Dwarsliggers

“A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic,” the cosmologist Carl Sagan once said. “It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years.”

This was an intriguing thing to read, and even more intriguing was the article that it preceded and the subject matter (see here). "Dwarsliggers" are apparently on the rise in the Netherlands. Tiny, pocket size books are going to be the next thing according to this article.

The name is interesting by itself and I wouldn't blame anyone if they thought I was re-cycling my post on strange fun words! (see HERE) That article that talked about words the English language should steal.

Personally, I see it nothing more than a novelty. I think it would be convenient to carry a smaller book, but would it be more convenient than an iPhone? Doubtful.

I can see where this might be a fun thing to have around the house. Imagine a whole book shelf of Dwarsliggers in your living room. But would they actually be read?

I find it interesting in terms of how we process information. When I got my MBA back in 2003 we discussed the changing nature of information processing on different generations. When I grew up sending a hand written thank you note through the mail was a normal and expected thing. My children who have not known a world without email will not see the post office or writing letters the same way. Soon, what hand written thank you's are to email, email will be to chat. The fact that these are printed in layout rather than portrait makes me wonder about that aspect of things.

Beyond that, nothing but a fad says I.

Second Book; First Line

I don't ever do this . . . read two books at once, but I have been lately.

When I was younger it was anathema for me to have anything else on my mind, much less be reading another book, while in the midst of reading one. But lately, when I go to sleep, I put the smart phone away, no Twitter, no Facebooks, no Blogs, no Kindle,  . . . nope, nothing but a good old fashioned book.

Sure I still have the Kindle book I'm reading, I just don't read it before going to sleep. For sleeping I read a real, page turning book.

Right now I'm reading Hampton Sides' "On Desperate Ground," (see here) a non-fiction account of the Korean War and the Marines at the Chosin Reservoir. The Korean War is easily one of my favorite conflicts, and Hampton Sides, writer of Ghost Soldiers as well, is one of my favorite non-fiction authors.

The first line, which I read before hitting the rack the other night, was:

In the misting rain, they pressed against the metal skins of their boats and peeked over the gunwales for a glimpse of the shores they were about to attack. Some thirteen thousand men of the First Marine Division, the spearhead of the invasion, had clambered down from the ships on swinging nets of rope and then had crammed themselves into a motley flotilla of craft that now wallowed and bobbed in the channel. Several of the rusty old hulks, having been commandeered from Japanese trawlermen, smelled of sour urine and rotten fish heads. The Marines, many of them green from seasickness, saw the outlines of the charred foothills that rose above the port, and caught the scent of the brackish marshes and the slime of the mudflats. Corsairs, bent-winged like swallows, dove over the city, dropping thousand-pound bombs and sending five-inch rockets deep into hillside nests where the enemy was said to be dug in. Far out at sea, the naval guns rained fire upon the city, damaging tanks of butane that now flared and belched palls of smoke.

On this warm, humid morning of September 15, 1950, the Marines had arrived at their destination halfway around the world, to stun their foe and turn the war around: a surprise amphibious attack, on an immense scale, deep behind the battle lines. Only a few months before, these young men, fresh from their farms and hick towns, had piled into chartered trains and clattered across America to California. Then they climbed aboard transport ships, where many of them did their basic training, learning how to strip and rebuild M1 rifles, drilling on the crowded decks, practicing their marksmanship on floating targets towed from the fantails. They crossed the Pacific and stopped briefly in Japan, then heaved their way through a full-scale typhoon. They rounded the peninsula and moved in convoy up the west coast, through the silted waters of the Yellow Sea.

Sides, Hampton - On Desperate Ground

That's a great opening right there. Who couldn't want but to read on!

Sunset Perfect

Isn't it funny the things we convince ourselves of over time and in life. And how wrong we realize we are when we look back.

I had a girlfriend once and we were sure we were in love with each other. Didn't last. No matter how hard we tried it just couldn't last. In her case it had the most to do with distance and space. Distance does NOT make the heart grow stronger, instead what I've found is that it undermines and degrades love unless one finds other ways to keep it strong.

Another girl, wasn't at love "love", has contacted me in the past bit. I was sure back when I dated her that she was the end all beat all for me. She was a sales girl for Hormel meat products and always drove around with a trunk full of meat to sell. What more could a starving, kid from the Army who never had money want than a girlfriend with ready access to great meat!

Now that she and I talk there is nothing there. It's like the pilot light just went out with her.

What's the point?

Things change. People change. Feelings change.

I think about something that my grandmother, Muzzie, once told me. She said that she thought her son, Richard, loved her, but that he didn't like her. How often has that been the case. I know it has been for me, and has been recently. Where I loved someone but I didn't necessarily like them. It's a tough feeling to have.

What's this have to do with writing?

I have a novel I'm currently working on called Sunset Perfect (great title right?). It's all about this. Loving someone but falling out of like with them. The title too is indicative of this difficulty. On the face of it the title sounds like a description of a perfect sunset, but the novel is about the challenges the two main characters face. That perfection has a sunset clause or an end. Toughest novel I've written, but I'm thinking that that fact, the fact that it's the toughest might make it worthwhile in the long run.

Stake Remains Grounded

A few weeks ago I put a stake in the ground (here) about how I was going to write. I said I was going to channel among others Frank Herbert and how he wrote Dune in small snatches while sitting in his car during his lunch hours. Although I haven't done that, I have tried to write more consistently rather than constantly (see my post on that here). And so far, I have to say it's been working.

In the past I was a huge advocate of NaNoWriMo. I was doing NaNo before it was cool. I think my first NaNo was way back in 2004. I've been a member of that community for 14 years (here). I've written alot about my NaNoWriMo writing (see here) and for the most part it's a great way to write. It's a brain dump where for a whole month you can write all you want, anything you want, with the goal of just getting it down.

I think I've changed in the past 14 years. I no longer enjoy that brain dump style of writing, but instead am really enjoying the slow, steady, turtle writing I'm engaged in now. In the past few weeks I've added to my Sunset Perfect novel by several thousand words, I've completed a short story that I've sent to my old friend Janice for an edit and review, and have pecked away at an older short story as well.

The stake in the ground in working, and it only emphasizes the changing nature of lifestyle and how we write. Best to keep up with those changes and roll with the punches.

The Business Side of Writing

My new friend, A. Piper Burgi (see here) has a great post about the business side of writing (see here).

This is an aspect that I NEVER focus on. I treat my writing as a hobby. It's something I do during my off hours. I don't sit down and grind it out on a daily basis and just fit it in when I can. Have I made some money on writing? I've gotten a royalty check or two from my three books (see here). But if I total up all my time spent and all that I've invested in writing, I'm certainly not in the black.

Many times I've thought about giving up the ole day to day grind of my job and trying to become a serious, professional writer. What's stopping me? Not much. I like my job sure. I love the people I work with. I enjoy the feeling of accomplishment and there's few things better than doing something new in our industry and being successful at it.

Having a steady, weekly paycheck doesn't hurt either.

But I think it's time to ramp up toward professionalism. There's all sorts of tangential jobs that I can do that aren't directly related to just writing novels. There's editing, web-design and promotion, all sorts of talents that I have that could help me become a professional writer and author instead of the hobbyist that I am now.

A. Piper Burgi's post has come at the right time. Give it a year more, and if I'm in the same place with my life, you just might see me taking her posts seriously as a professional writer.

Walking Away Girl Covers . . . How Prevalent Are They?

Truth is that the first few lines of Dead End Girl (see here) did not grab me, and based on my reading speed so far, it hasn't helped me get into the book. I have had a change in the way I see first lines and catalog them (see here).

Based on the cover, and it's similarities to the cover of my own book, On the Edge, I wonder if I should do a series on covers where the reader only sees the back of the girl (see here).

Corduroy pants swished between Teresa’s thighs as she crossed the parking lot. She had a headache. That drive-thru headset gave her a headache every damn time. The band squeezed her skull like an old man trying to find a ripe cantaloupe in the produce department. Pressing and pressing until her temples throbbed. When the headaches were really bad, she got the aura. And it was gonna be a bad one tonight. She could already tell. By the time she got home, she’d be nauseous from the skull throb along with the stink of fryer grease clinging to her clothes and hair and skin. Sometimes she swore she could feel it permeating her pores. 

She placed a hand under the lid of the dumpster and lifted. The overhead lights in the parking lot glinted on the surface below. It looked like water, but it wasn’t. It was oil. Every night they emptied the fryers, dumping the used oil into this dumpster. It was a disgusting task. Worse than taking out the trash on a 90-degree summer day, when the flies got real thick, and the meat went rancid almost as soon as they put it in the bin. It was dead out. No traffic. No noise at all but her fiddling with the dumpster and the bucket.

Vargus, L.T - Dead End Girl

I'm hoping it comes along, but I just noticed this: the title is "Dead End Girl: A Gripping Serial Killer Thriller." If the author has to put into the title that it's "gripping" it doesn't bode well for the rest of the book.

BUT! It was free and it's not all THAT bad yet. It's very much in the vein of Silence of the Lambs. We shall see where it goes.

Take it to 11

I am writing a novel right now that I’ve tentatively titled Dev Palmer. In this novel I have a villain. I think villains are very interesting. Think about villains from your childhood. The Joker. Cruella Deville. Lex Luthor. Norman Bates. They're all extreme personalities. That's what it takes to be a villain. 

What I genuinely try to do is take a characteristic and take it up to its nth degree. To 11.

In the movie this is spinal tap, the guitarist, Nigel Tufnel, is very proud of an amp that he owns that goes to 11 (see HERE). He keeps telling the interviewer: "if I need that extra little bit more than anyone else can provide then I just turn it to 11. Everyone else can only go to 10 but I can go to 11."

It’s an absurd moment in the movie but it makes sense in terms of villains.

Who wants to see a villain who is like anyone else? Would the joker be any fun if he was just a regular old Joe? Or what if Cruella Deville was just Grace Kelly wandering about in her lovely way like she does in Rear Window? No one wants to see a villain who is normal.

What makes villains great is that they are to 11. The villain I’m working on right now is someone who loves to play games. Loves the drama loves the problems created by the games that they play. A while back I wrote about some work difficulties and I’m sorry to say I’m still having to deal with that same problem at work. This person loves playing games. He is the model for the villain in this book.

What I did was I just took his game plane to 11. Like any good tennis match one player must play against someone as good or better if the game will be any fun to watch. So the protagonist in this novel is someone who can’t stand games. Like the protagonist, I love consistency in my life. Things that happen in an in an order and planned manner make sense to me (see my post HERE about consistency).

I am a project manager at my job so I’m very used to planning things and executing plans. Consistency is huge. So I took that to 11 with the protagonist. This protagonist loves consistency loves to have a plan come together has plans for everything. He and the villain clash because of their personalities boat at 11 both opposite to one another.

The villain loves to play games while the protagonist loves consistency. It's the same thing that I have to deal with in my life, it's just rare that it hits 11 in my life.

Back To War by C.G. Cooper

I was a sergeant in the Army Rangers. 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment. Part of U.S. Army Special Operations Command. Our unit, among other things, provided support for Delta Force missions and Special Forces. I was a hair's breath away from becoming a Staff Sergeant. Had I re-enlisted for just two more years I would have been and my life would have been much much different.

I mention all of this because C.G. Cooper, a former Marine Staff Sergeant has written a book, Back to War. That was incredibly compelling and fun to read, with some slight GI Joe-ish fantasy, and some of the most realistic descriptions of combat that I've ever read. I'd expect nothing less from a former Marine.

All in all, I was disappointed the moment the bat cave was found and the secret consulting group that was modeled straight after GI Joe came into play. I thought it was going to get too fanciful, too silly, too ridiculous.

Thankfully, the former Marine pulled it off. It had it's fanciful moments but all told it was well done enough to keep my interest. What I liked most was that the characters were real and their tactics were exactly the same things I experienced as a Ranger. No Supermen. No real heroes. They were just good guys doing their best. Perfect way to compliment some outlandishness . . . add verisimilitude every where else.

As you'll find out when I post about the last line (soon), he loses me with his final epilogue as well . . . Cooper's surprised me and pulled it off once, who's to say he can't do it again.

Constancy Vs Consistency

I heard from and saw my old friend again this week. Couple morning's ago and there she is. She reminded me of the importance of consistency. Not constancy, but consistency.

She may not be a constant friend, in fact the most I see her is once every few months, but it's consistent like that. I can count on seeing or hearing from her once every six to eight weeks. I can count on seeing her whenever I workout with my group. She's very consistent like that. She is steadfast and I know what to expect and she delivers without fail.

This is what great friends produce, consistency. You come to expect the same thing from them and they deliver. We had a guy named Baldwin in our unit who you could never count on. The entire time in the Army as a private you are constantly proving yourself. Why? Because you want to establish trust between yourself and your leaders and your squad. It's that trust that develops over time and you can build on.

Baldwin not only failed to develop that trust fully, but he undermined the trust completely. So we cut him away. In airborne operations there is one thing you never want to be, a dragged jumper. Exiting the door is one of the more dangerous moments of the jump. It's at the door that anything can happy. A piece of your uniform can get snagged, a loop of your static line could get caught, anything. When that happens you become a dragged jumper. The only thing you can do as the jump master is cut that person away. That's what we did to Baldwin. Once he undermined his squad's and his platoon's trust to a point where he could no longer be trusted, we had to cut him away. It was his lack of consistency that lead to his being cut away.

What's this have to do with writing? Well, you'll remember I'm in the midst of some character development. It's fun to take qualities that are irksome in real life, or even admirable and take them to the next level (more on that in a future post).

Calvin Coolidge wrote about persistence (see my post on it HERE). Consistency is just as important in my view. I've been writing consistently for over a week now and it's great to see progress on so many fronts. It's that consistency that helps us achieve, not constancy. Constancy can give out and fail. Consistency is the value that we should strive for. Roller coasters are fun, but not if they go on indefinitely.

It's obvious that in my life, as proven by seeing this old friend, that I value that consistency more than constancy. In writing too that seems to be the best to achieve results.

Stunning Silence

Lately I've been stunned by silence. It calls to mind a scene from John Adams with Paul Giamatti.

I was a histroy major, but for some reason I just can't stomach the history of the American Revolution. It just doesn't appeal to me. The John Adam's mini-series is the exception. One thing I love about the mini-series is that it shows the day in the life so well. I genuinely think that life back then was cold and miserable and slow. Every turn of the camera, every slice of life, convinces me that I would have hated to live back then.

Nevertheless, there is a moment in the series where John Adams, played by Paul Giamatti, and Abigail Adams, played by Laura Linney, share a not so secret understanding.

The show does an impeccable job of showing the strength of John and Abigail's love. There are many touching moments that come across perfectly thanks to these two actors. But there was one scene where John is considering a new job offer while they're seated at the dinner table, and remains silent for a long time. Abigail leans forward to him and says:

 "Qui tacet consentire"

I was a latin student in middle school and in high school so when my wife asked, "What'd she say?" I incorrectly (but almost) translated the phrase as "he who is quiet consents."

The actual translation is - qui tacet consentire videtur, "he who is silent is taken to agree" or "silence implies/means consent." Little did I know that this is a common phrase in international agreements and negotiations. In that scene it was a compelling moment and there was a lot said in that moment by the two actors.

Like I said, silence is ringing around me now, and has been for three years or so, and it tells me alot. I hope that one day I can write a couple of characters like John and Abigail and include that much speaking into non speaking moments.

Morning's in Novels

Even more than my "First Lines" string of posts (see HERE) and my "Last Lines" string (HERE), my favorite posts are those that focus on quotes about Mornings (HERE).

Take a look. It's like suddenly seeing "Orange and Blue" in movie posters. Once someone tells you to look for quotes about the morning in novels, you'll see them everywhere and in every book. Dawn's are described as "slow" and "lumbering." The morning sky is the color of pearl. It's stunning how often authors like to discuss mornings.

Louis L'Amour is no different.

In  Reilly's Luck, Louis L'Amour has the mention of the word "morning" thirty-three times in this little book. But the quote that stood out is:

The sun came gingerly over the mountains, and the sky and the ranch yard were pale yellow. Pete looked at the mountains for smoke, but saw none.

L'Amour, Louis - Reilly's Luck

Gingers and pale yellow. The sun moved "gingerly" and Pete looks for smoke on the mountains. Not a huge, interesting morning quote, but also not nothing.

Go take a look, you'll see it everywhere now.

Important First Lines

Although it didn't start as such, my favorite thread for this blog is my "first lines" thread (see HERE).

Why?

Prior to starting this blog I always thought that first lines were played up way too much. Now, having catalouged so many, I think they have just as much importance as they need.

So to continue this thread, I offer the one I've read most recently, from Back to War by C.G. Cooper.

The gang members stayed hidden as they watched the young couple from the third story window of the parking garage a block away. The couple was blissfully unaware of the five observers. Why should they worry? They were in the middle of the busy downtown nightlife. Police were present as usual and the crowd flowed smoothly along the packed sidewalks. The tallest of the gang was a thirty-something Black man named Dante. He had a short Mohawk cut and a pencil-thin goatee looked down at his latest recruit. 

“You ready to do this thing?” 

The young recruit looked no more than fifteen. His hazel green eyes starkly contrasted with his three-inch afro. He wore an oversized t-shirt with the New Orleans Saints logo plastered from front to back. His huge jeans were sagging and obviously way too big for his skinny frame. He looked like the prototype wannabe gangster. They called him Shorty. 

“Yeah. I’m ready.” 

Cooper, C. G.. -  Back to War (Corps Justice Book 1)

I'm only reading this book because for personal reasons we are limiting our family to less expensive books. I wanted to read a book by WEB Griffith. They were upwards of 8 bucks per book. C.G. Cooper is a discount at just two bucks.

From the first line, it's probably a good value. It's not a bad first line. It grabs a reader, it's an obvious set up for what's to come, and it's descriptive enough to be worthwhile, but fast enough to keep the interest.

I'll give it to C.G. on this one. It's a decent to good first line. 8 out of 10.

1W

Airport Stories

One thing I do know for sure, my writing and my travel are directly related. I have written about this before (HERE), but I love writing when I travel. There are so many experiences to write about, and so many people and things to see. If I sit down in an airport I can immediately find dozens of worthy characters and begin writing backstories about them immediately.

One day I hope to write a series of short snippets. Maybe call it Airport Stories or something like that. I always loved that movie with Tom Hanks where he is stuck in limbo in the airport.

He can't leave the airport because his passport is not valid. He can't fly home because his passport is not valid. He's stuck, right there, in the airport. The whole movie is fun to watch. I always think that if I had written that I would have filled it with silly things that I see in the airport. Naturally they did this too in the movie, but there is so much more than they brought up.

Today I got to sit across from three very old folks all discussing the different operations they have had. They sounded like they had been through an active war zone over the courses of their lives with all the surgeries and maladies they brought up, but here they were just happily discussing "shredded" meniscuses and things they'd had to have removed and the horrible doctors they have to deal with.

Those three alone would have made a quick and engaging chapter. Perhaps I should begin taking a tape recorder and record people at the airport. Airport Interviews I will call it. Sounds like a winner to me! It will be filled with colorful characters! Something like Amistad Maupin's Tales of the City. 

Sadly this is not a unique thought. The LA Times did an expose on writing from an airport. What I should have done is gotten this contract! (read the story HERE).

Always Good to Read and Old Friend

When I was in middle school I spent summers with my grandfather helping him at his bed and breakfast in the country. He was a huge fan of the half price books store in the little town near the place, and we would go into town for more books often. That little book store had a vast collection of Louis L'Amour novels and I started churning through them. Never got through them all, so now, when I'm hard up for a book to read, I'll turn to them.

I just finished Reilly's Luck and it was less than Louis' best book. The story by itself just wasn't that compelling. It started strong with a young boy being saved from being abandoned and killed. And the middle was decent, but the run up to the story and the end of the book were both things I'd rather just forget.

Still, as the title of this post suggests, it's always fun to go read books from an old favorite author. Old friends are always friends, right? So even a bad Louis L'Amour isn't so bad as long as he sticks with his strong points. At least the reader always knows what he's going to get.

One thing that continues to amaze me, especially as I work on my two works in progress, Sunset Perfect and Dev Palmer, is how prolific Louis was. When I do a quick look up of his bibliography I see over 188 separate novels. Here I am stuck on novel number 4 and he's spitting out 188. Even his worst probably better than mine.

New Outlook

Six or so years ago the company I work with suffered a major loss in the form of the death of a co-worker. He was at work and a piece of his equipment failed. He died within twenty minutes. I remember well the senior leader meeting that occurred just afterward. Our CEO stated a new outlook on safety and kept referring to this moment as his "stake in the ground."

At the time I didn't think it was that powerful. I realize now that it was far more powerful than at first I thought.

For the past few years I feel as though I've been wasting my time with my writing. Sure, I've been puttering away on several projects, but I've had other priorities that occupied my writing time. Writing small things and big things I've been wasting my time, talent and effort on an audience that didn't care. This is my stake in the ground moment.

• Those projects, they'll be knocked out and finished one by one.
• This blog, it will be updated daily. 
• This waste of time, it will be forgotten and I will move on. 

There's a new look and feel to this blog as you can tell. I'm looking forward to actually sticking with it this time. I've tried re-starts before. This one I can already tell is different and part of it is this stake in the ground. A commitment to myself and to those that read this that things will be different. Will I back-slide? Perhaps. Actually, most definitely. But I'll use this post and this stake in the ground as my way point and my cardinal direction.

Check back again soon. I'm back on course.