aboard the MS Ryndam en route to College Fjiord, Alaska
I heard from someone who loved The Shadow Warriors
I saw Jean-Claude Corbier, a character in Festival Madness on the cruise. Way Cool. He was wearing JC's hiking boots. Had JC's legs. It is always weird to see one of your character's strolling about. Once I saw Petra in Roche Bros. in Wellesley.
Some faces just demand that one make up stories about them.
Fish, Seals, Mountain Goat, Whale and Bear all spotted. Glaciers, Mountains, Scenery to die for.
Off to Fairbanks tomorrow and to Denali the day after.
Home on the 5th via the red eye out of SFO.
Will have lots to report, but not much sucking it up. That will come when I climb onto the scale, an act much in common with a sea lion heaving himself onto a rock and gasp, shudder and wail at the reading. It hasn'tbeen a week of deprivation, shall we say.
In the meantime, 'that she blows, there's gold in them thar hills and North to Alaska.
Court trial ended. Defendants found guilty. How could lightning strike 4 times in the same place? Dunno.
Grapeshot
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Friday, June 22, 2007
Westward Ho!
Did I mention we're taking off for an Alaskan cruise tomorrow? I understand the ship has email, so possibly there will be a few posts from the Far North. I'm taking one copy of The Shadow Warriors along to donate to the ship's library. The vessel is the Ryndam, of the Holland America line. Maybe some nice pictures for the blog will be forthcoming. We haven't been someplace NEW for 4-5 years. Key West is the last new place I recall. Of course it's nice to return to old haunts, too. So much world, so little time and money.
In the meantime, I changed the ending of Festival Madness and need to get it down on paper before it leaves my head for two weeks. Another query off to an agent yesterday.
Sometimes one wonders if the efforts required to leave town are worth it. Usually, yes. So....
The garden looks wonderful. Rabbits now eating carnations. I see the fat little dickens hopping around out in the woods. Cute and bad. Baby chipmunks scurrying around, too. Ah nature.
I finished Carl Hiaasen's Skinny Dip and it was laugh out loud funny. What great characters, esp. Tool who (sorta) reforms himself. Hope this isn't considered "LitBlogging," she mused with a snide smirk.
More anon from Grapeshot of the Far North.
In the meantime, I changed the ending of Festival Madness and need to get it down on paper before it leaves my head for two weeks. Another query off to an agent yesterday.
Sometimes one wonders if the efforts required to leave town are worth it. Usually, yes. So....
The garden looks wonderful. Rabbits now eating carnations. I see the fat little dickens hopping around out in the woods. Cute and bad. Baby chipmunks scurrying around, too. Ah nature.
I finished Carl Hiaasen's Skinny Dip and it was laugh out loud funny. What great characters, esp. Tool who (sorta) reforms himself. Hope this isn't considered "LitBlogging," she mused with a snide smirk.
More anon from Grapeshot of the Far North.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
The 500 Pound Gorilla
For six out of the last seven week days, I have trekked into Boston to the Federal Courthouse to sit in on a court case that interested me, because the litigants were a major part of my work like for the previous nine years. I don't want to name names, but a very large (1/2 billion dollar) company is suing 2 tiny companies in what, after 6 days of testimony seems to be a thin case.
Did I mention hubris? New word of the week, month year? A case of hubris and f*** the stockholders whose profits are evaporing. My feeling is that even if the 500 pound gorilla gets all the bananas, the victory will be Pyrric. Now there's a word one doesn't use every day.
Naturally I saw people I knew on both sides of the equation, and I now have a deep sympathy for anyone who has to get up on the witness stand under oath and face a sharp lawyer. The people who came off best displayed absolutely no attitude, zero hubris. This is a good thing to know.
What has come out of all of this, besides a fascinating look into the case and the parties involved and even the judge, jury and the courthouse cafeteria (3 stars!) is my resolve to tackle my recollections (memoir being too serious a word) of my 25 years in informtion systems, because the case symbolizes so many things I saw from my perch in the IT cubicles and I think it will inform my writing of the last ten years of my career. This is a book (or articles) that probably can achieve publication without too much effort. Famous last words. Famous last hubris.
It has a good chance.
So now I am playing catch up, as we are off to Alaska on Saturday and I'm trying to get ready for the house sitter who will cater shamelessly to the cats and tend to the garden. Meanwhile, I see that I have enough clothes out to spend the rest of the summer, not 12 days in the northern climes. A thorough weeding needs to occurr.
And I'm two chapters from the 2nd revision of Festival Madness, which is another fun book, if you count dastardly deeds, sexual adventures and technological hijinks as fun.
So I'm not in court, not on the train with my smoothy and granola bar, a great on the run breakfast, by the way. No more South Station, hike to the courthouse, gape at the skyline and sink into the daily drama. No more 500 Pound Gorilla.
Grapeshot
Did I mention hubris? New word of the week, month year? A case of hubris and f*** the stockholders whose profits are evaporing. My feeling is that even if the 500 pound gorilla gets all the bananas, the victory will be Pyrric. Now there's a word one doesn't use every day.
Naturally I saw people I knew on both sides of the equation, and I now have a deep sympathy for anyone who has to get up on the witness stand under oath and face a sharp lawyer. The people who came off best displayed absolutely no attitude, zero hubris. This is a good thing to know.
What has come out of all of this, besides a fascinating look into the case and the parties involved and even the judge, jury and the courthouse cafeteria (3 stars!) is my resolve to tackle my recollections (memoir being too serious a word) of my 25 years in informtion systems, because the case symbolizes so many things I saw from my perch in the IT cubicles and I think it will inform my writing of the last ten years of my career. This is a book (or articles) that probably can achieve publication without too much effort. Famous last words. Famous last hubris.
It has a good chance.
So now I am playing catch up, as we are off to Alaska on Saturday and I'm trying to get ready for the house sitter who will cater shamelessly to the cats and tend to the garden. Meanwhile, I see that I have enough clothes out to spend the rest of the summer, not 12 days in the northern climes. A thorough weeding needs to occurr.
And I'm two chapters from the 2nd revision of Festival Madness, which is another fun book, if you count dastardly deeds, sexual adventures and technological hijinks as fun.
So I'm not in court, not on the train with my smoothy and granola bar, a great on the run breakfast, by the way. No more South Station, hike to the courthouse, gape at the skyline and sink into the daily drama. No more 500 Pound Gorilla.
Grapeshot
Saturday, June 16, 2007
My Dad
Do we ever really know our parents as individuals, not as Mom and Dad?
My father was the eldest of seven brothers. His father was a career military man who spent time (for fighting) in the brig at Alcatraz when it was a military prison. His father, my grandfather, whom I never met, chased Pancho Villa all over Mexico with the U.S. army. The other thing my grandfather did was kick my father out of the house because he refused to join the military. My father was not a man who liked to march to the beat of someone else’s drum. He was so enraged he changed his last name.
In the midst of the Depression my father accumulated a suit, a car, and $200.00 and met my mother. He was four years younger than she was, a fact she took to the grave without knowing. As a child I was interested in the fact that he kissed her a lot, in a way that he didn’t kiss me.
My mother was a stern taskmaster, brooking no nonsense. I was a timid fearful little girl. My dad handled most of the unpleasantries: pulling my teeth (pliers), ridding me of Rocky Mountain ticks (lighted cigarette or red hot needle). When we got lost in the woods on a fishing trip he carried me on his back. When we hiked up to a cave and I refused to go in he didn’t mock me. He took me to “shoot ‘em up’ movies. My mom liked musicals. He taught me long division.
When I was in high school we drove Route 66 to Flagstaff, Arizona during the time of an Indian Powwow. All the way home he delivered Indian chants, pretty good ones, actually. He could also drive the car in time to The Isle of Capri, and sing all the verses to Ivan Skavensky Skavar. How cool is that?
My folks retired to Phoenix where my Dad gardened, fed the birds and was president of the condo association. He always met us at Sky Harbor, the airport, always late at night in the big terminal with the Indian rugs hanging on the walls. He stood waiting like a sentry. When he was gone and I flew into Phoenix alone at night, I always expected to find him there. It didn’t seem possible that he wasn’t.
He liked to drive big American cars, and his Cadillac was his pride and joy. After he left home he never went back. Ever. One of his brothers finally found him and told him the parents were dead. He was his mother’s favorite and he never went back.
Do we ever really know our parents?
My father was the eldest of seven brothers. His father was a career military man who spent time (for fighting) in the brig at Alcatraz when it was a military prison. His father, my grandfather, whom I never met, chased Pancho Villa all over Mexico with the U.S. army. The other thing my grandfather did was kick my father out of the house because he refused to join the military. My father was not a man who liked to march to the beat of someone else’s drum. He was so enraged he changed his last name.
In the midst of the Depression my father accumulated a suit, a car, and $200.00 and met my mother. He was four years younger than she was, a fact she took to the grave without knowing. As a child I was interested in the fact that he kissed her a lot, in a way that he didn’t kiss me.
My mother was a stern taskmaster, brooking no nonsense. I was a timid fearful little girl. My dad handled most of the unpleasantries: pulling my teeth (pliers), ridding me of Rocky Mountain ticks (lighted cigarette or red hot needle). When we got lost in the woods on a fishing trip he carried me on his back. When we hiked up to a cave and I refused to go in he didn’t mock me. He took me to “shoot ‘em up’ movies. My mom liked musicals. He taught me long division.
When I was in high school we drove Route 66 to Flagstaff, Arizona during the time of an Indian Powwow. All the way home he delivered Indian chants, pretty good ones, actually. He could also drive the car in time to The Isle of Capri, and sing all the verses to Ivan Skavensky Skavar. How cool is that?
My folks retired to Phoenix where my Dad gardened, fed the birds and was president of the condo association. He always met us at Sky Harbor, the airport, always late at night in the big terminal with the Indian rugs hanging on the walls. He stood waiting like a sentry. When he was gone and I flew into Phoenix alone at night, I always expected to find him there. It didn’t seem possible that he wasn’t.
He liked to drive big American cars, and his Cadillac was his pride and joy. After he left home he never went back. Ever. One of his brothers finally found him and told him the parents were dead. He was his mother’s favorite and he never went back.
Do we ever really know our parents?
Friday, June 15, 2007
Baghdad
Did you ever notice that all of the visits government functionaries pay to Baghdad are "surprise visits?"
The Trial, But Not Kafkaesque
Four days of sitting on rock hard benches in the swanky new Federal Courthouse on Boston's harborfront. Your tax dollars at work in a pleasing, esthetic way. Great view, good cafeteria, fast elevators, an easy walk from South Station. I don't even remember when I last dressed up four days in a row, as in tailored jacket. Not that this is a great hardship.
Should have been a lawyer. That is one of the week's epiphanies. Water way the hell over the dam and the rapids and through the sluice gates and the weirs, but self-discovery is always a shock. I find that even at my advanced (ha ha) age, I can remember the most minute details. Keep having to stifle myself from rushing up and giving counsel, defendants, even plaintiffs advice. Who woulda thunk. Gee whiz, Grapeshot could have been writing legal thrillers.
As Don McClean noted, isn't LIFE THE PERFECT THING TO PASS THE TIME AWAY?
Two key things have come out of all the hours spent.
1) I got a terrific 2 line description for a characters
2) The decision to dive into my half-begun memoir "Twenty-five Years in Information Systems." I started writing it over a year ago for Gather web-site and wrote a few posts. Seemed well-received, then I got busy doing other stuff, like finishing Festival Madness, and dropped it. Went back and read the segments and they pretty much sucked. Thought, "you an do better than that." From time to time I thought of it, and now with this postscript finale to my career, such as it was, I think I can do a bang-up job, maybe even a slim volume to tempt a non-fiction publishers. Cause I got tales to tell. No names or companies. Have to make some up. No problemo.
So: right now, I still have to finish the second pass thru Festival Madness, and continue pushing World of Mirrors, although an agent has the MS and someone else is nibbling.
It's always good to have a plan. The California book, now tentatively titled Such Stuff As Dreams, can lie fallow in my head, as the Wisconsin book, Promiscuous Mode, did.
I am confident enough in Promiscuous Mode that if I find agent/publisher they will take on that book, too. Because it's fun. Zany. Interesting. Even instructive. And I really want to do a book signing in Minnocqua, WI. So there.
Miles to go.
Grapeshot
Should have been a lawyer. That is one of the week's epiphanies. Water way the hell over the dam and the rapids and through the sluice gates and the weirs, but self-discovery is always a shock. I find that even at my advanced (ha ha) age, I can remember the most minute details. Keep having to stifle myself from rushing up and giving counsel, defendants, even plaintiffs advice. Who woulda thunk. Gee whiz, Grapeshot could have been writing legal thrillers.
As Don McClean noted, isn't LIFE THE PERFECT THING TO PASS THE TIME AWAY?
Two key things have come out of all the hours spent.
1) I got a terrific 2 line description for a characters
2) The decision to dive into my half-begun memoir "Twenty-five Years in Information Systems." I started writing it over a year ago for Gather web-site and wrote a few posts. Seemed well-received, then I got busy doing other stuff, like finishing Festival Madness, and dropped it. Went back and read the segments and they pretty much sucked. Thought, "you an do better than that." From time to time I thought of it, and now with this postscript finale to my career, such as it was, I think I can do a bang-up job, maybe even a slim volume to tempt a non-fiction publishers. Cause I got tales to tell. No names or companies. Have to make some up. No problemo.
So: right now, I still have to finish the second pass thru Festival Madness, and continue pushing World of Mirrors, although an agent has the MS and someone else is nibbling.
It's always good to have a plan. The California book, now tentatively titled Such Stuff As Dreams, can lie fallow in my head, as the Wisconsin book, Promiscuous Mode, did.
I am confident enough in Promiscuous Mode that if I find agent/publisher they will take on that book, too. Because it's fun. Zany. Interesting. Even instructive. And I really want to do a book signing in Minnocqua, WI. So there.
Miles to go.
Grapeshot
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
The Trial
You have to rise and stand as often as you do in church. No one in the jurybox has fallen asleep, yet. It is terribly interesting, and one can get a whole lesson on catalog retailing just by listening.
I went to a book party and saw Ocean's Thirteen. Big day in town. I'm accumulating stuff from the trial for my expose of being a computer nerd for many years. Look inside the cubicle culture.
Grapeshot
I went to a book party and saw Ocean's Thirteen. Big day in town. I'm accumulating stuff from the trial for my expose of being a computer nerd for many years. Look inside the cubicle culture.
Grapeshot
Monday, June 11, 2007
The Trial
Today I take the train into town to the new Federal Courthouse to view a civil trial. Since I know or know of the plaintiffs and those being sued and have a lot of knowledge of the business and how it was run and why things happened, I have a real insider knowledge, and I am curious to know whether the trial will skew the facts as I know them. It takes all morning to select the jury, 45 people who looked as though they were collared for jury duty while mowing the lawn or washing the car. Not even a sport coat among them, hell, barely a shirt with a collar. Out of a pool of 45, they barely got 12 due to all the preemptory challanges and so forth.
Result being, I had lots of time to read, and since I had schleepped the NY Times along, I read the interview (Michael Kimmelman) with Tina Brown about her "Diana" book. Ms. Brown used a lot of cool words and phrases, some of which I wrote down, thinking a good word is (sometimes) hard to find and maybe some of these will be useful in Festival Madness, which I am on a marathon to revise.
Remember, you read it here first, the coolest new word everyone is using is "hubris." Was all over the Times today. So remember hubris and use it daily in a sentence ever so often until it is not only a part of your active vocabulary, but rolling off your lips like a scholar of ancient greek tragedies. You don't need hubris to use hubris.
Some other cool words and phrases: valedictory, revisiting, crystallized, naval-gazing, candor, notational subject, panache, gloss, marginalized, griefathon (apropos of Diana) festival of inclusion, fever of the moment, dot.com moment (whatever the hell that is) and best of all, "I drank the Kool-Aid."
More on the trial anon. Of course I don't want to name names or reveal who what or where. These people are dreadfully litiginous. Hey, that's another good word. I'll tamp down my hubris and see ya tomorrow.
Result being, I had lots of time to read, and since I had schleepped the NY Times along, I read the interview (Michael Kimmelman) with Tina Brown about her "Diana" book. Ms. Brown used a lot of cool words and phrases, some of which I wrote down, thinking a good word is (sometimes) hard to find and maybe some of these will be useful in Festival Madness, which I am on a marathon to revise.
Remember, you read it here first, the coolest new word everyone is using is "hubris." Was all over the Times today. So remember hubris and use it daily in a sentence ever so often until it is not only a part of your active vocabulary, but rolling off your lips like a scholar of ancient greek tragedies. You don't need hubris to use hubris.
Some other cool words and phrases: valedictory, revisiting, crystallized, naval-gazing, candor, notational subject, panache, gloss, marginalized, griefathon (apropos of Diana) festival of inclusion, fever of the moment, dot.com moment (whatever the hell that is) and best of all, "I drank the Kool-Aid."
More on the trial anon. Of course I don't want to name names or reveal who what or where. These people are dreadfully litiginous. Hey, that's another good word. I'll tamp down my hubris and see ya tomorrow.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Female American Writers Suck It Up in the Pink Collar Ghetto
Erica Jong has an instructive article in 4/9/07 Publisher's Weekly.
Link: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6431248.html
The complaint is that American women writers are not taken seriously. The same complaint has been made against some writers' organizations such as MWA, but this year (2007) a number of women were nominated and won awards, so the wind blows from different directions, year by year.
I have a few nibbles for World of Mirrors. Foreign locales are still a hard sell. Last night I read a post on the late Ms Snark's blog (the blog is late, not Ms. Snark) from a writer who set a thriller in Mexico. Mexico was intrinsic to the story (duh!) and either an agent or an editor wanted him to set it in the states. Jingo bells! Jingo bells. Some editor once told Tony Hillerman to get rid of the indians. I am not making this up! So idiocy has no bounds. Well, as my dad always said, "it's a hard row to hoe." That it is.
Everyone has to suck it up sooner or later.
Grapeshot
Link: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6431248.html
The complaint is that American women writers are not taken seriously. The same complaint has been made against some writers' organizations such as MWA, but this year (2007) a number of women were nominated and won awards, so the wind blows from different directions, year by year.
I have a few nibbles for World of Mirrors. Foreign locales are still a hard sell. Last night I read a post on the late Ms Snark's blog (the blog is late, not Ms. Snark) from a writer who set a thriller in Mexico. Mexico was intrinsic to the story (duh!) and either an agent or an editor wanted him to set it in the states. Jingo bells! Jingo bells. Some editor once told Tony Hillerman to get rid of the indians. I am not making this up! So idiocy has no bounds. Well, as my dad always said, "it's a hard row to hoe." That it is.
Everyone has to suck it up sooner or later.
Grapeshot
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
De-Program Yourself: Shun the Cult of Celebrity
As a kid, I had a road map of Los Angeles. Sometimes I unfolded it, and let the enigmatic lure of Hollywood percolate up through the cross hatch of streets and avenues. Red highways, blue water, white background, black streets. My dream destination, Hollywood, California!
In movie magazines, I pored over the glossy photographs, studying the actresses. While I turned the pages, I spoke their names like a litany. How I scrutinized their smooth hairdos, red lips, shapely legs, long, glamorous gowns, every artfully mascaraed eyelash, each subtly rouged cheek, even the sleek curve of a bare shoulder. With these images planted in my head, I mimicked seductive poses in the mirror on my mother’s dressing table.
Eight years old, and already a celebrity hound. A few years later, Marilyn Monroe was my idol, and I aped her poses in my own bedroom mirror. Then I started high school and got a life.
Being interested in famous people is normal, but it can be carried too far.
How far is too far? Do you fixate on TomKat and baby Suri? Over-involved in Linday or Brittney’s rehab?
Do you think Your celebrity has a desire to me you and get your opinions and guidance?
You have CWS? Celebrity Worship Syndrome. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JQP/is_363/ai_111617817 John F. Schumaker
According to Schumaker, CWS is an obsessive-addictive disorder, affecting both sexes equally. It’s a growing concern to mental health professions. A research team at a British University found that 1/3 of residents of Great Britian have it. Think Princess Di brouhaha, still in the news today.
This is a Schumaker’s description of the syndrome and how badly it can affect people. "The worst affected inhabit a tense, joyless world ruled by delusions and pipedreams about a celebrity who has been distorted into an empty parody. Once possessed by their celebrity demons, they become solitary, anti-social, impulsive and even self-destructive. One young CWS victim, hearing that her pop idol had become engaged, crawled into a bath and slashed her neck, arms and legs. She survived and explained: 'She's going to change him if he gets married and I'm not going to live with that.'
. . . Those with less intense CWS can still function, but their neurotic over-involvement with 'their' celebrity consumes lots of time, energy and income. "
Just what we all need: more time, energy and income. Hey!
If you are obsessed with celebrities, or if you have CWS, what is the cure?
It’s like breaking any bad habits:
Make a resolution: I will give up celebrities and spend more time with my a) spouse b) kids c)hamster d)The Red Sox
Identify what trips you up: change your scandal rag to a more serious paper. Read the New York Times or Wall St. Journal – only the news that’s fit to print.
Don’t buy People, or worse! Don’t watch that movie, listen to that CD, Avoid E! and VH1. You’re getting there.
Put pen to paper – write down your thoughts, feelings, large or small successes (I went one whole day without Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, Tom Brady, Brangelina
Find a friend with CWA and do it together
Reward Yourself - go to a concert, see a good movie; get a massage.
Vow to become an expert on a more serious subject : the war, any war, global warming, the polar bear, the Red Sox
Have Peapod deliver your groceries so you don’t have to stand in a super-market checkout line and see all those rotten tempting magazines.
Are my celebrity obsessed days behind me? Yes they are. I have to confess that for a time I even confused Jessica Simpson, and The Simpson’s cartoons show on television. I didn’t know who Anne Nicole Smith was.
It’s all right to know who people in the news are. It’s not all right to live your life through them. You probably already have a life. If you don’t, get one.
In movie magazines, I pored over the glossy photographs, studying the actresses. While I turned the pages, I spoke their names like a litany. How I scrutinized their smooth hairdos, red lips, shapely legs, long, glamorous gowns, every artfully mascaraed eyelash, each subtly rouged cheek, even the sleek curve of a bare shoulder. With these images planted in my head, I mimicked seductive poses in the mirror on my mother’s dressing table.
Eight years old, and already a celebrity hound. A few years later, Marilyn Monroe was my idol, and I aped her poses in my own bedroom mirror. Then I started high school and got a life.
Being interested in famous people is normal, but it can be carried too far.
How far is too far? Do you fixate on TomKat and baby Suri? Over-involved in Linday or Brittney’s rehab?
Do you think Your celebrity has a desire to me you and get your opinions and guidance?
You have CWS? Celebrity Worship Syndrome. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JQP/is_363/ai_111617817 John F. Schumaker
According to Schumaker, CWS is an obsessive-addictive disorder, affecting both sexes equally. It’s a growing concern to mental health professions. A research team at a British University found that 1/3 of residents of Great Britian have it. Think Princess Di brouhaha, still in the news today.
This is a Schumaker’s description of the syndrome and how badly it can affect people. "The worst affected inhabit a tense, joyless world ruled by delusions and pipedreams about a celebrity who has been distorted into an empty parody. Once possessed by their celebrity demons, they become solitary, anti-social, impulsive and even self-destructive. One young CWS victim, hearing that her pop idol had become engaged, crawled into a bath and slashed her neck, arms and legs. She survived and explained: 'She's going to change him if he gets married and I'm not going to live with that.'
. . . Those with less intense CWS can still function, but their neurotic over-involvement with 'their' celebrity consumes lots of time, energy and income. "
Just what we all need: more time, energy and income. Hey!
If you are obsessed with celebrities, or if you have CWS, what is the cure?
It’s like breaking any bad habits:
Make a resolution: I will give up celebrities and spend more time with my a) spouse b) kids c)hamster d)The Red Sox
Identify what trips you up: change your scandal rag to a more serious paper. Read the New York Times or Wall St. Journal – only the news that’s fit to print.
Don’t buy People, or worse! Don’t watch that movie, listen to that CD, Avoid E! and VH1. You’re getting there.
Put pen to paper – write down your thoughts, feelings, large or small successes (I went one whole day without Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, Tom Brady, Brangelina
Find a friend with CWA and do it together
Reward Yourself - go to a concert, see a good movie; get a massage.
Vow to become an expert on a more serious subject : the war, any war, global warming, the polar bear, the Red Sox
Have Peapod deliver your groceries so you don’t have to stand in a super-market checkout line and see all those rotten tempting magazines.
Are my celebrity obsessed days behind me? Yes they are. I have to confess that for a time I even confused Jessica Simpson, and The Simpson’s cartoons show on television. I didn’t know who Anne Nicole Smith was.
It’s all right to know who people in the news are. It’s not all right to live your life through them. You probably already have a life. If you don’t, get one.
More about LITBLOGS
Oh, the controversy! The sniping! The search for a "business model" for blogging. Yea, sure, like I'm getting paid.
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/web_tech/the_litblog_debate_now_in_stereo_60426.asp
http://marksarvas.blogs.com/elegvar/2007/05/los_angeles_tim.html
Hmmm. Still not sure what to make of all the controversy. I don't review books on this blog, not in any serious way. One does, of course, have opinions, doesn't one? And one can voice them, and readers can take them for what they are, which is opinions. Seems pretty simple to me. Right now I am reading Proust and I think he's been reviewed plenty, but there are still interesting things to say about him, and the web is full of people writing stuff about Proust. So WTF?
Wondering,
Grapeshot
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/web_tech/the_litblog_debate_now_in_stereo_60426.asp
http://marksarvas.blogs.com/elegvar/2007/05/los_angeles_tim.html
Hmmm. Still not sure what to make of all the controversy. I don't review books on this blog, not in any serious way. One does, of course, have opinions, doesn't one? And one can voice them, and readers can take them for what they are, which is opinions. Seems pretty simple to me. Right now I am reading Proust and I think he's been reviewed plenty, but there are still interesting things to say about him, and the web is full of people writing stuff about Proust. So WTF?
Wondering,
Grapeshot
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
The Sopranos and Proust and a hangover
On HBO demand last night, I watched Sunday's episode of the Sopranos. First off, you should know that I am a wimp, changing channels when the hyenas attack the baby wildebeeste. Stuff I saw in movies when I was a kid still haunts me.
Anyway, violence exploded all over the episode except at a dinner party where the shrinks were talking in obfuscating asides, picking on each other, all in a genteel but cruel manner while the wine flowed. So I managed to watch it all without making a run to the kitchen, my usual copout. Then I read Proust for half an hour or so to (I hoped) get the violence out of my head.
It didn't work. Dreams and nightmares all night, yea, unto the morning, and today I sort of have a Sopranos hangover, which I treated to some hair of the dog with the theme song I had downloaded.
As you can imagine, none of my writing depicts really graphic violence, although the occasional off-screen murder and a character or two getting beaten up are described.
On a lighter note, yesterday's break making created two delicious French-type loaves and the new pan was a wonder. This is the link to the recipe, which any fool can make if you follow the instructions. I used a thermometer to test the water for the right temperature. Everything else is measuring and following directions. Very simple.
http://www.recipelink.com/cookbooks/2000/0811816869_1.html
Off to stake up the patio tomato. We finally have some sun.
Onward,
Grapeshot
Anyway, violence exploded all over the episode except at a dinner party where the shrinks were talking in obfuscating asides, picking on each other, all in a genteel but cruel manner while the wine flowed. So I managed to watch it all without making a run to the kitchen, my usual copout. Then I read Proust for half an hour or so to (I hoped) get the violence out of my head.
It didn't work. Dreams and nightmares all night, yea, unto the morning, and today I sort of have a Sopranos hangover, which I treated to some hair of the dog with the theme song I had downloaded.
As you can imagine, none of my writing depicts really graphic violence, although the occasional off-screen murder and a character or two getting beaten up are described.
On a lighter note, yesterday's break making created two delicious French-type loaves and the new pan was a wonder. This is the link to the recipe, which any fool can make if you follow the instructions. I used a thermometer to test the water for the right temperature. Everything else is measuring and following directions. Very simple.
http://www.recipelink.com/cookbooks/2000/0811816869_1.html
Off to stake up the patio tomato. We finally have some sun.
Onward,
Grapeshot
Monday, June 04, 2007
Ladies Who Read
The wonderful sentence I mentioned in yesterday's blog is from a review of Summer Reading in Sunday's (6/3/07) New York Times Book Review. Anne Mendelson wrote the review. She is a freelance writer and editor.
"The clank of narrative machinery being hauled into place is rather too audible at the outset, before the three dovetailing plots take on a graceful momentum of their own."
It's really hard to begin a book. There are a gazillion rules - no backstory too early; no flashbacks too early; ditch the prologue; don't intoduce too many characters at once; make sure the reader knows what the book is "about" in the first few pages; stick in lots of reasonance, with appeals to all five senses; start with actions, not driving or on an airplane; don't begin with a cliched phone call. These are rules for genre fiction, at least mystery-suspense genre, and if you're fabulous, you can break the rules, but a beginning writer better not. So the"clank of narrative machinery," aka the setup, being hauled into place is often heard. I definitely see it in Promiscuous Mode and also in World of Mirrors. As long as it's not too 'pat,' one hopes the reader is enthused, because that is what tells her what the book will be about. Can't win for losing.
Apropos of seeing the name "Wolizer," I thought of a high school teacher of Spanish and English, Miss Walters. A spinster, as they were then called, she taught English and Spanish in a tiny town out west. She cared for an aging mother, which must have been why she got stuck there. No men suitable for a phi beta kappa English major within 90 miles. I remembered her as homely, but when I looked at the yearbook photo, she wasn't. I owe her an apology for thinking her dorky, for thinking of her as a loser, for thinking she was old and ugly. God, did she teach us to diagram the hell out of sentences, to do a bang-up job on a research paper. We laughed at her Castillian accent, which sounded so phoney among all the Latino Spanish. I can still hear her voice asking, "Quien falta?" Who's absent? So, sorry Miss Walters, wherever you are. You were a cool lady.
Today I print all 500+ pages (Courier 12) of World of Mirrors to send to the agent. It's not a question of will be like it, but will he think he can sell it? Maybe he has contacts in Germany. I wouldn't care where it was sold. It would be fun to do a signing in the cute bookstore on the island of Hiddensee, where there are a couple scenes in the book.
Now I will hie myself into the kichen to make the food processor bread. When we were newly weds, I used the word "hie" in a scrabble game and S.O. had never heard of it. Ha ha . Do YOU know it? I think my grandma used it.
With flour up to her elbows,
Grapeshot
"The clank of narrative machinery being hauled into place is rather too audible at the outset, before the three dovetailing plots take on a graceful momentum of their own."
It's really hard to begin a book. There are a gazillion rules - no backstory too early; no flashbacks too early; ditch the prologue; don't intoduce too many characters at once; make sure the reader knows what the book is "about" in the first few pages; stick in lots of reasonance, with appeals to all five senses; start with actions, not driving or on an airplane; don't begin with a cliched phone call. These are rules for genre fiction, at least mystery-suspense genre, and if you're fabulous, you can break the rules, but a beginning writer better not. So the"clank of narrative machinery," aka the setup, being hauled into place is often heard. I definitely see it in Promiscuous Mode and also in World of Mirrors. As long as it's not too 'pat,' one hopes the reader is enthused, because that is what tells her what the book will be about. Can't win for losing.
Apropos of seeing the name "Wolizer," I thought of a high school teacher of Spanish and English, Miss Walters. A spinster, as they were then called, she taught English and Spanish in a tiny town out west. She cared for an aging mother, which must have been why she got stuck there. No men suitable for a phi beta kappa English major within 90 miles. I remembered her as homely, but when I looked at the yearbook photo, she wasn't. I owe her an apology for thinking her dorky, for thinking of her as a loser, for thinking she was old and ugly. God, did she teach us to diagram the hell out of sentences, to do a bang-up job on a research paper. We laughed at her Castillian accent, which sounded so phoney among all the Latino Spanish. I can still hear her voice asking, "Quien falta?" Who's absent? So, sorry Miss Walters, wherever you are. You were a cool lady.
Today I print all 500+ pages (Courier 12) of World of Mirrors to send to the agent. It's not a question of will be like it, but will he think he can sell it? Maybe he has contacts in Germany. I wouldn't care where it was sold. It would be fun to do a signing in the cute bookstore on the island of Hiddensee, where there are a couple scenes in the book.
Now I will hie myself into the kichen to make the food processor bread. When we were newly weds, I used the word "hie" in a scrabble game and S.O. had never heard of it. Ha ha . Do YOU know it? I think my grandma used it.
With flour up to her elbows,
Grapeshot
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Rainy Sunday
The mosquitoes are like kamikazees that dive bomb you the minute you set food outside. I had to pick some cilantro and parsley today. Swat! Pluck! Swat!
Both the cilantro and the dill reseeded themselves from last year in spite of the weird January where everything thought, "hey, Spring!" and jumped up only to find "Yech, Winter!" The basil is unhappy with all the wet weather. What can I say?
Another South Beach Diet Salad, today, shrimp this time. Yum! Those ounces are just melting away. Tomorrow I will bake bread. The food processor recipe which any fool can succeed at.
Lazy Sundays are nice. Read the paper. We watched the ladies tennis and ladies golf matches and I did a bit of editing on Festival Madness.
I miss Ms. Snark and Kipper Yap and all the gin. Speaking of which, I've noticed my character is pounding down the drinks with frightening regularly. Of course she has some problems that are vexing her. Yes indeed.
The house drink around here of late is something called the Bardstown Sling, a combo of bourbon, Triple Sec, lime juice and a soupcon of cranberry juice. Quite tasty, actually, and packs a whallop.
Another Sopranos in a couple hours. I confess to a feeling of dread, because how can things end well? Can there be redemption? Don't think so. There's been a lot of buzz about the final episodes. Someone mentioned that just like in life, the characters try to change, succeed for a while, and then backslide. The actors are brilliant. I love the opening music and finally downloaded it.
Still reading Proust and Three Trapped Tigers, but I finished the Afghan book, The Damascened Blade, which actually had a pretty good ending with a nice surprise. Surprises are good. There was a wonderful sentence in the NY Times Book Review about an author's transparency in setting up a story which I will dig out and quote. That was the gripe I had with the Cloverly book. I won't be writing my Afghanistan thriller, in spite of the cool plot, unless I find a very knowledgeable co-author. Thrillers R not us. Still plugging away at The War Lord's Son and liking it when the son is on stage, so to speak.
All over Germany in the summer, restaurants and kondittori's are serving up a lucious red dessert called "Rote Grutze," or red groats. Usually it has the full fruit in it, but it can be geleed. Contains raspberries, strawberries and red currants. Delicious. Red currants here are hard to find and expensive, so I have been experimenting on what we now call "Americanische Rote Grutze." In addition to raspberries and strawberries, I've used cranberries and today some rhubarb to delicious effect. The sweet young thing at the checkout counter didn't know rhubarb from nothin', but the old guy bagging groceries sure did. He assumed I was going to make a strawberry/rhubarb pie which I would have done were we not in diet mode.
I've going into the kitchen to serve it up. In a nice crystal bowl with dollops of (light) cream.
Grapeshot, who is slurping it down instead of sucking it up.
Both the cilantro and the dill reseeded themselves from last year in spite of the weird January where everything thought, "hey, Spring!" and jumped up only to find "Yech, Winter!" The basil is unhappy with all the wet weather. What can I say?
Another South Beach Diet Salad, today, shrimp this time. Yum! Those ounces are just melting away. Tomorrow I will bake bread. The food processor recipe which any fool can succeed at.
Lazy Sundays are nice. Read the paper. We watched the ladies tennis and ladies golf matches and I did a bit of editing on Festival Madness.
I miss Ms. Snark and Kipper Yap and all the gin. Speaking of which, I've noticed my character is pounding down the drinks with frightening regularly. Of course she has some problems that are vexing her. Yes indeed.
The house drink around here of late is something called the Bardstown Sling, a combo of bourbon, Triple Sec, lime juice and a soupcon of cranberry juice. Quite tasty, actually, and packs a whallop.
Another Sopranos in a couple hours. I confess to a feeling of dread, because how can things end well? Can there be redemption? Don't think so. There's been a lot of buzz about the final episodes. Someone mentioned that just like in life, the characters try to change, succeed for a while, and then backslide. The actors are brilliant. I love the opening music and finally downloaded it.
Still reading Proust and Three Trapped Tigers, but I finished the Afghan book, The Damascened Blade, which actually had a pretty good ending with a nice surprise. Surprises are good. There was a wonderful sentence in the NY Times Book Review about an author's transparency in setting up a story which I will dig out and quote. That was the gripe I had with the Cloverly book. I won't be writing my Afghanistan thriller, in spite of the cool plot, unless I find a very knowledgeable co-author. Thrillers R not us. Still plugging away at The War Lord's Son and liking it when the son is on stage, so to speak.
All over Germany in the summer, restaurants and kondittori's are serving up a lucious red dessert called "Rote Grutze," or red groats. Usually it has the full fruit in it, but it can be geleed. Contains raspberries, strawberries and red currants. Delicious. Red currants here are hard to find and expensive, so I have been experimenting on what we now call "Americanische Rote Grutze." In addition to raspberries and strawberries, I've used cranberries and today some rhubarb to delicious effect. The sweet young thing at the checkout counter didn't know rhubarb from nothin', but the old guy bagging groceries sure did. He assumed I was going to make a strawberry/rhubarb pie which I would have done were we not in diet mode.
I've going into the kitchen to serve it up. In a nice crystal bowl with dollops of (light) cream.
Grapeshot, who is slurping it down instead of sucking it up.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Luckiest Woman Alive
Everyday I win a couple lotteries. Today, I hit the jackpot and won 5, count 'em five. Nor only that, but there are at least half a dozen Nigerians per day who are willing to pay big bucks for my compassion and assistance.
You know, of course, that I am talking of SPAM. My email address gets harvested by every spammer/scammer known on the net. Bah, humbug. I do worry about those who actually open those emails and find themselves conned.
In our household, we've always had a healthy (heh heh) liking for SPAM, sliced and fried until brown and served with tiny canned peas and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese in a box. This meal is the perfect antidote to any food snobbery that might be lurking in the raddichio. Naturally we buy low-salt Spam.
Once an adult male relative (AMR) was unexpectedly visited by a friend of ours, and alas, there was no food in the house and she was at the door at dinnertime. Did he falter? Nope. He opened a can of SPAM, scored it like a ham, poked cloves into the scoring, made a nice glaze of mustard and brown sugar and baked it up. She said it was good. You just need the right about of Sang Froid to pull off a thing like that.
After all the whining and bitching and moaning I've done lately, an agent wrote today asking for the full manuscript to World of Mirrors. He had liked the first 30 pages, and so obviously the query and/or the synopsis did not send him running for the hills. Hope ye olde printer will be up for one more big run.
It is hot and humid and the mosquitoes are bad bad bad. We have a bunch of very tiny goslings in the slough. Have seen the geese feeding down there all spring. I hope that they will be all right. There were two goslings with their ma by the side of the road on route 140 in a very bad spot, where traffic isn't likely to stop. I have seen geese with young 'uns in some crazy places.
Big Mama, aka Maggie, the largest of the Highland Scottish cows looks preggers again. She is still nursing the calf from late last fall.
I always find something to worry about. So it goes.
Grapeshot
You know, of course, that I am talking of SPAM. My email address gets harvested by every spammer/scammer known on the net. Bah, humbug. I do worry about those who actually open those emails and find themselves conned.
In our household, we've always had a healthy (heh heh) liking for SPAM, sliced and fried until brown and served with tiny canned peas and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese in a box. This meal is the perfect antidote to any food snobbery that might be lurking in the raddichio. Naturally we buy low-salt Spam.
Once an adult male relative (AMR) was unexpectedly visited by a friend of ours, and alas, there was no food in the house and she was at the door at dinnertime. Did he falter? Nope. He opened a can of SPAM, scored it like a ham, poked cloves into the scoring, made a nice glaze of mustard and brown sugar and baked it up. She said it was good. You just need the right about of Sang Froid to pull off a thing like that.
After all the whining and bitching and moaning I've done lately, an agent wrote today asking for the full manuscript to World of Mirrors. He had liked the first 30 pages, and so obviously the query and/or the synopsis did not send him running for the hills. Hope ye olde printer will be up for one more big run.
It is hot and humid and the mosquitoes are bad bad bad. We have a bunch of very tiny goslings in the slough. Have seen the geese feeding down there all spring. I hope that they will be all right. There were two goslings with their ma by the side of the road on route 140 in a very bad spot, where traffic isn't likely to stop. I have seen geese with young 'uns in some crazy places.
Big Mama, aka Maggie, the largest of the Highland Scottish cows looks preggers again. She is still nursing the calf from late last fall.
I always find something to worry about. So it goes.
Grapeshot
Friday, June 01, 2007
Starter Wife
I admit it. I watched The Starter Wife on USA channel last night. Sometimes you just want to eat choclate and watch chocolate. The program was better than I expected, and it's fun to see trendy people, trendy restaurants, trendy Malibu, well, you know. Here in Boston we are NOT trendy. This was evidenced today at lunch at Harvest in Cambridge, where the most stylish women in the patio area, (except for Grapeshot, of course) were Italian. And they were no spring chickens, either. I splurged and ordered a lobster roll. Lobster is gold-plated this summer, and I figured I should eat some before it's all gone or costs $50.00 for a roll. Good rift on Caesar Salad, too. We forewent dessert, because this is (Ha Ha) diet week. Lots of folks in Cambridge as Harvard graduation is coming up any day now and the city is trimming the trees, fixing the streets and all the good stuff. It was a bloody traffic mess today, so let's hope everything is fixed by g-day.
I set scenes from a couple books at Harvest. Right now I am doing mega-soul searching about what tragic flaw (of mine) is keeping my novels from finding an agent/publisher. Everyone admits it's not the writing, in the sense of bad writing. But obviously the plots, aka, stories aren't turning any heads. The computer must have changed life more in the last forty years than anything else, but it sure as hell doesn't sell novels. Who would have thunk that computer crime would be such a hard sell?
I should have been writing about quilting or cooking or gardening or something else I knew a bit about. Cats? Hey, that's been done to death. I have started a new rule that I don't bother to query any agent without a web site, because that agent would not be cool with computer stuff.
My main character is sympathetic. She is always taking care of people and so on. Of course there is a tad of promiscuity, but when did that ever stop a book from selling? Casanova?
The plots are ripped from the headlines with computer crime and downsizing and outsourcing all that good stuff. I'm really wracking my brain and it's wracking back. "They" say write what you love and I used to think I loved technology. Not so sure now. It certainly paid the bills for many years, and has given me (I think) some great plots and some cool characters.
It ain't working.
I'll give Festival Madness my best shot, but right now pessimism rules. The next two books will have NO technology. Not one bit. Not one byte. Luddites R Us.
Ludmilla
I set scenes from a couple books at Harvest. Right now I am doing mega-soul searching about what tragic flaw (of mine) is keeping my novels from finding an agent/publisher. Everyone admits it's not the writing, in the sense of bad writing. But obviously the plots, aka, stories aren't turning any heads. The computer must have changed life more in the last forty years than anything else, but it sure as hell doesn't sell novels. Who would have thunk that computer crime would be such a hard sell?
I should have been writing about quilting or cooking or gardening or something else I knew a bit about. Cats? Hey, that's been done to death. I have started a new rule that I don't bother to query any agent without a web site, because that agent would not be cool with computer stuff.
My main character is sympathetic. She is always taking care of people and so on. Of course there is a tad of promiscuity, but when did that ever stop a book from selling? Casanova?
The plots are ripped from the headlines with computer crime and downsizing and outsourcing all that good stuff. I'm really wracking my brain and it's wracking back. "They" say write what you love and I used to think I loved technology. Not so sure now. It certainly paid the bills for many years, and has given me (I think) some great plots and some cool characters.
It ain't working.
I'll give Festival Madness my best shot, but right now pessimism rules. The next two books will have NO technology. Not one bit. Not one byte. Luddites R Us.
Ludmilla
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
