David G. Cookson's Blog, page 28
July 6, 2017
Beer Club 3: Another excerpt
From my summer Camp NaNoWriMo Project.
“We…are what we like to be known as the loyal coffee drinking opposition,” said the man, and the others nodded in agreement. “Welcome to the Coffee Club. You are here because we have sensed you would be a welcome and willing addition to our little group. We here in Coffee Club believe that our dear leader has lost his way…and perhaps his mind. And we are here to establish a new direction for the Beer Club…”
“We don’t want to dismantle it,” one of the other men at the table said.
“We want to fix it,” said another.
“But under our current leadership, we feel it will never happen,” said the man in the beard.
“It’s been years since anything good happened for us. I just feel that it is the right time to rebuild.” He looked off into the distance as he took a sip from his steaming hot coffee cup. “I feel somewhat responsible for the direction this group has taken. After all…I was the one who recruited him. The path of Kareem Abdul Crosby Lemieux began with my extending the helping hand and accepting him into the loving arms of brotherhood of the International Society of the Beer Club. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I didn’t know he would grow so powerful and disregard so many of our ancient traditions. I mean, the man does standup comedy, for God’s sake! Who does that in a serious group such as ours? He’s a disgrace to all that we have fought and died for.”
“Have people really died for Beer Club?”
“...We don’t like to talk about it.”
“We…are what we like to be known as the loyal coffee drinking opposition,” said the man, and the others nodded in agreement. “Welcome to the Coffee Club. You are here because we have sensed you would be a welcome and willing addition to our little group. We here in Coffee Club believe that our dear leader has lost his way…and perhaps his mind. And we are here to establish a new direction for the Beer Club…”
“We don’t want to dismantle it,” one of the other men at the table said.
“We want to fix it,” said another.
“But under our current leadership, we feel it will never happen,” said the man in the beard.
“It’s been years since anything good happened for us. I just feel that it is the right time to rebuild.” He looked off into the distance as he took a sip from his steaming hot coffee cup. “I feel somewhat responsible for the direction this group has taken. After all…I was the one who recruited him. The path of Kareem Abdul Crosby Lemieux began with my extending the helping hand and accepting him into the loving arms of brotherhood of the International Society of the Beer Club. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I didn’t know he would grow so powerful and disregard so many of our ancient traditions. I mean, the man does standup comedy, for God’s sake! Who does that in a serious group such as ours? He’s a disgrace to all that we have fought and died for.”
“Have people really died for Beer Club?”
“...We don’t like to talk about it.”
The Interestings
The Interestings by Meg WolitzerMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
I find myself breaking up with this book, lost in the Did Not Finish pile. It started off well enough...six kids meet in a summer camp and then follows them throughout their lives, some successful in their creative fields and others settling for less glamorous adult jobs. I can certainly relate, having been an "Interesting" person once in my life and a whole lot less interesting now. But it started with the mention of my hometown and a few facts here and there that made it seem a lot less genuine and then moved on to the issues that will occur in a sprawling narrative, namely: why should I be spending my time caring about these people when there is a whole other pile of more interesting books in my reading pile? Whatever causes me to like or care about characters wasn't present here, making it tough to slog through 440 pages when I could be reading Dark Matter or something. I break up with this book because while I'm sure sticking with this would have brought me the warm happiness that a good read will bring, it just wasn't to be. It's not you--it's me!
View all my reviews
July 3, 2017
Beer Club 3 Excerpt...or something silly I started working on this summer
From my summer NaNoWriMO project:
In the Beer Club Great Hall where the current edition of the International Society of the Beer Club had gathered, Kareem Abdul Crosby Lemieux, formerly Kyle Jones, the Beer Club Beer Master, stared at his flock.
No one looked forward to these talks anymore. Not even Kyle.
“What’s the deal with lunch, anyway?” Kyle began, headset on, projecting to the group. “Lunch is simply a constructed meal. We never had lunch back in agrarian times. You had early breakfast and you ate dinner when the sun went down. Then suddenly it became a meal in its own right, with set lunchtimes and early lunches and power lunches and late lunches and then it transitioned into breakfast slash lunch and then brunch…don’t get me started on brunch…”
It was quite apparent that their leader had lost his mind. With every random tirade and stray message sometimes leaked to the public and the general population of rank and file dues paying members, Beer Club lost credibility. It was getting harder and harder for Kyle’s advisers to keep him under control.
“Allow me a minute to pontificate on the value of lunch and the point of religion…”
Since the Legacy plan had failed, his replacement was not immediately apparent. The organization was in flux, waiting for something big to happen, waiting but not quite understanding. Beer Club was full of men who owed their lives to this group, one way or another. At one point even Kyle himself had been saved from a gambling debt and initiated into the group, where he had risen quickly to the position he occupied now, that of Beer Club Beer Master.
But something had changed since the early days. He had become despondent…moody…taciturn…wild and unpredictable. Mumbling about old times and how things ain’t what they used to be and sometimes even disappearing for days, only to come back and offer up another incomprehensible Kyle Talk to the group, like nothing had ever happened.
The leader was sick. No one knew just how.
But he wasn’t right.
In the Beer Club Great Hall where the current edition of the International Society of the Beer Club had gathered, Kareem Abdul Crosby Lemieux, formerly Kyle Jones, the Beer Club Beer Master, stared at his flock.
No one looked forward to these talks anymore. Not even Kyle.
“What’s the deal with lunch, anyway?” Kyle began, headset on, projecting to the group. “Lunch is simply a constructed meal. We never had lunch back in agrarian times. You had early breakfast and you ate dinner when the sun went down. Then suddenly it became a meal in its own right, with set lunchtimes and early lunches and power lunches and late lunches and then it transitioned into breakfast slash lunch and then brunch…don’t get me started on brunch…”
It was quite apparent that their leader had lost his mind. With every random tirade and stray message sometimes leaked to the public and the general population of rank and file dues paying members, Beer Club lost credibility. It was getting harder and harder for Kyle’s advisers to keep him under control.
“Allow me a minute to pontificate on the value of lunch and the point of religion…”
Since the Legacy plan had failed, his replacement was not immediately apparent. The organization was in flux, waiting for something big to happen, waiting but not quite understanding. Beer Club was full of men who owed their lives to this group, one way or another. At one point even Kyle himself had been saved from a gambling debt and initiated into the group, where he had risen quickly to the position he occupied now, that of Beer Club Beer Master.
But something had changed since the early days. He had become despondent…moody…taciturn…wild and unpredictable. Mumbling about old times and how things ain’t what they used to be and sometimes even disappearing for days, only to come back and offer up another incomprehensible Kyle Talk to the group, like nothing had ever happened.
The leader was sick. No one knew just how.
But he wasn’t right.
June 29, 2017
Internet is yelling at me that visitors to this page haven’t heard from me in awhile.
Ok, Fair enough.
I am 2 months in to sharing Pain Center: the Novel with the world. It is available in 3 stores in 3 cities, and online. And now, thanks to Goodreads, over 1000 people who I don’t know have at least HEARD of me...and a few have even read my book. (Man, how I would’ve killed for a resource like this back in the day. I’ve spent so much of my life writing and only ever hitting an immediate circle of friends and acquaintances: how wonderful is it to live in 2017 where the potential audience is limitless.)
Anyway…
Here’s what’s coming up:
• I am doing a series of giveaways on Goodreads, the first one starting on July 5th and running through the 21st. I will do one a month for the rest of the summer. If feel lucky…well, this summer will be very good for you. Stay tuned!
• Also, I’m getting a couple of early reviews which are mostly good: It’s been called “A very strange novel”, and “Different; like nothing else I've read in a long, long time,” “Weird and disturbing” (and that person didn’t like it, but man, what a compliment!) and one sweet person actually gave it 4 stars. I’m happy that anyone would care about my little book with the bear on the cover. If you should happen to get a hold of Pain Center: the Novel, hopefully you can find your way to my page where you can add your review!
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
• I announced a deal last time that anyone who orders Pain Center: the Novel through my page will receive an extra back issue of the Davezine, my short fiction zine that I have been doing for the last 20 years. That deal is still ongoing.
As always, the book is available through my webpage, which links to the stores that sell it, which are Atomic Books in Baltimore, and Quimby’s NYC and Quimby’s in Chicago.
http://davecookson.tripod.com/PainCen...
Ok, thanks for reading!
I am 2 months in to sharing Pain Center: the Novel with the world. It is available in 3 stores in 3 cities, and online. And now, thanks to Goodreads, over 1000 people who I don’t know have at least HEARD of me...and a few have even read my book. (Man, how I would’ve killed for a resource like this back in the day. I’ve spent so much of my life writing and only ever hitting an immediate circle of friends and acquaintances: how wonderful is it to live in 2017 where the potential audience is limitless.)
Anyway…
Here’s what’s coming up:
• I am doing a series of giveaways on Goodreads, the first one starting on July 5th and running through the 21st. I will do one a month for the rest of the summer. If feel lucky…well, this summer will be very good for you. Stay tuned!
• Also, I’m getting a couple of early reviews which are mostly good: It’s been called “A very strange novel”, and “Different; like nothing else I've read in a long, long time,” “Weird and disturbing” (and that person didn’t like it, but man, what a compliment!) and one sweet person actually gave it 4 stars. I’m happy that anyone would care about my little book with the bear on the cover. If you should happen to get a hold of Pain Center: the Novel, hopefully you can find your way to my page where you can add your review!
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
• I announced a deal last time that anyone who orders Pain Center: the Novel through my page will receive an extra back issue of the Davezine, my short fiction zine that I have been doing for the last 20 years. That deal is still ongoing.
As always, the book is available through my webpage, which links to the stores that sell it, which are Atomic Books in Baltimore, and Quimby’s NYC and Quimby’s in Chicago.
http://davecookson.tripod.com/PainCen...
Ok, thanks for reading!
June 26, 2017
Today's Pain Center Deal!
I want to make this worth it for you…
Deep in the vault of my writings…
There are 20 plus years of self-published “Davezines”, issues 1-13: my personal publication of short fiction.
Order Pain Center: the Novel through my website, and I will throw in a Classic Davezine from the vault….Might I suggest….Number 10 (When I moved to Portland) or maybe 11-13 (the Low level Bureaucrats saga which broke the franchise) or perhaps number 6 (which has the story about the man whose impotency meds do strange things to him…)…You tell me. Or I’ll tell you. Either way, read Pain Center!
http://davecookson.tripod.com/PainCen...
Deep in the vault of my writings…
There are 20 plus years of self-published “Davezines”, issues 1-13: my personal publication of short fiction.
Order Pain Center: the Novel through my website, and I will throw in a Classic Davezine from the vault….Might I suggest….Number 10 (When I moved to Portland) or maybe 11-13 (the Low level Bureaucrats saga which broke the franchise) or perhaps number 6 (which has the story about the man whose impotency meds do strange things to him…)…You tell me. Or I’ll tell you. Either way, read Pain Center!
http://davecookson.tripod.com/PainCen...
June 19, 2017
Dark Matter
Dark Matter by Blake CrouchMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Seeing this in a lot of places: my local odd bookstore, Online, Goodreads, definitely felt something special coming. And when the wait at the library was going to be long...well, then I really started looking forward to it. Then the day came, and it was ready to be picked up...well, that was a happy day.
This was definitely an entertaining read. A bit of a genre crossing story, sci-fi, philosophy, themes of the nature of self and identity, Dark Matter covers a lot of ground. The story is, at its essence, a search for home, as college professor Jason Dessen finds himself kidnapped by a man who appears to be his doppelganger, and asked: "Are you happy with your life?" The doppelganger is another version of himself, a version that made different choices and has led a very different life.
The questions become: how can THIS Jason find his way back to his wife and son, but then there is the larger question: should he be the one to make it back?
Highly readable, moves long quick, and while it's not the first thing I've read that has involved this scientific concept, it does present it in a new and interesting way. And it appears that this may be a movie sometime soon, so there's that.
View all my reviews
June 16, 2017
Camp NanoWriMo, where Beer Club 3 will be born...
Gonna try this Camp NaNoWriMo this year, setting a modest goal of 25 thousand words by the end of July. I have some ideas and I have time in the afternoons to work on Beer Club 3: Homecoming. It's a departure from my usual November timeline. To be honest, I'm not sure I'll even get it done, since summer is sort of a hard time to do anything creative (at least I think it is.) . But the goal is modest (only half of what I do every November when I write my yearly novel) and I think it'll give me something to think about. I'll post excerpts after I start.
May 31, 2017
Thoughts on Revisiting my Own Work.
As I’ve been working to promote Pain Center: the Novel! within the Goodreads community and on my own personal network of friends and colleagues, I have recently taken some time to re-read my work again.
One of my favorite movies of all time is the John Carpenter classic, Halloween. In it, serial killer Michael Myers has been rotting away in a mental institution, staring at a blank wall, not speaking to anyone in 15 years after the brutal killing of his older sister. At one point, he escapes, driving a car away from the hospital. Now, for a moment, this is a HUGE plot hole. How does he know how to drive? He came in as a child and hasn’t talked to anyone?
This is seemingly a problem that threatens the logic of the whole movie (such as it is.). But it gets solved with the inclusion of one line :
Dr. Wynn: Now, for God's sake, he can't even drive a car!
Loomis: He was doing very well last night! Maybe someone around here gave him lessons!
It does not answer the question, but it addresses the question. It is a band-aid that keeps the story moving.
I’ve kept that example in mind when I edit, especially with late edits. I try not to insult anyone’s intelligence when I fix small errors with band-aid dialog.
Things I’ve Noticed/Easy Fixes.
• So…Yeah, Downtown Steve is a vegetarian. Early in the book I have him being a daily fixture at “Harden’s Fast Food restaurant.” Which doesn’t jibe with being a vegetarian. Easy Fix: Include the words “a salad” to the text and we are good to go!
• I have a squishy name/dialog attribution issue between the 2 principal characters in one scene. The conversation is meant to be free flowing, “Before Sunrise” fare (I make fun of that movie quite a bit in the story.) Not so easy fix: eh, I think it’s kinda minor…maybe???
• There’s a section later in the book where I make a premature correlation between two of the major parties in the book (Ok, now I’m just being torturously vague.) This kinda hurt me when I re-read it. In a perfect world, I would rewrite it so that it wasn’t this way. But in reality…the “correlation” that I make gets made a few pages down the road anyway, so… Easy Fix:one little line of dialog has been added so that in the second printing, this gets fixed.
Anyway…I'll probably find more. Stay tuned...
One of my favorite movies of all time is the John Carpenter classic, Halloween. In it, serial killer Michael Myers has been rotting away in a mental institution, staring at a blank wall, not speaking to anyone in 15 years after the brutal killing of his older sister. At one point, he escapes, driving a car away from the hospital. Now, for a moment, this is a HUGE plot hole. How does he know how to drive? He came in as a child and hasn’t talked to anyone?
This is seemingly a problem that threatens the logic of the whole movie (such as it is.). But it gets solved with the inclusion of one line :
Dr. Wynn: Now, for God's sake, he can't even drive a car!
Loomis: He was doing very well last night! Maybe someone around here gave him lessons!
It does not answer the question, but it addresses the question. It is a band-aid that keeps the story moving.
I’ve kept that example in mind when I edit, especially with late edits. I try not to insult anyone’s intelligence when I fix small errors with band-aid dialog.
Things I’ve Noticed/Easy Fixes.
• So…Yeah, Downtown Steve is a vegetarian. Early in the book I have him being a daily fixture at “Harden’s Fast Food restaurant.” Which doesn’t jibe with being a vegetarian. Easy Fix: Include the words “a salad” to the text and we are good to go!
• I have a squishy name/dialog attribution issue between the 2 principal characters in one scene. The conversation is meant to be free flowing, “Before Sunrise” fare (I make fun of that movie quite a bit in the story.) Not so easy fix: eh, I think it’s kinda minor…maybe???
• There’s a section later in the book where I make a premature correlation between two of the major parties in the book (Ok, now I’m just being torturously vague.) This kinda hurt me when I re-read it. In a perfect world, I would rewrite it so that it wasn’t this way. But in reality…the “correlation” that I make gets made a few pages down the road anyway, so… Easy Fix:one little line of dialog has been added so that in the second printing, this gets fixed.
Anyway…I'll probably find more. Stay tuned...
May 26, 2017
Pain Center Excerpt #4: Kyle Meets Walter
“Hi, I’m Walter.”
I recognized him from the bus. “Kyle.” We shook hands.
“I hope you don’t mind, I took the outer bed. The light is better over here.”
“It is fine, I don’t mind.” I set my things down on my bed, and looked around. That’s when I noticed the bear sitting on the dresser, staring out at the room. A white polar bear. With a hat and a scarf.
“So, Walter,” said. “…like, what do you do…for a living?”
“I’m a stuffed animal surgeon. You?”
“A what?”
“I’m a stuffed animal Surgeon. I fix people’s stuffed animals.”
“You mean like teddy bears?”
“Among other things. Teddy bears, moose, tigers, fish, aliens, mice, whatever. People send them to me and I patch them up and send them on their way. I work off the Dark Net. That’s where most of my clients find me.”
“What do you mean ‘the dark net?’”
“It’s where other people go to buy drugs or form nationalistic groups or look at disturbing non mainstream porn. Only my clients have far less evil intentions than any of those folks. They just don’t want to be public about their business. That’s why I do such a good business. I keep it discreet.”
“Wow, I had no idea that any of this existed.”
“Most people don’t. There’s a good book out about this, if you’re ever interested. Most people are Facebook, e-mail, g-mail, Instagram, Twitter, porn, Netflix, YouTube, and a garden variety of other boring and moderately safe web sites… To find me you have to look a little harder. But I get a lot of traffic via word of mouth. They find me. I mean, you can’t google me or find me via conventional methods. But they find me. I have to be discreet with my clientele.”
“Yet you’re telling me all about this.”
He didn’t know what to say to that, and it created an awkward moment, that passed eventually without further comment...
I recognized him from the bus. “Kyle.” We shook hands.
“I hope you don’t mind, I took the outer bed. The light is better over here.”
“It is fine, I don’t mind.” I set my things down on my bed, and looked around. That’s when I noticed the bear sitting on the dresser, staring out at the room. A white polar bear. With a hat and a scarf.
“So, Walter,” said. “…like, what do you do…for a living?”
“I’m a stuffed animal surgeon. You?”
“A what?”
“I’m a stuffed animal Surgeon. I fix people’s stuffed animals.”
“You mean like teddy bears?”
“Among other things. Teddy bears, moose, tigers, fish, aliens, mice, whatever. People send them to me and I patch them up and send them on their way. I work off the Dark Net. That’s where most of my clients find me.”
“What do you mean ‘the dark net?’”
“It’s where other people go to buy drugs or form nationalistic groups or look at disturbing non mainstream porn. Only my clients have far less evil intentions than any of those folks. They just don’t want to be public about their business. That’s why I do such a good business. I keep it discreet.”
“Wow, I had no idea that any of this existed.”
“Most people don’t. There’s a good book out about this, if you’re ever interested. Most people are Facebook, e-mail, g-mail, Instagram, Twitter, porn, Netflix, YouTube, and a garden variety of other boring and moderately safe web sites… To find me you have to look a little harder. But I get a lot of traffic via word of mouth. They find me. I mean, you can’t google me or find me via conventional methods. But they find me. I have to be discreet with my clientele.”
“Yet you’re telling me all about this.”
He didn’t know what to say to that, and it created an awkward moment, that passed eventually without further comment...
May 20, 2017
Pain Center Giveaway#2 is over!
Pain Center: the Novel! , giveaway number 2 is now over, 15 winners have been selected, representing a cross section of readers throughout the USA. I want to thank all those who have expressed interest in my little novel with the bear on the front.
Interest was even higher than last time, and I truly am grateful for GoodReads and everyone out there who reads and loves books and connects through their love of reading.
If you are one of the lucky winners, Congratulations! Books will be out in the mail shortly. For the rest...I have web page which connects to the three stores which carry Pain Center and also to my Pay Pal button to buy it on-line!
Thanks again!
http://davecookson.tripod.com/PainCen...
Interest was even higher than last time, and I truly am grateful for GoodReads and everyone out there who reads and loves books and connects through their love of reading.
If you are one of the lucky winners, Congratulations! Books will be out in the mail shortly. For the rest...I have web page which connects to the three stores which carry Pain Center and also to my Pay Pal button to buy it on-line!
Thanks again!
http://davecookson.tripod.com/PainCen...
