Issue 48

Think your day was bad? The popular blog fmylife.com has announced that a book is in the works to be published July 2009 by Elsa Lafon at Michel Lafon Publishing in France. The blog, which is popular among Twitter and iPhone users, is a collection of f*** my life moments. For example:
“Today, I went on a first date with a guy I don't know very well. He told me to dress in formal attire so I assumed he was taking me to a nice dinner. He took me to his brothers wedding, and introduced me as "the one" to his entire family. FML”

It was bound to happen sooner or later: Twitter is facing its first libel suit. It all started when Courtney Love began posting a number of tweets criticizing Dawn Simorangkir, a fashion designer who is claiming that Love’s comments have destroyed her reputation and her business. Among the comments, Love calls Simorangkir a “nasty, lying, hosebag thief” with “a history of dealing cocaine.” Defamation on the Internet is a hot-topic issue that seems to popping up everywhere. For more information on defamation and libel on the internet, click here.

Fans of Scribd be warned: The days of downloading books for free onto your computer may be numbered. Scribd is a California-based website that allows users to download books for free and upload new documents, much like the Napster of the late 1990s- early 2000s. A number of prominent authors, including J.K. Rowling, are leading the fight against the popular website that receives approximately 50 million visitors a month. Rowling’s lawyers claim that most of the books in the Harry Potter series were uploaded without permission from Rowling. Scribd does not pay royalties to the authors despite running ads on the website. WNW will be following this story closely.

A recent survey suggests that women read more than men. Bookninja doesn’t like this, so they’ve launched a hilarious contest to “re-masculate” some of the more popular travel books through a (what some men may call) a much-needed dose of testosterone. A few books have already had reassignment surgery: Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares is now Brotherhood of the Traveling Panty-Raids. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert is more appropriately titled Eat Drink Punch Him by Gilbert Elizabeth (of course!) Want to enter the contest? Click here for more information.

By Amanda Linsmeier

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler is a delightful and adventurous tale of two intelligent children who run away from home. When at nearly 12-year old Claudia decides she’s had enough of her home life (being the oldest, getting virtually no allowance and getting overlooked), she makes the decision to run away. But she doesn’t want to just run away; she wants to run to someplace. A place that’s comfortable and elegant. Where she doesn’t have to be dirty and cold. And that is why she picks the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. And she takes her little brother Jamie with her. Not only is Jamie good for a laugh but he’s resourceful and has money. The children embark on their adventure with the planning skills of much older people, hiding in the museum bathrooms before opening and closing, rationing out their money for buying food, walking instead of taking taxis and overall having an enjoyable time living out their secret. That is until they find “Angel,” a lovely, marble statue of unknown origin. Some say she was carved by Michelangelo, others deny it. Claudia realizes she can’t go back home not knowing the truth about Angel. Because then she’ll be the same old Claudia. No, she decides, she must know if it was indeed the famous artist who created her because that sort of secret stays with a person forever. And what Claudia soon discovers is that she enjoyed the secret of running away much more than the actual running.

This book is an old one, which I’ve read many times when I was younger. Having picked it up again in a moment of nostalgia, I was not disappointed. It was just as much fun, just as much intrigue. But there were some moments of confusion. How could these two children create such an elaborate scheme? They might as well have been detectives on CSI for how much knowledge and intuitiveness they possessed. I certainly couldn’t come up with half the plans they did. But even with that slight problem, I still loved this novel. If readers are looking for a light-hearted tale, they won’t be disappointed. This book will bring out the kid in you and next time you go to a museum, you may not look at it the same.

By Patrick Van Gorder

On the day that followed they crossed a lake of gypsum so fine that the ponies left no track upon it. The riders wore masks of bone-black smeared about their eyes and some had blacked the eyes of their horses. The sun reflected off the pan burned the undersides of their faces and shadow of horse and rider alike were painted upon the fine white powder in purest indigo. Far out on the desert to the north dustspouts rose wobbling and augered the earth and some said they’d heard of pilgrims borne aloft like dervishes in those mindless coils to be dropped broken and bleeding upon the desert again and there perhaps to watch the thing that had destroyed them lurch onward like some drunken djinn and resolve itself once more into the elements from which it sprang. Out of the whirlwind no voice spoke and the pilgrim lying in his broken bones may cry out and in his anguish he may rage, but rage at what? And if the dried and blackened shell of him is found among the sands by travelers to come yet who can discover the engine of his ruin?
-Blood Meridian, p. 111

Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian follows the gruesome exploits of the historical “Glanton Gang,” a brutal gang of American mercenaries contracted by Mexican authorities to deliver the scalps of Native Americans during the 1840s and ’50s.

The protagonist is a young unnamed runaway, called simply “the kid.” The kid is possibly a stand in for Samuel Chamberlain, who claimed to have been a part of the Glanton Gang in his autobiographical My Confessions, a work that served as McCarthy’s primary historical text.

That work contains the only known reference to Glanton’s second-in-command, a huge, hairless anomaly called Judge Holden, or more often “the judge.”

The plot is a vehicle for this fascinating character. Like most of McCarthy’s characters, we know little of his past, only that the gang found him sitting alone on a solitary rock in the desert, as if he’d “brung it with him.”

The judge is a vastly learned figure, with a preternatural dearth of knowledge on many complex subjects, ranging from astronomy and chemistry to biology and philosophy. In the vein of the explorer, he collects samples of fauna and sketches birds he’s never seen before. When queried about this, he explains that anything that exists without his consent exists without his permission – an affront that he will not suffer.

Pages of the novel are renditions that tired genre convention of the campfire talk after a hard day’s ride. But these scenes are made fresh by the depth and mystery of the characters, mainly the judge. He holds forth on the nature of the world, and of war. The judge is the high prophet of war; he claims that while it has fallen out of favor, war and violence are the true catalysts of progress, and the only way that a man can justify his existence.

Reading the prodigious Blood Meridian is like trying to decipher the coded history of a bloody and alien world. The novel is excessively violent, chronicling massacres, scalping, and execution. Whereas other western novels are quick to glorify violence, McCarthy’s characters preach a gospel of violence while his brutally authentic scenes argue convincingly for peace.

These scenes of violence are interspersed with long descriptions of the band against the vast backdrop of the rough and empty terrain of 19th Century Texas and Mexico. In these scenes, in the vivid landscapes he paints of an alien – and gone – world, McCarthy’s prose excels.

It took me weeks to read the book, some days only conquering a few of its dense pages a day. Blood Meridian is many things, but it is certainly not an easy read. But from its biblical density derives its power. Each passage, each word is a testament to McCarthy’s mastery of the craft, and the power of language.

The vocabulary alone is incredibly immense. I quickly took to reading with a dictionary handy and was almost embarrassed by how frequently I consulted it. Even with the dictionary’s help, certain passages escaped me, their sentences hinged on nouns too archaic to still be referenced, moved by verbs equally antiquated.

That’s not to say it is unreadable. Far from it. McCarthy’s prose is a national treasure, and anyone familiar with more accessible (and popular) recent works like No Country for Old Men and The Road will see his distinct style shine brighter than ever in Blood Meridian. The work is considered by many literary critics, including myself, to be McCarthy’s masterpiece. In 2006, the New York Times named Blood Meridian the third most important book of the previous 25 years, based on a poll of writers and critics. Only Beloved by Toni Morrison and Underworld by Don DeLillo were rated higher.

Author Sara Paretsky created the famous female private eye, V I Warshawski, who was portrayed by Kathleen Turner on the big screen. Her novels are international best sellers. She received the Diamond Dagger Lifetime Achievement award from the British Crime Writers’ Association and the Gold Dagger for best novel for her book Blacklist. Her latest book is Bleeding Kansas.

Q: Some credit you with revolutionizing/modernizing the mystery novel with your introduction of V I Warsahwski. What’s your response?

A: I believe I played a significant role in the way crime fiction depicted women and women's lives. I was not, by any means, the only pioneer: Marcia Muller, Amanda Cross and others came before me, and Sue Grafton and I developed similar characters with similar sensibilities in the same year, followed soon after by many other writers. But my character, with her combination of femininity, feminism and a gritty blue-collar edge has been one of the most important voices in rethinking the roles of women in fiction. I set out to come to terms with my own sense of voicelessness and helplessness, and, through V I, have been able to speak to others who feel similarly voiceless.

Q: What was it like being taped on MSNBC for inclusion in a piece they were creating on America’s Top Sleuths? Who are some of your favorite authors of detective fiction? Why?

A: It was great fun, although at the same time a little confining, because they had a list chosen by viewers, and I couldn't add my own favorites to it. I read eclectically and have a hard time remembering all my favorites--Marjory Allingham, Michael Gilbert, Liza Cody, Nevada Barr and Valerie Wilson Wesley are a sampling of older and newer writers whose work I like. Good writing--an attention to English style and nuance is an essential. A good story, interesting characters--and not a story built around serial killers and graphic rape/dismemberment.

Q: Why did you depart from your detective series to write Bleeding Kansas? What was the motivation? What role did your own life there play in the book?

A: I grew up in eastern Kansas in the valley of two rivers, the Wakarusa and the Kaw. On maps, you’ll see the Kansas River, but we call it the Kaw, as the Indians who first settled there did, and that is the name I use in this book.

I’ve been away from Kansas for forty years now, but it still is in my bones. The landscapes of childhood are so familiar that it is hard to write about them: I see Chicago more clearly than I do the prairies where my brothers and I hiked and worked and played. It took eight years of thinking about the people and places I knew before I could write this novel.

In the 1850s, the ferocious struggle over slavery in Kansas earned the territory the nickname of “Bleeding Kansas.” The wars fought on that soil were among the bloodiest in our nation’s history as pro- and anti-slavery forces battled over whether the territory would join the union as slave or free. John Brown’s name is well known, but at least a thousand anti-slavery emigrants were murdered in cold blood by “border ruffians,” as they were called, who poured into Kansas Territory from the neighboring slave state, Missouri, with the tacit consent of Territorial Governor Shannon, himself a slave owner. In 1859, Kansas came into the union as a free state, but Lawrence suffered a bloody massacre in 1863, in which hundreds were murdered by raiders led by the Missouri slave supporter, William Quantrell, who took advantage of most of the able-bodied men being away fighting for the Union.

I grew up on that history, on knowing I shared a heritage of resistance against injustice.
A century after Kansas came free into the Union, it was painful to acknowledge that Lawrence was a segregated town. In the 1960s and ‘70s, in a reprise of Bleeding Kansas, the town of Lawrence and the University of Kansas became the site of some of the bloodiest campus battles in the nation, over segregation, over women’s rights, the Vietnam War, Indian rights, African-American rights.

This novel is set in the present, against the backdrop of that history. It is set in the farms of the Kaw Valley where I grew up. In 1958, my parents bought a farm house east of town to escape the poisonous segregation of the era, which most affected African-Americans, but, to a lesser degree, Jews as well. The house we lived in had been owned by the Gilmore Family, who at one time farmed 10,000 acres in the Kaw Valley.

Q: You founded Sisters in Crime. How has that advanced the careers of other women writing in this genre? Why are such organizations so vital to new writers?

A: I think they're vital to all writers, whether new or more established. Today's publishing market is ruthless, and for the most part, except for three or four "super-stars," women are being sloughed by publishers faster than men; women are being consigned to small presses, to paperback publication only, ignored by reviewers, and in general, sent to the margins with a vengeance. I hope Sisters will be up to the challenge of confronting this ominous situation.

Carlotta Holton is the author of Salem Pact and Touching The Dead, and is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.

-----------------

-----------------

-----------------

-----------------

When outlining a novel or even a short story, knowing characters as though you've known them all your life is vital. It goes hand in hand with a column I wrote a week or two ago about morphing yourself into the characters, male or female, in your story. Today, it's the importance of utilizing a "Characterization Chart."

Other than an outline of the plot itself, the chart can easily be the most important tool for the novel and one that will save the writer a lot of time trying to remember things about your characters, some of which are easy to forget. They are the mini-biography references that reveal everything there is to know about your characters. If you can't remember, just refer to the chart. It will keep every character and even animal just the way you want it to be. A chart follows:

CHARACTERIZATION CHART

Character's name: _______________________
Sex _______
Age _______
Ht______
Wt._______

Physical appearance including body type, hair, eyes, facial features, dress, posture, movement, mannerism, speech.
------
Personal history that may influence motivation including education, family, early childhood experiences, financial situation, profession, marital status, other relationships, friends (their status in life: professional and otherwise), habits, health, where s/he grew up.
------
The inner person including distinctive personality traits, self-image, yearning/ dreams, apprehensions, sense of humor, code of ethics, attitudes.
--------
Other details including hobbies, favorite food, colors, books, music, art, etc.
-------
Positive traits.
-------
Negative traits including character flaws, etc.
------
Why is it important for this character to have these traits/attitudes to play his or her intended role in your novel?

Once you make a habit of utilizing the chart, your characters will be bigger than life -- or smaller if you wish.

Questions/Comments? Contact Jim at james@jamesfalk.net, or visit www.jamesfalk.net.

James Falk, as a teen-ager, used to dream of being a big-time racketeer. Fortunately, his dream didn't come true. A 10th grade dropout, he finished highschool after four years in the Marines and went on to earn a B.A. in Journalism and an M.A. in Communications.

Story by: David Weishner
Based on the piece: Apollo with Cancer by Jeffrey Katrencik

"Apollo, is that you? Can you hear me?" asked Stella, Apollo's childhood nemesis, the female version of a high school bully. "I can barely recognize you. Are you in any pain?" she wondered allowed. "You really don't remember what happened, do you? My God, it's a miracle you survived. You're an excellent driver; I did everything I could to run your car off the road."

Apollo had been driving to her hotel, directly from a body building contest in which she took first place. Her lifetime of commitment to health and fitness had paid off well for a woman in her late thirties. She was on a roll, placing first in each of the last four contests she entered. Yet fate was not kind to her this night.

Immediately after Apollo claimed the first place trophy, she was approached by her estranged, childhood schoolmate. Apollo remembered her well. Too well in fact, but thought perhaps she had changed after all those years of court-ordered therapy. Stella was a school bully, a violent bully. Demented even, to the point where police and psychiatrists got involved. Apollo still had the scars on the back of her legs, but was used to ignoring them in the mirror. It only made her train harder when any thought of the past entered her mind.

“Apollo! Congratulations! You look fantastic, do you remember me?” asked Stella cordially.

“Yes, of course I do. You look well,” offered Apollo hesitantly. “What brings you to this part of the country?”

“Well,” said Stella, “I thought we should clear some things up, and now is probably my last chance because I have cancer.”

“What!?” exclaimed Apollo. “What makes you think I want to clear anything up? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

There was a long pause. “Didn’t you hear what I said?” asked Stella.

“Yes, I heard every word. You said you wanted to clear some things up, but I don’t recall having issues with you about anything. I think of our times together quite fondly, don’t you?” asked Apollo.

Stella responded, “Listen to me Apollo, I have cancer. It’s inoperable, and I don’t have very long. There are some things I need to get off my chest, and you know what it is I’m referring to.”

“Oh Stella, it’s so good to see you after all this time,” said Apollo. “It brings back wonderful memories for me. Why don’t we get together soon and have dinner? But right now I’ve got to drive back to my hotel and shower.”

“Why not get together tonight?” asked Stella. “I can follow you back in my car.”

“I suppose,” said Apollo, somewhat hesitantly, “I think the restaurant there is open until midnight. I need something to eat before I turn in anyway. That will be fine.”

“Excellent,” replied Stella. “I’ll wait for you outside.”

Apollo went backstage and gathered her belongings in a duffle bag. She snickered at the thought of ignoring Stella’s mention of having cancer. She had been hoping for years that some horrid, unfortunate circumstance would turn that girl’s world upside-down and render her distraught and impugned with emotional turmoil, just as she had endured at the wicked hand of Stella herself.

Apollo got in her car and signaled for Stella to follow her. She had an ever-increasing chagrin that began to feel better than having just won her fourth contest in a row. In fact, Apollo was beginning to outright laugh out loud as she drove along the narrow two-lane highway back to her hotel.

As Apollo cruised along a dark stretch of road halfway to her hotel, she saw the bright lights of Stella’s car grow increasingly larger, until finally she felt a jolt to her back bumper. Was Stella falling asleep? Did she lose consciousness? What was going on? As Apollo began to slow down, she saw the headlights disappear, and then reappear right next to her door. Then she felt another jolt that sent her car careening along the berm of the road.

Apollo was able to regain control and managed to steer her car back into her lane. She looked in the rearview mirrors, but didn’t see lights anywhere. She looked straight ahead but could only see lights in the distant horizon. That’s got to be my hotel, she thought, and began to speed up to get there as fast as she could. As Apollo looked up from checking her rearview mirror one last time, she saw for only an instant Stella’s car parked perfectly across the highway, with Stella standing directly in front of it.

Apollo slammed on the brakes and swerved to the right, missing the front of Stella’s car by only inches. But immediately in her path was a concrete bridge abutment for a train trestle that Apollo hit dead on at nearly 80 miles per hour. There was a deafening noise, and then everything went silent and dark.

Once the firemen were able to extricate Apollo from her mangled car, it became immediately apparent that she was paralyzed from the neck down. And even if the paramedics could control the profuse bleeding of her exposed spinal chord, it was no guarantee that she would live.

Along with her legs and forearms, Apollo’s face had been crushed, with every bone from her jaw to her forehead being shattered. The impact was so intense that the trauma surgeons found Apollo’s front teeth fused with the remnants of her spine, exactly where her shoulder blades used to be. Her nasal cavity was split open so that the inside of her throat was visible, right to where to the back of her tongue had been cut off. Her brain was visible through her eye sockets, her eyeballs having been dissolved upon impact.

But Apollo was strong, her body was pure muscle. Her vital signs were good, and her brain activity was healthy.