Charles Allen Gramlich's Blog, page 76

A Day Off: Mostly

I'm away for a day and all kinds of things happen. Had to go into work early this morning to close out some stuff for the school year. Then the psychology faculty got together for lunch and a few beers in the French Quarter. I had a spicy rabbit stew, which was delicious but hot enough to make my tongue wince when the next bite was coming in. I cooled it down with some Bohemia, Negra Modelo, and Abita Amber.

While I was away from the net a number of things happened. First, Patricia Abbott posted my piece on writing Swords of Talera as part of her wonderful series on "How I Came to Write this Book." You can find it here if you're a mind to. Thanks, my friend.

Then I got a note from the talented Jodi MacArthur letting me know that I'd won a copy of what looks to be an awesome CD called A Pale Horse Named Death, and it's autographed by Sal Abruscato. Thank you, Jodi. I'm looking forward to listening to this one.

Finally, I got word that Cold in the Light is now for sale as an ebook from the Google Ebookstore. I'd heard this was coming but didn't expect it until next year. I actually have no idea what formats you can get it in. All I know at the moment is the link is here.

And now I'm going to try and visit a few of the 170 plus posts on my Google Reader. I won't be making it all the way around before I crash.
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On a Windy Day

The Horse Latitudes


I hear the wind
as horses racing through the tree tops.
Their hooves are shedding
leaves


For a moment,
I think of catching an air stallion,
of lying in wait up an old oak
with a dream lariat


He would be as blue as sky,
with a mane like a contrail,
and, oh, he would be fast.
We'd make thunder together


But maybe he's better
running distances with his herd.
We humans have tamed so much.
Let the wild wind be

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Again at Novel Spaces

I'm posting again over at Novel Spaces today. I've revisited a topic I mentioned here on this blog quite a while ago now. That topic is "resonance" in writing. I hope you can drop by over there for a visit.
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Final Exams and a Review

Too much grading to do much posting of late, although coming in at six in the morning has allowed me time to visit quite a lot of blogs for the last couple of days. I give two more tests today and have a late meeting so will not be around tomorrow. I hope to have my grades turned in by Saturday. That would be heaven.

In the meantime, though, Evan Lewis has a nice review up over at Davy Crockett's Almanack about Write With Fire. Naturally I'd like to share it.

Thanks. Evan.
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Kindle Reading; Holiday Books

I've just finished reading/listening to my 51st book on my Kindle, and have started on #52, a space opera by Marion Zimmer Bradley. I first held my Kindle in my hands on February 27, 2009, so I've had about two years. I currently have 34 books loaded on it, and about 75 more kindlized works stored on my computer to be loaded as needed. Among the books already loaded: some of the Dray Prescot works that were never "printed" in English, a couple of the "Shadow" pulp novels, several SF novels from the 40s and 50s, some books by friends like M. F. Korn and Ty Johnston, collections like Discount Noir, and such classics as The Picture of Dorian Gray, Ben Hur, and War and Peace.

I bought a fair amount of my kindle books from Amazon, but over two-thirds of the books I have and have read I downloaded free from Project Gutenberg and other online ebook sites. Many of these I downloaded as text files and then kindlized them, which is ridiculously easy. I just send a text file to my kindle email account and they kindlize it within seconds and either send it back to my kindle or to my PC so I can load it later at my leisure. I have found that I can improve my listening experience on Kindle with such books if I do a little editing on the text file first to make sure there are periods after chapter titles and so on.

Although the reading experience itself on Kindle is very good because of the lack of glare and the ability to increase font size, I've found the text to speech function to be one of my favorite applications. I let my Kindle read to me as I take my long daily commute, and although the voice is definitely mechanical sounding and lacks the voice qualities of a good audio book, I find that it doesn't matter much with a lot of books, such as the Shadow and Doc Savage Pulp stories. I tend to supply the intonations in my head as I listen along.

The Kindle has not meant an end to my long love affair with printed books. In fact, I've bought more "new" books in the past three years than at any time in my life. I've also bought printed copies of some of the books I've read on the Kindle just to have them on my shelves. It has complimented my love affair with reading, not complicated it.

And I'll end this little ode to the Kindle by mentioning a couple of my own works that can be found on Amazon for the Kindle. I'm talking about Killing Trail, and Chimes, of course. "Chimes" is actually a longish short story while "Killing Trail" is a collection of my western stories. They're both pretty cheap, and I feel comfortable recommending the author to you. :)

Btw, Killing Trail is also available on Smashwords in different ebook formats and PDF if you should perchance prefer.




However, if you prefer to do your holiday shopping for printed books, check out Erin Cole's Holiday Catalog, which includes Cold in the Light by yours truly, as well as many other wonderful books from up and coming writers who deserve your consideration.

Happy holidays!

Final Exams and Cutting Line

My first round of finals starts today and will run through the middle of next week. I hope to have final grades turned in no later than the 11th. I then have two articles that I've agreed to finish between the 11th and January 3rd. That shouldn't be too difficult but it will certainly take time away from blogging. These are for a reference work on graphic novels and my articles will deal with two such works, Bloodstar, based on a Robert E. Howard story, and A. D. New Orleans After the Deluge, which is about Hurricane Katrina. The upshot is that I won't be around the blogosphere as much as usual for a while, although I'm not abandoning it, of course.

Speaking of finals, I have to relate an experience I had yesterday. I generally eat at the school lunch room and it isn't unusual for there to be some standing in line involved. I frequently get irritated at the students who cut in line in front of others. I sometimes say something and at other times don't, depending on how far from the cut I am. Yesterday, I'd been standing in line for quite a while and was finally only two people back from being served when a student in one of my classes cut in front of me. I was somewhat taken aback but did mutter in a loud voice, "Oh come on." The student did not make eye contact, and in fact I'm pretty sure she never even noticed I was there. I've realized through other dealings with the student that she is extremely self-centered and seldom notices anyone unless they can do something for her at that moment.

This student will certainly get the grade she earns in my class, but this isn't the first time I've seen her take short cuts and be inconsiderate of others. Although I doubt she will ask me for a letter of recommendation, if she did I would have to say no. It's certainly not just the frequent cutting in line and inconsideration, but includes cutting corners in classes she's had with me that makes me feel this way. Yesterday too, for example, she came to my morning class about five minutes late, (early for her), and after bumbling around disrupting the class while she got settled, she asked me a question I had actually been covering in the moments when she was trying to get to her seat. The look on her face when she asked the question seemed clearly to indicate that I was confusing her with my unclear presentation on the topic. Although I answered her politely, I must admit to a touch of irritation. And I thought to myself that there's no way I'd feel comfortable recommending her for graduate school where she might eventually become responsible for other people's welfare. Maturity and empathy for others counts.

And now for some happier thoughts, I'm putting up the links below to some books I'm hoping a certain loved one of mine will buy new for me for Christmas. She knows who she is and would never cut in line in front of me. :)






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Renaissance Fair Weekend

Lana and I went to the local Renaissance Fair yesterday, and the weather was gorgeous. The Fair is held outside Hammond, Louisiana, out in the woods. We attended the jousting and the "Birds of Prey" demonstration. Lana got some great bird photos and put some up over at her blog. We also watched a few of the comedy shows and browsed the shops. Other than food and drinks, we only bought one thing this year, a wind driven item for our deck. I admired the leather tankards but at 95 bucks a piece I decided to pass. I already have a drinking horn from a previous year.

Last year they didn't hold the jousting on the day we went because it had rained so much the field was a lake of mud. I was glad to see it this year, and, besides being hilarious, our knight won! Well, his name was "Victor" after all.

The birds of prey demonstration was awesome, as it has been every time I've seen it. I even ran into a few old friends, including Stephan, who looked the part of a wandering Celt. Lana and I did not really dress up, although I wore my leather hat and the long coat you see me sporting in my profile pic. I felt a bit like a time traveller from the 1880s. I did admire the costumes though, including swordsmen and travelling minstrels and a host of either elves or Vulcans. It's the ears, you know. And I always pick up interesting tidbits of renaissance lore, including this year a lesson in the types of siege weapons used in medieval times.

If you've never been to a Ren Fair, then get ye olde self to the next one you hear about. They're well worth the tickets and the trip. Eat, Drink and be Merry. For tomorrow we return to the real world.
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Where Words Get Their Power, at Novel Spaces

I'm posting over at Novel Spaces today on the topic of Where Words Get Their Power. I hope you'll drop by for a read.

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Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends. Even if you don't officially celebrate it today, I wish you thanksgiving anyway.

No need to comment on this post. Enjoy time with the family; enjoy good food. Maybe some good reading or some football. I plan to do those very things.

I won't be around for a couple of days. Josh is coming up to see me tomorrow for our Thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to that.

Rock on!
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Lushness Revisited

Language is such a weak medium at times. In my last post I spoke about wanting lushness in what I read, but I don't think I conveyed exactly what I meant. At least one commenter mentioned enjoyming the "spare" prose of Hemingway, and Hemingway is actually a favorite of mine. How could I enjoy "lushness" and still enjoy Hemingway? It's because lushness in my mind has nothing to do with wordiness. Lushness gives me sensory details, gives me emotional intensity, and gives me images.

Consider, from A Farewell to Arms, "In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves."

Or:, from The Short Stories, "They shot the six cabinet ministers at half-past six in the morning against the wall of a hospital. There were pools of water in the courtyard. There were wet dead leaves on the paving of the courtyard. It rained hard. All the shutters of the hospital were nailed shut. One of the ministers was sick with typhoid. Two soldiers carried him downstairs and out into the rain. They tried to hold him up against the wall but he lay down in a puddle of water. The other five stood very quietly against the wall. Finally, the officer told the soldiers it was no good trying to make him stand up. When they fired the first volley he was sitting down in the water with his head on his knees."

Though Hemingway is generally considered to write "spare" prose, these scenes of his are "lush" to me. Image piles upon image. I can see these scenes with absolutely clarity. I can feel myself inhabiting them. And though more subtle than in the "tiger" scenes I posted last time, there is an underlying current of powerful emotion singing through these words.

In contrast, here's a scene from John Cheever that I found in Peter Elbow's Writing With Power. "We drank in the garden. It was a spring day—one of those green-gold Sundays that excite our incredulity. Everything was blooming, opening, burgeoning. There was more than one could see—prismatic lights, prismatic smells, something that sets one's teeth on edge with pleasure—but it was the shadow that was most mysterious and exciting, the light one could not define. We sat under a big maple, its leaves not yet fully formed but formed enough to hold the light, and it was astounding in its beauty, and seemed not like a single tree but one of a million, a link in a long train of leafy trees beginning in childhood."

With the Cheever piece, I'm OK with "garden" and "spring day," and then I'm lost all the way until "big maple." Then I'm lost again. What is a "green-gold Sunday?" Why tell us there "was more than one could see." Of course, there was. There always is. The writer needs to give us enough sensory details to help us create what is there. Cheever doesn't even try. He confounds us with the overuse and misuse of "prismatic." I can vaguely picture prismatic lights, but prismatic "smells!" And take "astounding in its beauty?" How much of a lame copout is that? This piece, although wordy, is the opposite of lush. It's almost lifeless.

So, if lush isn't the right word for what I want in a scene, that is sensory detail, emotion, and images, what is the right word?
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