David Blixt's Blog, page 18

A Note From A Friend

I got this in my Facebook inbox this morning, from a buddy of mine. He and I met doing a production of Romeo & Juliet, and have since done a few more. He loved The Master Of Verona, and I knew last week he was closing in on the end of Falconer. Evidently he went right on to Fortune's Fool, because this is what he sent me:

RAT BASTARD!! Here I am, again, wide awake at 3 in the morning having devoured the last 200 pages of another one of your books. Seriously man, I've got to be up in a few hours. 

Couldn't you just throw in a friendly disclaimer between paragraphs? e.g. ***SHIT'S ABOUT TO GET REAL. READ ACCORDINGLY***

Honestly, how does this start!? I already know what happens to the characters. Christ, I've died as a few of them!! Yet I can't help caring about them, I'm all tingly-pointy rushing to find out what happens next. 

Have you no sense of decency? My heads all messed up. The next time I'm doing an R&J I might be compelled to save the youth of Verona. Stop the feuding and turn it into the biggest sunshine and rainbows, tea-party, ride off into the sunset, HAPPILY MOTHERFUCKING EVER AFTER cliche!!! The one I want for them and am hoping for EVEN THOUGH I KNOW IT WON'T HAPPEN!!

I could keep going circles but in the interest of time and bandwidth I'll sum up:

Enjoyed the book. Well done.

Take my money. When can I get 'Prince's Doom'?

I hope you and the fam are well.

You can buy FORTUNE'S FOOL here.

New Short Story Collection for Halloween

Now available - SINCERITY & OTHER SCARY TALES!

Longtime followers of this blog will recognize the title story from this collection. Sincerity was my Halloween offering four years ago, reprinted last year for all my new readers. Now it appears to headline a collection of four more, all-new stories just in time for October. The centerpiece is a story based on the most terrifying figure from Pinocchio - no, not Monstro the Whale. I mean the Coachman. What? You don't remember him? You will. And after REMEMBER ME, you will never forget him. 

In addition there are two very short tales, HEIRLOOMS and LURKS, each with their own darkness. And finally there's DREAMING OF A PAPER MOON. This tale is taken from the first novel I ever wrote, and besides being raw and scary, it's also the scene that made me realize I was a writer. Frightening enough in itself. 

So please, stop by the Kindle store and check out SINCERITY AND OTHER SCARY TALES. 48 pages of horror for only $0.99! You can't beat that!

Circular Thinking

One of the reasons I love teaching is that it forces me to distill and confront my knowledge, and refine it into sensible bits. Another reason I love it is because the students are often smarter than I am. 

I don't teach much, mostly because I resent the time away from writing, but also because I am a body that desperately resists a schedule. Don't tell me I have to be somewhere every day, I won't do it. But I currently teach three hours a day, two days a week, which is just about perfect. And I teach something I know in my bones - stage combat. 

Last week was the first classes of the new term. I had them up on their feet, learning some Tai-Chiesque moves. Then on the second day, I lectured a little bit on the history of the sword. After that I put wooden boken (Japanese practice swords) in their hands and took them through the SAFD defenses. We discussed how the best defenses are circular, and how the best attacks are horozontal ("You're blowing my mind, Mr. Blixt," said one). And the question was raised about straight swords v. curved blades. Were straight blades more aggressive? Were curved blades more defensive? 

"Not necessarily." I moved into different fighting styles, how the curved blade assists the wielder to keep his sword in constant motion, and is better on horseback when facing a broken and fleeing foe. Then I casually mentioned that another reason the straight-bladed broadsword was popular in the Middle Ages was that knights on Crusade could reverse it, kneel, and use it as a cross to pray upon. 

At which point one student raises her hand and asks, "Is that why the Muslim warriors liked curved blades?"

I looked at her blankly for a moment, then smiled. "I'd never thought of that, but it makes a lot of sense to me."

Definitely food for thought as we head into future Star-Cross'd novels. 

Love is Love

Here's a guest piece I wrote for Bilerico.com that ran last Sunday. 

I’m getting some lovely praise for my new novel, HER
MAJESTY’S WILL. I wrote it as a tongue-in-cheek spy story starring Will
Shakespeare and Kit Marlowe, and it seems to be received (mostly) as I would
have hoped – with mirth, laughter, and joy. Yes, a couple reviews declaimed
loudly against the “crude” nature of the relationship between Will and Kit, but
I kinda expected that. I brush it off, knowing history is on my side. Marlowe’s
“infamy” is well established, and there’s plenty of reason to think that, if
not gay, Will Shakespeare’s sexuality spanned a wide vista of possibilities.

But one question has surprised me. It goes like this: “David,
you’re straight. What was it like writing a gay love scene?”

Are you kidding me?

First and foremost, love is love. Writing about the
excitement of a kiss, of a caress, is the same across the board. Thinking about
a first meeting of lips, or even a touch of a hand, is an electric,
heart-hammering human experience. The best part is acknowledging what fools we
are for love, how desperately grateful and fearful we are when it’s dangled
before us.

Secondly, let us all agree that there are more far factors
in human attraction than mere gender. One of them is talent. Talent is sexy. Talent
is a force of attraction. And in a time when words were prized, when publishing
was new, when reading was exciting, when instead of saying “Let’s go see a
play” people said, “Let’s go hear a
play,” there were few talents bigger than Marlowe and Shakespeare. A pair of brilliant
young men, thrown into each other’s company and on the run for their lives –
from the Catholics, the government, the dregs of London, and a bear – the
attraction was as natural as anything I’ve ever written.

In fact, the love scene between two teenagers in my novel
FORTUNE’S FOOL was infinitely harder to craft. In that story, the couple are so
young and stupid, so timorous and full of the weight of their actions, it was a
hurdle to write. Whereas Will and Kit came together quite naturally, kissing
spontaneously after a wild and breathless chase.

No, Will Shakespeare might not have been gay. But he
certainly wasn’t straight. With all the cross-dressing, the veiled pining, the
inside jokes, he showed that human experience trumps gender. He played with
attraction, loss, pining, devotion, and the dark side of desire across the
board. Most of all, he understood that love transcends sex. It’s universal. 

Hell, how could he not see it plain as day, when his Juliet
was played by a young man in drag? Yes, Shakespeare wrote the greatest love
lines between a man and a woman, and he wrote them to be spoken by two men. I wonder if anyone asked him if
it was hard writing a love scene between a straight couple? If so, I like to
think he laughed in their faces. Just like I do.

Richard III has Left the Stage

The 18th season of the Michigan Shakespeare Festival is down! It's been a particularly wonderful run, with a great company and amazing reviews and audience response. The only downside is that I haven't been writing or promoting books. The upside is, I now have two more novels in my head, as well as a plot for the sequel to HER MAJESTY'S WILL, and I've agreed to co-author a play with a dear friend of mine. But more news will be forthcoming. I'd like to take this moment to share a few images from this season. Enjoy my clean-shaven face - it won't be seen again until the next director decides I must be shorn. 

Me as Edward IV, the "sunne of Yorke" at the top of RICHARD III. 

Same moment. Not only was I shorn, my director decided to put me in a fat suit. (The young lad behind me is my son, Dashiell, making his stage debut as my show-son, young Richard of York). 

A shot of the amazing David Turrentine as the title character. I like this shot because it shows off Jeromy Hopgood's astonishing set. 

Here's David up close, reveling in his villainy. People couldn't stop talking about his performance - rightly. It was a joy, an evil joy.

While I was eventually hired to act, I was originally planning only to do the fights. The director (my wife) wanted all the murders to happen on-stage. Hence poor Clarence being drowned in plain view. Alan Ball was wonderfully game to be soaked and pummeled for a very long time.

On top of that, I choreographed a 10 minute Battle of Bosworth. 13 actors, with weapons ranging from swords and shields to daggers, maces, spears, and a saddle.

Kate Hopgood, the festival composer, created a magnificent underscore, the likes of which I've never heard before. 200 cues, each taken off of our movements, building to a thunderous choir singing "Now is the winter of our discontent" in Italian. Amazing. 

I'll talk about the other shows in later posts. For now, please enjoy these images, and get ready to make your reservations for next year! As one reviewer put it: "The Michigan Shakespeare Festival seems to be going from strength to strength, at last becoming the sort of summer destination event it was surely meant to be." And the lion's share of the credit goes to the Artistic Director, Janice L Blixt. I am as proud as can be. 

More images from the show can be found at the MSF Facebook page here.

Answer for Nancy

Last week I received an e-mail from a reader named Nancy who wanted (nay, nigh on demanded!) to know when THE PRINCE'S DOOM was coming out. I wrote her back, but for some reason the e-mail address was undeliverable. So I'm answering the question here:

 I'm afraid I honestly don't know when to expect it. "When I'm done writing it," is the best answer I have. I'm shooting for the same date as this year - April 23rd. But we'll see. On the 23rd of August I return from my ten weeks at the Michigan Shakespeare Festival. The moment I'm back, I have it in mind to edit three more Colossus books - they're all written, and only one needs serious work.

 
But I have six other novels in my head fighting for primacy after that, on wildly different topics - another Will & Kit, a sword-for-hire, a jousting love-story, a foray into time-travel, a very exciting novel about the Devil, and The Prince's Doom. Not to mention the long-delayed Othello series, which I keep putting off until I have the perfect plot. Also I have to research a play I'm co-authoring this year with a dear friend, and start recording the audiobooks of the novels already in existance. 

The good news is, the backbone of The Prince's Doom is already written. It just needs serious revisions, and the addition of a plotline I missed but that will be vital for book five. Which I have a title for...
 
So it will all depend on which I most feel like writing this fall and winter. The plan for 2013 is to release a book every other month. We'll see how I do! 


Thank you so much for your enthusiastic support. It means the world. Brace yourself - things only get worse for Cesco now.
 
Cheers,
DB

Typos

One of the things that drove me mad over the printed editions of THE MASTER OF VERONA was that there were typos. I take typos as a personal affront, a judgment on my character, a deep failing. Reading, they make me crazy. So the fact that not only myself, but an editor, copy-editor, and typesetter had missed glaring typos broke my heart. And I was overjoyed to have the chance with Kindle to fix them.

But then I decided to edit the novel again, making changes, cuts, and additions. So there were a whole new raft of typos. But now there was only me to fix them. And I missed a bunch. The great part about the Kindle edition is that I can fix them. They can input said typos and republish in a nonce.

I'd like to thank my friend Melanie Schuessler for taking the time to mark every one she saw and bring them to my attention, so I could pass them on to Kindle. A few were deliberate, but there were more than enough that weren't - a wrong tense here, a missing word there.

So if you're reading the novels and see something amiss, please let me know! Because unlike the printed edition where I could only gnash my teeth, I can actually do something about it. So hit me through the website, or else on my Facebook author page. Thanks!!

My Newsroom Rant

I don't watch a lot of TV anymore. But I'm a huge fan of The West Wing. I rewatch it all the time. So naturally I had high hopes for HBO's 'The Newsroom.' It's written and produced by
But the writing is driving me away.

The pilot was flawed, but generally good. Episode 2 was so awful I wanted to throw something. But I didn't stop watching, because I like the overall story they're telling: the corporate news dilemma, trying to stay ahead of other stories, infotainment, all of it, great stuff. Episode 3 gave me hope with the introduction of the corporate villain, Jane Fonda.

But new we're five episodes in, and I can't take it. Why? Because I find the portrayal of women in the workplace to be the most insulting piece of misogynistic pablum I can remember seeing on TV.


What do we see? We see a woman who doesn't know how to use e-mail. A woman who has to count on her fingers to subtract. A woman who doesn't understand even the basics of the economy, despite having produced economic stories for nearly a year, who has to have explained to her in simple terms the history of the Glass-Steagel Act, and in the middle of having it explained bursts into tears about her ex-boyfriend. A woman who repeatedly allows her personal history to interfere with her work.

A friend pointed out that the men are pretty relationship-dumb, too. I agree. There are no adult male-female relationships on this show. But the men aren't the ones compromising their professionalism due to relationships. In the second episode, both of the crisis moments are created by women who are incompetent because they are focused on their personal, not professional, selves. We have seen no male sacrifice their professionalism for their inept romantic lives. Yes, Daniels' character negociated a bad new contract so he could stick it to his ex. And yes, his opening rant in th pilot was due to seeing his ex. But neither of those events compromised his ability as a reporter, or made him a figure of ridicule. Though his deep wounding has led to bad decisions, it hasn't made him unable to understand email, or count on his fingers, or offer to take a colleague who has done well to treat her to a shopping trip. He's portrayed as a grown-up making bad decisions. Mac is being portrayed as a child.

And even the false equivalency of "she counts on her fingers" and "he took tap lessons as a child and cries at Rudy!" shows that making fun of women is calling them stupid, making fun of men is calling them feminine.

I WANT to like this show. But the depiction of professional women is so utterly awful (I haven't even mentioned Maggie blowing a huge interview because she once hid under the bed while her date had make-up sex with his girl-friend right on top of her - WTF!?!), that I don't know how much longer I can stand it. How is it that is the only competent female on the Newsroom staff? How is she the only one who doesn't allow her personal life to compromise her work?

After watching an episode, I'm more angry at Sorkin than I am at the Tea Party, or the Koch brothers, or injustice in Egypt. Again, it's not the fault of the performers. It's the writer and show-runner.
Making a woman stupid doesn't make her "quirky." Yes, you may be thinking you're making His Girl Friday. But
The show had such potential. But with every additional incompetent woman story, it squanders any goodwill it might have earned with me.

Rant ended. For now.

The Aurora Shooting and the Herostratus Effect

On July 21, 356 BC, an arsonist burned down one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. His sole goal? To be famous.

He was apparently a comman man, owning no talent, no skill or wit or wisdom. He had only an appetite for fame, and he reckoned that he could forever immortalize his name if he linked it to something more famous than himself. But how?

Simple: He would destroy it. 

I don't presume to know the motives of the shooter in Aurora on July 20, 2012. Several reports have him identifying himself with the DC character The Joker. Taken with the events - his choice of date, venue, and the theatricality of his attack - at least suggests a similar motive to the Greek arsonist from 2368 years ago. Because in our society, we focus much more on the criminal than the victims. 

I'm not sure why this is. I sometimes wonder if we focus on the criminal less in an attempt to understand their actions than because we're taught that conflict is drama. Thus the creators of conflict make good television.

But this confuses news with entertainment. Yes, the shooting is news. Yes, it is good to know this alleged murderer acted alone. Yes, I am glad to know he is in custody.

And I will be eternally happy if I never hear his name or see his face again. 

When the Greeks caught the arsonist, he confessed on the spot. During his trial he explained his motive was eternal fame. So when his sentence was pronouced, it was not just execution. His name was forbidden to be spoken for 500 years. The Greeks knew that the best way to prevent more such acts was to eliminate the motive. If the motive was fame, don't let him be famous. 

Yet his name has come down to us, as it would have to. The historian Theopompus recorded his name for posterity - Herostratus. So the arsonist achieved his ultimate aim. But that doesn't mean the Greek sentence was wrong. It was exactly right. 

I'm tired of making modern villains famous. Yes, I love villains in film -Heath Ledger's Joker is superb. I love villains in theatre - I'm currently performing in an excellent production of Shakespeare's Richard III. I love villains in literature - Delores Umbrage is one of the most deliciously terrifying figures I've ever read. But in real life, I don't want to hear about villains. I want to focus on the fallen, and their families. I want to focus on the survivors. I want to focus on restoring what was lost, not on the person who took it away. 

So let us all please focus on the people to whom this was done, not who did it. Absolutely let us discuss guns, and society, and safety, and art, and theatre, and politics. Because we live in a free society, full of choice. I don't want the government to ban the shooter's name from being spoken. That won't work. I just want us to forget his name.

Because who he is isn't what's important. He isn't important. His name doesn't matter. 

My Birthday Gift To You

Today is my birthday. And the best gift I can ask isn't for me. I'd like you to give one of my books to someone you love. Whether it be The Master Of Verona or one of its sequels, or the first book of the Colossus series, or even my short stories or essays. New readers are the best gift authors can get. We write to share.

To make this even easier, for today only my Shakespearean spy/parody/buddy comedy Her Majesty's Will is available free on Amazon Kindle. My birthday gift to you. Enjoy!