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Text of the page (random words):
e away i suck at this that may sound unduly harsh but it s the truth so i might as well put it out there and it s nothing to be ashamed of i guess it s just that i now have empirical data proving that i m not the kind of writer who can extrude 50 000 words of fiction in a 30 day period especially not a 30 day period that includes a cross country family vacation the preparation of college applications by a stressed out offspring a national holiday that encourages nay demands time away from the keyboard three and a half work weeks filled with international auto show goodness multiple freelance deadlines a suddenly unpredictable water heater that mocked my limited do it yourself skills it s fixed now and assorted annoyances and distractions too penny ante to mention here not to mention the pre yuletide funk that arrives with the realization that another year is ending and that no you re not going to write that 50 000 word piece of fiction ah well it was worth a shot i did accomplish some useful outlining fleshed out some characters in my mind got a handle on the setting and i did post some nifty writing related and or inspirational links that i and others found interesting here are most of them all in one place write a novel in three days the michael moorcock way write a novel in two months paradigm shifts in publishing practical writing tips from 23 brilliant authors brutal tips for breaking into comics how to be a sideshow talker carny dog the cult of done manifesto cut your word count by 10 try something new for 30 days adventures in self publishing why should anybody care about your novel kurt vonnegut is told no thanks for early dresden article research a novel the greg rucka way posted by michael berry at 10 07 am 1 comment labels horror writerly stuff your host saturday october 29 2011 why i m participating in nanowrimo 2011 being the cynical cuss that i am i generally look askance at online group activities such as national novel writing month i mean c mon who honestly thinks they can write a publishable 50 000 word novel in 30 days i m not some precious urban hipster who has the time to don his pork pie hat and clear lensed horn rimmed glasses and spend the day noodling around on his apple air at the local starbucks i m a writing professional man but i ve had a change of heart this year and i ve signed up for nanowrimo shudder as it s known why 1 whatever i produce will most likely not be 50 000 words long or a novel or publishable and i m cool with that i m trying to get over worrying about what kind of writer i m supposed to be and instead just explore what kind of writer i actually am i know how zen of me but i can see the value of charging through a first draft letting the proverbial chips fall where they may not stressing about where i m heading but going as far as i can as fast as i can even if i only complete 5 000 words that s more than i ve got right now and if i do succeed in finishing a real manuscript at some unspecified point in time and i m sufficiently pleased with it to send it off into the world it will be published even if only on the kindle or the ipad or whatever device the cool kids are using in the future 2 nanowrimo has a better track record than i do number of years nanowrimo has been in business 12 number of novels i ve produced in the past 12 years 0 3 i have a workable idea for a short book what i have in mind isn t particularly innovative or grandiose but it s intriguing and unusual and fits within the parameters of existing marketing categories it s not like i m striving to one up nabokov s pale fire over four consecutive weekends gotta have perspective 4 i want to have some fun remember what it was like to roll a fresh sheet of 20 pound stock into a vibrating electric typewriter and let your imagination run free while your stubby little sausage fingers struggled to keep up so intense was the outpouring of sprightly prose yeah neither do i but there have been plenty of times when i ve enjoyed the creative process from the grubby mechanics of grammar to the endorphin high of watching plot points snap together with a satisfying snik and i want some more of that please 5 the world could use a novel entitled squidface need i say more so there you go boys and girls my plan for the month of november it s not perfect the month is short already thanksgiving is in there somewhere and i ve got a kid applying to colleges right now whee but each day i ll endeavor to post on twitter and facebook links to sites that i m finding particularly inspirational or germane to the task at hand you can follow along and imagine what i m constructing as well as read enticing synopses and excerpts one hopes i ll also post my running word count so that you can cheer jeer as you see fit carpe deum que sera sera and all that happy grits teeth nanowrimo posted by michael berry at 5 06 am no comments labels horror writerly stuff your host monday october 24 2011 mommas don t let your babies grow up to be book critics i used to write a lot of fiction i didn t publish a lot of fiction but i wrote it i even finished a horror novel in the late 1980s one about voudoun in the san francisco bay area that s right i was 20 years ahead of the shambling dead curve all you zombies come lately too bad the novel wasn t very good a couple editors and a handful of agents looked at it and politely passed they knew what they were doing and then a funny thing happened i started writing lots of book reviews and other non fiction pieces and got paid for every single one of them this was on top of my 9 to 5 job as a marketing copywriter where i wrote in paper ads sales collateral and tv and radio spots plus edited a weekly automotive section then i had kids the fiction output dwindled down to nothing and finally dried up entirely correlation is not causality there are plenty of writers out there who manage to raise a family work a day job and produce a steady tide of novels and short stories i guess i just ain t one of them this used to cause me a fair amount of distress but not so much anymore i ve come to the conclusion that the biggest drag on my fiction writing isn t the kids isn t the day job isn t the crippling ironies of a godless universe it s just that as i ve become more confident in my critical abilities i ve become less sure of my talent as a storyteller thanks to a quarter century of reviewing i now have a better grasp of what it takes to produce a good book or story and how much more it takes to be noticed for having published said piece of fiction i sit amid piles and piles of arcs and finished books and know that i won t crack the spines of ten percent of them and they aren t even a tenth of the other unread books stacked in the basement the book critic that lives in my own head asks who the hell are you to think about writing a novel do you know how much work that takes do you really think you have the chops for it and if you do publish anything why do you think anyone would notice i m making more of an effort these days to shut that guy up he s become a bore even to me in recent months i ve completed a short story and a one act play it s a start i ve got plans for more projects the great thing about the web is that there is such an abundance of good advice about storytelling to be found on it if you know where to look if you re interested in science fiction fantasy horror and fiction in general you should check out making light it s always worth a look and often features truly invaluable advice such as this four item formula for turning story into fiction posted by michael berry at 8 32 pm no comments labels horror writerly stuff your host tuesday october 18 2011 books you oughta read sondheim co my son is currently performing in a youth theater production of stephen sondheim and george furth s musical merrily we roll along parental pride aside it s a first rate show with strong leads a lively ensemble and a truly excellent orchestra see it if you live in the east bay and have a spare couple of hours tickets are available through brown bag tickets the real point of this post however is to spotlight one of my favorite books about sondheim in particular and musical theater in general the second edition of craig zadan s sondheim co published in 1986 follows the career of the legendary composer lyricist from by george the school musical he wrote with two classmates through the first steps toward into the woods it s smart and thorough and dishy written by an insightful show biz insider zadan began his career as an investigative reporter but served as director of theater projects for joe papp s new york shakespeare festival and co produced sondheim a musical tribute on broadway he also co produced the original film version of footloose he knows what he s talking about sondheim co has plenty of anecdotes about company west side story follies and so on but it s unusual in that in addition to the usual chronological account of successes and failures it also contains chapters on the aspects of professional musical theater that are sometimes overlooked zadan details how casting musical direction orchestration and poster art each add to or detract from a production as a whole it s easy to think that a show is only about its songs and libretto but zadan expertly punctures that myth the book s chapter about merrily we roll along is a good case in point it s a sobering account of how even seasoned professionals like sondheim furth and director harold prince can persist in making one mistake after another and ruin what looks like a sure thing merrily ran only 16 performances in its original broadway production audiences and critics hated the costumes the scenery the dancing the eager yet unseasoned cast the modular score and the way the plot moves in reverse zadan methodically recounts how every wrong turn was made merrily has been significantly revised since 1981 even if there probably aren t many people out there who rank it as their favorite sondheim musical the score is lovely and clever and the story can be quite affecting in the right hands see above either edition of sondheim co is hard to find these days but copies are well worth hunting down i wish zadan would take time out from his big shot hollywood producer duties and produce a third edition bringing sondheim enthusiasts up to date with bounce one caveat about the second edition my hardcover copy seems to have been bound with sparrow spit or something it lasted only one gentle reading before splitting into 200 individual sheets i plan to keep it no matter what but it s insanely difficult to browse through posted by michael berry at 10 59 pm 1 comment labels books you oughta read music monday march 07 2011 off the cuff review satori by don winslow as i noted in my last books you oughta read post trevanian s thriller shibumi is not a novel that cries out for a follow up it s been more than 30 years since the book s publication and the narrative arc of its protagonist master assassin and go player nicholai hel ends quite decisively in its denouement now however there s satori based on trevanian s shibumi and written by don winslow winslow author of savages the dawn patrol and other well regarded crime novels is not the first name to pop to mind as a natural successor to trevanian aka rodney whitaker the film studies professor who wrote the eiger sanction the summer of katya and other best sellers satori is not a sequel nor even a prequel to shibumi but is set within the quarter century of hel s life that his creator did not choose to dramatize satori opens in 1951 just as hel is released from the japanese prison where he has spent three years in near total isolation after killing his mentor father figure an act of mercy rather than of malice the cia chooses to spring him with the proviso that he travel to mao s china and assassinate the soviet commissioner hel takes the assignment falls in love his beautiful instructor solange and adopts the identity of a french arms dealer once in beijing he discovers that his target voroshenin has connections to his own childhood back in shanghai which makes the mission slightly more palatable the ingenuity of the original shibumi lay in its being simultaneously an edge of your seat thriller and a satirical commentary of the very same thing it s a difficult mode to master while taking a much some straight forward narrative strategy winslow does a pretty good job of it his version of hel about 25 years younger than in the main action of shibumi isn t quite as standoffish and world weary but there s a good measure of cynical humor at play most of the call backs to the earlier book work well although the character who will go on to become the gnome in shimbumi oddly has the speech patterns of another supporting character in that novel i can t decide how i would feel about satori if i came to it cold even without his full back story hel is a fun character adept as he is at hoda korusa the naked kill and employing his extraordinary proximity sense to locate danger in total darkness in winslow s hands satori has good character work a twisty plot and some excellent scene setting it s clear that more installments of the hel saga will be forthcoming for the moment anyway i m along for the ride posted by michael berry at 6 37 am 2 comments labels crime fiction miscellaneous reviews monday february 28 2011 comics review izombie dead to the world by roberson and allred at this point the living and or walking dead hold almost no interest for me over the past five years i ve received more zombie and vampire novels comics and pop cultural detritus than i can deal with and still it keeps coming there are a few writers however that do i trust to do something interesting with the tired old tropes and chris roberson is one of them i ve enjoyed his science fiction including the novels here there everywhere and end of the century so when he comes along with a new dc vertigo zombie starring monthly my interest is piqued especially when the art is by michael allred the creator of madman izombie focuses on gwen dylan a gravedigger who also happens to be a zombie and her friends ellie a girl ghost stuck in the sixties and scott aka spot a were terrier gwen needs to feed on brains otherwise she ll become a mindless shambling husk the trouble is after a meal she is overwhelmed by the thoughts and emotions of the recently deceased spurring her to resolve their unfinished business there s a very cool groovie ghoulies vibe about this whole project and roberson s dialogue and allred s art mesh perfectly creating a welcome balance of humor and horror unfortunately dead to the world which collects only five monthly issues is mainly set up the characters are introduced including a pair of monster hunters a pack of female vampires and a resurrected egyptian mummy some plot complications are set in motion but nothing gets resolved in this initial collection which is fin...