And so on. Riddleblog has “You Know You Are Not Reformed If . . .”
Yeah, I didn’t think it was that funny either, but I hope someone gets a laugh out of it. (by way of the Jollyblogger)
Yesterday I wrote about instructors who will always get their book orders in just after I’ve been on the phone with the publishers.
That puts me in mind of one of my favorite stories. I shall share it now, even though I know most of you have probably heard it before.
Because in cyberspace, no one can hear you scream.
The date was December 6, 1941. A young man took his shoes in to a shop to be re-soled.
The next day, of course, he forgot all about the shoes, because of the news of Pearl Harbor. He did his patriotic duty by enlisting in the Navy immediately.
He saw considerable action in the Pacific. One day late in the war his ship was torpedoed, and went down with great loss of life. Our hero managed to clamber into a lifeboat alone. He floated for days, finally washing up on the shores of a remote island, far from the shipping lanes.
For 25 years he remained on that island. He was listed as Missing In Action.
Finally a passing freighter saw his smoke signal and he was rescued. Back at home he was hailed as a hero.
His delighted parents showed him his old room, which they’d preserved precisely as it had been the day he left home.
After his parents had gone to bed, the young man looked through his well-remembered possessions. He tried on an old suit, put his hand in the pocket, and discovered the shoe repair claim ticket.
“Could the shoes still be there?” he wondered. “Only one way to find out.”
The next day he took a bus to the shoe repair shop. He found it still in business, and inside, older and grayer, he found the same shoe repairman.
“Are these shoes ready?” he asked with a smile, handing the old man the ticket.
The old man looked at the ticket, then went into the back room. A moment later he popped his head out.
“Have ’em for you Thursday,” he said.
Here’s an old post from Sarah Weinman about statements by Thriller Author Greg Iles on writing a book in a year’s time. He said, “So many thrillers today are formulaic and one-dimensional. I feel like there used to be a higher standard. . . . if I’m completely honest, three of my first four books are the best I ever wrote because I spent two years apiece on them.”
As a bit of balance, here’s a writing technique article by Sci-fi Author William Dietz, called “How To Write A Book A Year While Holding Down A Full-time Job, Maintaining Key Relationships, Staying In Shape, And Maintaining Your Sanity.“
At first, the Cincinnati-area family said the goat in the yard of their suburban home was for a 4-H project and would be sent away after the county fair. Now the Valentines have two goats, and they won a lawsuit, filed by community trustees, to keep the animals because they help their 13-year-old son cope with his ADHD. According the family, their dogs, rabbits, cat, and guinea pig do not help their son handle himself, but the goats do. The family is in the clear as long as they deliver a doctor’s testimony to the town every year to validate their claim.
In case you wonder, let me say that I do not believe that ADD and ADHD are medical fantasies, and some children are properly diagnosed with it and I hope properly treated. Thank you for your attention.
Via Michelle Malkin: This historical evidence of Zionist perfidy.
I had a busy day today. I got in all my book orders for the fall, which means of course that a couple hours later, one last instructor came in with his list, which I’ll have to call in tomorrow. No big deal. But I know that if I’d made the order Monday, he’d have brought it in on Monday afternoon.
Now I’m going to reward myself by taking a vacation week starting Monday (pending my boss’s approval). I propose to go nowhere on this vacation. I’ll stay home, vegetate, and (hopefully) work on my book. Travel is nice, but staying home and doing whatever I like is the real luxury.
I’ll keep blogging, though.
When I feel like it.
“Satan in the New Testament should be regarded as holding the equivalent of such positions as Prime Minister, or Attorney-General, or Head of MI5, or Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and as no more evil than many zealous holders of these positions here on Earth,” says a Californian who wants to rehabilitate the devil’s public face. He’s written a book about that star who fell from heaven. The Times of London headline for the story: “Forget Judas, let’s have sympathy for the Devil.”
I should ignore this kind of foolishness, but it’s just so . . . foolish.
I’ve been researching the history of my organization, CBMC (I’m a designer at the national service center). We put out a magazine for decades called CBMC Contact, and I found this poem on the back cover of a 1952 issue. It’s cute, and cute things should be blogged (within certain strict guidelines).
The Typographical Error
The typographical error is a slippery thing and sly;
You can hunt til you are dizzy, but it somehow will get by.
Til the forms are off the presses, it is strange how still it keeps;
It shrinks down in a corner and it never stirs or peeps.
That typographical error, too small for human eyes,
Til the ink is on the paper, when it grows to mountain size.
The boss, he stares with horror, then he grabs his hair and groans;
The copyreader drop his head upon his hands and moans–
The remainder of the issue may be clean as clean can be,
But the typographical error is the only thing you see.
W.C. Winslow
Orange Jack on Don Quixote: “The ironic thing to me is that this book is about 1000 pages, and on the first page the author tells me the main character goes mad because he read too much!”
Laura Demanski on a book she’s read several times: “A friend recently told me that he’s reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time, and I realized that this is a condition I aspire to. In other words, I wanted for a second to claw his eyes out, but the second passed and I masked my jealous rage nicely, I thought. It used to be every Christmastime that I read P&P. Now my readings are further spaced out, every three or four years instead of every single one as I try (without hope) to regain a state of innocence vis-à-vis this particular book.”
Kevin Holtsberry quotes Athol Dickson on writing too fast: “I recently got into hot water with some writer friends by crying out for a slower, more thoughtful pace. Although I hate it when people are unhappy with me, I’m not backing down. Many popular Christian authors are in the habit of putting out three, four or even five or more novels every year. Such haste strikes me as a risky proposition.” I remember Mr. Dickson saying the same thing in his Novel Journey interview.
Chuck Logan was recommended to me as a good thriller writer who, like John Sandford, lives in and writes about Minnesota.
I can’t say that I won’t read any more of his books. But I’m afraid I liked this one a lot less than I hoped to.
I would have preferred to start with the first book in the Phil Broker series, Absolute Zero, but my bookstore didn’t have a copy. So I went with Number Two, The Big Law.
I’ve written before about male fantasy figures as series heroes. I think Phil Broker (mostly) fits into this category. He’s rich as a result of finding a huge treasure of gold in a foreign land. He lives in his own big, rustic house on the shore of Lake Superior, having retired young from police work. Over his fireplace he has hung a Viking dragon’s head ship’s prow (that wins him points with me).
On the other hand, most male fantasies don’t include raising a baby singlehanded.
Phil has a wife, a female soldier (and hero). She has returned to active service and is currently serving in Bosnia (the book was published in 1998) when Broker gets involved in a case involving his ex-wife, Caren Angland.
Caren calls him unexpectedly, asking to come and see him. She’s frightened. She’s married now to Keith Angland, another cop and Phil’s former friend. She has proof that Keith is crooked. That he has taken money from the Russian mafia and murdered an informant.
As she flees her husband, Caren picks up a newspaper reporter, Tom James, who is supposed to document the story. But Keith follows and gets to Phil’s house ahead of her. In the violence that follows, Caren falls into a waterfall to her death, Tom James gets shot, and Keith is arrested for Caren’s murder.
But if that’s the end of the story, why do both Phil and his soldier wife get threatening letters shortly afterward?
And what happened to the money Keith got from the mob?
Chuck Logan is a good writer. The story builds tension nicely. The writing is fresh and sharp. Logan chooses his words carefully, and places them for maximum effect.
And yet… I had trouble caring much.
I’ve been trying to figure out why I couldn’t identify with Phil Broker. I can’t point to a single defect in Logan’s depiction of his character.
But I felt like I couldn’t get near the man. He never came alive for me. Even though he displays great passion in his concern to protect his baby daughter, he never gets my full sympathy.
I’m a writer. I’m supposed to be able to analyze these things. But I can’t identify what’s wrong here.
I’ll probably have to read another in the series to see if the problem is Logan’s or mine.
Well, blimey, Bert! Look what I’ve copped. The blog of the American Chesterton Society (ACS). They have a rare, autographed book of Chesterton poems for sale with a charity angle on it, and they point to a review of an interesting book I hadn’t seen before, The Flying Inn. The reviewer writes that the book “was condemned to many years of neglect, presumably because of what was then seen as the quaintness and irrelevance of its subject matter — an Islamic attack on and infiltration of England.” The ACS says, “This is a hilarious satirical romp in which Chesterton inveighs against the forces of dreary and oppressive modernity, in the form of Prohibition, vegetarianism, theosophy, and other movements.”