David Lubar's Blog, page 6

God's candidates

Okay, we now know that Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, and Herb Cain have all been told by God to run for president. While this might seem, on the surface, to be confusing, I have figured it out, and it's all very simple. God is acting in his role as a trinity. Obviously, God the Father backs Herb Cain, former CEO of Godfather's Pizza. God the Son approves of Michele Bachmann's skills as a foster mother and she misunderstood his request that she keep at it. The Holy Spirit backs Santorum, since he doesn't have a ghost of a chance. As for Perry, Texas governors don't take running orders from anyone.

Mystery solved. Next week, I'll try to explain why Andy Rooney is still on television.

Somebody needs a good Scroggin

I'm hoping that somebody with a lot more time and a lot larger readership than I have will put together something about how the very same school board in Republic, MO where Wesley Scroggins tried to ban Laurie Halse Anderson's amazing novel, Speak, from the high school is now being sued for allowing a middle-school girl to be raped and forcing her to write an apology to her rapist. Given that Speak is about speaking out against rape, the irony of this situation is staggering.

Dust

Just noticed I haven't blogged in nearly a month.

That is all.

Red letter day

Yikes -- just realized that if I don't make regular blog posts here, I'm depriving Russian spammers of new places to post link-stuffed comments.

Okay -- I did my part. Do svidaniya, Uncle Vanya.

But I won't read it at Starbucks

I'm glad it's summer and I'm not traveling. When I travel, I'm inevitably asked, "What are you reading?" That's a fine and reasonable query to toss at a writer. But, at the moment, and probably for the next several hundred thousand moments, I'm not sure how to answer without coming off as somewhat pretentious. I could mention the previous book I read, Clapton's Guitar, which is an interesting account of master craftsman Wayne Henderson, marred only by a bit too much bashing of the Martin Guitar factory, which happens to be about six miles from where I live and is well loved in these parts. Or I could mention the next book on my list, which will probably be Eric Luper's Jeremy Bender vs. the Cupcake Cadets, though I'm several hundred thousand moments away from starting that one. Or I could say those two little words and quickly change the subject. Two words. Moby Dick. A whale of a book. I'm enjoying it. Parts of it are amazing. The writing is wonderful. Parts are a struggle. I'll even admit that there are passages that have totally thwarted my attempts to comprehend them. But it's a book I started and never finished many decades ago, and I book I feel I should read. But it just seems so darn pretentious to toss out the title. (Though I guess it's meta-pretentious to blog about talking about reading it.) I guess it could be worse. I could be reading Infinite Jest.

The cloud as a Silva lining

While the world was lining up for Harry Potter #7.5, my wife was eyeing the calendar, eager for July 19th. Today is the release day for the new Daniel Silva novel, Portrait of a Spy. (It's also release day for Pearl by the awesome Jo Knowles.) As faithful reader(s) of this blog know, my wife once set aside a Stephanie Meyer book when the newest Daniel Silva arrived. Last year, I begged an editor at Penguin for a copy, so I could be the coolest husband on the planet. This year, my wife saw an offer to pre-order a signed copy. Yesterday, after finding out she placed the order with standard shipping, which could take a week or longer, I saw another chance to be a hero. Just as she has this other man in her life, I've been sleeping with the enemy myself, in the form of a Kindle. (Given to me by my wife.) As faithful reader(s) know, I'm not a big fan of Amazon, having been one of the many writers who vanished from their site when they got into an argument with Macmillan. But some things trump politics -- spousal heroics being an obvious example. Last night, I asked her if she'd like to be able to read the book the next morning. Affirmative. So I ordered it from the cloud. The Kindle will be all hers for a day or two. She'll be all Daniel Silva's. And that's fine.

Phrase shift

Usually, by the time people who care about such things notice that a word or phrase is being terrbily misused, it's too late to do anything. (Witness the demise of "beg the question," or Google it if you are unfamiliar with the original meaning.) Last night, I heard the first example of what I fear will become another lost battle. But it is early, and perhaps the troops can make a difference if we are vigilant. The phrase, used on the world news and in today's printed stories, comes from this quote taken from a story about how search engine access has changed our brains. "We are becoming symbiotic with our computer tools, growing into interconnected systems..." Here's the problem. This is a very catchy, but completely wrong, use of "symbiotic." Setting aside the "bio" aspect, and even allowing that computers benefit from our fondness of them, it completely stomps out the wonderful and valuable concept of mutual benefit (think shark and remora or human gut and acidophilus bacteria), turning the word from a useful and enlightening tool of our language into a cutesy, worthless cluster of syllables.

Why should I care? Because I build things with words. If I were a carpenter, I would care if my favorite brand of nails was replaced with one containing copper instead of steel. (Not being a carpenter or metallurgist, I allow that this might not be the perfect metaphor.) We can't become Humpty Dumpty, letting each word mean what we choose. I love the word "symbiosis." It has a specific and useful meaning. (Quibblers will point out that not all biologists feel the "mutually beneficial" aspect is essential to the definition. But I feel the distinction between symbiot, parasite, and other relationships is definitely essential to the novelist.)

Okay. Point made. Remain vigilant, and we might be able to rescue this word.

Night of the giving dead

Hey -- there's an auction with all sorts of goodies for writers and readers: signed books, critiques, tons of stuff. Not to tug on any heart strings, but the money goes to provide books for a library for kids getting treated for cancer. Check it out.

Cage match

I suspect I'm not the only writer who feels that most haunting scene in the history of cinema isn't (SPOILER ALERT!) the crushed corpse of King Kong at the foot of the Empire State building, or the last gasp of Charles Foster Kane as he loses his grip on the snow globe. Nope. It's Nicholas Cage lying on the floor as he grapples with the impossible task he's undertaken of creating a screen play for The Orchid Thief. I think all writers and artists (and video-game designers, for that matter), spend a lot of time facing the impossible and then discovering how it is possible. I just finished writing a story collection. Before that, I wrote a five-book series. I'm proud of both, and have several stories in the collection that I can't wait to reveal. (One will be published this fall in READ Magazine, and it's a keeper.) But, for the most part, I was navigating familiar waters.

Now, I'll be writing a novel. (That's pretty much what the contract calls for. "A novel." I love my publisher. They trust me.) I could play it safe and do what I've done. But I want to stretch. I want to surprise myself. I started work on the book a week ago, and haven't written a word, so far. This seems to be part of my process. It's an ugly and frustrating part. (On the bright side, I've made huge progress in my second playthrough of Infamous 2.) But I have 25 published books, so I must be doing something right. At the moment, the full shelf behind me doesn't make this week -- or probably next week -- any less guilt-laden. Nicholas Cage is lying on the floor of my mind, moaning. He'll eventually leave the room, blown away by a flash of inspiration. Or he'll be pushed out by a slow swelling of words that I'll force myself to write for the sake of convincing myself I'm being productive. There will eventually be a novel, as impossible as that might seem. Stay tuned.

The Fools on the Hill

Well, the Chestnut Hill Book Festival was a huge waste of my time and a gigantic disappointment. What kind of festival decides, at the last minute, not to use a book seller? Somehow, they forgot to mention this to me. They claimed they'd informed everyone. That's not true. When I arrived, after a long drive, one of the the organizers told me they'd decided to let the authors bring their own books. I reminded her that, in our very first email discussion, I'd said I don't sell my own books. I was very clear about that. She remembered this, but then asked, several times, about whether I'd called to discuss bringing books. (I hadn't.) And then told me, several times, that she was sure someone had sent the authors an email about bringing books. Sigh. It was a disorganized mess. I was going to leave, but I decided to stay for my session since I didn't want to let down any fans who might show up. It wasn't the kids' fault that the organziers were so inept.

The only bright point was that the host, Kathy O'Connell, was amazingly cool. (How cool? She knew Soupy Sales when she was a kid, and even wrote jokes for him. I rest my case.) She has a radio program for kids. Since the audience was a sparse array of parents and toddlers, we decided that rather than giving the talk I'd prepared for the teens and tween I'd expected to find, I'd do an interview with her. That was fun. (She and I totally bonded when she caught my pre-interview whispered reference to Harold and Maud.)

The sad truth is that, while there are some excellent festivals out there, including an amazing one in Decautur and several in NY state, many of them are like this. They are great for the local shops and restaurants. They are wonderful for the organizers, who get to play manager and hang out with writers and illustrators, they're a lot of fun for the people who brings their kids and let them paw through books with their chocolate-stained hands, but they basically suck for the authors, unless the organizers realize that, for us, this is a business. As Jon Stewart said to Tucker Carlson, "I'm not your monkey."

I'm doing another festival in September. This one has already asked me for a list of titles and ISBN numbers. I think it will be a vastly different experience. I've ranted long enough. Let me end with a word of caution to my fellow writers. If you're invited to next year's Chestnut Hill Book Festival, load up your trunk. Or just say, "no." If you're invited to any festival, find out who was there the year before, and do some networking. You're not anyone's monkey, either.