First Line I’m Reading Right Now

"I accepted a commission that had been turned down by four other writers, but I was hungry at the time."

Dick Francis – Longshot

One of the things I like to do when I edit a book is to read books as similar as possible to the one I'm editing. I'm currently editing (hopefully for the last time) my novel Toe the Line. I felt it was worthwhile for me to read a book from one of my favorite authors while I did so. Ironically, I've been told that I need to spice up my opening chapter and engage the reader more. Longshot is not a big help in this endeavor.

Although this first sentence makes the reader wonder, "Why is the protagonist hungry?" and "Why did four other writers turn down the commission?" Those questions are eclipsed by the larger question of "Why do I care?"

What's more sad? The most intriguing aspect of the first chapter is wondering what a chicken and chutney sandwich that the main character eats in his agent's office tastes like. Not a good sign for my own novel. Although I will say, my opening few pages look outstanding in comparison!

Book Review - Longshot - Is Meekness Even Minorly Heroic?

I just finished reading Longshot by Dick Francis. I was particularly engaged by this book in that I thought I had read all of Dick Francis' books. Longshot was new to me. Or I read it so long ago I've completely forgotten it.

Two passages stuck out.

The first is at the very end of the book. The hero is a travel adventure writer and the killer is using the hero's manuals on shooting game and survival against him. By the end of the book, when the hero is about to reveal who the killer is, the killer commits suicide and tries to make it look like an accident.

"A copy of Return Safe from the Wilderness lay on a workbench, and I picked it up idly and looked through it. Traps. Bows and arrows. All the familiar ideas. I flipped the pages resignedly and they fell open as if from use at the diagram in the first-aid section showing the pressure points for stopping arterial bleeding. I stared blankly at the carefully drawn and accurate illustration of exactly where the main arteries could be found nearest the surface in the arms and wrists...and in the legs.
Dear God, I thought numbly. I taught him that too."

I thought this was excellent if only for the O-Henry-esque ending. Loved it. Saw it coming just a bit, but not so much that it wasn't fun to read.

The second passage occurs early in the book.

"The letter from Ronnie Curzon came on a particularly cold morning when there was ice like a half-descended curtain over the inside of my friend's aunt's attic window. The window, with its high view over the Thames at Chiswick, over the ebb-tide mud and the wind-sailing sea gulls, that window, my delight had done most, I reckoned, to release invention into words. I'd rigged a chair onto a platform so that I could sit there to write with a long view to the tree-chopped horizon over Kew Gardens. I'd never yet managed an even passable sentence when faced with a blank wall."

Finally, the title of this post alludes to an aspect of this book juxtaposed against my own endeavor. My editor revealed to me that he has never read a Dick Francis book. I was impressed when upon receipt of my manuscript he went out and borrowed one from the library, ostensibly to read. I say ostensibly because I found out later that he did not actually read it.

Throughout the manuscript he has written "your hero is too meek, not showing even minor heroic qualities" or words to that effect. In Longshot, as in most of Dick Francis' books, the hero is meek. Strikingly meek. These two things, reading Longshot, reviewing my edited manuscript, brought this into focus. Is it bad to have a meek hero? Can't he act as a foil, as so many of Francis' heroes do, to all of the characters that interact around and with him? A sponge? An everyman who plays off others and travels through his story reacting instead of acting?

At the very least I can be thankful that according to Matthew writing about Jesus in the Beatitudes, my hero is blessed and will inherit the earth.

First Novel, Last Edit?

The first time I competed in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) I thought the writing part of novel writing was hard. I was right too. Writing that first novel was tough. Eeking out that first 50,000 word novel was excruciating. I look back at that draft now and still find it excruciating, but now its excruciating to read too.

If the past couple of years have taught me anything it is that writing is the easiest part of the novel writing process. Editing and rewriting is far harder than writing.

A couple months ago I gave my manuscript to a local editor. I've since gotten his edits back and input his edits on a nightly basis. I felt some trepidation when the editor mentioned he'd never read any Dick Francis novels. Nor had he read any Donald Westlake, Evanovich, or Robert Parker. These should have sent a warning klaxon to go off in my head.

As I enter his edits I'm amazed how I can see his moods on the paper. Some pages will be heavily marked up, red slashes and comments all over the place. Then there will be whole chapters where he has written nothing. At the end of these chapters he writes something like "This chapter does nothing for me" or "DIB" (do it better). I'm not sure how helpful these edits are (that's sarcasm....I know exactly how helpful these comments are).

In short, editing is tough, but figuring out which edits I should include is even tougher. I realize now that I should have found an editor or writer who is more in tune with the mystery genre, I think this guy is more comfortable with thrillers. Lesson learned for manuscripts two through forty. Then again, I should have done some homework myself. He has a couple of published novels, one would think I would have read one before handing over my manuscript and my money. Might have saved myself some dough and some consternation.

Finally Done with my Final Edit

So I finished the last read through and last edit of my manuscript. Now what? Well, first I'm going to ask several more people to read it for me. Stephen King inspired me. This was part of his advice. I even know the folks I want to read it. Mystery lovers. Already picked em out, have one of them on the hook. Won't make the same mistake I made with the edit.

What mistake? Having an editor who did not read mysteries edit my book. When I read my manuscript this last time I did so while reading a Dick Francis novel. It helped me get in the right frame of mind. I believe I've written here before that I was encouraged when I saw that my editor had a Dick Francis book on his shelf when I took him my manuscript. I was discouraged to find out that he'd never read it.

I think I've made the decision to go ahead and e-publish the book. First I want to look into several successful marketing campaigns that have accompanied an e-book release from relative unknowns and try to mimic them.

Book Review: Wild Horses

Just finished reading Wild Horses by Dick Francis. I’ve read this book, three times? It might be one of my favorites but if you asked me, what did you think about Wild Horses, I wouldn’t know it by name. I always remember it the second I read the first page. The story begins with a man dying next to the protagonist, Thomas Lyon, and telling Thomas about his greatest sin. The rest of the book is spent with Thomas uncovering that sin. It’s an interesting story in that it attacks the mystery from two different angles. There is the past mystery, and the mystery going on around Thomas as he films a movie about horse racing. Whenever I read it I think about a large rake or boom being dragged along the muddy bottom of a lake revealing things best left covered.

I tagged a few of my favorite lines:

I liked this first passage for its simplicity. It’s just one line, but it describes so much about what Thomas’ intentions are and why he is doing the things he does in the book.
“Conjurors never explained their tricks. The gasp of surprise was their best reward.”

The first part of this line isn’t anything to shake a stick at, but the last four words grabbed me.
“More people came, apparently plain-clothes policemen. Betty and I retreated to Dorothea’s sitting room where again, comprehensive chaos paralyzed thought.”

Loved this description of one of the suspects. Who wouldn’t want to be a person happy with little?
There was an obvious self-contentment in his whole personality. He had the weathered complexion and thread-venied cheeks of an outdoors man, his eyebrows dramatically blond against the tanned skin. Blue eyes held no guile. His teeth looked naturally good, even and white. No tension showed in his long limbs or sturdy neck. I thought him no great brain, but one of nature’s lucky accidents, a person who could be happy with little.

Some might think this description of a sun rise a bit ham-handed, but Francis inserts this into his usually utilitarian prose and it makes it more interesting.
“Faint horizontal threads of clouds were growing a fiercer red against the still gray sky and as he busied himself with camera speed and focus, the streaks intensified to scarlet and to orange and to gold, until the whole sky was a breath-gripping symphony of sizzling color, the prelude to the earth’s daily sping toward the empowerment of life.”

Thought this description of this aging professor and his room remarkable, particularly the length of that first sentence and the last line of that sentence . . . “and a brass Roman-numeraled clock ticking away the remains of a life.”
I was becoming accustomed to him and to his crowded room, aware now of the walls of bookshelves, so like Valentine’s, and of his cluttered old antique walnut desk, of the single brass lamp with green metal shade throwing inadequate light, of rusty green velvet curtains hanging from great brown rings on a pole, of an incongruously modern television set beside a worn old typewriter, of dried faded hydrangeas in a cloisonné vase and a brass Roman-numeraled clock ticking away the remains of a life. The room, neat and orderly, smelled of old books, of old leather, of old coffee, of old pipe smoke, of old man.

Francis throws in some ideas about his belief in having a strong fantasy life, a positive thing in his view.
“A good strong fantasy life, I’d guess, saves countless people from boredom and depression. It gives them a feeling of being individual.”

I’m biased I know, but I’d read this again in a heartbeat and will. Great hook, great plot, great story lines.

Bad Decision Wednesday

Today has consisted of a series of incredibly bad decisions. What's worse, none of the decision had to be made, much less be made poorly. Only one of them is relevant to my writing and reading world.

I started listening to Nelson DeMille's Lion's Game. It's a book I've always seen on bookshelves at the bookstore, at the Half Price Books, at Amazon, and each time I gloss by it and remind myself that soon I need to read it. Another book that is in that same category . . . The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I keep meaning to read it, will I? Probably not.

The bad decision about Lion's Game is that I down loaded it through Audible.com in order to listen to it in the car. I've always been an audible book listener. In highschool I would go to the local library and check out books to listen to. I think my first experience with Dick Francis was through an audio version of one of his books, listed to while in the parking lot of highschool prior to the ringing of the first bell. I've been a subscriber of Audible.com off and on for several years. I'm "on" now thanks to On Writing by King. Why listen to sports or political talk shows while driving when I can fine tune my ability to write?

Lion's Game is very good. I usually don't like books that switch POV as this one does, but he does it well. It's immediately engaging and already, just a few minutes into the book, I have heard several lines I wish I had read on the Kindle so I could highlight them and share them hear. So, . . . big mistake in not reading it. Not the biggest I made today though.

Most Recent First Line

"Kidnapping is a fact of life."

Dick Francis – The Danger

It's not the best first line of Dick Francis' career but it catches your eye and makes you think. Also lets you know what the rest of the novel is going to be about. A couple of lines later he uses a pretty great metaphor.

"All kidnappers are unstable, but the political variety, hungry for power and publicity as much as money, make quicksand look like rock."

Book Review: The Danger

I finished The Danger by Dick Francis at about midnight on Tuesday. I don't know if I've read this one before or not. I suspect that I have as there were one or two scenes I felt I could just about have predicted before they were complete, but that could be because I consider myself such a Dick Franciscan.

One of the aspects of his writing that I enjoy, and have a new respect for now that I've tried it myself, is Francis' ability to have a story that revolves around horse racing and not have the main character be a part of the horse racing world. In The Danger, the main character is a hostage negotiator. He happens to fall into the racing world when a spate of kidnaps infects the horse racing world.

Not much in the way of vocabulary, but I highlighted some passages.

In this first the main character is describing to another character a father who is upset by the kidnapping of his son. A great sample of an interesting simile.

"John Nerrity is like one of those snowstorm paperweights, all shaken up, with bits of guilt and fear and relief and meanness all floating around in a turmoil. It takes a while after something as traumatic as the last few days for everything in someone's character to settle, like the snowstorm, so to speak, and for all the old patterns to reassert."

This next describes the main character talking to the police chief. I like the way Francis allows his own character to describe a dominant feature of himself, phrasing suggestions as questions.

"'Andrew!' The beginnings of exasperation. 'What's been going on?'

'Will you be coming here yourself?'

A short pause came down the line. He'd told me once that I always put suggestions into the form of questions, and I supposed that it was true that I did. Implant the thought, seek the decision. He knew the tap was on the telephone, he'd ordered it himself, with every word recorded. He would guess there were things I might tell him privately.'"

This final passage describes the way that the main character feels about America.

"I felt liberated, as always in America, a feeling which I thought had something to do with the country's own vastness, as if the wide-apartness of everything flooded into the mind and put spaces between everyday problems."

It's a good, solid, Francis book. I enjoyed it. Unlike many of his and other mystery books, this one ends rather abruptly. There is no denouement, just a quick sentence or two after the climax. The reader is forced to imagine the rest. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it.

Book Review: Second Wind

UGH! Don't you just hate when your favorite author writes a horrible book? This is Second Wind. Easily the worst Dick Francis book I've ever read. The plot was ridiculous and was full of non sequiturs, the dialogue didn't seem natural, the characters were forgettable and the writing was bad. Throughout the story I kept thinking, "Wow, my novel is better than this." And I stand by that.

Thankfully, Dick Francis has alot of "political capital" with me. I'm not off him for life. The sad part is, while I was looking for my next book to read, I realized that there were only a couple of Francis book Kindle-ized. If they don't quickly Kindle more, I fear I'll be stuck with the dregs.

The Valley of Despair is No Place to Hang Out for Long

So, as I said in my previous posts (here and here), I stopped reading to concentrate on my writing. For the most part it worked. I say for the most part cause it was a good short term kick in the pants. In the long term it worked against me.

In order to get ready and in the right mindset for NaNoWriMo (quite possibly the lamest name ever) I decided to download and read a book from one of my favorite authors, Banker by Dick Francis. Based just on reading a few pages from that I've been re-inspired and have written more in my novel than I did the entire last few weeks. Granted, I was also stuck on a plane for 4 hours, but still the inspiration was there.

The valley worked, but in the long run its no place to stay for long periods.

Most Recent First Line

Yep, as I said, I'm back to reading. I'm reading my favorites too, trying to get in the right frame of mind for the upcoming National Novel Writing Month. Based on the genre and the author you can pretty much assume I shant be writing many of the 3rd person thriller novel ideas I threw out these past few weeks.

I know I've read this one before, but I didn't remember an awful lot about it, so it was pleasantly surprising all around.

"Gordon Michaels stood in the fountain with all his clothes on."

Banker - Dick Francis

Not the best opening line, but not the worst either. I know I might be bias but I read till the very end and finished the novel in record time.

Another Recent First

With National Novel Writing Month only a few days away, I'm begining to realize that I'll need to craft my own first line in very little time. I just read this one the other day:

"OK, so here I am, Lee Morris, opening doors and windows to gusts of life and early death."

Decider - Dick Francis

By no means the best first line I've ever read, but despite that he does a terrific job in the next few pages of emmersing the reader into the life of the protagonist. I'm up to chapter 3 now, so it obviously did it's job.

Dick Hannah Stayed Here

I read Maria Finn’s article in the WSJ The Write Stuff (here) last weekend and was less than inspired. Do I think it’s a neat idea to stay in hotels or apartments where famous literary heroes may have stayed? Sure. Would I want to stay in any that are highlighted in the novel? No. A thousand times no.

Despite being less than inspired to go travel as Miss Finn suggests, I was inspired to think about where I would want to go and where I would want to stay.
First, I think it would be fun to start a trail ride down on the border and ride it north just like they did in Lonesome Dove. You could camp out along the way and read passages of the book along the way. What a spectacular way to both camp, and to read a great novel.

Secondly, a Dick Francis tour. I’m sure they have these and if I ever get over to England I’m determined to join one, but a tour of the horse racing venues that Dick Francis uses as backdrops for his mysteries would be incredible. The problem? There would be too many.

Probably not what others would like, but certainly more personal and personally inspirational than those listed in the article.

Banker or Such a Prosaic Title for a Thriller

I finished Dick Francis' Banker last month. I remember this book well. Not because I read it and liked it, not because of it's well written prose, or thrilling plot. Nope, I remember Banker cause it was perhaps the first "adult" novel I came in contact with as it was always positioned within eyesight in my parent's library. It had a bright yellow cover and picture of horse intermixed with a dollar sign. I never read it as a child and remember thinking how horrible a book on banking must be. I would have been wrong. It's just as good as all of his other works. A bit odd, the relationship the main character has with the love interest, but that's par for the course for Francis. Still in all I loved reading it and it got me into a fine fettle for National Novel Writing Month.

A few quotes are listed below.

At one point the main character is describing a scene at a dinner party as:
"Henry Shipton and his wife were standing in the doorway to the balcony, alternately facing out and in, like a couple of Januses. Henry across the room lifted his glass to me in a gesture of acknowledgement, and Lorna as ever look as if faults were being found."

I like the way he uses the line about Janus to show that they were looking all about them.

Then later, the main character finds that he is falling more and more in love with the wife of his friend. He has to continually remind himself to quit falling for her.
"We went down to the paddock, saw the horses walk at close quarters round the ring and watched the jockeys mount ready to ride out onto the course. Judith smelled nice. Stop it, I told myself. Stop it."

What guy hasn't had to remind himself of certain things in his life, maybe not as tragic as unrequited love, but I like the way Francis makes his main characters human through this.

Finally, one that made me think of my own wife.
"Mind you," Judith said forgivingly, "his second wife was the most gorgeous thing on earth, but without tow thoughts to rub together. Even Dissdale got tired of the total vacancy behind the sensational violet eyes. It's all very well to get a buzz when all men light up on meeting your wife, but it rather kicks the stilts away when the same men diagnose total dimness within five minutes and start pitying you instead."

I can say with all honesty I've never been pitied by my friends.

Decider or An Old Friend

I read a book which is now starting to feel like an old friend, Decider by Dick Francis. I can’t remember the first time I read this, nor can I remember how many times I’ve read it, but it has to be three or four times. Each time I read it I like it more.

Decider’s protagonist is Lee Morris, an architect, with five kids. It’s probably one of the more light-hearted and easy to read Francis mysteries, and I guess that is one of the reasons I like reading it so much.

A couple of the lines I marked this time include:

Rebecca sulked angrily. Marjorie’s disapproval grew vigorous runners in her direction, like a ramplant strawberry plant.

The five boys roamed around scavenging, Toby having joined them belatedly. The Strattons had left. Outside, horseboxes were loading the last winners and losers. The urgency was over, and the striving, and the glories. The incredible weekend was folding its wings.

I like both of the above passages for the imagery that they present. The runners quote made me think of ivy that tears down aged fences, until he brought up the strawberry plants. I think mine would have been better. The folded its wings, says a lot with just a little metaphor.

There were only two vocabulary words that I highlighted.

Salver – A tray, typically one made of silver and used in formal circumstances.
Obloquy – Strong public criticism or verbal abuse.

Just like the last few times, I loved it. Fast, fun, and easy. A good little thriller cum mystery.

A Bit Out of Order

So, yeah, as you could guess by the book reviews I've been posting, this first line is a bit out of order. I read this several weeks ago.

"Okay so here I am, Lee Morris, opening doors and windows to gusts of life and early death."

Decider - Dick Francis

It's a bit prosaic, some would say, but it's a good little first line, unassuming, light and fun. Just like the rest of the novel. What I think is smart is that it actually foreshadows the ending quite nicely. Writer's Digest last month said that a good first line should do just that. Plus it makes sense when the reader realizes that the man thinking this is an architect.

Tweaking the Plot and Story

I am about 30,000 words into my draft of Sunset Perfect. I'm really thinking this draft has a very good chance of being the final version that I take all the way to publication. I changed up the model by which I am introducing the story. Instead of the hero being involved in the first partner, he comes into the storyline with the second murder. I also like the fact that he is an outsider to the professional football team, which means he has heard about professional football with the reader.

I also like the fact that he is an outsider to the professional football team, which means he has heard about professional football with the reader.

Taking a Break (and Breaking Apart)

Loyal readers might notice that a very large subset of information on this blog is gone. Poof! 

Yep, I split the old blog up. There is now a NEW blog on just adult education posts and self-authorship journal entries. Why? Well, it’s a bit of mix isn’t it? I started posting on adult ed stuff here just so I had some place to put all the junk I was writing. Now that I’m done with my dissertation, I think it deserves it’s own place. So there ya have it. Wander over to the new blog if you like the adult ed posts. This one will go back to just writing and reading nonsense. - this is the “break apart” aspect of the title. 

What about the taking a break aspect? 

Another in My Series Reading

 Anyone who knows me and this blog knows that I’m into reading serieses now. I’ve reading WEB Griffin’s Corps series. I’m reading Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan series. I finished C.K. McDonnell’s Stranger Times series (which was a rare, wonderful, funny, find). I started the Sackett series, but kinda let that one fall off. I’m including some rare Dick Francis and that’s GOTTA be a series right? It doesn’t matter that he’s my favorite of all time. A Daniel Silva’s series. And now the third in the John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee series. 

These are so much like Lee Child’s Reacher series its just silly. Better, to be sure, but still, it’s like looking in a mirror. 

Blocking Out My Novel

Right now I’m working on three different stories, all of which I’m hoping to turn into finished novels. I figure that since I’m getting to the end of my PhD and there will be fewer and fewer posts on adult learning,  . . . Hopefully there will be just as many on self-authorship, . . . But in the spirit of finding daily content . . . I guess posting about those three (hopeful) novels will keep my blog filled. 

So I guess I’ll give a quick synopsis of each and then throughout the days further develop each book as we go.