Joel Arnold's Blog, page 11
January 28, 2011
Challenger - 25th anniversary
Someone mentioned that it was the 25th anniversary of the Challenger explosion. Wow, 25 years... It was one of those moments that has imprinted itself permanently on my mind, the same way that so many of an older generation remembered exactly what they were doing when they heard the news of the Kennedy assassination. The only other comparable moment for me is when John Lennon was murdered.
Anyway, I was in band practice at high school, and our drum major (Pete) came in and told us that the Challenger had exploded. Our band leader (Lanny Kolpek!) at first smiled and said something like "You're joking, right?" and Pete said "No." Then we pulled in a television and watched the news for the rest of that period. Strange how certain moments can create such a clear, permanent picture in the mind.
Anyway, I was in band practice at high school, and our drum major (Pete) came in and told us that the Challenger had exploded. Our band leader (Lanny Kolpek!) at first smiled and said something like "You're joking, right?" and Pete said "No." Then we pulled in a television and watched the news for the rest of that period. Strange how certain moments can create such a clear, permanent picture in the mind.
January 27, 2011
'Taking Nothing For Granted' - guest post by Simon Wood
Joel says: I met author Simon Wood at the 2002 World Horror Conference in Chicago. Not only is he a really nice guy, he's also an amazingly talented writer. Please give him a warm welcome to Beneath the Trap Door:
TAKING NOTHING FOR GRANTED
By Simon Wood
Recently, I received one of the best reviews I’ve ever gotten. Someone called ColtsFan on Amazon wrote the following about The Fall Guy:
“Simon Wood is an up and coming mystery writer who writes like some mobster is standing over him with a cleaver, telling him to make a good story or else. He writes like his life depends on it.”
What made me very happy about the review is ColtsFan was 100% correct. I do write like my life depends on it. There is someone standing over me with a cleaver telling me to write good or else—and it’s me.
The reason for this outlook is because nothing is guaranteed in publishing. Several of my writing friends with books behind them now possess a certain expectation that everything they write will be published. I wish I shared their confidence. Despite numerous publishing credits, Magazines still reject my short stories and publishers have passed on manuscripts. Publishers and magazines have folded. Editors have changed their minds. There have been months with an R in them. The list of reasons/calamities is endless, but the result is the same—manuscripts I’ve been very passionate about have not made it to the bookshelf.
Currently, I’m very lucky to find myself in the fortunate position of having contracts with books still on them. However, that could all come to end when I turn those manuscripts in. Then what? Sure, I’ll do my best to find a new publisher or a magazine interested in my stories, but it still doesn’t mean they’ll get published. That means I can't just write a good manuscript. I have to write the very best manuscript I possibly can and not just once, but every time, again and again. Those works still might not see publication, but I’ve given them best shot I can possibly give them.
Telling stories is my passion and my job. So yeah, I write like my life depends on it, because it does. Shouldn’t every writer think this way? :-)
Yours with a gun to my head (metaphorically speaking),
Simon Wood
simonwoodwrites@yahoo.com
www.simonwood.net
BIO: Simon Wood is an ex-racecar driver, a licensed pilot and an occasional private investigator. Simon has had over 150 stories and articles published. His short fiction has appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies, and has garnered him an Anthony Award and a CWA Dagger Award nomination, as well as several readers’ choice awards. He’s a frequent contributor to Writer’s Digest. He’s the author of WORKING STIFFS, ACCIDENTS WAITING TO HAPPEN, PAYING THE PIPER, WE ALL FALL DOWN, TERMINATED and ASKING FOR TROUBLE. As Simon Janus, he’s the author of THE SCRUBS and ROAD RASH. His latest book, LOWLIFES, is a multimedia project. People can check it out at http://www.lowlifes.tv.
TAKING NOTHING FOR GRANTED
By Simon Wood
Recently, I received one of the best reviews I’ve ever gotten. Someone called ColtsFan on Amazon wrote the following about The Fall Guy:
“Simon Wood is an up and coming mystery writer who writes like some mobster is standing over him with a cleaver, telling him to make a good story or else. He writes like his life depends on it.”
What made me very happy about the review is ColtsFan was 100% correct. I do write like my life depends on it. There is someone standing over me with a cleaver telling me to write good or else—and it’s me.
The reason for this outlook is because nothing is guaranteed in publishing. Several of my writing friends with books behind them now possess a certain expectation that everything they write will be published. I wish I shared their confidence. Despite numerous publishing credits, Magazines still reject my short stories and publishers have passed on manuscripts. Publishers and magazines have folded. Editors have changed their minds. There have been months with an R in them. The list of reasons/calamities is endless, but the result is the same—manuscripts I’ve been very passionate about have not made it to the bookshelf.
Currently, I’m very lucky to find myself in the fortunate position of having contracts with books still on them. However, that could all come to end when I turn those manuscripts in. Then what? Sure, I’ll do my best to find a new publisher or a magazine interested in my stories, but it still doesn’t mean they’ll get published. That means I can't just write a good manuscript. I have to write the very best manuscript I possibly can and not just once, but every time, again and again. Those works still might not see publication, but I’ve given them best shot I can possibly give them.
Telling stories is my passion and my job. So yeah, I write like my life depends on it, because it does. Shouldn’t every writer think this way? :-)
Yours with a gun to my head (metaphorically speaking),
Simon Wood
simonwoodwrites@yahoo.com
www.simonwood.net
BIO: Simon Wood is an ex-racecar driver, a licensed pilot and an occasional private investigator. Simon has had over 150 stories and articles published. His short fiction has appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies, and has garnered him an Anthony Award and a CWA Dagger Award nomination, as well as several readers’ choice awards. He’s a frequent contributor to Writer’s Digest. He’s the author of WORKING STIFFS, ACCIDENTS WAITING TO HAPPEN, PAYING THE PIPER, WE ALL FALL DOWN, TERMINATED and ASKING FOR TROUBLE. As Simon Janus, he’s the author of THE SCRUBS and ROAD RASH. His latest book, LOWLIFES, is a multimedia project. People can check it out at http://www.lowlifes.tv.
January 25, 2011
MN Writers - don't forget to apply
Okay, Minnesota writers - don't forget to apply for a 2011 Beyond the Pure Fellowship. Deadline is February 25th, 2011. It's a $4k grant for emerging Minnesota writers of poetry, fiction or creative non-fiction sponsored by Intermedia Arts. Why not give it a shot?
January 24, 2011
"Flailin' for the Distance" - guest post by Paul Tremblay
Joel says: Paul Tremblay has long been one of my favorite writers. In 2009, his novel The Little Sleep was published by Henry Holt, followed in 2010 by No Sleep Till Wonderland, both of which feature a Boston PI with narcolepsy. Whenever I've come across one of his short stories, they've always been pitch perfect, spot-on, you name it - basically damn good. Plus, he's a Husker Du fan. Anyway, he was kind enough to contribute a guest blog for Beneath the Trap Door, so without further ado, here's Paul:
Flailin' for the Distance
This may sound a little telephone-operatorish, but stick with me. Nathan Ballingrud wrote a very thoughtful piece here in response to something Lucius Shepard posted on the social network. Lucius said, "I rarely write about stuff that’s going on in my head at the time–it seems to take around ten years for life to manifest in stories and my protagonists are often a decade younger than I. There are exceptions provoked by extreme emotion, but this is the general rule. What’s your lag time…or do you have one?”
From Nathan's response, which is generally about how he needs some distance from a highly charged emotional event before he can write about it: "In any case, it takes me a while to settle down. It takes me some time to find a place I can look back from and see an event completely. And I can’t write about it the way I need to until that happens. I wonder sometimes if I’m more like a teenager than a grown man. I appear calm on the outside, but inside it’s all wind and high seas."
I envy Nathan's foresight, and his ability to step back, to identify, and so eloquently express what part of writing process works for him. His protest to the contrary, his methodology strikes me as a very mature approach to writing.
I'm going to petulantly stick with the teen/adult metaphor because I want to, and because I've always imagined my writer-self as an angry teenager gnashing his teeth and flailing about, fighting for a seat at the adult table, and desperately attempting to understand what the hell is going on. Perhaps my angry-teen identification is nothing more than the vanity of the writer who forever pictures himself as young, vital, and (gulp) having something important to say. Whatever, right?
All my stories aren't created the same way, clearly, but more times than not my short stories in particular are born from immediacy, born from the heated moment. I jump half-blind into whatever emotion is moving me and then I use it to move/mold the story with the hope, I think, of understanding the emotions better, understanding myself better. Of course my emotional sky diving doesn't always work that way, and I do think so many of my short stories are ambiguous (shall we say?) precisely because I don't fully understand what it is I'm feeling, what I'm supposed to be feeling. But I think that's okay. As a horror writer, I hope that the reader shares in my angst, feels the dread of both immediacy and ambiguity: the dread of is-what's-happening-really-what-I-think-is-happening? and oh-crap-am-I-making-it-all-worse?
My most recently completed short story is very much about a new and therefore kinda scary family experience, and.... Okay, so I've written and erased at least twenty-five sentences already, trying to explain the emotions swirling around the academic testing of one of my kids who is experiencing some new focus/attention difficulty in school. It's a fairly mundane thing. I mean, millions of kids go through this and come out fine, right? Not to say it's not a struggle, that some kids don't come out fine, confidence and self-esteem totally shot, but...
All right, I'm stopping there. Because I've done enough rewriting of the above paragraph, which is still clunky as hell and doesn't even come close to expressing what I'm feeling, or more importantly, what I think my kid is feeling. So I wrote a story about it, and it was all much easier to write about in story form, even if I don't fully understand what *it* is.
Maybe it's as simple as this: When I'm writing about the now, I'm making a grab for that emotional distance--call it understanding or wisdom if you like--that only time grudgingly allows. I guess that imaginary-angry-teen me just isn't patient enough. He desperately wants that distance before he's too old or too dead to do anything with it.
www.paultremblay.net
www.thelittlesleep.com
Flailin' for the Distance
This may sound a little telephone-operatorish, but stick with me. Nathan Ballingrud wrote a very thoughtful piece here in response to something Lucius Shepard posted on the social network. Lucius said, "I rarely write about stuff that’s going on in my head at the time–it seems to take around ten years for life to manifest in stories and my protagonists are often a decade younger than I. There are exceptions provoked by extreme emotion, but this is the general rule. What’s your lag time…or do you have one?”
From Nathan's response, which is generally about how he needs some distance from a highly charged emotional event before he can write about it: "In any case, it takes me a while to settle down. It takes me some time to find a place I can look back from and see an event completely. And I can’t write about it the way I need to until that happens. I wonder sometimes if I’m more like a teenager than a grown man. I appear calm on the outside, but inside it’s all wind and high seas."
I envy Nathan's foresight, and his ability to step back, to identify, and so eloquently express what part of writing process works for him. His protest to the contrary, his methodology strikes me as a very mature approach to writing.
I'm going to petulantly stick with the teen/adult metaphor because I want to, and because I've always imagined my writer-self as an angry teenager gnashing his teeth and flailing about, fighting for a seat at the adult table, and desperately attempting to understand what the hell is going on. Perhaps my angry-teen identification is nothing more than the vanity of the writer who forever pictures himself as young, vital, and (gulp) having something important to say. Whatever, right?
All my stories aren't created the same way, clearly, but more times than not my short stories in particular are born from immediacy, born from the heated moment. I jump half-blind into whatever emotion is moving me and then I use it to move/mold the story with the hope, I think, of understanding the emotions better, understanding myself better. Of course my emotional sky diving doesn't always work that way, and I do think so many of my short stories are ambiguous (shall we say?) precisely because I don't fully understand what it is I'm feeling, what I'm supposed to be feeling. But I think that's okay. As a horror writer, I hope that the reader shares in my angst, feels the dread of both immediacy and ambiguity: the dread of is-what's-happening-really-what-I-think-is-happening? and oh-crap-am-I-making-it-all-worse?
My most recently completed short story is very much about a new and therefore kinda scary family experience, and.... Okay, so I've written and erased at least twenty-five sentences already, trying to explain the emotions swirling around the academic testing of one of my kids who is experiencing some new focus/attention difficulty in school. It's a fairly mundane thing. I mean, millions of kids go through this and come out fine, right? Not to say it's not a struggle, that some kids don't come out fine, confidence and self-esteem totally shot, but...
All right, I'm stopping there. Because I've done enough rewriting of the above paragraph, which is still clunky as hell and doesn't even come close to expressing what I'm feeling, or more importantly, what I think my kid is feeling. So I wrote a story about it, and it was all much easier to write about in story form, even if I don't fully understand what *it* is.
Maybe it's as simple as this: When I'm writing about the now, I'm making a grab for that emotional distance--call it understanding or wisdom if you like--that only time grudgingly allows. I guess that imaginary-angry-teen me just isn't patient enough. He desperately wants that distance before he's too old or too dead to do anything with it.
www.paultremblay.net
www.thelittlesleep.com
January 20, 2011
How Do You Remember?
In general, when you look back upon your youth, do you remember the good things or the bad things? Do you see it with a nostalgic glow, or through a cracked, dark lens?
I remember my childhood more with the nostalgic glow than not. But when I read through the old journals I kept in high school, it seems I was so lonely all the time; at least that's what occupies so many of the entries. I wonder if the nostalgic-leaning memory is a defense mechanism to help us get through life. Maybe that's why some people who go through traumatic events black out parts of it. (Don't get me wrong - my childhood was thankfully lacking in trauma.)
Or maybe, in my case, as I look back it's with the perspective of the experiences I've gained as an adult. As an adult, I realize I had it pretty easy, so I'm no longer feeling sorry for myself like I may have been back then - therefor my memories have been colored with that perspective.
I wonder how people who really did experience constant trauma in their childhoods, but are now fairly well-adjusted adults, remember. Are their memories full of dread? Or have those traumatic memories been softened and redecorated with time?
I remember my childhood more with the nostalgic glow than not. But when I read through the old journals I kept in high school, it seems I was so lonely all the time; at least that's what occupies so many of the entries. I wonder if the nostalgic-leaning memory is a defense mechanism to help us get through life. Maybe that's why some people who go through traumatic events black out parts of it. (Don't get me wrong - my childhood was thankfully lacking in trauma.)
Or maybe, in my case, as I look back it's with the perspective of the experiences I've gained as an adult. As an adult, I realize I had it pretty easy, so I'm no longer feeling sorry for myself like I may have been back then - therefor my memories have been colored with that perspective.
I wonder how people who really did experience constant trauma in their childhoods, but are now fairly well-adjusted adults, remember. Are their memories full of dread? Or have those traumatic memories been softened and redecorated with time?
January 18, 2011
When your parents are librarians...
Since both my parents were elementary school librarians during my childhood, and they occasionally arranged for authors to visit their schools, I got to meet some children's authors, as well as get a bunch of signed children's books, most of which I still own. I got to assist Sid Fleischman with a magic trick.
I got to see Wilson Rawls give a fascinating talk (and since my dad escorted him around town, found out that he was very bitter in regards to Disney's movie version of Where the Red Fern Grows, claiming he never received one lousy cent for it.)
I got to meet Paula Danziger and see her typed and hand-edited manuscript for The Cat Ate My Gym-suit (which I had just read in preparation for seeing her talk) - I think that was the first time I saw an actual physical connection between an author and that magical finished product!
When my mom mentioned to Gary Paulson that I wanted to be a writer, he signed my book with his home address, inviting me to send him something I'd written (which to my regret, I never did - I was too afraid.)
My dad also likes to tell of one famous children's author - whom I won't name - who asked my dad if he could find him a blond for the night. My dad later went to the school's teacher's lounge and jokingly asked for volunteers.
For some of those authors - like Wilson Rawls - my parents got me excused from class to go see them. My parents were (still are!) cool that way, and I've always been grateful for those experiences. They knew I wanted to be an author, and by bringing me to see those published authors, they showed me that they were basically just regular folks, and it helped take away a little bit of their mystique - showed me that it was certainly a possibility for me to follow that passion. I'll always be very thankful for that.
I got to see Wilson Rawls give a fascinating talk (and since my dad escorted him around town, found out that he was very bitter in regards to Disney's movie version of Where the Red Fern Grows, claiming he never received one lousy cent for it.)
I got to meet Paula Danziger and see her typed and hand-edited manuscript for The Cat Ate My Gym-suit (which I had just read in preparation for seeing her talk) - I think that was the first time I saw an actual physical connection between an author and that magical finished product!
When my mom mentioned to Gary Paulson that I wanted to be a writer, he signed my book with his home address, inviting me to send him something I'd written (which to my regret, I never did - I was too afraid.)
My dad also likes to tell of one famous children's author - whom I won't name - who asked my dad if he could find him a blond for the night. My dad later went to the school's teacher's lounge and jokingly asked for volunteers.
For some of those authors - like Wilson Rawls - my parents got me excused from class to go see them. My parents were (still are!) cool that way, and I've always been grateful for those experiences. They knew I wanted to be an author, and by bringing me to see those published authors, they showed me that they were basically just regular folks, and it helped take away a little bit of their mystique - showed me that it was certainly a possibility for me to follow that passion. I'll always be very thankful for that.
January 17, 2011
A Book Series Recommendation
Just wanted to give a plug to author David Dalglish's Half-Orc series of books. I don't read a lot of fantasy, but I bought the first book of this series (The Weight of Blood) after reading some of the author's posts over at Kindle Boards. I really enjoyed it, and bought the second one (The Cost of Betrayal) and enjoyed that one even more. There are two more in the series that have come out (The Death of Promises, The Shadows of Grace) that I haven't read yet, but I look forward to diving into them sometime soon.
Anyway, if you're looking for something very well written (and very cheap, if you want the ebook versions) I highly recommend these. They're quite violent, however, and the morals of the main characters are rather...not squeaky clean - in fact the two main characters are a bit repulsive in their wanton killing. But that's I found compelling - it made me uncomfortable at first, but I thought the author handled and developed the two main characters quite brilliantly.
Anyway, that's my two cents.
Anyway, if you're looking for something very well written (and very cheap, if you want the ebook versions) I highly recommend these. They're quite violent, however, and the morals of the main characters are rather...not squeaky clean - in fact the two main characters are a bit repulsive in their wanton killing. But that's I found compelling - it made me uncomfortable at first, but I thought the author handled and developed the two main characters quite brilliantly.
Anyway, that's my two cents.
Good Cholesterol vs. Bad Cholesterol
And the bad cholesterol is winning...
I had a doc appointment last week and got the lab results today. Nothing surprising - my bad cholesterol is higher than it should be, and my good cholesterol is lower than it should be, but I guess that's what happens when I eat so much fast food. I'm rather mad at myself, however, for having been very good about exercising and eating well last year from January to June, then totally reverting back to my old ways after that. I'd lost twenty pounds that first half of the year, then gained it back the second half. Looks like I need to get back on the wagon!
I had a doc appointment last week and got the lab results today. Nothing surprising - my bad cholesterol is higher than it should be, and my good cholesterol is lower than it should be, but I guess that's what happens when I eat so much fast food. I'm rather mad at myself, however, for having been very good about exercising and eating well last year from January to June, then totally reverting back to my old ways after that. I'd lost twenty pounds that first half of the year, then gained it back the second half. Looks like I need to get back on the wagon!
January 13, 2011
My exciting day so far
I had a doctor's appointment today just for a brief annual check-up - got a flu-shot and blood drawn and just took the whole morning off from the day job. Got back from the appointment and did a little work on my novel, and now it's back to work at the place where I actually earn a livable income.
I know...it doesn't get much more exciting than that.
But I've been having fun with my novel. I worked on a sex scene that's not really a sex scene. Starts out like one, but is more there for comic effect. At least I hope that's how it comes across. This novel is very different from most of my other writing. I'm trying to infuse humor into it. Hopefully it works.
I know...it doesn't get much more exciting than that.
But I've been having fun with my novel. I worked on a sex scene that's not really a sex scene. Starts out like one, but is more there for comic effect. At least I hope that's how it comes across. This novel is very different from most of my other writing. I'm trying to infuse humor into it. Hopefully it works.
January 7, 2011
Thinking of a classic - Johnny Got his Gun
Not sure why this suddenly appeared on my radar, but -
Anyone read Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun? It's one of those novels that had a big impact on me as a youth. I read it in the 10th grade after stumbling across the movie on television. It's one of those novels about war that takes the reader down to about as personal a level as you can get. In case you haven't read it (or seen the movie) it's told from the POV of a man whose face and limbs were blown off in WW1. He can't see, speak, hear, or smell. He can only feel with those parts that are left of him. The novel intersperses his memories from before the war with his present predicament, in which he's holed up in a hospital. Things like a simple fly landing on him and walking over his body become terrifying, as he can do nothing to drive it away and relieve the itching/tickling sensation. He finally figures out a way to communicate with the hospital staff, and when he does...well, I won't give away the ending, but it's incredibly powerful. If you haven't read this classic, I highly recommend it.
(BTW, you may have seen bits of the movie in Metallica's music video for their song 'One'.)
