Ryne Douglas Pearson's Blog, page 6

A Beagle Vizsla For A Reader

A reader e-mailed me wondering what one of my dogs, a Beagle Vizsla looks like. Sam, here he is, our little guy named Anderson :)

 

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A King In A Court Of Fools: The Lost Script

I am happy to present this extremely interesting artifact from the archives of the National Unbelievable Foundation of Filmmaking (NUFF) that was recently uncovered stuck behind a towel dispenser when workmen were redoing the rest rooms at the South Park McDonalds — one of the original McDonalds from the 1950s. An expert at NUFF said that, originally hand-printed on composition notebook paper and written in the form of a TV script, this piece is a classic example of a 1950s Catholic school punishment assignment. There you have it! Enjoy!
 

A King in a Court of Fools, the TV show...

 

 

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INT. ST. CATHERINE'S SCHOOL - SISTER CARMELLA'S CLASSROOM – LATE AFTERNOON

Several students from Sister Jeanne Lorette's sixth grade class are in the front of a classroom of eighth graders, preparing for their weekly TV show. A semicircle of five wooden chairs has been positioned opposite one other chair. Two students are setting up the "camera" which is a large cardboard box on a stand with a funnel sticking out one end. One student has a makeshift clapboard and is pacing about, practicing saying "action." Another, obviously the director with a clipboard, is telling the others what to do while trying to arrange the chairs perfectly. The announcer is practicing her lines. The eighth graders are politely waiting for the show to begin, having given up their last period Latin class to allow the sixth graders to put on their show. Sister Carmella and Sister Jeanne Lorette are standing quietly in the back of the room.

SISTER JEANNE LORETTE

Let's begin.

CLAPPER

Action!

ANNOUNCER

Welcome to the Kids of St. Catherine's Show, the only weekly TV show produced, directed, and hosted by the sixth grade of St. Catherine's School.

A snicker from the back of the classroom draws a clearing of the throat by Sister Carmella, followed by silence.

ANNOUNCER

Our host today is the sixth grade, straight-A student Frankie Marx. Ladies and gentlemen, Frankie Marx!

Frankie Marx enters, dressed in sports jacket, tie, and black penny loafers with a shiny new dime in each. The two nuns begin to clap and the eighth graders join in halfhearted applause.

FRANKIE

Thank you, thank you, and welcome to the show. We appreciate your taking the time out of your otherwise boring and pointless day to listen to someone obviously your intellectual superior.

There is an awkward, dead silence, and then a single cough from the back. Sister Jeanne Lorette is shaking her head. Frankie clears his throat and adjusts his tie.

FRANKIE

As I was saying, today's guests are the Ryans, not by my choice, but they are here nonetheless. They live on Caswell Drive and all five of them are students here. How exciting is that? Without further ado, please welcome Mary, Kate, Sam, Harry, and Tom Ryan.

The director holds up an applause sign and the students begin to clap. The classroom door opens and the Ryans enter, led by Tom. The director points them to their seats. Frankie sits down across from them.

FRANKIE

Please introduce yourselves to the studio audience.

Each stands up in turn and says their full name. Tom is the last to speak. He faces the eighth graders.

TOM

I'm Tom Ryan. I was the one they blamed when someone closed all the windows and let a few thousand caterpillars loose in your room last week. They made me clean them up, including all the guts you guys squished on the floor, but I didn't do it and they could never prove it. Thanks a lot.

VOICE FROM THE BACK

Nice going, Ryan!

SISTER CARMELLA

Thank you for volunteering to clean all the desks after class today, Mr. Kelly.

Laughter rolls across the room. Tom sits down. Frankie gestures outlandishly to the Ryans and speaks.

FRANKIE

Tell us, what brings you on the show today?

TOM

They made us, Frankie. Remember? It's part of my punishment.

HARRY

Can I wave to Mom and Dad, Tommy?

KATE

It's just a pretend TV you little goof.

HARRY

Then why are we here, Katie?

SAM (whispering)

The book, Harry, the book.

FRANKIE

Yes, the book. Specifically, this book, the one you call the "Book of Tom."

The director hands Frankie a composition notebook:

 
 

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TOM

Hey, give me that. That's mine.

He grabs it from Frankie.

FRANKIE

Yes, it's part of your punishment from Sister Jeanne Lorette, isn't it?

TOM

You better not have read any of it, Frankie. You see what it says there, right? I'll pound you. I mean it.

FRANKIE

Yes, I read your idle threats. Why would I bother to read your ridiculous homework?

SAM

You take that back, Frankie. Tom's journal isn't punishment and it isn't ridiculous. It's a story about us.

FRANKIE

Oh yes, the infamous Caswell Gang, with your silly hats, and your secret handshakes, and…

SISTER JEANNE LORETTE

Frankie… Tom… back to the script, please.

FRANKIE AND TOM IN UNISON

Yes, Sister.

FRANKIE

So, tell us about the story, Tom. What's so special about it?

TOM

That's for me to know and for you to find out.

MARY

Tell him about the Pink Lady, Tom.

TOM

Ixnay on the ady-Lay, Mary.

HARRY

But I like your story, Tommy.

TOM

Fine. You tell it.

Frankie turns to the studio audience and stands up.

FRANKIE

Ladies and Gentlemen. I now present Harry Ryan telling us the story of A King in a Court of Fools.

Harry stands up. Applause. Fade to the story of A King in a Court of Fools.

 
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I hope you have enjoyed this little bit of humor about the newly published work, A King in a Court of Fools, by Larry Enright.

About the book: A King in a Court of Fools, originally published as a serial novel, is Larry Enright's second published work. It is humorous, nostalgic fiction about kids growing up in the 1950s and has been already enjoyed by ages ten through ninety-one. It is available in both eBook and paperback from Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com. Click for details to Purchase or sample A King in a Court of Fools.

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About the author: Larry Enright was born to Irish Catholic first-generation immigrants and raised in Pittsburgh. After college, he moved to the Philadelphia area where for the past 40 years he has filled his life with many careers including musician, teacher, programmer, researcher, and writer. He has written three other novels, including the best-selling Four Years from Home. Visit Larry Enright's site.

First Class Rejection For $58

I've told the story before, even on this site, regarding how my first novel, Cloudburst, received 139 rejections before landing an agent at Curtis Brown who promptly sold it to William Morrow and Avon.

I was wrong.

It was over 200 rejections.

 

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It's hard to tell from this picture, but that stack is six inches high. I saved EVERY rejection, the good, the bad, the mean, and the funny. And if I'd realized that I'd discarded some envelopes and tucked the gems into others, I might have counted more carefully, because those 139 envelopes contained 200 receipts for my rejection.

The year was 1991. Stamps were 29 cents. Doing the math I see that I paid other people more than $58 to tell me in various ways that I sucked using the Self Addresses Stamped Envelopes I always included with my query letters and proposals. Some were generous enough to pay themselves (see large envelopes in picture) to return the sample chapters they'd requested...along with notes telling me I sucked.

Now, to be fair, there were many encouraging rejections. Many form rejections. Many harsh rejections. But in my mind they all said one thing...say it with me now... You Suck!

And that's okay. Because after about the first twenty, the sting pretty much had lost its effect. And, really, I knew I didn't suck.

So why do I keep all these reminder of all these opinions from so many years ago? Mostly it reminds me how wrong people can be, and that you'd better believe in yourself if you're giving others the opportunity not to. 

I Love The Final Episode Of 'Lost' & Other Things

Yes, I just said that. I did. It was beautiful, ambiguous, and made my heart feel good. Seriously. That it left many things open to interpretation was a major plus to me. I don't want to always have things wrapped up neat and tidy. I love to wonder. And I thought it was oh so perfect that Ben didn't go into the church.

Now, that said, I was also thinking about other television shows recently, and which of their episodes are my favorites. Which slice of the whole I go back to again and again, stopping while flipping channels if that episode of an old show is on. And so, here is my list of favorite episodes from TV shows.

Lost: see above.

The Twilight Zone: The Changing Of The Guard. Have you seen this one? With Donald Pleasence playing the headmaster at a prep school? He's being forced to retire and confronts not only his own mortality, but the mark he's left on the world. An absolutely beautiful, beautiful story.

MASH: Tuttle. A fake surgeon is created, ends up 'dying', is given a funeral, and Henry Blake sheds a tear for this non-existent person.

The X-Files: Home. Deformed mother under the bed. Inbred sons protecting her. Creepy old house. There's nothing not to love in this one. Plus a great homage to Mayberry and its denizens included at no extra cost.

The Andy Griffith Show: The Pickle Story. Watching Andy and Barney eat all of Aunt Bee's horrible pickles so no one else will have to is classic, classic TV.

Gilligan's Island: The ghost episode, where the ghost is actually a Russian agent trying to scare the castaways off the island. As a kid, watching this in reruns, that sound the 'ghost' made was freeeeeaky.

ER: On The Beach. A touching, very real episode which follows Dr. Greene (Anthony Edwards) in his final days. An almost idyllic passing from this life is one of the best TV 'deaths' ever presnted.

These are some of my favorites. What are some of your favorite TV episodes?

Two Short Stories Available Individually

First, if you already own my collection of stories Dark and Darker, stop. You already have these two stories, as they are part of that collection. But for those of you who don't own Dark and Darker, I am releasing Beholder and Creation as stand alone shorts. Each also includes an extended excerpt from my thriller All For One.

What are these stories about?

[image error]Beholder: Two police officers step inside a suspect's personal hell, and discover just how close they are to the real thing.

 

 

 

[image error]Creation: What is art? Derek Devine thinks he knows. But a visit from a dangerous stranger, who looks uncannily like a subject in one of Derek's older paintings, leads the young artist to a place where the line between life and art seems not to exist at all.

 

 

 

These stories are available on Kindle now, and will be available for Nook and iPad this week. Enjoy!

Writers & Twitter: They Call It 'Social' Media For A Reason

I could probably have 30,000 Twitter followers right now. Instead I have about 2,600.  Why? Because I tend to actually look at a person's Tweets before following them back, in some attempt to decide if they are a bot, a spammer, or someone who hates bacon. Okay, the last is negotiable, as long as they don't hate people who love bacon.

I follow about 2,200 people. Can I read every Tweet by every person? No. But by using lists and tools such at Tweetdeck (my preference), Hootsuite, or others, it become manageable to at least get a sampling of what a large number of people are Tweeting. And following someone back also allows them to send you a direct message, which many of my followers have--and vice versa.

But let me get to the heart of this post. I have a pretty strong belief that if you are a writer, and you want to use Twitter to expand your exposure to potential readers, the absolute worst thing you can do is continually try to sell your product--books, stories, whatever. An occasional Tweet about your books is fine, and I don't have any idea what a ratio of promo to other content should be. I personally don't care. Because my main focus on Twitter is this: having fun.

Yes. I use Social Media to have a good time.

I mention my books on occasion, and those of others I've enjoyed, but the vast majority of my Tweets are just plain conversing. Making jokes. Congratulating someone on an accomplishment. Retweeting something I think others should know. Being goofy. Bugging @LarryEnright about boating in his front yard. Feigning shock when @elliesoderstrom implies I am old. Mocking lutefisk with @dougdorow. Teasing @lmstull about her ability to cram 40 hours of activity into a 24 hour day.

These are a few of the people I interact with on Twitter. They're not prospective customers. I consider them friends. I'd love to meet them in person someday and share stories over a plate of bacon donuts. And the funny thing is, they're among my biggest supporters. They want to see me succeed, just as I want to see them succeed.

Twitter isn't a billboard--it's a cocktail party. Countless conversations bubbling on no matter which way you turn. And just like a cocktail party, how would you feel if, in the middle of sharing a story with a friend, someone walked up and said, 'Oh, that's so funny. Did you know my book 'Negative Zero' is on sale right now?' And then you watch them walk away and do the same to the next group of people conversing. And the next. There's nothing 'social' about that.

So what's my point? No different than the same point made by others before me. If you think of Twitter as a tool only to sell, maybe you'll succeed. For a while. I'd rather build relationships with people who are encouraging, funny, and, above all else, real.

'Simple Simon' To 'Mercury Rising': Bruce Willis Got Off Easy

Oh these many years ago, my thriller Simple Simon was made into the film Mercury Rising with Bruce Willis. The movie did meh at the box office, and I've always believed that there was one underlying reason for this: Keiko was missing.

 

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What...who?

Keiko Kimura. The true bad guy in Simple Simon...or bad girl in this case. And was she ever baaaaad.

Now, in the movie, most of the badness was handed off to a government killer (who died very early in my novel) and to a government functionary, played by Alec Baldwin. Because, you know, functionaries can take on the guy from Die Hard any day.

But I digress. Books change when they're adapted for the big screen. That's a reality I knew before, and which has only been cemented as necessary since I began working as a screenwriter a dozen years ago. But not every change works.

Why did losing Keiko hurt the film, in my opinion? Because she would have provided a worthy opponent for Bruce to eventually beat the crap out of...after he had been put through the ringer by her, of course. You see, Keiko had certain...tastes. Victims to her were meant to be savored before they were savaged.

Yeah, Keiko was a bit of a psycho-sexual freak. But that's what made her different. She was sleek and beautiful and skilled and would be terribly fun at a party if you wanted every secret extracted from your guests before they were brutally eliminated.

In other words, Bruce would have faced an adversary with an agenda beyond simply killing him to get to Simon. She would have craved damaging him first. The mere thought of that would have heightened the expectation of jeopardy facing Simon.

And that, I truly believe, would have removed the meh factor.

Author And Reader: The Great Divide Erased

Many moons ago when I was published by William Morrow (now owned by HarperCollins) and later by Penguin/Putnam, I received fan mail. Yay me. These letters would be sent to the publisher and then be forwarded to me. What I always found interesting was comparing the postmark on the original envelopes with the date I actual received the letters. It was usually at least a six month difference.
 

Now, I have no idea why a publisher would maintain this time buffer, and the frequency with which it happened leads me to believe it was either a very inefficient individual who had monopolized the process, or some weird policy, but whatever the cause/reason, that sort of disconnect is out the window.
 
Anyone who reads one of my books and wants to contact me can, within seconds. Either through the contact form here at my site, or by tossing an @ message my way on Twitter. Or on Facebook. Or Google+. The world of social media and ubiquitous email have narrowed the divide between author and reader to virtually nil.
 

Am I glad this divide has been erased? Yes. There are obvious reasons, such as a greater interaction with readers and potential readers, but also there are happy instances that arise which never would have without this ease of connection.
 

One 'happy instance' in particular I'd like to share. On Twitter not that long ago someone Tweeted me that they had purchased three of my books. I was extremely appreciative, but I also knew that there was a fourth book in that series. So I told them to direct message me their email address and I'd send them the Kindle file of that fourth book so they could have the complete set.
 
Why did I do this? Well, I did it because I thought it was a nice gesture. But I also did it because I could. The ability to give a book virtually instantaneously at zero cost allows this sort of connection, and this would have been impossible just five years ago. The reader would have never connected so quickly with me, and I would have had no book in digital form to send.
 


Is this not a wonderful new world for authors and readers? I'm freaking giddy about it.

My Writing Rules

No, that's not a boast, as in (while thrusting fist into the air) 'My writing RULES!'

I do actually like my writing, but this is about my rules for writing. I have no idea if they should be your rules for writing, but I do believe they have served me well.

#1 Put your butt in the chair and make clicky sounds with your keyboard. I could probably stop right here, because at its most basic level, this makes you a writer. You are actually writing something. Words will exist on the screen or page. Forget questions of quality here and JUST WRITE (see my post HERE about self censorship).

#2 Read. If you write novels, read books and short stories. Lots and lots, especially short stories. Why short stories? Because their constrained format is a constant reminder of brevity and economy of language in the expression of an idea. If you write for film, read as many produced screenplays that you can get your hands on. I like to read just the dialog in one pass to see what I can glean of the overall story through that exposition.

#3 Be curious. Ask questions of yourself about anything that strikes you. Why do we clap? How many people have been born since the beginning of time? What is the airspeed of an unladen swallow? Fill yourself with a well of broad, obscure knowledge.

#4 Never stop writing until a scene or sequence is complete. And never, ever take an extended break in the middle of a project. There are consequences to this.

#5 There is no writer's block. You can write. It may be crap, but it will be words. Write until those words are no longer crap.

#6 Stop telling yourself you're a failure. There are much bigger failures than you.

#7 Hydrate. Continuously. You're an athlete. Your brain is doing four minute miles every hour you write.

Goodreads...The Big 'G' Button On The Left

What is that big brown button on the left? you've been wondering. The one hanging out with the Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ buttons. That's Goodreads. If you love to read and don't know about it, you should.

Goodreads is a gathering place for readers, as well as authors. But mostly it's for, about, and by readers. You can find reader reviews on ANY book there, discussion groups for your favorite books and authors, and giveaways to win books for free, at zero cost to you. Goodreads is hosting a giveaway of my novel Confessions right now.

In a way, Goodreads is one of the better Social Media sites on the web. It is focused, and filled with a wealth of information about virtually every book ever published. And it only gets better the more that people actually participate.

If you haven't joined Goodreads yet, and you enjoy reading, I encourage you to do so. If you do, feel free to connect with me there by hitting that big brown button.