May 2012
25 posts
May 31, 2012
TECHNOLOGY TO DREAD
“The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Recovering from Identity Theft” by attorney Mari Frank is a far, far greater horror story than Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein.” Given today’s technology crooks can invade your private records as easily as sneezing. Did you know there’s research software that can deduce your social security number with as little information as your birth date and...
May 30, 2012
BUILD A BETTER MOUSE TRAP
If I had another life, it might be fun to run a virtual book tour company, putting writers and readers together. The one I used to advertise my novel, “Gothic Spring,” could certainly use come a little competition. Here’s how I would start:
To begin with, an organizer needs to vet his bloggers. They should have a significant number of followers, have been bloggers for...
May 29 2012
VIRTUAL TOURS COST REAL MONEY
To help fellow writers decide on the efficacy of virtual books tours, I’ll share my recent experience. First, I considered three packagers and chose the one with the most polished presentation. Second, I contacted two of their previous clients. Both admitted the tours did little to increase book sales. Still, I decided to go forward. I wrote a check to the company in...
May 25, 2012
A BLOGGER’S DOUBTS
A few friends, both virtual and real, have begun to write blogs recently. I’d like to imagine I inspired them, but I know the passion to communicate is part of the human DNA. The number of bloggers in the world is enough to make me shudder. I joined one site where the fiction writers section numbered nearly 3,000. Other sections were in included — biography, non-fiction...
May 24, 2012
YOU CAN LEAD A HORSE TO WATER BUT…
I’m forgoing my usual introspective thoughts today to offer a reminder. “Marie Eau-Claire” (Pts. 1 & 2) — currently free and available on line at http://TheColoredLens.com — will soon disappear into the ether.
I send this reminder because I can think of no greater way to thank my friends, virtual and real, for being my friends than by putting a...
May 23, 2012
VIRTUAL WARS (continued from Tuesday, May 22, 2012)
Background
Many of us know that the Internet began as an American project after WWII when our government needed a system that would allow message authentication between various parts of the military. Vint Cerf and his team together with the help of Robert Kahn, a computer scientist, put together what’s called a domain – a long list of code with...
May 22, 2012
THE GREATEST WAR FACING US MAY BE THE VIRTUAL ONE
Yesterday I talked about the power of one to effect change in the world. It may have sounded a little pie-in-the-sky but there is more method than madness in my proposal. Today, I’m going to refer to the importance of one to affect upcoming changes in the Internet. A discussion of the internet may not, strictly speaking, be about literature...
May 21, 2012
PROPOSAL FOR A QUIET REVOLUTION
So much of what we hear on the news or read in the paper is about a world in chaos. There’s a reason for this, of course. It’s called “marketing.”
Most living creatures are designed to respond to fear because survival may depend upon it. But we humans make too great a habit of scaring each other and ourselves. The media are masters of manipulation. “If it bleeds...
May 18, 2012
THE ART OF VERBAL GYMNASTICS
I admit, I half admire what I am about to hold up for sport. The ability to play with language, to stretch it like taffy into a gossamer thread, is a game worthy of the Olympics for there is always the real danger the thread will break and like London Bridge come falling down. James Wolcott has shown himself to be a master of the game, using punctuation as a...
May 17, 2012
HUMOR IS A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE
A friend recently sent me a short story he’d written which is about to appear in the literary magazine, “Drash.” The publicationfocuses on Jewish and/or Pacific Northwest themed material. His tale is about a boy who uses ventriloquism to convince his Jewish parents that the live fish in their bathtub can talk. Why there’s a fish in the bathtub and how the...
May 16, 21012
BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES
A friend sent me an article from the local newspaper, which speculated that anger was the proper fuel for art. To support his theory, the writer, David Stabler gave three examples of artists famous for their flashes of visionary fire though it alienated those around them: Adrienne Rich, a poet, Steve Jobs, the technology genius and Mark Rothko, the...
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
Persistence pays off! I’ve just received a glowing notice from the online Midwest Book Review for Gothic Spring.
I couldn’t be more tickled about this. Truly, the Midwest Book Review is the gold standard for authors trying to reach an audience.
”Those with the knowledge that no one else has always rise a bit of suspicion. “Gothic Spring” follows...
May 15, 2012
OUT OF THE FIRE AND INTO CIVILIZATION
I might be a fool, but I’ve always sided with John Locke rather than Thomas Hobbes on the question of whether man is basically good or bad. I believe human nature is good because we need each other to survive and that necessitates cooperation and compromise. Whether that understanding comes ultimately from experience or is divinely inspired, I don’t know...
May 15, 2012
OUT OF THE FIRE AND INTO CIVILIZATION
I might be a fool, but I’ve always sided with John Locke rather than Thomas Hobbes on the question of whether man is basically good or bad. I believe human nature is good because we need each other to survive and that necessitates cooperation and compromise. Whether that understanding comes ultimately from experience or is divinely inspired, I don’t know but...
May 14, 2012
INTO THE VIRTUAL ARENA…
Last week I received a positive review of my novel “Gothic Spring” and forwarded it to my publisher, expecting to be congratulated. Instead, I received a cautious reply, reminding me that not all reviews will be so glowing. So much depends upon a reviewer’s personal likes and dislikes. The remark I suppose, was intended as a kindly reminder because today marks the...
May 11, 2012
WHEN WORDS FAIL
Samuel Beckett, the author of “Waiting for Godot,” felt that language was too confining to express thought:
“It is to be hoped the time will come, thank God, in some circles it already has, when language is best used when it is most efficiently abused… To drill one hole after another into it until that which lurks behind, be it something or nothing, starts seeping...
Wonderful review
Elizabeth Silver just published a strong, knowing review of Gothic Spring:
A maiden aunt, a new Vicar with a book and secrets, and a curious, precocious young lady. Gothic Spring will grab you from page one….the setting, the time period, the charming, small town, and the storyline are very alluring. The storyline was focused on Victorine and her...
May 10, 2012
MAURICE SENDAK — THANK YOU
On Tuesday, Maurice Sendak died from a stroke at the age of 83. I wrote a blog about him earlier after reading an article that reported he was unhappy and found life meaningless. Understandably, he was depressed, having lost his partner of many years, but that had been a while earlier and still he was unable to recover. Life for him had become flat and dull. Well,...
May 9, 2012
WHILE ROME BURNED
I almost didn’t read the article. There’s too much violence in the world already. I didn’t want to know details. But the title caught my eye: “The Warrior Class: A golden age for the freelance soldier.” Freelance solider? I’d heard the words mercenary, privateer and even soldier of fortune before. But “freelance soldier,” smacked too much as a term of business like freelance...
May 8, 2012
FLAME OR FIZZLE?
If a popularity poll were taken among my friends, real and virtual, Charles Koch, of the infamous Koch brothers, would fall to the bottom of the list. That’s why an article about his daughter, Elizabeth Koch, caught my eye. In it, she describes herself as an optimist and so, with her father’s money, she’s opened a new publishing house called, Black Balloon. Her plan is to pioneer...
May 7, 2012
BRAVE NEW WORLD… FOR SOME OLD FASHIONED PUBLISHERS
A friend recently recommended a publisher she thought might be interested in my upcoming novel, “Trompe l’Oeil.” I’ve already signed a contract but out of curiosity, I reviewed the guidelines. The first sentence produced a belly laugh:
“Every proposal that reaches us is reviewed by at least one member of the editorial staff.”
I...
May 4, 2012
THE SECRET ROOM OF INVENTION
I’m about to launch a virtual tour for my book, “Gothic Spring.” I’m not exactly sure what a virtual tour is except book reviewers ask questions of an author and record the response on their blog site. It’s a chance to let readers know the book is in print and to peak their interest. The tour will take place between May 14 – 25 and in preparation, I’m sitting before...
May 3, 2012
WHEN I GROW TOO OLD TO DREAM I’LL STILL HAVE BILL TO REMEMBER
The April edition of the “AARP Bulletin” featured the journalist Bill Moyers. He and I are contemporaries but it always seems to me that I’ve been following his career since I was in diapers. He’s a fixture in the landscape of America. When he retired a year ago from his weekly television show, “Bill Moyers Journal,” I felt abandoned,...
May 2, 2012
ONCE UPON A TIME
The last time I visited my mother, I spent a lot of time searching for her glasses. She’s legally blind, so the glasses don’t provide much benefit; but she was upset when she couldn’t find them. I rummaged in the obvious places then moved on to her microwave. Nothing there. Finally, I looked under her bed where she stashes two boxes of memorabilia. Pawing through one of them, I...
