reader, then 18 more new ones after lunch, and 9 more just a few minutes ago. There is so much great stuff going on in the blog world, like the Book Roast, Bernardl’s online novel, the interviews that Shauna Roberts’ runs, and the funny cartoons that folks like Laughingwolf post, but I’m pretty close to saturation point at the moment. I’ll continue visiting blogs but won’t be posting comments as frequently. The writing just has to come first.

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To The Princess in the Olive-Green Volvo SUV

Dear Princess:

Clearly from our interactions on the highway this morning, I am not suited to share the road with your highness. However, because there might be other peasants who do not instantly recognize your royalty and may get in your way tomorrow, I wonder if you’d allow me to make a few humble suggestions and comments.

First, on-ramps onto the freeway are typically meant for one individual automobile at a time. In the future, instead of passing me on the on-ramp so that you can swing into the far lane before I’ve even merged, thus putting you fifty feet ahead of me, simply flick your headlights at me and I will instantly move over and allow you to proceed. After all, how dare I merge before you.

Second, strangely enough, despite your need for speed, when we got to the toll bridge some three miles later, you were precisely in front of me. Other peasants were in your way perhaps. Anyway, I’m sure you were far too busy with your high-level thoughts to read, but the line that says “toll-tag only” is actually meant for those who have toll-tags on their automobiles. There are several other lanes for those who will need to pay cash for their toll. Of course, despite my own toll-tag, I was happy to wait in line behind you while you searched through your purse for the three dollars. Other peasants might not be so patient, however, so perhaps you should get a personalized license plate that reveals your “royal blood.”

Third, I imagine you were putting your purse away, or some equally important task, as you got onto the Causeway, which would explain why you were driving slowly after leaving the toll booth. I am sincerely sorry that I attempted to pass you in the other lane, and I appreciate you cutting me off, forcing me to slam on my brakes as you finally selected “my” lane to drive in. It was thoughtless of me to attempt to drive the speed limit when you were going more slowly in front of me. You will note that I backed well off from your bumper after that event so that you could proceed unhampered by such dirt-grubbers as myself.

Fourth, what a glorious day it was to find that after driving 24 miles of the Causeway bridge, we arrived at the far end at almost precisely the same time. You may remember that you were in the left lane and I in the right. I am so sorry that I forgot my previous lesson and once more attempted to pass you. I was confused because your lane was moving more slowly than mine. How dare I take lane space better suited for your sweet little Volvo. My horn was only meant to indicate that I wanted out of your way before you took off my entire front end as you once more cut me off. I do appreciate you honking your own horn in acknowledgment.

And please have no doubt as to the intentions behind my lone fingered salute. It was only meant to indicate that you are indeed…Number 1.
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When Death Comes for Me

Feel like rocking tonight. Listening to old Black Sabbath. “Sweet Leaf.” “Snow Blind.” “The Warning.” If there’s a soundtrack to evil, Black Sabbath wrote it.

Then I open a more modern Hell for some Black Label Society. “Suicide Messiah.” Or I listen to a little cultural commentary with Marilyn Manson’s “The New Shit” and The Crue’s “Find Myself.” Wind it up with a little “I am the Bullgod” with Kid Rock. After, I slow it down with “Space Lord” by Monster Magnet and then "Screaming in the Night" by Krokus.

Makes me want to ride a pale horse with the Wild Hunt, to feel the scrape of briars across my leathers while the horns skirl and reap the silence.

In my dreams sometimes I run the dark. My teeth are long. Crimson at the roots. At campfire’s edge, my eyes gleam wicked yellow. My pupils are dilated. And I am:

WATCHING

When death comes for me
I’ll wait in the black light
Armed to the teeth
With blade and bullet

Standing in the rain
The wine bite of life
Bloody on my tongue
Eyes smoking ready

When death comes for me
I’ll be fueled for fire
I’ll throw him a red kiss
But it won’t be sweet

Standing under eclipsed sun
With the wink of steel
Hiding cold in my fists
Smiling only with my mouth

When death comes for me
His angel wings spread dark
He’ll find a machine rusted
But sharp edged and poison

Standing in a blank wind
A ghost with scars for eyes
With ruins for memories
He’ll find me...watching

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Lost Days.

Is it already Saturday? How time flies when you have electricity. I remarked to Lana during the “Lost Days” as we refer to them, how slow time seemed to move when we had no computers, no telephone, no internet, no TV, and when we couldn’t even get out of our own yard. I read during those days, read and sweltered and occasionally grilled something on the barbecue. I wouldn’t mind a little bit of that slower pace sometimes, but only if it can come with AC at the same time.

Lana is still uploading videos from the Lost Days so I won’t steal that thunder. I’ll post here when they’re ready. The process is slow.

In other items, I finally managed to respond to my Google Reader feeds yesterday. When I got back online I found 198 posts waiting for me, and in a moment of “Oh my God, I can’t do this,” I hit “mark all as read.” Sorry about that, and about the great posts I'm sure I missed. But sanity required it. I’m still behind but I’ll start getting caught up today, and will resume making individual responses to comments on my own posts.

I’ve got to get started quickly, however, on three new reference articles for a book on mental health. I’ve got new pieces to do on the topics of “fear” and “transvestism,” and have to update an entry on Neuropsychology. I sent in a list of ten topics I’d be willing to work on, chosen from their master list of topics, saying that I only wanted three assignments total. This is the three.

The “fear” one is a natural for me since I’m interested in horror fiction and have given presentations on fear and horror before. And since I’m a biological psychologist, the neuropsych one is straightforward. I threw the transvestism topic in as a possibility because it’s something I don’t know much about, but I find it interesting as a disorder since the act of cross-dressing is so prevalent in our society. It seems like every TV sitcom has had some episode where a guy dresses as a woman and everyone laughs. I’m not quite sure why. I don’t know if they still do it, but there used to be a group of male Washington Redskin fans who dressed as really “ugly” women for the games. My tiny hometown of Charleston, Arkansas even has a “womanless beauty contest.” And, of course, in New Orleans there is Mardi Gras and Southern Decadence, both of which involve extensive costuming and cross-dressing.

I’ve already learned that the term “transvestism” was coined by Magnus Hirschfeld in 1910 in Germany. Hirschfeld had several things working against him during the later Nazi period and had to flee the country. He was Jewish, gay, a cross-dresser, and a foot fetishist. Worst of all, he was a medical doctor.

Finally, one book I read during the Lost Days deserves special mention. This is Nightblood by T. Chris Martindale. What an excellent action horror novel. It’s one of the best I’ve read in a long time. Great characters and action mixed with atmospheric horror and vicious vampires. I’ve read one other horror novel by Martindale, Where the Chill Waits, and it was even better. I’m reading a third one by Martindale now, and have a fourth one ready. That’s apparently all he wrote. One rather odd thing I’ve noticed about Martindale is that he, more than any other writer I’ve ever read, reminds me of my own writing style. I’m talking about the style I used in Cold in the Light particularly.

All right, time to make the Google Reader rounds.
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Back Online At Last

Just a short note to say Lana and I got our power back this evening and can finally start to claw out from under our backlog of messages. Some initial priorities included baths. Four days without electricity in southern Louisiana, meaning no AC and no running water, can...well...let's just say that it's a good thing this net thing doesn't allow smellovision.

We came through the storm OK, and we'll be giving some updates as time permits. Lana did some short videos that she'll be showing over this week, too. Our main problem was the electricity going out on Monday morning about 8:00, and then getting trapped in our neighborhood by rising flood waters. Our house and cars survived, but for three days we weren't even able to move out of our driveway unless we walked.

Anyway, more later. For now I'm going to try to catch up on critical emails and dream of a night sleeping with AC.

Sunday Evening Update, Gustav

Well, it's a bit after 10:00 pm here at Fortress Gramlich, and so far we've had no trouble. A band of rain squalls came through around dusk but there wasn't much wind with them. We lost internet for a while, and we've had two brownouts, but nothing to worry about as of yet. I can see on radar a much thicker band of rain squalls headed our way. They should be on us before long but they don't actually look terribly heavy. Of course, the storm won't make landfall until tomorrow so we've got some waiting to do.

In the meantime, I watched "Duel" again on TV, and it wasn't quite as good as I remember. Dennis Weaver was a bit of a whiney bitch. I've been doing some reading, as well. Don't feel as if I could concentrate on much writing at the moment.

Well, more updates as time passes. Internet access allowing. Take care all.

Technicolor Zombies

Yesterday, I finished reading Bits of the Dead, the zombie anthology I’ve mentioned here. Although it has hits and misses like any anthology, I thought the majority of the stories were pretty good. And I’m not just saying that because I have a piece in it. Since all the stories are short, flash fiction pieces of 1 to 3 pages, it also doesn’t take long to finish one you don’t particularly enjoy and move on to one you do. Especially in these days when concern about Gustav is always in the back of my mind, I appreciated the short pieces. They took me away for moments at a time from my worries, but didn’t require the lengthy concentration a novel would have. I actually wish I had a few more of these flash fiction anthologies around for just this reason.

The stories were salient enough so that last night I dreamed of zombies. I don’t remember all the details, but the gist of it was that people who were pretending to be zombies were attacked by real zombies. The real zombies had your standard gray, monochromatic appearance while the pretend zombies were done up beautifully in Technicolor hues. The fake organs and intestines they’d glued on were brilliant reds and pinks. They had bold slashes of yellow across their faces, and the pure white of fresh bones showing artfully through the fancy rags of their carefully selected costumes. The strangest part was when the pretend zombies were bitten and became real zombies, and how they hunted people now with their faces made up like zombie hookers. Outside, they were works of art; inside, they were gray and empty of all but hunger. I remember one, in particular. He was trying to eat his own fake intestines. He’d shove them in his mouth and bite down, then make a face and spit them out. Only to try a fresh bite moments later.

Gustav

Although Gustav is at current a tropical storm only, the coast is taking this one seriously. Xavier has already cancelled classes as of this Friday afternoon and only plans to reopen Thursday of next week, September 4. This seems a little bit of an overreaction to me. Since the storm is not going to even get close until Sunday at the earliest I'm not sure why Friday classes needed to be cancelled. And I guess it seems early to cancel classes next week when we are already off on Monday for Labor Day. However, all predictions are that Gustav will become a hurricane again, possibly a category 3. And that's nothing to sneeze at. Anyway, I'm not making the decisions, and I'm glad I'm not. I wouldn't want the responsibility.

I'll be posting again before the storm approaches, but if it comes close at all we'll surely loose our satellite internet connection. I may be out of touch for a few days next week. Let's hope it won't be longer than that. After Katrina it was months before the grid was back up.

As long as it's no more than a category 1, Lana and I will probably ride it out in our home. For a category 2 we'll have to strongly consider its direct track before making a decision. And if it's a 3 or better we're out of here.

A Change of Pace

I’ve started the commute to work again and that means listening to the radio. I have a CD player but I tend to listen to the radio because they also have traffic reports. And I’m reminded in my travels of a rant that I’ve shared with the seagulls and the lake on occasion. That is, why do they have to play the same songs over and over and over? Many of them bad songs, of course. To explain, I only get three radio channels, and a fourth one when I’m in range in the evening going home, that I’ll listen to. One is classic rock, one new rock, and the other oldies. I’ll listen to the oldies when the other two channels have nothing but talk talk talk on, which is far too often. But even when the rock stations are playing music they tend to play only the standards.

Now, I like a lot of the standards. Love “Stairway to Heaven,” “Radar Love,” “Sweet Home Alabama,” and many more. But there are plenty of other good songs that never get played: "Space Lord" by Monster Magnet. "Suicide Messiah" by Black Label Society. Etc. And, lets face it, there are some commonly played rock tunes that just frankly suck. They sucked the first time I heard them, and they certainly haven’t aged like fine mead. So, without further ado, here is my top twelve list of “rock” songs that I wish every radio station would lose from their catalogue.

12. “Home Sweet Home” by Motley Crue. I really like a lot of Motley’s songs. Their second album is especially good. But this song nearly made me stop buying Crue CDs forever. I eventually recovered and continued to pick up new Crue releases. But this tune is a wound I’ll never get completely over.

11. “Pour some Sugar on Me” by Def Lepperd. The Lepp had some good music back in the day, but this is simply godawful. It should be titled pour some “saccharine” on me, then shoot me in the head with a large caliber handgun before the bees sting the hell out of me because they feel gypped.

10. “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas. Kansas could play some pretty decent mellow songs, like “Cheyenne Anthem.” This isn’t one of them. And although it was OK the first couple of times I heard it, it really wears on one, sort of like how dust in the wind erodes the hardest rock. I’m worn down already.

9. “Mr. Roboto” by Styx. You know how I said I almost stopped buying Motley Crue albums after “Home Sweet Home?” Well, I did stop buying Styx albums after “Mr. Roboto.”

8. “The Other Side,” by Aerosmith. From it’s limp wristed opening to the insane babbling at the end, this one sucks all the way through. I’d rather listen to white noise. In fact, I have listened to white noise when this was all that was on.

7. “November Rain” by Guns & Roses. I’ve never made it all the way through this song. Not once. Maybe it gets really, really good at the end. But I doubt it. I’m not willing to suffer through the first part to find out.

6. “Nevermind” by Nirvana. Sorry grunge fans, but Nirvana hadn’t the faintest idea how to rock. Except for “Smells like Teen Spirit.” “Nevermind” is a freaking lullaby. I could sleep to it probably, if it didn’t make me feel faintly nauseated. You know, kind of like somebody soaked my pacifier in Scotch.

5. “The Lemon Song” by Led Zepplin. Is it really necessary to hear about the “juice” running down Robert Plant’s leg four times a day? I cry enuff’s enuff.

4. “We are the Champions” by Queen. How can you follow one of the hardest rocking pieces in rock and roll, and by that I mean “We Will Rock You,” with one of the all time lamest pieces of drivel? It’s blasphemous is what it is. And there isn’t even a decent break between the two. I try to catch the exact moment of the change so I can press a button to flee the station, but I sometimes fail and the first fragment of “Champions” bleeds through and nearly convulses me. Please, radio stations, stop while you’re “rocking me.”

3. Anything by Poison, but especially, please, I’m begging you, never, ever play “Every F*$@#*& Rose has its Thorn” again. I mean, I’m gagging on my own bile here. And that’s because I’ve already emptied everything else in my stomach.

2. “Beth” by Kiss. I was never a big fan of Kiss. I remember that it was not long after I’d discovered rock music that I was gleefully listening to the radio when “Beth” came on. What’s this, I thought? Isn’t this pretty weak? But, knowing that some rock songs start out slow and then burst into explosive acoustics, I listened to the song all the way through. I still shudder to think of that experience. Makes me wish I was better at repressing memories. I believe this is where I first used the term “wimp shit.” I have reused that term a lot, though, so the incidents kind of run together.

1. “Black Hole Sun,” by Soundgarden. Not only is this one of the lamest songs ever, but they play it on both the classic rock station and the new rock station. A double dose of agony, although as soon as I hear the first strains of this--I hesitate to call it music--I’m punching radio buttons. ANY radio button.

So there you have it, my 12 songs of shame. I can’t imagine anyone would disagree. ;) But if you want to argue, have at it.

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Cool Stuff, at least to me

Language sure is fun. Just in the last couple of days I’ve heard new words, new to me at least, which seemed obvious after I heard them.

Velvis: A term for a velvet Elvis. I thought to myself, how stupid not to have thought of that. How perfect.

Fourgy: A term for an orgy between four people, particularly two couples.

Probably many of you have heard these terms but they were new to me. Sometimes I’m amazed at how much creativity is left in language.

Another thing, cool to me at least, is the publication of Bits of the Dead, a collection of flash fiction zombie stories from Coscom Entertainment. My story “Once Upon a Time with the Dead” appears therein. It begins: “Alkali dust under the white blaze of the Mexican sun. Riders are coming. To a village standing idle on a ghostly quiet day.”

Some of the more famous authors in the book include Piers Anthony and Nancy Kilpatrick. It's available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon, of course.

Last night, Lana and I watched The Spiderwick Chronicles and we both thought it was good. I think I liked it better than she did. At first I didn’t really care for the primary kid character, and I never did really come to like him, but the story itself was fairly compelling and the special effects were great. There was a lot of action for what is essentially a kid’s movie.

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Taking Stock

As usual, I underestimated the mass of work that slams me during the first school days. I tried to have as many things done ahead of time as possible, syllabi and so on. But some things you can’t foresee. Xavier is about to undergo accreditation, an event that takes place every ten years, and which takes several years to complete. That means updating faculty vitas (resumes) and filling out many other forms. We also have to turn in an annual (but more extensive now) update sheet that basically tells the university administration everything important we’ve done in the past academic year—from August to August.

The areas in which our updates are made in are: Teaching, Scholarship, University Service, Public Service, and Collegiality. We also have a section labeled “Other Pertinent Information,” for things that don’t fit the big five categories.

For teaching, I list courses that I’ve taught and any new developments for those classes. For scholarship, I count non-fiction pieces only, and only those that have some relationship to the areas I teach in. I count writing articles, for example, since I teach “Writing in Psychology,” but a piece on “Sword & Sorcery” wouldn’t count. As for fiction, Xavier, as does most universities, looks askance at fiction and poetry publications for anyone outside the English Creative Writing Department. I have been known to mention some of this stuff under “Other Pertinent Information,” but I doubt it’s ever helped me. In fact, I’m sometimes convinced it works against me. Maybe I’m not working hard enough at my career if I have time to write a novel, for example.

For University service, I mention committees I serve on, particularly the Internal Review Board (Human subjects committee), which I’m chair of. And for public service I mention public lectures that I’ve given on various issues related to psychology, or writing, or evolution, or dreams. I do list the talks here that I gave at Babel Con and similar venues.

I’ve actually never minded much doing these updates. It gives me a chance to take stock, to put into writing the things I feel I’ve accomplished over the year. As a person with a streak of OCD, I rather like making lists, and updates are kind of like lists. Just expanded ones.

How about you? How often, if ever, do you “take stock?” What categories are important in your life? Your career?

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A Mistake to Remember

I know better, but I made a mistake the other day in a story submission. I wanted to send a story to an anthology featuring strong women characters. The editor’s first name was “Roby.” (Let’s say the last name was “Doe.) I went to the market’s website, as I always do, and checked the submission guidelines and the section on “about.” There was no mention of Roby’s gender. Since I know a man whose first name is Roby, I addressed my email, written like a business letter, to the editor as “Mr. Doe:”

Big mistake. I didn’t hear from the editor herself, but from another woman at the market who took me to task for referring to Ms. Doe as Mr. Doe. I received a brief lecture on how I should check the website so I wouldn’t make such mistakes. She even sent me links to the website, which were the same ones I’d already investigated and which didn’t mention Ms. Doe’s gender.

Although I thought the lady’s response was rather out of proportion to my mistake, the truth is it was easy to avoid. All I would have had to do is address the letter as: “Dear Roby Doe:”

Because of a single moment of carelessness, I pissed off an editor and quite possibly lost a potential market. Don’t do what I did.
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I'm Backkkkk

Back from Arkansas. As I expected, there was no time to blog or check blogs. I spent the days visiting with mom and family. And doing a fair amount of eating. My favorite pie is lemon, so family members baked me not one, but two lemon pies. I think I’ve had enough lemon pie for a while. I also ate home-grown steak and ground beef, which was nice and lean, and a variety of vegetables from the garden, including green beans, tomatoes, corn on the cob, potatoes, purple hull peas, and spinach. What I didn’t eat, although I was offered them about 100 times, was okra and onions. My mom and brother Paul David just love okra, but they must have gotten all the okra genes in the family because the stuff reminds me of something that might have been edible eons ago but which has been mummified in dry desert air for a few too many millennia.

One thing I didn’t get done in Arkansas is any real writing. I tried a couple of times to sit at the laptop but in a small town where everyone knows everyone there are always visitors dropping over. Besides that, about a quarter of the town of Charleston is related to us, if not by blood then by marriage. That’s a lot of family to see in a short time.

As always when I go home to Charleston, I was overwhelmed by memories. On a couple of afternoons I rode around in the countryside with my brother and it seemed like every field and woods and dirt trail were haunted with the ghosts of the past. I imagine that would settle down if I moved back to the area permanently, which Lana and I have talked about doing after I retire from teaching. We have land there, some of which I’ll eventually inherit, and I wouldn’t mind building a house along the creek where I spent a many hot summer day.

Rita, my sister-in-law, asked how I’d get in and out if I lived back along the creek and I told her I only needed to get in. She asked what Lana thought of that, and I had to tell her that Lana loves the idea. My wife is not a social butterfly. She and I are both pretty intense introverts.

Well, it’s off now to do a little catch up blog visiting, but I’m sure I won’t be able to comment on every post I’ve missed. Seems like most of us here in blog land are pretty prolific posters. Plus, I’ve got to turn up the back-to-school engine big time to get syllabi and other such tasks done before school starts next week. When I got off school in early May it seemed like the days stretched out forever in front of me. Now that the summer escape is over it sure did seem to go fast.

Later

Going to Arkansas, and Other Cool Things

I’m leaving tomorrow to go visit my mom in Arkansas. I’ll be gone until at least Friday and most likely won’t be posting or visiting blogs during that time. I’ll be staying at my mom’s and they don’t have internet. And it’s not like there are a lot of wi-fi hot spots in small town Charleston, Arkansas. I may check in at the library on occasion to get email. But, I only see my family about once a year so I want to spend every moment I can with them. I’m sure you’ll all survive for a week without commentary from me. I’ll catch up next weekend. After that, though, school will be starting again and I’ll have to make some adjustments in posting.

In the meantime, I got a couple bits of good news. My poem, “Blue Soul,” has appeared in Dreams and Nightmares #80. I’m in the company of some very fine poets, including Gary William Crawford, Ann K. Schwader, Bruce Boston, Deborah P. Koladji, and our own Greg Schwartz.

Also, William Jones has accepted my story, “The Vivarium,” for his anthology Tales out of Miskatonic University. I did the Psychology Department story. I’ll post more about that in the future, of course.

I'll be visiting blogs today and responding to comments. After that, see you in a week.

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Friday’s Forgotten Book: Kyrik: Warlock, Warrior

Before I ever found Conan the Cimmerian by Robert E. Howard, I found books by other writers with words slashed across the cover that read: “In the Tradition of Conan.” This book, Kyrik: Warlock, Warrior by Gardner F. Fox, was my first sword and sorcery read. It had those words on the cover, but after I read it I might have thought Conan was “in the Tradition of Kyrik.”

Gardner Fox was a prolific writer in the paperback explosion of the 1960s and 70s, and also wrote a lot for the comics. He did two sword and sorcery series, The first, in the 1969-1970 period, was about Kothar, a barbarian swordsman very similar to Conan. There were 5 books in this series. The second series (4 books) was about Kyrik, in the 1975-1976 period. He also wrote a two book Sword & Planet series featuring earthman Alan Morgan on the planet of Llarn. These were written in the early 60s and were entitled Warrior of Llarn and Thief of Llarn, although “Thief” was the first one I found. Kyrik: Warlock, Warrior was the first in the Kyrik series, and besides that, two Kothars, and the one Llarn book, I never got copies of the others until I was in my thirties.

To start with, Kyrik: Warlock, Warrior had a great cover, at least for a fifteen-year-old boy. I’ve never been one to care much about book covers, but this one has always stuck with me. Painted by Ken Barr, you can see the exotic nature of it.

Intriguing as the cover was, it was the story that thrilled me. Years later, in my thirties, when I found and read the other Kyrik books, I didn’t think they were that well written or that interesting. But that first one! Oh, the adventure, the thrill. It began with a sorceress stalking an exotic bazaar in search of a legend. She finds it in the form of a statue, of a warrior named Kyrik, who has been dead 1000 years. It turns out that the statue is Kyrik, and the sorceress removes the spell that has kept him trapped in stone for ten centuries.

Fox captured very well the sense of immense past times and it was all heady stuff for a young fellow new to the glories of Sword & Sorcery. A fifteen-year-old now would have been exposed to this kind of stuff at a much younger age, but I was growing up in small town Arkansas, in the Bible-Belt. It was new to me. Just glimpsing that cover still ignites my imagination, and I’m almost fifty years old.

Kyrik: Warlock, Warrior is not that hard to come by. I’ve seen copies at used bookstores where SF/Fantasy is featured, and on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. You can find it if you want it, though I doubt you’ll thrill quite as much as my young mind did in 1975.

Battle Song

I started fiddling with a post on battle songs but got off track with a poem that I thought I'd put up. The song that I think captures a sense of battle better than any ever written is "Deaf Forever" by Motorhead. Love it. I basically tried to write more stanzas for that song, and try to make them relevant in some twisted way to today. If you listen to the song then you'll hear the rhythm that this poem should be read in. If you don't want to go to that trouble, no problem. This isn't very good anyway, and I wouldn't ever submit it anywhere.

I'm going to try and post the video, but if I don't get that done, I think this is a link to the song on You Tube. Deaf Forever

Battle on!


Cold as Hell
Battle yell
Death awaits me on the devil’s leash

Sword on shield
No one will yield
Worm waiting for the murdered feast

Cut them down
Killing ground
Dream of evil with an angel’s face

Shade of ice
Sacrifice
Lost your honor in a blind disgrace

Bone and blood
Crimson flood
Love returns as an emptied lust

Nothing left
No blade to heft
Can’t feed a child on war’s cold crust

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The Influence Thing

X-Dell asked an interesting question in my comments: “With respect to the previous post, did you ever consider that what you read early on was a better influence in some ways? After all, if you've read certain narratives all your life, wouldn't there be a temptation to re-create those tales instead of creating fresh ones?”

This came from my "Jealousy" post, and I got other interesting comments on that post, too. I thought I’d answer X-Dell here, and respond generally to the other comments as well. I always enjoy talking about influences. It’s a topic I find endlessly fascinating.

Humans learn throughout our life spans, but we are especially sensitive to learning during our early years. Language, for example, is largely acquired in the first 7 years of life. Other experiences have later sensitive periods. I believe that for most readers, and writers, the ages between 8 and 18 are of critical importance as influences. I discovered ERB’s Barsoom books at that time, and I’ve loved Sword & Planet fiction ever since. I still enjoy reading this type of fiction, even if, from an adult perspective, it’s not objectively well written. On the other hand, I never read a Doc Savage or Shadow adventure until my late twenties / early thirties, and I still find them Ho Hum.

I found Louis L’amour, John D. MacDonald, and Ray Bradbury early, and I don’t pass a day without riffing off one of their great themes in my own imagination. I even dream experiences influenced by these writers. But Cormac McCarthy, David Gemmell, and James Sallis, whose books I adore today, don’t have nearly that impact on the deep levels of my mind. When I try to incorporate themes in a story that I’m playing with from Hemingway, for example, I’m always completely conscious of what I’m doing. When I wrote the Taleran books I was almost completely “unconscious” as far as theme and content were concerned.

Being “unconscious” of one's sources has potential risks and potential benefits. On the risk side, it’s possible to stay so close to the original that you are simply writing pastiche. On the benefit side, being unconscious of influences allows a seamless mix and match of many influences into the blend that makes up true creativity. When there’s a little ERB, a little REH, a little Bradbury, a little L'Amour, Andre Norton, and Jim Kjelgaard, then no single influence predominates and the whole is a recipe for something new.

As a biological psychologist, though, I also believe there is an interaction between experience and biology. ERB and REH influenced me not only because I found them early, but also because they resonated with the biological bent of my imagination. As an example, take music. As a youngster, I heard “only” old time country music and whatever you call Lawrence Welk. I instantly disliked it, and dislike it to this day. The “moment” I first heard rock and roll, at around 13, I loved it. And from the first, I wanted to hear it louder and faster. I’m not biologically attuned to old style country music, like Merle Haggard, Porter Waggoner, and Hank Williams Sr. I’m attuned to AC DC, ZZ Top, and Lynyrd Skynyrd. But once I discovered rock and roll, then “experience” played a role in my tastes. I heard the Stones before I ever heard The Beatles, and to this day I prefer the former to the latter.

The 8 to 18 age range is only an approximation, of course. I didn’t discover horror fiction until my early 20s, and yet it resonated so strongly that I quickly began writing it. I suspect that had I not found horror until my 30s it would be different. Even though horror came outside the 8 to 18 range for me, I notice that “individual” horror writers are only weak influences on me. I devoured everything by Lovecraft in my early twenties, for example, and yet today I don’t think his themes have influenced me much at all.

OK, enough rambling for now.

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Pics from the Past

My brother has been scanning some pictures for an older family member and he sent me a few of them. I thought I'd post those today. Not much else going on at Fortress Gramlich. Can you guess who the first two pics are of? Just have a look at the "last" pic on the page and imagine taking off 49 years.

The other pics are my mom and dad with my oldest brother Jimmy as a baby, and pics of my mom and dad's wedding. All these were taken in the yard of the house where I grew up. In the pic with my brother Jimmy you can see the house in the background. It's kinda cool to have these images of a time long gone.

Jealousy

Famous Monsters of Filmland. Creepy. Eerie. Vampirella. Doc Savage, The Shadow, The Spider. Savage Sword of Conan, The Conan comics. Have you heard of them? If you’re a male older than thirty with any interest in pulpy sorts of work you almost certainly have. These are all magazines (or in one case a comic) from the past, although Conan comics are still being published and Vampirella also experienced a resurgence.

If you have heard of them, did they have any influence on you? Your writing? So many of my male friends who are writers tell me how influential these magazines were on their lives. I’m jealous of those friends. Because I never heard of any of these as a kid. I didn’t even hear of most of them or see a copy until I was at least in my twenties.

I’m pretty sure I would have loved ‘em all. But they never made it to Charleston, Arkansas. The library didn’t carry them. They weren’t for sale at the drug store. There were no bookstores in town, and the comic carousal at the quick stop held only a few DC and Marvel comics, Superman, Fantastic Four, Spiderman. Not one of my friends had a subscription to any of them, or even had a copy that they’d gotten from somewhere. I know because any time I was at a friend’s house I looked at their books and comics. I traded some, borrowed others. I was a reading addict and read everything I could find, and was on a constant hunt for more. Had Famous Monsters and the like been available I would have found them.

There is no way to know how differently I might have turned out, or how differently my writing path might have been, had I been exposed to these sources that so many of my writing cohorts enjoyed. Would my imagination have been tuned differently? Or would I have just come upon certain themes in my writing earlier? Or might I have been hamstrung by reading all those magazines? Maybe I would have felt like everything had been done and given up on my own ideas. Maybe it was good that my imagination got to develop in relative isolation. Still, I feel a bit of envy for those who thrilled to such long ago thrillers.

I believe that one’s future reading choices are strongly influenced by the works we discover when we’re between the ages of 8 and 18. That’s why Edgar Rice Burroughs is such an influence on me. That’s why today when I read the exploits of The Shadow or Doc Savage I just don’t find them compelling. I missed the reading window when I would have fallen in love with them.

How about you? What did you miss out on when you were a kid? Is there anything you wish you’d discovered then that you learned of only later? How do you feel about that? The writer in me wants to know.

When Laziness Comes To Town

I got an abrupt and well needed awakening two weeks ago. I’ve joined a writing critique group near where I live now, and the group has been sharing pieces of novels in various stages of completion. So far I’ve shared the first two chapters of Wraith of Talera, my work in progress. After the first chapter, I got one comment something along the lines of: “Well, it’s a little wordy. There are a lot of “To be” verbs in it.”

Although I didn’t say a thing to defend myself during the critique session, which is exactly as it should be, my inner thoughts were not as sanguine. I thought to myself, “Wordy! I honed my chops on short stories, and I still write flash fiction where every single word counts, and I know good and well I’m not…wordy.”

News flash to Fortress Gramlich. I was wordy. I sat down that evening to go over the manuscript and a gradual and appalling silence fell over my thoughts. I shortened and tightened a sentence or two, recast a few more, and suddenly I began to see wordiness everywhere. What the hell had happened? The writing wasn’t tight at all. Oh, there was an occasional nice sentence, but I’d let those blind me to the general weakness in many others. I started a systematic reworking of the whole thing. I’d been at page 53, but by the time I finished weeding out material I was back at the 49 page mark. Man! Four pages of fat in a 53 page manuscript? When I shared chapter 2 with the group, a reworked chapter 2, the same person said: “Yes, whatever was wrong in chapter 1 you corrected here. It’s much tighter.”

Whew!

Somewhere along the line I’d let bad habits creep back in. I imagine part of it is due to a fairly long layoff in writing fiction. Part of it might even be due to blogging, where I tend to use a very free flowing approach. Ultimately, though, it was laziness on my part. Not physical laziness as much as mental laziness. I wasn’t “thinking” enough about the material.

It’s disheartening in a way to realize that you can “lose it” if you don’t “use it.” It would be nice to reach a certain skill level and never have to worry about backsliding. But that doesn’t appear to be the case. At least not for me. But it's also “heartening” to know that you can recover, that a misstep can be caught and corrected. I know now, and I appreciate the new group pointing it out, that I have to stay vigilant, even ruthless, with my own writing. Laziness is way too easy a trap to fall into, but it is a trap with an exit.

Updates and Blessings

I found out from Lisa that Hubert Selby Jr. died in 2004. (His supposedly official website didn’t indicate this.) This means that I can tell everyone that the book I so soundly criticized in my last post, “Breaking all the Rules,” was Requiem for a Dream by Selby. I went to Amazon to look at his other famous book, Last Exit to Brooklyn and it’s written in the same style. I won’t be reading it. I’m still trying to get the taste of “Requiem” out of my mouth. *gag*

In publishing news, Bits of the Dead, a zombie anthology of mostly short short stories is out. I have not seen a copy or even the table of contents yet, but it’s listed on Barnes and Noble, as indicated, and also at Amazon. I have a story in it called “Once Upon a Time with the Dead,” a zombie western. I’ll give more information as I get it.

Finally, I was at CrazyCath’s Reflections today and her post really struck home with me. She posted about her blessings, an idea that she also found elsewhere on the web. But it struck me that I haven’t done enough of this, and I have been so blessed that I should take a moment to acknowledge those blessings.

First, let me say how thankful I am for my family, especially my wonderful mom, who is still kicking it at 91. Mom sacrificed so much for me, encouraged me to do the things that made me happy, and, primarily, just loved me. Also, thanks for Ray, who has made my mom happy and taken care of her for many years now, and for my brothers, Jimmy, Raymond, and Paul David, and their wives (Alice, Joyce, Rita) and all their many, many children. (I’d list you all but I don’t have time to write another huge novel right now.) My family, of course, includes my son Joshua, who is just a great kid (not a kid anymore at 21). Josh has made so many hard days worth living. And, of course, there is Lana, who I found late but who is just the perfect woman for me, even more than Rannon is for Ruenn. In memoriam, there is my sister, Dolores, who sure helped along my reading habit, and all her children. And Roger, who loved her for so many years. I used to be scared of Roger when I was a kid, but he had great books so I had to come around. Now I know he’s really a pussycat.

I’ve been blessed, too, with many friends, especially my colleagues at Xavier University, who helped teach me how to survive and who have supported me in my endeavors. And for my newer friends here in the blogosphere, who have given me such wonderful support over the last few years. I have to mention the great writing groups I’ve been part of. Thanks to all the members past and present who have read my junk and helped make it better, or who have just taught me things about writing. This includes, of course, Sphinx Ink, C. S. Harris and David Lanoue here in the blogosphere.

I’ve been blessed because, although I work hard at my job and sometimes complain about how much dedication it takes, I still love what I do and it has provided me with the money and the time (on occasion) to do other things I also love, like collect books, read, and write. And eat.

I’ve been lucky that I’ve been able to write and find publishers for most of what I’ve written. Sure, I wish I’d had some bigger publishers for some things, and made more money, but the true joy has been in writing them and in finding out that some folks like what I’ve written and even tell others about it. Along the way in the publishing world I’ve met so many great folks who have helped me out and given me breaks. There are far too many to mention them all, but thanks to you all. Special appreciation for folks like Michael Burgess, Charles Nuetzel, and J. Bruce Fuller, who’ve been involved in accepting/ publishing my books, and to Lana again for her tireless promotion of my work.

As I look out my window, good books by my side, cold Michelob and chicken wings in the refrigerator, Ozzy on the CD player, Lana hovering around the house looking all sessy, birds feeding in the yard, trees on three sides, knowing I’m still off work for a couple more weeks, I realize I’ve got it pretty damn good. I am blessed, and I appreciate it.

Breaking All the Rules

Can someone please explain why “literary” writers get to freely eviscerate the normal rules of writing but don’t get called on it, while you or I would be pilloried soundly if we tried the same thing? (Actually, we should be pilloried if we did such things. But so should the literary writer.)

I just finished reading a “critically acclaimed” novel, which was made into a “critically acclaimed” movie. I’m not giving the author’s name because the writer is still living and is pretty old. I’m also sure he’s a perfectly nice guy, and he has plenty of fans who love his work. (This book had 80 reviews on Amazon. 78 were 5 stars, 1 was 4 stars, and 1 was 2 stars.) But I want to make some points and his work is perfect to illustrate with.

1st rule of writing: Have at least one character that the reader likes and is able to identify with. This book had four primary characters. I felt some sympathy for one of the characters but couldn’t respect her. I quickly began to want the other three characters dead. Every one was a loser. And mostly they were just pathetically silly. I know there are people in the world just like these characters, but I don’t personally know or want to know any of them. All are addicts and I can’t imagine having a conversation with any of them that would go beyond drugs. How boring.

2nd rule of writing: Show don’t tell. The book is almost entirely dialogue or a kind of omniscient narrative. They did this and then this and then this. Except where drug use is described, there is a minimal amount of descriptive writing. The language felt simplistic and naked to me. The prose was just flat.

3rd and 4th rules of writing: Write as clearly as possible. Avoid pretentiousness. While the vocabulary was so simple that it wouldn’t challenge a 6th grader, the author deliberately used a bunch of silly and arbitrary expressions that upped the confusion level. For example, what possible reason can there be to leave out the apostrophes throughout. And I don’t just mean in dialogue. Over and over I read “youre,” “Im,” “theyre” and so on. It was so pretentious that I could barely restrain myself from throwing the book against the wall before the “I’m-too-good-to-use-normal-punctuation” attitude rubbed off.

5th rule of writing: Make clear during dialogue who is talking. Not only could our pretentious author not be bothered with quotation marks and dialogue tags, but he enjoyed cramming two or three speakers together in a single paragraph. And since two of the characters were constantly aping each other’s form of expression it often required calculus to figure out who was talking. Not that they were saying anything interesting anyway.

6th rule of writing: Introduce a new paragraph when the topic changes. Now, I don’t mind fiction with relatively long paragraphs, but 8 pages in one paragraph? Isn’t that either a bit careless or a bit pretentious? There were a lot of paragraphs that went on for at least 4 or 5 pages.

So there you have it. Can you explain why critics seem to love this work, why they ooh and ahh over every word that drips from the author’s pen? I don’t get it. I really, don’t get it, and I wonder if some of the Amazon reviewers who gave the book five stars had seen the movie first and were influenced by that?

Finally, though, I guarantee that you couldn’t drag me into another of this author’s books. Unless someone can explain to me why such things are permitted of some writers and not others?

Lana's Photo, and other Sessy Things

I've put the cover of Wanting the Mouth of a Lover on my sidebar. Clicking it will take you to Spec House of Poetry in case you want to pick up a copy. I'm not sure why the image is bigger than the other book images, or why it's set further to the right, but, hey, it's there.

I've also added links to more blogs I visit, although I didn't get them all. My list is so long now that it's hard to be sure who I've added and who I've not. If I didn't get your link up, please let me know. I no longer go through my link list every day. I'm depending on Google Reader to identify new posts. If not for that I'd have no time for anything but blogging.

Lana, who did the great cover for the chapbook, has a photo entered in a contest, and I think it's the best one there. She has the link on her blog where you vote, so if you get a chance and want to look at some great photos please stop by her blog and follow the link to vote.

Finally, I didn't get a chance to point out that the Book Roast is happening again. You can win free books, so check it out.

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Last Breath Poems

Here are the covers for the two editions of Wanting the Mouth of a Lover. The chapbook is now for sale at Spec House of Poetry.

Just to mention a little about the genesis of these poems. I was introduced to Haiku in 1991 by David Lanoue, an English prof and friend of mine at Xavier University. David referred to them, memorably, as "one breath poems." That is, a poem that could be said essentially in one breath. Since I was writing quite a bit of horror fiction at the time, including working on Cold in the Light, I started--naturally it seemed to me--to think about horror haiku, and I wrote some Warkind ku just for play and to try and get a handle on the form. Then, it occurred to me that if a haiku was a "one breath poem," why not a "last breath?" That's when I started writing the vampire haiku. Rouge et Noir published some of these and they were well received, but for various reasons I didn't pursue the idea any further. When I started talking to J. Bruce Fuller about chapbook ideas, I mentioned the vampire stuff and he told me to send it to him. So, if you like them, I take full credit. If you don't, it was all J's idea.

In other news, I was grateful, and honored, to learn that my flash fiction piece, "Precious Cargo," won the "Reader's Choice" award in Jason Evans' The Clarity of Night contest. Thanks to all of you who voted for me. I really appreciate that.

And now to end on a light note, here's a picture Lana took of our poetry panel at Babel Con. That's J. Bruce Fuller there with me. Yes, he does look a little bit like Mephistopheles, but he's a much nicer fellow than I am. My pic came out with a bit of "red eye" and Lana fixed all that up. Ain't I purty?

The Mouth of a Lover

What a whirlwind weekend. Babel Con went well. I had at least 25 folks at each of my two presentations, and about the same for a horror fiction panel I sat on with two other writers, Whitney Lakin and M. F. Korn. From the reports I’ve heard, the presentations and panel were well received.

I sold some copies of my books, a lot more than last year. Scotty, a regular Babel Con attendee, bought copies of all the Taleran books Saturday afternoon and had already read 50+ pages of Swords of Talera by the time I saw him Sunday. He was liking it. Yeah!

Our late Sunday evening poetry panel was only sparsely attended, but it was exciting for me because we held the official unveiling of my very first poetry chapbook, entitled Wanting the Mouth of a Lover. I knew it was coming, but I never count my chickens before copies are in my hand. Now they are.

The publisher is Spec House of Poetry, founded by J. Bruce Fuller, a fine poet in his own right. J publishes chapbooks through Spec House, and also edits and publishes his own poetry/prose magazine called The Shantytown Anomaly, which you can also find at the Spec House site.

The chapbook comes in both a regular and deluxe edition. They feature the same cover image, but the deluxe is signed and has a silver see-through cover with the title etched at the top. The regular edition has an opaque silver cover and is printed in a smaller size. However, the regular edition also contains a short essay that I wrote on the genesis of the poetry in the collection.

The poetry consists of horror haiku with a vampire theme. Some were published in 1995 in Rouge et Noir, but there are never before seen “ku” as well. You can view the covers at the Spec House site. Copies will be available for sale at the site as soon as J gets back to his computer. I’ll also have signed copies of the regular edition for sale here in a day or two.

By the way, this chapbook is a family affair. Lana did the wonderful cover.

Updating the Updates

Sorry I haven't had more substantial posts the past few days but I've been really busy with a couple of things, mostly getting ready for the Babel Con convention, and trying to set up a PayPal account so I can get paid by one particular market that's located in Canada. They were happy to send me a check but my damn American bank won't cash it. Sigh!

I had a haiku accepted by Paper Wasp, an Australian magazine. I also joined a group called Goodreads, which a couple of my writer friends have pointed me toward. It's a place to share book recommendations and talk about books, something I love to do. I've actually spent quite a bit of time there the past couple of days adding books and friends.

In Babel Con news, I'm down to giving two presentations now, on Alien Evolution and the Psychology of Fear. The Dream presentation will be next year. I've also been put on a new panel, on Speculative Poetry, which I'm interested in. I'm glad not to give three presentations. They can be time consuming, and they sure cut into your ability to just relax and "Grok" the con. It's coming up tomorrow so I probably won't post again or be able to visit many blogs until Monday.

Until then, may the farce be with you.

What's Happenin' Now

The most recent issue of The Illuminata is out. (It’s the July 2008 issue, at bottom right.) My Writer’s Block column this time is “What I Learned from Bad Writers.” I published an early version here but this is expanded from that. And one of our blog mates has several pieces in this issue. This is Rachel Olivier. Check her stuff out.

In other news, I’ll be a guest at Babel Con this weekend (July 19, 20) in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Some of the actor guests will be Richard Hatch, Suzie Plakson, and John Hertzler. I’ll be giving presentations on Dreaming, on Using Fear and Suspense in Writing, and on Evolution and SF Aliens. I’ll also be sitting on a horror panel with some other writers. That means I’ll be a busy little boy and won’t get much rest. But at least I won’t have to go to work on Monday.

Lana will be helping me out on the Dream presentation. It’ll be nice to have her along. Anyone who is in the area should come on by, although I know most of you aren’t. This is the first year they’ve gone to a two day schedule so we’ll see how it goes. I’ll have a report next week.

A Meme for Writers

I saw this meme over on Writtenwyrd’s blog and thought it looked worth doing. I love to hear this kind of thing about writers but I won’t specifically tag anyone. If you’d like to do it, tag yourself.

Your genre(s): Since I started writing I’ve had a goal, a silly one perhaps, of trying to publish something in every genre or style of writing. So far I’ve managed SF, Horror, Fantasy, Western, Thriller, Y/A, Poetry, Erotica, Nonfiction science, Nonfiction essay, Humor, Literary, Flash Fiction, Novel, and Short story. I’ve yet to publish a Romance, a Children’s Story, or a Gay/Lesbian story. (Are there any I’ve forgotten?)

However, by far my main interests are in Fantasy and Horror. These genres make up probably half of what I read, and somewhat less of what I’ve written. It would be far more than half of what I write if it weren’t for the Nonfiction I do.

How many books are you working on now: I’ve tried to work on more than one book length project at a time and have generally failed miserably. I have been able to work on one Fiction and one Nonfiction project at the same time. But I find even this very hard. I can only manage it if I do one early in the day and the other late, and if I'm absolutely ruthless with myself in switching. I tend to get excited about something I’m working on, and I don’t want to let it drop for something else.

Are you a linear or chunk writer: Almost totally linear. Very occasionally, I will jump ahead of the linear sequence of a story and write a later scene, but only if something really intense or visual occurs to me. And when I get started on a project I tend to work my way straight through it.

The POV you’re partial to: I love to both read and write in first person. It just seems such a nice and natural storytelling technique. However, some stories just can’t be told that way, and I do enjoy third person limited. I typically don’t like omniscient viewpoint or second person, although I’ve written a story in second person.

The Tense you use: I added this one because I find it interesting. I write almost everything in past tense, but I have been experimenting lately with present tense. There are some really nice things about present tense but it also poses difficulties. The “immediacy” of present tense is unparalleled, but the forward momentum is so powerful that it’s tough to bring in the background detail that you need to develop character. At least that’s what I've found.

The theme that keeps cropping up in your books: Sometimes I don’t really even understand the concept of theme. I’m never conscious of a “theme” when I’m writing. The main thing I want to do in a story or book is to affect the reader. I mainly want to create a mood, or I want to drag the reader headlong into a story and keep them wondering what’s about to happen next. Certain things do crop up again and again in my stories, though, so I guess you could call these things themes. These are, “the nature of heroism,” and “the nature of violence.” My characters also struggle with issues of guilt and responsibility, and they’re usually pretty hard on themselves. A lot of my early writing dealt with religious elements, but that has fallen off as I’ve aged.

How many days a week do you write: This depends a bit on whether I have a deadline coming up or not, and whether school is in session or not. Typically, I write six days a week. I seldom write less than three hours a day when I’m off. When school is in session I often go several days in a row, however, without being able to get any writing done. And on other days I’ll only manage an hour. If I’m really tired from a long week at school I may take the whole weekend off just to recover.

What time of day do you get your best writing done When school is in session I write whenever I have a free moment. If given the choice, I’ll tend to write in late afternoon and evening, and late at night. I believe my best writing often comes at night.

Who are your mentors: My mentors have always been books, not books about writing, but novels. Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, John D. MacDonald, Louis L’Amour, Ray Bradbury. These were my earliest mentors. Since then I’ve been mentored by thousands of authors.

I almost had a real life mentor once. Francis Gwaltney was the only writer I ever knew who came from my home town of Charleston, Arkansas, and when I found out he taught at Arkansas Tech University where I went to undergraduate school I went to see him to talk writing. He was very encouraging, but, unfortunately, less than two weeks after my discussion with him he went out to celebrate the publication of one of his books and died choking on a chicken bone. I didn’t want to kill any more mentors so I never tried to get another in real life.

My favorite authors to read: There are way too many to list here. The ones I mentioned above, of course, though I’ve pretty much read everything they’ve written. Some other great writers that I love or have loved are Poul Anderson, J. R. R. Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe, James Lee Burke, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Ken Bulmer, Andre Norton, C. L. Moore, Peter Matthiessen, James Baldwin, Clive Barker, and Wayne Allen Sallee.

Lately I’ve been reading a lot of Ed Gorman, Michael Connolly and Cormac McCarthy.

Yesterday's Work

While visiting Bernita's Blog yesterday I learned about a writing prompt contest over at Jason Evans' The Clarity of Night blog. I popped over for a look and the prompt was a motorcycle picture, which always reminds me of my own biking days. (I still miss my bike.) And the prizes were quite nice.

It was only 250 words and I thought, why not? I sat down at the laptop, typed the line, "No Moon," and was suddenly off and running on an idea that just unfolded in my head. My first draft was about 375 words but I found it easier than I thought to cut it down.

Off the story went to Jason, and it turns out it was actually the first entry. Since I found out this morning that Jason has already posted the first two entries, I think I'll consider the story as my primary blog post for today. If you're interested in taking part in the contest, the Jason link in paragraph one is the place to go. If you want to see the entries so far try here. And if you're interested in reading my story you can find it here.

Hope you enjoy.

A Thank You

I got a royalty statement yesterday from The Invisible College Press, who published my novel Cold in the Light, saying that I’d earned out my advance and would now be making actual royalties on the book for the first time. I was thrilled, and I want to thank my friends here in the blogosphere because I know it was you guys who put me over the top. I’ve been amazed at the support for my work that I’ve seen here in the “sphere.” Thank you so much.

In writing news, I’ve passed the 50 page mark on Wraith of Talera, about 14,000 words. These books are not terribly long so I figure I’m looking at 225-250 pages total. It’s been going slower than I would like but actually faster than the first three in the series. Of course, this will still need revision and I’ll probably make adjustments to these early sections as the plot unfolds. I tend to polish pretty much as I go, though, so I can always hope the revisions won’t be too extensive.

I’ve had people tell me I’m prolific. I always have to laugh. I’m actually a very slow writer. I hardly ever manage more than 2 or 3 new pages a day on fiction, and that’s when I’m not teaching. During the school year I’m lucky to get a page a day, although I do quite a bit better with nonfiction. I also spend a lot of my writing time revising, revising, revising, and that has probably been the key to any publications I have gotten.

The truth is that I just spend a lot of hours at the keyboard and rarely skip a day. Even a paragraph moves you toward a finished product. Even a sentence. If there is a secret to writing, it’s to put in the time.
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A Change of Pace

Nothing really about books or writing today. It’s Sunday. Clouds are building high, with thunder muttering behind them. We’ve already had a good sprinkle. It’s not as hot as it has been the past few days so I’ve headed out on the deck with my laptop and the book I’m reading currently, Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon. I’m watching the birds, and trying to keep the squirrels from eating all the bird seed. We have a wealth of cardinals and doves hanging out at the moment. I just saw our rat friend rushing from the yard into the high grass that borders it. I couldn’t tell if he had seeds in his cheeks but I’m betting he did.

Life is so amazing, so elegant. A chickadee sits in a nearby tree pecking open a sunflower seed. How does such a tiny thing survive? Blue Jays dart in and away, so blue against the mass of greenery that fills the woods not twenty feet from where I sit. Nature paints with both delicate and bold strokes, and the human mind, itself a product of nature, responds.

There is no steady wind, but errant breezes stir first one tree and then another, giving them for the moment the power of motion. Those same breezes bring me melodies reaped from the throats of dozens of different species. I hear a rasping call that I cannot place. And I know, there is great mystery left in this world.

No Good, Just Bad and Ugly.

Although I won’t mention names, anyone who has read this “book” will be able to figure out the author. He’s a household name, as famous as I am unknown, so famous that he doesn’t actually write his own books anymore. From what I hear, he meets with a co-author and they develop a story, and then the co-writer does the work. This “book” had a co-author, although I don’t know which is primarily responsible for this monstrosity.

Why did I start it? Well, I read one of famous author’s first novels many, many years ago and it was decent. It didn't make me a fan but I recognized the name later when he became a literary God. I actually picked up a couple of his later books but began to hear from friends who I respected that his later work sucked. This dropped his books down my reading list. Until last night. The lovely Lana brought one of his 2007 releases home, with a sexy cover, and I thought, “his stuff can’t be as bad as my friends are saying. It sells, a lot, and maybe I can learn something from it.”

My friends had understated the suckage. I’ve heard Dan Brown described as a less than stellar writer, but compared with this “book” I’m going to have to start calling Brown Mr. HemingwaySteinbeck. Did I say it was bad? Oh man is it bad.

So why have I kept reading? Because I can’t wait to see what train wreck moment of horribly bad plotting and godawful foreshadowing will be next. I literally can’t believe a professionally published work would be so lame. And let me give you my reasons for saying so. It’ll probably lead some to recognize the work.

First, it starts out like a diary written by a 15 year old girl. A woman puts on her best little black dress and heads downtown to surprise hubby. She finds said hubby arm in arm with a ravishing blond and follows them in her car, like they were “connected by a tow hook,” to a hotel. The woman does not confront her husband, but instead of going out of town the next day as she is supposed to, she stays home and meets hunky, motorcycle rider. These two have apparently carried on a mild flirtation, but no affair.

We pause a moment to mention that hubby is an investment type. We know that both he and the woman have been to law school, where they met, but we don’t know anything about her job. From her interest in clothes and her sweet little “Mini-Cooper” she seems a spoiled housewife with no children to worry about. Anyway, motorcycle guy comes over. She has second thoughts, but then gets on the back of his bike and they race off through the rain to the upscale mansion where the guy is house sitting. They make sweet love, and then the man leaves to get “fresh basil and olive oil” to cook for her.

Meanwhile, hubby has been following the two and knows everything. He gets out of his Toyota Camry with a golf club. (The Camry struck me as odd considering he’s apparently a well off investment fellow who can afford to live in Manhattan and play golf.) As boyfriend comes out of the house, hubby moves to attack, but boyfriend gets the jump and takes away the club.

The scene shifts inside where the woman is at a window watching hubby and boyfriend fight. Hubby wins and throws big hunky guy into the back seat of his car, although the woman can hear the hunk groan and knows he is alive. Ok, now is where it gets really good, or bad. The woman decides her hubby has taken hunk to a hospital (excuse me?) and she drives to the nearest one. For the first time, and this is page 45, we see she has a gun in her purse (say what?). But at the hospital she finds no hubby or boyfriend. She wonders where hubby can have gone and heads to another hospital where she busts into a room holding a crime suspect and a uniformed officer. When the officer looks at her suspiciously, she makes up some lame lie and flees. However, she overhears the policeman’s radio crackle something about a white male victim and an address.

So, she goes to this address and sees numerous NYPD police cars. She thinks about how she better get out of here or she’ll get in trouble, but as she pulls up to the cop directing traffic she suddenly stops and gets out of the car. Then she takes her “badge” out of her purse. Yes, you heard right. On page 51 we find out she is a cop, and on page 52 that she’s been a NYC police officer for seven years, the last year and a half as a detective in homicide. We also learn that the trip she blew off to meet hunk boy was to Quantico for a seminar with the FBI. A few pages later we learn she is also a lawyer as well as a cop. (Rightttt.)

The female police officer/lawyer goes to the tarp where a body lies, looks under, and sees one dead hunk, although she doesn’t notice he’s been shot until another officer (her partner) points it out. We also find out here that boyfriend is a cop too. After that the woman cries hysterically, despite the fact that on the next page we learn she is considered by her chief to be one of his top detectives. And even though she has blown off a trip to FBI headquarters without permission or explanation, the chief immediately assigns her to the case. And this is as far as I’ve gotten.

I can’t even describe all the things wrong with this story. We don’t have the space in the blogosphere. But how can we go fifty pages into a book following a flustered, silly, clothes horse, housewife and suddenly find out that she’s a cop? A homicide detective no less? Suddenly, we are also expected to believe that an investment banker hubby could beat a younger, bigger, stronger man who is a police officer and armed with a golf club in hand to hand combat. (Although I’m quite sure that in this lamely plotted piece of crap we’ll find that hubby is really a spy or assassin or some equally ridiculous thing.)

And the possibility of believing that this woman is a homicide detective is less than believing that the pyramids were erected by penis creatures from Tau Ceti, or that the Taleran series will outsell Dean Koontz’s entire backlist next year. We know she can’t tail a suspect worth a damn. But hubby can tail her without her having a clue. She can’t recognize a bullet wound until it’s pointed out to her. She works in homicide but her first, second, and third thoughts are that hubby is taking beaten up hunk to a hospital. And she’s crying hysterically at a murder scene.

Worst of all, because it’s cheating, we are deliberately mislead repeatedly by the author. The woman’s reaction to uniformed police officers make us think that she’s simply a housewife when in reality all she ever had to do from the start is show her badge. The author played false with the reader. We’re inside the woman’s head for page after page and the author didn’t respect the reader enough to give us a genuine character with genuine thoughts.

Lame.

Strange, Sudden, and Unexpected

I have to share this. Today on Bernita's blog she talked about the "Doom Dog," a spectral dog seen on occasion in the wild places of the British Isles. The dog is almost always black in color. I commented about a legend I've heard in the US of a black dog. This is what I wrote: "I've heard of the black dog legend that truckers talk about. I'm guessing it's a transplant from overseas."

When I posted my comments I was thinking particularly of a 1998 movie starring Patrick Swayze called "Black Dog," which I saw years ago. This evening, as I'm flipping through the TV channels, guess which movie was playing. Not only that, but less than a minute after I flipped to the movie one of the few scenes of the black dog actually played. It has been a very long time since that movie was shown on TV. I haven't seen it in years and it wasn't very popular even when it was released. How weird is that?

In other news, the Flashing Swords Summer Extravaganza issue is out,("Special Edition Summer 2008), and it's twice the usual size. I have a story in it called "Worms in the Earth," a humorous fantasy tale, and there is also an interview with me in the magazine. It's available as download or in print. If you want to check it out you can do so here.

And in other, other news, CrazyCath was kind enough to present me with Arte De Pico award. Here's the criteria:

inspire others with their creative energy and talents.
This can be through writing, artwork, design, interesting
material or contribution to the bigger community.
It is a special honour to receive it.



That was very nice of CrazyCath and I greatly appreciate it. Thank you!

How Today’s World Does Humble

I was flipping through the channels yester eve and came upon a celebrity talking about her newest album and acting gig. She is a very big celebrity, a pop diva, but I’m not going to reveal her name. In the few minutes I watched, she spoke very highly of her own talent, about how her music had touched people and how she had a gift for acting, though she had not often been challenged. Then they interviewed one of her friends/ relatives who said that though she had been a superstar since childhood she was one of the few stars who was “authentically humble.”

Now, I think the woman is talented. She’s won awards and has a nice voice, although I don’t care at all for her music. She is certainly very beautiful. But humble? Come on! She just spent ten minutes bragging on herself and it looked as if—though no one can see inside her mind, of course—that she’s never had a moment of self-doubt in her life.

Certainly she wasn’t snobby or mean-spirited about it. She didn’t do any “in your face trash talking,” which I despise in so many athletes today, or put-down any other musicians/actresses. But there was not a humble bone in her body. She’s rich, beautiful, and famous, and she knows it. She accepts all accolades as her due.

Contrast that to how Jake Delhomme carried himself after he almost single-handedly kept the Carolina Panthers within reach of a super bowl victory a few years ago. The “only” thing he said about himself was that it hurt to lose. Everything else was about the quality of his teammates and the quality of the opposing players. He gave everyone their due and never once even said, “well I thought I played pretty well.” That’s humble. That is honor. That’s the kind of role model I want my son to see, but which I myself see far too seldom.

Today’s world has a different view on “humble” than did the world I grew up in. Apparently, bragging on yourself can be seen as humble today, to which I can only say WTF. Of course, today’s world has a different view on many things. Consider “respect.” Respect today is all about getting it, never about giving it. Or what about the way in which humiliating one’s “enemy” on a field of games is cheered by the crowds? I’m glad at least that the NFL has banned taunting. What kind of “sportsman” taunts a defeated opponent? A sportsman I don’t care to know or cheer for myself.

Man, do I sound like an old fogy or what? Maybe I’m just getting old. Next thing you know I’ll be sitting on my deck in a rocking chair ranting about those “kids today.” Or is that what I just did? I think I’ll shut up now.