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March 23, 2007
"Hatchet" may have saved a life
Michael Auberry, the 12-year old who was separated from his Boy Scout Troop during a camping trip and was recently found alive and well may have been helped by a book: "Hatchet" by Gary Paulsen. Lessons in the book, which is about a boy who survives for over 50 days in the wilderness after a plane crash, may have aided Michael, says his father.
If ever there was a good reason to read, it's this: it might just save your life.
Posted by sferrell at 9:15 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
March 21, 2007
Possible endings
As I'm currently working on what could (in some vague way) be considered a political thriller (maybe...) I found McSweeny's article on endings I could use to be exceedingly helpful.
I especially like this one:
"By the way," [PROTAGONIST] said with a knowing smile, "did I happen to mention that I'm black?"
Note: This ending exploits the white bias of the reader's imagination, and works best if you do not give away the surprise early. Be sure not to give the protagonist any stereotypical "black" characteristics, which you really should be trying to avoid anyway.
Posted by sferrell at 11:31 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
March 15, 2007
So... uh... how's that new novel you're working on?
Posted by sferrell at 9:32 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
March 14, 2007
Jonathan Lethem is giving it away.
Jonathan Lethem is giving the option on his book "You Don’t Love Me Yet" away to a filmmaker for free. He'll get a small cut of the total budget of the film, and ancillary rights to his book will be released after five years thereby allowing other artists to tell the story in another way, or use the characters in their own work (a sequel, a retelling, or another medium such as comics).
I think this is a brilliant idea.
Check out his "questions" section of his announcement. He claims to have come to this idea based upon his research into intellectual property and his concerns over the commodification of art. His response to it, giving away the rights and opening the material up for public response, is a wonderful way to straddle a between art and property. Imagine if STAR WARS or "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" or "The X-Files" had done something similar. Imagine if the creators of those properties had been willing to open up their creations for public response. I think that you would end up with a ton of garbage to be sure, but floating to the top would be some wonderful and authentic and exciting projects. There are so many well done "fan-fic" pieces out there, small films of Jedi Knights or Federation starships that might have helped reawaken and stimulate the original property owners in ways that they couldn't imagine.
The commodification of art has a long history, and it's resulted in legalese in the entertainment industry referring to artistic endeavors as "properties." Property is defended. Property is owned. Property is built upon through strictly controlled license. Art is supposed to stimulate, breed and breath. I'm reminded of Cervantes's writing of Part II of Don Quixote which he wrote in response to a rival sequel:
The spurious Avellaneda Segunda Parte
It is not certain when Cervantes began writing Part Two of Don Quixote, but he had probably not gotten much further than Chapter LIX by late July of 1614. About September, however, a spurious Part Two, entitled "Second Volume of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha: by the Licenciado (doctorate) Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda, of Tordesillas", was published in Tarragona by an unidentified Aragonese who was an admirer of Lope de Vega, rival of Cervantes.[12] Avellaneda's identity has been the subject of many theories, but there is no consensus on who he was. In its prologue, the author gratuitously insulted Cervantes, who not surprisingly took offense and responded; the last half of Chapter LIX and most of the following chapters of Cervantes' Segunda Parte lend some insight of the effects upon him. (Quoted from Wikipedia, see link above.)
Cervantes didn't hire a lawyer to sue the other writer, he responded to him. He outdid him. Art as a dialog.
I've actually given a lot of thought to an open project, something where a set of characters could be used as a jumping off point for other writers. I don't know what it would look like or how it would work, but it's definitely coming from the same place that Mr. Lethem's idea is coming from. In the end, plans like this might not amount to anything, but I think it's worth it to create an artistic dialog rather than simply another property.
Posted by sferrell at 12:45 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 13, 2007
POD-dy Mouth closes up shop
So long POD-dy Mouth, you'll be missed.
In the end, twas not POD which killed beauty, it was the beast of burnout.
Posted by sferrell at 1:06 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 12, 2007
Best laid plans, and all that...
Tonight begins a brave new adventure. Tonight is the night my television dies. Well, not dies. Gets very sick and weak. But not truly dead. Tonight is the night that I put away the remote and pick up the keyboard and begin typing the new novel I have been working on. I write everything out long-hand first, so I have to type the friggin' thing, and to do that, I have retired television on weeknights. I'm somewhat of a TV addict, so this is kind of a big deal to me. And by "somewhat" I mean "definitely." And by "definitely" I mean "definitely a really huge."
Wish me luck.
Posted by sferrell at 8:17 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
March 8, 2007
Can't believe how much this affects me.
Galleycat ruined the shock for me.
Captain America is dead. I would have found out anyway, I read the comic. Yes, I read comics and I'm in my thirties. I also like Star Trek, Star Wars and robots and monkeys. Occassionally my wife points at me and yells "Nerd."
"Geek," I correct her. "I'm a geek. Not a nerd."
"What's the difference," she asks.
"You wouldn't have married a 'nerd.'"
She walks away.
What really gets to me, beyond the death of Captain America himself, is how this character's death has affected me. I'm really sort of mourning. Like the death of Spock, or Kirk, or any other fictional death I've dealt with I recognize that it's NOT REAL. I know that. But it is real. And this one, Captain America, has something deeper in it.
Obviously, his death is a representation of the death of an era in the U.S. Whichever side of the political spectrum you may find yourself on, the symbolism of his death can't be missed. We aren't the same nation, perhaps never were the same nation, that we were in World War II, when Cap was created. I don't believe it was a better world then, but I do think there was less dirt in the air. Marvel may be putting Cap into the past because what he stood for is no longer the same.
I also wonder if there weren't discussions at Marvel about the ongoing investigations in the U.S. sports communities involving steroids and illegal performance enhancing drugs. Why would that matter? Steve Rogers, Captain America, was originally the 90 lb. weakling who wanted to go fight Nazis. He enlisted, but the only way the Army would let him go fight was if he enrolled in a secret super-soldier program. They shot him with their "super-soldier serum" and out came Captain America. In essence, that's steroids. I can't help but think that Marvel may have seen the handwriting on the wall: when sports figures are being torn open every day and blasted for using illegal and physically damaging chemicals to enhance their physical performance, how can Marvel defend a hero, dressed in red, white, and blue and named after the nation, who was created through performance enhancing drugs?
Marvel has certainly got plans to have a Captain America return. The costume is empty, and Steve Rogers is being buried, but the comic book isn't cancelled and the costume won't remain empty forever. I speculate that someone new will fill it, someone different than Steve Rogers to be sure, someone perhaps not so physically "perfect" nor morally perfect. Perhaps someone like Frank Castle, the Punisher, someone who bends rules more, who sees means justified by ends, who may symbolize what we our government seems to do in our name more and more.
In the end, Steve Rogers's death has touched me. It's made me think about heroism, and what sort of heroes my son will have, what icons he'll look at and dream of being. The fact that Steve Rogers won't be one is a little sad. Sad too is the fact that the only movie they ever got out of Captain America was a horrible, horrible piece of crap starring J.D. Salinger's son.
Posted by sferrell at 9:16 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
March 6, 2007
The power of the word
The New York Times today has a review of the new book by Zbigniew Brzezinski, "Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower." It is an analysis of Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II, and how their presidencies faced and shaped global issues. Politics aside (I don't aim to open a discussion on politics) I think that the review paints an interesting portrait of the power of writing, and the place it can and should hold in our culture. Mr. Brzezinski's arguments and analysis are best made in writing. Take a look at the review. Could you imagine what this would look like if it were an interview? If FOX NEWS or CNN tried to encapsulate his arguments, turn it into a sound-bite, it would be laughable. Even a longer form television or film version of his book would leave out the hard facts, it would have to, for time's sake. Some documentaries about Noam Chomsky are either horribly boring or amazingly trite. You simply can't encapsulate all thought. Sometimes the reality is that you need lots and lots of words slowly following one another, without interruption, without glitzy graphics, without handsome actors.
That we have people like Mr. Brzezinski, knowledgeable, intelligent, thoughtful, and hardworking people, who take the time to make arguments and back them with facts and lay them out in a logical fashion so that others can follow them is really, really remarkable. It's why the written word is so powerful and so necessary. As I was reading the review I was reminded why I'm so in love with writing, all writing, and why I'm so thrilled when my 19-month-old son happily makes the hand-sign for "book" and marches over to his little bookshelf in the corner of our livingroom and sits to study his boardbooks. He's even begun to point at the words and "read" them out loud. He knows there is something there, something Mom and Dad are trying to impart him with, and when I see that I think "Thank God. He is interested."
I guess today's post was just a love letter to the written word, but I think that's okay. Sometimes it's nice to step back and remember that we have a truly incredible act going on in our brain, when we look at a bunch of squiggles on a page and it makes your mind and imagination fire up and someone you don't know, somewhere else you've never been, alive or dead, makes you follow in their footsteps and think what they thought and invite you into a conversation which is real, meaningful and haunting.
Posted by sferrell at 9:43 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
March 5, 2007
You'd have to be crazy to be published by Bellevue
Bellevue Hospital has a literary imprint. Yes, that Bellevue Hospital. The one Barney Miller used to send all the mentally ill folks to. According to this NYTimes article, right now they only have a handful of books on their plate. However, it doesn't surprise me that they ended up with some fiction. That's because they have a literary journal.
Years ago I was almost published by them in that journal. Since then they've had stories which went on to be in "best of" collections. My reason for not getting in: in the time between submitting to them and getting their call, I published the story in a small online journal. That small journal is now gone. Gone gone gone. It disappeared very shortly after my story appeared on it, as a matter of fact. It was the first of several that disappeared after using my work. So, apparently, I'm the typhoid-mary of the literary world. I guess I really do need a hospital after all. To both help me with my infection (or my irrational self-deception) and to publish my work.
Posted by sferrell at 2:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Cavemen, this fall on ABC...?
I hate to admit that I would probably watch the possible ABC sitcom based on the Geico Cavemen. I love the commercials, and they remind me of one of Phil Hartman's funniest SNL skits: Caveman Lawyer.
Posted by sferrell at 12:24 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 2, 2007
I wonder what the humans are doing this morning?
Right now New York City is under a deluge. The rain started last night around midnight and hasn't stopped since. What little snow we had is gone, and the streets are being scrubbed clean by the rain (thank God).
What this means to me is that my morning sucked. My dog won't go out in the rain, so I had to walk him, drag him really, around the block to get him to do his "stuff." He did his "stuff" and then some. Let's just say I was one bag short, and leave it at that. By the time I got home I was already soaked. It was 7AM and I had to head to the subway to start my commute. I packed my books, my journal, a dry pair of pants (I kid you not; I changed when I got here and my wet pair are hanging on the back of my office door), and headed back out into the rain. My walk to the subway is about ten minutes, and I was wet to begin with, so when I reached the train I was dripping. I was wet to the skin from my waist down. It was as if I'd waded to the subway station.
The train came quickly and I got on and found a seat. I squished into a semi-comfortable position. I find being wet to the skin can put a damper on being comfortable. Now I'm trying to figure out how to keep my book bag, lunch, and umbrella from dripping on me or the people next to me. I finally say f@#$ it and put everything on my lap. Now comes the hard part. Do I write? My morning commute is my prime writing time. An hour or more of uninterrupted writing on my way into Manhattan, it's how I start my day and get work done and feel good about having to sit in an office with wet pants on the door for 8 hours. But I am so wet, and my hands are full of wet bags and umbrellas. I don't even have my iPod. I sit and stare out the window.
Finally I decide that, yes, I will write. So I pull out my journal, put the date in the corner of a fresh page and then... a dripping guy and his daughter sit down next to me and I realize I'm dripping on the page and the ink will run and I'm totally not going to be writing this ride. I'm miserable and I sit and stare out the window.
After a few stops I turn and realize that the train has partially filled up, that there are some interesting people in my car, and I try to watch them out of the corner of my eye.
The man with the little girl is holding her hand lovingly. When they come to their stop she stands and gives him a big hug, and then they leave. I can't help but look at my hand and wonder if I won't hold my son's hand like that when I take him to school in four years.
There is another little girl across the aisle. She's eating Cheerios, one at a time, by taking them out with two fingers, carefully, as if they are ants, and dropping them into her mouth from above. She gives off a little yummy "mmmm" after each one.
A woman sits near the little girl. She applies makeup as we go. And more makeup. And more makeup. By the time she leaves she looks like a clown with an office gig.
I realized that it had been a long time since I'd simply watched people, just sat back and took in the world without journaling, or editing, or reading, or viewing. I have consumed the world that's been packaged, through books and magazines and television and movies. I haven't just been watching the world as it is.
It turned out to be a good day to watch the humans.
Posted by sferrell at 9:22 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 1, 2007
Sudden flashes of inspiration and gift-giving.
Just a quick thought today: put everything you've got into the first draft, because you don't know what will pop out at the end. What I mean is, don't edit yourself thinking "this doesn't really have a place here." You can always pull out those a loose threads later, but in the early stages you don't know the loose threads from the tightly woven fabric. My current work in progress was going along fine when I had a major snow storm hit the city the main character was in. No reason for it, just a huge snow storm. I thought, at the time, "Don't know if I should keep this." Later, in a flashback scene, I found the character running through a building which had been scarred by arson, and which was catching fire again. The fire is put out using fire extinguishing foam. No particular reason why foam, but it was there. As I described how the foam covered everything I realized that it had inadvertantly made everything look as if it was covered in snow, building a very nice bridge back to the present events. The fire, the arson, the snow, the fire-extinguisher. None of those were planned, but they worked together to create a nice web of images that help with the internal drive of my main character.
They are what a writing teacher referred to as "gifts a writer gives to themselves." By not forcing my writing into a certain path, by allowing the unexpected, I gave myself room to breath later on.
Posted by sferrell at 9:29 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack