WHAT DID NARCISSUS SAY TO INSTAGRAM?

Something there is that doesn't love a wall.
- Robert Frost

At the end of the street onto which I drive when delivering rare blood, there WAS a beautiful vista of our lake.

WAS.  Now, there is a grim brick wall being erected by the mansion being built on lake front property. 

There seems no valid reason for the wall except to deny drivers along the road the view of the lake which cost some unknown person large dollars.

The grey wall seems to say: "I paid for this lovely view,

and

IT IS ALL MINE!"

The mansion is huge and blocks out the view of the lake as well.  A piece of serene beauty which brought calm to my busy day is gone.

It got me to thinking about how selfishness has become acceptable and the norm these days.

I hear words echo from 1940:

"The way of Life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate,

has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.

We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in.

Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want.

Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind.

We think too much and feel too little.

 More than machinery, we need humanity.

More than cleverness, we need kindness, and gentleness.

Without these qualities, life will be violent, and all will be lost..."

 — Charlie Chaplin’s “The Dictator.”

The problem is that in today’s society and culture, everyone is absorbed in themselves,

and how they can become richer, happier, or whatever it is that they personally are chasing.

Don’t jump — until I get this picture lined up!

How about that incident last year in the Bronx in May, when Bahsid McLean, 23, murdered his mom, Tanya Byrd,

then posed with a picture of her severed head.

The following October in Florida, high-school junior Malik Whiter snapped a selfie in a classroom while his teacher was seen going through labor in the background.

Or this Selfie:

Have we lost our souls?

In an article for Psychology Today, doctor Pamela Rutledge says that taking selfies

can be detrimental to a person’s mental health and

that indulging in them is indicative of narcissism, low self esteem, attention seeking behavior and self-indulgence.

Some experts and physicians feel that society is collectively engaged in deep denial

about how dangerous it is to interact with screens without setting limits on how much time is spent doing so.

Facebook use has been linked to depression while Twitter use has been linked to low self esteem and narcissism.

What do you think about all of this?

NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

by Robert Frost

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman Star Yvette Vickers Found Mummified in her home.

Former Playboy pinup and B-movie actress Yvette Vickers died at the age of 82.

But it wasn't until a year later—last Wednesday—that her mummified body was found in her Beverly Hills home.

Neighbor Susan Savage found the Attack of the 50 Foot Woman star lying on the floor of an upstairs room,

after pushing open a barricaded front gate, "scaling a hillside",

climbing through a broken window and pushing through stacks of "clothes, junk mail and letters" to reach her,

according to the Los Angeles Times.

Although Vickers generally kept to herself in the neighborhood, Savage decided to check on her after seeing cobwebs and old letters in her mailbox.

This is absolutely the strangest, and saddest, story Hollywood reported lately.

We are the clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly!--yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost forever:

Percy Bysshe Shelley
***

YOUR C.A.R. : WHAT'S UNDER THE HOOD?

We interrupt this awesome, witty post for the following news item {courtesy of USA TODAY/jAN.5/2011} :

E-Books Outsell Printed Ones, To Nobody's Great Surprise
by Matthew Zuras on January 5, 2011 at 11:30 AM

Ah, what unsurprising news a year can bring!

Just as everyone predicted, e-books continued to nibble at the ankles of their printed forebears this holiday season, with between three and five million e-readers activated in the week after Christmas.

Barnes and Noble claimed that it sold a million e-books on December 25th alone,

while Amazon's been outselling print bestsellers with digital ones since October, according to USA Today.

That newspaper's own Best-Selling Books, coming out on Thursday, will show that digital editions of the top six books outsold the print versions in the last week,

and that 19 of the top 50 titles had higher digital sales than print ones.

* Now, back to our regularly scheduled post of hopefully some value --


Some novels idle rough.

Some jerk, sputter, then stall.

Others run smooth and fast.

The difference? What's under the hood.

A few days ago we likened your novel to the concept C.A.R. :

C ..... Conflict

A ..... Action

R ..... Resolution

CONFLICT -

I. You can put a bow tie on a penguin, but that won't make him Fred Astaire.

(And I wouldn't bet any money on him on DANCING WITH THE STARS either.)

* Calling an emotional moment conflict doesn't make it so.

A.) You and I deal in conflict every day

B.) But authors won't be writing books about us.

1.) Our spouse calls us fat, and our snapping back ...

2.) Conflict ..... yes.

3.) Dramatic Conflict? Usually no ...

unless magic revenge spells fly in the next chapter!

C.) My life on the streets of Post-Katrina New Orleans ...

1.) Conflict? Yes.

2.) Dramatic Conflict? No.

3.) Katrina is old news ... which has a shorter shelf life than dead fish.

a.) Its horrors are only fresh to my nightmares.

b.) There were only losers, no winners. All the villains I saw got away with their crimes.

c.) There was no correcting action I could take,

therefore no satisfying resolution. Only comforting the grieving over losses, that in many cases should have never happened.

d.) Your novel should not be depressing. The reader can be depressed for free.

You're asking her/him to part with hard cash money.

II.) Then, what is Dramatic Conflict?

A.) Let Robert Frost explain :

Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.

B.) DEATH or LIFE

1.) At least in the mind of your Main Character.

2.) The want must be primal ... the roadblock to it must be overwhelming.

3.) Think Zombie Movies :
a.) You're either Fast Feet or
b.) You're Fast Food.
c.) Life gets cut back to the basics : the quick or the dead or the undead.

ACTION --

I.) Hemingway was right --

A.) "Never confuse movement with action."

B.) What then is Dramatic Action according to Hemingway?

1.) He insisted that the action and its form be solely placed on one individual.

2.) The character needs to dominate that action.

Focusing on a single matador against a single bull distills the larger human drama of all of Mankind against those dark forces that threaten us.

C.) Your hero shapes the kind of action :

1.) Robert Jordan of FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS :

2.) While Jordan is the epitome of the hero in his actions,

he is also in command of himself and his circumstances to a far greater extent than Hemingway's previous heroes.

He is driven to face reality by deep emotional needs.

C.) For action to be dramatic, it must be either ...

1.) A direct attack upon the problem or

2.) A direct defense against it.

D.) Harry Potter writing his Congressman about nasty old Mr. Voldemort just doesn't qualify.

RESOLUTION --

I.) Satisfying.

A.) Simple?

B.) Not hardly. Have you ever thrilled to a great suspenseful mystery, only to gasp out loud at the resolution, "That's it?"

C.) Look at those books that you put down in your lap with a smile. They all had one thing in common :

1.) They lived up to the promise of the build-up.

2.) They lived up to the mood of the prior chapters.

a.) One book I read with gusto. It was about a young painter living above a strip club.

b.) Delightful, picaresque characters, snappy dialog, some truly funny moments, and a pace that never leaves you flat-footed:

c.) "Duncan Delaney and the Cadillac of Doom" is a comic circus of strippers and bikers, cowboys and Indians, and fine art. How could you go wrong?

d.) An ending that put a sour taste in my mouth and drained all the fun out of the entire read. Think Christopher Moore's funniest book, ending like THE GREAT GASTBY.

e.) You can buy a hardcover for a dime from Amazon and see for yourself :

http://www.amazon.com/Duncan-Delaney-Cadillac-Doom-Haskett/dp/096788330X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1294367299&sr=1-1

D.) Be true to the mood, promise, and premise of your book. If it takes you a month to write that solution that has your reader gasping in laughter or wonder, take that month.
***
Because Fallen made me do it :

ALL LITERATURE BEGINS WITH GEOGRAPHY

Sleep swept me along in currents of rich, quiet darkness as I drifted along ink seas under starless skies.

A thin, reedy voice spoke to my right. Gypsy yowled her "Not another friggin' ghost" yowl.

"All literature begins with geography."

I pried lead-heavy eyelids reluctantly open. Gypsy shoved her tiny head under my pillow, grumbling low. Robert Frost smiled at her from his ghost chair by my bed.

He gazed off into the darkness and murmured one of the last lines he ever wrote while alive :


"Unless I'm wrong
I but obey
The urge of a song
I'm—bound—away!

And I may return
If dissatisfied
With what I learn
From having died."


He turned his eyes back to me. "As it turned out, I was quite satisfied with what I learned. But Elinor has chased me out of our celestial farm tonight."

He rubbed his chin ruefully. "She says I always get insufferable on this day."

Gypsy pulled her head out from under the pillow and yowled. Robert Frost shook his head and answered my cat.

"Upon this day in 1963 I learned that my "In the Clearing" collection had won the Bollingen Prize for best book of American verse, 1962. It oddly pleased me to no end for some reason."

I tried to blink some clarity to the fog of my awakening mind. "Ah, Mr. Frost ...."

"Rob, please."

"Uh, Rob, do you really think all literature begins with geography?"

He laughed. "Starting with absolute pronouncements is an old teaching trick, Roland. You were a teacher as was I. You know that. It is human nature to rail against them, to kick holes in them, thus thinking through your own beliefs in the meantime."

He pursed his lips like a troubled librarian for a moment. "But geography certainly shaped my own poetry. You could call these places "Frost Country":

San Francisco, Lawrence, Derry, England, Franconia, Shaftsbury, Ripton and Bennington. These are the literary time capsules of my beliefs and will enrich your enjoyment of my poetry."

Gypsy angrily muttered under her feline breath, and Robert Frost chuckled, "No that is not the reason I disturbed your sleep, cat."

He patted his knees. "I wanted to tell you, Roland, to persevere. You, and all your blog friends, have more talent than you believe, and this new year will bring fresh harvests."

He rose slowly, smiling ruefully. "By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day."

He started to fade like a dream upon awakening. "No great wisdom from beyond I'm afraid. In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."

He tapped my shoulder with all-but-invisible hand. "Forgive me my nonsense, as I also forgive the nonsense of those that think they talk sense."

The last thing I saw was his faint smile. "Now, back home to Elinor. Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in."

And he was gone.

So? Do you have any tricks you use when you want to make your readers think? And do you think Rob was right? Does all literature begin with geography? Do the important places in your life affect how and what you write?
***

ONCE AGAIN THE WORLD IS ENDING

Once again the world is ending.

No, I'm not talking about 2012,

or about that radio evangelist who states Judgement Day is coming May 21st of 2011.

{Last time I checked, the Bible still states no man knows the day or the hour ...

merely the season.}

Assuredly, the season of change is upon us.

Technology is evolving once more.

The Industrial Revolution created chaos and havoc, along with its eventual progress.

All the children maimed and whose lives were cut short by hellish child labor at that time

are sad testimonies that what lies ahead may not be pleasant for many.

Publishers are downsizing. Ebooks are stirring in the gene pool.

Job-protecting purchasing agents for said publishers are only buying what they perceive as the "Big Books,"

ones that can generate high sales from their first day of publication.

Agents are getting editors to listen to their pitch, only to have those purchasing agents refuse to authorize the sale.

What are we as struggling novice writers to do?

The best we can.

Use our skills to present ourselves in the best possible light.

The query is the flare that gets the agent's attention. Sadly, they are viewing a sky filled with them. Our flare must stand out.

How?

1.) In a sky filled with long-tailed flares, the short one stands out :

Brevity. Be one page.

Like having only one suitcase for a trip, wisely pack your one page where a little says a lot.

2.) Hook. {If the world were all vampires, what would they drink?}

{Research what high-sale book this agent has handled that is like yours (don't cheat -- it has to be like yours -- or the agent will feel cheated)}

Mention how your book is cut from the same cloth as that book -- that will slow the reject mantra down. She made money from that particular book. She could possibly make money from yours.

3) stirring sentences boiling down your plot to the basics. At this point, the agent is only considering your query in the broadest sort of way. She is asking herself, "Do I want to see more?" Intrigue her enough to nod yes.

{Ever ask, "How are you?" to an acquaintence and get a three hour, detailed painful answer?} Don't be that in your query. The most effective monster in the movies is the one of whom you only see broad flashes.

4.) Be a bad reporter : don't name names. It jars the agent to have to stop and mentally go,

"How the h___ do you pronounce Sidhe de la Muerte?" The agent is thinking speed and ease of digesting your query.

Give the agent verbal indigestion at your peril. No names. Usually it is unnecessary. Hero. Love interest. Enemy. Arena of conflict.

Fit the above in a three act format, showing the agent you actually have a coherent storyline.

A.) Never trip your agent's attention. Highlight in broad strokes. Don't spotlight in numerous details.


"The man with death in his veins is the reluctant champion of life in post-Katrina New Orleans."

No sub-plots. Your agent will probably make her initial reject at the genre alone. "I don't do military history."


B.) I do the housekeeping as it is called : title, length, and genre in the subject header of my email. Fast and upfront. And this way it doesn't interfere with the flow of the query.


C.) Next will be your basic plot. If your base plot seems weak without your sub-plot. That's because you plot is weak. Time to tweak not query.

The above logline is too general. For once I did that on purpose. How about :


"In post-Katrina New Orleans, there is one dark French Quarter street where the dead are rising. And to stop them? One undead Texas Ranger. The Night of the Hungry Shadows has begun."

D.) Think brief but specific. Also think : "What time is it anyway?" The agent is. Tell her.


As in the logline above. Hurricane Katrina. Two short words but they paint a whole picture of human struggle. I mention the time frame. The Night of the hungry shadows.

It gives an immediate structure to my work for the agent. She knows my book has a structure. She knows a lot from a little.


A novel set in post-Katrina New Orleans will have an entirely different flavor than one set during the six days of the missile crisis in the Kennedy White House.

Location gives a sense of atmosphere, of the culture, and of the people involved. Post-Katrina New Orleans. Three words that tell the agent a great deal.

In one sentence without one word of plot, the agent can see the broad scope of my novel.

Can you see your query a little more clearly now? Hope so.
***