An Open Letter to Comic Book Heroines (Literary Crush Blogfest)

Dear Comic Book Heroines,

I’m sorry I didn’t discover you until 10th grade. Really, I am. When I think of all the time I wasted before I found you, pining for Kylie Minogue, Belinda Carlisle, and (in my wilder moments) Madonna, I’m saddened. Instead of pining for unattainable pop stars, I could have been pining for unattainable, imaginary, super-powered women.

 I still think you’re cute, though, Belinda

Now, I know there was this whole “bad girl” thing going on with comics in the 90’s, and don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the bad girls. It’s just that the first comic I ever read was Jim Lee’s X-Men, and… once you go mutant, you never go back. (That’s what they say, anyway.)

But then there’s Lady Death…

I’m not sure what it was about you genetically superior females that did it for me. Okay, that’s not necessarily true: I know what it was about you that did it for me, and—if I can be honest for a minute—it wasn’t your minds. (Unless you were Jean Grey or Emma Frost, cuz telepathy and telekinesis are hott.)

Okay, I kinda liked Famke Janssen as Jean Grey

Yes, I know you’re not necessarily anatomically correct. Oh, fine. You’re correct, just… improbable. I was fine with this. What do you want? What 15-year old boy doesn’t fantasize about anatomically improbable women?

One thing, though… while I loved the skin-tight outfits and all, I had to wonder every now and then why you added certain touches to your costumes. Seriously, how long did it take you gals to get dressed for superheroing? Did you just wear your costumes under your street clothes at all times? It’s not like you could duck into phone booths and change. (Wait up, Sentinels! Don’t destroy the city yet. I haven’t finished getting my fifth latex leg-strap on!)

What’s with all those little strappy things, Psylocke?

I suppose what I’m getting at is… thank you, comic book heroines, for making my teenage years that much more interesting. You’re not believable, nor are you realistic, but you sure made me happy. I may even have bought the Marvel Comics Swimsuit Issue. (Though I’d never admit that in public.)

Hai, Storm. Ur cute. Nice parrot.

Yours in infatuation,

Simon

P.S. The world needs a Lady Death live-action movie. I’m just putting that out there.

P.P.S. Actually, the world just needs more comic book movie adaptations. Just not like that second Fantastic Four movie. What was with that?

~~~~~

Oh, and,  uh, I forgot the cardinal rule of blogfesting: link back to the blog host, so people can find the other lovely bloggers who participated. Er… yeah. So here we are. Go visit the one-and-only belly-dancing writer in the Philly area, Ms. Frankie Diane Mallis! *the crowd goes wild* *rapturous applause* *happy dances all round*

I can haz brand?

There’s been a lot of kerfuffle in the literary blogosphere recently over branding. Now, I’m against this, because I think it’s cruel and unusual, and cows deserve better. Also, people who decide to be branded (I’ve heard this is a “thing” in some circles) are flat-out idiots.

What? Oh… it’s about that kind of brand. Well, yeah. I knew that. *cough*

I’m not sure who started it all, but Maureen Johnson’s blog is a pretty good place to look, methinks. She was all discombobulated over some gal spouting off at some conference about BRAND BRAND BRANDITY BRAND BRAND!!! FTW!!! Hence her counter-manifesto. I think she’s right on the money with that.

And then my ever-devious nemesis posted on the same topic, saying the following:

Brand starts right when you log onto the tinterweb and send anything out using your nimble little fingers. It starts when you blog, tweet, or accept friends on Facebook. Whether you have a web site or not, YOU ARE A BRAND.

I hate to admit it, since she’ll gloat for the next six months about this, but she may have a point.

Which gets me to thinking: what’s my brand? If I were to guess at what I’ve created thus far, it’d be a strange combination of:

• snark
• soul
• stupidity, and
• alcohol.

Or something like that. I mean . . . you know you’ve created SOME kind of online brand when people have conversations on Twitter about you when you’re not there:

And then Rebecca over at Sonshine Thoughts was building an endcap at the bookstore she works in, and one of the books immediately made her think of me.

Er . . . yes.

So I haz a brand after all: I’m a snarky, alcoholic writer.

I may just weep with pride.

~~~~~

Oh, and in case you’ve been hiding under a rock and don’t know about Carol, Sara, and Alexandra’s Barry Lyga Rocks! Contest… go check it out on:

• Carol’s blog,
• Sara’s blog, or
• Alexandra’s blog.
• Or, y’know, all three. Yup.

I think I just earned extra points in that contest. Yay me!

On becoming a logodaedalus

“Dude,” you’re saying right now, “what’s a logodaedalus?”

Glad you asked. A logodaedalus is a person with great facility at coining new words. Hey, look it up if you don’t believe me.

“So, uh… coining words, huh?” you say. “What does that have to do with me?”

Okay, you might not be aiming for Shakespeare-like status (and yes, Ol’ Bill was the logodaedalus par excellence, adding more words to the English language than anyone before or since), but now and then, you may find yourself using a word in your fiction that makes you stop and think, Is that really a word?

And then you trot off to Dictionary.com or Wiktionary.com or your handy copy of the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary you keep in your study and discover that no, no that’s not a word. So you don’t use it.

But you know what I say, writer-friends? Go ahead and use it. I’m giving you permission. You’re welcome.

Oh, just to be clear, this isn’t carte blanche to go making up words like crundlestunk and thwiff—first of all, I already did make them up, so you can’t now, and second, when I say go ahead and use that word you apparently just created, I’m making some assumptions here:

1. That the word is intended to be understood,
2. That the word can be understood in the context of the sentence or paragraph, and
3. That the word will not jar your reader from the flow of your prose and send them running to their copy of the OED to find out whether that’s actually a real word you just used.

“Why are you talking about this, Simon?” you’re asking.

Well, duh. It’s because I recently used a couple words that weren’t actually words, and, y’know, I kind of thought they should be.

Where’s the harm in me saying catharsize, when you all know that it’s merely a verb form of the word catharsis? You get what I’m saying.

Related to this was another verbification: nemesize. This, of course, would be the verb form of nemesis. And, er, verbification is actually a word, in case you were wondering.

But you see my point, yes? Why can’t I use these words if you and everyone else know what I’m talking about. The whole point of the written word is to communicate, and if I’m communicating effectively, who the hell cares if I’m making words up in the process. Shakespeare did, and no one bothered him about it.

Words, friends, are democratic things. Anyone can use them, and anyone can create them. Most of the words and phrases that enter the lexicon every year are created by normal people like you and me, not by ivory-tower academics with degrees in etymology.

So go ahead: use that word. Someone has to be the first.

It might as well be you.

Vocabulary : Deutsch as entertainment

My nemesis, Sierra Godfrey, runs this segment on her blog every week called Word-Up Wednesday. Now, while I hesitate to give even tacit approval to anything my nemesis does, I do enjoy learning and sharing new words. The English language is wonderfully wide-ranging and flexible, absorbing expressions from anywhere and everywhere. It also changes with alarming rapidity—how fast did google become a verb?

Never fear though, writer-friends! I’m here to forge a path through the verdant vale of vocabulary with vorpal wit. Yes, indeedy! And for my inaugural post on word-wonders, why don’t we say a great, big “Thank you!” to those agglomerative geniuses, the Germans? No, not for their beer or wine (although I’m not above showing gratitude for a good Gewurtztraminer), but for their contributions to our dictionary!

To wit, I present you with some of my favorite Deutsch-words-that-can-be-used-in-English-conversation-to-make-oneself-look-urbane-and-cosmopolitan. In alphabetical order, then, we have:

Arschegeweih

You, er, may have gathered it had something to do with asses from the “arsche” bit of it, yes? This little gem, apparently, is the German word for “tramp stamp.” (For the more cultured among my readership… what are you doing reading my blog? Also, a “tramp stamp” is a nice word for a lower-back tattoo, usually found on women of questionable morality [unlike full-back tattoos, which are found on women of unquestionable awesomeness]). The literal translation of this word, by the by, is “ass antlers.” I’ll wait to go on until you’re done laughing.

Barbie’s tramp stamp. Heh.

(You can see the utility, though, can’t you? “Your arschegeweih is quite lovely, m’dear. May I get you another Colt 45?”)

Drachenfutter*

I’ll lead with the literal translation of this one: “dragon fodder.” This (and my married male readers, all three of them, will likely appreciate this one) is a gift bought by a husband to appease an angry wife. I don’t think I need to elaborate further.

Schadenfreude

This has been on my favorite words list for a long time. It means “a sick delight in the misfortune of others,” and really, haven’t we all indulged in that from time to time? Yes. Yes, we have. It’s why slapstick comedy is funny. It’s why America’s Funniest Home Videos routinely shows montages of dudes getting whanged in the tenders. I’m not sure why it’s so amusing, since it’s anything but when it happens to me, but there you go.

Even a chimp will laugh if its trainer slips on a banana peel, so apparently schadenfreude showed up in the genetic pool quite some time ago. It must confer some sort of evolutionary advantage.

Schlimmbesserung*

I’m thinking of you, my readers in the workplace, because this word is one you can and should use in front of your boss to impress the socks off him. It means “a supposed improvement that actually makes things worse.” This, my friends, is tailor made for use in business meetings.

You: Sure, Williams’ proposal looks good on the surface, but I’m worried it'll be little more than a schlimmbesserung if we go forward with it.

Your Boss: Your vocabulary astounds me! Here: have a promotion and a raise. Williams? You’re fired.

(Note: Don’t say this if your last name is Williams.)

~~~~~

And there we go.

I’m a big fan of fun words, writer-friends. I figure I can make this a semi-regular blog event, since searching out obscure yet interesting wordage is happy-making for me. Next time perhaps I’ll look at lalochezia and millihelen. Stay tuned!

*I learned drachenfutter and schlimmbesserung from Simon Hertnon’s delightful little book, Endangered Words. Check it out if you’re a word-geek like me: there’s a hundred little gems with commentary for your edutainment.

Reading Frost’s “Out, Out—” as an adult

I’ve been reading through Robert Frost’s collected poetry recently—not because I understand much about poetry, but because I understand that it’s important, and poets know how to use words well. I can learn from that. Also, Ray Bradbury, in his Zen and the Art of Writing, recommended that writers should read poetry every day (and if Bradbury recommends it, I’m happy to give it a shot).

So I read “Out, Out—” the other day, for the first time since high school. It was… difficult.

See, I recalled the poem vaguely, as some of you might. (If you don’t recall it or have never read it, you can find it here, if you’re interested.) A few images were stuck in my mind from it: the ranked mountain ranges receding into the distance, the stump of a hand, the line about not letting the doctor take it (though it’s already gone). I remembered it as a sad poem, in an abstract, distance-dimmed kind of way. But then I reread it as an adult, and something about it twisted in my chest and misted my eyes. It hurt.

Why the different reaction this time?

I think it comes down to life. Since high school I’ve lost relatives and friends to illness and accident; I’ve had children and seen with new eyes the joy and wonder of childhood; I’ve worked hard and tempted death myself with spinning saws and tall buildings. I also know that each passing day is one I won’t get back, and the older I get, the more precious each second becomes. So to read about a young life cut short, in ruthlessly direct poetic language, is painful.

But it’s not just the death. We’re almost inured to that after so many years of action movies and evening news, aren’t we? No, it’s the awareness that attends the death. First, in the narrator’s melancholy reflection:

Call it a day, I wish they might have said

To please the boy by giving him the half hour

That a boy counts so much when saved from work.

And then in the boy’s reaction to his own situation:

The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh,

As he swung toward them holding up the hand

Half in appeal, but half as if to keep

The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all –

Since he was old enough to know, big boy

Doing a man's work, though a child at heart –

He saw all spoiled.

The words that really tear me here are “big boy.” How much is contained in those brief two words! What searing compassion! Because we and the narrator know that the boy is old enough to understand; it’s not simply the fact of the loss, but the boy’s recognition of it that makes this so affecting. And a rueful laugh! By God, how real, and yet how heart-rending is this seemingly-incongruous reaction?

A boy—a big boy, and one who will not live to become a man. Ah, friends. Two words, only, and yet they are enough to cause a lump in my throat.

I understand now why Bradbury tells writers to read poetry.

I may never be able to craft sentences as magnificent as Virginia Woolf’s. I may never be able to distill a galaxy of emotion into the space of a few small words, as Frost can. But if I can take what is in me and communicate it through my fiction, make others feel and see and understand as I do, I will gladly scour my soul for the words that can bear the weight. And if I am the less for the doing, I can take solace in the thought that, should fortune smile, the world will perhaps be greater in some small way for the addition of my art.

#FridayFlash: The Dark Inside You

It’s been a while since I wrote flash fiction, friends. It was kind of my specialty for a while, but then I got distracted by shiny things like short stories and novels and such. This is all good, but I’d like to keep my flash fic mojo close to hand; you never know when you’ll need it. Thing is, I don’t want to take too much time away from my other stories (they might get jealous and gang up on me and stifle my idea flow, and I don’t need that). So I’ve decided I’ll do some timed writing, and see what kind of things I can come up with in 15 minutes.

This, incidentally, was inspired by Courtney Barr (the sweet-as-sugar Southern Princess), whose Wednesday posts are 45-minute timed writing affairs based on one-word prompts. It’s a nifty way to keep the writing muscles primed, for sure, and her stories really are great fun. I, however, would have trouble finding a 45-minute block of time in which to write consistently, so I’m opting for a 15-min. version of the exercise. Here goes!

~~~~~

The Dark Inside You

When you hunt the dark long enough, it gets in you eventually. Gets so you need it, need the hunt, the kill. Don’t matter that what you’re killing shouldn’t rightly be alive to begin with—all that matters is that you feel alive doing it. All the stuff normal folk call living seems somehow paler in comparison.

So here I am again, stalking the shadows, the scent of violence in my nostrils.

I could feel these ones from three blocks away—the spine-shiver and the metallic tang in the back of my throat that tells me the vamps are near. It’s my gift. My curse.

Quick steps to the corner, a swift glance down the alley. The light’s bad. It always is. They prefer the darkness when they feed. It’s their element.

My eyes are accustomed to it, though, and one look is all I need. It’s the usual carnage: neck gone, ribs pried apart, gleam of bone and organ. They always eat the soft parts first. There’s two of them, lean and sinuous, almost elegant in their movements. You near expect them to raise a pinky when they’re sipping the blood from a still-warm heart.

I curl my fingers round the accustomed smoothness of my blades and step around the corner. Three paces and I’m in the center of the alley. Three paces, and they’re already standing and staring at me, teeth bared. They’re fast.

[REST OF STORY REDACTED FOR REVISION/EXPANSION]

~~~~~

Okay, I’m sorry if you came by expecting the full story, but I decided that this one was way too much fun not to play with some more. I’ll leave the opening few paragraphs up, since it really did take me about 15 minutes to get those together, and it fits with my 15-minute fiction exercise theme, but the rest of it I’ll be going over and revising, possibly expanding.

With any luck, I’ll be able to point you to a much-changed version of this story soon!

Cheers!

S.

Dance like no one is watching

If you don’t know the quote from which the title of this post is taken, you should. Mark Twain—clever bastard that he was—is responsible for this one:

Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you've never been hurt, and live like it's heaven on Earth.

Awesome, yes? Yes. Glad you agree.

You’re wondering why I mention this. Clearly I’m leading up to something, because despite the fact that my brain does strange and random things, it’s rare that my blog posts don’t have some kind of cohesion, right?

Aardvark.

(That last thing was an anomaly. Ignore it.)

Anyhow, I mention the Twain quote because the other day, as I was riding the train back from Philly (after an AWESOME afternoon out with a friend drinking good beer and watching the U.S. manage a draw with England in the World Cup [but really, how pathetic was that goal? (very pathetic, is the answer, and if that goalie didn’t get the Gomer Pyle soap-in-the-sock treatment that night at his hotel, you can color me surprised)]), I was rocking out to Within Temptation on my iPod, and found myself wanting to groove a bit. (Sorry for the long-ass parenthetical digression. I get distracted sometimes… Ooh! Firefly!)

Wait… what? Oh, yes. The post. Sure.

So I was rocking out to Within Temptation. It was from their recent album The Heart of Everything, and if I recall correctly, the song was Final Destination. (If you’re new to the blog, er… hi. I’m kind of a fan of symphonic/gothic metal with female lead singers. Yeah. It’s a weakness.)

Okay, I know it’s a tad overwrought, very gothic, and all that. I like it anyway. And that bit after the bridge, at about 3:30, where it goes to the bass line undercutting the keyboard motif, AND THEN EXPLODES INTO A GUITAR-CRASHING, SNARE-DRUM-SMASHING SOLO THAT IF YOU DON’T WANT TO HEADBANG TO IT I MAY HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT YOU, WRITER-FRIEND!? Yah, that’s the bit I was hearing as I was standing in the doorway of the train waiting to get off at the next station.

Now, I know I can’t get into full-on headbanging in public. First of all, people would be freaked out, and second, my earphones would probably fly out of my ears and interrupt my groove (I speak from experience, naturally). But I can’t hear that music without wanting to move SOMEhow, so that’s what I did. I stood in the doorway, holding on the the rail for support, and I shucked and jived like a fool. Okay, it was more like headbanging lite, but I did it. And I did it with the full knowledge that everyone on the train watching me was going to think I was strange.

Because why not, writer-friends. Why. The hell. Not? What am I going to lose?

I knew no one on that train, and they didn’t know me. I was digging my music, and I wanted to move to it. I did. To stifle that urge would have been to pass on a little bit of feeling, a morsel of enjoyment—and let’s face it, life can be enough of a suck-fest that any scrap of guiltless pleasure should be treasured.

And that, friends, is what I’m getting at. Are you holding back from doing something because you worry what other people will think? If it’s harmless, and gives you pleasure, then, by God, don’t limit yourself!  We only have one go-round here, people. Every minute of your life that passes is one you won’t get back. So make those minutes count!

Laugh aloud while reading Bill Bryson on the bus. Shimmy your hips to Shakira on the subway (or at Subway). Belt Beyoncé on the boardwalk. But by all that’s holy, seize the moment! You don’t have to backpack in the Andes to suck the marrow out of life. Sometimes all it takes is letting go,  living in the now, and allowing yourself to feel something.

Do it, writer-friends.

And if I happen to see you dancing on the train? I won’t judge you.

I’ll smile.

Generating Comment Traffic through Stupidity and Self-Deprecation

I know, writer-friends. You’ve been crying out for me to craft a scintillating post on the subject of attracting blog comments, and I hear those cries. They keep me up at night sometimes (but those of you who’re crying in my yard after 11 pm, please stop—it’s freaking out the neighbors).

“So Simon,” you’ve been asking, “how do I get more people to comment on my blog?”

“Well,” I say, “you must be stupid. And self deprecating.”

Then you look at me funny.

But I’m not kidding.

Look, there are two routes to increasing comment traffic. Well, actually,  there are three, but the third involves epic amounts of time spent daily, commenting on a bajillion and one blogs and engendering warm fuzzies in the breasts of your fellow bloggers such that they follow you home and express their appreciation for your comments by commenting in return. (And by “breasts,” I mean chests, of course, not… oh, you know.) So if you don’t have enough hours in the day to go that route, you must either

• write posts of the most magnificent eloquence and pertinence so people far and wide marvel at your grace and perspicacity, or
• write posts of the most magnificent stupidity and silliness so people far and wide laugh their asses off and marvel at your epic foolishness.

I, uh, can’t do the first, so let me elaborate on the second.

I’ve been doing this bloggie thing for going on 9 months now, and I’ve had three posts thus far that generated a bunch of comments. One was asking folk what I should give away in my 250 Followers Contest, so I’m not counting that. But the other two? They were:

• a facetious post about The Difficult Life of a Male Writing Blogger, and
• my Cycle of Blogging post from last week.

Now, both of these posts were rather silly. The first was a tongue-in-cheek complaint about how men have it hard in the writing blogosphere ‘cause we’re in the minority, and the ladiez always seem to be ahead of us in recognition and publishing status and blah blah blabbity blah. I was being a tool, and I knew it, but y’know what? In a sideways kind of manner, I was making a point about men and their nominal participation in the blogosphere. I still don’t know why more men don’t do it—it’s a hell of a promotional tool, no?

The second post you probably read already, and yes, it was a piece of epic silliness, but I was also back-handedly noting that most bloggers eventually reach the point where we feel overwhelmed with the expectation to reciprocate with comments and follows. I think that post drew so many responses because people were amused by it, but also recognized in it some analogue of their own blogging journey. Humor with meaning, friends: it’s a win almost every time.

Thing is, the writing blogosphere LOVES it some silly. We writers are a strange bunch—most of us have rather skewed senses of humor, and snark (for many of us) seems to be our stock-in-trade. I know for a fact that you, writer-friends, are interesting and (probably) quirky. What writer isn’t? So why not get out there and just be yourselves, huh?

Don’t worry about impressing people. Don’t try too hard to act literary or professional or whatever else you think editors or agents want to see. Be you, have fun, and give yourself license to hop off the high-dive of dumb-assery into the pool of goofiness now and then. Why not? You’ll have more fun, your readers’ll have more fun, and if you manage to hit that elusive sweet spot that combines silliness and seriousness, then you, too, can watch your comment section grow like kudzu vines in a tobacco farm.

I don’t think that last simile made sense. It’s a bit silly.

I’m keeping it.

(Also, wouldn’t it be ironic if no one commented on this post? Yeah.)

(And now I’ve mentioned that, I totally wouldn’t put it past my followers—lovely people, all!—to avoid commenting, out of sheer schadenfreude.)

Humbling Discoveries

Writer-friends, in between my epic flare-ups of stupidity, I try to be encouraging to you all. I do. I know the journey toward publication is fraught with rejection and dejection and all that, and I hope you believe me when I say you have it in you to write beautiful things. I believe in your humanity, and in your capacity to feel, and create art that is somehow part of you and that makes you and others happy. I’m silly a lot of the time, but I want the best for you, really.

It’s kind of abstract for me to say this, though, isn’t it? I mean, I know barely a handful of you in real life, so these well-wishes of mine aren’t much more than generalized sentiments—a public service, so to speak, inspiring you to keep your heads up and press on and don’t do (illegal) drugs and such. I get a feeling of bonhomie and you hopefully get a feeling of mild consolation and we go on our merry, non-blogospheric ways.

But then today I read the post of a fellow-writer, in which she thanked me for helping her get back on her creative track, when she’d had a truly terrible, loss-filled week. I didn’t know what kind of week she’d had—all I was doing, via chat, was offering my critiques of her novel’s first few chapters, and some encouragement as she moves forward with the story. Yet apparently I was the right voice at the right time, because she wrote that I gave her courage and strength to carry on.

There are no words for how I feel now. I write this with tears in my eyes because… I don’t expect to be a light for anyone. I just do what I do, and try to be helpful sometimes. So to hear that I touched someone, had a real, positive impact on another human being, is incredibly humbling. Lord knows, I’m no saint (just ask my wife). But for one night, I was an unwitting encouragement to someone who needed it.

We can’t see each other, friends. This is just a blog, and you’re just looking at something I’ve typed into my authoring program. It’s a disconnected kind of relating, yes? Except we’re relating through words, and—as I was reminded today—words have power. They have power to harm and to heal, to tear down and to build up, to demoralize and to inspire. Even the words we put out there unthinkingly have that power, because we are always, writer-friends, always communicating with other human beings—real people with hurts and hearts and hopes.

Most of the time this is an abstraction to me. Today it is not. Today I am humbled, and I am happy, and I respect more than ever the words that are my tools for both fiction and everyday relationship.

So, dear lady, if I gave you a gift the other night with my attention and encouragement, you have repaid me sevenfold with your gratitude, and with the reminder that we can give gifts to the world without knowing it.

I thank you.

#FridayFlash: The Gravediggers

Some of you, writer-friends, may have heard of the writing exercise in which you write a 26-sentence story, each sentence starting with successive letters of the alphabet. It’s a fantastic way to challenge yourself to write short and lean, and I can almost guarantee if you try it you’ll surprise yourself with what you can do under such constraints.

So since it’s Friday, and I like the #FridayFlash Twitter meme, I’m going to post the story I came up with for this exercise, way back in April of last year in my Fiction Writing class. My assignment added a bit to the exercise, mandating one 100-word sentence and a sentence fragment. (For those who feel like counting, my 100-word sentence got trimmed to 97 or 98 in revisions,  but I was fine with that.)

This is what I came up with.

~~~~~

The Gravediggers

After the rain stops, we leave the shelter of the trees and begin anew the work of digging our graves. By the light of the late morning sun, we toil in silence, each man trying to ignore the inevitable that jars our bones with each swing of the pick, each jab of the shovel. Cigarettes haze the air as our captors smoke and speak of trivialities, rifles slung casually across shoulders.

Death has always stalked us. Each one of us knows it. For years, we flaunted the law, hurling ourselves with the invincibility of youth against the machine on which we blamed all the ills of the world, raging against tyrannies perceived and imagined, reveling in the rightness of our cause, until the act of rebellion became an end in itself; peace became a dream for weaker men—those who would sacrifice struggle for stability, war for wives, comrades for children—and the slow martyrdom of a lost cause held more nobility than the acceptance we saw daily in the eyes of those for whom we still believed we fought. Godforsaken now, we scrape the earth in which we will be interred and curse our stubbornness.

High and climbing, the sun weighs on our shoulders like sin. Insensitive, our guards drink chilled water and laugh at nothing. Jesus, we pray in silence, have mercy on us. Killers like us receive no pardon, though—we know this even as we beg for it. Lives by the thousands have been snuffed out by our actions. Many a widow has cursed the day we were born.

Now it is done. Off in the distance, the horizon wavers in the heat as if the world were dissolving. Perhaps it is. Quietly, we drop our shovels and straighten. Rifles are grasped and leveled. Somewhere we find the strength to stand tall, our jaws clenched with futile pride.

Time fragments, perception reduced to stills in succession. Under the azure sky, the edges of things sharpen and cut the air like crystal: far away, the mountains; close by, mounds of earth; gun barrels smooth and deadly. Vultures circle. We stand by our graves, hands raw, hearts empty. Xenophobic rage surges impotently. Yellow ribbon flutters from distant fence. Zenith sun shocked by shots that echo and die.

First Lines FTW

My very first post on this ‘ere blog, way back at the end of September ‘09, was entitled Auspicious Beginnings?, and quoted two famous books’ first lines. Now, we’ve come a long way since that first painfully-self-conscious post, but I still stand by my original sentiment, which was that first lines are crucial introductions to your stories,whether they be shorts, flash, novels, whatever.

You can probably quote from memory the most famous of the literary first lines, yes? Tolstoy’s one about happy families, Dickens and the best of times, that dude Ishmael who went on a pleasure cruise... you get the idea. The point is, first lines are an excellent opportunity to engage your reader—one that you don’t want to miss, because whether said reader is an agent looking over your partial or a litmag editor scanning your story, you want to grab ‘em from the get-go, right? Right.

How about some examples? (I know you love examples, writer-friends.) I just happen to be reading some of John “Double Pulitzer” Updike’s short stories right now.  Check out a few of his first lines, and tell me these don’t immediately set you to wondering.

The Billingses, so settled in their ways, found in their fifties that their friends were doing sudden, surprising things. (The Afterlife)

(What things? Tell us, John! OMG STOP TEASING AND TELL US!!!)

The town was sexy, or so it had always seemed to Ferris. (Wildlife)

(Rly? How can a town be sexy? Who’s Ferris? AAAH! MUST. READ. MORE!)

Falling asleep has never struck me as a very natural thing to do. (Falling Asleep Up North)

(Wha…? That doesn’t even make sense. Now I have to find out who this weirdo is who’s narrating, cuz falling asleep is totally natural. DUH!)

Incidentally, I always strive for this in my work—I want my opening sentence to either set an immediate tone or pose a question that begs answering. I’ll share a few first lines from my unpubbed fiction so you can see what I mean.

Nice Guy

His new neighbor was bent over the back seat of her car when he pulled into his driveway, and he took a moment to enjoy the view before turning off the engine.

Buried Treasure

He was rototilling for his wife’s new herb garden—the nursery, as she was already calling it—dragging the machine along the foundation wall and cursing as rocks and buried bricks jammed the tines, when an old Budweiser can was churned up to the surface.

City of Forgotten Characters

The bartender had made the martini too cold, and it was making his neck bolts ache.

So. Let’s look at those for a moment. In the first example, I’ve already set up a him, a her, and potential sexual tension, right? I hope so, ‘cause that’s what the story’s all about. The second is a more subtle introduction, and doesn’t make total sense decontextualized, but “nursery” is a key word, and the buried beer can is both a symbol and a trigger for the story’s action. The third… well, you already know who the story’s going to be about, don’t you?

I’ve also found that stories can be prompted by a cool first line that kind of pops into my head. My most recent WIP started that way:

One Thursday at 3:46 in the afternoon, Bill McCardle decided to get drunk for the first time in his life, on account of the fact he’d come home from work early to find elder Jim’s car in his driveway and elder Jim himself in the kitchen with his face buried in Bill’s wife’s cleavage.

*Sigh* That may be my favorite first line of one of my stories, ever.

And then last night, this line appeared, which I also think is an awesome story beginning:

Punching the Archangel Gabriel in the face, Malcolm reflected, constituted rather a shocking lapse in judgment, but it certainly did feel good at the time.

I have no idea where I’d take that story, so if you want that line, you’re welcome to it. I just think it’s a cool jumping off point.

Anyway, you can see what I’m saying, yes? Your first lines are important, writer-friends. They’re your readers’ first introduction to your fictional world, so why not spend a little time making them pop?

What say you? Anyone have favorite first lines of yours or your favorite authors to share in the comments? Wow me, writer-friends. WOW ME!

(But only if you want to.)

The Cycle of Blogging

What’s the Cycle of Blogging, you ask? Well, writer-friends, it’s like the Circle of Life, except Elton John doesn’t sing about it. (That image to the left, incidentally, has nothing to do with what I’m talking about, but it was on the first page of Google Image Search results, so it’s what you’re getting.) All I mean to say is that this whole blogging thing seems to go in cycles. There’re ebbs and flows and ups and downs, and changes all over the place, but you can kind of chart a progression in terms of blogospheric success, if you watch bloggers for long enough and are observant enough. Luckily for you, dear readers, I’m observant enough, and I’ve been watching bloggers just long enough to make wild and semi-plausible extrapolations about the blogging process.

With that, I give you the Cycle of (Writer) Blogging, in terms of Follower milestones. I’ll go ahead and say “You’re welcome” in advance.

~~~~~

0 Followers

Okay I’ve created a blog and put up my first post  and I figure no one’ll read it but I heard that whole “platform” thing is important for aspiring authors and what the hell I may as well give it a go and see what happens.

10 Followers

They like me they really like me and now I have to be entertaining because they followed my blog and a couple of them even left comments and it totally validates my existence! *sobs*

25 Followers

Who would’ve thought this many people would listen to what I have to say (figuratively speaking that is) and I saw some people doing contests and stuff for 50 and 100 followers and maybe I should think about doing that too even though those milestones are WAY far off for me and I’m taking my time and not worrying about follower milestones anyhow.

50 Followers

Okay I know I said I wasn’t worrying about follower milestones but it’s pretty cool that 50 people are following my blog and really how far off can world domination be at this point so yeah I’ll run a contest at 100 followers cuz it’s de rigeur and I don’t want to buck the trend or anything (yeah I’m still a bit insecure).

100 Followers

OMG 100 FOLLOWERS NOW I’'LL RUN A CONTEST AND TELL EVERYONE TO TWEET AND BLOG ABOUT IT AND STUFF AND I’LL GET A SHIZNITLOAD MORE FOLLOWERS AND IT’LL BE AWESOME AND I’LL BE AN UBER-SUCCESS BWAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!!! ZOMG!!!!

117 Followers

Okay that contest didn’t add as many followers as I thought it would.

200 Followers

Does this mean I’m successful I think it does and OMG I should totes run another contest right now and maybe now that I have this many minions followers I can recruit them to spread the word AND I’LL GET A SHIZNITLOAD MORE FOLLOWERS AND IT’LL BE AWESOME AND I’LL BE AN UBER-SUCCESS BWAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!!! ZOMG!!!!

217 Followers

Okay that contest didn’t add as many followers as I thought it would.

300 Followers

Dude a lot of people comment on my blog and I know I should follow them home and reciprocate and stuff but I’ve already cut out exercise and date night and lunch break and coffee hour and still can’t read and comment on all the blogs I’m following in Google Reader WTF WHY IS THIS SO HARD!?

400 Followers

Will people hate me if I don’t respond individually to comments anymore cuz seriously getting 50 on a single blog post is awesome and all but this amphetamine caffeine habit is spiraling out of control and I think one of my kids called me Mr. Miguel yesterday but my name’s not Miguel so what’s that about?

500 Followers

Fortunately rehab has free wi-fi so that’s good and looking on the bright side I have tons of time to read blogs and leave comments and increase my followership which is awesome and now that my wife has left me for the pool boy I’ll have that much more free time when I get out and blogosphere pwnage can’t be too far off right?

750 Followers

If I can keep going at this pace I’ll have more followers than Nate Bransford by June of 2012 and how awesome is that plus I heard that if you don’t sleep for several days on end you start hallucinating but that’ s just not true because my pet plaid unicorn told me it wasn’t.

1000 Followers

We as the executors of Mr. Larter’s last will and testament have been instructed to write one last post apologizing for his absence. He wishes it known that once his reincarnated body has reached an age at which it can touch-type he will log back in and continue posting. He estimates this will be in about 7 years, although, statistically-speaking, it’s likely that the posts will be in Mandarin or Hindi, so please use an online translator. Holy hell I can’t believe he actually told us to post this crap. WTF was he thinking? Stupid, crazy bastard! I’m surprised he didn’t bite it sooner….

Contests and #FridayFlash. Just for fun.

Right, writer-friends, it’s been a heavy week here on the blog. I was all serious and stuff, and I can’t do that for too long without developing hives or tics or something. So, since it’s Friday (or will be by the time you read this, and anyway even though it’s Thursday, I’m allowing myself a few cold beers because it’s damn hot and humid ‘round these parts and the only thing that can help the hot-and-stickies is bottled beer from the fridge [it’s true]), I figured I’d post one of my old flash fiction forays for your edification and delight.

But before I do that, d’you mind if I pimp a few fun things going on in the blogosphere? You do? Oh. Well, that’s too bad, ‘cause I’m going to anyway. (What? This is my blog, after all.)

First up, a few contests. You’ll want to enter these, ‘cause they’re fun, and you might get free stuff. Free stuff is good.

1. First of all, everyone’s favorite Spanish teacher, Anne Riley, is hosting a “Hooray Summer” Book Giveaway. She’s a teacher. You can understand why she’d be celebrating summer. So go clicky to win some cool beach reads.
2. Nathan Bransford is hosting another one of his patented contests. This time it’s all about the action, baby. Now, it’s too late for you to enter, but you should all go and vote for your favorite finalist. I’m writing this Thursday evening, but hopefully come mid-day tomorrow, I’ll find out I’m one of the finalists and you can vote for me. Hey, I’m allowed my optimism. Don’t look at me like that.
3. Finally, the ever-industrious Matt Delman over at Free the Princess is hosting a Fake Diary Entry Contest. You only have to write 3 or 4 sentences of fake diary, from the perspective of a fictional character. Prizes TBD, but seriously, how much fun is it to lampoon your favorite fictional characters in diary form? I promise you’ll laugh at some of the entries already posted in the comment section.

In one other bit of news, soulful Suzy Hayze nabbed an agent recently, and along with her crit partner, Amanda Bonilla , has started a blog aimed at giving a little back to the wonderful writer community: Writing out the Angst. And y’know what? As part of their inaugural festivities, they’re starting an Ask Agent series, and the first Agent you can Ask is Julia Kenny of Markson Thoma Literary Agency (they rep. Alice Hoffman, who I think is a little bit of a big deal). Anyhow, hop on over there and Ask your Agent questions. The ladies’ll pass them along to Julia, and the answers will be posted in an interview next week.

Okay, announcements are done. Now I’ll leave you, writer-friends, with my first ever effort at flash fiction, in honor of the #FridayFlash Twitter meme. I kid you not: this is the first thing I produced for the class I took last April that started this whole crazy writing journey. I haven’t read it in about a year, and can’t be arsed editing it, but I’ll throw it out there for shiznits and giggles. It might not be up to my current standards, but… look how cute! My first flash! I think I need to cuddle it and feed it strained peas.

~~~~~

It was probably because Sheila was high and he wasn’t, but Martin thought she was laughing too much. He’d been high once a couple of years ago, and it had been fun until the nausea set in. He hadn’t been high since, and couldn’t see the point in it. Sheila, though, looked like she was having the time of her life, giggling between bites of her appetizer platter. Martin rescued the last mozzarella stick, swirled it in marinara sauce, and gazed at her.

She was trying to stifle the laughter now, lips compressed, shoulders shaking. Martin couldn’t remember what she’d said that was so funny. He glanced around the diner and hoped nobody was paying too much attention.

“Next time, you should do it with me,” she said, grinning, composure mostly recovered.

Martin looked back at her. “I told you, babe, I already tried it. It just didn’t work for me.” He took a sip of his beer. “I prefer my vices legal.”

“I know, I know.” She exhaled peevishly. “But it totally should be legal. I mean, you’re allowed to have it in, like, five states for medical reasons. It’s harmless!” She drew out the a, bobbing her head for emphasis.

“Mostly harmless, Sheil. You’ve told me more than once that you feel kind of stupid for a few days afterward.” He noticed her brow furrowing, and hurried on. “But, hey, it’s your spring break, so you deserve to mellow out a bit. I’m not going to harsh it for you.”

Leaning back against the red vinyl, Martin hoisted interlocked fingers over his head and arched his back. On the table, the food was vanishing with alarming rapidity. For a girl who barely topped 100 pounds, Sheila sure could put away the food sometimes. He hooked a chunk of blue cheese out of the dressing with a celery stick, and crunching momentarily smothered the muzak. Now Sheila had finished every fried thing in sight and was starting in on the trimmings. A rolled lettuce leaf, laden with honey-mustard, left a smear of sauce on her lip as it disappeared.

Martin swirled the beer in the bottom of his glass, then gulped it down. He folded his credit card into the booklet with the check and flagged the waitress. When he looked back, Sheila was reaching across the table for his hand.

Outside, the lights glistened on damp asphalt as they walked. A silver coupe was parked next to the Nissan, slightly diagonal, front bumper jutting across the line. Sheila was frowning. “He’d better not have dented my car.” She bent at the waist and ran her hand across the driver’s side door, peering at the paint.

“Babe, I’m sure he—” Martin began.

“Son of a bitch! He did!”

Martin stooped next to her, sighting along curve of the door. “Where?”

“Right here. Can’t you see it?”

Looking closer, he saw what might have been a dimple in the bodywork. He ran his finger over it, felt the slight indentation. “Are you sure this guy did it, Sheil? It doesn’t—”

“Of course he did! How else did it get there?”

Martin touched the dent again, looking over at the other car. “Look, it’s not that big a deal,” he said. “You can have the dealership fix it next week if you want. It should be covered under warranty, right?”

She wasn’t listening. “What an asshole,” she spat, looking toward the diner. “The least he could have done was come and find us.”

“Come on, Sheila,” Martin said. “Let’s just go. You can get it taken care of next week when you’re back in school. You can drive my car if you need to.”

She was clutching her keys, eyes narrowed. Her lips were pressed together, her jaw tight. “Fine,” she said, turning. She yanked the car door open and slid into the driver’s seat. Martin let out a long breath as he moved to the passenger side.

A sudden scrape of metal brought him to a halt. Spinning, already knowing, he was just in time to see Sheila finish dragging her key across the side of the other car. She had one foot in the Nissan and one on the asphalt. She looked up at Martin, and their eyes met through the strands of hair that fell across her face. His eyes were wide with shock. She had a sullen look on her face, defensive.

They were silent on the ride home. Martin stared out the window at the strip malls and car dealerships. Sheila wasn’t laughing now, but she was still high, and it occurred to him that he couldn’t reach her when she was that way. Or maybe he could, but found for the first time that he didn’t want to, didn’t want the girl who laughed at nothing, whose anger manifested in spite, and from whom he felt at this moment so very distant.

Dedication

As I sat in the front row of the audience at the orchestra the other night, I had the opportunity to watch some of the world’s best musicians at work (the Philadelphia Orchestra is easily in the top 50 orchestras worldwide, and depending on the year and conductor, could be top 25). And as I was being absolutely flattened by the beauty of the music, I began to think about the work that each musician has to put into his or her craft. I’m not talking about the headliners here, mind you—not Nikolai Lugansky, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman—but the musicians in the trenches, like the second viola players who sit back in the center of the orchestra and bow the harmonies to the violins’ soaring melody—the kind of musicians who will never stand center stage, but whose work makes the magnificence of a Mozart symphony possible.

Never, my friends, never underestimate the perseverance it takes to sit in any seat in a world-class ensemble. Four hours a day of practice is probably just the starting point for a professional musician. That’s four solid hours of scales, arpeggios, technical exercises, and repertoire music, day in and day out. They practice till their fingers stiffen, then stretch and practice more.

And, come to think of it, why don’t we extend the analysis to world-class performers? Franz Mohr, a top-notch piano tuner who worked at Carnegie Hall in the 1960s, wrote a memoir called My Life with the Great Pianists, in which he related how Arturo Michelangeli (pictured) wouldn’t stop practicing before a concert, despite repeated entreaties, and didn’t leave Mohr enough time to tune the piano before the show began. (Mohr refused to work under such a time constraint, and Michelangeli ended up playing the recital on an out-of-tune piano.) This tells us that once a musician has reached the pinnacle of their career, they must still apply themselves ceaselessly to their craft. There is no such thing as perfection without practice.

What, then, writer-friends, does this have to do with writing? I think you already know, but I’ll say it anyway. We, who are dedicated to the art and craft of writing, must also practice. Talent is not enough if it is not honed and refined through thousands upon thousands of words—good, bad, or indifferent.

I’ve heard it before—we’ve all heard it before: if you want to become a writer, then write. Write every day, even if only in 15 minute stretches. Don’t wait for inspiration to hit. Get your butt in the chair and write. Except I thought I might be exempt from this. I thought perhaps that if I had enough talent, I could get by just writing now and then when the mood took me. I’ve published a few flash fiction pieces . . . that means I’m good enough to make it as a writer without the effort most people put into it, right?

Wrong.

That kind of thinking doesn’t respect the art, and it doesn’t respect the craft nearly as much as it deserves. There are no free passes in art, as there are none in life. I will not improve as a writer if I do not write. It takes commitment, writer-friends, the same kind of commitment required to play any instrument in a world-class orchestra—practice in the craft, day in and day out. Some days the words will flow like a torrent, and others I will sweat and grind my teeth to  get five usable sentences, but the words must come, as often as I can make them.

I will never be as good at anything as I am at writing. And I will never reach my potential as a writer if I do not show the same devotion to my art as the lowliest member of the of the Philadelphia Orchestra does to theirs.

I’m willing to sweat blood for it, my friends. Are you?