I'm an Islander and a City Boy Too

It's always a strange, sometimes frightening, thing. A story that's going exactly as planned suddenly compels you to write an unexpected scene. And part of you wants to resist because this narrative twist will force you to rewrite a number of earlier scenes. You want to keep it simple and proceed according to plan...but should you?

Example:

My two lead characters have been steered to a Seattle security guard who may be able to help them. He's a scarred, broken-down legend who'd once been the terror of thieves. But Elvis has now left the building. The plan: to have my guys show up, present him with a card from a cop he knows and arrange to meet him after his shift. But Boss MacTavin, my hero, is both moved and angered by the sight of the coward the guard has become. My right hand began to move.

And a fierce battle between that hand and my critical side now began. As I wrote, Boss slapped the guard several times to try to awaken his spirit...then DB, Boss' partner, grabs the guard by the shirt front--something no experienced fighter would do--and tells him quietly that he has stolen merchandise under his jacket--the guard should recover it, then throw him out.  So one side of me wanted Boss to play Mike Hammer with the guard, while the other side wanted both men to give the guard a chance to get his old bad feeling back and be seen as a star on the job. I now saw the guard becoming a major player in the book.

Another writer once compared writing to a creative balance between the island and the city:





I like the image and I keep it in mind. At the first draft, I'm an islander and I need to work as one, freely and openly...unburdened by bullying messages from hardheaded city editors: No, no, that'll never work...Boss can't really slap the guy--not that hard, anyway...And won't the guard be fired if he throws the two out?  Etc., etc., etc.

But hey. The city pros can have their day at the second and subsequent drafts. I'm an islander now and I let the words rip without any fear of mistakes.

Reb MacRath's Revolutionary 6-Week Rotation Rock

Get this: while men and women in desperate straights would sell their souls for a little more time, I sat counting the weeks until April. Specifically:




At 4:30 P.M., seated in my cabin on the Amtrak Empire Builder, I'll begin the first leg of my cross-country train trip, with a three-day stop in Buffalo. The trip is important for me in so many ways, family and personal, that I've found myself literally counting the days. Sometimes, in fact, I almost wished that the next six weeks could fall off the face of the clock.

Today, though, something clicked inside me. I saw how obscene it was to waste any of the time we're allotted...and how I might change the passive waiting game into a rousing adventure. I began with a question I didn't much like: what are the things I want so badly to escape from?

And what could I do to change



into




Epiphany: I don't gotta wait six weeks until I leave...I get to use the next six weeks to tackle the things that had cried for escape.

Six weeks... What if I focused on the six top issues? And instead of attacking them daily, all-out, what if I focused on one for a week while not ignoring the others? In other words, I might focus one week out of six on one particular issue while not forsaking the others. Goal: combine action with planning and meditation. I went on to see the next six weeks as a trial run. At the end of my vacation, I can start the next rotation, devoting nearly nine weeks every year to a focused attack on six issues.




Here are my opening six:
Week 1) The Body: I'm still not where I want to be. Focus on fine-tuning workouts and nutrition, perfecting a mostly raw diet.
Week 2) The Castle: whipping my studio into the shape I'd imagined 18 months ago. For this rotation I'll focus on immediate needs: an intensive, impeccable cleaning...organization of still-boxed papers...acquisition of more essential furnishings...
Week 3) Ruby Reb: If I had a dream nickname, then this would be it. Impeccably groomed, immaculately garbed, wearing and carrying only the best. Let no fashion Nazi find even one rogue nose hair on the mug of Ruby Reb.
Week 4) The Entertainer: Make the cleaned and organized Castle a more inviting place for guests. 
Week 5) The Friend: I'll focus extra hard on personal relationships. This will include mending bridges when possible...and casting off dead weight when bridges can't be fixed. I'll make time to show how much I value the friends I now have. And I'll try to make more new ones.
Week 6) The Successful Writer: While I'll continue to write every day, this week I'll focus extra-hard on succeeding in the eBook arena. Goal: to join the elite club of those who write full-time. Network and bond this week, study and learn from the clever, filthy rich.

Not bad for a first rotation, I think. But all work and no joy makes for torpedoed intentions.




Sooooo, as we say in Seattle, Ruby Reb's allowing himself a fine treat every Wednesday.

Next week, I'll review week one and tell you of my treat.

Meet Suz Korb!

One good dessert turns on another...

Not long ago Suz Korb invited me to appear on her blog to help promote my new book Caesar's Ghost. Well, Suz has a new project cooking and I'm fired up enough about it to want to share it with you.



She had a singular pitch:

I’m doing something totally incredible. I’m going to blog the first draft of my newest novel as I write it! This is my new project as a way of getting me to write more every day. Follow my blog for daily chapters of my current work in progress.

This will be fiction at its most raw. Pure story. This is adventure as it unfolds in my mind, the most creative way possible for a writer to express one’s self. I’m going to have fun with this and you can join me for the journey, wherever it may take us!


Here's the link to Suz's blog. You'll learn more about her and her intriguing background: born in Hawaii, raised in Utah, now living in England. (I'll bet her accent rivals mine: born in Buffalo, lived in Toronto, San Francisco, New York, Atlanta, Charlotte, Portland, now Seattle...with extended travels in Japan and London).

http://suzkorb15.blogspot.com

You'll find samples of her work in progress The Keystone. Friends, we've got a winner here and I can't wait for the completed book.

Too Good to Not Be Reviled: Martin Campbell

Good morning, class. Let's begin by introducing today's featured guest, whose name is Martin Campbell.



Now, Campbell's been around a while, which means that some morons won't like him. Too old. Not hip. Blahblah, blahblah. But listen:

Campbell has worked consistently from the early 80's in both TV and film. His record, some say, has been wildly mixed. But so has the record of any consistently working director over a span of three decades. The main lows trumpeted by his detractors are these:

The Green Lantern (2011)
The Legend of Zorro (2005)--an abysmal sequel
Vertical Limit (2000)
No Escape (1994)

The highs, though, are substantial. And the really interesting thing is that they're interspersed with the films that are taken as bombs. The highs:


2006                                    1998                           1995



The 2010 movie         The 1985 TV miniseries


To have rebooted the Bond franchise twice is an awesome achievement in itself. Furthermore, Campbell brought an entirely different look to the Bond films, one that's still with us today. Lots of dark, elegant night settings. Smooth transitions. Stylishly done action. And yet Campbell got very little respect from the die-hard fan boys, who began to argue almost immediately for his replacement. Even after Casino Royale, which was wildly heralded as a Bond leap into greatness. But not, of course, because of Campbell. No, fanboys argued, the film succeeded because of Daniel Craig and a script tightly based on the original Fleming novel. The most popular charge against Campbell on one Bond site was that he was a 'hack' who always followed the money. As a matter of fact, Campbell follows the work...and takes great work when he can get it. Still, the fan boys got their wish with subsequent Brosnan films that declined in quality after Campbell's departure. And, call me a heretic, I'd argue the same for the Craig Bonds.

Compare the train wreck that was Quantum of Solace or the bloated, sullen mess of Spectre with the quick, lean, muscular style of Campbell in either of his Bonds. But don't stop there. As far back as 1985, he directed the original Edge of Darkness--still widely regarded as the greatest TV miniseries ever...though, naturally, not because of Martin Campbell's work. And twenty-five years later he directed a top-drawer movie version.

Today, after a couple of TV movies--follow the work, kiddos, and persevere--Campbell has two films in the works: The Foreigner, now filming, with Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan...and Across the River and Into the Trees, once again with Brosnan and based on  a Hemingway novel.



If the films fail, Martin Campbell will be held to blame. And if they succeed, it will be despite him...have I got that right?

While I wait, I'll replay GoldenEye, Casino Royale, the Mask of Zorro, Edge of Darkness. Hell, I may even enjoy the good parts of Vertical Limits.

Rock on, Martin Campbell.

Disgraceful I Don't Give a Hoots

Maybe the following list results from the exhausting bog of starting a new novel. Maybe I'm tired of winter and rain. In any case, my brain is filled with dismal I Don't Give  a Hoots I'm cruel enough to share.




1) I don't give a hoot if there's a new Spiderman reboot that's supposed to be sublime.
2) I don't give a hoot if Miley has a wardrobe malfunction or goes down on a blowup doll in concert.
3) I don't give a hoot if Wentworth Millere is gay as long as he gets to keep acting.
4) I don't give a hoot if Prison Break has to come back without Sarah Trancredi as long as new season brings back T-Bag and Alex Mahone.
5) I don't give a hoot if veggie burgers don't improve my health as long as they're meatlessly yummy.
6) I don't give a hoot if if takes me a year or more to write a book when others are putting out six books or more. I only give a hoot if they enjoy what they do more.
7) I don't give a hoot if the foxy young barrista can't see my Slightly Older Guy inner sex appeal.
8) I don't give a hoot how Nicki Minaj earned the title Superhead.
9) I don't give a hoot what Mel Gibson did or said ten years ago, just what he does and says today.
10) I don't give a hoot if some fool brags about his cars or income. I'll wait until New Year's to tell him, "May the new year bring you everything you so richly deserve."
11) I don't give a hoot if the whole world loves The Walking Dead.
12) I don't give a hoot about never having watched The Sopranos or The Jerry Seinfeld show.
13) I don't give a hoot about Faulkner, who gave me a migraine in high school.
14) I don't give a hoot about artichokes or broccoli or Proust.
15) I don't give a hoot about neck tattoos, barhopping nuns or even Heavy Metal.

Gotta go now. Thanks for listening. Time for a few of the hundreds of things that I still do give a hoot about.

Deep Within the Valley of Top Secrets

It took me far too long to get hip to the value of secrets. I could never share enough--even things far better kept to myself:
--The incredible sex I enjoyed with my girl.
--Great ideas for books I was planning to write.
--New ideas for marketing.
--Fabulous good fortune.
This was far worse than simply bad form: wanting to be admired came across as boasting. Worse still, since I'd blathered, real bastards felt no compunction about helping themselves to my luck. Or my girls.

Years ago, a company sponsored a cross-country trip I needed to take for a book in progress. At that time I belonged to a large group of writers. Naturally, a proper fool, I rushed to share the news. Soon I began to receive requests from relative strangers about how I'd gotten sponsored. And years later, when I re-approached the same company, they did not respond. The odds, I knew, were way better than average that they'd been flooded with queries.

A few years later, at a dinner with a powerful writer I knew--an older man with Hollywood connections--I told him that I wanted to approach John Travolta to sell him on Nobililty, which I'd written with him in mind. Now, Travolta had been down for years and was just regaining some of his lost heat after Pulp Fiction. My writer friend laughed. Travolta? But a few months later, the writer told me that he was approaching JT to star in his own new book.

I could go on, but why bother? It took me far longer than most to understand why veils of secrecy shroud many new movies and books...why cunning Asian women often say of the men they adore, 'Oh, he's okay but kind of stupid'...why some never reveal their good fortune until the event is a wrap...why some never answer the question 'What's new?' except with 'Same old same old'...




So I here I sit today blessed with good tidings that I'd love to share with all of you.

And I will.

Unspeaking the Language of Silence

People say the damnedest things. But they say even damneder things when they say nothing at all.




Silence is generally a coward's way of raising his voice when he's angry. Its basic meanness often hides behind a superior stance: You're not good enough to talk to...You're not even worthy of a second thought or chance...I will not pollute my mind with thoughts of such as you...Etc.



I've been on the receiving end of a few personal shunnings. But I resist the impulse to shun my shunners in return. My door is always open if they ever Sorry-up. I have no time for:




But my thoughts turn now to professional dead air. Today a colleague lamented, on a private forum, that no one had entered a Comment on her new monthly post. Almost instantly, a small group of supportive members rallied to her side. The absence of some others let me to reflect on other forms of silence.

Heartless nonresponsiveness
--You approach your group or circle with a request for reviews, offering free copies. And one of two things happens:
    1) You receive no responses at all.
    2) You receive a few okays...proceed to send gift copies...but then never hear another word.

Leech nonresponsiveness
--You post, on a collective blog, a particularly useful piece, summing your experience on an important topic. And suddenly everyone is flocking to this or that agent...or using the scoop you've revealed. And yet:
     1) Not one appreciative comment is posted.
     2) Strangers send you messages requesting pro referrals...or readings of their books.

Non-nonresponsiveness
--The dear rogue who keeps telling you over and over that his promised review will arrive any day.






Possible alternatives to the Silent Treatment
1) Gentle Correctives
--When a total stranger asks for a review, let them know they need to learn professional behavior.
--When a total stranger asks for any favor, let them know the Code: connect first on a personal level, then ask.

2) Plan B's
--When writers you put out books that falls short, let them know you love their work but can't review these...and tell them why. Tell them you hope to be there for their next.
--If you can't review a book, you can offer to tout it on Twitter or Facebook.
--If you can't even read the book now, let the author know your schedule. And offer what support you can.
--A supportive comment on a blog needn't run hundreds of words. Even a handful of kind words will be well received.
--If you requested a gift copy, at the very least send your thanks.


Summary Judgment
The Silent Treatment sucks. We can't engage with everyone or do the whole world favors, But we can do better than zipping our lips. No one will like everything that we say. Then again, none can say our hearts aren't as true as a lion's.

And...We all would do well to remember that when we vote with our thumbs down, we just might be totally wrong.