Last week, I sung the praises of being back in a routine again. How finally that would let me get some stuff—we’re talking writing stuff here—done. So here we are, a little over a week later, and who would like to guess just how many words I’ve written since then? Anyone?
Here, I’ll give you a hint:
Despite having my blessed routine again, I’ve somehow managed to avoid any kind of serious writing or editing. Do you know what that means? It means I need something to get myself moving again, to get me unstuck, out of neutral, and flying down the Word Count Highway again.
Here, take my money.
That’s it! That’s exactly what I need, a swift kick in the butt. I think it’s kind of like exercise: when you’re in the routine and doing it regularly, it’s easy to keep it up. But once you stop, for whatever reason, it can be hard to get back into the program. It doesn’t help that I’ve been obsessing over my Work In Progress, wondering if some of the happenings in the plot are too contrived or convenient, is it all believable, does it all make sense? Those are all good things to be thinking about, but maybe after the rough draft is done and I’m in editing mode. After all, you have to have something to mold; you can’t edit words that aren’t there.
And so, with that, I’m going to end with one of the shortest posts I’ve ever published as I attempt to kick myself in the butt and spend my day off doing some honest to goodness writing. Feel free to go down to the comments and take a good swift kick too, if you want. Just in case I miss.
We’ve all heard that change is good; we should embrace change. I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job at that the last couple of months, to be honest. New job, schedule all over the place. Not that I’m complaining—far from it, I love my new job—but finally I’m back into a routine and I’m so relieved, because now I might be able to get seriously back into writing again.
It hasn’t been absolutely zero productivity these last couple months, though. I managed to write a few stories, two of which I really like and the other I think will end up being cannibalized and put into a different idea I’m chewing on in the back of my mind. But the Big Work In Progress, the novel, has set idly by since around Memorial Day. I just haven’t had the time or energy to think about it. Well, that and I had some ideas that would require going back and either adding scenes in or rewriting altogether. At this point I don’t know which I’ll do; the fact that I finally have the time to do either is what matters.
All this means I’ll probably have more time for the blog again as well, so set you blocking preferences accordingly. 🙂
Oh! I can’t believe I got this far without mentioning it: I got another story published!
That’s me, and the belt is my acceptance letter from the publisher.
My short story Randy’s Bad Day is being published by Jitter Press, a division of Prolific Press specializing in horror and dark fiction. Details are still to come, of course, but you know I’ll be passing them along as I get them. It’s the story of an angry man in a cabin, his hangover, and a whole mess of mutant frogs. They say you should write the kind of stuff you’d like to read, and I definitely did that with this story, because it’s gross, scary, and, dare I say, funny. It makes me laugh, anyway. I hope you guys like it.
I also got a pair of very encouraging rejection letters a couple of weeks ago, which, as weird as it sounds, it really cool. One told me they liked my story but it wasn’t right for the issue they’re getting ready to put out, and asked me to send more work in the future. The other said my story was “a hell of a lot of fun” but needed just a bit of tweaking, in their opinion, and it could find a home easily. We’ll see about that, but it was a nice way of being told ‘no, we don’t want your story.’
I’m going to cut this short, because as happy as I am to have a routine again, I’m still getting used to it. I work much later in the day now and my days off are in the middle of the week, so there are some adjustments to be made before I’m totally used to it. So I’m gonna go and read for a while (if I still remember how—my reading time has been cut drastically short lately, too) and relax a little before heading to work. But there will be more to come, so stay tuned.
I’ve always considered myself a bit of a geek. Or is it a nerd. A geeknerd. A…neek? Anyway, there’s been a monumental shift in popular culture over the past few years. All the nerds and geeks that got picked on and teased, say twenty years ago? Yeah, they run shit now. Which is cool. Part of that geek culture is why we’re living in a ‘golden age’ of television. But I’ve felt a little left out.
I played baseball in high school, but I was never a jock. Not even close. I was way too nerdy and shy to fit in with the jocks, with their letter jackets and cheerleader girlfriends. I got along okay with my teammates, but I wasn’t really friends with them, except for one or two. No, my friends were the ones who didn’t care that I was such a goof—in fact, many of them were goofs themselves. So in high school I found myself hanging out with skaters, metalheads, and yes, the nerds/geeks (which sounds like they’re opposites, but in their own way all those groups were outcasts). As the years progressed after high school, I kept it nerdy where my friends were concerned. I met new friends who read comic books and played D & D and Magic; I’ve never played those games even once, and only read a handful of comic books in my life, but I’m at least partially familiar with the culture. And I felt like I got them; the ones who didn’t fit in anywhere else.
I bring all that up to say this: It’s been a little weird the last few years—Marvel damn near owns Hollywood, and Game of Thrones is one of the biggest things on TV, and I don’t have much interest in any of it.
I’ve been outgeeked.
Worse still, there hasn’t been much for me to get geeky about. I really liked Hannibal, but the second season is still sitting on my DVR unwatched. It’s just not can’t miss, oh-my-god-did-you-see-that?!? worthy. Other than that, I watch TV, and I like my handful of shows, but there hasn’t been anything to get me too fired up. The last show I really just could not wait to watch every week was Lost. I didn’t hate the ending, but it was Season 5 when I was in up-to-my-eyeballs geekdom. For me, that was when the show was really firing on all cylinders, letting their freak flag fly, and keeping me guessing as to what the hell could possibly happen next. And, mystery of mysteries, I missed out on Breaking Bad as it was happening. That’s priority #1 when I finally pull the trigger and get Netflix.
But now, finally…something for me to geek out about.
If it seems like I just wrote about Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, it’s because I did. I just read the book last month and really enjoyed it. After I finished it, I checked the IMDB page for it to see if it was headed to theaters anytime soon and found nothing. So imagine my surprise when new recently broke that the novel’s being turned into a TV show.
This excites me for a number of reasons.
It’s a good book. If it’s a completely faithful adaptation, it would make two (or maybe three, if they’re short) riveting seasons of television.
Gillian Flynn doesn’t seem to mind playing around with her work. She’s reportedly written an entire new third act for the big screen adaptation of Gone Girl, so I wouldn’t put it past her to give the okay to completely screw around with the plot, if she’s not involved in said screwing around herself.
The characters are weird, weird people. If the decision is made to tweak the book, it would be great fun for whoever is in that writer’s room. Depending on which direction they’d like to take, they could play it pretty straight, like a CBS-style procedural, or (I’m kind of crossing my fingers here) go a little more out of left field and play up the eccentric, neurotic nature of the characters and the town itself. They could easily make Wind Gap, Missouri the strangest, most surreal city on TV since Twin Peaks. The book is full of psychos, sickos, and stepford wives, and I’d love to see them turn up the bizarre to eleven.
The showrunner (and one of the principal writers) is Marti Noxon. Marti’s a talented writer and producer who’s worked on Mad Men, Glee, Prison Break, and Grey’s Anatomy. That’s all well and good, but the reason her name makes me all tingly is because she was (along with Joss Whedon, of course) one of the primary writers and Executive Producer on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, number 2 on the official BoJ list of greatest TV shows of all time. Her involvement with Sharp Objects takes it from merely a “Hmm, that could be interesting,” to “Oh my god, when does it start?!!?”
The biggest variable may end up being which network snatches the project up. If it ends up on network TV, it would be at least slightly hindered but could still work. As Hannibal has proven, the boundaries for the networks are being pushed to new limits constantly.
A cable channel, like TNT or AMC would be better, but my ultimate choice would be HBO or Showtime—preferably the former, as we only have Showtime temporarily, thanks to a promotional deal courtesy of DirecTV.
Who knows? The show could disappoint me immensely, and a few months from now I could be on here bitching and moaning about everything that’s wrong with it. But for now, it’s the unknown, the speculation, that’s so exciting.
What about you guys? What TV shows or movies have you all foaming at the mouth in a geek-induced rabies?
I wasn’t planning on any more blogging this week (especially two days in a row) after the gargantuan beast that was yesterday’s post, but I had to make an exception. I got an email yesterday from Danse Macabre Magazine’s sister site DM Du Jour, letting me know they were publishing my flash fiction story Silence, Please on their site as of, like, now.
It was a nice surprise, as this story was a bit of a departure for me. No, strike that—more of an experiment, really. It was my first (and maybe my only) attempt at writing anything resembling a period piece. It was actually a combination of two things—I was sitting in front of the computer one night after my better half had gone to bed; the TV was off and I was trying to be quiet. I began to think about someone trying to be as quiet as humanly possible, for some unknown reason. My mind filled in the blanks when I looked at this picture of a painting that hangs on the wall to my left. Whenever I turn my head, I see a variation of this:
Painting of Stephen Collins Foster by artist Howard Chandler Christy, circa 1948-1950
I’ve almost finished creating an epic, tragic backstory for this picture/painting, and someday—if I can ever think it all the way through—I’ll write that story. For now, however, I’ve written a much, much shorter one.
So if you have 2-3 minutes to kill, check it out. As far as I can tell it will be on the site for quite some time, so if you decide to read it some other time you might just have to scroll down a little ways until you see my name. If you go today it’s right there on top.
One last thing: directly below my story is my author bio, and directly below that is an image of a book cover featuring a thin young man (and his rather impressive male endowment) wearing nothing but his drawers. That man and his schlong have nothing to do with me or my story whatsoever, lest there be any confusion. It wasn’t by design, but you’re welcome. 🙂
I never talked about my job much here on the blog, and that was generally for good reason: I didn’t like it. I had a steady, good-paying job, but I was absolutely miserable. I won’t go into it much, mostly because I still have friends there, but also because I worked for a large company that probably has an excellent legal team, and I don’t want any accusations of slander coming my way (half-joking). Suffice to say, it was time to find something else. So I did.
No, I’m not a cop now.
I recently started a job with my county’s Emergency Communications team. What’s that mean? For now, it means I take 911 calls. Eventually (as in, in the next few months), it’ll also mean dispatching Fire, EMS, and Police. That’s right—I’ll be sending first responders to active emergencies: building and house fires, car accidents, medical calls and crimes in progress. Me.
Yes, this is an old picture. No, it’s not a mug shot.
Holy shit.
It’s a little surreal. There are connections to law enforcement through my family and one of my friends, but I never thought I’d be involved with anything like this. I just finished training and start the job in earnest this week. So far, I love it. It’s unpredictable, crazy, and—believe it or not—fun. Then there’s the people I work with: with a few exceptions, they’re a little bit mental, loud, obnoxious, funny, and incredibly vulgar. Even though I’m a little quieter than they are (for now, anyway), believe me when I say I’m among my people.
The final step in training before being thrown to the wolves was something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time: a 10-hour ride along with a police officer. I was going to go on a ride along with my deputy friend in California several years ago and it never happened before I moved to the Midwest. Then I inquired about doing it about a year ago, but I couldn’t make it work with my schedule. Now it’s finally happened. So how did my day with Wichita’s Finest go? Here’s how.
10:45am: Show up fifteen minutes early as instructed, only to be made to wait until after the squad meeting at 11:00 was done (I had been told I may get to attend the squad meeting—bummer). Around 11:10 my officer—who for the purposes of this post I’m calling ‘Jones’—grabs me so we can head out. Jones is a young guy; I would come to find out he’s around 23-24 years old, married with two small kids, was in the military (and is still technically enlisted), and says he basically just woke up one day and decided to check out going into law enforcement. He’s been an officer around three years, all of it on Wichita’s West side.
We proceed to get in the car and sit for several minutes while he checks to make sure he has all his equipment, then gets signed into the onboard computer. It takes forever, for reasons I don’t fully understand. Finally, somewhere around 11:20-11:30 we leave the station and begin heading southward. I’m listening to the police radio and looking at his computer to see what calls are holding, and I can’t figure out where we’re going. Finally he tells me we’re going back to his house because he forgot something he needed.
12:00pm: Respond to a domestic violence (DV) call. Jones knows the address, has been out there before. Another unit beats us there and already has the situation under control because, in the words of the other officer, she is a “crime ninja.” Jones spends a few minutes or so chitchatting with her, both officers in their cars, with me uncomfortably between them in the passenger seat of Jones’s car. Awkward.
Despite not having anything to drink since 8:30, I’m already starting to have to pee.
12:10pm: Leaving the DV call, Jones spots a flatbed truck that’s been parked in the same spot for several days. He checks it out and sees a tag has been taken off of it, and begins trying to get info on the truck to see if it’s stolen. A string of phone calls follow, until we are finally told the Highway Patrol will come out to take a look at it, and tow it if necessary. We are instructed to sit tight. It takes almost an hour for them to show up, then we find out a neighbor just bought the truck for his business but hasn’t registered yet.
My notes from 1:06pm: ‘Bored. Gotta pee.’
1:15pm: We’re on our way to assist on another DV when we get the call that the officer is in trouble. Jones hits the lights and sirens and punches it. For about 7 seconds we’re in TV-cop mode, sliding around a corner and tearing down a residential street, until the officer we were rushing to assist cancels the trouble call. He was busy with the people onscene and couldn’t hear his radio (if an officer doesn’t respond to dispatch after a certain length of time, it’s automatically a trouble call). Jones laughs and tells me that’s probably the only time we’ll ‘run hot’ all day. He’s right.
On scene at the DV: A young couple fighting. It’s just like an episode of COPS: On one side is a girl crying, holding a baby; on the other side is a guy with no shirt or shoes yelling at the woman for calling the cops. I go with Jones to the guy. Sounds to me like they’ve had lots of problems in the past but this particular incident might just be a big overreaction.
The guy has scratches on him, which I thought would mean the girl was going to jail, but they don’t take anyone—the girl says she and the baby will go to a shelter for the night, so one officer takes her home to get her stuff while Jones puts the guy in the back of our car (the girl took the baby and left their house while they were arguing, with the guy following after her—we were a couple blocks from where they actually lived when we showed up) for a ride back. The guy is very concerned that she’s going to take his video game console and his new pack of cigarettes. After a long wait, she emerges from the house and leaves for the shelter. Our guy hops out and runs in the house to make sure his PS3 and cigarettes are safe.
To be fair, he was almost in tears at one point out of concern for his baby; I’m not trying to paint him as a complete ass, but the video game/cigarette thing had me and Jones chuckling.
I still really have to pee.
2:00pm: Finally pee at a convenience store. We’re on our way to a call when the officer from the previous DV calls for assistance. We meet back up with him, and he informs us that the girl decided she doesn’t want to stay in a shelter after all, and wants to go back home. We follow to make sure there is no drama when she is dropped off. Both officers are fed up with the whole scenario.
2:15pm: Sears calls to advise they’ve detained a juvenile shoplifter. Jones sighs and says he gets tired of these calls, but since his beat includes the mall, they always fall to him. I see why he doesn’t like them. They’re fairly boring; just a lot of paperwork to do, plus transport to jail/juvenile hall. For me, though, it was pretty interesting.
***NOTE TO ANYONE CONSIDERING SHOPLIFTING FROM SEARS: THEY ARE WIRED UP LIKE A GODDAMN CASINO. YOU WILL BE CAUGHT.***
We walk through this little door by the back of the store that 99% of people probably don’t know is there and enter this small, dimly lit office where I see this:
These pictures don’t really do it justice; it really is like the command center for a casino or something. I watch the lady who works there as she sees someone she thinks looks suspicious, then in the blink of an eye has four different camera angles of them and can zoom in close enough to tell if they have dandruff. It’s incredible.
Through that office is a tiny little interrogation room, and there sits a very scared 16 year old girl, her oblivious three year old sister, and two extremely pissed off parents. Jones tells them where they can pick up their daughter and approximately how long it will take for booking, mug shot, fingerprinting, and processing. Dad debates on whether or not he wants to pick her up that day or leave her in Juvie overnight.
The parents leave and Jones begins filling out his report. At one point Jones reassures the girl that although she will be leaving in handcuffs, Jones will not “parade her up and down the mall first,” despite her father’s urging. It takes a while before we finally finish up there and get her transported her to Juvie.
4:00pm: Call of a “rolling disturbance.” In this case, a carload of teenagers driving down the street shooting fireworks out of their car at passing motorists. Despite hearing the make and model get broadcast over the radio, I don’t see the car. Jones does, though, and swings around to try and catch up to them. Alas, traffic is heavy and they duck into one of the neighborhoods off the main street we’re on. We drive around for about 10 minutes but never see them again.
4:37pm: Called to the scene of a non-injury accident. Boring, boring, boring. Both drivers are pretty cool, no arguments, info exchanged and everybody goes on their way. Jones said accidents are his least favorite part of the job, because they are boring (most of the time), usually avoidable (if people would just get off their phones and pay attention to the road), and very time-consuming. He’s right.
5:42pm: Back at the station for Jones to drop off evidence (a DVD of the security camera footage from Sears). It’s about time for the next shift to start, and Jones is anxious for them to get out there and take some of the waiting calls because he’s starving. The note I made while at the station: “hungry thirsty tired.”
6:00pm: Called to a neighborhood looking for a suspicious character: a man going door to door trying to sell people “cable upgrades,” who, according to the caller, didn’t look legit, even though he was wearing an AT&T shirt. Drove around a few minutes, didn’t find him.
6:36pm: Called to an accident on the main highway in town to help with traffic control. On the way Jones stops at his favorite Mexican place for some nachos, since the accident would provide a little downtime for him.
7:03pm: After getting through the maze of gridlocked cars on the highway, helping divert traffic, and getting vehicle info to start the impound process, Jones finally gets a few spare minutes while tow trucks are hooking up the wrecked cars and scarfs down his nachos like an animal—not that I blame him. He gets frustrated by things that take a long time, but he can’t help but laugh as we watch one of the most incompetent tow truck drivers I’ve ever seen hook up one of the cars. It takes a lot longer than it should.
7:49pm: Called to the mall again for two different crimes. One is disregarded after we cruise the parking lot and don’t see the vehicle we’re looking for. The other: three teenage shoplifters. Jones: “Aaaarrrrrggghhhhh!” He said sometimes when shoplifters are caught, they have merchandise from several stores on them. If all those stores want to prosecute, the paperwork goes up exponentially. Luckily, that’s not the case here.
We go in another little hidden door, this time at JC Penneys, and enter another little office/interrogation room. This time we find three 14 year old girls, not looking as scared as they really should, in my opinion. They giggle a little, ask questions, etc., and I have to hand it to Jones: he is actually quite cool to them. He makes sure they understand that they are indeed in trouble, under arrest, and going to juvie, but he doesn’t really preach to them (just a little). Since the paperwork will take until close to the end of shift, Jones calls for someone else to transport the girls to Juvie—enter Officer Hardass.
Officer Hardass apparently worked a long time on the drug task force and is quite a bit more serious than Jones, to put it mildly. He comes into the office and starts getting info from the girls to help speed things along.
Officer Hardass: “What’s your name?”
Shoplifter: “Veronica.” (not her real name)
OH: “Speak up.”
SL: “Veronica.”
OH: “What’s your middle name?”
SL: “Um, I don’t know it.”
OH: “You’re fourteen years old and don’t know your own middle name?”
SL: “No.” (giggles, looks up at OH and smiles)
OH: “Don’t smile at me, you just committed a crime.”
This goes on for several minutes. It’s hard for me not to laugh, as I find this conversation hilarious.
We finish up and get back to the station around 8:45, where Jones has to gas up his vehicle before parking it. He has paperwork still to do from the shoplifters, but says it can wait until the next day. I thank him heartily, shake his hand and head home. It was a great day.
General Thoughts (based solely on my one day with this one officer):
Cop cars are driven hard.The constant hard braking (and I do mean hard braking), sudden accelerating, quick u-turns, etc. was hard to get used to. I can’t imagine how the cars hold up as well as they do.
Cops are people, too. I know that sounds corny, but despite Jones being a self-described “grouch” who “doesn’t really like people,” he was actually really nice to me (which he technically didn’t have to be), and really respectful to everyone he came in contact with. At our DV with the arguing couple he eventually calmed the guy down by talking about video games with him. There was a real transparency with him that impressed me; he was the same guy out of the car dealing with the public that he was in the car with me, for the most part.
Cops are extremely dehydrated. Jones started the day with a can of Mountain Dew, then filled up a fountain drink at the convenience store that lasted him the rest of his shift—not a drop of water all day. I didn’t drink any water (or any other beverages) either, because I didn’t want to have to pee all day (irony). I went home and drank about a gallon of water and still felt dehydrated. And I wasn’t even wearing a vest and all that other stuff, or, you know, doing anything.
Teenagers suck.
Being able to pee whenever you want is a privilege I will never take for granted again.
Cops might be superhuman. I didn’t get any extra sleep the night before my ride along, but I wasn’t sleep deprived, either. By the time I got home from my ride along around 9 o’clock, I was exhausted. I drank a ton of water, ate something, and promptly started falling asleep in front of the TV by 10. And by cop standards, we had a slow day. I can’t fathom how they do it day in and day out, not to mention days when they get their adrenaline pumping like crazy.
All in all it was a great day, and if I get the chance to do it again I’ll certainly take it. And next time I’ll stop drinking fluids the night before.
I’m staying just about on pace for my new year’s resolution of reading a book a month. I got ahead at one point, but between running into a couple of books that were hard to make myself read and other stuff that made me not want to read at all, I slowed back down a tad. I have four reviews here, though I’ll actually be talking about five books. Not that it makes a lick of difference to you, but I’m going in reverse chronological order, starting with the book I just finished. Alrighty then, let’s get to it.
Sharp Objects — Gillian Flynn (2006)
I liked Gone Girl quite a bit (though I understand some of the backlash it received) and was curious to see what Flynn’s other work was like. I was not disappointed.
Her debut novel centers around Camille Preaker, a talented-but-not-living-up-to-her-potential reporter living in Chicago, who is sent back to her hellhole hometown of Wind Gap, Missouri to cover the murders of two young girls, apparently the work of a serial killer—both girls had some (or all) of their teeth pulled out prior to disposal of the bodies.
Camille is not entirely mentally stable herself, as it’s revealed that she’s a cutter: she takes pleasure from carving words into her flesh, and is fresh off a stint in rehab to try and cure her of her condition. As the story goes on, however, and we meet Camille’s mother, stepdad, and half-sister, we see that Camille may be the sanest one in the family.
Thoughts as a reader: This story is dark. As in, near pitch black. It paints an ominous picture of small town life that gave me the feeling it hit very close to home for the author (who, I know from reading about her, also lived in Missouri). Most—though it should be noted not all—of the characters are really screwed up, which of course makes them interesting to read about. The ending, while I did predict it partially, still made me grin at the sick twist of what happened to the victims’ missing teeth.
Thoughts as a writer: I really enjoy Flynn’s writing voice. It’s easy to dive into her work and lose yourself. Her characters are vivid and easy to picture in your mind. With only three books under her belt (and movie deals for all three books), she has already established herself as a force to be reckoned with. Also, reminding myself that Sharp Objects was her debut is incredibly intimidating as I continue to write and rewrite the story I finally decided on to make my own first novel. It reminded me of when I was first learning to play guitar and thinking I was making some progress, then listened to BB King or Eric Clapton and realized I was only a few steps down this new path, and the masters were so far down the road they were almost out of sight.
My rating: 4 stars
The Haunting of Hill House — Shirley Jackson (1959)
Shirley Jackson is a legend in the literary world. There is even an award named for her given to writers “for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic.”
Widely regarded as one the all-time classic horror novels and the be all end all of haunted house stories, I was thrilled when I happened to find Hill House at my local library. I thought I owed it to myself as an aspiring horror writer (or maybe more accurately, a writer who occasionally writes horror) to check this book out and read it ASAP.
Hill House is an old mansion with a troubled past. Doctor John Montague is an investigator of the supernatural who rents the house for the summer to see what (if any) evidence can support the legend of Hill House. He and three guests occupy the house and…well, you know. It’s a haunted house story, after all.
Thoughts as a reader: I’m afraid to write this. I want to just come up to you all one by one, look in all directions to make sure the coast is clear, then whisper this to you: I did not like this book. Shhh. Don’t tell anyone. Seriously though, I don’t know what to think. This isn’t a very polarizing book that some people like and some people don’t. It is unanimously praised as one of the greatest scary stories of all time. To disagree means you’re stupid or you just don’t get it. I’ll leave it for others to decide on which side of that I fall.
The scares are subtle. Very, very subtle. So subtle they’re not even explained, and sometimes barely mentioned. But that’s not my problem with it. This book lost me before it ever got to the scares. This is a very short book, and by the 50-60 page mark I was pleading for something to just happen already.
Thoughts as a writer: After having it hammered into your head to avoid adverbs like the plauge the majority of the time, it’s a bit distracting to read something that has them peppered in so liberally. One character “stretched luxuriously.” What the hell does that even mean? I know I’m not the smartest guy in the room a lot of the time, but seriously, what is that?
Maybe this book is too understated, too subtle for me. I just don’t know what else to say. I literally fell asleep reading this book. I will almost certainly read it again sometime, just to see if anything strikes me differently the second time around.
My rating: 3 stars (because I’m afraid to give it less, otherwise the writers’ mafia might come see me and I might meet with an unfortunate accident, capiche?)
Double Feature — Owen King (2013)
Another find at my local library. Owen is the youngest son of Stephen King (and brother of Joe Hill), so naturally I was curious.
A novel about a young filmmaker trying to make a name for himself in his B-actor father’s shadow. Sounds vaguely familiar.
This is the only book since I started really reading again that I haven’t finished. It was a little slow (albeit interesting) from the get go, with lots of big words I had to skip over or look up. That’s okay—if you have a big vocabulary, by all means use it; it’s good for me. No, where I finally gave up was about 60-70 pages in, where I encountered something I hadn’t seen before:
A sixteen-page-long paragraph. Sixteen pages. One-six. I knew then I wouldn’t be finishing the book in the allotted 14 day period I had from the library, since it was a “new release.” I know I could’ve gotten more time, but I had also checked out Hill House and was excited to read that. I very well may come back to it sometime.
My rating: Incomplete
Pygmy —Chuck Palahniuk (2009)
I didn’t know anything about this book before I checked it out of the library. I’ve read/listened to audiobooks of three of Palahniuk’s novels; some I liked and some I didn’t, but I would consider myself a fan of his, by and large. Earlier I used the word polarizing—you want polarizing? Here we go.
Pygmy is the tale of a covert terrorist agent from an unnamed country, sent (along with a handful of his comrades) to America under the guise of being an exchange student. He’s 13, a complete genius who has encyclopedic knowledge of science and literature, and is extensively trained in some sort of krav-maga style of martial arts—his entire body is a deadly weapon.
Oh, and did I mention: The entire book is written in broken, ‘foreigner’ English. Some people can’t deal with it; it’s distracting, to say the least.
Thoughts as a reader: I read three pages before putting the book down and saying to my wife, “I’m not going to be able to read this crap.” It kept calling me, though, and the next day I picked it back up and made myself read the first two (very short) chapters. That did it. I knew then that come hell or high-water I would finish this book. And believe it or not, I’m glad I did. It takes some concentration to get into the weird, broken English. (Sample sentence: “Here worship shrine, all male neck must bind around with knotted banner, silk banner knotted at windpipe so dangle two long strands down chest to waistband trouser.” Okay, all the men at church are wearing neck ties—got it.) And why is it that this child genius who knows how to kill people with one finger, build bombs and quote famous authors hasn’t yet gotten a grasp on basic English? You just have to suspend disbelief there, as well as a lot of other places.
And yet, the story managed to get its hooks in me and by the end I almost laughed out loud a couple times. I don’t know if this will make sense, but I felt like I was reading the novelization of an as-yet unmade John Waters movie—characters that were absurdly satirical, and lots of lame sex jokes.
Thoughts as a writer: This took balls. To be honest, I don’t know who has bigger balls: Palahniuk for writing the book, or his publisher for agreeing to put it out. I guess it’s easy to have such testicular fortitude when you’re already a best-selling author, versus some (mostly) unpublished schmuck like me. It may never make my list of best books ever, but I admire the work it had to take to make it happen, and I do have a soft spot for it. And if John Waters ever makes a movie version, I want a producer credit.
My rating: 2 stars (although my view has softened and I’m tempted to bump it to 2 1/2 or 3)
The End of Alice — A.M. Homes (1999)
Another book I had heard a lot about. This one makes me feel weird, in both good and bad ways. I saved this one for last for a reason.
Alice is about a convicted pedophile doing his time in prison while hoping against hope for parole, when he unexpectedly becomes pen pals with a 19 year old girl. She knows who the man is (he is quite infamous because of the crimes he committed against the titular Alice, which is what put him in prison), and confesses to him that she is having similar thoughts about a 12 year old boy in her neighborhood. He is both aroused by the girl’s desires and jealous of the attention the girl gives the young boy. As the story progresses, however, it becomes clear that the girl serves as a catalyst to make our convict remember things he’s tried to forget while in prison: his primal urges, his penchant for violence, and what ultimately was ‘the end of Alice.’
Thoughts as a reader: If you’ve been reading the blog for any length of time, you’ve probably realized by now I’m no prude. Quite the opposite. I actually like stories that are weird, strange, dark, violent, disturbing, you name it. Very few books or movies get a very big reaction from me. That said, The End of Alice made me want to run screaming into a Silkwood shower and scrub myself with a Brillo pad, crying ‘unclean…unclean…’ Yeah. It’s that bad. But it’s good…if you can take it.
There is incredibly detailed description of pedophilia and horrific violence, and just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does. But the thing is, it’s written so eloquently that it sucks you in (again, if you can take it) to the point that you almost start to empathize with this monster. I doubt many of you have seen the movie Happiness, but it reminds me of Happiness if it was written by a sex-crazed version of Hannibal Lechter.
I actually liked this book a great deal, but I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone because I don’t know many people who could stomach it. If you’re not sure if you can handle it, you probably can’t. If, on the other hand, you can get through the vile acts described in the book, I found it quite good. My only real complaint is that the story was a bit anti-climactic. I thought the story was building toward what was going to happen with the girl and the 12 year old, when instead the climax of the story if finally finding out what actually happened to Alice.
Thoughts as a writer: Again, the balls it took to write something like this. And I hope this comes out sounding the way I mean it to, but I’m astonished this book was written by a woman. I’d love to know what kind of research she did to get in the head of such a despicable, evil person so completely. As sick as it is, I would read this again, even though I half-jokingly wondered once if buying it or checking out of the library put me on some kind of watch list.
My rating: 4 stars
Well, that’s it until the fall book report. I’m currently reading The Ruins by Scott Smith, and despite being intimidated by its size (not to mention having already seen the movie), at 60 pages in I’m beyond hooked.
I’d love to know your thoughts on any of the books above, whether you’ve already read them or plan to go and read them—or avoid them—because of my review. Let me know! Other than that, what about you? Read any good books lately?
I was getting restless. I wondered if people were going to think I was crazy or, worse yet, making it up when I said I had another story being published. I checked Nebula Rift magazine’s Facebook page and website regularly and saw no updates or announcements of new issues, and they never emailed me to let me know when the issue I was going to be in was coming out (which is kinda weird, isn’t it?), so imagine my surprise when I went to their website this morning to discover that sometime in the past few weeks, my issue came out!
My story Tale of the Revolution is in there, and like my other story to be published so far, it’s a bit of an anomaly. Once again, it’s the rare story where no one dies and there are no curse words. Stranger still, it’s my first—and so far only—attempt at writing any sort of sci-fi. I actually thought this story might be hard to place somewhere because it’s very short and it’s not “hardcore” sci-fi. Luckily, the fine folks at fictionmagazines.com (who publish seven, count ’em, seven different magazines) liked it enough to publish it, and here we are.
I really like this story, and I hope you guys do, too.
Netflix is the rare technological advancement that’s totally affordable but I haven’t adopted yet. For the longest time it was because I had no device to deliver Netflix to my TV—my gaming days ended way back at the PS1 (which, not to get on a tangent, but I’m very grateful for. As if writers don’t procrastinate enough, I can’t imagine having video games calling my name from the other room while I’m trying to get some writing done). Then, last Christmas I got a Chromecast, and suddenly Netflix re-entered the picture as an actual, viable option for our TV/movie viewing needs.
I’ve talked to people I know, and read the comments/opinions of people I don’t know on the internet, and there seems to be a resounding cry of “Screw the cable companies! Get Netflix and cancel your service provider! Netflix is all you need!”
I agree with the first half of that statement—seriously, screw cable companies. Satellite providers may be only marginally better, and that depends just on your personal experience with whatever company you use, but I hate cable companies. I mean, like, hate-hate. They aren’t regulated for the most part, and it’s basically like the wild west when it comes to their business practices.
But the second part…get Netflix and cancel my paid TV service altogether? I don’t think I can do that. Why? Funny you should ask.
1. Limited choices
From what little I know about Netflix’s menu of programming, TV shows are pretty easy to find—the vast majority of shows are available to binge watch at your leisure. Still, I’m sure with my luck there would be something I watch not on there. Then there’s the issue of movies. I don’t watch movies all the time, but I like having a wide variety to pick from, which from what I can gather about Netflix, is not necessarily the case. They are constantly working to get better, newer movies on their format faster, but their choices are a little limited for the time being. Again, this is just as I (an admitted Netflix ignoramus) understand it.
2. HBO
HBO holds a special place in my heart. Sure, they show movies. Yes, they have boxing. But how HBO got their hooks in me and kept them in is with their original programming. I’m thinking back as far as I can, and the oldest shows I remember watching are Tales from the Crypt, Kids in the Hall and Dream On. Then I got hooked on OZ, followed by the big daddy, still my favorite show of all time, The Sopranos (R.I.P. James Gandolfini—still missed). Since then, HBO has pretty much kept their momentum, with a few bumps in the road of course, with Six Feet Under, The Wire, and Big Love, and currently with True Blood, Game of Thrones, and True Detective.
Time is a flat circle.
And that’s just the scripted shows.
HBO just struck a deal with Amazon (another alternate TV viewing option) to stream their shows, but only shows that are at least 3 years old. Right now my wife and I are getting ready to watch the final season of True Blood (are they really going to let Tara survive the entire series?), then a cool-looking new show called The Leftovers starts next week, so we’ll be checking that out, and I just started getting into Veep and Silicon Valley. My point is, I’m in too deep.
Damn you, HBO…
Which brings me to…
3. I’m a creature of habit.
I’m writing this on Sunday morning. Once I’m done with this and any other writing I’m working on, I’ll go sit in front of the TV and see what’s on. I’ll look through the onscreen guide, flip to something I’ve never heard of or want to see what it is—I’ll channel surf. That’s what I do, and I can’t imagine not doing it with Netflix.
Last night I found myself watching some show called The Pool Master, about some British guy who was hired to build a dream pool for this (evidently filthy stinkin’ rich) couple in Kentucky. They wanted this dramatic pool built on the side of a cliff, deep enough to high dive off rocks—to cliff dive into their pool, basically—that would have a water feature and a fire pit, etc. It was a massive undertaking as the Brit had to figure out the logistics of digging out the hole for the pool, moving the enormous stones he wanted to use to construct their cliff diving thingie, and it was really interesting…for about ten minutes.
I love doing that kind of thing. Seeing something on and going, what the hell is that? And changing the channel to see just what the hell it is. I know if I cancelled my TV service I could still get a handful of basic channels (the networks) with an antenna, but I’ve been down that road during especially bad storms that take out the satellite signal, and living off antenna is not something I want to do again. Homo sapiens have evolved this far, I’m not going to take a giant leap backwards and watch TV off an antenna like some animal. That’s a slippery slope—where does it end, doing away with my remote and getting up every time I want to change the channel?
I know some of you remember…
Despite all my ramblings, I’ll probably end up getting Netflix sooner rather than later. I think it’s actually a really cool service that would make a nice addition to my TV viewing experience. But to me, that’s all would be: an addition; an enhancement to what I already have. I’m not ready now, and may never be in the future, to cut myself off completely from the pay TV lifeline I’ve been weaned on for so long.
I’m curious what anyone can tell me about Netflix—are you happy with it? Do you find its choices limiting? Have you dropped cable/satellite altogether?
After proudly telling the world (which is, literally, tens of people) I’d finally gotten not one, but two stories accepted for publication last month, next I did the only thing I could—I waited. And waited. I realized that I had no idea when either magazine/journal would actually come out, and started to feel a little uncomfortable that perhaps I’d tooted my own horn a little prematurely. Friday I finally got word that one of them is officially out, on the market and available for sale.
The Rusty Nail Literary Journal May/June issue is out now! Hard copies are available for purchase from Amazon here, and digital downloads are available at their website here. In it you will find my flash fiction piece “Aiden’s Acting Up Again.”
It’s a bit surreal, after all this time finally seeing my name and my words in a real-life, published product. It feels pretty cool.
“Aiden” is a bit of an anomaly compared to a lot of my other stuff. For one thing, there’s not a single curse word, which I can assure you, despite the generally PG-rated nature of the blog most of the time, is pretty rare indeed.
Also, no one dies, making it one of maybe two or three of my stories with a goose egg in the body count department.
This story began as part of my Reddit ‘No Sleep’ Experiment. I uploaded it to /r/nosleep and it was fairly popular, with readers asking for more ‘updates’ to the story. I ended up writing two additional pieces to bring the story to an end, but I rushed through them and don’t really like them. I honestly think Aiden is perfect as a stand alone story, ending the way it does on an unnerving note.
Check out the story (and the entire issue for that matter, it’s chock-full of other great stories), I hope you like it!
It’s been a crazy week or so around here, but oddly enough there’s not much to say as to why it’s been so crazy. There may be something to talk about in the near future, but for now it’s just crickets and tumbleweeds around here.
This is making me homesick for California.
In a smidge of writing news, I finished one of my short stories and submitted it in a contest with a grand prize of publication in a crime magazine. So far it’s one of the top-rated stories, but the reading and submission period just started so I’m not about to count my chickens before they hatch. If any of you have a free account with Lit Reactor (or are bored enough to create one) you can click on the link for the contest and look for my name—the story is titled Early Retirement. (There are also plenty of other killer stories by the other contestants, as well)
Do any of you fellow writers use writing prompts? I’m not a huge fan of them for the most part, but there is one writing prompt website I like: TypeTrigger.com. What I like about Type Trigger is that it’s kind of like the writer’s equivalent of Twitter—you take their prompt and write whatever comes spewing out of your brain with the restriction that you only have three hundred words to work with. I’ve almost reached that already in this post, so you can see it’s not a lot of room to tell a story. I don’t use it all that often, but through their prompts I have come up with a couple of odd little stories I sort of liked. Since I don’t have much else to talk about right now, I decided to share one.
The prompt for this one was ‘a cheap wig.’ I thought for a couple minutes and this is what I came up with. Enjoy.
The Emancipation of Jackie
Jackie smiled at his marks with calm assurance. He knew they wanted the car, and he was determined to make the sale. “It’s the model you said you wanted,” he reminded them. They were a young couple; newlyweds, in fact. They had told him so and he used that information to his advantage. “Surely you don’t want to disappoint your new bride.”
“Well, it’s just…”Jeff began, his new wife’s hand in his. “It’s really a skeleton of a car. It doesn’t even have air conditioning.”
“I see.” Jackie realized the mark was trying to sweeten the deal. If that was what it took to close the sale, so be it. “I can throw in a few extras, how does that sound? What would you like? Maybe a nice leather steering wheel cover?”
Jeff looked at his wife, thoughtful. He turned back to Jackie with a gleam in his eye. “The rug,” he said.
Jackie frowned, confused. “You mean floor mats? I suppose I can make that happen, I might need—”
“No, the rug,” Jeff repeated. “On your head.”
Jackie felt his face heat up. “Sir, I don’t…uh…”
Jeff grinned. “If you take that dead animal that passes for a toupee off your head right now, and promise never to put it on again, I’ll buy this car.” His wife giggled.
Jackie waved as the car drove away, and for the first time in years he felt free.
BooksofJobe.com 