tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22850154818376821052024-02-07T02:26:37.648-08:00THE THRILLER GUYUnsolicited Advice for Writers and ReadersAllen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.comBlogger236125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-57082451901272175612017-12-03T14:28:00.003-08:002017-12-03T14:28:51.148-08:00New BlogI realize some of you have seen my new blog announcement on Facebook, if so, sorry, I don't mean to be piling it on here. For those who haven't, I have a <a href="http://my69drinks.blog/">new blog up at http://my69drinks.blog</a> I'd like you to check it out and give it a month to see if you want to keep reading it. Reading it in order, starting with the one that is up now, will have it make more sense.<br />
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I consider those of you where were faithful followers of Thriller Guy a special bunch, and I thank you for hanging in there over the years. Perhaps you could consider becoming followers of the new blog as well. And for those who are waiting for TG's return, who knows, maybe he'll wander onto the pages of the new blog.<br />
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Thank you,<br />
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allenAllen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-13911972734619283502017-06-29T06:47:00.000-07:002017-06-29T14:59:22.783-07:00So long, Thriller Guy<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It has become obvious that the always shadowy Thriller Guy
has not made the transition from scarred urban warrior crouched in his basement
lair to the kinder hills and small towns of North Carolina.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’ve thought about how to bring him to a natural, or unnatural
end. Maybe going down in a brisk pre-dawn firefight on some unnamed snow-capped ridge under siege from a legion of turbaned AK-wielding hajjis. He’d like that. Or
perhaps something more ironic, more absurd. I’ve always been amused by the
scene in the movie <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Who’s Afraid of
Virginia Woolf</i> when George sits Martha down after a long night of drinking and
tells her, in Richard Burton’s solemn, sonorous voice, that their son Jim was
killed that afternoon on a country road… “when he swerved to avoid hitting a
porcupine and crashed into a tree.” How ignominious. How completely un-Thriller
Guy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At any rate, it’s clear that he’s run out of writing advice
to sling around.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I began writing this blog almost exactly eight years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There have been 234, now 235, posts, and the
site averages a couple of thousand visitors a month. These are nowhere near
viral statistics, but in terms of years Thriller Guy has out-written probably
99.5% of all the bloggers who have declared their intentions and started in
posting on a dedicated site. Blogging is tough. My old, lamented, lost friend
Bhob Stewart used to say blogging was “public writing,” which is as good a
definition as I’ve ever come across. When you’re writing, it’s as if your
readers are in the same room with you, crowding around, looking over your
shoulder, nagging, “No, that’s bullshit, you’re an idiot,” as you struggle to
ignore their taunts. Then, you may ask, if it’s so damned difficult why are
there so many blogs? Because it’s also amazingly easy. All you have to do is
sign onto BlogSpot or one of the other sites and just start blathering. My rule
of thumb, or rather Thriller Guy’s rule of thumb, is don’t even call yourself a
professional blogger before you have at least 100 entries etched into the unforgiving
surface of the Internet. Then you can have a conversation with TG about what
it’s like to be a blogger, to come up with something new every time you sit
down at the keyboard and launch into another tirade. You think it’s easy
generating that much ire week after week, year after year?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’m going to drop a bomb here: Thriller Guy is not real; he
is a character. I’m sorry if some of you have been misled over the years,
thinking that TG is a tough, kick-ass grizzled ex-warrior who learned to craft
novels and was willing to share his writing experiences. I hope you haven’t
been too disappointed that he never has had time to get together and have a
beer and toss around war stories with you as you’ve requested. I’m going to
give it to you straight: Thriller Guy is actually a portly old guy who sits in
his basement tossing out advice on how to write fiction, particularly
thrillers. TG has never been in the military. He has never heard a shot fired
in anger. He has little experience with guns. Thriller Guy has never jumped out
of an airplane or crept around behind enemy lines. TG has never even seen a
real pair of Night Vision Goggles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">TG is actually something of an asshole. As a writing coach
and mentor he was designed to be irascible, opinionated, taunting, and
sometimes cruel. I, his creator, was sick of all the well-meaning writing mentors
who pat wanna-be authors on the head and bestowed their gentle nurturing advice
as if writing was somehow special work, done by special people, for whom a
harsh word or dearth of praise would throw these aspiring “artists” into fits
of melancholy, from which stygian depths they would never arise to craft their
masterpieces.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">No, it was always TG’s goal to give anyone who thought they
wanted to be a writer a swift kick in the ass in the hopes that reality would
kill off the weaker ones and dissuade those who didn’t have the stones to
continue in the face of unrelenting insults and ridicule. TG did not want to gently
bestow the lessons of his vast experience upon those supplicants who knelt at
his feet with their sad pleading eyes, TG wanted to take his experience and
beat them over the head with it. To chase them away, back to real lives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Of course it didn’t work. Writers seem to have a
predilection for torture, probably because real writing is one of the worst
tortures that deluded humans can wish upon themselves. There is a romanticism
about writing that is completely misplaced, but the more a professional writer tries
to drive that point into the thick, disbelieving skulls of the neophyte the
more ridicule these greenhorns beg for. As if rejection is somehow honorable.
It’s not. It’s painful. And it’s unfair. And there’s not a
goddamned thing you can do about it. TG could teach you all the tricks of the
genre trade and you’re still not going to get your fair slice of the pie. The
system is rigged, as that asshole Donald Trump would say. As always it’s rigged
in favor of the guys and gals who are already making a ton of money, and it’s
rigged against any novice no matter how talented he or she may be. I know
authors who have a dozen published books under their belt and they
still can’t find an agent, much less a publisher. Self-publishing? Go ahead and
hang onto your inspiring, hopeful stories about guys like Hugh Howey making it
big by publishing his own stuff with Amazon. Unfortunately, you aren’t Hugh
Howey and your self-published book will probably sell around five copies. I
know this from my own experience. All of my books are available in some form on
Amazon. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Allen-Appel/e/B001H6W7XE">You can buy them here.</a> But you probably won’t. Some of them sell
reasonably well, some of them don’t, and I don’t have a clue why there’s a
difference.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Don’t blame Thriller Guy for these sad truths. He tried to
stop you way back eight years ago when you came to him, begging in your
plaintive voice, “How do you do it, TG? How do you write a best-selling
thriller novel?” TG gave you all that he had learned over the years spent in
the filthy, cruel trenches of publishing. Parsed it out over 234 entries. All
the tips and tricks of the trade. And in the end it always came down to TG’s
mantra: Sit down; Shut up; Get to work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That’s the secret. If you do that, you’ll write your book.
It’s that simple. And that difficult. What so many of you are asking for is not
how to write a book, but how to write a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">successful</i>
book. How to make money writing a book, how to become famous by writing a book,
how to amass legions of fawning admirers by writing a book. Alas, Thriller guy
can’t tell you that. I can’t tell you that. No one is able to do that. And
beware those who tell you they have the secret and they would be glad to sell
it to you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Annie Dillard writes in her book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Writing Life</i>, that after Michelangelo died, someone found in
his studio a piece of paper on which he had written a note to his apprentice,
in the handwriting of his old age: “Draw, Antonio, draw, and do not waste
time.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Like the man said: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sit
down; Shut up; Get to work.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here’s one last secret. TG wouldn’t want me to tell this
one, he’d be embarrassed to admit it, but over the last eight years he and I
have met, via the Internet, because of this blog, quite a few excellent
writers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Writers who, if they persevere
against all the terrible odds that TG has thrown at them, are going to write
terrific books. Who are in the process of writing terrific books. So we’ll let
TG go, at least for now, to wander off into some other reality. No more
yelling. This is me, Allen, whispering into your ear…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hush, child. No more
questions. Sit down. Write. You can do this. Trust me. Write.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Onward. Always Onward.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 7;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Allen Appel <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 7;"> </span>Written
in his studio aerie,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 7;"> </span>Overlooking
his back yard,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 7;"> </span>On
a lovely day,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 7;"> </span>June
28, 2017<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-15279187044038049572017-03-15T08:48:00.001-07:002017-03-15T08:48:23.930-07:00TG Recommends<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As regular readers of this blog are aware, Thriller Guy
doers not review many novels, and in particular his friends' novels, on these pages. TG has stated the reason
before, but if you missed it, he learned early on that when he recommended a
book, friend or not, someone always wrote in a comment complaining that the
book was crap and TG was a fool who had caused the commenter to waste whatever
paltry money he/she had spent on the book. This was distressing to the friend,
and even TG was discomfited. And as regular readers know, TG is a hard man to
discomfit. (Yes, TG just looked the word discomfit up and learned that it
originally referred to those who had been killed in battle. “The ground was
strewn with the <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://nancypeacockbooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Nancy-elegant-cu-250-249x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://nancypeacockbooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Nancy-elegant-cu-250-249x300.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nancy Peacock</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
discomfited.” Stephen Crane)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But, even knowing that out there is some dimwit who will
probably write a crappy comment, TG is going to recommend a book by a friend: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Life and Times of Persimmon Wilson, </i>by
Nancy Peacock. TG knows that this book is not a thriller, so please don’t write in pointing out that the novel is not a thriller. The author, who
lives down the street from TG, has an interesting publishing history. TG is
aware that many of his readers are writers. All writers are interested in how
other writers get published, particularly, these days: Indie publishing? Legacy
publishers? Self publishing? TG asked Nancy about her publishing experiences for
the blog. We’ll get to that in a moment; first, the book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10100f; mso-bidi-font-family: "Bookman Old Style";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A former slave named Persimmon Wilson is accused of the murder
of his ex-master Joseph Wilson, and the kidnapping of Wilson’s wife. In the
street below his cell, carpenters are building his gallows. In the town there
is gathering excitement over the upcoming execution for Persimmon Wilson is
notorious. Not only is he a black man who killed a white man, and “degraded”
that man’s wife, but he is also the “black Indian” known as Twist Rope who
rode, raided, and terrorized Texas settlements and farms with the Comanche
Indians.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #10100f; mso-bidi-font-family: "Bookman Old Style";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The book begins… “I have been to hangings before, but never my
own.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Life-Times-Persimmon-Wilson-Novel/dp/1501116355/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1489592234&sr=1-1&keywords=Nancy+Peacock"><img border="0" src="http://d28hgpri8am2if.cloudfront.net/book_images/onix/cvr9781501116353/the-life-and-times-of-persimmon-wilson-9781501116353_hr.jpg" height="320" width="212" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #10100f; mso-bidi-font-family: "Bookman Old Style";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Life-Times-Persimmon-Wilson-Novel/dp/1501116355/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1489592234&sr=1-1&keywords=Nancy+Peacock">You can buy the book here</a>. TG says it’s a terrific read.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nancy Peacock speaks to Thriller Guy on her publishing
history…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"My first
novel <i>Life Without Water</i> was very well received. I published with a
small press without an agent. Lee Smith - another Hillsborough writer whom you
may have met - was my mentor and she mentioned my book to John Yow, editor at
Longstreet Press. She called me and told me to send him 3 chapters right away -
which I did. He convinced the house to take it on. The whole experience could
not have been better. Longstreet worked hard for that little book, sent me to
various venues, and got it reviewed in NY Times, Washington Post, and other
prominent places. The book was chosen as a NY Times Notable that year. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I sold my
next book <i>Home Across the Road</i>- agented - to Longstreet, and the
experience could not have been more different. Unbeknownst to me Cox Newspaper
that owned Longstreet was selling the house, and had found an in house buyer.
Knowing they had a buyer they did not care about the company, and the buyer had
not protected himself or his authors by having a clause in the contract saying
they needed to fulfill their current obligations. They didn't. At the time my
book was published and being reviewed (<i>NY Times</i> again, <i>Southern Living --</i> it was
Christmas) it was not available on any shelves. The publisher had simply
stopped printing it. This was heartbreaking to say the least, and at the time I
did not know what was going on. It was later that I found out and pieced it all
together. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This
experience taught me that anything can happen in publishing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Third book, <i>A
Broom of One's Own: Words on Writing, Housecleaning and Life</i> was sold to
Harper Collins. It is my only nonfiction book, and while it has received great
reviews on Amazon (Cheryl Strayed loved it) it has still not earned out its
advance yet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So I was
pretty discouraged about the whole thing - writing and publishing - by the time
Persy strolled into my mind with that opening line. I knew I wanted to follow
his thread - his story - but I was so heartbroken over my publishing history
(it had basically gone downhill book by book) that it was difficult to want to
write it. I felt like I needed more control over my writing life (maybe what I
needed was lower expectations) so I told myself I was going to write this book
and self-publish it. I wasn't going to go through the usual channels. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This actually
turned out to be a good decision - for me, for the experience, for the indie
version, and also for the traditionally published edition that just came out.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Good for me
and the experience because I truly got to see how much work goes into producing
a book. Of course it's easier if you're a publishing company with lots of
departments than if you are an author doing everything. But, self-publishing is
becoming more respected, and in my opinion more necessary. The publishing
houses are interested in big bucks, which makes sense, but it also means a
writer like me is competing (and receiving less of an advance) than a celebrity
who isn't really a writer but is courted and given a book deal. So many authors
who are good writers and deserve success are being left behind, and it's the
publishing industry that's doing this. So self-publishing is, in my opinion, a
fine thing to do and a fine statement to make. In my indie journey though I met
a few snobs, people who assume an indie book is not a good book. And many are
not, but many are. (As an aside I think it would be great to have a well-respected
review newspaper that covers only indie titles) But I digress, apparently!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was good
for the indie edition because <i>The Life and Times of Persimmon Wilson</i> won
the<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91%2B68hO6ouL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91%2B68hO6ouL.jpg" width="207" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Self published edition<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Writer's Digest Self Published Book Award in the mainstream novel category.
It also won Shelf Unbound's Award for best self published novel.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Good for the
new edition because I gathered blurbs for it and one of my blurbers sent it to
his agent, and that's how I landed a new agent. He liked the book a lot, but
when we initially spoke he felt skeptical that he would be able to sell it.
When it won the WD award he began sending it out, and within months had an
offer from Atria. I think this surprised him. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I promote
the book, I never forget or hide my self publishing history. I'm proud of both
editions. Both paths are really difficult, and I wouldn't say one is better
than the other as a path to fame and fortune. The take away on traditional
publishing though is that anything can happen, so to think it's the sun of
glory and fortune is foolish. I was foolish when I first got published. I've
found the key to be lowering my expectations while at the same time maintaining
faith."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nancy Peacock</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Next time TG
will discuss the lessons to be learned from this account.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-84220854391446455242017-02-03T07:31:00.002-08:002017-02-03T07:31:52.657-08:00Larry Speaks<h2 class="post-title" style="background-image: url(https://s2.wp.com/wp-content/themes/pub/bold-life/images/separator.png); background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border: 0px; color: #292929; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 48px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 538px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="color: #474534; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Book Reviewers Can be Jerks</span></h2>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #474534; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By Larry Kahaner</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #474534; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>My pal Larry blogs at <a href="https://nonfictionnovelist.wordpress.com/2017/01/13/why-i-chose-fiction-over-fact/">The Non-Fiction Novelist</a>. This is one of his blogs about book reviews. As a professional reviewer I'm passing it along to those of you who have been reviewed in publications or are reviewed on your Amazon book pages. I review for a living (such as it is) and I put up reviews for books I like on Amazon. I also have been reviewed for my fiction and my non-fiction many times. The great majority of my reviews have been positive -- a reviewer at a small newspaper in the mid-west once declared <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=allen+appel">my first time travel novel</a> as "the best book that had ever been written," hah! and I have been denounced as a writer of "pathetic rubbish," so I've seen it from both sides.</i></span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #474534;"><i>Larry has an excellent new novel out, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/USA-Inc-Mike-Wardman-Novel-ebook/dp/B01NBMDW4J/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1486135019&sr=1-1&keywords=usa+inc+kahaner">USA, Inc. Buy it and submit a revie</a>w.</i></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #474534;"><i><a href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51pcJl-2D6L.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51pcJl-2D6L.jpg" width="199" /></a></i></span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="border: 0px; color: #474534; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>OK, back to Larry.</i></span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #474534; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whether you are a seasoned author or just published your first book, reviews play tricks on your self-confidence as a writer. Like everything else in life, some people like your stuff and some people hate it (thanks, Captain Obvious) and there’s nothing you can do about it.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #474534; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every book has its supporters and detractors, and if your head isn’t screwed on, it can be a career killer.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #474534; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let me stipulate up front that most reviewers, indeed, the vast majority of reviewers are writing honest, objective reviews. This blog is about the other ones.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #474534; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I offer some points to remember if you decide to read your reviews. I say ‘if’ because many successful authors never read reviews. I used to think this was BS, but it’s true. These folks understand the reality of reviews.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #474534; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And here they are:</span></div>
<ul style="border: 0px; color: #474534; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 24px 24px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 48px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reviews are supposed to be objective, but they’re not. Readers bring themselves into the review based on their own beliefs. Here’s a personal example. I published a book titled <em style="border: 0px; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">AK-47: the Weapon that Changed the Face of War</em>. Pro-gun people said I blamed all the world ills on this ubiquitous weapon. Anti-gun people said that I glorified the weapon. Both can’t be true. Right? I even read one review that chided me for not including more pictures of guns. Hello… it was not a gun-porn book, but a political view of the world’s most-used weapon.</span></li>
</ul>
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<br /></div>
<ul style="border: 0px; color: #474534; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 24px 24px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 48px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some reviewers and readers are pissed off about a specific subject matter so they give a low rating hoping that potential readers will ignore a book. Think books about climate change. Others love the topic so they give a high rating hoping that others of their ilk will buy it and somehow bolster the cause. Neither reviews have anything to do with a book’s merit. Case in point: I once wrote a book about a company called MCI (not the MCI WorldCom that was later involved in a scandal). The title was <em style="border: 0px; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">On The Line</em>. The company beat AT&T in court and this opened the way for competitive long distance phone service. I got hate reviews from those who were angry that AT&T was no longer the country’s de facto monopoly phone company and venerable Ma Bell (youngsters, stay with me on this) was being broken up. Others were glad to see the old monopoly split into regional companies which eventually ushered in the telecommunications system we have today. I even received a letter from David Packard, head of Hewlett-Packard, chiding me for writing about this start-up company which he believed would lead to the downfall of Western civilization. What about the book’s merits? Didn’t really matter. And no sour grapes here by the way. The book did really well.</span></li>
</ul>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #474534; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<ul style="border: 0px; color: #474534; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 24px 24px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 48px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last one: Reviewers are swayed by what the reviewer thinks the author stands for. The classic case is Salman Rushdie who penned a novel in 1988 titled <em style="border: 0px; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Satanic Verses</em>, which caused a stir among many in the Muslim community. They accused Rushdie of blasphemy, and in 1989 the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie. Many death threats followed and Rushdie went into hiding with armed guards. To show their support for Rushdie and their dislike of the Ayatollah many people bought the book – it became a best seller – and critics offered rave reviews because they supported free speech and wanted to strike a blow against radical Islam. It had been reported at the time that many Western consumers bought the book but never read it. They just wanted to make a point. Rushdie says he is not anti-Muslim. He was born into a Muslim family and now considers himself an atheist. By the way, many reviewers wrote about the controversy itself and not the book. That’s not their job.</span></li>
</ul>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #474534; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My final point is this. You can’t please everyone. Mind you, I’m not talking about warranted, even constructive criticism, but make sure a review is about your book and not about you or anything else before you react. Write your book the best way you know how and work on having a thick skin or don’t read reviews at all. Your choice.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #474534; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Coda: I have a <a href="http://thethrillerguy.blogspot.com/" style="border: 0px; color: #da0a0a; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">good writing buddy </a>who also is a reviewer for a respected trade publication. I often send him my blogs to gut-check them before posting. He had this remark: “Perfectly reasonable blog, though it will never make anyone feel better about a bad review. They always hurt, even if you know you were treated unfairly.”</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #474534; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">—</span></div>
Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-58734976041331432792016-12-23T08:53:00.000-08:002016-12-23T08:53:12.616-08:00Pie!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.wilsonspies.co.uk/images/pies/largeporkpie-full.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.wilsonspies.co.uk/images/pies/largeporkpie-full.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This entry should be on my memoir blog, but that’s on hiatus
at the moment, so I’ll put it here for now…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I was probably around ten-years-old, right around
Christmas, I was walking by the Bonnet’s house up the street from us. They
lived on the corner of Maxwell Avenue and 19<sup>th</sup> street. They were a
numerous clan, I can’t remember how many kids there were, and they were a lot
of fun, parents and children. Mr. Bonnet was in the back yard digging in a snow
bank. As I watched, he dug up a large cooking pot, brushed the snow off and
went up on the porch. I asked him what he was doing. He told me he had made a
pork pie last night and had buried it in the snow overnight to solidify. Did I
want a piece?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pork pie! I had never heard of such a thing and couldn’t even
conceive of it. Pies were sweet and they certainly didn’t contain meat. No
thanks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Several years later I took him up on his offer of the
Christmas Pork Pie. Of course it was fabulous. I recently found Mrs. Bonnet’s
recipe in an old cookbook she wrote for her family. Here it is, in her words, a
Christmas gift from Thriller Guy, Allen Appel, and all the other Appels. It is
not necessary to bury the pie in a snow bank and let it sit overnight, but it’s
a nice touch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dick Bonnet’s Pork
Pie<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“This recipe should be in a book by itself. It’s not a meat
recipe, or a pie recipe; at least not the usual meat or pie recipes. But it
definitely belongs in this book. It’s not something you can “whip up” in a
hurry, and certainly no way to impress guests, unless they are British.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It has always been dad’s late evening winter snack. Also,
Grandma has made it for all your Uncles and Aunts and has actually <u>mailed </u>it
on occasion. Absolutely indestructible!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first time I ever went to visit Grandma and Grandpa
Bonnet, way back in 1947, we arrived in the late evening in a snow storm and
Grandma had made a pork pie for Dad. Maybe she wanted to discourage me! Anyway,
I ate it “to be polite” and have eaten it “to be polite” ever since. One
suggestion, don’t try to make it yourself until you have watched the master
(Dad) make at least one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is not an ordinary recipe – This is ANOTHER BONNET
CHALLENGE.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">6 cups flour<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1 ¼ cup lard<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1 ½ tsp. salt<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">¾ c water<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Boil lard and water until lard is melted. Add flour and salt.
Knead until smooth and elastic – about 10 – 15 minutes or when it no longer
falls apart and has the consistency of putty. Shape dough on a cookie sheet,
building sides about ¼” thick and about 3” high. So it will hold meat. Save ¼
of dough for cover.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Get a very lean piece of pork, about three pounds. I usually
get a fresh ham and use what is left for a small roast. A “picnic” shoulder is
cheaper, but has a lot more fat to cut off. Cut meat in ¼” cubes, cutting off
all fat. Meat cuts easier if it has been left in the freezer about an hour. Put
in a bowl and salt and pepper generously. Put pork in molded, unbaked crust.
Roll out top crust with rolling pin. Cover pie, pinching edges together so it
is tight. Cut an X in the center of top so steam can escape. Bake in oven for 2
hours. The last 20 minutes of baking brush top and sides with egg white or milk
to make it shiny. Raise temp to 400 degrees for last 20 minutes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While pie is cooling, boil 1 cup water with 2 bouillon
cubes, one pk. Gelatin and an onion. Boil about 15 minutes. When pie is
completely cool, add this mixture to X in top of pie, a little bit at a time. Refrigerate
several hours before serving.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Or, as noted above, bury in snow overnight.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Merry Christmas everyone. Don’t forget to go to audible.com
and <a href="http://www.audible.com/search/ref=a_search_tseft__galileo?advsearchKeywords=allen+appel&x=0&y=0">order your audio copy of the Christmas classic, The Christmas Chicken.</a> You
can listen to it while you cook up your Pork Pie. </span></div>
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Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-89156011094917606432016-11-29T14:15:00.000-08:002016-11-29T14:15:52.408-08:00Sorry.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.lulu.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/writers-block-vintage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.lulu.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/writers-block-vintage.jpg" height="177" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes, I know, it’s been awhile. I apologize to those anxiously
waiting me to tell them the secret of how to work a decent writing schedule
into their day without upsetting regular life. Here’s the awful truth: it’s not
going to happen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Back in my youth, what the kid’s call my hippie days, the
late fifties and early sixties, women were throwing off conservative conventions
and trying on lifestyles that allowed them to work full time, raise children,
have partners who were equal helpers and lovers, lead healthy lifestyles, look
good and be cool. In other words, women were determined to Have It All. There
were scores of self-help books advising women how to accomplish this goal. A
quick look at Amazon shows me that there are still scores of books claiming the
same thing: Yes, Women, You CAN have it all. There are no books telling writers
that they can have it all as well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The thing is, you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">can’t</i>
actually have it all. Or at least you can’t have it all and do everything
effectively. Yeah, I know, I’m going to get pushback on this, so go ahead, send
me your comments, take me to task.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you’re going to write, especially if you’re going to
write novels and live a reasonably sane life at the same time, some elements are
going to be short-changed. Either Life or The Novel. The question now is: Can I
Live a Life Where One or Some of the Things I’m Doing Are Not Going to be Done
All That Well Some of the Time, or Even All of the Time While Devoting Time and
Effort to My Writing? It makes for a very unwieldy, not very hopeful book
title, one that’s not going to sell many copies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first thing that my friends and those I talk to about
this problem say is they will put their novel off until they retire. This is a
sound solution, particularly if you are old like Thriller Guy, but what if you
die first? Or what if you keep putting off retirement because you want or need
to earn more money. And worst of all, what if you wait, sometimes for many
years, and when you finally do have the time to write you find that you just
can’t do it, for any number of reasons: you no longer have the stamina, (trust
me, it’s hard physical work and you’re not as young as you used to be,) you
don’t have the ability to force yourself into the chair in front of the
keyboard, you find it too painful, or it’s just too much damn work. And not fun
at all. (Trust me again, if you are approaching it in a workmanlike manner,
it’s not going to be much fun. See the archives; Thriller Guy has written on
this aspect of The Writing Life many times.) So I don’t recommend putting it
off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For one thing, you’re wasting valuable time. It is said that
scientists do all of their useful work when they’re young, and I could make an
argument for novel writers as well. Yes, I can think of many exceptions, but
common sense and simple numbers bear this out. If you decide to keep a notebook
of good novel ideas over the course of a year you’re going to have a hell of a
lot more good ideas if you actually think about them and write them down than
if you put it off until you retire. Duh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you try to write every day, or once a week, or on
vacation, or on the way to work on the train, or while on airplanes, you may
not be able to scrape together enough time to write a novel in a year, but
you’re sure as hell going to get more done stealing time than if you didn’t try
at all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And if you don’t want to steal the time, ask those who are
involved with you in life to let you borrow some, or to even give you some,
even though it might make things harder on them. You will be surprised how many
partners and spouses are willing to give those they love a chance to do
something they feel so strongly about.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So ask for help. Negotiate. Try to manage at least a partial
plan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stay up later. Get out of bed
earlier. Do less around the house. Do less with your family (as long as
everyone understands.) Just don’t be a pig. Don’t be an asshole. And you don’t
need to feel guilty. Or go ahead and feel guilty, it will make you work harder.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You can’t have it all, but you may be able to have enough of
it to make your life feel all right. Not great, maybe, but good. It might take
you longer, you will have to make sacrifices, but you can add pages to the
pile, ideas to the notebook. At the very least, you’ll have more than if you
did nothing. More than if you wait. Is that enough?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Probably not. But it’s better than quitting, giving up, or
never starting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ask nicely.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Get to work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-50962441232896537422016-10-14T07:47:00.000-07:002016-10-14T07:47:00.781-07:00All You Have to Do Is Write Two Pages a Day...<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But it sounded so good. I believe it was Stephan King who first offered this cruel advice, but I passed it along just like a lot of other
writing coaches<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">. Write two pages a day, </i>we
said, confidently, smugly,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> and in one
year you will have a book. </i>Yes, it’s true, if you write two pages a day
every day for a year you’ll have 700 pages of written material.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But you’re not going to have a book. Even if you could
actually do this, I contend you wouldn’t even have a workable draft to rewrite.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of all the problems I see my writer friends facing, finding
the time to work is the most intractable, heartbreaking, guilt-inducing
difficulty they face. My first advice (actually, my first advice is to not
start in the first place, so this is my second advice) is to find a girlfriend,
boyfriend, partner who has a good job or is wealthy and who is ok with you
taking time to simply write. Unfortunately, finding this person is not easy.
Neither is hacking out time to write from a regular life – having a job or a
family. So then along comes King who says it’s not that difficult to find
enough time to write two pages a day, and he’s right. That’s about 500 words if
you double space it, and you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">should</i>
double space it, not all that much when you sit down and do it. But…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Far more goes into writing a novel than just putting words
on paper. Putting words on paper is typing. It’s finding the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">right words </i>that is the difficult part.
So much goes into constructing a novel beyond the writing: voice, structure,
POV, plot, characterization to name just some of the more important aspects.
All of these variables have to be thought through; connections have to be made.
So when are you supposed to figure all of this out? When you’re writing your
two pages a day? Yes, it’s possible, but then your two pages a day will be
taking four or more hours a day, which blows apart the notion that an extra
half an hour or even an hour stolen from some part of your normal life is going
to put you on the path of a completed novel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It takes me a year to write a novel. I work on it every day,
all day. I do the physical, writing part for around four hours; rewriting may
take up another couple of hours. The business part – dealing with publishing
aspects, the Internet, goofing around when you should be working, etc. – takes
another couple of hours. Now if you’re regular civilian -- meaning you have a normal
job -- you put in your eight hours and then you’re done. (Yes, yes, I know,
many people have far more demanding jobs that they work on for long hours.) But
if you’re a writer working on a project as large as a novel, you’re still not finished
when you get your eight hours in because the damn thing gets lodged in your
head and your brain works on it while you’re doing everything else – living
your life. When you’re eating, sleeping, driving, putting gas in your car,
shopping, watching television, working out. When you’re conscious or
unconscious.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lawrence Kasden, the screenwriter, once said, “Writing is
like having homework for the rest of your life.” He was correct. But it’s much
worse than that. Writing is having an obsession for the rest of your life. How
you deal with that obsession is the writer’s constant dilemma.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh look, I’ve finished my two pages. 550+ words. I guess I’m
finished for the day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Actually, I haven’t even started on my own work. Blogging is
extra, something I have to fit in around and into my normal writing time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So what’s the answer?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To be continued.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-43116020522315230862016-10-08T06:41:00.000-07:002016-10-08T06:41:25.878-07:00Moving Is Like Writing a Novel, Sort Of<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://dumbomoving.com/wp-content/uploads/moving-boxes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://dumbomoving.com/wp-content/uploads/moving-boxes.jpg" height="112" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They say moving is one of the most stressful events in a
person’s life, second only to the death of a loved one. I believe it. But it occurred
to me recently as I was driving down I-95 for the fifth time, shuttling between
suburban Maryland and my new hometown in North Carolina, trying to keep straight
in my mind a list of things I had to remember to do while concentrating on not
crashing my loaded car, that the mental contortions that I was going through
were, or at least they felt so to me, just like those my brain undergoes when I
am in the throes of writing a novel. In both instances there are just too many
things one needs to remember, and not only remember but constantly keep in mind
because one event almost always influences another.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Did I remember to have the utilities turned off? On? Has the
realtor put in the closing extension paper? Did the termite guy turn in his
report? Did the movers deliver the boxes? Did I remember to put in a scene in
Chapter One about the restraining order, or did I just think that I should do
it? Is there enough backstory about Maria? Does Trevor need a Dark Secret in
his past? What the hell is going to happen in the end?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Look out! Jesus, where
did that truck come from? Where am I? Richmond! I can’t be in Richmond already.
Where the hell did the last 45 miles go?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m sure you’ve had the same experience: you’re alone in the
car on a trip, you’re driving along and suddenly you notice you’ve been on
autopilot for X number of dangerous miles. This lost time might have been spent
in simple reverie, but in the two experiences I’m discussing here, Moving and
Novel Writing, you can blame the intense mental work involved with each.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And that’s just the technical details, the lists of Things
To Do. That’s to say nothing of the extreme pain that involves both. Most
people have the experience of at least one big-time move in their lives. Say
from a house of many years where you’ve raised a family and piled up all
the crap that one collects and suddenly you have to figure out what to throw
away and what to take with you. Same thing with a book. You’ve piled up many
pages over the years it’s taken to produce a draft and suddenly you realize the
damn thing needs to be drastically cut (every novel needs to be cut) so you
agonize over what’s important – to you and to the book – and throw out what
isn’t. So that’s what you’re doing hurtling south on I-95 at 75 miles an hour.
Throwing things out, making lists, rearranging furniture and material.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Look out, world. There’s a guy on the highway with 14 boxes
of books and other assorted crap in the back of his vehicle and he’s got a lot
on his mind. Or maybe he’s a novelist and he’s blocking out a scene where the
sailing ship has an encounter with a white whale. In either case, he’s
dangerous. Trust me, I know. That guy is me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-51742828742236154782016-08-26T09:30:00.000-07:002016-08-26T09:30:00.324-07:00Coincidence, or Not?<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Allen-Appel/e/B001H6W7XE">First of all, Thriller Guy would like to thank all of you for buying Allen Appel's books. Trust me, the man needs the money to fund the next chapter of his life. <span style="color: #434343;">Lots of books on his Amazon page. If you finished the Pastmaster Series there are other standalones, and why not a novella or two?</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="color: #434343;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #434343;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thriller Guy is in the process of
moving. His home, not this site. Do not fret, he will reappear with some
regularity once the pain of ripping up roots and relocating is
finally finished. In the meantime, TG will steal various interesting posts and
thoughts from other sites and put them up here. This will be somewhat random,
but what is Thriller Guy himself but Somewhat Random?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://lithub.com/how-to-write-coincidence-the-right-way/" style="color: #434343;">The following is from LiteraryHub </a><span style="color: #434343;">and is brilliant writing advice. TG comes across Coincidence, usually
forehead-slappingly obvious and laughable, in many of the thrillers he reads
and reviews. This sort of crude writing is part of the reason that thriller
writers don’t get no respect in the general literary community. So read this,
no matter what genre you’re working in. TG is going to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Kite-String-Write-Spontaneity-Control--/dp/0525428542/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1472227532&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Kite+and+the+String">buy this lady’s book</a>,
because if the rest of it is as smart as this piece is, it’s going to be
invaluable. Yeah, it;s long and requires some thought, but let's show those snooty Literary Writers that we <o:p></o:p></span></span><span style="color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">genre folk can learn and apply just as well as they can.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">HOW TO WRITE COINCIDENCE THE </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">RIGHT WAY</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">FROM E.M. FORSTER TO FLANNERY
O'CONNOR, HOW WRITERS MANIPULATE ALL OF US</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #7b7371;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By <a href="http://lithub.com/author/alice-mattison/"><span style="color: #b0001b; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Alice Mattison</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">One way to use coincidence and
make it work is to have nothing turn on it. Coincidences </span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Kite-String-Write-Spontaneity-Control--/dp/0525428542/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1472227532&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Kite+and+the+String" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51Bc33SysmL._AC_US160_.jpg" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">feel illegitimate when
they solve problems. If the story doesn’t benefit from the coincidence, it’s
simply pretty and suggestive. Another way to make a coincidence work is to
begin a story with it. Make it the reason there’s a story to tell in the first
place. A third is to establish that the community in which your story takes
place is one in which coincidence is part of the landscape. People in my town,
New Haven, Connecticut, revel in coincidence, and we claim it happens here all
the time: you know everyone in more than one way. Maybe this is true in all
cities of a certain size—small enough that the barista will turn out to be your
office mate’s daughter; large enough that you’ll be surprised.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 11.0pt .5in; text-autospace: none; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">It also helps to make coincidence
unobtrusive. There’s a wild coincidence in E. M. Forster’s 1910 novel <i>Howards
End </i>that doesn’t seem to bother most readers<i>. </i>Helen Schlegel, one of
the two sisters who are the book’s main characters, for complicated reasons
brings a working-class</span> </span><span style="color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">couple she has befriended to a
wedding reception—and it turns out that the woman she brings was once the
mistress of the bride’s father, Henry Wilcox, whom Helen’s sister, Margaret, is
engaged to marry.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">Margaret is the character through
whom we experience all this. The former mistress, Jacky, is drunk, Henry comes
forward to try to get rid of her, and Jacky greets him, “If it isn’t Hen!”
Margaret, who has no idea what Jacky means, apologizes for the awkward
interruption. Henry, recognizing Jacky, imagines that Margaret and Helen have
devised a plot to expose him. He says, “Are you now satisfied?”— which baffles
Margaret even more. Finally, after a painful page, Henry says, “I have the
honor to release you from your engagement,” and Forster says of Margaret,
“Still she could not understand. She knew of life’s seamy side as a theory; she
could not grasp it as a fact. More words from Jacky were necessary—words
unequivocal, undenied.” At that point Margaret begins to speak, stops herself,
and then finally says to Henry, “So that woman has been your mistress?”</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">None of the characters know
what’s going on, and in the confusion, it’s unlikely that anybody notices that
the author is manipulating all of us, characters and readers. He’s distracted
us by concentrating on Margaret’s psychology. She can’t grasp what has
happened, not because it’s unlikely that the single lower-class person her
sister has befriended should be her fiancé’s former mistress, but because she
doesn’t understand life and sex. The <i>coincidence </i>isn’t important to
Margaret.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">Another way to make coincidence
work is to put the story into a slightly unfamiliar universe, as in farce—a
universe where coincidence is part of the joke. Flannery O’Connor’s story “A
Good Man Is Hard to Find” is not farce, but the blatant (though useful to the
story) coincidence in it doesn’t bother readers; I’ve never heard anyone
mention it.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">A grandmother scares her family
with tales of an escaped convict, The Misfit. She, her son, and his wife and
children set out on a trip through Georgia, where The Misfit is thought to be
hiding. The family has a car accident, and the person who comes along is The
Misfit, who kills them all. The grandmother is whiny, sneaky, and selfish, and
every bad thing that happens to the family until The Misfit arrives is her
fault. When she breaks out with her son’s name, “Bailey Boy, Bailey Boy,” at
the end, we feel love in the story for the first time.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">Why does the coincidence work?
You might think its success had to do with Flannery O’Connor’s religious
universe. Just before The Misfit shoots the grandmother, she looks at him
closely and says, “Why you’re one of my babies.” The grandmother has led this
family into evil, evil that is her opportunity. In a universe with God in
charge of it, even the difficult, opaque God of Flannery O’Connor, a family can
be led, for a reason, down the only dirt road in Georgia where an escaped
convict lurks. But nothing in the story suggests that the coincidence is
connected to its religious message.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">One way to make a coincidence
feel less clumsy is to have the author acknowledge that what she is describing
is improbable. But O’Connor doesn’t. There’s no disclaimer, no apology, no
paragraph saying that sometimes the strangest things happen.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">Not only does the coincidence
work, but it gives me the same sort of pleasure as coincidences in my life. It
delights me. I think the coincidence is O’Connor’s way of letting us know we’re
in a slightly skewed place in which what happens does not exactly follow the
rules we’re used to.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">But the main reason the
coincidence works may be that the characters are so stupid that they don’t know
coincidence is surprising. The grandmother predicts that they will meet The
Misfit, and they do, like people hearing a weather forecast and encountering
rain. The narrative voice is almost always as stupid as they are. Here is the
grandmother in the car.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">She said she thought it was going
to be a good day for driving, neither too hot nor too cold, and she cautioned
Bailey that the speed limit was fifty-five miles an hour and that the patrolmen
hid themselves behind billboards and small clumps of trees and sped out after
you before you had a chance to slow down. She pointed out interesting details
of the scenery.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">Only later comes a different kind
of sentence:</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">There was a pistol shot from the
woods, followed closely by another. Then silence. The old lady’s head jerked
around. She could hear the wind move through the tree tops like a long
satisfied insuck of breath. “Bailey Boy!” she called.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">This narrator would be more than
smart enough to point out that running into The Misfit was highly unlikely, but
this narrator isn’t in evidence at that point in the story. So O’Connor’s
coincidence is something like Forster’s. The <i>characters </i>aren’t aware of
it, or wouldn’t call it a coincidence. There’s so much that the characters
don’t get, in this story, that the unlikeliness of the coincidence is just
something else that’s beyond them. Like Aunt Sarah, who didn’t know that
finding a five-dollar bill was remarkable, they don’t know enough about art to
notice the coincidence; they think they’re just in life. Coincidences happen in
life; they are suspect only in art.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">I’ve been arguing for giving your
characters actions to perform, insisting that if fiction only explains how
people feel—what is going on for them inwardly—it doesn’t fully use its
capacity to keep a reader engaged. Making interior experience clear, on the
other hand, by finding equivalents for it in external events, or finding
external events that resonate with feeling, is endlessly interesting, because
we can think up endless numbers of situations that embody the struggles of the
inner life, and many events feel like embodiments of inner dramas. Even in
ordinary life, you know that the day you receive an impossible assignment at
work will be the day you come home to discover that the dishwasher has flooded
the kitchen floor. Isn’t resonance what makes one event worthy of going into a
story and another not worthy? Stories that don’t work sometimes include long,
boring scenes in which people do something like clean a car window. The trouble
is not that nothing is happening but that what happens has no connection to
strong feeling, to the inner life. Unless, of course, it’s a story like Andre
Dubus’s “The Winter Father,” in which a man who doesn’t live with his children
takes them to dinner, then has a conversation with them in his car, outside his
ex‑wife’s house.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">Next morning when he got into his
car, the inside of the windshield was iced. He used the small plastic scraper
from his glove compartment. As he scraped the middle and right side, he
realized the grey ice curling and falling from the glass was the frozen breath
of his children.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">Consider the morality play, in
which abstract qualities like good and evil take form as characters. In the
fifteenth-century English play <i>Everyman</i>, a man is told by a character
named Death that he must undertake a journey from which he won’t return. All
his ordinary friends (Fellowship, Kindred, and so on) refuse to go with him,
but he is finally accompanied by Knowledge and Good Dedes. We still write books
about journeys because we are interested in inner journeys; we still write
books about conflict because we have taken notice of some inner conflict. Once
we consider action not as the sign of cheap fiction, but as the way any fiction
embodies the life within us, then it’s clear that no single kind of action is
superior to any other kind. Anger and conflict can be expressed by means of a
novel about a war, but also by a novel about a conflict in the workplace or in
a family. There is such a thing as the story or novel in which nothing happens,
but that’s not the same as the story or novel that makes us care intently
whether or not a flower will be picked and then shows us a character
surreptitiously picking the flower.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">But what makes us care whether
the flower is picked or not? A beautiful description of the flower won’t do it,
and a pathetic description of the person who doesn’t want it picked won’t do
it. What will make us care is some other action or conflict that is going on at
the same time and coincides with the picking of the flower: that is, some
action that belongs by coincidence. Coincidence, <i>Webster’s Third New
International Dictionary </i>says, means “the concurrence of events or
circumstances appropriate to one another or having significance in relation to
one another but between which there is no apparent causal connection.” That
could mean my roommate meeting the man from the gas company under the crepe
paper streamers, but it could also mean Stephen Dedalus, in James Joyce’s <i>Portrait
of the Artist as a Young Man</i>, breaking his glasses when he is small and
defenseless in a harsh place. Appropriateness, that is, can be the damnedest
thing ever, or it can simply be suggestive and interesting. Coincidence could
mean the concurrence of somebody’s inner sorrow with the privations of the
Great Depression or with the anxiety and frustration of the war in Vietnam,
Iraq, or Afghanistan. It could mean The Misfit in Flannery O’Connor’s story
meeting the grandmother, a different kind of misfit. Essentially, coincidence
is the coming together of two events. Of course, these coincidences can be
clumsy and manipulative as well: you’ll need to figure out a way to make your
ordinary eighteenth-century Bostonian part of history without having Paul
Revere’s horse step on his foot.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">If, as we make up any story, we
start with one event and ask ourselves what else might be happening, we risk
obvious coincidences and correspondences, but we give ourselves an exciting
opportunity: the chance to bring into our stories events that will make them
not merely plausible but arresting. “What else might be going on in the life of
this character?” is a question that is not hard to answer, and if we are open,
as we write, to the strong feeling in our work, the possibilities that come to
mind will often turn out to enliven our stories and tell us more than we knew
about what’s going on in them.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">Coincidence is often what gives
fiction its chance to mean something. When two things come together, improbably
or not, a spark is struck. Making those things happen simultaneously suggests
that meaning is just beyond the surface. Many of us are in rebellion against
meaningfulness. Randomness is cool and anything else is slightly nauseating,
the sort of profound philosophy that can be inscribed on mugs printed with
little rainbows, or posted on Facebook. The risk is that the author is seen
scrambling around making it happen, caring too much about meaning. Coincidence
is risky.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">Coincidence is risky, but risk is
good, we all know that. When one of my sons was in a writing program in high
school, he was <i>graded </i>on risk-taking. “Jacob got an A-minus in risk,” I
told anyone who’d listen. Aren’t we looking for guidance in writing that,
unlike the directions provided by rules and formulas, will be unsafe? Of
course, it’s risky—and often admirable—to write openly about true personal
hardship and pain. It’s also risky to make up story. If the dictates of craft
are safe and limiting, the suggestion that we make an event happen, and try to
sense what other event might be going on at the same time, is not just risky;
it’s stimulating. The kite soars; ideas come.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">Using coincidence is part of our
opportunity to focus on story, on the way story offers meaning and solace and
delight. There is loveliness in things happening and then happening some
more—and happening simultaneously—whether on a small or a grand scale. Anything
we describe—art or music or sex or a heavy rainstorm—is in the story by report,
but the story, its coinciding strands, is there itself, something beautiful no
matter what’s in it. Writing must always be linear, since we read one word at a
time, but nothing in life happens all by itself. Coincidence brings
simultaneity into your story. Used thoughtfully, it makes the narrative richer
and deeper. Look to the right and left of your characters; see what more they
can do, what they <i>must </i>do, to articulate in action that inner life we
love so much. Like dreams, stories make feeling tangible.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #7b7371;"><a href="http://lithub.com/author/alice-mattison/"><span style="color: #7b7371; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Alice Mattison</span></a></span><span style="color: white; font-size: 18pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343; font-size: 14pt;">Alice Mattison is a widely
acclaimed author and longtime writing teacher. She has published six
novels—including The Book Borrower, Nothing Is Quite Forgotten in Brooklyn, and
When We Argued All Night—as well as four collections of short stories and a collection
of poems. Twelve of her stories have appeared in The New Yorker, and other work
has been published in The New York Times, Ploughshares, and Ecotone and
anthologized in The Pushcart Prize, PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, and Best
American Short Stories. A frequent panelist at AWP and other writing
conferences, she has held residencies at Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. She
has taught at Brooklyn College, Yale University, and, for the last twenty-one
years, in the Bennington Writing Seminars, the MFA program at Bennington
College. Her book <i>The Kite and the String,</i> is out now.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-37998522825291325892016-07-21T08:14:00.001-07:002016-07-21T08:14:57.982-07:00Hate<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.irishexaminer.com/remote/snappa.static.pressassociation.io/assets/2015/07/28191930/1438107568-fef3faf395f7a19fc1b0ace1fabd0340-1038x576.jpg?width=500" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.irishexaminer.com/remote/snappa.static.pressassociation.io/assets/2015/07/28191930/1438107568-fef3faf395f7a19fc1b0ace1fabd0340-1038x576.jpg?width=500" height="177" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Recently, Thriller Guy’s alter ego Allen Appel was going
through boxes of old manuscripts and correspondence having to do with past
books. He’ll take it from here…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I can’t remember why I thought it was important to save
various drafts of my novels that had been marked up with edits. </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Because I’ve
written so many books these edits add up to many thousands of pages, pages that
are heavy and a pain-in-the-ass to dispose of. Amongst all these manuscripts I
found piles of letters from readers who wrote on actual paper and sent them to
me, usually via the publisher. That’s the way we used to do it back in the
Paleolithic era; now every bozo with a computer can hunt you down on Google and
send you a death threat because he doesn’t like your attitude or your writing.
The vast majority of these letters were positive, but there was one, ONE! That
was so brilliantly</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">vituperous I’ve
decided to put it up here in its entirety.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My original thought was to use the name and address of the
writer, but after having Googled him I’ve decided that he is probably a usually
reasonable fellow and that my book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Till-End-Time-Three-Pastmaster-ebook/dp/B00A4DL9N0/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1469113599&sr=1-6&keywords=allen+appel">Till the End of Time, the third in my series featuring time traveler Alex Balfour</a>, for some reason pushed him over the edge into madness. I will say that
his last name is the same as that of a past president who was both loathed and
adored. Without any further ado…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Dear Mr. Appel:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After
reading “Till the End of Time”, it didn’t take too much effort to deduce that
you are a member of that sleazy band of a low-life parade of bozoes who would,
for the sake of free love, marijuana and a snort of just about any foreign
substance that would fit up your nose, flush down the toilet all those positive
and decent values (Love of country, respect toward authority, the Golden Rule,
etc.) taught us all in grammar school. And at a time when so many of us fought
long and hard in the jungles, mountains and rice paddies of Vietnam in defense
of the same democratic principles that allow even an asshole such as yourself
to put out the pathetic rubbish that is representative of “Till the End of
Time.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And how do
you know that President John Fitzgerald Kennedy slept with Marilyn Monroe? Are
you some kind of long lost eyewitness (perhaps from a nearby closet in panting,
wheezing, drooling observation?) of this so-called infidelity? Or have you
filled that airhead of yours with all that sensational tripe which appears,
quite strongly, to be the framework for this “Literary Dud” of which you must
surely have bribed someone at Doubleday to publish.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>You should
give up writing, Allen Appel. And then get down on your knees and thank the
Good Lord that, for the moment, John Kennedy isn’t around to defend himself.
Because if he were, he would put a foot so far up your cowardly ass, that you
would taste shoe leather “Till The End Of Time.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 8;"> </span>Sincerely,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 8;"> </span>M.
R.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I didn’t write back to M.R. perhaps the only person who bothered
to write and never received a response from me, because he seemed balanced on
the knife-edge of homicidal madness, and I did not want him turning up on my
doorstep with some of the many weapons he probably owns.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But everyone is entitled to an opinion, I guess. About the
same time I received this letter my publisher sent me a review by a columnist
somewhere in Idaho who had written in his local newspaper that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Till the End of Time</i> was “perhaps the
best book that had ever been written in the history of the world.” Which is
just the other side of the same coin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=allen+appel">Readers are encouraged to go to Amazon and search out a copyof this explosive work, or any of the others in the series and give it/them a read.</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’d be glad to hear from you. </span><o:p></o:p><br />
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Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-46441289839354454072016-07-09T12:42:00.000-07:002016-07-09T12:44:16.275-07:00Buy This Book<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQhPaFNxO-1_4m5yajWcNbATZ1kdkb6L-tnVw9k9fCdeUubBaui7Q" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQhPaFNxO-1_4m5yajWcNbATZ1kdkb6L-tnVw9k9fCdeUubBaui7Q" width="265" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In Thriller Guy’s last blog entry (see below) TG explained
why he doesn’t flack his writer friends’ thrillers on the blog. The short
version is that when he does he gets nasty emails from readers who bought the
book and didn’t like it, usually because most of his friends – even the writers
– especially the writers – who buy the recommendation don’t really read many
thrillers, even though they think they do. Last week TG suggested helping pal
Larry Kahaner out by giving his novel a vote in the Kindle publishing program.
Thanks for all of you who did so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">TG would now like to recommend </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dodgers</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, a new novel by writer pal Bill Beverly. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Why is TG breaking
his custom the second time in a row? Because <i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dodgers</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> is one motherfucker of a book. (In the book business, when
a prepublication review for a book comes in, the marketing people always look
for a line they can “pull out” from the review to use as a blurb on the cover,
usually when the book comes out in paperback. Hence the term “pull out line.”)
In this paragraph TG has given Bill and his publisher Crown, a hellofa pull out
line. </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Bill Beverly’s </i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Dodgers</span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, hailed as “One motherfucker of a book,” by
noted book reviewer and blogger Thriller Guy.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You’re welcome, Bill.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here’s the pitch: A fifteen-year-old LA gang-banger, known
as East, is sent on a mission to kill a man who witnessed a crime that involves
East’s uncle. The hook is, the witness is hiding in Wisconsin and East has
never been out of LA. He and three other young men like him take off on an epic
road trip in a van to do the job. On the way to the Midwest and when they
arrive, shit happens, as you might expect.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The thing is, Beverly can really write. Not like TG’s alter
ego, Allen Appel, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=allen+appel">whose efforts can be bought here </a>and which in reviews are usually described as “workmanlike” (Hey, workmanlike gets the job done!) but writes like,
well, TG hesitates to compare him to anyone because he has his own compelling
style, one that leaves you pulling out lines to be mused over and admired from
every angle. TG hates the term “literary thriller” because it is usually
applied to a thriller that’s authored by a writer who is considered of literary
quality, rather than the usual genre ghetto that the rest of us dwell in. This
is not the case here. Beverly would be a terrific writer of great quality no
matter what sort of novel he was writing. We are lucky he chose thriller as the
type if not the genre. It’s sort of like watching someone from your own crappy
part of town do well in the larger world. Go get’em, Bill.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">TG readers: Go buy his book. You’ll thank me, for a change.</span><br />
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Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-72438187796121594092016-06-12T13:36:00.003-07:002016-06-12T14:05:31.786-07:00Give Us a Hand, Luv<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: -4.5pt; margin-right: .75in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: 369.0pt;">
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Thriller Guy has
a lot of writer pals, and they write a lot of books. Some of you astute readers
may have noticed, particularly those pals with books, that TG doesn’t review
these books or recommend them. There’s a reason for that.<o:p></o:p></div>
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A careful read
through the TG archives (a perfect activity for a rainy Sunday afternoon) will
show that back in the beginning days of this blog, TG did review and recommend
books. The response from TG’s friends and readers, 90% of the time, was very
distressing for TG. TG reviews thrillers. Whenever he would put up a review of
a thriller he thought particularly interesting (often not just because it was
well written, but for other reasons) he would get emails and comments of this
variety: “Allen, I read that book you thought was so great. I thought it was
terrible. Really, did the hero have to kill all those people? Who wants to read
torture scenes?” Etc. The problem being, most of TG’s friends were not thriller
readers, and many who did think they were thriller aficionados really weren’t,
having only read a few favorite mainstream thriller writers and certainly no
military thrillers.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There seems to
be a universal need in most people, who when told a thing is good, will then
look for all the bad they can find in it. Sitting here in his basement lair, even
though he is mere feet from the air conditioner blower, TG can hear the outrage
cries from his blog readers who are all shouting, no, no, not me! I would never
be as narrow-minded as that! I am always un-biased and fair.<o:p></o:p></div>
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No you’re not.
And TG learned pretty quickly to quit recommending books, because all the
feedback was about how the books sucked and TG was an idiot. TG certainly
didn’t want his friend’s books subject to that sort of knee-jerk, uninformed
criticism. So he quit making recommendations.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now I’m going to
make a recommendation. TG’s pal Larry, who is often mentioned in these blogs (TG’s
last blog, see below, was a re-blog of one of his from his The Non-Fiction
Novelist site) has put a novel he’s written on the Amazon Scout program.
Essentially, writers put up books, with Amazon’s approval, on a site where
readers can go, sample the books, and then vote if they think the book is
worthy of publication. If the writer gets enough votes, and if Amazon agrees
with the reader’s assessments, they then publish the book under one of their
publishing imprints. Rather than me trying to explain it, you can <a href="https://nonfictionnovelist.wordpress.com/2016/05/30/why-an-establishment-author-is-doing-amazons-kindle-scout/">go to Larry’ssite and read what the program is and why he’s decided to give it a try. </a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>TG is always on the side of writers, and
always interested in the brave new worlds of self and independent publishing,
so he’s very curious how Larry’s foray into this particular publishing gambit
is going to work.</div>
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Here’s what TG
wants you to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <a href="http://tinyurl.com/jbf8fs3">Go to the Amazon Scout page that features Larry's book.</a> </span>While you are there, nominate the book.<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Quite frankly,
TG does not give a shit if you read the excerpt, nor if you like thrillers, or
what you think of what you read, if you read it. TG thinks the book should be
published, Larry thinks the book should be published, so why not do everything
we can to see that it gets published? This is good for writers and for readers
alike. These sorts of programs will all help to break the stranglehold that Big
Publishing has held on the world of books for the last 200 years. Larry will
keep TG apprised of the progress of the endeavor and TG will pass along this
information.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Think of it this
way: someday you may write a book and want to see it published. Why shouldn’t
all of us help you be a success?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-37925986969808505502016-05-23T11:06:00.000-07:002016-05-23T11:06:42.692-07:00Why You're Not Getting Your Novel Published.<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #373627; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My pal Larry over at <a href="https://nonfictionnovelist.wordpress.com/2016/05/16/five-reasons-you-cant-get-your-novel-published-and-why-its-not-your-fault/">The Nonfiction Novelist</a> has a good entry about why you’re not getting your book
published. There are plenty of reasons that could be, but many times it has
nothing to do with the quality of your work. <a href="https://nonfictionnovelist.wordpress.com/2016/05/16/five-reasons-you-cant-get-your-novel-published-and-why-its-not-your-fault/">Give it a read and check out Larry’s other entries.</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://media.safebee.com/assets/images/2015/2/thumbs-down.jpg.838x0_q67_crop-smart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://media.safebee.com/assets/images/2015/2/thumbs-down.jpg.838x0_q67_crop-smart.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Five Reasons You Can’t Get
Your Novel Published – And Why It’s Not Your Fault<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">By Larry Kahaner<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Dear Author:</span></i><span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">
Thanks for sending us your manuscript. The plot is unique, the characters are
compelling and the writing is top notch. It’s one of the best books we’ve ever
read.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Unfortunately, it’s not
right for us.</span></i><span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">
Best Regards,</span></i><span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">
The Publisher</span></i><span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">What the…?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">As an author with
long-term success in <a href="http://www.kahaner.com/"><span style="color: #ce000c;">publishing
non-fiction books</span></a>, I can tell you that publishing is not an easy
game. It takes talent, perseverance and luck. Even more so for fiction writing.
And missives like the one above seem to defy logic and common sense.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Let’s first dispatch the
most obvious reason why you can’t get your novel published. Your book stinks.
It’s poorly written, the characters suck and the plot is ridiculous. Assuming
that’s not the case, that your book is just as good as, or better than,
anything else out there, here are the top five reasons why a publisher won’t
touch your novel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">1 – “We don’t have room on
our list.”</span></b><span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"> Legacy publishers are
limited in how many books they publish every year. With so many good authors
around they’re often booked solid for this year and maybe the next year. Some
of their list is taken up with their perennial money-makers (think the James Patterson writing machine) and editors at these large houses are allowed
a few new authors each year that they’re permitted to bet on. There’s not much
room for others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">2 – “It’s not our kind of
book.” </span></b><span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Authors hear this a lot.
You might be thinking “but I thought you published mysteries; mine is a
mystery.” Your book may be just outside their comfort zone for many different
reasons – like there is a kidnapping and the editor doesn’t care for
snatch jobs. Romance publishers often are sticklers for their own particular
ironclad rubrics that can seem to outsiders as frightfully picky.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">3 – “We’re not accepting
any new books.” </span></b><span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">This is related to reason
#1 but applies mainly to small, independent publishers who may publish only a
handful of books annually. I’ve been a business reporter for decades and I’m
often amazed at how companies (not just publishers) are reluctant to grow
revenue by producing and selling more products – often out of fear of making it
big or sacrificing quality control. For some smaller indies, producing more
books and thus more revenue, might upset their cozy way of doing business.
Again, this always strikes me as small-minded. Many industries are hamstrung by
not having enough raw materials. Not so with publishing, If you have good
authors clamoring for you to publish them, why not hire part-time or gig
editors and production people who are willing to go with the ebb and flow of
things?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">4 – “It’s not a book that
we know how to sell.” </span></b><span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Publishers
often will be blunt in saying these exact words or they’ll couch it by saying
something similar to #2. In other words, they’re saying that your book doesn’t
fit nicely into a genre that they recognize. For example, your protagonist
might be an intergalactic PI. The publisher may know how to sell alien novels
or PI novels but put them together and, ummm, we’re flummoxed. I find this
shortsighted, too, because bestsellers often break these rules and do well for
the publisher that takes a chance. Best example: When John Grisham tried to
sell his first legal thriller publishers shied away because it was a new genre
and it didn’t fit in with what they knew. Count how many rejections he received
and how many books he’s written that have been blockbusters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">5 – “Right place wrong
time.” </span></b><span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">An author friend of mine
sold a book to a publisher that hadn’t been active in his particular
non-fiction genre. As luck would have it, they were interested in expanding
into this genre and were looking for a book such as his. Lucky guy. But it
works the other way, too. A publisher may have just decided that they’ve had
enough of one genre and are getting out of it for any number of reasons.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">All of this should not discourage
you. In fact, it should bolster you because these turn-downs are not under your
control. You’re probably doing all the right things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Here’s a last thought: The
publishing industry is becoming more and more like the movie industry.
Moviemakers are relying on the blockbuster film to help them turn a profit.
Instead of making money on smaller movies throughout the year, they focus on
only a few films and market the hell out of them to protect their expensive
investments in exorbitant actor fees and promotion. When they fail, and they
do, backers can’t complain too much because, ‘hey, it has George Clooney in
it.’ It’s classic CYA.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">On the other hand, we’re
seeing this model get bashed by cable and streaming video companies like
Netflix, HBO, Amazon and others who are producing lower cost films and making
money doing it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">In the same way, I believe
that e-books will disrupt the current book publishing model by lowering some
production costs and taking book roster constraints off the table for
solid, hardworking and talented authors.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">After the dust settles it
will be a better time for authors and publishers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #373627; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">It’s only a matter of
time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-575210687001848152016-05-12T13:46:00.000-07:002016-05-12T13:46:52.922-07:00Copyeditors: Why We Love Them<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/92/36/6b/92366b946b6ffc71191bc9204a084579.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/92/36/6b/92366b946b6ffc71191bc9204a084579.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Gather around Little Ones, and let Thriller Guy tell you
fantastical stories of days of yore, back when giant publishers ruled the vast
book markets and special stores sold brightly colored paper objects stored on
shelves and tables, where “readers” would stand happily thumbing through these
objects, buying them and going home to spend hours in comfy chairs as time flew
by. But how did these objects appear in the stores? Certainly not by magic,
though it might have appeared so, no, there were hundreds of intervening steps
that these publishing houses went through, painstakingly inching these books
through a traditional pipeline that took eighteen months from the time the
writer signed the contract until the books ended up on the shelves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There were many people along the way who participated in the
process. Some, like the sales department, were a pain-in-the-ass to deal with;
they always had too much influence on the final product, influence that never
related to sales, as far as TG could tell. The marketing department was always
manned (womanned?) by an endless series of young women, all recent graduates of
one of the Seven Sisters Colleges, all named Jennifer. (email: ”Hi, this is
Jennifer, I’ll be handling the marketing for your book. We’re all really excited
here and know that this is going to be a really fun project! I’ve attached a three
hundred page questionnaire and we’d like to have it completed and back in a week. I
know that’s pretty quick, but we just can’t wait to get started!”) Jennifer was
always gone in six months, replaced by another Jennifer who would have the same
in-house life span. Nothing good ever came from these Jennifers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But many months after the project was turned in, the
manuscript would be returned to you, the writer, and it would be marked up by
the copy editor. These copy editors -- always young ladies in TG’s experience
-- were brilliant. They would take your manuscript, which was shitty, you just
didn’t know how shitty, and correct all your misspellings, typos, and
ignorance, gently pointing out your stupidity, always in a pleasant manner,
never accusing you of incipient moronness, and attaching a list of rules and suggestions
at the end for future reference. TG always pictured them as looking like Audrey
Hepburn, with or without the cigarette holder, curled up in a comfy armchair
working on a pile of pages, your manuscript. TG loved these women. They made
your writing sing. And now, alas, they’ve mostly all been let go by publishers,
who suggest you hire one freelance and pay for it yourself. Unless you’re
Stephen King, of course.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The thing is, this is very doable. There’s a bunch of really
great copy editors and editors of all stripe out there, just waiting to take
your manuscript under their gentle wing. Many of them used to work for big
publishers and have now been “let go” because those same publishers are
floundering around trying to figure out their own industry in the brave new
world of the Internet. It was a stupid decision – fire everyone that doesn’t
directly influence the economic stream of the best sellers they are looking for
– but it doesn’t surprise me. When a person, or a business, is in trouble and
in danger of dying, lots of stupid decisions are made.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was reminded of this recently as I needed a good editor to
copyedit the memoir I have been working on. <a href="http://mylifeinthebioredband.wordpress.com/">I first put it up as a blog,</a> and
when the reception of the material was overwhelmingly positive, I decided to
expand it into a regular book. I can stand to make some mistakes that aren’t
totally egregious when (like this blog) I’m putting something on the Interweb
for free, but when I ask folks to pay for my work I expect to give them clean
copy. I found my expert, Bev Weiler, close to home, in that she had written me
back when I put my last time travel book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Test-Time-Balfour-Novel-Postmaster/dp/151167430X?ie=UTF8&keywords=allen%20appel&qid=1463085626&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1">TheTest of Time, up on Amazon</a>. Bev is a fan of the series, and noted that
while she liked the most recent entry she found there were plenty of mistakes
in the copy. She suggested that in her free time she might go through and edit
the book for me so the Kindle version and any later paper editions would be
clean. I gratefully accepted her offer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The copy she was referring to, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Test of Time,</i> had been rewritten seven times, edited
and copyedited by a number of my friends, and I still did not doubt that there
were plenty of mistakes that made it through uncaught. Any writer will tell you
that this is so in almost anything written for publication. And the longer the
piece is, the more difficult it becomes to ferret the gremlins out. Here’s
where you need a professional.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So, vowing that I would not send out another piece with
errors, a hired Bev to do her professional magic on the memoir. An author can
tell how good an editor is by how terrible they feel when reading the edited
manuscript. Bev was brilliant, and I was the lowest piece of writing scum that
was ever dragged inside on someone’s bootheel. I’m an idiot, a moron, a writer
so pathetically inept I shouldn’t be allowed within ten feet of a keyboard. But
Bev worked with the same patient, gentle demeanor of her clan, and fixed my
book so I don’t have to be embarrassed about it when it comes out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So here’s to you, Bev, and all your brothers and sisters
toiling away out there, fixing the broken manuscripts, from the unreadable to
the just-not-quite-right, with your quiet courage and steely resolve. May you and
your tribe live long and prosper.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If anyone else out there wants to put up a product they can
be proud of, even though they think that they can do the editing themselves,
Bev can make you look really good. Send her an email – <a href="mailto:bevweiler@gmail.com">bevweiler@gmail.com</a>. And stick a finger
in the eye of Big Publishing when your book -- clean, sleek, error free --
sells a million copies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(P.S., Bev, don’t bother copy editing this blog, it’s too
late.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-52342689013967340032016-04-09T12:14:00.000-07:002016-04-09T12:14:01.004-07:00Murder, He Wrote<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQDeRKcroV37_jzXCfXV3EwjmWCg9NwmnERBvXV2gm2BvJuDkF_" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQDeRKcroV37_jzXCfXV3EwjmWCg9NwmnERBvXV2gm2BvJuDkF_" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thriller Guy is off at some undisclosed location doing God
knows what. I, in the meantime, have been rattling around in that particular
writer hell known as What’s Next? That’s when you’ve finished a major project,
in my case a memoir of my early years, and you don’t have any idea of what
you’re going to write next. This didn’t use to be a problem for me as I had a fiction
series I was writing and after finishing one I would just move onto the next.
After six of these books (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=allen+appel">you can find them on Amazon here</a>) I am reluctant to
continue the series, mostly because publishers aren’t interested in buying a
new one nor are they interested in taking up the cause of the extensive
backlist. So unless there’s a groundswell of buyers, I’m going to stick with Johnson’s
famous sentiment about only fools writing if there is no money involved. Or at
least the possibility of money.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many kind folks have asked that I extend my memoir, but many
of those who I would be writing about are still alive and, frankly, I don’t really
want to piss anyone off, which my writing about them surely would.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Those of you who read this blog know that I have spoken
about the What to Write problem before. My usual prescription is to settle down
with a bottle of gin and drink until I come up with an answer. That doesn’t
seem to be working this time, though I am valiantly soldiering on in this
direction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Recently, by accident, I stumbled upon a Wikipedia site that
I believe might well spur a solid plotline. It’s an extensive collection of unsolved
murder cases in the United States, and it makes for fascinating reading,
falling in the I’ll-read-just-one-more catagory. Once you start, it’s tough to
stop. Here are a few edited-for-length, interesting examples.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Unsolved_murders_in_the_United_States"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's the Wiki site.</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_Ripper">The Atlanta Ripper.</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On May 28, 1911, the body of Belle Walker, an African-American cook, was
found 25 yards from her home on Garibaldi Street in Atlanta. Her throat had
been cut by an unknown slayer, and the crime was reported in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_Constitution"><i><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Atlanta Constitution</span></i></a> under the headline "Negro Woman
Killed; No Clue to Slayer." On June 15, another black woman, Addie Watts,
was found with her throat slashed, followed on June 27 by Lizzie Watkins. The
search for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_killer"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">serial killer</span></a>, called "the Atlanta Ripper" by the
press, found six different suspects, but no convictions were ever made, nor was
the crime ever solved. By the end of 1911, fifteen women, all black or
dark-skinned, all in their early 20s, had been murdered in the same manner. The
"Ripper" may have had as many as 21 victims, but there is no
conclusive proof that the murders were carried out by one person.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axeman_of_New_Orleans">The Axeman of New Orleans.</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">6 to seven dead, 6-7 injured from 1912 to 1919</span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1c1c;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Axeman was
not caught or identified, and his crime spree stopped as mysteriously as it</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Mysterious_axman.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Mysterious_axman.gif" width="251" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> had
started. The murderer's identity remains unknown to this day, although various
possible identifications of varying plausibility have been proposed. On March
13, 1919, a letter purporting to be from the Axeman was published in newspapers
saying that he would kill again at 15 minutes past midnight on the night of
March 19, but would spare the occupants of any place where a jazz band was
playing. That night all of New Orleans' dance halls were filled to capacity,
and professional and amateur bands played jazz at parties at hundreds of houses
around town. There were no murders that night.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bacon_(actor)">Hollywood 1943</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He was born Gaspar
Griswold Bacon, Jr. Born to a life of privilege and wealth, David Bacon
graduated from Harvard. He summered with his family at Woods Hole
on Cape Cod, where he became
involved during the early 1930s with the "University Players." There he met then unknown performers James Stewart and Henry Fonda, with whom he
later shared accommodations while he struggled to establish himself. He moved
to Los Angeles
where he met and married an Austrian
singer, Greta Keller.
In her later years, Keller disclosed that Bacon was homosexual, and that she
was lesbian, and that their lavender marriage partly
served as what she referred to as a "beard",
allowing both of them to maintain a respectable facade in Hollywood, where they
were both attempting to establish film careers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1942, Howard Hughes met Bacon,
and signed him to an exclusive contract, with the intention of casting him in <i>The Outlaw</i> (1943) as Billy the Kid. Though
Hughes later decided not to use Bacon in <i>The Outlaw</i>, he kept Bacon to
the terms of his contract, casting him in several smaller roles. Hughes did lend
out Bacon for a role in the Republic serial <i>The Masked Marvel </i>(1943). The serial was produced with a low budget, and
marked a low point in Bacon's career, with Keller recalling that he was completely
humiliated. Today it remains his best-remembered work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On September 13th 1943,
Bacon was seen driving a car erratically in Santa Monica before running off the road and into the curb. Several witnesses saw him climb
out of the car and stagger briefly before collapsing. As they approached he
asked them to help him, but he died before he could say anything more. A small
knife wound was found in his back – the blade had punctured his lung and caused
his death. Keller, in an advanced stage of pregnancy, collapsed when she heard
of her husband's death, and later her baby was stillborn.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When he died, Bacon was
wearing only a swimsuit, and a wallet and camera were found in his car. The film
from the camera was developed and found to contain only one image, that of
Bacon, nude and smiling on a beach. Police theorized that the photograph had
been taken shortly before his death by his killer. The case attracted publicity
for a time and remains unsolved<span style="color: #1c1c1c;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1c1c;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These are just
three examples chosen at random from the extensive list. As a historical
novelist, these older examples appeal to me more than the current ones, though
they are interesting as well. I could imagine writing about 1911 Atlanta,
or the Axeman of New Orleans. Imagine the fun you could have writing that scene
where all of New Orleans played jazz one night to keep the Axeman from killing
again. Fabulous. And I am particularly drawn to the failed actor, circa
Hollywood, 1943, stumbling out of his car with a small knife wound in his back
as the air leaked out of his lungs while he begged for help. What a story.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1c1c;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hmmmm. Maybe
I’m on to something here. Let me get my gin bottle. Time to do some heavy
thinking.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-56005820222681459182016-03-28T12:25:00.001-07:002016-03-28T12:25:50.532-07:00Jim Harrison<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://billanddavescocktailhour.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/jim-harrison_fe-620x620.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://billanddavescocktailhour.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/jim-harrison_fe-620x620.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">This week’s Reaper Report
features, sadly, Jim Harrison, who dropped over dead at his desk a few days ago
while working on a poem. The world is a less interesting place without him
writing about it. I have to say, while I devoured his non-fiction, especially
the stuff about food, and I was a fan of his poetry, I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">admired</i> rather than loved his fiction. I knew it was good,
certainly literature of a high order, and his descriptions of the natural world
were lyrical and often beautiful, but I found his stories slow and his
characters, even though they were often different, or not so different,
versions of himself, not very compelling. I understand this is a lack of
something in me, rather than a lack of something in his work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I recently read a long interview
with him, I can’t remember where, at the end of which he learns his wife of
many years was dying, and he said that he didn’t know if he wanted, or could
bear, to go on living without her. And he didn’t, so I guess he had made that
decision.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">His first famous book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Legends of the Fall</i>, came out when I was
under the influence of writers like Harrison who were putting out big, powerful
books, Thomas McGuane, Robert Stone, strong books that impressed young men. I
read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Legends</i> and understood why it
was important, but I fell by the wayside when others, many others, followed.
But now I’m an old man, not quite Harrison’s age but getting up there, so maybe
it’s time to go back and read him again. Maybe I’m smarter now, wiser. Or maybe
not. We'll see.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Here are some random quotes
from some of the books, and random thoughts from Harrison. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">R.I.P.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #131313; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Merriweather-Regular;">“If you added it up, without her there was nothing--but with her
even the simplest of gestures of walking a bird dog in the desert, or selecting
the ingredients for a meal for two rather than one took on an ineffable charm.”
</span><i><span style="color: #131313; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Merriweather-Italic;">Revenge</span></i><span style="color: #131313; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Merriweather-Regular;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #131313; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Merriweather-Regular;">“His own life suddenly seemed repellently formal. Whom did he
know or what did he know and whom did he love? Sitting on the stump under the
burden of his father's death and even the mortality inherent in the dying,
wildly colored canopy of leaves, he somehow understood that life was only what
one did every day.... Nothing was like anything else, including himself, and
everything was changing all of the time. He knew he couldn't perceive the
change because he was changing too, along with everything else." </span><i><span style="color: #131313; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Merriweather-Italic;">The
Man Who Gave Up His Name</span></i><span style="color: #131313; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Merriweather-Regular;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #131313; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Merriweather-Regular;">“After dinner the Texan invited Cochran to accompany him to a
whorehouse but he declined saying he'd feed, walk and water the horse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #131313; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Merriweather-Regular;">'Strikes me you had a big day and some poontang might ease your
mind.'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #131313; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Merriweather-Regular;">'Nope. Killed a man I hated today and I don't want to mix my
pleasures. I want to lay in bed and think how good it felt.'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #131313; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Merriweather-Regular;">The Texan nodded and lit a cigar. He was no man's fool.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #131313; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Merriweather-Regular;">Legends
of the Fall<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #131313; font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Merriweather-Regular;">“Perhaps swimming was dancing in the water, he thought. To swim
under lily pads seeing their green slender stalks wavering as you passed, to
swim under upraised logs past schools of sunfish and bluegills, to swim through
reed beds past wriggling water snakes and miniature turtles, to swim in small
lakes, big lakes, Lake Michigan, to swim in small farm ponds, creeks, rivers,
giant rivers where one was swept along easefully by the current, to swim naked
alone at night when you were nineteen and so alone you felt like you were
choking every waking moment, having left home for reasons more hormonal than
rational; reasons having to do with the abstraction of the future and one's
questionable place in the world of the future, an absurdity not the less harsh
for being so widespread.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Legends of the Fall</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: OpenSans;">“Death
steals everything except our stories.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-23578928816766553552016-03-05T09:59:00.000-08:002016-03-05T09:59:47.756-08:00First Things First<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">This week’s Reaper Report notes, alas, the passing of the
great Pat Conroy. Most of you will have</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/31qjbEN6mhL._UX250_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/31qjbEN6mhL._UX250_.jpg" width="190" /></a></div>
your favorite Conroy books, and though
I loved Prince of Tides, my favorite book of his is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pat-Conroy-Cookbook-Recipes-Stories/dp/0385532717/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1457200228&sr=1-10&keywords=pat+conroy"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes and Stories of My Life</i>.</a> I have bought
and given away many copies of this book over the years. It’s wonderful both for
the recipes and the stories. My most requested recipe from my daughter is his
creamed corn, which is truly delicious.<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">This entry is going to be a continuation of my last, about
developing a voice for whatever you are writing. I believe that voice is the
most important element in writing, and without a good one, one proper to your
story, no matter how high concept your book is, it will not excel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">Todays subject is first lines. Book openers. We writers
fuss over them for hours and hours because they set the tone for the entire
book. Note how the following first lines telegraph the style in which the rest
of the novel will be written and how some of them, while not necessarily snappy,
set up the plot to come. We’ll give the honor of the first first line in this
collection of great first lines, to Pat Conroy. RIP, Pat.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;"><br /></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">“My
wound is geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call.” </span></i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Prince of Tides.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">And the others, which, mostly, were lifted from writer <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://tylermillerwrites.com/">Tyler Miller’s blog, The Black Cat Moan</a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">The first four are from Elmore Leonard.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">“Chris Mankowski’s last day on the job, two in the
afternoon, two hours to go, he got a call to dispose of a bomb.” </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-themecolor: text1;">— Freaky Deaky<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">“The night Vincent was shot he saw it coming.” </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-themecolor: text1;">— Glitz<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">“One day Karen DiCilia put a few observations together
and realized her husband Frank was sleeping with a real estate woman in Boca.”
</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-themecolor: text1;">— Gold Coast<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">“Every time they got a call from the leper hospital to
pick up a body Jack Delaney would feel himself coming down with the flu or
something.” </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-themecolor: text1;">— Bandits<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">“It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were
striking thirteen.” </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-themecolor: text1;">— 1984, George
Orwell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">“By the time he graduated from college, John Smith had
forgotten all about the bad fall he took on the ice that January day in 1953.”
</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-themecolor: text1;">— The Dead Zone<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stephen King<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">“This is the story of a lover’s triangle, I suppose you’d
say — Arnie Cunningham, Leigh Cabot, and, of course, Christine. But I want you
to understand that Christine was there first. She was Arnie’s first love, and
while I wouldn’t presume to say for sure (not from whatever heights of wisdom
I’ve attained in my twenty-two years, anyway), I think she was his only true
love. So I call what happened a tragedy.”</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-themecolor: text1;">
— Christine<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>King<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">“The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight
years — if it ever did end — began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat
made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.”
</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-themecolor: text1;">— IT<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>King<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">“She was standing at the center of the subway platform,
waiting for the uptown train to come in, when the man stepped up to her and
punched her.” </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-themecolor: text1;">— Kiss, Ed McBain<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">“Suicide bombers are easy to spot.” </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-themecolor: text1;">— Gone Tomorrow, Lee Child<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">“Two hours before the accident occurred, Devlin Jamison
drove over the crest of a hill on the pitted two-lane asphalt and saw, far
below him, the multiple lanes of the east-west highway, the yellow octagon of
the stop sign.” </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-themecolor: text1;">— Cry Hard, Cry
Fast, </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;"><a href="http://www.tylermillerwrites.com/john-d-macdonald"><span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-themecolor: text1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">John D. MacDonald</span></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">“Ok, so here I am, Lee Morris, opening doors and windows
to gusts of life and early death.”</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-themecolor: text1;"> — Decider, Dick
Francis<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">“Ignatius Martin Parish spent the night drunk and doing
terrible things.” </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-themecolor: text1;"> — Horns, Joe
Hill<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-themecolor: text1;"><i>“The legless man was wise
enough to understand that heroes can be found in the damnedest places.”</i> —
The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread, Don Robertson<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1;">“I turned the Chrysler onto the Florida Turnpike with
Rollo Kramer’s headless body in the trunk, and all the time I’m thinking I
should’ve put some plastic down.” </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-themecolor: text1;">—
Gun Monkeys, Victor Gischler<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-89295835863383037692016-02-19T11:43:00.000-08:002016-02-19T11:43:31.222-08:00To Kill a Writing Prompt<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/graphics/footehorton1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/graphics/footehorton1.jpg" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Horton Foote</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reaper Report. Thriller Guy can’t let Harper Lee’s death go
by without mentioning that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">To Kill a
Mockingbird</i> was a great book and a great movie. But you knew that. TG
recommends reading the screenplay for the movie by the masterful Horton Foote.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thriller Guy’s pal Larry has a good blog entry over at <a href="https://nonfictionnovelist.wordpress.com/">TheNon-Fiction Novelist </a>about writing prompts. Writing prompts are the little
exercises that writing teachers hand out to writing students to get their pumps
primed, or something. The idea is, I guess, if you get someone writing anything,
just writing, they will then leap into their own work with a sense of purpose
and vigor. Bullshit. What a waste of writing time. No real writers do this,
trust me. Real writers, fiction or nonfiction, write to earn money, either
today or tomorrow, and no one ever made money writing someone else’s idea so they
could then be in the mood to work on their own idea. TG is aware there are
those of you out there who will now send me yet another of those mewling
comments about how you write for “ideas” and for the sheer love of writing,
etc. etc. And just because there are those who need a further explanation --
this doesn’t mean that when you’re writing your novel you’re writing with the
sole goal of making big money, that a publisher is going to immediately pick it
up and buy it (those days are long gone). What writing for money means is that
you should write it with enough thought and care to produce a work that a
publisher or reader will pay for the pleasure of publishing or reading.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So stop
writing little exercises where writing teachers, how-to-write books or websites
give you a subject and a time limit and tell you it’s going to be fun. Writing
isn’t fun. Just get to work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But TG would like to suggest that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">reading</i> the right, or wrong thing before writing can certainly
influence one’s writing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">style</i>, for
better or worse. So a few minutes of reading can be very valuable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">TG writes in many different styles. When writing time travel
novels one “trick” is to hint at the cadences and styles of the period one is
writing in. This is what pal Larry calls writing in “old.” As opposed to, say,
writing in Spanish. TG’s alter ego, Allen Appel, gets this process moving by
reading letters, newspapers and even novels written in the period in which his
novel is set. Even five minutes of this is enough to channel your writing brain
into, again, the cadences of the period. You don’t want to copy anything other
than the sound and the rhythm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An extreme example of this recently came Appel’s way.
Several years ago he decided to challenge himself by learning how to write a
novella rather than a full-length novel. The subject would be the most unlikely
he could come up with. The winner? Chickens. Could he write a novella or
novellas in several different styles about chickens? Stories that would work as
stories and not jokes or simple pastiche? The result was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Christmas Chicken, The Flock, </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Maltese Chicken.</i> (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=allen+appel">All three novellas are available for Kindle here.)</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Christmas Chicken </i>was
recorded by the incomparable Brad Wills <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Christmas-Chicken-A-Novella/dp/B00ATTIXT2">and is available on audible.com.</a>
Recently Brad decided to record <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Flock</i>,
which meant that Appel was going to have to go back and re-edit that novella to
make sure it was in good shape for recording. At the same time, he has been
working on his memoir (a shorter version of which can be read at the blogsite <a href="http://mylifeinthebigredband/">http://mylifeinthebigredband</a>). The
memoir is written in, well, memoir style, whatever that is. In this case sort
of breezy and humorous. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Flock </i>is
written in the style of H. P. Lovecraft, and the two are decidedly different.
Here are examples, the first paragraph of each piece.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51MDLkDW64L._SY332_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51MDLkDW64L._SY332_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" height="133" width="200" /></a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“So in
that summer that was not summer, for the cold never left the land, I went to a
deep woods known as Wolfsbane, far from cities and towns, to an odd community
that lived with whatever strange Gods they worshipped, wanting to be left
alone, the lot of them, and the world was happy for it to be so. They called
the Hunter, as others have called before, and I came. But it was not wolves who
were the bane of these people, though at the time I did not know that, no, not
wolves, not Canis Lupus, creatures who ran the cold woods and howled into the
deep dark night, though they be fearsome creatures themselves, but others, far
more mysterious, and more terrible. It was these that compelled the people of
Wolfsbane to summon the Hunter. And if I knew then what I know now, I would not
have responded to that summons. But that is Life, is it not? To never know?
Yes, Life. And Death.”</span></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My Life in the Big
Red Band.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It was one week into the first summer of band practice when
I </span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgShPQ6FS-nJCR_rGNlBIO77SsFbFkuPw0BaVPGu8DxAglLtQdNlUeCd64j3v0QQ8UVMuj1FXvnQQIUU6zHTHMpJTvdAk-7I1wyY9zyGlnDPbhLPafo7KvoJey28kmhQEPQWlfGnLl8P_U/s1600/allen+band+uniform+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgShPQ6FS-nJCR_rGNlBIO77SsFbFkuPw0BaVPGu8DxAglLtQdNlUeCd64j3v0QQ8UVMuj1FXvnQQIUU6zHTHMpJTvdAk-7I1wyY9zyGlnDPbhLPafo7KvoJey28kmhQEPQWlfGnLl8P_U/s1600/allen+band+uniform+1.jpg" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">first had my ass kicked. I don’t mean that in the general sense of the term,
like being beat up in a fight. I mean having another person literally kick me
in the ass. Getting beat up in a fight would be a good way to begin a memoir,
but this is nothing like that. Pain, loss, abuse are all perfectly good stories
to reveal a life shaped by adversity. God knows enough true stories have begun
with a belt, a fist, or a wire hanger smacking a child in the face. But this is
anything but that. In fact, it’s the opposite of a life forged by adversity,
more a life shaped by mostly good fortune. Where’s the drama in that, you might
ask? I don’t know, I guess we’ll just have to find out.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As
you can see, the two styles are radically different. Moving from one to the
other was going to screw up the cadence of both of them. What to do? In this
case, it was to take the time to stop and read a lot of whatever one I was
going to be working on, to expunge the style of the other. I was lucky here, in
that I had a sample of the exact style I needed to continue in the style I
needed. My own style. So that’s TG’s first piece of advice, and it’s a simple one: Screw the
stupid prompts, read your own work before you begin writing your own work. This
is what you should be doing anyway: when you begin work you start by editing
the work you did the day before. Then when you start in on new stuff, you’re
already in your own cadence. TG knows some smarty-pants out there is going to
write in and say he/she doesn’t need to do this because he/she always writes in
his own style, blah blah blah, but TG contends that in most cases, anyone who
sits down to write will have already read something that someone else has
already written beforehand. Often it’s the newspaper or even emails, either of
which will channel your brain into someone else’s style. Expunge it!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But
what if you’re at the beginning of a new piece, so you don’t have your own work
to read and mimic? TG suggests spending a few minutes every day before you
begin writing reading in whatever style you’re writing in, just to get your
writing brain in the proper gear. With <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Flock</i>, that meant reading a Lovecraft story every day before working. With
the memoir Appel read memoirs in “his” style, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My Father’s Eyes, </i>by Mary Bonina, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Liars Club</i> by Mary Carr, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid</i> by Bill Bryson were just a few that
he enjoyed before starting his writing day. All were extremely helpful in
getting him into the proper brain groove.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So
stop with the stupid writing prompts. Grow up and write your own ideas. Unless
someone is paying you to write theirs. But read before you write. Your own work
if you’ve got it, or those of other writers you think are working in a style
that is close to what you are trying to do. Above all…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sit
down, shut up, get to work.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-69398228047976160222016-01-16T12:00:00.000-08:002016-01-16T12:00:06.002-08:00Better Dead Than Alive<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thriller Guy would like to apologize for being so remiss in
posting lately. Most of his blogging energy was used up by Allen Appel over at
his memoir blog at <a href="http://mylifeinthebigredband.com/">http://mylifeinthebigredband.com</a>.
That blog is about to go on hiatus, so TG will be back pissing and moaning and
bitching about books, authors and the Writing Life again right here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thriller Guy was reading a thread about, what else?
thrillers on Facebook where a lady, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/a5/cb/9b/a5cb9b14372d014497348a62dc048bdc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/a5/cb/9b/a5cb9b14372d014497348a62dc048bdc.jpg" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">complaining about how so many big time
authors seem to have faded recently, said, “I’ve stopped reading Tom Clancy,
he’s just been phoning it in for the last few years.” TG thought this was a tad
unjust, seeing as the man has been dead since 2013. And in fact, TG thinks the
lady is flat out wrong: Tom Clancy’s book are far better written since he
stopped writing them. And TG believes this is true in the majority of cases
where a beloved, mega-selling author has brought in hired help to actually
write his books for him. Generally, these co-authors or ghosts are better
writers than the originals ever were, dead or alive. Full disclosure, TG’s
alter ego Allen Appel and several of his friends have ghost-written a number of
books, though never for anyone as famous, at least as famous in the fiction
world, as Clancy.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mark
Greaney is the current author of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan series and has written,
or </span></div>
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co-written, six of Clancy’s novels. Clancy’s first co-author was Larry Bond,
who is one of the top military fiction authors in the world today. Other authors
who have penned Clancy novels are Grant Blackwood and Peter Telep, both
excellent novelists in their own right. These guys are said to make between
$40,000 and $70,000 for writing a top author’s books. This is “work for hire,”
they generally do not share in royalties.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Greaney has
nothing but nice things to say about writing the Clancy series. He started
doing it a couple of years before Clancy died, so he had actual contact with
the man who he was writing as. TG spoke with Greaney and asked him if he was consciously
trying to write in Clancy’s style and he said not really, but that writing in
Clancy’s “world” made his work different than when he wrote his own books.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Greaney writes
a series known as the Gray Man novels. TG reviewed the most recent book</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/5182MeZnacL._UY250_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/5182MeZnacL._UY250_.jpg" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> in the
series, number five, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Back Blast, </i>and
thought it was terrific. Greany can write Clancy better than Clancy could write
Clancy, but he really comes into his own when he, well, comes into his own.
Greaney’s hero, Court Gentry, The Gray Man, is back in the US trying to find
out why the CIA has a standing kill order out on him. To get answers he has to
out-think and out-gun the scores of folks from various agencies who are trying
to kill him. Gentry is a far more interesting protagonist than Clancy’s Jack
Ryan or Jack Ryan’s son, who has taken over the action role in the series. TG
recommends readers of these types of thrillers start with Greaney’s latest and
if you like it, go back and read the entire series. As far as his Clancy-inspired
books go, if you liked them when they were written by Clancy, don’t shy away
from them now. You’ve still got many of the old Clancy characters, the plots
are huge and Greaney does a great job of hunting down and inserting all the
tech and military details that Clancy pretty much trademarked while he was
writing the books.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, to that lady who complained that Tom was phoning them
in, give him another chance. He may be dead, but his writing is better than
ever. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-77348017588463535342015-12-14T15:47:00.000-08:002015-12-15T13:24:24.323-08:00A Christmas Gift From TG<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thriller Guy in either of his two iterations – TG or Allen
Appel – is never above stealing someone else’s blog material to use here,
though he always, yes always, declares he is stealing when he does so. Which
makes him what? A thief with dubious honor? or simply a writer who is willing
to do what it takes to feed the ever-hungry blog entity. But often he runs
across blogs and or essays that are simply too good to steal wholesale, or,
usually, too long to fit on a normal Thriller Guy template. So TG is going to
pass a couple of these along from the actual Internet home where they were originally
written so you can go to the source and read them. They’re long, but they’re
funny and well worth your time. Besides, what else do you have to do? If you
weren’t willing to fritter away your time, you wouldn’t be reading this blog in
the first place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first is a blog entry at Vulture.com that is essentially
about movie scriptwriting, but as TG has tried to make clear over the years,
writing Thrillers is essentially another form of writing action movies: the
same basic rules apply. Thriller writers are advised to read this very funny
essay and follow these rules in their novels. The article is <i>S<a href="http://www.vulture.com/2013/08/script-doctor-damon-lindelof-on-blockbuster-screenwriting.html">tar Script Doctor Damon Lindelof Explains the New Rules of Blockbuster Screenwriting,</a></i><a href="http://www.vulture.com/2013/08/script-doctor-damon-lindelof-on-blockbuster-screenwriting.html"> by Scott Brown</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.theawl.com/2014/05/how-to-write">The
second blog essay is from theawl.com, where </a><span style="color: #0e0e0e; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.theawl.com/2014/05/how-to-write">Heather Havrilesky talks about the fantastic life of a writer,</a> one who actually works at the craft for money. TG has often
written about many of the same experiences as Ms Havrilesky, but she is far
funnier. Havrilesky </span></span><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">is <i>The Awl’s</i> existential
advice columnist. She’s also a regular contributor to </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #0e0e0e; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">The New York Times Magazine</span></i><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, and is the author of the
memoir <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Disaster-Preparedness-Memoir-Heather-Havrilesky/dp/B007SRYOC8/ref=as_at/?tag=thaw08-20&linkCode=as2&"><span style="color: #172945; mso-bidi-font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Disaster Preparedness</span></a></i> (Riverhead 2011). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #0e0e0e; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Consider these two essays as TG’s holiday gift to
his many followers. And speaking of gifts, what about <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Chicken-novella-Allen-Appel-ebook/dp/B009ZZVRBM/ref=la_B001H6W7XE_1_16?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450135129&sr=1-16&refinements=p_82%3AB001H6W7XE">a Kindle copy of Allen Appel’s The Christmas Chicken </a>for some lucky loved one on your gift
giving list? Or how about as an audio book performed by the fabulous Brad
Wills. Really, the guy is incredible. If you don’t laugh at his fabulous
chicken imitation TG will return your money. (True.) Find the </span><span style="color: #0e0e0e; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Christmas-Chicken-A-Novella/dp/B00ATTIXT2/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1450135129&sr=1-16">the audio book version here</a>. Start your own Christmas tradition, the
yearly holiday reading or listening to The Christmas Chicken.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0e0e0e; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Or, buy a copy of any of Appel’s novels and preload
them on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/All-New-Kindle-Paperwhite-High-Resolution-Display/dp/B00OQVZDJM/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1450136187&sr=1-2">a brand new Kindle</a> for that hard-to-buy-for friend or relative on your
list? Trust Thriller Guy, it’s a great gift suggestion.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0e0e0e; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Really.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #0e0e0e; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Really really really.</span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-67855404740248442222015-12-07T07:42:00.000-08:002015-12-07T07:42:08.278-08:00The Lie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://www.wilfredowen.org.uk/scms_internal/templates/WilfredOwen/images/SidePic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.wilfredowen.org.uk/scms_internal/templates/WilfredOwen/images/SidePic.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I saw a notice a couple of weeks ago announcing the
anniversary of the death of Wilfred Owen, the British war poet. I asked Thriller
Guy if he thought he could write a blog entry about poetry and it’s place in
the thriller writing business. We all know TG is One Tough Hombre, but at this
suggestion he went and hid in the closet, afraid that I would spill the beans
about his writing a poem or two every once in awhile. He’s afraid he might
loose his battlefield cred.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ridiculous. I pointed out to TG that many
traditional warriors I have known were poetry fans, particularly of Owen’s
poetry. Here’s piece about Owen’s death in World War I, 1918.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“In
the days before his death, Owen had been excited because he knew the war was
almost over. The Germans were retreating and the French had joyfully welcomed
the British troops. In his last letter to his mother, Owens wrote: "It is
a great life. I am more oblivious than yourself, dear Mother, of the ghastly
glimmering of the guns outside, and the hollow crashing of the shells. Of this
I am certain: you could not be visited by a band of friends half so fine as
surround me here." A few days later, he was trying to get his men across a
canal in the early morning hours when they were attacked by enemy fire, and
Owen was fatally wounded. The war ended the following week.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I
have suggested elsewhere that a good way to start one’s writing day is to read
a poem before beginning the day’s work. I have found that whatever one reads,
fiction or non-fiction, before one begins, can influence the style of the work
that comes after. Maybe not overtly, but at least subtly, and the stylistic
mannerisms can hang on for longer than one might suppose. Of course this can be
“fixed” in rewrites, but it’s better to go into the work as clean as possible.
This suggests that a good way to start is to read nothing at all, but TG and I
read the newspaper at breakfast first thing in the morning so my/our brain is
already tainted when I sit down to work. My solution is to read a poem before
beginning. The easiest way to do this is to sign up for <a href="http://writersalmanac.org/">Garrison Keillor’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Writer’s Almanac</i></a> which comes in your email and begins every day with a poem. Because they’re the
ones choosing the poem, you don’t have to worry about finding one on your own.
Another benefit is if you do like a particular poem, you can buy or lookup
other work by the same poet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You
might think that you would then be in danger of picking up a particular poetic
style that would ride on the back of your own words when you start to work, but
I have found that this doesn’t happen. But there is a particular sensibility
that does crossover, and that is a good thing. I can’t exactly name what this
effect is, but it’s not harmful and, I have found, gives a sort of ease that
works in your favor, especially when you are starting out the day. And if you
warriors out there are afraid that your savage prose will be enfeebled by the
poetry, you can always read the many war poets who have written throughout
history. A good place to begin is with the site <a href="http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/index.html">http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/index.html</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here’s
a bit of Wilfred Owen to get you started: his poem, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dolce et Decorum</i> Est. The Latin title comes from the phrase from
the Roman poet Horace: “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.” Read
the poem and see how Owen puts the lie to that sentiment. And try reading the
poem before you begin your next day’s writing, or any other poem, to see how it
works for you.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You
can come out of the closet now, Thriller Guy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dolce et Decorum Est<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bent
double, like old beggars under sacks,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Knock-kneed,
coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Till
on the haunting flares we turned our backs,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And
towards our distant rest began to trudge.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Men
marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But
limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Drunk
with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of
gas-shells dropping softly behind.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gas!
GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fitting
the clumsy helmets just in time,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But
someone still was yelling out and stumbling<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And
flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dim
through the misty panes and thick green light,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As
under a green sea, I saw him drowning.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In
all my dreams before my helpless sight,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He
plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If
in some smothering dreams, you too could pace<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Behind
the wagon that we flung him in,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And
watch the white eyes writhing in his face,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">His
hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If
you could hear, at every jolt, the blood<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Come
gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Obscene
as cancer, bitter as the cud<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of
vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My
friend, you would not tell with such high zest<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To
children ardent for some desperate glory,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
old Lie: <i>Dulce et decorum est</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><span style="color: #3f3f3f;">Pro
patria mori.</span></i><span style="color: #3f3f3f;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-87919763073450775812015-11-27T17:53:00.000-08:002015-11-27T17:53:52.410-08:00The Secret<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">In the six years
that Thriller Guy has been lecturing from this particular pulpit he has, many
times, repeated his mantra: Sit down; Shut up, Get to work. In the early days
this no bullshit advice was relatively rare. Most writers of the self-help
writer’s advice manuals used kinder and gentler terms to encourage would-be
writers to do the work of writing. Perhaps it simply became clear that pats on
the back and gentle words of encouragement had little effect on writer behavior or maybe book bloggers
and self help gurus just decided to copy Thriller Guy, because that’s the way
a lot of people get their material. When they can’t be original, they steal. So they got tough. At any rate, TG is no
longer going to slap people around to get them to work. There will still be
thousands of unoriginal book blogs and books telling you the same five things over
and over (First drafts don’t have to be good, Write two pages every day, etc,
etc.) Listen up aspiring writers, either do what needs to be done, or not; TG
doesn’t really give a shit. So to all those out there who can’t seem to figure
out how the process works, let’s let Neil Gaiman (who was the subject of last
week’s entry) have the last word. Here’s everything you need to know to become a successful writer. Take it
away, Neil…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Write
the ideas down. If they are going to be stories, try and tell the stories you
would like to read. Finish the things you start to write. Do it a lot and you
will be a writer. The only way to do it is to do it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m
just kidding. There are much easier ways of doing it. For example: On the top
of a distant mountain there grows a tree with silver leaves. Once every year,
at dawn on April 30th, this tree blossoms, with five flowers, and over the next
hour each blossom becomes a berry, first a green berry, then black, then
golden.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At
the moment the five berries become golden, five white crows, who have been
waiting on the mountain, and which you will have mistaken for snow, will swoop
down on the tree, greedily stripping it of all its berries, and will fly off,
laughing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You
must catch, with your bare hands, the smallest of the crows, and you must force
it to give up the berry (the crows do not swallow the berries. They carry them
far across the ocean, to an enchanter’s garden, to drop, one by one, into the
mouth of his daughter, who will wake from her enchanted sleep only when a
thousand such berries have been fed to her). When you have obtained the golden
berry, you must place it under your tongue, and return directly to your home.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For
the next week, you must speak to no-one, not even your loved ones or a highway
patrol officer stopping you for speeding. Say nothing. Do not sleep. Let the
berry sit beneath your tongue.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At
midnight on the seventh day you must go to the highest place in your town (it
is common to climb on roofs for this step) and, with the berry safely beneath
your tongue, recite the whole of <i>Fox in Socks</i>. Do not let the berry slip
from your tongue. Do not miss out any of the poem, or skip any of the bits of
the Muddle Puddle Tweetle Poodle Beetle Noodle Bottle Paddle Battle.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then,
and only then, can you swallow the berry. You must return home as quickly as
you can, for you have only half an hour at most before you fall into a deep
sleep.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When
you wake in the morning, you will be able to get your thoughts and ideas down
onto the paper, and you will be a writer.</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Times New Roman';">And
if all of that seems too difficult, you can just, well, Sit down; Shut up: and
Get to work. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #343434; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br /></span></div>
Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-44321462673466037582015-11-12T07:18:00.000-08:002015-11-12T07:18:21.771-08:00If You're So Smart, Why Ain't You Rich?<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #434343;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pity the poor book reviewer. Authors love him if the review is good;
revile him if there’s the slightest hint that a book is flawed. Underpaid, (if
paid at all) and usually characterized as a failed writer… “If he’s so smart,
why doesn’t he write his own book? And why isn’t it a best seller?” I have been
asked many times if reviews matter. After having written just shy of a thousand
book reviews for many publications, I think I have an answer: Maybe. Sometimes.
It depends.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #434343;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Amazon publishing and book selling certainly changed the
landscape of traditional book reviewing. For hundreds of years book reviews
appeared in newspapers and journals and sometimes magazines and pretty much
nowhere else. These publications, some impressive and powerful, some not so
much, were the most important places (and usually only places) to get the word
out by publishers and authors that a book had come on the market. For the last
fifty years or so, the three most important publications were <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Publishers Weekly</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kirkus</i>, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Library Journal</i>.
If you got a good review from all of these three, your book was pretty much guaranteed
to do well. Even if it didn’t sell as many copies as you hoped, you had excellent
blurb material for the softbound version when it came out, and publishers were more inclined to accept your next effort if your first received this sort of
critical reception. Of these three, only <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Publishers
Weekly</i> remains really relevant. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #434343;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then along comes Amazon and book reviewing becomes something
new, more a matter of numbers rather than content. Reviewing is no longer the
sole province of professional reviewers – who are often authors themselves --
but the territory of regular readers as well. If you love a book or hate a book
you can go on Amazon and express your opinion, and other readers can make
decisions of whether to buy and/or read a book based on what someone who is
more like them has to say. These reviews have become one more weapon in
Amazon’s powerful arsenal aimed at the heart of mainstream publishing. Almost
all the self-help independent publication gurus advise that you do everything
possible to convince people to give your book a good review on Amazon. The more
reviews, the thinking and advice goes, the more copies you’re going to sell, and
then the more good reviews you’re going to get. This, of course, has led to
cheating and inflated numbers, a subject that I’m not going to go in to, but in
general I think that this conventional wisdom is correct: Amazon reviews lead
to Amazon sales.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #434343;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But how about reviews for the really big guys, writers like
Stephen King, Brad Thor, Donna Tart, Tom Clancy, etc. Do those people really
give a shit? It’s my experience that they actually do. I’ve reviewed and
interviewed some of the biggest in the business and they have always been
seemingly happy to oblige my requests, been free with their time and willing to
answer questions that they’re sick of answering. It seems as if the universal desire to be loved and <o:p></o:p></span></span><span style="color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">admired remains strong in all of us. Everyone hates to be told their work sucks, even if that work has brought in boatloads of money.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #434343;">Some years ago I went to the National Book Festival in
Washington and stood in line to have a book signed by Neil Gaiman. I confess, I
haven’t read his work extensively, but readers love him, and I really liked his
book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Anansi Boys</i>. Here are a
couple of lines from my starred review. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #262626;">If readers found the <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Sandman</span> series creator's last novel, <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">American Gods</span>, hard to classify, they will be equally nonplussed—and
equally entertained—by this brilliant mingling of the mundane and the
fantastic.”</span></i><span style="color: #262626;"> And… <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“But it's Gaiman's
focus on Charlie and Charlie's attempts to return to normalcy that make the
story so winning—along with gleeful, hurtling prose.” </i>So I decided to go to
the book festival and ask him to sign my ARC (Advance Readers Copy) of his novel.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I went with my wife, and we were both nonplussed to see the line
waiting to speak to Gaiman. It must have stretched as long as a couple of
football fields, but I settled in and it inched forward. It took two hours to
get to the signing table, and along the way I met many Gaiman fans who all had
something he had written to sign. They were all impressed that I had a review copy of <i>Anansi Boys,</i> and it was passed along up and down the line to be looked at. You
had to hand your book to be signed to one of his festival helpers, and when she
set it on the table in front of him Gaiman appeared puzzled and looked up at me
with a frown. I said, “I’m your ____ _____ reviewer.” He stood up, (he’s really
tall) came around the table and hugged me. “You wouldn’t believe how much
you’ve changed my life,” he said. Well, that was a nice surprise.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He said that before the review I gave him, his publisher saw him
in as an up-market comic book guy, a writer who wasn’t basically serious. After the
review, they decided to deal with his work in a more serious manner. One
immediate pay off was that they were no longer going to put a lightening bolt
(a “goddamn lightening bolt,” were his words) on the covers of his books to
point up the otherworldly, fantasy aspects. We shook hands and he said if I
ever needed anything, to let him know. As I walked away, the folks in line
looked at me, awestruck. Well, maybe not awestruck, but with admiration. As did
my wife, who had witnessed the whole scene. Suddenly the critic gets some
respect. It felt good.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So in answer to the question, do reviews matter to the Big
Writers? The answer is yes, maybe, and it depends.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #262626;">You just never know. </span><span style="color: #434343;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-65108177278764506072015-10-27T08:44:00.000-07:002015-10-27T08:44:17.345-07:00The Good Life<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For those of you kind enough to ask where the hell Thriller
Guy has been, he’s been off in the lush environs of Napa, California, visiting
his chef/farmer son. TG has one question: How does anyone who lives out there
ever get anything done? It is an undeniably beautiful place with great food and
drink and everyone was nice to TG, even on the highway. OK, maybe it’s two
questions: What is wrong with these people?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When TG visits a new place he tries to imagine himself
living and working there. In this case, maybe in Yountville, or St. Helena, in
the valley, a little, light-filled bungalow, avocado tree in the backyard,
sitting in his studio in front of his computer, looking out on the surrounding
mountains and vineyards, having a glass or two of excellent local wine with
lunch, maybe TG will just lie down for a minute and rest his eyes, zzzzzz. Then
the day is over and nothing got written. Listen to TG: You can walk down the
street and pick your food off the trees that hang over the sidewalk. Even the
homeless live the life of Riley. (Aside… do young people today even know who
Riley was and what the phrase Living the Life of Riley means? <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_of_Riley">A quick dip intothe waters of Wikipedia</a> turns up some interesting and valuable time-wasting
information. TG is not going to go into it here, but anyone who remembers the
hapless Riley uttering the words, “Ain’t this a revoltin’ development” with any
fondness at all will probably enjoy the article.) Back to the homeless.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The weather in Napa pretty much year round makes sleeping under
the bridge as easy as a trip to a spa. TG saw homeless people with several
varieties of pets. If you can convince someone to slip you some gin, you can
make a decent martini just from the landscape around you. Would you like lemon
or olives with that, sir?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It makes sense that this is where most of the screenplays get
written. Writing a screenplay -- as opposed to a novel -- is like going on
vacation. TG should know, he’s got a drawer full of them. They’re only 120
pages long and most of that is white space. There’s plenty of software free on
the Interweb that will format the thing for you. You can crank a decent script
out in a couple of weeks. Any movie producers out there? Want to see a couple
of scripts? Just ask TG, he’ll get them in the mail right away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">TG has written before about his life in Montana when he was
married to A Very Rich Woman and how they lived in the mountains in a beautiful
house. TG sat for a couple of weeks in his bright, airy writing room, looking
out over the beautiful, snow-capped Bitterroot Mountains, getting no work done
until he moved his desk and chair into the basement next to a giant furnace and
finally got cracking. TG still works in a basement with no windows to the outer
world. When the clock says 8 o’clock, TG has to stop and think – AM or PM? TG
needs <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">seasons</i> to force him to his
desk. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Adversity.</i> Snow in the forecast?
Good! Let’s get to work! Heat. Over a hundred degrees outside? Great! It’s cool
down here in the basement, let’s get to work!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All this got TG thinking about how it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">might</i> work if he were hired to go to California to write a movie or something. Maybe he could get set up at a seedy hotel like
Barton Fink in the movie of the same name, a movie that was all about a writer trying
to write. A really ratty place where there was nothing to do except hunker down
and write. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barton_Fink">This led TG to head over to Wikipedia</a> where he found that the Coen
brothers wrote <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Barton Fink</i> because
they were in the middle of writing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Millers
Crossing</i> and they got stuck. So they left California, went back to New York,
wrote <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fink</i>, then finished <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Millers Crossing</i>. The way I see it, they
needed to get out of California and experience the wonderful adversity of New
York to bump them back into creativity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nothing of any real importance gets written in California.
Yeah, sure, I know you’re going to throw names at me like Raymond Carver and
Edgar Rice Burroughs, but really, there are historically and presently ten
times the number of excellent writers in New York City alone compared to all of
California.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And why not? If TG lived there, he’d be just like everyone else.
Yes, he’ll have a couple of olives in his martini. You can pick them off that
tree right over there.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2285015481837682105.post-6449267327616640732015-10-08T11:22:00.000-07:002015-10-08T11:22:11.036-07:00Reaper Report<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/10/6/1444140043945/8c113763-974f-46f1-9e53-5bd57f8bf710-2060x1236.jpeg?w=1920&q=85&auto=format&sharp=10&s=97c00d9b118df589dc47927f3e08d46e" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/10/6/1444140043945/8c113763-974f-46f1-9e53-5bd57f8bf710-2060x1236.jpeg?w=1920&q=85&auto=format&sharp=10&s=97c00d9b118df589dc47927f3e08d46e" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Henning Mankell has died, and he will be sorely missed by all
intelligent mystery readers. Is it just TG, or did Mankell begin to look more and more like Johnny Cash in the last few years? Just asking. His long-running Inspector Kurt Wallander
mysteries are wonderfully written with complex characters and complex plots.
They have been made into several series, both in Sweden<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and by the BBC, where Kenneth Branagh stars
as Wallander. Many of Thriller Guy’s friends <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B00NBO1POW?ie=UTF8&keywords=wallander%20videos&qid=1444326967&ref_=sr_1_3&s=movies-tv&sr=1-3">like the Swedish version better</a>, but TG, being a big Branagh fan, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dmovies-tv&field-keywords=wallander+videos&rh=n%3A2625373011%2Ck%3Awallander+videos">likes the BBC series the best</a>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here’s rather poignant <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/oct/06/henning-mankell-wallander-author-cancer-eventually-the-day-comes-when-we-all-have-to-go">column by Mankell, the last he wrote before his death</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p> </div>
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TG is going to be out of town for a few weeks, and he
suggests that you check out his friend Allen Appel's <a href="http://mylifeinthebigredband.com/">memoir about growing up inWest Virginia in the 1950s</a>. Lotsa sex and laughs. And while you’re at it, why
not scoot over to Amazon and pick up some Appel novels? Even if you’ve read the
entire Alex Balfour series <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_11?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=allen+appel&sprefix=allen+appel%2Caps%2C124">there’s other gems that are just as good, so give them a try</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thanks. See you in a couple of weeks.</div>
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Allen Appelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07577225721733421143noreply@blogger.com0