Lynn Schneider's Blog, page 10

Perigee Moon – Beta Reader Results Are In

An abbreviated post this week. I had a wonderful response to Remembering the Pankcake Man. Thanks to all who read and commented. My father was remembered at his memorial service on April 20, 2012. Many people came to honor him, to tell us what he had meant to them, and there were quite a few tears and even some laughs as we remembered the good days. I will always be grateful for everyone who came and shared their memories.

My husband reminded me of something funny that my father had said to him. We asked him, will you be buried here, next to Mom? And he said yes, he would be. And he had purchased additional plots for my brother and me, to be buried there too, but he guessed that probably wouldn’t happen. Those plots wouldn’t be used, so he was considering ”turning them into a family room”. That was so typical of his sense of humor.

At my father’s funeral, the pastor read two poems my father had written. I had no idea. He wrote one poem about golf and another about retiring. They were funny, and witty, and everyone enjoyed hearing them. I never knew he wrote poetry.

The reviews are in from my Beta Readers. I got lots of thumbs up of Perigee Moon (between one and twenty per person). Even though these are my good friends from high school, still they all said they thought Perigee Moon is my best work yet. Every single one of them said it, and it is very gratifying to hear it.

They asked me if these characters are based on anyone, and I had to say no, these characters are truly made up. Maybe some of the characters in my first two books were based (loosely) on people I had known. In this case, that isn’t true. I thought a lot about the characters and how they would interact and what they would think and say. They are fictional, yet I suppose there are people who are just like Luke. Kate and Abby. 

I will be fixing up the remaing typos and releasing it for publication in early May.

Remembering the Pancake Man

Today I don’t feel funny and I don’t feel creative.

I lost someone Sunday, April 15, 2012. Someone really close to me, and I knew I would lose him soon but that doesn’t seem to make it any easier. I’d watched him deteriorate through the abyss of Alzheimer’s disease for years, and for the past year have seen his steady decline.

The man is my father, who lived an ordinary life, and the life he wanted to live. He was a better father to his children than his father was to him, which I found quite extraordinary. How can a man be better at fathering than what he had known? My father did it.

He had four brothers and one sister, and was known as the “nice one”. The others were apt to be a part of fights and various altercations in bars and roller skating rinks around town. My Dad was the one who calmed everyone down and got them to see the other side.

All he wanted was to have a family, and be moderately successful, and be able to eke out a living, since he was uneducated (having dropped out of high school at 16 to join the CCC in order to help out his family during the Great Depression).

He was the kind of guy that everyone liked, they knew he’d never cheat anyone, that being known for his honesty and integrity would always be more important than wealth. And he always said he’d been lucky in his life, and that seemed to be true. Whenever it looked like the end of the financial road, as he was starting up his business, something would happen to kick it down the road a little further.

Everyone loved his stories and while not always politically correct back then, he did tell one funny joke. I’ve seen him entertain groups of twenty people with his rendition of the “Dippy Dippy Blue Cheer” story.

I wrote an essay about him, to be entered in a contest sponsored by Real Simple magazine, which of course didn’t go anywhere. I’ve never won anything in my life, not raffles or lotteries or even football pools, let alone a contest where I’d be judged against my better peers. The essay was to be about the first time you knew what love was. Kind of a sappy topic, but I decided to try it.

Here it is, dedicated to my Dad.

 

Pancake Man

 

It was the 1950’s and give or take a year, I was seven years old when I was introduced to the joys of asthma. But this story isn’t about me, it’s about my father, and what happened as a result of my illness.

My dad grew up poor. His family was not wealthy, not well-to-do, not even middle class. They might qualify for food stamps today, but back then they muddled along and each day was a challenge.

He didn’t finish high school but went into the CCC to help the family, then to work in the oil fields, then into the army where he fought in World War II. Along the way, he met my mother and fell in love. After she came into his life he wanted different things. Marriage, family, respectability and hope for a better life.

And he got that better life. We struggled some, but not more than other families. He worked hard at his sales job during the day, and fixed up our rundown house at night, and still found the time to be a devoted father to my brother and me.

We didn’t eat meat every day, sometimes it was a pancake supper. Dad liked to pour the batter onto the hot griddle in shapes. Big pancake stomach, smaller pancake head, dribbled arms and legs. It’s Pancake Man! In his excitement, my brother banged on his highchair and spilled his milk. My mother complained. Oh, it’s just a little milk, Dad said. What can it hurt?

He was the calm one, the patient one, the one to be counted on. What’s a little milk on the floor? He asked. To be fair to my mother, she was the one on her hands and knees cleaning up the milk mess. She wanted everything just so.

My parents took my brother and me to a strawberry farm one afternoon, owned by friends of theirs, a couple who had two kids around our same ages. We, the kids, raked up a big pile of hay in the barn and jumped in it. I tried to ignore the sneezing, and the itchy eyes that came on, but at some point I became very uncomfortable and took refuge in my father’s familiar arms. I was scared and felt bad and was probably crying, which didn’t help the fact that my chest had tightened and I could hardly breathe. My parents were alarmed and we left for home.

I recovered from that bout, but once started, the episodes became more frequent, until I was a full-blown asthmatic. It seemed after that first time, I became short of breath while doing things I had previously done with no problem. I couldn’t run or ride a bike or jump in leaves.

They took me to many doctors, the family physician, the allergist, even a chiropractor at one point, although to this day I’m not sure why that would ever have worked. Someone probably suggested it, and my parents tried everything.

Eventually, a round of allergy shots was suggested. I had bad reactions to the injections and twice ended up in an ambulance on my way to the hospital for a dose of adrenaline. And while I was a bit of a drama queen and enjoyed the attention that being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance afforded me, it was stressful for my family.

What can we do? My parents asked. You might consider a different climate, warm, and dry, without the dampness and the pollen, the doctor said. Mom and Dad thought about it, and discussed it. They also talked to other people who knew this person and that person who had moved to Phoenix, Arizona and it was a miracle, the people said, because the asthma was gone once they got there.

My parents made their decision and sold the house and most of the furniture. Dad hitched up a U-Haul trailer to the old Mercury and we set out for Phoenix. It was exciting for my brother and me, an adventure. We’d never stayed in a motel before, we were moving to a big city, and we would be the “new kids”. We were thrilled, with the mystery of what would happen next.

What happened next wasn’t good. We rented an apartment in a complex of eight, four on each side, which looked like Army barracks, built with concrete blocks, with cement floors painted brown. There was an eat-in kitchen, a living room, two bedrooms and a basic bathroom. It was a dreary place and Mom felt we needed to have modern light-colored furniture now that we were living in the Southwest, so we bought tables and chairs in a color called “blonde”. It seemed ugly to me, uncomfortable and temporary.  

The living conditions were less than perfect, but worse than that, I was allergic to Bermuda grass which was grown in Phoenix because it could withstand the dry climate. I wheezed in Arizona as much as I had in Western New York. It became clear, it wasn’t going to work. We had sold our belongings and moved to a strange city where we didn’t know anyone only to find that I wouldn’t be any better there than I had been “back home”, as we now called it.

It will get better, Dad said. It will get better. 

The refrigerator had a short in it, and could give you an electric shock when you touched the metal handle. It was a random occurrence, but we were always afraid of it. One day my mother had her hands in dishwater and turned around and grabbed the handle and got a shock that literally froze her where she was, unable to move. I pushed her hand away to free her and got a shock too. It was just about the last, worst thing.

That day, the day my mother had nearly been electrocuted, my father cried. I will never forget that day. He came in from work, and she was in tears and I was sick with wheezing. He wept. I had never seen it before and realized he felt deep disappointment, and regret, and fear that there wouldn’t be anything that could help me. And utter sadness that it had been a mistake and it wasn’t going to “get better”.

That was the day I first knew about love. I looked at my father, my strong, invincible father, as he sobbed at the kitchen table, and I felt such an overwhelming love for him, my Daddy, that my throat tightened, and I couldn’t talk about it, and I couldn’t feel anything but that, and I knew I’d do anything to make his tears go away. If only I could not be sick anymore, that would make him feel better.

We went back home. We’d only lived in Phoenix one month. My parents looked at it as a learning experience. That if they hadn’t tried it, they would have never known for sure, and would have always wondered, what if? We muddled through those years when I was a wheezy kid, then adolescent, and I stayed away from dogs and cats, and dust and pollen, and hay and strawberry farms. Until, when I was a teenager, the asthma nearly disappeared. I was one of the lucky ones who “grew out of it”.

I never really appreciated my parents when I was young, as many children don’t. I didn’t know anything else. I didn’t know there were families who fought, who abused each other, who didn’t support one another. My father was always the strong one, the funny one, my tall, good looking Daddy. He became successful in his life, and he was always a faithful husband and the best father any child could ever hope to have. He was a perfect father. There was nothing he did wrong, not once. But I didn’t think about how much I loved him until that day, when he needed to be loved, when he couldn’t be strong for us any longer, and became vulnerable and defeated and lost.

He taught me to tie my shoes, and now I help him tie his. My father has Alzheimer’s, and is in the mid-stage now, that dreadful time between knowing and not knowing. He is afraid, and confused, and I would give anything if he did not have to go through this.

I think about that day, when he cried, nearly every day now. He’s probably forgotten it, but I never will. The day I learned what love was really all about. When someone else became more important than myself. When his needs trumped mine. When I thought, I really love this person, my father.

Every child should have such a father.

 

B. B. “Clink” Voorhees (May 31, 1922 – April 15, 2012)

 

 

 

 

The Flu Yields a Good Book Review

Last week I hinted at the end of my post that I felt like I was getting the flu. Well bring it on! Let's get this flu thing going and over with, shall we? Not so fast, the evil germ-vermin said. We think we'll hang around for awhile. And they did, those little buggers, free-loaded for six days before giving up.

Rarely does this happen, that I get anything that lasts more than a day. And some may find the following unbelievable but before I retired, I used to hope for just a teeny spot of flu, maybe enough that I could spend two days groaning and collecting sympathy, without (and this is the caveat) feeling guilty for calling off sick at work. Just a couple of days to watch On Demand movies, or read, while drinking tea.

This time though was a little more than I would have wanted, ever. I was feverish for days, and I'd doze and think I'd slept for hours yet only a few minutes had passed. I hurt and remember thinking how I was going to have to explain to someone (and I had no explanation) how it felt and make them understand the connection between the pain and the fever, and if I couldn't explain it, then I was never going to get better. Weird fever dreams when you tend to overanalyze everything and focus inwardly to such an extent that the illness becomes your existence, it's what you are, at least for awhile.

The best I can describe it anyway.

I'd previously downloaded an ebook called January Moon, by Maureen Gill, onto my Kindle, because of the title and a good recommendation, so I read it. I had considered titling my new novel February Moon because I didn't think anyone would know what Perigee Moon meant, then I decided to go with Perigee. The closeness of the titles was compelling.

Check the cover.  I think it is kick-ass. After I read it, I thought the cover couldn't have been more perfect.

I thought what a good time to read it but started the book thinking, there are a lot of clichés in this book, which is something to which I have a particular aversion. Some of the characters are clichéd too, the crusty old four-decade police force Lieutenant, ex-marine, chain-smoking, irreverent. Then there's the handsome thirty-something cop, not someone any bad guy would want to an up-close encounter with, yet oh so sensitive, who is engaged to the beautiful professor who never wanted a relationship with a cop because (of course) her father is an ex-cop and wheelchair-bound after taking a bullet in the spine during an altercation with someone desiring to evade the law. Stuff like that.

But the story kept me interested. It was a page-turner, and I was hooked enough to keep going until I was so committed I could not wait to get back to the book. I found editing errors, and still didn't care. Nothing could dissuade me from reading it, because it was a damn good story. The author knows so much about the FBI and the Illinois State Police and the Chicago City Police and the Medical Examiner's Office, that every line about these agencies is credible.

I found there were a plethora of characters and I had just the smallest trouble keeping them straight but not enough that I got horribly confused.

There was action, something happening on every page. Rich surprising characters who do things you would never expect them to, believable dialogue. And an interesting thing about the dialogue, Ms. Gill made use of almost no attributions (he said, she said), which I found interesting. Very well done for the number of characters involved.

And the dog. What a lovely story about him, and he deserves his place on the cover photo.

This is a good example of a plot-driven novel. If you've got a great story and characters to care about, you've got a winner and that's what this novel is. I guess we of the character-driven novel have one strike against us, in that if our characters suck, our novel sucks too.

I would recommend this book to anyone. You can find it on Amazon or Smashwords. It is immensely entertaining. I can just see this as a movie, and wouldn't be surprised to hear it's been picked up for the Big Screen. Let's see, Clint for the older cop and maybe Ryan Gosling as the younger?

Kudos to Ms. Gill and this is her debut novel! I am truly impressed and will forgive clichés. Without so many of them though, and the editing errors, I would give this novel 5*****.

In other news, another turn at editing The Infamous Flyer (Savon Spa opening Spring 2012 in Chicago). I hope everything is satisfactory now because my frustration level is way high. Not only do I struggle with software I don't quite grasp, but my laptop has memory issues, I keep getting a popup – "WARNING!! You are running low on memory! Quick! Save your work to prevent data loss!" (Perhaps not the exact verbiage.) I calmly close the popup but it is annoying. Plus it still has other issues, in that sometimes it can't "see" my Verizon Hotspot router which sits a mere 24 inches away, or it can't "see" any networks at all, or it suddenly disconnects for no reason. And it still has the jumping cursor problem too. AND, it has a VISTA operating system which is utter junk.

A new PC is a big investment in time, what with getting everything off the old and onto the new, or re-downloading and re-registering and re-learning and re-configuring.

I'm going to do it – getting a new Samsung. It has an I7 processor (whatever that is only it must be better than the I5) and 8 GB of memory and I forget how much disk space, but it's enough disk space to, if not "choke a horse" at least cause him to sputter a little.

My new Samsung shall become a beloved member of my electronics family, pampered and lightly touched with my cyber-affection.

The GIMP, CreateSpace and a Great Basketball Euphemism

Yes, last week's post is really not happening until this week. I could make excuses, and say, but wait, I heard that more people read blogs on Monday than any other day of the week although I'm told they share more on Friday. It makes sense. Monday is a reading day (quiet, introspective, Monday-blues and can't quite get into the workweek yet), and Friday is happy time. Time to party! Time to be free and share!

Maybe that's not it, just one mad women's assessment. I use the word "mad" to mean both crazy AND angry.

Someone I am close to, well, okay it's my daughter, is opening up a new salon in Chicago. It's to be the Savon Spa and is on Halsted St. in the heart of beautiful Lakeview. They will offer a variety of services, (things I never do) like spray tans, and facials, and something called micro dermabrasion (doesn't that sound painful?), nail care, massage, stuff like that.

At one point I must have had a weak moment, or a moment in time when I needed to inflict intentional pain on myself. I can help you! say I. I have some photo editing experience, I've designed book covers, and cards, and even tee-shirts. Maybe I can help with your computer-related needs. Okay, says she (and her partner guy). How about helping with business (appointment) cards and a flyer?

Sure, say I. I can do that.

What was needed was a full blown graphic artist (not me) so I quickly learned that my sophomoric little package wasn't going to work. Not to worry, I've also got The GIMP.

GIMP is not for everyone, and probably not for amateurs like me, but it is open source and it does everything except bring your pipe and slippers (two items I do not need anyway). It's a great package. Here I am again, plugging great software. I can't believe that The GIMP is available for a free download, it does everything that other sophisticated graphic design tools can do.

What a learning curve. What frustration. What a drag. Here is a picture of the finished flyer.

I have been tweaking and YouTubing and reading documentation and trying things for several days now, so while I like to write funny posts, I don't feel particularly funny.

More optimistically (see, I could have said "on a lighter note" and that would have been a cliché), I have five copies of Perigee Moon coming, and will mail these out to my Beta reader group. They will arrive in a day or two. I did the final formatting over the weekend, when I wasn't working on the freaking flyer and trying to figure out why my image couldn't be moved, or the clone tool wouldn't work, and trying to understand layers, and alpha channels, and a myriad of other stuff.

This stuff is all in my brain now, but if I don't use it, it will disappear, as I make room for more subjects that I am required to learn.

Back to the novel, when I did the final preparation of my internal file, I had to go back to a post I wrote, about how to use Word to do your formatting and then create a pdf file, which can be directly uploaded to CreateSpace. So simple, to do, these fine CreateSpace people have made it easy on us poor not-worthy-to-be-published-in-any-traditional-way authors. Yeh! Here's to CreateSpace.

I couldn't remember how to do it, and so it's a good thing I wrote that post, so I could go look at it again. This is the second time I've done that, so it's valuable to me, if to no one else.

So on to my third topic. I heard a great basketball euphemism I thought I'd share.

This was back a couple of weeks ago before we were at Final Four, it might have been Elite Eight, when the interview took place. OU (Ohio University) hadn't gotten so far in many years, since back in the 70's and here they were. Finally! We people in Ohio were happy that our Ohio teams had survived.

OU has the dubious distinction of being The Biggest Party School in the Country. If you want to major in binge drinking, go there. A basketball player was asked about a previous win and if he had celebrated and here's what he said.

"I must apologize that i didn't contribute more to the elimination of distractions."

That's a very nice way of saying he drank himself silly, I guess. Got wasted, gooned, toasted. I thought that was a very nice euphemism. He is certainly a very politically correct young man.

Yeah. I don't feel funny. Instead I feel like I'm getting the flu.

Three People You Shouldn’t Care About

Two of the three people you shouldn’t care about are named “Kardashian”. It took me a long time to figure out who these people are, and why they are famous, but it was one of those it-just-isn’t-interesting-enough-to-google things and so whenever I’d see the tabloid headlines in the grocery store, I’d wonder, who is that? But then it would be my turn to check out (I still don’t use self check-out if I have produce) and I’d forget about the Kardashians until the next time.

It appears that they might be reality show stars, and that’s the biggest reason I wouldn’t know who they are, because reality shows are as boring to me as watching ESPN at 2:00 AM.

It appears that Mother Kardashian is as twit-like as her daughters (who have names that start with the letter “K”) and has almost as much native intelligence, integrity, sophistication and class as they do. This is according to People We Don’t Give a Shit About Magazine, and I sure wish I could take credit for thinking that up, but it was first said by Andy Borowitz, who is a very funny guy, and if you don’t already, and if you are a leftie, and if you like humorous musings, check out the Borowitz Report and subscribe to it.

Back to the K people. Here is a picture of “Mom”:

[image error]

Believe it or not, this makes a news story. “Mom” (Kris Kardashian Jenner) does “cringe-worthy antics” and dresses like a bimbo when clearly she’s too old to be a bimbo. She’s also too old to be a cougar. She’s just old. And check out her hot-pink skinny jeans, black leather jacket and the leopard print mules. She looks like she’s all dressed up for a Rick Santorum Rally.

According to the Daily Mail (whatever that is) “She is a garish attention-seeker. She dresses too young for her age.”

And get this. In “honor” of her son’s 25th birthday, she posted a picture of herself on the internet wearing nothing at all when she was pregnant with him. Hoo boy! Bet that’s something you’d like to see on your birthday. The real question: is this normal? I never thought of doing this, but dang, I couldn’t anyway because you know what? I don’t have such a picture because none was taken. Who does “Mom” think she is, Demi Moore?

 On to someone else we’ve read about in People We Can’t Remember Who the F%&k They Are Magazine (again credit goes to A. Borowitz, see above), Kim Kardashian has been flour-bombed! Apparently, at an event for her new fragrance True Repulsion, oh wait, that’s Reflection, a woman strolled casually onto the red carpet with a zip-locked baggie full of the white stuff and dumped it on our favorite Reality (if this is Reality give me Fantasy — please!) Star’s head.

Further investigation revealed that the assailant did this vile deed for the benefit of Kris Humphries, who is Kim’s ex. That would be the marriage which lasted for 72 days. Now, Kim is as committed as the next person, she gave it 72 days to not work out.

Here’s Kim with her Crown of Flour:

And finally, according to People We Can’t Believe We Ever Gave a F%&k About Magazine (this one I’m not sure of but I’m giving the credit to Andy), “Paris Hilton was spotted in Miami on Wednesday sporting a rather interesting-looking ensemble. Her summery dress was peculiar, to say the least! What do you think of Paris’ boho-style cover-up?”

Here’s “boho” Paris Hilton:

We’ve got wars and near-wars, and a housing crisis, and high unemployment, and a recession, and tornadoes, and global warming, and our nation is as divided as it has ever been into two very different mindsets which is causing stagnation in government, and soaring medical costs, and soaring fuel costs, and we are killing our planet but let’s all take a moment and take a long look at Paris Hilton’s peculiar “summery dress”. As if we’d give the tiniest of shits about Paris Hilton or her life or her clothes or her “career” or anything about her.

In other news, A Denver Broncos fan died on Monday, before he had to see his beloved team sign one of his least favorite players.

According to his obituary in the Columbia Daily Tribune, 78-year-old James ”Jim” Driver, rather than see Peyton Manning don a Broncos jersey, decided to speed up his exit from this world. He opted out sooner rather than later.

Now this was a guy who is “surius about them Broncos”.

The above examples are the sort of “news” we could use less of.

Three People You Shouldn't Care About

Two of the three people you shouldn't care about are named "Kardashian". It took me a long time to figure out who these people are, and why they are famous, but it was one of those it-just-isn't-interesting-enough-to-google things and so whenever I'd see the tabloid headlines in the grocery store, I'd wonder, who is that? But then it would be my turn to check out (I still don't use self check-out if I have produce) and I'd forget about the Kardashians until the next time.

It appears that they might be reality show stars, and that's the biggest reason I wouldn't know who they are, because reality shows are as boring to me as watching ESPN at 2:00 AM.

It appears that Mother Kardashian is as twit-like as her daughters (who have names that start with the letter "K") and has almost as much native intelligence, integrity, sophistication and class as they do. This is according to People We Don't Give a Shit About Magazine, and I sure wish I could take credit for thinking that up, but it was first said by Andy Borowitz, who is a very funny guy, and if you don't already, and if you are a leftie, and if you like humorous musings, check out the Borowitz Report and subscribe to it.

Back to the K people. Here is a picture of "Mom":

[image error]

Believe it or not, this makes a news story. "Mom" (Kris Kardashian Jenner) does "cringe-worthy antics" and dresses like a bimbo when clearly she's too old to be a bimbo. She's also too old to be a cougar. She's just old. And check out her hot-pink skinny jeans, black leather jacket and the leopard print mules. She looks like she's all dressed up for a Rick Santorum Rally.

According to the Daily Mail (whatever that is) "She is a garish attention-seeker. She dresses too young for her age."

And get this. In "honor" of her son's 25th birthday, she posted a picture of herself on the internet wearing nothing at all when she was pregnant with him. Hoo boy! Bet that's something you'd like to see on your birthday. The real question: is this normal? I never thought of doing this, but dang, I couldn't anyway because you know what? I don't have such a picture because none was taken. Who does "Mom" think she is, Demi Moore?

 On to someone else we've read about in People We Can't Remember Who the F%&k They Are Magazine (again credit goes to A. Borowitz, see above), Kim Kardashian has been flour-bombed! Apparently, at an event for her new fragrance True Repulsion, oh wait, that's Reflection, a woman strolled casually onto the red carpet with a zip-locked baggie full of the white stuff and dumped it on our favorite Reality (if this is Reality give me Fantasy — please!) Star's head.

Further investigation revealed that the assailant did this vile deed for the benefit of Kris Humphries, who is Kim's ex. That would be the marriage which lasted for 72 days. Now, Kim is as committed as the next person, she gave it 72 days to not work out.

Here's Kim with her Crown of Flour:

And finally, according to People We Can't Believe We Ever Gave a F%&k About Magazine (this one I'm not sure of but I'm giving the credit to Andy), "Paris Hilton was spotted in Miami on Wednesday sporting a rather interesting-looking ensemble. Her summery dress was peculiar, to say the least! What do you think of Paris' boho-style cover-up?"

Here's "boho" Paris Hilton:

We've got wars and near-wars, and a housing crisis, and high unemployment, and a recession, and tornadoes, and global warming, and our nation is as divided as it has ever been into two very different mindsets which is causing stagnation in government, and soaring medical costs, and soaring fuel costs, and we are killing our planet but let's all take a moment and take a long look at Paris Hilton's peculiar "summery dress". As if we'd give the tiniest of shits about Paris Hilton or her life or her clothes or her "career" or anything about her.

In other news, A Denver Broncos fan died on Monday, before he had to see his beloved team sign one of his least favorite players.

According to his obituary in the Columbia Daily Tribune, 78-year-old James "Jim" Driver, rather than see Peyton Manning don a Broncos jersey, decided to speed up his exit from this world. He opted out sooner rather than later.

Now this was a guy who is "surius about them Broncos".

The above examples are the sort of "news" we could use less of.

Three Drugs You Should Not Ask Your Doctor About

This has been done before. I know it, but I can't resist it. The irritation I feel when I see any drug commercial is enough to cause me to ask my doctor for one, preferably an anxiety-reliever. 

This post has nothing to do with writing, except the writing of some very bad, atrociously bad, commercials. And marketing. Of course, always marketing. It's all about the big drug companies, and how they can appropriate a bigger share of the health industry profit pie.

Ask your doctor if [insert name of C-drug here] is right for you.

Does anyone else (other than me) want to lift the nearest piece of furniture, which weighs such that an average woman can lift it, and hurl it at the TV when you hear these words? I don't know about you, but when I go to my doctor, he has to look at a computer screen to remember who I am. It's not like he's a personal friend or anything, although I think I did see him in a movie theater at one time and he said hello. I was struck dumb, and he said it's Dr. Smith, you probably don't recognize me without the white coat. I had been in his office just the day before (two at the most) so that's probably the reason he remembered me.

He had recently moved from a private practice to one of those places with names which make people think they actually care about making people better, such as OhioHealth, places where he is paid by some huge conglomeration of doctors and clinics and urgent care units and maybe even hospitals, where he only has to be a doctor and doesn't have to worry about running out of tongue depressors. I accused him of "working for the man" and he was just a bit defensive and said that now he could pay attention to doctoring without worrying about the administrative part, at which he feared he actually kind of sucked at. I was surprised at this admission.

He is a very good guy, and I have nothing bad to say about him, but if I asked him if X drug was right for me, he'd probably think I was cah-razy.

I decided to concentrate on drugs that start with the letter C. They are a truly unique and diverse bunch of stuff that you can take for ailments which you might not know you had, or for which you might not have known you should be concerned about.

Cymbalta. This is a drug for depression and/or pain. This seems odd to me, right out of the blocks, that one drug could be good for both of these things. But yes, it is used to treat major depressive disorder (MDD), anxiety disorder, neuropathic pain and fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis pain and chronic low back pain. So, if I'm depressed, shouldn't I take a drug that's JUST for depression and not combined with these other wimpy ailments? I mean really, depression seems more serious to me than something I could pop an Advil for. But if I decide to take Cymbalta, and my doctor says to me, "I believe that Cymbalta is right for you, oh Patient No. 412847534548" ( this is a made up number, I don't think my doctor has this many patients) then I might consider taking it. Because after all, I've seen the commercials, where the unhappy older people look sad and rub their knees and look out the window at a dreary day and they look, well, pretty pathetic. The commercial is divided into four parts:

Bad part. This is you, sad, depressed, in pain, not functional. Anxious and pretty much a loser. The voice-over guy is talking about how miserable you are, and the camera shots are making you look, well, not good.

Good part. The part where you play with a dog and laugh when he licks your mouth, and you walking on a beach, reading a book, with a small, slightly sad yet satisfied, fulfilled smile. The voice-over guy now talks about how wonderful life will be after Cymbalta.

Bad part. Uh oh. This is what can happen if you take Cymbalta. Make the pretty music a little louder, the voice-over guy speeds up the dialogue a bit so you have to strain to understand it. This is where they tell you that you can expect nausea, dry mouth, sleepiness, fatigue, constipation, dizziness, decreased appetite, and increased sweating. This sounds like it might not be worth the trouble to me, so let's skim over this part. Get it over with quick.

Last part. The clincher, yeah there's bad stuff that can happen but all in all Cymbalta is a pretty good deal, so "Ask your doctor if Cymbalta is right for you."

They write songs just for drugs. Here is the Cymbalta song, as performed by the original composer.

[image error]

Chantix. In order to be in a Chantix commercial, you must be a middle-aged, middle-class (or less) heavily accented woman from New Jersey. You must be able to pronounce Chantix (CHAY-un-tix). You must have smoked for forty years, or ten years less than your age. You can then tell your part of the smoking story in 49 seconds of a two-minute commercial, how you are a pack a day smoker, how you've instructed your kids never to pick up a cigarette, etc. How your doctor prescribed CHAY-un-tix. Then for the next one minute of the two-minute commercial, all the bad stuff that will happen to you if you take CHAY-un-tix will be all spelled out for you. Yeah, the music gets a little louder here too. Here's what can go wrong:

Get emergency medical help if you have any of these signs of an allergic reaction to Chantix: hives; difficulty breathing; swelling of your face, lips, tongue, or throat. Stop using Chantix and call your doctor at once if you have any mood or behavior changes, confusion, anxiety, panic attacks, hallucinations, extreme fear, or if you feel impulsive, agitated, aggressive, restless, hostile, depressed, hyperactive (mentally or physically), or have thoughts about suicide or hurting yourself. Chest pain or pressure, tight feeling in your neck or jaw, pain spreading to your arm or shoulder, vomiting, sweating, general ill feeling; feeling light-headed or short of breath; sudden numbness or weakness, especially on one side of the body; sudden severe headache, confusion, problems with vision, speech, or balance; easy bruising, unusual bleeding, blood in your urine or stools, coughing up blood or vomit that looks like coffee grounds; fever, sore throat, and headache with a severe blistering, peeling, and red skin rash; or the first sign of any blistering type of skin rash, no matter how mild. Here are a few less serious side effects of Chantix: nausea (may persist for several months); stomach pain, indigestion, constipation, gas; weakness, tired feeling; dry mouth, unpleasant taste in your mouth; headache; or sleep problems (insomnia) or unusual dreams.

Holy crap. I think I'd take my chances with smoking.

But hey, it can't be that bad. Right? I mean, there's Robin, slicing an apple with a scary looking knife. Obviously, SHE'S not suicidal.

What's interesting about this ad is, that it lasts for two minutes and nearly half of it consists of admissions of all the horrible side effects.

Is this drug right for you? I think not.

Here is Robin in case you don't believe me. Click on "Watch Robin's Ad".

Cialis. This is a very handy drug. When you take it, the walls of your house can fall away and you are sitting on the grassy banks of a stream and it is a beautiful, very green place. This can probably be done because of the way they build houses today, everything being kind of temporary. It is troubling to think what could happen in severe weather, can the walls fall away when you don't want them to?

With Cialis, you take it, there are several seductive glances between the couple, the walls fall away, and then they are magically transported into two bathtubs.

Here are the side effects: The most common side effects with CIALIS are: headache, indigestion, back pain, muscle aches, flushing, and stuffy or runny nose. These side effects usually go away after a few hours. Uncommon but serious side effects include: An erection that won't go away: If you get an erection lasting more than 4 hours, seek immediate medical help to avoid long-term injury. (Yeah, yeah. We've heard about this, but does it really happen? And if it does, is this considered a side effect?)

In rare instances, men taking prescription ED tablets, including CIALIS, reported a sudden decrease or loss of vision or hearing (sometimes with ringing in the ears and dizziness).  Remember, back when you were told that performing certain acts would make you go blind, guys? It's for real.

The good news is that the unhappy, depressed, in-pain people can pop a Cymbalta, then pop a Cialis and wait for the walls to fall away. Maybe afterwards they can share a cigarette.

Two Good Tools for Writers

I had hoped to talk about four writing tools today, but only have time for two. It's Sunday at 4:00 and I want to get my post out. It's the dreaded Daylight Savings Time day when we get screwed out of an hour of the weekend although it will be nice to have the hour of light at the end of the day. I wrote a post about DST on the Boomers and Books site, and am reminded of what the American Indian said:

Only the government would believe that you could cut one foot off the top of a blanket, sew it onto the bottom, and have a longer blanket.

But on to the writing tools.

The Cliché Cleaner! I had written a post a few months back about The Cliché Finder which had obvious limitations. It must be a common problem because this post is still being read, and recently, a woman posted a comment which said she was an editor and it was a big part of her day just spotting clichés and she was in the market for something that could cut down on the time spent. I said I hadn't heard of anything better and she responded that she'd found The Cliché Cleaner. I investigated. What a great tool it is.

I first downloaded the sample and after one try, decided to buy it. It's only $12.95 which doesn't "break the bank" (bet that's a cliché, what do you think?). This tool examines a text file and matches it against more than 16,000 clichés and their variations.

But wait! There's more. And this is even better, it counts the number of repeating phrases. How many times have you been reading along and you start to think, I've read that before? And I'm sure getting tired of reading the same words over and over. Now this problem can be fixed.

The Help File recommends that the files to be examined shouldn't be too large, and a complete novel should be broken up into four or five chapters per chunk. This seemed like a pretty severe limitation. If it has to be broken up then the results of each file will have to be manually compared to the results of every other file. Didn't like the sounds of that, so I thought I'd give it a try using the complete file. What could possibly go wrong? I'd run out of memory or some equally horrific computer event and I'd have to reboot. Big deal. It worked fine, took only a few seconds, so I'm not sure why it was suggested that the files be smaller. 

The software opens up a response window once it's through searching and creates a very nice report, sortable in a number of different ways. I chose to sort on number of instances found, so my list will be ordered in such a way that I can address them from the most to the least problematic.

That's the good news.

The bad news is there is no way (that I can see) to save the report so it can be accessed later. It can't even be swiped to copy/paste and this is because of other functionality that it has, which I didn't care about, that is, being able to click on the instance of the phrase and be redirected to the portion of text where it is found. It's a TEXT file, not a Word document, so if I made changes to a text file, all my formatting is gone. This isn't good at all. I don't want to make changes to that file, I want a nice list of my offenders so I can go back into Word and do the corrections there.

Not possible. Because of a certain issue which I will explain in greater detail, I found myself writing the phrases down. Yes, all of them, and there were quite a few phrases too. I was forced to take pen in hand, and while I was pleasantly surprised to note that I am still able to pick up the pen and put it to a piece of paper and form words and phrases in cursive writing that are legible, still it seems rather like going back to the nineties.

It is a terrible option and I couldn't figure out a way of bypassing the manual written list because when I tried to examine the report and type directly into another text editor, I had problems. When the cliché report window is clicked on (to move down the list) the window where you are typing disappears. This is a computer thing, having to do with which window has focus and response windows and a few other computer-related anomalies that no one needs to understand, other than it is hellishly annoying.

With the manual labor behind me, it took almost no time to type the phrases in.

The Cliché Cleaner, even with its faults, is better than anything else I've found. It is efficient (yet humbling) to see so many problems displayed in a list.  

But now I that I have it, I can go through each one, search for it in my Word document and decide what to do about it.

Four stars (out of five) for The Cliché Cleaner, and if I could print or save or copy/paste the report, it would have been five. But zero stars out of five for Customer Service because when I wrote (twice) and asked questions I have been ignored.  

Wordle! The Wordle website describes this writing tool as a "toy" and it is fun to play with but it provides some valuable insight into repeated words. It creates a "Word Cloud" and the words that appear more frequently are given greater prominence. Once the cloud is created by Wordle, adjusting the font and color will change its appearance.

I have a problem with word repetition and usually have a lot of editing to do to remove extraneous words. Words like but, that, just, so. Meaningless, throw-away words. Using too many of them says "amateur". Of course, sometimes, these words are necessary. Wordle will point out if certain words appear more often than would be expected.

Then tedious it is, but doing a Find in word on the word in question is the only way to look at each instance of it to determine if it can be removed or not.

Wordle cloud for Perigee Moon:

Book Cover Design Using iStockPhoto and BookCoverPro

This morning I designed a book cover using iStockPhoto and BookCoverPro. This is the third book cover I have done, and it was super easy. Yes, it is a very simple, basic book cover but I like simple and basic.

I took some photos of the Perigee Moon this past March, but I didn't love any of them. I decided to search iStockPhoto.com to see if I could find something I liked better. This is a very good site to check out if you are in the market to purchase photos, illustrations, audio or video files. People submit their work to iStockPhoto and if the work is accepted it can be purchased by anyone with a need. The owner of the work gets a percentage of each sale.

The purchaser can use the item for any purpose and there is no danger of copyright infringement. So my rule is, for a cover, I either use my own work, or make sure I get it from some place that can't complain if I use it.

I bought the big one (more pixels) because I didn't want to scrimp on the cover. If it were a blog or something, then it's not such a big deal, but in this case, more is better.

This is the photo I downloaded from iStockPhoto:

I mirror-imaged the photo and cropped it so the moon would appear to be closer to the edge of the cover.  This can be done with any photo editing software. I used PhotoStudio which is a subset of PhotoShop.

I use a simple package called BookCoverPro. This software is not free but won't put you into bankruptcy either. It's maybe $100 or so. As long as the market trends towards eBooks, I wonder about the necessity of having a book cover professionally designed. If I were a New York Times Best Selling Author maybe, but if that were true, someone else would be doing the design of the cover who would be a lot better than I could ever hope to be at it.

I want simple. Straightforward. Contrast and maybe a little mood setting. This is actually a picture of a normal full moon but who's to know? I thought it portrayed a certain feeling. This is the moon Luke looks at, the night of his great epiphany.

I recommend BookCoverPro, but I didn't find the Customer Service all that great. It is simple enough to learn, so you don't need Customer Service anyway, but trust me, in this case, "Service" is only a name.

Here are the simple steps I did to create this cover, which will be used for the print version of Perigee Moon.

Select the size. My book will be 6 X 9 so the size is 12 X 9. Six inches for the front and six inches for the back. Then the spine is sized, and this can be done by specifying the number of pages. That's good because it's difficult to size for a spine, and with this package it is done for you.

I selected a background color, black, because my picture is dark and even though there isn't background to speak of, there could be a sliver where the photo doesn't cover and I don't want it to be white.

I then added my moon photo and stretched it a little to fit over the entire cover.

I then added the text fields: the title, the author name on the front and on the spine.

On the back of the book is a photo of the author, and some other text with other novels I have written. In addition, there is the back blurb which I blogged about a couple of weeks ago which I have yet to perfect so that part is Under Construction.

Now that I have this book cover created, the package will allow me to create a .pdf file of it, which is what gets uploaded to CreateSpace along with the formatted pages of the novel. They print both the cover and the pages, and assemble the book.

It would be very cool if you would comment and tell me what you think of this cover. Even if you don't like it, or have suggestions, I would love to hear them. It's very easy to change. I designed this cover in about three hours. The greatest amount of time was spent picking out the photo to use.

I'm sure there is someone out there who is thinking, you designed the cover in three hours? I can believe that, because it sucks, it's amateurish and ugly.

I've been thinking about it for quite a while though, so maybe that counts for something.

5 Good Examples of Character-driven Novels

My third novel, Perigee Moon, is done! That is to say, it's written and mostly edited. I find I edit and edit some more and edit a little more. Then I let it sit around for a while, reread it and edit it once again. I'm at the point where I'll "edit a little more" then leave it alone. Put it on the backburner for a week or two.

I have the critique of my first reader, my very good friend, who pronounced it "a very good book". My friend said "I think you've got something here." My friend didn't like Second Stories but did like Whatever Happened to Lily? and says this is my best work so far.

I like your writing, my friend said, it's very polished and I like your style. But nothing happens in your books. I keep waiting for the payoff, and it doesn't come, or if it does come, it comes much later than I would have hoped. And then my friend said that the humor works well and that parts of it are, in fact, pretty funny.

Happy though I was with the news, that the first person likes it enough to say this, I was disconcerted about the "nothing happens" part. My books are more about characters, developing them such that the reader comes to really understand them, which is "character-driven" as opposed to "plot-driven". This might be the problem. My friend is more of a plot-driven aficionado, who wants action.

In thinking about some of the books I had read in the past and whether they are character-driven or plot-driven, to the last, they are all about the characters, how they evolve, how they think and make decisions and change as time goes on.

In novels that are plot-driven, action takes priority and the characters are there to have things happen to them in order to advance the plot. In a character-driven novel, it's all about the people, and what they think and how they interact with each other, with the emphasis on emotion and reflection and what happens to them, the action, is there to advance the development of the character.

Occasionally, it's both. A good plot-driven novel that has characters you care about is likely to be a winner.

Here are five excellent character-driven novels. There are many more but these are a sampling of what I consider to be some of the best:

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler – All of Ms. Tyler's novels are character-driven. Stuff happens to them but sometimes not much, and the reader gets the impression that the stuff that happens only contributes to how the character will react to it. This is a bit darker than some of her novels, but I thought the characters were diverse and interesting and quirky. Some are not likable at all, in fact most of them have things about them not to like, except for one, a guy who is the solid steady one, who just wants a family and a normal life. He is lovable and kind and you find yourself rooting for him. Unforgettable book, but like I said, dark.

Say When by Elizabeth Berg – I was hooked from the first page. The story of a divorce, and in first person POV as the man, Griffin, who is such a wonderful character it doesn't matter whether the plot is good or not. In fact, the plot wasn't not too believable (at least in my opinion), but a great character study of a guy who wants a normal life, a family, and comes to wonder if he is a bit too boring. I like stories about regular people because what we find is that while each one of us might be "regular" we still are all different. Ms. Berg does a really good job of thinking like a guy. She is a consummate women's fiction author. She doesn't write romance, or include a lot of sex, but covers topics which are interesting to women, or anyone for that matter. Stories about families, and problems, and breast cancer, and friendship. And in Griffin's case, how he comes to know himself better because someone he cares about no longer wants him in her life.

Endless Love by Scott Spencer – This dark love story leans towards obsession rather than love. It is deep, emotional and depressing at times. I guess an apt description would be that it is complex. The longest sex scene probably ever written is in this book and it is as explicit as erotica, so be warned about that. It seems a bit superfluous in its detail. The reader gets to feel David's love and obsession, as well as his eventual loss and wants so much for it to end well. David simply can't get over Jade. He can't let go, it wouldn't be possible and the reader feels his misery. The last lines of this novel are some of the best I've ever read. There was a movie made of this book. Don't bother, it was cheesy. It's not possible to capture the emotion in film that is in this story, in my opinion, because it is internal to David. It isn't anything he talks about or can tell anyone, it just is.

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen – The consummate character-driven novel. It's 400+ pages of pure joy of reading, about the funniest dysfunctional family on earth, yet they are all kind of believable somehow. Enid, the semi-crazy, ditzy housewife and Alfred, the stoic, male patriarch who is now in failing health, so the tables appear to be turning as to who is in charge, and neither Alfred nor Enid is completely comfortable with that. Their three grown children Gary, Chip and Denise are all delightfully screwed up in their own ways. My favorite was Gary, who's wife was a control freak, and it was maybe the best example of "Show – Don't Tell" I've ever read. There is a lot that can be learned by studying Gary and his familial situation. The novel is pretty much plotless, although the underlying theme is Enid's hope there can be one last Christmas in the old homestead with everyone in attendance. It was very funny to me, but a lot of people don't seem to care for Franzen's particular style of humor. Probably the best example of character-driven fiction in the www (Whole Wide World).

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry – If you like stories about the Indian culture, this is for you. And if you don't know whether you'd like stories about the Indian culture, try it. It's a great character-driven novel and educational as to what life in India is (or was a few decades ago) really like. If you don't know much about India, you will when you've finished this novel because there's a bit of Indian culture on every page. Be forewarned that some of the back story of two of the characters is quite brutal. It's the story of a woman, widowed unexpectedly, who strives to make it in a country where women are of little value, and three men whom she employs to work in her home-based dressmaking business. They come to really care about each other in the years they were together (not only did they work together but they lived together too), and develop a lifelong friendship. I guess it could be said that this is also a plot-driven book because there are plenty of things that happen, but the story of these four people and how they came to depend on each other was the main point of the novel.

The above five books have not been read by my friend who read Perigee Moon. My friend is a guy, who only reads non-fiction. So getting him to read this was a bit difficult, probably because he assumed he wouldn't like it, and I assumed he wouldn't either. But it seems he did.