Michael Offutt's Blog, page 165

I'm being interviewed by the amazing Donna Hole

Hello and good Tuesday morning to all of you. Today I've got a guest post and a review of my book up at Donna Hole's blog<<<CLICK. Please go and visit if you don't already follow Donna. She's amazing. I also talk about my writing.

Today, I'm going to share one of my deepest fears:
What do you fear?

Have a great Tuesday.

Moral ambiguity in the zombie apocalypse

I'm really loving the second half of the second season of the Walking Dead and last night's show was no exception. One of the things that I like about the show was brought up in the talk show that airs late in the evening. One of the guests pointed out that the awful moral choices that characters are making in the name of love is fascinating. I agree with that and it's the hook that brings me back.

Okay...so here's the real reason for my post. Last night's "question" was about whether or not you would save someone from zombies if they had previously been trying to kill you.
Here's the situation. Guy was on a roof shooting at you with his rifle, he fell off the roof and got his leg impaled. Zombies are coming out of the woods everywhere, and you are low on ammunition. The guy that fell off the roof though is just a teenager. He could have been just doing what someone told him to do and his buddies left him to die. Do you shoot him to spare him the agony of being eaten alive? Do you try and save him by unimpaling his leg off of the fence that he fell on? Or do you not even shoot him but leave him to be eaten?
Myself...I would have tried to save him despite the fact that zombies are coming at me, and I have only like 30 seconds before they start munching on me. I just don't think I could leave a teenage boy to die to zombies...not when I could do something. In a zombie apocalypse, humans are almost extinct, and I would hold onto the hope that people could survive if they just chose to help one another. This attitude probably means I would not live very long in a zombie apocalypse. However, what is being human if we lose hold of our humanity?

What would your choice be?

Can you help me with my book blurb?

So I recently posted a snippet of my writing and got some fantastic feedback. Despite Rusty's comment that said "boy you must have a thick skin to post some writing here," or something like that (not a direct quote) I actually do have a thick skin and am rather proud of that fact. But honestly, I think that I was able to improve that scene that I posted so much from the feedback that if I could, I would totally want that on every page. That  of course isn't possible.

But I do feel comfortable in asking one other small favor.

I've been working on OCULUS, which is the sequel to SLIPSTREAM, and I want to get the blurb for the book solidified. Think of this as kinda similar to a query letter I think...only without all the Dear Agent and this book has so and so word count and all that jazz. Or, think of it as an extremely short synopsis. Maybe that's a better word. But it needs to grab or be interesting or have zing!

I know it doesn't have that yet.

So I'd like to post it here for you to look at and tell me what I should do to make it better.  It's 250~ words right now.  Here it is:

Fallsemester has arrived for the Ivy League, and Jordan Pendragon attends his firstclasses as a freshman at Cornell.  Bornwith a brilliant mathematical mind, he strives to balance a life as a researchassistant with that of a student athlete playing ice hockey for the Big Red.
Armedwith the university's particle collider, Jordan is tasked with fluoroscopingAntarctic ice cores to identify the elements they contain.  The data he collects will be used by Dr.Wolfson, head of the climate-change project, to assemble the world's firstatmospheric model reflecting a million years of Earth's history.
ButJordan has another agenda.  He combs thedata strings for a specific signature belonging to the rare earth element neodymium.  Used to make essential magnets in all electronics,the presence of neodymium will give Jordan a search area to begin his quest for theBlack Tower, a monolithic edifice housing a thing that defines the verystructure of the universe.  As large as amountain, Jordan believes it is buried somewhere in Antarctica under milesof prehistoric ice.
October finds Jordan earning a starting position with the team. But a dark cloud gathers overhis rookie season.  Unexplaineddeaths, whispers of a cannibal cult, and a stone known only as the Oculus casta shadow over his athletic dreams. It is the start of a terrifying journey down a path of betrayal, murder, and to an Evil more ancient than the stars.

Frog and Smartphone

I got this funny video sent to me, and I laughed so hard that I wanted to show you.
Have a great Thursday!

An uncanny resemblance across generations in Chronicle

I recently saw Chronicle and thought it was pretty good. It's the latest in a string of movies Hollywood exploits with a low budget (probably because Hollywood attendance is on the ropes for any number of reasons, and they want to continue to enjoy being rich).

Anyway, the film's star is this guy named Dane DeHaan. Here's a picture of him:
And here's Leonardo diCaprio when he was young:
Did anyone else that saw this film think...wow...this guy looks like Leo did 15-20 years ago? Maybe Hollywood  just looks for the same kind of pretty boy guy to make into a movie star. Thoughts? Am I off my trolley?

My writing troubles and my book got reviewed

My book was reviewed by Shelly at her fantastic book blog. It's posted on >>>  Shelly's LGBT Book Review blog  <<<in case you would like to take a peek. :))) As writers, I can give you some reasons to do so:
1) Shelly is an amazing book reviewer.
2) Someday you may want to have your own book reviewed (I hear this is a good thing for authors). Also, by visiting her blog, you could maybe open a door to a new market. LGBT people buy and read books. Ayep.
I've been working hard on the sequel to SLIPSTREAM after letting it rest for about four months. I am amazed at all the things that I'm spotting. What makes me roll my eyes is this phenomenon that takes place where I'm reaching for a word or a way to say something, but I don't know that I'm reaching for a word or way to say something.  
EXAMPLE: He gasped for air and tried to catch his breath so that he could convey the message.  BECOMES: Short of breath, he eventually delivered the message.
This isn't an exact example from my book, but it illustrates my point. I was "reaching" for the phrase "short of breath" but couldn't come up with those three words the first time I wrote the sentence.
Anyway...I've been pleased that by distancing myself from my work-in-progress and just reading all winter, I've been able to refocus my mind to get more out of my writing.
Do you ever stumble for words? "He put his key into the odd-shaped hole on the side of the steering wheel"... "Oh you mean...'he put his key into the ignition.'"
Yeah (snapping fingers) "ignition". Exactly. I needed that word it just wasn't coming to mind!
It happens to me all the time.
Have a great Tuesday.

What is your writing origin story?

Today I'm participating in the Origin's blogfest. The question for this one is pretty easy. When did your writing dream begin?

It probably began a long time ago in high school. I took a creative writing class and Mrs. Fife had us write a short story, and I enjoyed it. I penned my first novella that school year using a typewriter. It ended up being 80-pages and it sure was fun. But oh boy...was it awful lol. If it were animated...it would be some horrible Japanese anime with melodramatic acting, huge swords, and silly sexual tropes that would come across to an adult as being childish.

Then I tried again in college. I worked on a fantasy that involved a Dungeons and Dragons character that I must have kept plugging away at for about four years. I never ever finished it but it was probably 500 pages of typed garbage. Seriously...I had so many pages of taverns and just random monsters and meaningless sword fights, and some dragon showed up once but not for any reason really. Then I made up some twin guy who was evil and somehow the brother of the protagonist. Why? I have no clue. It just seemed like he should have an evil twin. I never plotted anything...I just wrote for the sake of writing which I realize now is called pantsing. Anyway...pantsing is a terrible way for me to write. There's just no structure and a story can balloon to 500,000 words with no end in sight.

All in all, I have five novels/novellas that should never ever see the light of day. And that's my "Origins" story.

Are you afraid of the dark?

This is the last day of the I'm Hearing Voices blogfest. My flash fiction below is supposed to invoke an emotion. I want you to feel fear.

Onceon the main floor, he checked the front door, and found it still locked andbolted.  He moved through the livingroom, past the grand piano, toward a light in the kitchen.  He saw Mrs. H. standing with her back to him,making a sandwich.  She had on a flimsywhite night gown.Hetapped lightly on the door with his left knuckle to get her attention so as notto startle her.  She still jumped andthen put the knife down and looked over at him. Jordan folded his arms across his smooth bare chest and leaned againstthe door frame.  "Thank God it's justyou," she said, going back to her sandwich. "You hungry?""No,"he stated.  "I thought I heard a noise soI came up to look.""Wellthat's why I came down the stairs.  Iheard someone walking across the floor.  Whatwere you looking for anyway?""Itwasn't me," Jordan said.  "I just came upthe stairs a second before I knocked on the door here, and Rob's asleep on the bed."Sheset her knife down on the counter.  "Ifit wasn't you and it wasn't Rob and it wasn't me…there's no one else in thehouse Jordan," she said.           Jordanglanced around in the dark, looking a bit uneasy.  She did too, moving her eyes from off of himand into the shadows that lay beyond the halo of light emanating from the undercabinet fixtures.


Excerpt from SLIPSTREAM


Have a great weekend.

A snippet from some of my writing

I've had a lot of fun showing some of my writing this week, and talking about my characters. So much so, that I wanted to solicit some feedback on one scene in the sequel to SLIPSTREAM.  I hope you don't mind.  Please don't feel obligated to read it.  If you do, I ask that you please press play on the embedded video first because the music of Chopin really inspired me to write this piece, and it's classical music so you can read and listen at the same time. :)

Jordan checked behind him and saw no one.  "Myd?" he whispered, not wishing to make toomuch noise.  His eyes darted in everydirection from underneath the shadow cast by the bill from the hockey cap.  He strained to hear anything, but he heard nofootfalls.  A wind chime sounded itsghostly music on the far side of an open window.He turned around and admired the baby grand;it called to him.  He'd never playedanything other than a guitar and most of that had been done on a game for theSony Playstation 3.  He didn't understandthe compulsion that he felt to touch it; to run his fingers over the whitelacquer, to press its keys.  His Adam'sapple bobbed under the smooth white skin of his throat, and he walked over,reached out with the fingers of his right hand, and gently stroked the tops ofthem.  He caressed them like he would alover.  Wordlessly, Jordan moved thebench out, took a seat, and started pressing the keys as musical notes tookroot in his mind.  He played Nocturne Opus 9 No. 2 by FredericChopin.  He'd heard it before but hadnever played it, never dreamed of playing it, and suddenly he was able to do soas if he'd practiced it all of his life.His fingers flew over the keys, pressing themin tune as if directed by a ghostly consciousness.  He closed his eyes, feeling the music risearound him like a warm, soothing blanket. On the ephemeral wings of the Nocturne's slow and exquisite rhythm,Jordan saw the sun drenched parlor of the home as it appeared in all seasons ofthe year.  In the sparkling clear notesfrom the piano, he saw a man that looked much like him playing at the exquisiteinstrument.  He was in his mid-twenties,blond, slender of build, wearing a blue denim jacket almost identical to theone he wore now.Jordan lost track of time, playing the keys,long narrow fingers flying over them, eyes flitting back and forth as ifreading invisible sheet music.  Behindhim, Myddrin entered the room, observing him at the piano.  Next to her, stood a tall man whose age laybetween sixty and seventy.  He wore plaidpants, leather shoes, and his hair appeared as white as new snow.  He had a mustache and pale green eyes.  He looked on Jordan with fascination as theteenager played the piano, fingers finding keys that had been neglected foryears.  It was haunting and beautiful tohear the music once again, for he'd heard it before…played from a heart thatcherished the sound in the same way that Chopin had cherished Nocturne.  And then the strangest thing happened—Jordanbegan to cry.  Tears welled up andstreamed down his cheeks but he continued unfaltering, fingers guided by aghost from his past—by someone that loved him more than his own life.When he finished, Jordan sat there in completesilence, blond eyelashes restrained tears with nothing but surface tension,fully aware that Myd and a stranger watched him.  But he couldn't move as his mind raced.  Jordan thought the unthinkable.  A single tear fell from his chin and broke onthe piano.  "My father played this," hesaid.  "My dad played this every singleday, right here, in this spot.""—Jordan," the man said at last.  His voice fell upon his ears like thicksyrup.He turned and looked at the speaker standingthere next to Myddrin.  He respectfullystood and removed his hockey cap and held it in his hands.  "I'm sorry, sir," he said.  "I don't know what came over me—.""It's all right, son" the man stated.  "I haven't heard Chopin played like thatsince your father played it for me—as you'd guessed already—almost eighteenyears ago."

I have always had a fondness for Chopin. I hope you liked this snippet.

An intro to character using only dialogue

Today is the second day of the I'm Hearing Voices blogfest. We are supposed to use only dialogue, but I couldn't figure out how to do that. So I hope mostly dialogue works. Anyway, here's my less than 250-word attempt at it:
"Sorry. So, why does warm water freeze faster than cold?" Brianna asked him."It's spread over a huge surface area;this causes it to experience intense evaporation which creates an endothermic chemicalreaction.  Think rapid cooling thatforces a bond with the existing surface area."She turned to the counter, "I'll takeone 'Eggs Melissa' and I'll pay for whatever he's having.""—oh, you don't have to do that," Jordansaid.  "I've got money.""I know—I just want to."The clerk rolledhis eyes.  "Want the Sunrise again, Jordan?"He nodded yes.Brianna passed over a $20 bill and whileshe waited for her change, she glanced over at him.  "Is that a good sandwich?""Yes. W-well…I've tasted it before andit's delicious, but it really isn't for me. I buy one for my boyfriend so he'll have something to eat when he wakesup."Brianna raised her left eyebrow.  "You—have—a—boyfriend?""Yes."She nodded her head in slow motion andmuttered, "Awkward…" They stepped off to the side to wait for their orderswhich were being freshly prepared.  Hethought he should have said something but was at a loss for words.  "So…," she said, beginning again, "would youlike to trade phone numbers with me? Cornell is a gargantuan campus and it can be difficult to meet peoplewhen you're on a busy schedule.  Ithought maybe we could catch a snack sometime…you know…on the quad?" I'm pretty sure I failed this exercise because I included non-dialogue tags to give me direction. But, without those, it just became talking heads. And I can't stand talking heads. But, I think you can tell a lot by the characters from the dialog which may have been the point. I have no idea actually.