HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED?

Have you ever wondered?

Monday, I noticed a tattooed man talking animatedly in the parking lot of the Eye Clinic to which I was going to get my new glasses.

He was walking in circles, talking into a cell phone – his left arm waving wildly like a rabid windmill.

As I got out of my car, I heard him wail to the phone: 

“Baby!  You gotta believe me.  I wasn’t drunk.   I wasn’t!  I promised you I wouldn’t drink, and I haven’t.  If I sounded funny to you it was ‘cause I was on dope!”

He went silent, listening to the phone.  And I almost walked back to him to ask  what his “Baby” was saying in reply. 

But I wasn’t suicidal that day so I walked into the Eye Clinic.  Yet, I wondered how did he think what he said made things any better?

Yesterday, I read a Wall Street Journal article about Putin seeking a “Double-Tier” solution to his woes about the shot down airliner: 

to apologize yet still be right.

I could feel a nose-bleed coming on so I stopped reading.

I remember reading what Winston Churchill wrote after completing his volume on his early life {1874 to 1904} in 1920.

“I have drawn a picture of a vanished age.  

The character of society, the foundations of politics, the outlook of youth, the scales of values are all changed –

And changed to such an extent I should not have believed possible in so short a time without any violent domestic revolution.”

I reflected on how much further his world changed after 1920 until the time in 1953 when he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.  

Yes, LITERATURE not peace.  Politics was a dirty world in those days as well.  The “Lion in Winter” was a rival to be diminished in British politics back then.

Edward R. Murrow, the journalist who braced and shamed McCarthy, said of Churchill in 1940:

“He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.”

I wonder:

Do words carry any weight anymore?

Like Gore Vidal wrote:  Has this age gone from the Guttenberg era to the Dark Ages of MTV?

Are we destined to devolve not evolve in our society?

How much has society changed around you since you were a teenager?

Was the world simpler only because you, yourself, was simpler?

Or have we edited our memories, as Churchill did who was emotionally abandoned by both parents

yet enshrined them in his memoirs?

 

Oh, by the way –

Congrats to Justin Bieber for FINALLY getting an advantage in life by cutting lines at Disneyland by being pushed in a borrowed wheelchair by handlers for a bad knee.

Disneyland allows its disabled guests to cut the lines at any rides that can accommodate them.

Of course, Disneyland has a fast line for the famous, but the wheelchair allowed him to get in front of his famous peers as well.

I wonder what Churchill would say?

 

(I love the dialogue in this movie)

Dr. Maya Angelou: "You must be careful with words."

"When people show you who they are, believe them."
- Dr. Maya Angelou


Mary Angelou was wise from bitter experiences with those less wise and kind than she ...

and from a heart that refused to hate.

"Words are things of great power, I'm convinced," she once told Oprah Winfrey.

"You must be careful about the words you use or the words you allow to be used in your house."

"In the Old Testament, we are told in Genesis that in the beginning was the word. And the word was God, and the word was with God," she explained.

"That's in Genesis. Words are things of power."

Words, she felt, have the power to seep into everything around you.

 "I think they get on the walls, they get in your wallpaper, they get in your rugs and your upholstery and your clothes."

Perhaps that is the genesis of ghosts?

Dr. Angelou said. "And, finally, words get into you."

The words you feed into your mind shapes your soul, and your soul fuels your actions, your words, and your dealings with the people in your life.

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

"I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.

I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision."
― Maya Angelou

What have you learned this week?

HOW TO WRITE A BESTSELLER

"Humanity.

You haven't the slightest idea of what I'm talking about do you, vampire?

Don't feel bad. Neither do the living. Humanity.

Its very meaning has long since slipped beneath the surface of the noise. The noise of words, whose meanings lose clarity with every passing year."

- Samuel McCord.

The world is too much with us. We get sidetracked by the surface.

Like Catherine the Great who said of some shallow fellow, "Unfortunately, I could not keep from listening to him. He was as handsome as the dawn."

Words.

Humanity.

Key elements in our novels. Without the one, we cannot communicate. Without the other, we cannot create a novel about which a reader would care.

Think about the fiction you like to read the most. I bet it has conflict, danger, loss, and humor. The essence of what it means to be human.

One cliche says to write about what you know. And, yes, in a way that is true.

Write about being human. We all know the heartache of being human in an inhumane world.

Write about those subjects and people about which you care deeply.

Your words will ring true. And your readers will start to care about your characters and their conflicts.

How can you get your reader to care about your novel's conflicts?

Raise the stakes.

Loss of a job. That smarts. But loss of a job as a hitman by being terminated yourself. That's primal.

Throw roadblocks in the way.

Cancel his passport. Have the government freeze his bank accounts. Get his wife and best friend, who have been having an affair, decide to do the job themselves.

Throw him a bone.

A rival mob boss wants to help. For a price.

Just kill the mobster's beautiful, connected wife. If any of the mobster's hitmen kill the wife, his in-laws will put a hit out on him.

But if the hitman from the rival gang does it, no one will suspect. He doesn't have much choice so he agrees -- only to fall in love with the beautiful wife.

Now what? That very question is what you have the reader asking as he hurriedly turns the pages. But still just another thriller.

Change the mix.

Up the ante to the max.

The hitman works for the C.I.A.

The man with the beautiful, connected wife is the President of the United States.

The beautiful wife's connection is to the Israeli Mossad.

And the hitman doesn't know if the President's wife loves him or is using him. Now, the pages are being turned in a blur by your readers.

Primal stakes. High profile characters. Love. Betrayal. Doubt. Triumph.

Don't forget that last. That last will prompt good word of mouth. And good word of mouth leads to high sales.

Think of the four most beloved novels you've read. Look back at what I've written. Those same undercurrents run through them all. Have them run through the novel you're writing now.

I want to see your name on the bestseller's list.

After mine, of course. Just joking. There are enough readers out there for everyone.
***************

I have a resource text for you.

READING PEOPLE by Jo-Ellen Dimitrius, Ph.D.

Her chapter "Scanning the Environment" alone makes this a great book for writers. It's a great help in telling your reader what kind of person your character is just by a few details of their home.

If her name rings a bell, it may be because she's been on Oprah, Larry King Live, and 60 Minutes, among other television shows.

Much more than a collection of tips on reading body language,

her book is supremely organized, detailed, and thorough, with lists of physical characteristics, vocal patterns, office props, and conversational behaviors that reveal much more than you'd think.

She instructs on how to analyze hundreds of details of everyday living,

from the style of the picture frame on your boss's desk to the odd way that an acquaintance swears up a storm,

in order to uncover personality traits and predict future behavior.

Demitrius isn't a hocus-pocus intuition hawker;

she's more of a scientist. "...over the past fifteen years," she writes, "I have tested this method on more than ten thousand 'research subjects.'

After predicting the behavior of thousands of jurors, witnesses, lawyers, and judges, I have been able to see whether my predictions came true."

Dimitrius advocates sharpening and fine-tuning powers of observation and deduction. Gathering enough information to establish an overall pattern is the key to her method.

Differentiating between "elective and nonelective" traits;

setting aside assumptions, prejudices and stereotypes; recognizing body language;

and identifying meanings behind personal choices of dress and behavior.

And cooler than the other side of the pillow is that a used hardcover can be gotten at Amazon for just a penny.

And the only compensation I will receive if you buy this book is the smile I'll have when you write me that the book was a help in your writing :

http://www.amazon.com/Reading-People-Understand-Behavior-Anyplace/dp/0375501460/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0

And now for another stirring movie trailer for our muse :

IN THE LIGHT EAR OF REASON, SOFT MADNESS SINGS

Where do we go from here?


As a species? As a culture? As storytellers?


Where does the answer lie? In words. The words that drive us or haunt us or both.


I just finished watching the disturbing horror DVD, PONTYPOOL :


Shut up or die Shock jock, Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie), has been kicked-off the airwaves and now works at a small-town morning show.



Another mundane day on the job quickly turns deadly when reports pile in of people developing strange speech patterns and evoking brutal acts of violence.



Before long, Mazzy discovers that the behavior is actually a deadly virus being spread through language. Does he stay on the air in hopes of being rescued, or is he providing the virus with its ultimate leap over the airwaves and into the world?



It got me to thinking ... as all good science fiction and fantasy does.



When the last raven has taken flight from the final corpses of humanity, will the word be to blame? Short answer? Yes.



The deadly words flashing over the computer screen in dark missile silos : commence launch sequence.



The whispered words of Moslem extremists urging their volunteer warriors to expose themselves to deadly viruses and then stroll through the world's airports.



The false assurances to the United States President that the budget to scan the stars for incoming asteroids is much too high to continue.



Most likely, the words will be something entirely different ... but altogether just as lethal.



As a science fantasy writer, my view is much more provincial :



Where will my genre go next? THE PASSAGE suggests it will go in the expected direction : after the dollar.



LORD OF THE RINGS, the three that was really only one, took us back to the mythic beginnings of literature. The ghost of blind Homer probably stood at Toilken's shoulder as he wrote.



It was the time of Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft. An era of legend and dark threat from beyond the ken of Man. The wave of those tales broke upon the cold, uncompromising atomic age.



Then, with the advent of Einstein, the hard science tale took over. Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein wrote tales where the scientific idea overshadowed the narrative.



Freud, Jung, and B. F. Skinner finally had their due. And other ideas of science took prominence : psychology and sociology. Philip Jose Farmer, Clifford D. Simak, and Ray Bradbury. Mankind was no longer sure of who was heroic anymore.



The fifties brought us THE INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. Who could we trust?



The sixties brought us Philip K. Dick who suggested we couldn't even trust ourselves or what we viewed as "reality."



Dick's famous statement overshadows that period and its darkness even reaches up through our times : "Reality is that which refuses to go away when I no longer believe in it."



And now fantasy's mist enshrouds us : TWILIGHT, HARRY POTTER, LORD OF THE RINGS, HARRY DRESDEN, ANITA BLAKE. Darkness has encircled us, murmuring it was always there in the shadows of our souls.



Which leads us back to my original question : where do we go from here?



Hollywood seems to think it is the time of the adventure story, gilded with fantastic trappings. Do we do a H.G. Wells and go to an unsure near-future as in INCEPTION?



I choose to do a synthesis, involving solid storytelling with an understanding of technology's affect upon Man with psychological probing of what it means to be human in an uncertain present.



Fantasy appears real when there are firm rules, where darkness dwells in the corner of every soul, and the heroic protagonist finds the greatest battle is within.



It is opposition which sculpts the best fiction : the heart pitted against the mind, the spirit struggling against the flesh, and fragile hope outmatched by overwhelming hate.



The best stories are the ones that are concerned least with what I've been talking about. Their main goal is to touch the heart and to haunt the soul. In essence, their authors just want to tell a good story.



What do you think fiction is heading? What do you want to do with your stories? And for whom do you write? All of us reading these words would like to know.



Words. Careful. They worm their way into your consciousness like an antibody ... or a virus.
************************
Speaking of which :

HOW TO WRITE A BESTSELLER

"Humanity. You haven't the slightest idea of what I'm talking about do you, vampire? Don't feel bad. Neither do the living. Humanity. Its very meaning has long since slipped beneath the surface of the noise. The noise of words, whose meanings lose clarity with every passing year."
- Samuel McCord.

The world is too much with us. We get sidetracked by the surface.

Like Catherine the Great who said of someone shallow, "Unfortunately, I could not keep from listening to him. He was as handsome as the dawn."

Words. Humanity.

Key elements in our novels. Without the one, we cannot communicate. Without the other, we cannot create a novel about which a reader would care.

Think about the fiction you like to read the most. I bet it has conflict, danger, loss, and humor. The essence of what it means to be human.

One cliche says to write about what you know. And, yes, in a way that is true. Write about being human. We all know the heartache of being human in an inhumane world.

Write about those subjects and people about which you care deeply. Your words will ring true. And your readers will start to care about your characters and their conflicts.

How can you get your reader to care about your novel's conflicts?

Raise the stakes.

Loss of a job. That smarts. But loss of a job as a hitman by being terminated yourself. That's primal.

Throw roadblocks in the way.

Cancel his passport. Have the government freeze his bank accounts. Get his wife and best friend, who have been having an affair, decide to do the job themselves.

Throw him a bone.

A rival mob boss wants to help. For a price. Just kill the mobster's beautiful, connected wife. If any of the mobster's hitmen kill the wife, his in-laws will put a hit out on him.

But if the hitman from the rival gang does it, no one will suspect. He doesn't have much choice so he agrees -- only to fall in love with the beautiful wife.

Now what? That very question is what you have the reader asking as he hurriedly turns the pages. But still just another thriller.

Change the mix.

Up the ante to the max.

The hitman works for the C.I.A. The man with the beautiful, connected wife is the President of the United States. The beautiful wife's connection is to the Israeli Mossad. And the hitman doesn't know if the President's wife loves him or is using him. Now, the pages are being turned in a blur by your readers.

Primal stakes. High profile characters. Love. Betrayal. Doubt. Triumph.

Don't forget that last. That last will prompt good word of mouth. And good word of mouth leads to high sales.

Think of the four most beloved novels you've read. Look back at what I've written. Those same undercurrents run through them all. Have them run through the novel you're writing now.

I want to see your name on the bestseller's list.

After mine, of course. Just joking. There are enough readers out there for everyone.
***************

I have another resource text for you. READING PEOPLE by Jo-Ellen Dimitrius, Ph.D. Her chapter "Scanning the Environment" alone makes this a great book for writers. It's a great help in telling your reader what kind of person your character is just by a few details of their home.

If her name rings a bell, it may be because she's been on Oprah, Larry King Live, and 60 Minutes, among other television shows.

Much more than a collection of tips on reading body language, her book is supremely organized, detailed, and thorough, with lists of physical characteristics, vocal patterns, office props, and conversational behaviors that reveal much more than you'd think.

She instructs on how to analyze hundreds of details of everyday living, from the style of the picture frame on your boss's desk to the odd way that an acquaintance swears up a storm, in order to uncover personality traits and predict future behavior.

Demitrius isn't a hocus-pocus intuition hawker; she's more of a scientist. "...over the past fifteen years," she writes, "I have tested this method on more than ten thousand 'research subjects.'

After predicting the behavior of thousands of jurors, witnesses, lawyers, and judges, I have been able to see whether my predictions came true."

Dimitrius advocates sharpening and fine-tuning powers of observation and deduction. Gathering enough information to establish an overall pattern is the key to her method.

Differentiating between "elective and nonelective" traits; setting aside assumptions, prejudices and stereotypes; recognizing body language; and identifying meanings behind personal choices of dress and behavior. And cooler than the other side of the pillow is that a used hardcover can be gotten at Amazon for just a penny.

And the only compensation I will receive if you buy this book is the smile I'll have when you write me that the book was a help in your writing :

http://www.amazon.com/Reading-People-Understand-Behavior-Anyplace/dp/0375501460/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0

And now for a little stirring music for our muse :