Reflecting Your Life

Twenty plus years ago I made a series of continuing education tapes for real estate license renewal in California. I got studio time only after the "big names" in real estate got their shot. The problem was simply that none of them had ever done live to video before and they sucked at it. The studio tech staff went crazy dealing with the prima donnas and incompetent speakers. Then they decided to give others a shot. I was one of the "others."

I brought coffee and pot for the crew and told them just to turn on the cameras, I would start talking and we would put in all the graphics and low-lines in post-production. In other words, we would shoot the tapes they way they were meant to be shot.

After my first day of shooting I took 150 raw minutes of tape home to watch over the weekend and dream up appropriate visuals to edit into the final product. You see unlike those "real estate professionals" I had actually taught before; so I knew that all the notes in the world only meant confusion on the screen. My system was to just talk for 50 minutes (end of tape); then talk for another 50 minutes and repeat. Then I would watch the footage to see what I said and write an outline to fit what was on the screen. Seemed like a good plan and it worked but there is one more part of the story I wanted to tell today.

The next day I popped the first tape into the VHS player and sat down with a pad of paper. A couple of minutes into the lecture I thought: "Now that's a really good point, I should write that down, so I don't forget it." About half way through my note taking I stopped, looked up at the screen and realized I was taking notes on myself. I had impressed me! Talk about a mutual admiration society.

The other story comes from the writing of Check Raising the Devil. Our process was to get all of the interviews and research done on a chapter, then to rough draft it and then to read it out loud to Mike to get his comments and corrections. I have mentioned before that some of the best scenes in the book came from Mike adding some juicy tidbits during this reading of the drafts.

This one time, Mike had wanted his manager and another person to sit in on a reading to get their take on how the project was coming along. My co-author Amy was in town for this session, it was really a litmus test of whether or not we had captured Mike's authentic voice. This chapter was about a particularly dark and difficult time in Mike's life, it had taken several interviews sessions and a few different approaches to get all the painful details out of him.

I was reading the pages out loud and about mid chapter I began to feel the gravity of what we were disclosing. I paused and glanced over at Amy, I could see on her face she was feeling it as well. She nodded towards Mike as if directing my attention. I looked at him and saw he was in tears, not the only tears in the room as it turned out.

Imagine the darkest time of your life, then imagine having those scenes, those dark times you lived through, having them read to you with professional setting, timing, scene structure and dialogue. Imagine having your life reflected back to you in word, deed, voice or videotape. I can tell you it's a surreal and profound experience no matter which side of the screen you occupy.

Upon Attempting to Be a Novelist

All praise to any novelist who takes us out onto thin ice, under which large, dark shapes are discernibly swimming. Michael Cunningham

As a rule it is not a good idea to tell someone a story before you write it. Any comments or feedback will distort your vision before you have committed the words to paper or cyber-storage. About eight months ago I told two good friends and trusted critics the first part of my novel. I had what I thought were all 35,000 words written and I was interested in their reaction to the big reveal that finishes part one. Indeed it was at this point all of my large, dark shapes came into view and I did indeed have my readers out on very thin ice without them even noticing they had been led out onto a lake.

Unfortunately, neither of them liked the dark turn my story takes and I was concerned that the tale was way off track. So I turned back to the pages and began to edit, I could have simply changed the big reveal but I was sure I had it right. Must have been the lead-up twas lacking. After several weeks the 35,000 words had burgeoned to 63,000 and I sent the newly fattened part one out to six readers, including those same two I had verbally told the story. Lo and behold none of them were put off by the big reveal, in fact, the two who had been less than luke warm originally were glowing with their praise.


I pondered this for a few moments and realized I had attempted to condense my well structured dark forms into a two minute verbal summary. Clearly, darkness needs some time to build. I needed those thousands of words to lure my readers out onto the dangerously thin ice and then and only then to reveal the sinister shadows beneath them. 


Lesson learned, I ain't tellin' nobody no stories no more; at least not ones that are going to take hundreds of thousands of words to deliver all the darkness and shadows.

Shared Marginalia

A couple of months ago Amazon quietly announced public note sharing for their Kindle eReader. I was surprised they didn't make a bigger deal about this great leap forward. You can now read a book with a friend, friends or classmates and share each other's marginalia. I don't know if you have ever passed a book around with everyone adding to the margin notes but I can attest from several such ventures that it is well worth the time. The only drawback was waiting for your turn to get the book or being first in line with completely virgin pages. The last in the queue, of course, gets the full benefit of sharing everyone's thoughts, dreams, reflections and critique.

Now we can do it live and be updated as the group reads through the book in real time. Sure we all have to buy a Kindle or download the free app. to our laptop and upload the same book but trust me this is worth the effort. I assume all the eReaders will add this feature soon. 

Geographical separation will no longer limit the members of your book club; you can have an eBook Club. Who wants to read Heart of Darkness with me? Or the Foundation Trilogy? Or Catch-22? Or . . .

Oxford English Dictionary

I don't remember when I got my OED, I think it was a gift for ordering something or joining something else, maybe a donation. I got the compact two volume set with the magnifying glass in the little drawer at the top. I had no idea what I was missing before becoming the proud owner of an OED. It's stored with my other books in Ohio these days. But even in the age of the internet, there are many times each week I wish I had it sitting on a nearby shelf, the etymology alone is worth the weight of moving those monster tomes from place to place.

Recently I discovered some of the newer additions to the OED. I admit to being a bit surprised but then I remembered just how comprehensive it was. The OED now includes: LOL, FYI and yes even OMG!

Also added: donut hole, happy camper, la-la land, muffin top.

Further new entries include the five (or two, or three, or ten) second rule for retrieving and eating food that has fallen on the floor. Apparently, jelly side up has not made the cut yet, despite being a very important corollary to the ten second rule.

Dichotomy

One might say that the definition of dichotomy presents a dichotomy. The simpliest definition says that it is the division into two parts or a subdivision into pairs or halves. But you can sense that this is not how we use the term. Looking further we find additional constraints - the division into two mutually exclusive, opposed even contradictory groups. Such as a dichotomy between motion and stillness.

One definition suggests an original whole which is cut in two; the other a divide that can never be a whole and never was. Still something is missing.

Our use of the term dichotomy is heavily influenced by the notion of a false dichotomy. Also known as black & white thinking, a false dichotomy draws a bipolar comparison that is not necessarily true. For example:

We had a lot of rain this spring. The crime rate was higher this spring. Rain is conducive to crime.

or

Guns and hammers are made of metal and both can be used to harm someone. It makes no sense to regulate the sale of hammers, so it makes no sense to regulate gun sales either.

There is something in the examples of the false dichotomy that creeps into our understanding and use of dichotomy. The oppositional definition seems to be dominant.

There is something to be extrapolated about separate but equal logic mixed in here somewhere, but sometimes my brain hurts and nothing will do but another cat picture.

You might have wondered at some point - where do the ideas for a blog post originate? Well this one came from a picture. No, not the kittens. The photograph below of an art work titled: Dichotomy by Eric Franklin.

I didn't say I understood it.

Two Years

Two years ago today our book, Check Raising the Devil, was released. It has sold right around 25,000 copies since then and small royalty checks arrive every six months or so. I was talking with my writing partner, Amy Calistri, about this anniversary and what we learned from writing the book.

First we learned a lot about bipolar disorder, ADHD, meth use and conditions in the Clark County jail. I also got some really great poker lessons sweating Mike through numerous tournaments in Las Vegas.

We got ourselves a New York Literary agent and we are thankful to both Sheree and Janet for everything they did getting CRD to a publisher. Plus they have been most helpful on current projects - professional publishing advice is invaluable to new authors. We also learned a lot about how the publishing industry works and unfortunately in these times of economic stress, how it doesn't work as well.

Finally, we learned what a rare treat it is to work collaboratively. In the two years since CRD came out I have tried to work with other writing partners to no avail. Amy and I had a rare working relationship and yes, we are casting about for another project to do together.

For now I am head down focused on finishing my current novel, would that you will have the opportunity to read it in 2012.

Traffic Jam at the Top of the World

I do sometimes write short pieces that come to rest other places than this blog. I am going to be doing a bit more of that in the coming months. Here is a bit of Himalayan fiction I wrote that my good friend Pauly used in the March edition of his blogzine Truckin'. 

I call it Traffic Jam at the Top of the World - offered for your enjoyment.

About Truckin': "The contributors at Truckin' write for the love of self-expression, which is a clever way of saying that they generated these stories for free. I'm amazed at their collective bold leap of faith, because the scribes exposed their inner souls to you. With that in mind, please spread the word about your favorite stories. Good karma and many blessings will come your way for exposing new readers to our amazing writers."

Writing Lesson Learned

Reflection should be well-timed,

rather than time-consuming.

Elizabeth Kostova

The Historian

Back in the late 90s when I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation I stumbled on a little writing trick that has served me well ever since. I break up long projects into pieces (yes, dear writing teachers using an outline). Then I break the pieces into smaller pieces and if possible in to even tinier bits. For my dissertation I had 107 chunks of writing. Then each morning or evening when I sat down to write I would glance at the list and find something that interested me that particular day.

Now you might think that you would write the easy parts first or the ones that you really were interested in and that eventually you would be faced with a remaining pile of unwritten pieces that you had rejected several score of times in the past. For me, at least, that did not happen and has not happened since. I really try to avoid long projects that don't interest me through and through. So some mornings I am more than willing to take on the heavy dialog sections and some evenings the interior psychological musings seem to be ripe for the writing.

Recently I have discovered that thinking about my writing has a similar quality. It almost never works to try and think through a particularly troublesome section of a chapter. Best to leave it alone, not to reflect on it at all. I know the pieces of the puzzle are floating somewhere in my mind or occupying the nearby ether and they will come into view if left to themself and my unconscious receptors.

So don't push the reflection, it tis after all reflected brilliance and sometimes the reflecting surface is subject to cloud cover with the chance of partial eclipse.

---

photo by Richard Adams

Away

Enjoy as many of the holidays as the waning of the calendar may bring your way.

We shall return in the new year.

Writer's Block

When your imaginary friends won't talk to you.

No I don't have writer's block. Since the time when I first considered myself "a writer" I have never experienced a lack of or a loss for words. Oh sure there might be a piece I had to set aside for a day or an hour but blocked -- never. I do remember the experience from my undergrad days. Back then I didn't understand the craft of writing. Not only did I not get the whole concept of outlines and paragraph structure but I lacked what fortunately I now have in abundance - inspiration. So many stories, so little time.

I do use one technique on the order of a cheat sheet, which is simply that I have a lot of projects going at once and more often than not have the luxury of choosing what I want to work on each morning. Deadlines do come around, but I am generally ahead of the curve on the ticking clock issues. There is a little trick I stumbled on when I sat down to finish my dissertation. Back in 1999, I had just left an all consuming job in Silicon Valley and needed to complete my P.D. dissertation I had put on semi-hold; twas time to close a life chapter, which required a check mark next to the grad school experience. I had continued to do weekend research on my topic: Exploring the nature of qualitative research: Assumptions, attributes, definitions and antecedents. But I was not producing text or content. So my first day back at the desk, I did a little sorting and pencil sharpening before producing the updated outline of the entire project. An introduction, five chapters and a conclusion.

Then I broke each chapter into sections and those sections into sub-sections. When the parsing was done I had ninety three little pieces, some done, some drafted, others outlined and a few with just notes or question marks. Then the process was simple, each morning I would drift through the list and find something that interested me to start the day. Slowly the list of potential bits became drafts, drafts were polished and finally there was just the task of stitching the quilt together and fixing the then's, than's and that's.

Today I know as soon as I hit publish on this post, I will be working on a query letter for a novel (Grey Angel) that has been back-burnered for several months. Inspiration struck in the wee hours this morning, my bedside notepad was full of restart ideas when I rolled from the covers a short time ago. I am both inspired and infused with a new direction for that story. Another project, also fresh from several months in a temporal cul-de-sac surfaced this past week, that will be project #2 on my list; unless, of course, we experience a muse war, in which case I will offer up another blog post.

Lay of the Last Minstrel

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.
                   -Sir Walter Scott

A Few of My Favorite Things

It would seem that "A Few of My Favorite Things" is a common blog thread. I had not encountered this blogging phenomenon until I went looking for an appropriate photo for this post. Googling AFoMFT produced thousands of exact blog matches. Switching to images, I felt Julie Andrew's on a hilltop did not strike the tone I was seeking. And I couldn't find a really good chocolate manatee. But enough of this overture, in the last three days I have experienced a trifecta of my favorite things.

Upon returning from Las Vegas I indulged myself in two nights of solitary sleep. I was editing a section of my latest book the other day and I see no reason to reinvent the perfect description, so I quote myself:

I was going to sleep until I woke and then slowly turn over and drift off again. Nowhere to go, nowhere to be, no one to bother with and no one to bother me. If there is a heaven, it has cold, crisp mornings and pile of goose down comforters.


The third morning I was already three pages into editing when I glanced at the chronometer to find it was not yet 8 AM. If you linger in bed every morning, it might just be considered sloth. Besides you can't really enjoy the exquisite pleasure of rolling over if you do it every single day. Surely tis the contrast between Carpe Diem and Carpe Supine that makes it so sublime.


Favorite Thing #2 involves books. I can walk from my place to both the Berkeley Public Library and three UC Berkeley collections. Despite the easy access of the internet, there are times when sitting down in front of several shelves of books on a particular topic is the best form of research. Titles and abstracts don't always cover all the tidbits that books contain. Yesterday, I had a particular topic in mind and spend a glorious three hours pawing through forty or so books and literally hundreds of spine titles to get clarity on just one tiny topic. Out of that session I will have a couple of articles by the end of the week leading perhaps to another writing gig. But job or no, the pleasure of the search and research is always there.


Favorite Thing #1 is sleep. Second FT is fodder for the cerebrum, well then number three has got to be.

Yes, of course, food!

Here are the ingredients of a near perfect graze.

A loaf a Acme Bakery olive bread. They use these green olives that somehow remain moist in the loaf without making the bread soggy. Plus there is a high ratio of firm outer crust to tender interior.

For toppings, well first a wedge of Cambozola cheese, if you don't know this variety, it is a blend of gorgonzola and camembert. I recommend removing the rind (which you can save to cut into soup) and then letting the cheese warm to room temperature. Very rich, almost to be used as a spread. Since there are times you want a slice of cheese, something with substance; I recommend supplementing with a second selection. I opted for a firm, strong, white cheddar.

Now in my younger days, I might have gone for a hard Genoa salami here but these days I shy away from nitrated meats and instead add the following:

Avocado, at precisely that moment of ripeness when the texture and flavor reminds one of liquid velvet. I do so remember how as kids we referred to these gems ripening on the kitchen window ledge as green slime. I am sure my mother was heart-broken when she didn't have to share with her horde of carnivores.

I have found a brand of sun-dried tomatoes that are stored not in olive oil but in a lighter combination of oil and balsamic vinegar. Same distributor has roasted red and yellow peppers in a brine. Accompanying beverage of your choice and enjoy.

By the way, on day two the same combinations minus the Cambozola (too soft) and the bread on the side, go perfectly tossed in some spring salad greens, add a few capers use the sun-dried tomato balsamic oil as dressing and you have more bliss for the palate.

I thought of titling this post: "Simple Pleasures" but I realized that Godiva cat probably cost ten bucks.

March Madness

I'm just trying to make a smudge on the collective unconscious.

-- David Letterman.

I am currently struggling with a decision that quite frankly does not have a completely satisfying answer. The question is simple: what do I write next? The more precise question is: which of several proposals do I complete, edit, polish and re-edit before sending it off to be shopped about the world of publishing by my literary agent?

Let me first apologize to any and all aspiring writers out there who know just how difficult it is to be in the position to even have an agent. I am privileged as a result of the Matusow book to have a very good representative, who is interested in my current work and eager to receive my next project.

The problem, of course, is the age old dichotomy between money and art. Although in my case the distinction is not completely neat and crisp. The book I want to work on isn't quite ready to be finished; which is to say that the entire story has not yet unfolded and it will not be rushed. So I am left with deciding which of the several other projects will be most profitable and/or will do the most for my reputation as a writer.

Unlike the great suffering literary giants of yore, I am not saddled with the crushing burden of artistic purity. I have no problem selling my words for profit. I do, however, want my work to make a difference beyond merely entertaining my readers. I want what I write to be such that someone might use my words, my stories, my insight to change their life or the lives of those around them. I want to inspire, to illuminate and to encourage.

For that to happen, it is clear I must produce profitable products for the publisher, in order for them to have faith in what I am producing on a more esoteric level in the books I really want to write. So I think the answer to my question is that I must for the present be more commercial, so that in the not too distant future and publisher will say to me -- "and we would like to see your next work . . . " For that to happen I need a name and a resume, so my current decision has several competing commercial and artistic aspects that I am grappling with.

The immediate goal is to deliver a completed book proposal by the end of April and to immediately begin work on a second. Nothing would be better then having two deadlines. I truly enjoy the demands of writing. My current wish is that such pressures came with valuation attached. Give me liberty or give me a big advance.

---

photo credit: redbubble.com

Stardust Memories

I was just having a gulp of water one day this past January while I was driving across west Texas. I happened to notice that my water bottle was the one I got the last night the Stardust casino was open in November of '06. I have the last player's card ever issues by the Stardust, the last water bottle ever given away and until recently a one dollar chip from the last hand of poker ever dealt in the Stardust poker room I gave the chip to Amy.

What I pondered while my car slowly devoured the vastness of west Texas was that as a journalist I wrote in my article the next day for PokerNews that I had played one of the last hands of poker ever played at the Stardust. You see the last night at the Stardust was a night of nostalgia. Lots of old players, dealers and staff had come by to say farewell. Right around 10 o'clock the poker room manager told the dealers to hold up and then he announced that the next hand would be the final hand ever dealt at the Stardust. Then all four of the remaining tables dealt a single hand, most players stayed to the river just to be there for the final showdown.

As a journalist I reported that fact: four final hands at the Stardust. But today I was working on my current fiction project and I reproduced those events but, of course, I made it THE final hand and, also of course, I lost the hand on a river bad beat. I love being a writer and I am not a guy who tosses around the word love all that often.

I apologize to my non-poker readers for the nostalgia and the poker jargon. But think how my loyal poker readers feel when I write about wallabies, wombats and wampeters.

On the Other Hand

Call it ying & yang, woof & wharf, dark & light or simply balance. It does seem that all things trend back to the center over the long term. The only question is how patient can we be when seemingly at the other end of the happiness continuum? But metaphysics is not my topic today, rather synchronicity.

I have been searching for the answer to a particular question a good friend had recently posed to me. Suddenly with an ever so quiet eureka! it came to me. Like so many "answers" it was informationally correct but implementally incomplete. I knew what to do but I did not have the means to complete the task. The following day, she called to tell me about a message she had received from another friend who told her exactly where to find what I had been seeking for her. He has no clue we were looking; she was unaware of my answer without an answer. It all just fell into place--synchronous.

Then another friend offers me the second draft of his novel to read. Here I find not only a needed aspect for my own writing but a story that deeply parallels my own. Reinforcement is a powerful motivator. Knowing others are wandering on the same mountain as you, even though their path be different.

A good antidote to yesterday's thoughts. May all creatures be happy.

Writing for an Audience or Something Like That

Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it. -- David Sedarus

This has been an interesting week for communication and failure to communicate. I have shared my writing with several individuals and found that where I was going with a piece or a scene was not necessarily where my reader found themselves.

One wonders, I wonder, how much of my stories are going to be transmitted as they are in my brain and how much will just be fodder for the fantasies and mindscape of a reader. For instance, I told three people the same story with four parts. I was clear that the writing was true but not accurate. This literary genre being variously called: non-fiction fiction, nearly fiction, or the old artistic license. As Mark Twain is said to have said:

The difference between fiction and non-fiction is that fiction must be absolutely believable.

So I told the four part story to the three people and each found some part believable as fact or at least non-fiction. However, each listener found different combinations of fiction versus non-fiction in the elements of my tale. Apparently we decide which is right and which is an illusion.

Which leads me to another strange discovery on the subject of the written word. Being back in a stable environment, meaning I am going to be here for a time measured in months not days, perhaps even years not months. Being in such a place, I have launched myself onto an internet dating site or two. On one of these I use "Poker Shrink" as my screen name. One member of the female variety actually found a way to make Poker Shrink obscene. Yes, there actually is an X-rated interpretation of that moniker. A large dill pickle if you get it; don't try too hard she was a really inventive ....... character.

So the moral of this pondering -- Don't be careful what you write, it's all going to be interpreted completely differently by whomever reads it anyway. Speaking of which, you know a good plastic surgeon could fix that.

ScreenWritin'

There is a huge difference between writing a book and writing a screenplay. I am not sure if the difficulties are decreased or increased if one is attempting to create the script from a book they have already written. What I can say for sure is that the "play" in screenplay is a lot more fun than the book was at any point.

Spending a week plus here in Austin with Amy and Eric has meant that Aimlessly and I have had a lot of time to think through and talk through the status of our joint effort to turn Check Raising the Devil into a movie. I am strongly of the opinion that we have a solid 120 page draft. Amy firmly believes the first 40 pages she was edited are indeed worthy and the rest is "shrink drafty." She may have a point.

As to the process, if you have read the book, you know it is completely in the first person of Mike "The Mouth". That format was both defining and limiting. I admit to being opposed to it but every other person involved in the decision making process was for it, soest. In the screenplay, on the other hand, being able to add a character/observer/commentator at any juncture is remarkably freeing. I particularly enjoyed adding "The Shady Character" as our meth dealer on the rail at Binion's. Plus we have the freedom of having any random player at any poker table say what you and I and every 2+2 forum weenie wants to say to Mike. Very freeing.

In the end, this may or may not make it to the big silver screen. All I can promise is that if we get this film made, poker players will walk out of the theatre saying: "Finally a poker movie that got the game right!"

Oh and about that academy award. We have exactly a 0.003% better chance of being nominated than you do; unless you have an unfinished screenplay in bottom desk drawer, in that case it's a dead heat.

Blog Year in Review

Yes, it's that waning moment of the year again. Time to reflect back on what we have and have not accomplished. Also time for my first annual look back at my best posts of the year on this here blog. I haven't done this before because in previous years I had managed only a measly forty or fifty posts. But this will be the one hundred and sixtieth post in 2009, so I am mentally masturbating today looking a representative selection of my blogging over the last twelve months. I would point out to my poker readers that even with the twenty Matusow-Hellmuth-Negreanu articles at the World Series this summer, only 45 of the 160 total posts for the year were poker related and only one made it into this top ten list.

Let's start with that single pokerish post. My Exit Interview from the World of Poker (9/17). It took about a month to detach myself, leave my favorite poker forums and cancel all the Yahoo and Google alerts, but I am no longer powerless over pocket jacks. Despite working on the screenplay from the book, I am on to things with more than 52 objects of attention.

That being said, I do have to highlight at least one post about Check Raising the Devil. If you missed it, here is the original first chapter (5/3) that Amy and I wrote but which never made it past the editor. All of that work seems so long ago, but I have a royalty check in my wallet, so . . .

In the wider world beyond poker there was some noize about health care this year. I took a few passing swipes, as would any cynical, errr critical commentator but I also did one math based piece on the whole health care issue (8/2). In rereading, it would seem, as usual, that the majority of my rational points have no place in the political debate.

I wrote a lot more this year about music, particularly about lyrics and their origins. If you scroll down to the bottom of this post, you can click on the link for a musical, lyrical interlude (9/23).

Livelihood, careers, income and jobs were on and off my mind all year apparently for most of the twelve months. This post Work, Labor, Job, Calling comes from early in my fiscal pondering (2/4).

Old Friends were also on my mind often this year. The trip I am still on created the opportunity for me to visit with many of them. This post related one story (3/24) of a couple of old friends and although they are not cast in the best of light here, life is life. I realized when I was rereading this post that I missed a song appropriate to my many visits this year. If you care to listen in, here is Old Friends.

Along with health care, collective environmental angst kept up the greening of amerika. I wrote a post on the comparative cost of energy and the manipulation of public opinion. Sometimes quantitative numbers make the point when followed up with some well chosen prose. I titled this one: Fuzzy, Oily, Windy Math (9/6).

Books are always a source for blog inspiration, so are other bloggers. One such post came about from reading another of my favorite bloggers and wondering about books that were significant at the moment in my life when they came into my hands and into my head. Momentarily Memorable Books (8/6).

I like to grace my blog with pictures. One of my favorite pencil-sharpening tasks it to search the web for potential images for future blogs. Once in awhile the images themselves are so overwhelming that they take over the post. Here is my best visual interlude from 2009. You gotta click thru to see the best Pictures of Earth (10/1).

Finally, my recent visit to Washington DC left me with the resolve that we all need to stand up, once again, and let our elected representatives know that we do not approve of the conduct of war. What a phrase: "Conduct of War". Pause along with me at the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial (12/15). Then write, call or email your feelings to someone in DC. Begin with Barack.

Midday in the Garden

I am told that in Savannah they simply call it "The Book". Referring, of course, to Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I did a long pause in Savannah yesterday, not nearly long enough to enjoy the city but definitely sufficient time to soak up some local scenery for a story I am working on.

It's fascinating to me to sit in a place and try to keep up with the unfolding story as words fill in the scenes, dialogue and characters; almost without me. This must be what channeling is like. I know that must tweak anyone who experiences writer's block but I just find the entire writing process to be like rainfall these days. I assume someday it will not be this effortless but for now, bless the muse of prose. Now to buy a really extravagant gift for my editor.

On the moist side of life, I awoke this morning to the predicted heavy rains but I also discovered temperatures in the mid-60s. I had forgotten what humid was like. Apologies again to those in the early white grip of winter, tis warm and muggy in Florida. Time to shave off the winter beard and take a dip in the pool. Imagine a clean shaven manatee floating in the intracoastal waterway taking notes on the pelican couple necking on the decrepit dock by the bay.

Waiter! More wine!

Discarded Opening to a Story

I suggested to a writer friend the other day that all of the words his editor had so viciously and heartlessly ripped out of his new book would make several great blog posts. So taking my own advice, here is an opening that never was:

Book publishers want every book to start with a blockbuster opening line that leads off a smashing first paragraph at the beginning of a stunning chapter one that grabs the audience by their collective hearts, minds or other appropriate body parts. It’s just the way things are expected to be done in the publishing business.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." You may never have actually read a Tale of Two Cities, but I’ll bet you recognize that famous opening line.

Then there is that story about a big albino fish. Hundreds of thousands of high school and college students have dashed their heads on the shoals of Moby Dick, never to reach the final chapter. Yes OK, he was not a fish; a big white wet mammal. The point is the story opens with no mention of whale nor ship nor mad ship’s captain. Moby Dick begins with "Call me Ishmael."

Perhaps the most ludicriously infamous opening line: "Twas a dark and stormy night" actually" does begin an 1830 novel. A novel now remembered for those six words and nothing more. This iconic line now stands for every overly dramatic attempt to do exactly what every publisher wants you to do with the opening of every book—write a memorable first line!

Now should your story begin quietly or slowly, you won’t have an exciting opening, well then you use a flash forward; drop the reader into an exciting scene from later in the story. A hot sexual liaison would be a real grabber, a sudden gory murder even better. Seems violence sells better than sex and you don’t loose the moral majority of readers with a murder but you might with a tawdry Bill Clinton, Elliot Spitzer or Tiger Woods.

The key to the flash forward is, of course, the impending flashback. At the penultimate moment of your over-written flash forward, when the hook is set and the reader is putty in your literary hands, you flash back to the beginning of your story. You know the lines, the one’s that make you cringe and think: Ah shit, now we have to hear about the childhood.

"Bob grew up on a sprawling family dairy farm in the dreary hinterlands of Iowa." Now we have to hear about Bob’s mom and dad and don’t forget Aunt Rachel. Does everyone skip ahead at this point or is it only me? I mean we all know that Bob’s story doesn’t get interesting until he arrives in Singapore, so do we really need the details of the 5 AM milking regime back in Iowa?

"Millie was a quiet, bookish child; who had never ventured beyond the hedge at the end of the crushed limestone drive." Now that’s a bit better, the crushed limestone drive at least gives us the sense that the writer is going to be visually entertaining, but still – inevitably here come Millie’s parents and her dog Sissy too. The fact is that some really great stories are simply really slow starters.

All of this by way of saying that my story does not begin with a bang, a boom or a thump of any kind. This story begins in Las Vegas, just west of the Strip on the other side of Interstate 15, at the Extended Stay Hotel on Valley View Drive.

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credit: fineartamerica.com