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Memorial Day Posting

5/31/2021

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NOTICE!!: Just Lucky, Book 2: Love and Hate is now available digitally on Amazon.
Hello. For those of you with at least a little interest in history, I offer this link: https://www.history.com/news/memorial-day-civil-war-slavery-charleston
It’s a bit of history relevant to Memorial Day that you may not have encountered. I hadn’t. On the ESPN show “Around the Horn,” participant Kevin Blackistone mentioned it, so I looked it up.
As for Lying Swords, the writing goes slowly. I cogitate for a day or three on how to move a scene forward, or to go to the next one, then I spend an hour or two writing it, and then another day or two to think about the next one.
On the reading front, I’ve finished Patterson and I’m back to Dean Koonz with his book The Good Guy. Part of the front cover is a post-it note that says “Kill me instead.”
The book starts with an interesting premise. The protagonist, Tim Carrier, a tall man and a very good bricklayer, is sitting in his usual place at the far end of his favorite bar. A man sits down next to him and asks, “You’re him, right?” or something like that. For some reason Tim responds, “Who else would I be?” Then the man gives him a large manilla envelope and says, “Here’s ten thousand now, another ten when she’s gone.” And the guy leaves. A little later another man shows up, clearly the man the first one expected to meet. Tim tells him he’s changed his mind, and gives him the ten thousand to not kill her. But there was a picture of the intended victim in the envelope, along with a name and address, and Tim does not give that to the second man.
The man leaves and Tim goes to the door to see the man’s car and get the license number. The would-be killer puts a red bubble light on the top of his car, like a non-uniformed cop would have, and drives away.
The tension builds from there.
It’s a good story so far, but, as I’ve mentioned before, sometimes Koonz gets a little too taken with the brilliance of his own descriptive abilities.
Next week two of our grandchildren will be here for the summer. I’m hoping I can get my grandson to climb under the sinks and perform some long over-due plumbing, with a little supervision from me. There are indications that may not work, but I can hope. I just replaced our garbage disposal and that nearly put me in the hospital. Getting old and un-limber is no fun, but better than the alternative. The flight from Utah should be an adventure, as he has never flown before, and they’ll have a several-hour lay-over on the way.
Short post today, but there’s nothing going on. One observation, though: I’ve come to the conclusion that if I was to read all the blogs and comments and newsletters made for writers, and took part in all the on-line classes and discussions, and did everything available to further my abilities as a writer, I’d have no time to write.
Good day to you all, and remember, any day can be a day of remembrance and memorial for those died in the defense of our nation.  
 

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Mothers' Day Posting

5/9/2021

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​The song mentioned in the previous post, “Build Me Up, Buttercup,” has this line in it: “I love you more than anyone, Darling.” Have you ever wondered exactly what the line means? Does it mean that I love you more than anyone else loves you, or that I love you more than I love anyone else? Or maybe it means both those things. In poetry, which, of course, song lyrics are and always have been, ambiguity like that is perfectly acceptable. Maybe even preferable. But in prose, that uncertainty of meaning should be avoided. It will probably be important to the plot or character development which of those three possibilities is the correct one.
But a well-written story won’t simply tell the reader which is correct, it will show. It might be something as simple as the character declaring his meaning in dialog, or, better yet, showing through actions and other conversations which of the three is true. The character might not know himself which of those specifics applies, and may have to discover it for himself. I can imagine a whole short story constructed around the theme of whether the protagonist loves Buttercup (or Princess Buttercup in The Princess Bride) more than he loves anyone else (including, perhaps, himself, family members, a best friend, etc.), or if he loves her more than anyone else (Prince, competing suitor, her family) loves her.
In The Princess Bride, Westley demonstrates that he loves Buttercup more than he loves anything or anyone else while other characters show clearly that no one loves Buttercup as much as Westley loves her.
Cable channel A&E has been doing biographies on pro wrestlers. Andre the Giant (Fezzik in The Princess Bride) was near the end of his career, and six years before his death when he made that movie. He’d had back surgery, but his shoulders were so bad that he couldn’t reach up or carry much of anything. When Buttercup jumps from the window and is caught by Fezzik, they had to lower her on a cable.
Andre the Giant (Andre Roussimoff) died alone in a Paris hotel room at age forty-six. He was in France for the funeral of his father.
How’s that for a segue, going from a soft rock and roll song used in an insurance commercial to the sad death of a professional wrestler?
On the writing front, I’ve submitted two short stories to two different magazines and query letters to two publishers for Saving Atlantis.
For the second one I made a slight change to the very beginning of Saving Atlantis. It’s primarily a move of some sentences either toward the beginning or away from it.
I also changed the beginning of Just Lucky, Book 1: Friends and Enemies. I eliminated the Forward and added some of that info to the First Interlude.
Book 2 should be published digitally very soon.
In writing Lying Swords I have finally come to one of the scenes, or episodes, that I first envisioned when I began writing. I wrote several hundred words, then stopped. It was not coming out the way I wanted. I haven’t deleted anything yet, but I am rewriting it in front of the original rejected version. When I get it finished, then I can delete the false start.
I’ve finished reading Double Cross and Cross Fire. Patterson’s books are pretty quick reads. I said last time that Alex Cross gets more than his share of psycho murderers. In Violets Are Blue, which was written before the others I’ve read, the psycho murderers are in California and Washington. He’s in California researching vampiric-type murders similar to the one in D.C.
Yep, more psycho murderers.
It tempts to me to see if I could write a novel featuring a protagonist that is a detective (or maybe a vigilante) and some villain that gets off on killing innocent people in imaginative and horrible ways. I’m not sure I have enough darkness within to do that for a novel-length story. A short story, yeah. But novel length? I think not.
Thank you for reading.
All you mothers, have a great day.

 
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    I'm a former teacher and current warehouse grunt that loves writing.

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