Archive for November 2013

Finding time to write…

Thursday, November 28th, 2013

[TANSTAAFL: Do you read this blog?  I’m not asking if you like the posts, just whether you read them!  If so, don’t be passive.  React.  Write a comment—chew me out if you like (no foul language, please).  You can even receive a free ebook—see the bottom of the “Free Stuff and Contests” webpage; or write an honest review of one of my ebooks in exchange for the ebook.  In general, buy, read, and review some of my books.  Your participation motivates me and helps defray the costs of this website and my ebook releases.  Be active.  Help indie authors provide you with inexpensive entertainment.  It’s a two-way street, folks!]

[Note from Steve:  This post can be considered a continuation of my post on NaNoWriMo.  That program challenges newbie writers to write a novel in thirty days.  But you might not have regular periods that you can write.  In that case, NaNoWriMo is a moot point.  You have to steal your writing time from a busy schedule.  How and when do you do this?]

Not all of us can be writers, but more of us today are.  The eclectic circles of traditional publishing are now complemented by indie writers and publishers, a paradigm shift that drives the establishment crazy, tremendously benefits a dwindling number of readers, and probably hurts a larger number of writers.  You might be able to write well, but the competition is ferocious.  I know—I live it every day.  It often seems I have more chance of winning Power Ball or Mega Millions than having one of my books become successful.

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Movie Reviews #2…

Wednesday, November 27th, 2013

[TANSTAAFL: Do you read this blog?  I’m not asking if you agree with the posts, just whether you read it!  If so, don’t be passive.  React.  Write a comment—chew me out if you like (no foul language, please).  You can even receive a free ebook—see the bottom of the “Free Stuff and Contests” webpage; or write an honest review of one of my ebooks in exchange for the ebook.  In general, buy, read, and review some of my books.  Your participation motivates me and helps defray the costs of this website and my ebook releases.  Be active.  Help indie authors provide you with inexpensive entertainment.  It’s a two-way street, folks!]

#5: Dallas Buyers Club.  I’m ambivalent about this one.  It stars Matthew McConaughey, Jared Lareto, and Jennifer Garner.  Knowing the first actor’s usual physique, this anorexic role couldn’t have been good for his health.  In general, you have an awful glimpse of the early stages of the AIDS epidemic in this country.  Slow, little action, but good acting characterize this movie, which is definitely not a comedy and not for the squeamish.  My ambivalence is due to all that and not the topics.

The movie is based on a true story.  For many people that have trouble remembering why the AIDS epidemic, Vietnam, or Kennedy’s assassination were paradigm shifting events in American society, this movie might be a yawner and/or subject to apathy.  There are two stories.  Ron, one homophobic SOB, played by McConaughey, develops AIDS and is told he has thirty days to live.  He sets out to defeat that prognosis and ends up fighting the ponderous and stultifying bureaucracy of the FDA, which continues today in its refusal to give desperate, dying people the chance to try anything that might save them, thus committing bureaucratic murder many times over.  The other story is the evolution of Ron, the man.  He develops a compassion and friendship for Rayon, a transvestite played by Lareto, and wins the compassion and friendship of Dr. Eve Saks, played by Garner, who also ends up fighting the medical bureaucracy.

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Writing in the zone…

Thursday, November 21st, 2013

[TANSTAAFL: Do you read this blog?  I’m not asking if you like the posts, just whether you read them!  If so, don’t be passive.  React.  Write a comment—chew me out if you like (no foul language, please).  You can even receive a free ebook—see the bottom of the “Free Stuff and Contests” webpage; or write an honest review of one of my ebooks in exchange for the ebook.  In general, buy, read, and review some of my books.  Your participation motivates me and helps defray the costs of this website and my ebook releases.  Be active.  Help indie authors provide you with inexpensive entertainment.  It’s a two-way street, folks!]

OK, I get it.  Participating in NaNoWriMo is supposed to help a writer “get in the zone” and produce a novel—in a month!  Maybe all 302-thousand-plus of you signed up this year will do this.  As Clancy said, “Tell the damned story.”  This is an interesting quote because Clancy wrote books filled with whiz-bang gadgetry—some would call them “military sci-fi” or “militaristic thrillers,” at least the good ones—but it’s inconceivable he ever wrote anything in a month.  That’s the problem with NaNoWriMo.  Maybe it works for vampire romances, fantasies, or other pulp fiction (apologies to authors in those genres, but that’s my opinion), but most fiction works, especially sci-fi thrillers (my subgenre), whether for entertaining readers or literary erudites (they’re almost mutually exclusive groups), require more than a month.  Hell, I spend more than a month copy editing my MS, and that’s not counting the research.

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Review of Damien Dsoul’s The Rabbit’s Man…

Wednesday, November 20th, 2013

(Damien Dsoul, The Rabbit’s Man, CreateSpace, 2013, ISBN 978-1492841173)

First, the positives.  This is one hell of a story.  The plot is suspenseful and the characters are complex and well drawn.  I thoroughly enjoyed it and can recommend it to anyone interested in mysteries, thrillers, and suspense novels, with one caveat I add at the end of this review.

Although technically a setting, Nigeria, the country, is one of the main characters.  I learned more about it in this book than in the sum total of many non-fiction books on modern Africa I’ve read.  Like all good characters, Nigeria is complex, and the author, a Nigerian, captures this complexity well.

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Movie Reviews #1…

Wednesday, November 20th, 2013

[TANSTAAFL: Do you read this blog?  I’m not asking if you agree with the posts, just whether you read it!  If so, don’t be passive.  React.  Write a comment—chew me out if you like (no foul language, please).  You can even receive a free ebook—see the bottom of the “Free Stuff and Contests” webpage; or write an honest review of one of my ebooks in exchange for the ebook.  In general, buy, read, and review some of my books.  Your participation motivates me and helps defray the costs of this website and my ebook releases.  Be active.  Help indie authors provide you with inexpensive entertainment.  It’s a two-way street, folks!]

#1: 12 Years a Slave.  Although not for the squeamish, this is Hollywood at its best.  Chiwetel Ejiofor is superb as the musician who is kidnapped and taken to the South.  We see the whole spectrum of this ignoble period in the nation’s history—from a concerned Canadian to a compassionate slave owner to a rat bastard who is a monster, not human.  My only complaint is that the movie is too long—after a few sadistic scenes you get the idea, and you know that no matter what they show on the screen, the real situation was much worse!

#2: Last Vegas.  Basically a vehicle designed to let some marvelous old actors, including the inimitable Mary Steenburgen, frolic around on the set.  Good for a chuckle here and there, but isn’t it terrible to see all these old people making fools of themselves?  This is Cocoon with much less plot, except aging.  Your money is probably better spent elsewhere, or wait for NetFlix.

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New and Notices from the Writing Trenches #59…

Friday, November 15th, 2013

#329: New feature.  Starting next Wednesday (Nov. 20), I’ll start posting movie reviews, when available.  Because I see many movies, I thought it might be useful to readers of this blog to have an outside opinion about certain movies.  (By “outside opinion,” I mean (1) I’m not a professional movie reviewer; (2) I express my own opinion, often contrary to popular fads and pundits; and (3) I have no hidden agendas, actors in my family, or any connection to Hollywood, Bollywood, or Broadway.)  Sometimes my review will simply be: “I won’t see this movie because…” (that’s not really a review of the movie but a prejudice, but it can possibly help you in your viewing decisions—for example, the fiasco associated with casting Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher).

Caveat emptor: as usual, you can certainly disagree with what I write in the movie review.  You’re entitled to your opinion, but comment on the post then—other moviegoers might enjoy your opinion, whether you agree with me or not.  The posts in this blog are always open to reasonable comments—we’re a community of readers and writers and the intelligent exchange of ideas is priceless.

#330: New contest.  Every month, I’ll give a free ebook to the first person who mentions the MAGIC WORD in a reasonable comment to a blog post (see my webpage “Join the Conversation” for the definition of “reasonable comment”).  Your comment on the post has to refer to the post, of course.  In other words, it has to be more than “The Magic Word is XXX,” but the Magic Word doesn’t have to be cleverly included as part of your comment—you can finish your comment with that sentence, substituting the Magic Word for XXX, of course.

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Problems and solutions for public education in the U.S….

Thursday, November 7th, 2013

In many states controlled by Republican governors and legislatures—even here in NJ with a Republican governor and Democratic legislature—teachers’ unions and public school teachers have come under fire.  The issue here isn’t black and white—issues rarely are.  I can’t pretend to be comprehensive in a simple blog post, but let me throw in some loose change to up the ante and gray up the issue even more (forty shades, remember?).

Most of us have heard the adage that goes something like “People who know, create; people who don’t know, teach.”  Like many stereotypes and adages, there is some truth to that statement.  Back in prehistoric times when I attended college (I’m a product of state-run universities–when I started, I paid about $300/quarter + room and board and everyone with a B+ HS average could enter some state university), this adage was somewhat formalized, at least in the math department—there was a track for math majors and another track for students who wanted to teach primary and/or secondary mathematics.  This bifurcation engendered a bit of what nowadays we call bullying.  Moreover, for whatever reason, students in the first track seemed to do better than students in the second.

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