The Art of Manliness makes good points on “How to Be More Civil Online.” Brett & Kate write, “Being a gentleman online simply involves the application of common sense. But anyone who leaves their home each day knows how uncommon common sense can be.”
Tolstoy at Rest
Clarity of Night Contest Entry
My short-short for The Clarity of Night contest, “Elemental,” has been posted. It’s called “Wilruf the Plunderer.” Feel free to comment either here or there. I’d love your feedback. Contest parameters and a list of entries are here.
Getting to the bottom of the WELS flap
I’ll come clean. I have to admit it. I am a Lutheran.
And that, at least according to Joshua Green at The Atlantic, would seem to be pretty fringey stuff. Definitely outside the realm of respectable opinion in today’s world. (Which must be a surprise to all those Garrison Keillor fans.)
Or… maybe I’m not a Lutheran at all, really. Continue reading Getting to the bottom of the WELS flap
Writer Hashtags
There are a number of hashtags for writers and book publishing fans on Twitter, and the Christian Science Monitor has a good list of them. A hashtag, btw, is a Twitter tag for the thoughts written there, e.g. #nowyouknow.
Another trailer post
Grim at Grim’s Hall posts my book trailer. Thanks, Grim.
Ice Cream and Venom, by Republibot 3.0
I bought Ice Cream and Venom for my Kindle because it was written by the anonymous “Republibot 3.0” who hangs out at Threedonia, as I tend to do. He (I assume he’s a he) participates in this conservative science fiction blog. The book is a collection of seven short stories, diverse in setting and tone.
I have an ambivalent relationship with science fiction. I enjoyed the juvenile stuff when I was young, but as I tasted the more adult variety my interest waned and I shifted to fantasy. I’ve always suspected I never gave science fiction a fair try, although I’ve read a fair (at least representative, I think) selection of stories and books over the years.
Ice Cream and Venom, in my opinion, is pretty good. I liked some stories better than others, as you’d expect, but I thought the quality of the writing was high (marred, as is so often the case nowadays—especially in electronic publishing–by poor proofing). There are lots of confused cognates and wrongly placed apostrophes, and in one story the author lost track of characters’ names, calling two guys by the others’ names for about half a page.
Still the contemporary reader has grown used to such things and learned to work around them. When the author is on his game, his writing is very good indeed.
My favorite story was “The Man Who Would Not Be King,” an oddly heartwarming story of Elvis Presley in an alternate universe.
“Superheroes Are Gay” was a well realized, if disturbing, picture of a world where superherores are real—and it’s not a good thing.
“The Truth About Lions and Lambs” is a dystopic tale, troubling and hard to forget.
Christian readers will find that the themes are generally positive ones, but the details sometimes offensive. A very short story called “Just Moments Before the End of the Age” borders on sacrilege, and will certainly put some Christians off (I think it also betrays a lack of theological understanding on the part of a writer who seems pretty familiar with the faith and the evangelical community).
But if you enjoy that kind of challenging material, it’s only a buck on Kindle, and you could do a lot worse.
Short Story Contest: "Elemental"
Jason Evans is calling for 250-word stories inspired by an image. Deadline in a few days. Prizes are Amazon gift cards. Evans explains how he will judge.
I award up to 45 possible points for the following elements:
Pacing…10 points
Entertainment Value…10 points
Technical Use of Language…10 points
Storytelling…10 points
Voice…5 points
It’s a bit like Iron Chef without Alton Brown. There are already 30 entries.
Discovering the Diary of Anne Frank
Mike Williams has the story on how Judith Jones, who became a famous senior editor and vice president at Knopf, pulled the French translation of The Diary of a Young Girl off of the reject pile and urged her boss to send it to New York for consideration.
Maccabeats: One Day
This song goes out to all the congressmen, president, and presidential staff in Washington D.C. Have fun this weekend, boys and girls.