THE MOST IMPORTANT POST YOU WILL READ TODAY

You read my title and said,

"Get real."

Exactly.

Get real. Or never get picked up by an agent.

As a writer of urban fantasy,

I have to convince my readers that Samuel McCord and his friends and enemies are real,

or they will never buy my fantastical setting and plot as "real."

No matter what you write, you must do the same. Or the readers will never become absorbed into your novel.

How do you do that?

By remembering ...

1) "God and Country" ain't what it used to be.

Duty and honor were once valid motivations. But Shakespeare is dead.

This is the "Me" generation. Even if you're writing about women in the 1700's, you are not writing FOR them.

Abigail Adams sacrificed much for her husband and family. But her letters showed a woman who insisted on owning her own property and money

(very much NOT the custom of the time.)

All of us have had to deal with a situation, not because it was honorable, but because it was heaved into our laps.

Abigail comes across as real because her letters showed she resented her husband's ambition that took him from his children and her so often and for so long.

She fumed at his inability to get along with others.

Ambition, vanity, irritability -- she saw his warts. But they were warts on a face she loved. We can "buy" a woman who sees clearly but loves deeply.

2) Ah, Love ...

"Put the rat cage on her. On her!"

In 1984, Winston is tortured by the Thought Police until he finally breaks and screams for his tormenter to put the rat cage on Julia, the woman he "loves."

Sex is a primal motivator not love.

Man will sacrifice much for love but generally there must be a good chance of success, or your average reader will feel your novel is cliche not real.

Your hero may be different and sacrifice all for love, but that extremism must apply to all facets of his life or your reader will not "buy" your hero.

3.) Curiosity killed the cat ... and the bad novel.

Without curiosity, fire and most of Man's discoveries would never have been made. But as with love, there is a limit to how much we will sacrifice for curiosity.

When a mother's children are threatened by her curiosity, she will generally grudgingly back off.

Up the punishment enough, and all of us curious types will say, "I'm outta here!"

But by the time that moment comes, realistically, it is too late. And that leads us to the next point :

4) Self-preservation or
"I'll miss you terribly, but that last life preserver is mine!"

We like to think the world is a nice place. But try being an ill, frail woman on a crowded bus and see how selfless most people are.

To continue when threats to his life are enormous, your main character must have more than self-preservation to keep on --

perhaps he/she cannot depend on the promises or threats of the adversary to keep his/her children and spouse safe.

Or as so often in life, the hero simply has no choice but to go on. The bee hive has been toppled -- and it's simply run or be stung to death.

5) Greed or

"Excuse me. Is that my hand in your pocket?"

Greed is good -- as Michael Douglas once said. But only up to a point.

For one thing, greed is not something which endears our hero to the reader. Another, shoot at most greedy folks, and they will head for more hospitable hills.

5) Revenge consumes ... the individual and the reader's patience.

Revenge is understandable but not heroic.

In historical or Western novels, where justice was bought or simply non-existent, revenge is a valid motivation ...

often justified under the rationalization, justice.

Revenge in our civilized times must occur when lapses in order happen.

Say when civilization died with the power in New Orleans during and after Katrina.

Revenge on your adversary's part must be understandable, or your plot will become cliche. Revenge must be supplemented with other aspects of the character.

Say a priest, defending his flock of homeless during Katrina, must choke off his desire for revenge for a raped little girl

to stay by his remaining flock to protect them. Playing the desire for revenge against love for helpless family can lend depth to your novel --

making it real.

For who of us has not burned for revenge against a tresspass against us but had to bite back the darkness within?

6) We want to believe ...

Despite all the harsh things I've said of love (and by inference, friendship), the reader wants to believe ...

A) that when the moment comes, we can reach within ourselves and find the hero hiding there.

B) that love can survive dark, hard times if we but simply refuse to let go of it.

C) that humor and wit can overcome the larger, stronger predator -- that we can become Ulysses challenging the gods -- and winning.

7) Give your readers a semblance of reality while still giving them the three things that they want to believe of themselves and of life --

and your novel will be a bestseller.
***

THE MOST IMPORTANT POST YOU WILL EVER READ

You read my title and said,

"Get real."

Exactly.

Get real. Or never get picked up by an agent.

As a writer of urban fantasy,

I have to convince my readers that Samuel McCord and his friends and enemies are real,

or they will never buy my fantastical setting and plot as "real."

No matter what you write, you must do the same. Or the readers will never become absorbed into your novel.

How do you do that?

By remembering ...

1) "God and Country" ain't what it used to be.

Duty and honor were once valid motivations. But Shakespeare is dead.

This is the "Me" generation. Even if you're writing about women in the 1700's, you are not writing FOR them.

Abigail Adams sacrificed much for her husband and family. But her letters showed a woman who insisted on owning her own property and money

(very much NOT the custom of the time.)

All of us have had to deal with a situation, not because it was honorable, but because it was heaved into our laps.

Abigail comes across as real because her letters showed she resented her husband's ambition that took him from his children and her so often and for so long.

She fumed at his inability to get along with others.

Ambition, vanity, irritability -- she saw his warts. But they were warts on a face she loved. We can "buy" a woman who sees clearly but loves deeply.

2) Ah, Love ...

"Put the rat cage on her. On her!"

In 1984, Winston is tortured by the Thouht Police until he finally breaks and screams for his tormenter to put the rat cage on Julia, the woman he "loves."

Sex is a primal motivator not love.

Man will sacrifice much for love but generally there must be a good chance of success, or your average reader will feel your novel is cliche not real.

Your hero may be different and sacrifice all for love, but that extremism must apply to all facets of his life or your reader will not "buy" your hero.

3.) Curiosity killed the cat ... and the bad novel.

Without curiosity, fire and most of Man's discoveries would never have been made. But as with love, there is a limit to how much we will sacrifice for curiosity.

When a mother's children are threatened by her curiosity, she will generally grudgingly back off.

Up the punishment enough, and all of us curious types will say, "I'm outta here!"

But by the time that moment comes, realistically, it is too late. And that leads us to the next point :

4) Self-preservation or
"I'll miss you terribly, but that last life preserver is mine!"

We like to think the world is a nice place. But try being an ill, frail woman on a crowded bus and see how selfless most people are.

To continue when threats to his life are enormous, your main character must have more than self-preservation to keep on --

perhaps he/she cannot depend on the promises or threats of the adversary to keep his/her children and spouse safe.

Or as so often in life, the hero simply has no choice but to go on. The bee hive has been toppled -- and it's simply run or be stung to death.

5) Greed or

"Excuse me. Is that my hand in your pocket?"

Greed is good -- as Michael Douglas once said. But only up to a point.

For one thing, greed is not something which endears our hero to the reader. Another, shoot at most greedy folks, and they will head for more hospitable hills.

5) Revenge consumes ... the individual and the reader's patience.

Revenge is understandable but not heroic.

In historical or Western novels, where justice was bought or simply non-existent, revenge is a valid motivation ...

often justified under the rationalization, justice.

Revenge in our civilized times must occur when lapses in order happen.

Say when civilization died with the power in New Orleans during and after Katrina.

Revenge on your adversary's part must be understandable, or your plot will become cliche. Revenge must be supplemented with other aspects of the character.

Say a priest, defending his flock of homeless during Katrina, must choke off his desire for revenge for a raped little girl

to stay by his remaining flock to protect them. Playing the desire for revenge against love for helpless family can lend depth to your novel --

making it real.

For who of us has not burned for revenge against a tresspass against us but had to bite back the darkness within?

6) We want to believe ...

Despite all the harsh things I've said of love (and by inference, friendship), the reader wants to believe ...

A) that when the moment comes, we can reach within ourselves and find the hero hiding there.

B) that love can survive dark, hard times if we but simply refuse to let go of it.

C) that humor and wit can overcome the larger, stronger predator -- that we can become Ulysses challenging the gods -- and winning.

7) Give your readers a semblance of reality while still giving them the three things that they want to believe of themselves and of life --

and your novel will be a bestseller.
***

MARK TWAIN_IF YOU ASK A HUNGRY MAN_GHOST OF A CHANCE Interlude

{"If you ask a hungry man how much two plus two is, he will reply four loaves."
-Mark Twain.}

Nikola Tesla told me, ghost to ghost, not to use Roland's prose as a blunt instrument.

To leaven the flour, so to speak, with a little lesson on writing, or what not, every now and again.

Nikola's a smart one, even for a ghost, so I thought I'd listen to him.

Listening.

I've been thinking some on that subject.

Like that hungry man I started out with -- how what we hear depends upon what we're listening for.

I remember walking down a busy downtown street in 'Frisco a century or two ago with an Injun of my acquaintance.

I was in the midst of the most sage pontificating you ever heard when he suddenly pulled up short and bent down.

Lord Almighty, if he didn't pick up a chirping grasshopper, of all things, from the corner of a store door.

He walked carefully over to a nearby planter and dropped it in.

"You mean to tell me," I said, "that you heard that little fella over all this hustle and bustle?"

"Do you have a silver dollar, Clemens?"

"Why I sure do."

"Let me see it."

So I dug it out of the warmth and security of my vest pocket and handed it to him.

Wouldn't you know that danged Injun flipped it high in the air where it clattered to the floorboards of the sidewalk.

I swear there was a such a mad scrabble of folks clawing for my dollar, it took all I had to snatch it from the hands of an ample matron.

Being a gentleman and all, I only left a bruise or two on her doing it.

Well, it was my dollar, dang it.

She told me where I could go for my next vacation. I informed her that I would join her there come the next cold front in that place.

That Injun shook his head at me. "I heard a living creature in the path of blind feet. They heard the hungry cry of free money. You hear what you listen for, Clemens."

And just what has that got to with writing?

Well, listening is what killed Hemingway the first time around. Yes, that's right. Listening.

You see, a long time ago, Hemingway stopped listening - except to the answers to his own questions.

Maybe that's what dried him up -- not listening outside the Greek chorus inside his own mind : "Ernest. Ernest. Papa. Papa."

No insult meant to him. It happens to all of us. We see well enough. We just stop listening.

It dried the wellspring inside his soul. He was dead long before he pulled the trigger.

You say : that's fine to say of him, of yourself. The world's has changed.

But not human nature.

Lord Almighty, I've seen it all go, and I'll watch it go again.

If you would be good writers, children, thing to do is to last, to get your work done -- see and hear and learn and understand.

Write when you've done all that and not before.

Then, your readers will actually experience your tale.

But to do that you have to use the right word for the right thing. The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

As you would filet a fish, filet your prose. Strip every sentence to its cleanest state.

Every word that serves no function,

every long word that could be a short word,

every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb,

every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what to whom -- carve it out as you would the bones from a bass.

After every sentence, ask yourself what the reader wants to know next.

Good writers write in such a way that one can read them aloud and know what they mean.

Bad writers have to be studied and re-read and pondered like that bejiggered James Joyce.

His ghost still holds a grudge against me for putting out a cigar in his ULYSSES. I thought I was downright subtle in my critique of his book.

It's not like my books haven't had their share of insults.

I've been tarred and feathered for HUCK FINN.

But you can't make your world come alive for the readers without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful.

Because if it is all beauty and victory and rose sunsets, the readers won't believe in it. Life isn't like that.

Roland's certainly wasn't.

Now, I've gone and done it. Dang tears. I can't see the letters on this bejiggered contraption anymore. I have to stop now.

If you want me to, I'll post another entry from his journal Monday.
***
Nikola tells me I'm old-fashioned, even for a ghost. He wants me to add this song. Have I told you that old Nikola's a strange bird? Well, he is.

By the way, unknown to that band, Nikola is one of them -- the fella with the strange eyes behind that gal in the first photograph.

Like Wagner, this music is better than it sounds. The start and end of this song gave me a nosebleed, and the middle gave me a stomach ache :

CAPTAIN OUTRAGEOUS

CAPTAIN OUTRAGEOUS. That's the working title to the Young Adult novel I'm currently writing. Think Auntie Mame meets The Twilight Zone meets Hondo.

A twelve year old abandoned boy has become something of a Ulysses by necessity. A smart remark on his lips and trouble at his heels. Always one jump ahead of street gangs, foster home agents, and assorted petty criminals, Victor Standish finds himself in a strange section of the French Quarter where his fast thinking may not be fast enough. Two storms are coming. Katrina is one. The other is a brewing war in the Shadowlands where neither side may be the right one.

And in the center of them both is the mysterious undead jazz club owner, Captain Samuel McCord. Can the boy trust him? And can either one of them survive the coming storms? And what will be the price if they do?

The only things that are certain : Victor's knack for getting into trouble, his wise cracks, and the growing bond between him and the undead former Texas Ranger, Captain Samuel McCord.

Here is the first chapter :

Chapter One

WHERE THE SHADOWS ARE HUNGRY
I was at the wrong end of a dead end alley in the French Quarter. But don't get any romantic images in your head. It was the kind of alley where wino's holed up in to die.

Which was fitting seeing as how I was going to die there.

I wasn't alone. There were four punks right in front of me. Butt ugly. Mean mad. My friends they weren't. In deep shit I was.

Story of the twelve years of my sorry gypsy life.

The leader {picture a phone booth with a head on it} cracked his meaty knuckles. "You're dead, shrimp."

Sad to say that wasn't the first time I'd heard those words. What was even sadder was how many times I had heard them. But in a way that was a good thing. I had thought my way out of each and every one of those other times.

But not this time. The game plan wasn't me living. It was them dying.

Phone Booth in front of me had killed Old Suze. Now, she and I hadn't known each other for very long. But the old lady had taken pity on me when Mother had dumped me at the bus station and split for the 5th time. I kept count. You keep track of those sort of things.

How Mother kept finding me from city to city I never knew. Why she dumped me I knew. A new boyfriend. She never kept one long.

Which wasn't surprising. She was attracted to bad boys. And guess what? Bad boys are ... bad. Duh. But she kept thinking each guy would be different. Did adults lose some of their gray cells when they lost their pimples?

Most times alone on the streets were bad. But not this time. Old Suze had shown me the ropes of the French Quarter, the gangs to avoid, the restaurants to visit late at night, and the streets to never, but never, walk alone after midnight. And this alley was on top of that list.

She had even told me why. I thought her crazy. Then, she led me here one hot night and let me see for myself. Then, we ran like hell. For an old lady she sure had been able to hoof it. But she had reason. We both had.

Now, she was dead. And as fast as life stops making sense, my fingers became fists. Phone Booth and his goons would pay.

"Didn't you hear me, shrimp? I said you were dead."

A part of me was already dead, for my voice didn't shake a bit. "You made two mistakes, Baboon Face."

His beady eyes became slits. "You talkin' to me?"

"You see any other Baboon Faces here?"

I flicked my eyes to his snickering buddies, then back to him. "Oh, yeah, you do. Well, you, the Baboon Face with the most teeth. You."

"You are so dead."

I smiled faint. This was the alley Old Suze had warned me that the shadows were hungry. The shadows that were moving all around us. The punks were too pissed to notice. Baboon Face had a huge shadow slipping right up behind him. He was all eyes for me. Good.

Now, to stay alive long enough to watch the shadows feed themselves on these murderers. 'I'm not asking to live, God. Just let me see these punks die.'

The shadow behind him rose tall, growing strange clawed arms that reached forward. I smiled wider. At least I'd see the coward who snapped Old Suze's frail neck get eaten.
"You crazy? What you smilin' for?"

"You made two mistakes, Baboon Face. You killed my friend. And then, you chased me to this street before you got your fix."

"What the hell you talkin' bout?"

"Hunger. Fear. They draw the Shadows."

"What shadows?"

"The Shadows that kill."

"The only thing that's gonna be killed is you."

He lunged at me. I danced away. I'd had lots of practice -- from Mother's boyfriends, the perv's on the streets, and the cops. I dance real good. And fast.

Phone Booth was fast, too. Just not fast enough. The Shadow behind him swallowed him in a blur. It looked part glistening insect and part nightmare. Mostly nightmare. He screamed as it wrapped its jagged arms around him. He was lifted clean off his kicking feet, disappearing into the darkness as wet sucking filled the alleyway.

Funny. All of a sudden, his buddies weren't all that keen on killing me anymore. Screaming like little girls, they wheeled around to run. And they did run -- smack into the shadows that surged over them like a black wave of silent death. The shadows melted one into another until they were a black riptide that sucked the three punks under. It was creepy. I thought their screaming would be loud. But it wasn't. I only heard muffled cries that turned into whimpers. Whimpers and sobs that went on for what seemed like forever.

Then, nothing.

Mother kept telling me there was one thing I didn't know. Enough. This was one of those times I thought she just might be right. For a change.

The Shadows began circling me. The circle slowly tightened. Sometimes "oh, shit!" just doesn't cover it.

I frowned. I wasn't afraid. No, really. I'd had my fill of living on the streets always scared. To die right now would be a relief.

Besides, the punks hadn't seem to take too long to die. And that seemed way better than starving slow on the streets without Suze. And I sure wasn't hungry -- not after all I'd seen in the past hour. Then, why were the Shadows drawn to me?

The circle of insect-like Shadows drew in closer. Were they trying to scare me? Fat chance. Sure, it had sounded the way they killed hurt something awful. But I had been hurt by experts. Let them do their worst. I'd have the last laugh. I wouldn't make a peep dying.

It would all be over for me soon. No more running from perv's, cops, and gangsters. I felt my shoulders straighten from the weight that soon would be off them. It would be over for me. Over. I smiled.

The circle of Shadows tightened around me. I swallowed hard. This was it. Had I really been idiot enough to have said I wasn't scared of dying? I'd lied.

Then, suddenly he was beside me.

He you ask? I heard him called a lot of names in my times with him. Most the kind you don't use in church. But I always called him "Captain Sam." Even now, hearing those words in my mind, I smile. And my heart becomes so hollow it hurts -- for I remember.



Tall. Dressed all in black. From his wide Stetson to his long broadcloth coat, his silk shirt, his tie, his vest, jeans, and cowboy boots. His gloves were even black. I frowned. Gloves? In the heat of summer?

But his hair was moon-white, though his face seemed barely fifty. His eyes. God, his eyes. They seemed to have seen all the pain in the world and to have felt every scream. His wolf face hardened, and he spoke in words of distant, rumbling thunder.

"You know who I am. You know what I can do. Back off!"

And they did. Not just backed off. They ran clear away back down the alley. My mouth got all dry, and I couldn't seem to swallow. Who was this man who could terrify the Shadows that I'd just seen kill so quickly? I hadn't been scared before. But I got scared then.

He looked down at me, and his rock face softened. Those haunted eyes of his seemed to sparkle in the moonlight. And then, he winked.

"Next time, son. You might want to leave yourself a back door."

All at once, the weight was off my shoulders. I smiled. And I hadn't even had to die.

***********************************************

In a world that seems to have no place for honor, heroes are hard to come by. To me, one name will always mean hero : John Wayne.