Benjamin Whitmer's Blog, page 21

This is why Captain America is my favorite superhero

He's a 1911 man. (And, yes, discussed this before, but it's a great video.)

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I know I'm not posting much, let alone anything of consequence. And I think I've forgotten my passwords to Facebook and Twitter at this point. But the new book is coming along very well and I hope it continues to do so. If you need anything from me, probably best to use the email address on my Bio page.

Quote

Today is Flannery O'Connor's birthday, so this quote from The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor.

All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless, brutal, etc.

And, of course, this from "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," which sums up most of my characters pretty well (and me).

"She would of been a good woman," said The Misfit, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."

There hasn't been a whole lot written that I've found more useful when writing than those two. Probably only this from Faulkner's Nobel Speech, which has been on my mind a lot lately.

Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.

Everything you need to know about pretty much everything

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A review and a recommendation

Time Out Chicago has a really nice review of Satan Is Real up. And the author of the review, Jake Austen, has added some extra stuff on the Roctober Magazine blog.

Also, Austin's Bookpeople bookstore blog has it featured in their SXSW recommended reading. I've never even set foot in Austin, but I can't say how much I appreciate the support of Bookpeople. They're just amazing. To my mind, the exact template of what a bookstore should be.

That's all I got. Have a great weekend.

Grand theft novel

Over at Ransom Notes: The BN Mystery Blog, Jedidiah Ayres gives us a list of his favorite books where second-banana characters steal the book. It's a great list, and would be so even if Pike weren't on it.

It's something I was thinking about the other day, although I wasn't smart enough to come up with a term for it, when I finished James Lee Burke's second Dave Robicheaux novel, Heaven's Prisoners, and realized how much I missed Cletus Purcel. Another one I also always think of is Jimmy Blevins in Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses.

Writing advice

I've been asked in a couple of interviews lately what advice I'd give to other writers. It's a fine question, but I always come up empty. Every time I sign onto Facebook or Twitter there's all kinds of writing advice from other folks, but I got nothing. I ignore all that shit along with the voting advice and outrage-of-the-week posts.

Of course, I listen to everything my agent and editors say, but taking general advice from somebody who doesn't know what you're doing, who has never even seen what you're working on, man, that sounds like a real good way to salt the creative well. Do what works for you is about the only advice I can think of worth giving.

So, anyway, here's what I'm answering anyone who asks that question from here on out. And it's real easy.

Go ask Jonathan Franzen.

He's obviously got lots of advice to give. And he's doing pretty well for himself.

We don't need no thought control

From Victor Castillo. Mainly for my daughter, who at the age of eight thinks it's ridiculous I won't let her watch The Wall yet. Which, I don't know, she might be right, but I imagine that when Pink cuts his nipple off, it's a sure bet we'd be up all night.

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What to get the man who has everything, or me

Here. And which, I think, would go beautifully with my small collection of futurist aeropainting postcards.

The cluster bomb desk lamp is my favorite I think:

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Also, a great review of the novel The Wrong Thing by Barry Graham in the Tucson Weekly recently.

As Graham presents it, immaturity, desperation and flat-out fear can drive someone to do the unthinkable—and no amount of magical reader thinking can undo the effects of a soulless, violent society.

The rest.

Embarrassingly, I still haven't read it. But I'm picking up Angels by Denis Johnson at the library today, and after I finish that, it's next.

New interview

Dangerous Dan — and I just like typing that — interviewed me for his book blog. You can find the results here.

Also, Happy International Women's Day.

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A little about the Mujeres Libres here. Thanks to Nick Mamatas for the picture and the link.

Happy birthday

To the greatest songwriter who ever lived.

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Also this, which I know I've posted before somewhere, but it's one of my favorite anecdotes, and as close to an artistic credo as I'll ever get.

Even during his decline, Townes had a patient, modest, almost courtly way of speaking. He had a distinctive way of being both morose and bleakly cheerful. At one point he takes the trouble to explain to an interviewer the difference between "lonely" and "lonesome." At another, an interviewer asks Townes why so much of his music is so sad. "Well, many of the songs, they aren't sad, they're hopeless," Townes answers.

The rest.