Happy Hallowe’en (or else)

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Life2 Comments

I remember the Hallowe’en of my childhood when most people remembered that it’s a contraction for hallowed evening and left the apostrophe where it belongs. Kids, except for the very youngest, went around the neighborhood alone or in groups rather than going from street to street in a parent’s car (that would creep along while the kids rang doorbells). I remember when Hallowe’en was always celebrated on the 31st rather than being moved by law or proclamation by the city council to the nearest weekend day. And, I remember when a lot of kids saw it as a night to go out trickin’, which meant throwing eggs, tossing toilet paper up in the trees and messing up windows and screen by drawing on them with bars of soap.

I suppose when you’re my age (you’ll know it when you get there), you’ll remember Hallowe’en as it is now instead of what it will probably turn into: banned or structured into Hallowe’en walks through selected parts of the town. It’s sad, I guess that progress has been forced to focus more and more on the predators that appear on the streets every year. Hell, you can go to jail if you allow your kid to walk or ride a bike to school.

When I was a kid, we’d have a hundred or maybe a hundred and fifty trick-or-treaters a night–often more. When we lived in a small town on the other side of Georgia, we were surprised if we had fifty–that, in spite of the pickup trucks bring in kids from neighborhoods far away. Now we live on a rural road and haven’t seen a trick-or-treater for five years.

When I was a kid, I thought Hallowe’en was fun. I suppose it was the candy and, to some extent, the costumes. As I got older, I hated it because I had better things to do than jump up from whatever I was doing every five to ten minutes to answer the doorbell and hand out candy. But, that was only fair since I rang a lot of doorbells and disrupted the evenings of a lot of adults when I was little.

I liked the little kids best since they were shy or joyful. I disliked the teenagers who thought they were entitled to all the candy in my basket and to hell with whoever came to my door after they left. I was proud of the African American and Korean [Korean is Georgia’s second language] parents who were brave enough to bring their children to a predominantly white neighborhood. I tended to be somewhat cranky with people who thought it was okay to ring my doorbell after 10 p.m.

And that reminds me, why is it now a standard to remove the periods from the “p. m.”? More lazy English, I think. But I refuse to change. I’m going to keep putting those periods there for the same reason I keep putting the hyphen in co-operation. (That hyphen had a purpose: it told you that “coop” wasn’t pronounced like a chicken coop but as two syllables.)

But, I digress.

—Malcolm

 

 

 

If you’re writing a novel about a slaughterhouse. . .

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn history, writing

then you need to tour a slaughterhouse. Or, at least read a lot about slaughterhouses, what happened inside then and what became of the people who worked there. In his essay in “The Writers Chronicle,” Colson Whitehead suggests writing what you don’t know, otherwise, you’ll and up writing the same book over and cover. So, you probably don’t need a slaughterhouse career to craft a novel about them. Frankly, that’s the last place I want to work.

Many things fall into the category of research that makes writers sick. Researching the KKK for my novel in progress fits into that category. And yet, since I never belonged to the KKK, I need to find out what happened in their meetings or my scenes and descriptions won’t be correct. I could say, “who will know?” Well, I would know. So here’s a selection of KKK books you’ll find on Amazon if you go looking. Fortunately, I found what I needed on free sites and didn’t have to buy any of these.

In addition to those, older books have been captured by Google or reside in various libraries and archives. If you look on state-operated photo archives (such as Florida Memory), you’ll find photographs of KKK fliers, pamphlets, parades, and posters. I grew up in an area with an active KKK presence, so I have a sixth sense when it comes to tracking down the filth.

Looking at this shit is about like being forced to eat a food you detest, like turnips, for example. Do you eat the entire crock of turnips in one sitting, do you eat one bite every week smothered in something that disguises the taste, or do you say to hell with the turnips—or the KKK–and give up on your book? I think that historically accurate novels that mention the KKK are important to our understanding of the Jim Crow years of our past and (sadly) to the deluge of white supremacy groups we’re seeing around the country today.

When I was in high school, I got physically ill reading All Quiet on the Western Front. Later, I felt the same way when I read Hiroshima. I wondered how the authors were able to suffer through the facts and put words on the page. Such questions are a consideration, I think, for anyone writing a novel with horrifying sweeps or history and the bad guys responsible for them.

Anger is good motivation, and suffice it to say, I feel plenty of anger about the KKK. I researched the KKK when I wrote the Florida Folk Magic Series. My work-in-progress novel follows up on that trilogy, so that means reading more about the KKK than I want to know. You might find yourself in a similarly uncomfortable research situation. if you decide to write a novel about the prison at Guantanimo, the rape culture, terrorist attacks, or even a tour of duty in the House of Representatives.

When it comes down to it, you have to learn about it before you can write about it.

—Malcolm

 

If you’re an author, why’s your online stuff out of date?

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn writing

Presumably, part of an author’s platform is composed of a Facebook page, a blog, a website, and a Twitter account. Letting these go out of date seems about as silly as a bricks-and-mortar store publishing an old phone number on a billboard. So, why does it happen? Better things to do, perhaps. Or, tired of social media, perhaps. Or dead, perhaps.

Reasonable excuses, perhaps. Yet, I feel a bit discouraged when:

  • I try to follow an author on Twitter and find that the author’s Twitter link in their Facebook about page or their website leads to a message telling the account doesn’t exist.
  • I click on the blog menu selection on the author’s website and find no new posts for four or five years.
  • I notice that an author’s Twitter profile touts a NEW BOOK that was new a year ago.
  • An author’s Facebook page or profile sits there for months with no activity.

Nobody asked, but it seems to me it would be better to delete these out-of-date references and accounts until the author needs them again. In the old days, misspelling a source’s name in a newspaper was considered especially egregious sin, partly because it was sloppy and partly because one figured that if the name was wrong, perhaps other “facts” in the story were also wrong. At best, an out-of-date platform is a similar bad sign to prospective readers, agents, and publishers.

I get it. Promotion via blogs, websites, Twitter, and Facebook tends to ramp up when a new book comes out. Makes sense, I suppose. However, a continuing presence of up-to-date online material will be vital if an author starts looking for a new agent or publisher and discovers the platform has fallen into disuse for five years. That tells an agent the platform isn’t a positive factor in the decision about representing an author.

Really, it’s not that hard to delete links to Twitter accounts and blogs that are no longer active. Worse yet, authors are disappointing their readers by letting a blog sit there with nothing new to read.

By the way, if you find out-of-date links on any of my sites, please let me know. Seriously, I like to practice what I preach even though I’m as disorganized as anyone can be. (I just updated my Twitter profile picture before writing this blog.)

—Malcolm

Are you taking the plunge into NaNoWriMo this year?

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn writing2 Comments

“National Novel Writing Month began in 1999 as a daunting but straightforward challenge: to write 50,000 words of a novel during the thirty days of November.” – NaNoWriMo

A lot of writers and aspiring writers ask themselves one important question every year about now: “Am I going to commit to writing 50,000 words in November?”

According to the organization’s website, 306,230 said “yes” in 2017. The organization has grown since 1999 and runs multiple programs year-round. It’s larger and more influential than most of us know. Explore its website and you’ll find that there’s a lot more going on there than writing 50,000 words in November.

Yet, 50,000 words is how it began and making the commitment November 1 after all the Hallowe’en candy as worn off isn’t easy to do even though the decision is often made on a dare or during a transcendent moment of infallibility without realizing what it means to say “yes.”

I’ve been writing for a long time. Sitting here on my PC are the first two chapters of a novel that I havent touched for the last forty days and forty nights. Will NaNoWriMo help me get it moving again? It helped me finish a prior novel, though I won’t tell you which one.

Of course, one has to sign up with the organization to make it official and then tell everyone you did it. That alone makes the yes/no decision about as daunting as telling everyone on the first day of the month that by the end of the month you will have stopped smoking, given up booze, or completed a rehab program for hard drugs.

I can look at the entire process as a positive kick in the pants or as writing under the bright spotlight of a lot of peer pressure. So, if were to take the plunge this year–don’t quote me on this because I’m not saying I going to do it–maybe it’s better to do it unofficially and quietly so that if things go wrong, nobody will know. That’s how I finally stopped smoking. I didn’t tell anyone that on day X I was going to be making my one-hundredth attempt. I just stopped. After a while, people began to notice. By the time they did, I had several weeks under my belt without the pressure that I had the strength to continue.

I could do that with NaNoWriMo. Yes, I know. If I don’t tell anyone that I’m trying it out again, nobody will be around to say, “Well, Ace, so you only wrote 2,000 words by the end of the month, then?” At least everyone on Facebook won’t know. Of course, I’ll know. That’s the real problem, isn’t it?

But you, if you’re feeling brave this year, can fire off rockets, chart your word count on a daily blog, and shout to everyone who knows you on December 1, “I did it.”

Are you game?

—Malcolm

Unread book on my shelf is an unexpected gift

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books, fiction

“And gradually it dawned on him, if a dawning can take place in total blackness, that his life has consisted of a run of rehearsals for a play he had failed to take part in. And that what he needed to do from now on, if there was going to be a now on, was abandon his morbid quest for order and treat himself to a little chaos, on the grounds that while order was demonstrably no substitute for happiness, chaos might open the way to it.” – The Night Manager.

Best I can tell is that I bought a trade paperback copy of John le Carré’s The Night Manager in 1993 when it came out, put it on my bookshelf, and forgot about it. I have no idea how or why it ended up on the shelf without being read. I lived in an Atlanta suburb at the time and was apparently more focused on the one-hour commutes to a variety of technology companies where I wrote computer documentation and occasional code than reading novels.

Like most of the author’s fans, I wondered how he would focus his spy novels once the cold war was over. The Night Manager was the first book with a different kind of plot: unscrupulous international arms dealers. The book was generally a success, though Publishers Weekly said at the time that it ended in a way that would make a sequel easy to write.

I’m enjoying the book, a change of pace from the more straightforward, technology-intensive spy novels by such authors as Clancy and Patterson  (and those writing under their names) because the plot is not strictly linear. Nobody needed to worry about le Carré running out of subject matter in the 1990s for now, at 88, his new novel Agent Running in the Field demonstrates that there’s still room in the fictional universe for spies and those who write about them. As an author, I’m impressed with anyone his age who is still writing.

I never saw any of the episodes of the 2016 TV series based on this book. I’m glad I didn’t, for that would have spoilt the gift of finding an unread book on my shelves that I didn’t already know lock, stock, and barrel.  The TV series starred Tom Hiddleston in the lead role as the night manager and also included Hugh Laurie (“House”).

Publishers Weekly liked the book, saying that it was “written with all le Carre’s mastery of atmosphere, character and desperate political infighting among the smoothest of Old School Brits.” I agree. And it’s refreshing to read a spy novel that doesn’t include the manufacturer’s specs of every gun, helo, suppressor, and piece of surveillance gear used by the operatives.

What fun, though, to find a “new book” that didn’t cost me $25 on Amazon.

—Malcolm

 

 

How political should a novelist be?

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Politics

If an author writes novels that attack societal ills and/or the effective or foolish programs politicians propose for solving them, chances are good that if the novel is contemporary the author agrees with the focus of his/her fiction. In fact, some activist authors are calling for more novels and poems that focus on the issues in the days’ news.

But what if an author isn’t writing those kinds of novels? Should s/he tell readers in speeches and blogs how s/he feels about the issues? Generally, I think not. I’ve crossed that line on this blog from time to time, and have usually regretted doing it because I’m not an activist author even though I have strong views about many things.

Why the regret? Mainly because the purpose of this blog is to discuss writing and to call attention to my books and the subjects surrounding my books. Since I’ve written three novels about a conjure woman, you’ll find me talking about hoodoo and some of the spells and herbs that are typical of a rootworker. Because those novels involve folk magic, I’ve also written a lot of posts about magic. Or, the silly stuff and important stuff going on in my life. (Like cat gravity and cancer treatments.)

So, even though I’ve crossed the line from time to time and posted here about political subjects that have nothing to do with my books, I really don’t think it’s my place to speak out here about the Kurds in Syria or a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

Hope Clark (Funds for Writers founder as well as a novelist) made the point in her latest newsletter that she thought it was in poor taste for a publisher’s editor to make comments at a conference for prospective children’s book authors about her negative feelings about President Trump.

According to Clark, that editor risked:

  • “alienating members of the crowd
  • marring the good name of the publisher
  • tarnishing the reputation of the conference”

In this case, the editor was an employee and probably wasn’t authorized by her publisher to make political statements when she was there to talk about best practices for writing and publishing books for children. Employees in other fields have gotten in trouble with their employers for wearing buttons or tee shirts or jewellery that espouses a political or religious opinion because those beliefs might be construed by the public as the beliefs of the employer.

I used to enjoy watching the Oscars even though the program always ran too long and might reasonably have been called an actors-and-producers mutual admiration society. Be that as it may, I don’t watch the program any more because it has become too much (my view) of a political platform for hosts, presenters, and award recipients. When I did watch it, I wanted to know about the best movies of the year, not what the on-stage talent thought of the President or Congress.

Non-activist writers of fiction can easily get into the same quicksand by turning off the very people who love their books by going on and on about current issues. Current issues viewpoints are not why readers and prospective readers are reading a blog, attending a reading/signing, or listening to a speech at a convention. They want to know about the stories and, possibly, how to write stories of their own.

Why send away prospective readers who might enjoy your next novel by allowing immaterial political beliefs into the mix?

—Malcolm

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mixed scents in the kitchen–and cat gravity

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn cats

When I woke up this morning, the house smelled like the apple pie Lesa baked last night.

A little later, after I added the aroma of Jimmy Dean sausage biscuits, Lesa began making herself a small frying pan of scrambled eggs while I was peeling carrots and potatoes for a slow cooker pot roast so that it will be ready at 5 p.m. Meanwhile, the house was darker than usual due to the monsoon outside.

Whenever we watch a House Hunters show on HGTV, people are always looking for kitchens large enough for the couple to both be preparing food at the same time. We seldom do that. But we were this morning–with an odd combination of foods.

Now, at 2:30 p.m., the entire house smells like pot roast or, if I open the front door, of rain.  This is the kind of day when, other than the cooking, it’s nice to be inside with nothing specific to do. I realized that I’ve been on the edge of burnout, so other than checking e-mail and Ffacebook, I’ve been propped up in my easy chair reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Mother Night. Now there’s a grim book, but easier to read than Victor Hugo.

Both Lesa and I see this as a high, cat-gravity kind of day, the kind of day when ramped up gravity brought into a household by a cat makes it hard for humans to stay awake and accomplish anything.

If you have multiple cats in your house, you’ve probably noticed that if any of them are in your lap, you don’t feel like leaving the chair; or that if they’re asleep, you’re likely to fall asleep before the end of your favorite TV show; or that when gravity is light, you feel like you’ve had too much coffee or forgot to take your Xanax.

The multiple aromas of food in the house interact with cat gravity to reduce a human’s ability to give a rat’s ass about anything, including loose rats in the house. I suppose dogs have gravity, too, but it seems to be less heavy. That might be a myth, but today, I don’t care because I’m weighed down by the sheer gravity of the things surrounding me.

—Malcolm

Re-Reading Les Misérables at My Age: I Must Be Nuts

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books, fiction2 Comments

During the summer and fall, I’ve been re-reading a lot of the novels on my shelves. It’s been fun. Re-reading Les Misérables has not been fun. I think all the radiation treatments have not only left me feeling fatigued, but they’ve disrupted my ability to concentrate on long books.

When I bought this paperback edition in the 1980s, I read the whole thing, including the longer-than-necessary descriptions, political diversions, character background, and interior monologue. I was pleased that I stuck with it then just as I was pleased when I once completed mountain climbs to 14,000 feet and hikes of 25 miles or more without needing to go to the hospital afterwards. Like most people, I was younger then.

I still like the plot, many of the descriptive turns of phrase, and the snarky wit. But when it comes down to it, trying to read this novel today is about as absurd as trying to hike the Appalachian Trail without getting in shape first with neighborhood walks and shorter hikes. I’m on page 283of 1,463. If this were the Appalachian Trail, I’d be dead by now or lying at the bottom of a steep slope waiting to hear the welcome sounds of rescue helicopters.

To use an old phrase, I think I’m going to “cry uncle” on this attempt and put the book back on the shelf where it will impress all who see it rather like a photo of me standing at the summit of Mt. Everest or K2.

As Wikipedia notes, “More than a quarter of the novel—by one count 955 of 2,783 pages—is devoted to essays that argue a moral point or display Hugo’s encyclopedic knowledge, but do not advance the plot, nor even a subplot, a method Hugo used in such other works as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Toilers of the Sea.” Yes, I suppose I could push forward and scan those sections, but the type is small (note the smaller page count on my version when compared to the original) and that seems like more trouble than it’s worth.

My attention span at present is more suited for watching Survivor or NCIS on TV or a Clancy/Patterson style novel that moves along with large print, lots of action, and is over before you know it. To use a Survivor tradition, if some of Hugo’s characters had gotten voted out of the novel at tribal council, it would be a lot easier to read now.

Sure, I feel disappointed just like any other beer-drinking couch potato who spends a ton of money to get to Mt. Everest and learns that s/he doesn’t even have the stamina to make it up to base camp.

Have any of you read this novel? If you did, how much of it did you skim through? (Asking for a friend.)

—Malcolm

I’m very appreciative of the wonderful reviews from listeners who found this audiobook, enjoyed the story, and loved actress Kelley Hazen’s narration. 

Angie Kim: Learning from ‘Mystic River’ to Write ‘Miracle Creek’

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books, writing

What I really wanted was a Dennis Lehane master class, which he sometimes teaches, though nowhere near me and not at that moment. So I made one for myself: I sat in my tiny writing nook and reread Mystic River from cover to cover, multiple times, and dissected it down to its component scenes. I created a detailed outline, color coded by character, and used it to make timelines, chronologies, and charts to figure out the book’s structural skeleton — the major evidentiary discoveries, the twists and the red herrings, the whodunit reveal to the readers and the various characters. Eventually Miracle Creek took shape, and along the way, I learned a few key lessons.

Source: Angie Kim on Using ‘Mystic River’ to Write ‘Miracle Creek’

Most of us don’t have the time or money to take a master class from one of our favorite authors, much less attend an MFA program where that author is part of the core faculty.  If the author’s writing in the genre you want to attempt, you have an alternative. Read and re-read one of your favorite books.

In fact, that might be better than the class, as inspiring as the class will be. Many of us learnt more about plotting, character development, and dialogue from reading the kinds of books we wanted to write. In my case, it was Dune and Earth Abides. Ultimately, I would change my mind about what I wanted to write, but the lessons and discoveries made while reading those novels were of lasting value.

It’s a choice, we all grapple with: learning through lecture and discussion OR learning by seeing a final product that illustrates how it was done by the master.

–Malcolm

The ruler of discontent

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Life3 Comments

My middle school teacher, Mrs. G, attacked the problem of spitballs, note passing, whispering, and other infractions by asking whoever she caught to hold out his/her hands (palms down) so that she could slap them with a ruler.

I never had any problems with Mrs. G until she looked out from her desk, saw a fair portion of her class in disorder, and promptly sentenced everyone in the room to one slap with her trusty ruler. Those who had been slapped said she hit them hard enough to raise a welt, so I planned non-co-operation when she approached my desk.

My hands were out. When she brought down the ruler with great force, I pulled them back. She missed. I was surprised that the ruler didn’t break when it hit the desktop with a loud thwack.

“Let’s try again,” she said, face flushed.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Definitely,” she said, aware that the rest of the class was whispering about her.

I held out my hands again. However, I was faster than she was. When she tried to teach me a lesson, I snatched the ruler out of her hands. I don’t think that had ever happened before.

“Give it back,” she yelled.

“I’m not that stupid,” I said.

When we got to the principal’s office, the principal asked if I’d taken Mrs. G’s ruler. I said that I took it in self-defense. When asked to explain, I said that Mrs. G was hitting everyone in the room with the ruler because she couldn’t figure out who caused the disruption. The principal said that sometimes that’s the only way to achieve classroom discipline.

My response was that inasmuch as she had no probable cause, she would have been guilty of assault and battery if she had successfully struck my hand.

My mother was called. When she appeared, she wasn’t happy. Had I been guilty of anything, I don’t know what she would have said. What she did say was that hitting every student in the classroom with a ruler was unacceptable and that she was going on record by forbidding any so-called punishment directed against me in the future.

Mother always stood up for me, and I loved her for it. Naturally, I wasn’t allowed to keep Mrs. G’s ruler. In future weeks, she used it liberally to measure how punishment to the guilty and innocent alike. Whenever she did this, she glared at me as though I was the spawn of Satan. The feeling was mutual.

—Malcolm