Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 146
May 2, 2023
A Writer's Moment: 'Open a book; open a door'
'Open a book; open a door'
“Writinga mystery is more difficult than other kinds of books because a mystery has acertain framework that must be superimposed over the story.”– Martha Grimes
Grimes was born in Pittsburgh,PA, on this date in 1931, a fact that sometimes shocks her readers – not thatshe was born in Pittsburgh, but that she was born in America. That’s because many of her best-knownmysteries feature Scotland Yard detective Richard Jury and most people think she is British.
Grimes spent much of heryouth in Western Maryland -- where her mother owned a hotel -- and her "Emma Graham" novels are set in that very locale. But it is her "Jury" novels that have earned her international acclaim.
Each Jury mystery isnamed after a pub, including one set in Maryland. “In Baltimore,” she said, “I was walking with a friend who was playingat a pub he kept referring to as the Horse. But when I saw the sign 'The HorseYou Came In On' - I thought, 'My God.' I had no intention of ever setting aJury novel in the U.S., but when I saw that, I thought, 'That's it.' The namesare very important.” Named “Grand Master” bythe Mystery Writers of America, Grimes says she loves playing with words and the writing process in general. “It really is like opening a door,isn’t it, to open a book," Grimes wrote. "Books, words,stories are a kind of solace.”
May 1, 2023
It's a 'Catch-22' of course
Bornon May Day, 1923, Heller was struggling as a writer when he pitched the ideafor Catch-22 to Simon & Schuster. The rest, of course, is history. Thenovel became one of the all-time best sellers and a successful movie, and theterm he created became part of the world's lexicon.
Catch-22 refers to absurd, no-win choices,particularly in situations in which the desired outcome of a choice is animpossibility, and regardless of the choice, a negative outcome is acertainty. In other words a Catch-22is a paradoxical situation from which an individual cannot succeed because ofcontradictory rules. A simplifiedexample would be: To apply for a certainjob, you need to have experience in that job. But in order to gain experience, you need to first get the job.
Hellermade up the term to reflect some of the absurdities he saw during his time inthe military. Originally, he intended itto be known as Catch-18. Butauthor Leon Uris was in the process of publishing Milas 18, and to avoidany confusion, Heller and his editor talked it over and decided to go with Catch-22instead.
Heller'swriting crossed genre lines and he went on to write several more successfulnovels and many successful screenplays, including much of the final version ofthe movie Sex and The Single Girl andthe many episodes of the hit TV series McHale’sNavy.
Despite his many accolades he never considered himself famous, once noting: "Som people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some people have mediocrity thrust upon them."
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A Writer's Moment: It's a 'Catch-22' of course
April 29, 2023
A Writer's Moment: 'That's language and the rest is just filler'
A Writer's Moment: 'The rest is just filler'
'That's language and the rest is just filler'
“Poetryis, first and last, language - the rest is filler.”– Mark Strand
Born in April 1934 on Prince EdwardIsland (where Anne of Green Gables wasset), Strand moved to the U.S. in the 1950s and had a distinguished career as apoet, essayist and translator. He died in 2014 at age 80.
In 1990 Strand was appointed PoetLaureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress and in 2004 hereceived the Wallace Stevens Award, given to "recognize outstanding andproven mastery in the art of poetry.” Knownfor his highly personal touch, he said "Pain is filtered in a poem sothat, in the end, it becomes pleasure." For Saturday’s Poem, here is Strand’s,
The Everyday Enchantment of Music
A rough sound was polished until it became
a smoother sound, which was polished until
it became music.
Then the music was polished until
it became the memory of a night in Venice
when tears of the sea fell from the Bridge of Sighs,
which in turn was polished until it ceased
to be and in its place stood the empty home
of a heart in trouble.
Then suddenly there was sun and the music came back
and traffic was moving and off in the distance,
at the edge of the city, a long line of clouds appeared,
and there was thunder, which, however menacing,
would become music, and the memory of what happened after
Venice would begin, and what happened
after the home of the troubled heart broke in two would also begin.
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'The rest is just filler'
“Poetryis, first and last, language - the rest is filler.”– Mark Strand
Born in April 1934 on Prince EdwardIsland (where Anne of Green Gables wasset), Strand moved to the U.S. in the 1950s and had a distinguished career as apoet, essayist and translator. He died in 2014 at age 80.
In 1990 Strand was appointed PoetLaureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress and in 2004 hereceived the Wallace Stevens Award, given to "recognize outstanding andproven mastery in the art of poetry.” Knownfor his highly personal touch, he said "Pain is filtered in a poem sothat, in the end, it becomes pleasure." For Saturday’s Poem, here is Strand’s,
The Everyday Enchantment of Music
A rough sound was polished until it became
a smoother sound, which was polished until
it became music.
Then the music was polished until
it became the memory of a night in Venice
when tears of the sea fell from the Bridge of Sighs,
which in turn was polished until it ceased
to be and in its place stood the empty home
of a heart in trouble.
Then suddenly there was sun and the music came back
and traffic was moving and off in the distance,
at the edge of the city, a long line of clouds appeared,
and there was thunder, which, however menacing,
would become music, and the memory of what happened after
Venice would begin, and what happened
after the home of the troubled heart broke in two would also begin.
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April 26, 2023
A Writer's Moment: 'Becoming a spectator of life'
'Becoming a spectator of life'
“Awriter is a spectator, looking at everything with a highly critical eye.”– Bernard Malamud
Born on this date in 1914, Malamud was an Americannovelist and short story writer best known for his baseball novel, The Natural, although it was his book TheFixer about anti-Semitism in TsaristRussia that won him both a National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. The Natural recountsthe experiences of Roy Hobbs, an individual with great "natural"baseball talent, and spans decades of Hobb's successes and sufferings. A movie made from his books stars Robert Redford and has thedistinction of being the first film produced by TriStar Pictures. It earned 4Academy Awards.A young man during the Depression,Malamud
scraped together the money to study writing at City College of New Yorkand went on to earn a Master’s degree at Columbia University before teachingfor many years at Oregon State. Malamud was known for writing slowly and carefully, ultimately authoring 8 novels and 4 short story collections beforehis death in 1986. The son of Russian immigrants, Malamud was also known for his honest depiction ofthe immigrant experience, ranging from despair and difficulty to the hope of dreams fulfilled. “When you write about life, reflectabout life," he said, "you see in others who you yourself are.”
