E.J. Eisman's Blog, page 3

Stick a Fork In It

After the many days, months and yes, even years, I’ve completed the ninth draft of my novel Mariline. From here it will go through a program call Grammarly to work out the grammatical kinks that befall even the greatest sage. Then I have been speaking with a developmental editor, which will take their red pen to my words, my baby and with hope will not be too sharp with the scissors. I have to say I am feeling good about this work. I think it stands up with the best writing I’ve ever done, and all that other blah-blah egotistical authors would say. I am looking forward to their review.

Just to give you some background on the novel, it is a paranormal drama I started in 2010 for NANOWRIMO. The plot had been kicked around for many years, although it did not start as a paranormal drama at the time. The elevator pitch goes something like:

 

In suburban Mainline Philadelphia, Carol is the nanny and surrogate mother for Emily, whose parents have died, or so she thought. When Emily is kidnapped, how far will Carol go to save Emily from Emily’s abusive father?

 

That’s the basis, but you guys know it is more than that. We’ll see what happens with the developmental editor.

Spring!

Spring is here! I know that because there is still frost on the grass in the morning, and it is wicked hot in the afternoons.  Flowers are have poked their colorful heads out of the moist and fertile ground along with every worm that had ever lived when the rains come down. It seemed to happen overnight. The trees and grass were once just barren, yellow and caustic and then the next morning, green! The Earth, overnight, had repainted itself.   Colors, now wild and free, sprung to life like a Mother Nature on a twelve hour makeover show.

 

I love the spring. There is so much promise in the spring! Of the seasons, spring is the best. Fall is good also, but spring, pound for pound, has much more to offer. OK, summer has beaches, and that is awesome also, but spring! Spring folks! You cannot do better than spring. Fall has some cool leaves, but it also has a darkness. Winter is just behind that door and could be knocking at any time. If you live in the North, you know how quickly the snow can arrive. Pretty leaves with the chance of a horrible snow or the ability to see colorful flowers blooming and getting to go to the beach? With spring, you can have it all!

Spring is growth. Spring is hope. Spring can be a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day. Spring can be a torrent of rain. Spring can be tornados. Spring can be hail. Spring can be violent one minute, and gentle and tender the next. Spring is a slap in the face. Spring can be a glass of water tossed at you. Spring can be an ex-lover that teases and leaves you in a parking lot to watch her go off with another guy. Spring can be a dominatrix that is both cruel and kind. Well, you get the picture.

 

I am so looking forward to enjoying this spring. I look forward to the windows down in my car, riding along on the long and lonesome highway. Wind blowing in my hair! Oh, and PENDOT fixing all the potholes left over from winter. Lane closures. Traffic backups. A giant flashing arrow pointing to the lane that I was in, and I moved, thinking I had to get into the other. Cars honking. The stink of asphalt as they start laying down the new roadway. Oh, did I mention allergies? Yeah, spring is a wonder.

Snow Again, Again

On this lovely first day of Spring, God drops the bullshit card, AGAIN. You thought you were getting out? Only six more weeks from your furry friend saw his f*ing shadow? HA! HA! He/She has the last laugh! If you are not in the northeast, then this blog means nothing to you. Your weather, for all I know your weather is like the 86 degrees expecting in Florida or something more presentable for Spring. My brother be damned! I am glad you are trying out your pool for the first time this season. I am stuck shoveling snow. As I watch the white wisps of frozen precipitation outside my window, longing for Bing Crosby singing White Christmas. (cue: record scratch) It’s f*ing Spring! The poor birds have been chirping outside my window since February. They are sick of this fluffy stuff too! Get on with it! Move on to the next season! LET IT GO!

Mother Nature is being a jerk. There is just no other explanation. She is being like a bully on a playground that just took your kickball and isn’t going to give it back until you do something degrading in front of all you classmates. We all need to take a stand here. We need to draw our name in the snow, or something that we are not going to take it anymore from this weather nemesis. Snow is for winter. Spring is for those stupid flowers and rain. No white stuff! OK, maybe getting a free Rita’s Italian Ice today is permissible. We are all built on principles, and I am sure if Mother Nature is reasonable, she will see it our way. NO MORE SNOW OR ELSE! That is just the way as it has to be. I mean what could we do? Stop buying Promise margarine? We could all pretend that we do not care, drive crazy in our 4X4’s, oh, wait, there are people that already do that. Moreover, I pray that they get into an accident. Doing sixty on snow and ice just asking for it. I know that makes me a bad person but just once I’d like them to flip horizontally, say, twelve times, just to shake up their brains. No one else would be harmed in this scenario. In the end, the driver would realize they are a dick. I do not need you to prove to me your masculinity while you torment me driving on my bumper. Yes, I have a small car. I am not over compensating like you in your quad cab, Hemi diesel with four tires on the back, so you can pick up your little princess at dance practice.

However, I digress. Snow go. It is Spring. It is time for green stuff and birds that don’t look like homeless people in New York. And flowers; colors! We need to get rid of the blahs. One other thing, let’s not jump right into Summer. I like Summer when it is Summer, not when it is Spring. Like sex, I need a little foreplay before I go full tilt. Just a suggestion.

Mariline Update

He sat and mulled through the piles of chapters he had already thrown out. “What if I bring back this one,” he thought as he took another sip of coffee. In the early morning of a gray rainy day, everything looked like it could fit back into his story, but after seven drafts he should have it down to just editing. “Every draft is the first draft,” he thought. “Every draft is a chance to bring my story back to life. It had sat moribund for way too long. Mariline must be resurrected.”

 

That’s how I’ve been lately. My book is on life support. Mariline. I’ve written it from several perspectives, but Kim had gotten it right. I need to tell the story that I set out to do. So I’ve been spending time in the mythical Swedesford Township, Pennsylvania hanging out with the Fynn brothers that started this all. I am trying to get into the brother’s heads to better understand them and how to write them better. Also, I am learning to understand Max Benike, police Lieutenant and how they all fit together.

 

It is a story about baggage, people’s history and how it drives us. It is a story about life repeating itself. It is a story of the paranormal influencing our life and contributing to our death.

On the surface, we have a hit and run, something the police understand very clearly.   Benike has been on the trail of a murderer for over twenty years, and he has a new clue to investigate. Behind the scenes an accidental drowning, and how it fractures a father, and the impact on the kids. “We are all born with blood on our hands,” Detective Sergeant, Carla Ruiz tells Benike. “It depends on if we get caught as to how guilty we are.”

Snow Again?

Snow. Who needs it? I walked out of my apartment this morning at 6:15 AM to see a fresh blanket of the white stuff all over. “WHAT!” I thought. Not having been alerted by cell phone, by the weather man on TV and over the internet you could imagine my surprise this morning. I would have worn warmer shoes! I would have mentally prepared myself beforehand to dealing with slick roads in my newer car before step out the door. Snow? I do not like driving in the snow after smashing my old car a few winters back. I’ve built up anxiety even with just the thought of precipitation. I took a deep breath and stepped carefully to my vehicle. Although the temperature was above freezing the snow remained as a crunch under my shaky legs. From the parking lot, I could tell the snow fall started recently. Two other spots had been covered over with the white stuff. The air was quiet. It was no more than an inch, but it still was a nuisance. I had to clean off my car!

The drive to work was filed with weather as well. There were those that didn’t seem to be affected by the blowing of snow directly toward us. Others like me were bare-knuckled, holding the steering wheel in the glow of the alert signs flashing “Winter Weather Ahead Please Slow Down.” Cars were whizzing past me, kicking up debris in their wake, trying to prove something to themselves. I took it slow, stayed in the lane, and tried not to make any violent control movements. Snow is a strange thing. It can be good and provide a firm base to drive on. Other types of snow can be slick. I think I lucked out venturing out in the beginning and thus missing out on the slicker parts. Taking my time, I did not run into issues although I did see some police cars about my journey. I was fortunate to be on the opposite of the roadway.

At this point, you probably think it was just a little snow. There are worse people out there. So what! I would have to agree. I like snow in movies. I like snow when I do not have anywhere to go, have the fireplace roaring, and snuggled with my honey under a warm blanket inside. Snow outside? Shoveling? Cleaning? Ugh! It is days like this that make me think of how much I will bitch about the heat when it becomes summer. I am not happy with the weather unless the temperature is somewhere in the middle.

I am looking forward to retiring to Key West. Rain I can handle and gentle breezes from the coasts. I look to the future when I can sit in my hammock and stare at the sky as the clouds drift in and out of view. Warmth. Humidity. The day I can leave this cold will be awesome. Will I miss snow on Christmas? We have not had snow on Christmas here in years.   No biggie! I can live without it. I will also not miss the slick ice, cleaning the car, and worrying about making it to work in the morning.

One good thing about today though. After today, there is one less day of winter weather to go.

Peace Sign

I like peace as much as the next fellow. In fact, I would like to believe that we would all like to live in peace someday but making a peace symbol in a picture is not going to help. I would challenge that making a peace symbol or victory symbol does the opposite because it has sparked me into a rage.

In all of recorded history, there have been only a few times that someone in the world was not at war with someone. It could start with something simple, or it could be something like wanting to take over the world. Look at all the wars started by religion, politics or control. We never seem to be without dictators pushing and pulling its populous into fighting others.

In the sixties, making the peace symbol was all the rage. Everyone was extending their fingers to make peace. It was a form of greeting or as a means to say goodbye. It got you into the larger movement against the man, the war, or whatever you were trying to rebel. In the seventies, it was still used but it became passe. For me, it was destroyed. Whenever I see it, I see a slightly balding President standing on the precipice of anarchy as he was about to step into Air Force One. Richard Nixon vacated the presidency and handed control to the vice president whom he appointed (Gerald Ford). For me, that symbol represents corruption. It represents an abdication. It represents someone who overused the hand gesture to feel like part of the in-crowd, but was always left out.  In the end, he was permanently left out.

Now it is just ubiquitous. It looks dumb, and it has lost its meaning. Somebody needs to make it mean something again, and we can all use it. It is not the sixties, and it is not the seventies. We are well into the 2010’s, and we need something new for us all to relate. Even the middle finger has lost its meaning. It has been done and overdone. We need something for us to all rally behind. Something to bring us into the know. We all need some gesture that is both simple and universal.

A lot of this country is feeling alienation for whatever the reason. We live in the United States, and because my grade school teacher told me, I know that part of that title means together as one. Like a marriage, we all are not going to get our way, so do not pretend to be upset when you lose, it is all part of the unity. If you do not vote, you have no excuse for complaining. The fact that our government is being run by twenty percent of voter turnout (check your last election statistics) should tell you something. I digress.

So it comes down to this STOP the peace sign in photos. It is outdated, outmoded, and antiquated. If you want to find another mean of conveying the peace thought, perhaps doing something about it would be a start, instead of making another picture of your face.

Puppies!

I do not know that I should listed as a blogger, as I have not written anything on here in almost a month. I can blog, should something strike me as something I need to get off my chest or just talk. I like to blog. I like to write. I think my absence on here is more symptomatic of something else. There are plenty of things I could bitch about, but let me leave that to others that could better form the argument with better prose and wit. I, instead, will keep my lukewarm emotions to myself. Let’s talk about puppies!

I like puppies as much as anyone else that doesn’t like puppies. There! I’ve said it! Don’t get me wrong, puppies are cute. They can be the most affectionate. I am just not a dog person. I’ve had a cat, Audrey for the last six years and her much more appealing.

I do not have to clean up my cat. She is self-sufficient. I do not have to walk her to go pee or poop. I clean her litter box, and she is happy to go again. If I do not feel like cleaning the litter box, she does not get stopped up or have accidents all over the place. She still goes in the litter box. Yes, I’ll have more to clean up later but that is a small price to pay. It all goes into the trash and out the door. I am very lucky to have such a clean cat. She takes care of herself. Sometimes she tries to groom me also by licking my hair or my arm.

Dogs, on the other hand, need to go walking on a regular basis. If I had a house instead of an apartment perhaps I would feel different. Having one of those hinged doors that allow the animal to go outside on its own would make it easier. I do not like the idea of standing in the rain while the dog gets the right feeling where it wants to shit or piss. With the cat, there is a contained location for her excrement. Dogs will piss or shit anywhere they feel it is necessary. My Audrey does not do that. She is a regal animal. Don’t get me wrong, she does sit in the middle of the living room licking clean her ass or hoo-hah, but she does it with grace and dignity.  Any animal that can always land on their feet when the fall suddenly and walk away like they wanted that to happen is regal.

My cat can be affectionate and the affection she gives me is not too much. She likes to sit in my lap, lay on my shoulder while I am trying to sleep in bed, and at my head when I sit on the couch. She likes to rub up against any of my dark pairs of pants. Other times I do not see her. She is off sleeping somewhere. You cannot get her riled up about something unless she wants to be. If she sees a squirl on the porch of a bird, she is running to it like she was a fire person on the way to fire. You cannot expect to her to understand what you are saying to her. She meows when she wants to. She purrs when she wants to. She snuggles when she wants to, not so with a dog. A dog is jumping for your attention the moment you get home. It constantly wants to play or do something- anything!   That is nice sometimes but not always. I like my down times. I like to veg out. I like to relax. Getting home so Fido can go can drag me a mile to piss and shit in his favorite place is not what I am looking forward.

Perhaps with the right dog, in the right situation, I could enjoy having a dog, but in my situation right now a cat is all I could handle.   Maybe two cats?

 

Spoon Girl: an explanation

Before you get any ideas that you think I know something about writing, I’ll let you in on a little secret. In 2012, I wrote and published Spoon Girl all in six months. At the time, I was excited about the story and couldn’t wait to spread my new found skills as a writer. I did my best to edit, but in hindsight I really need to leave it up to professional. Seeing my first book published was one of the triumphs of my life, having spent most of it like a fly on a wall for the rest of the world; people only noticed me when I was buzzing around them. I was mostly ignored. Of course, after I was published, people still ignored me, but I was on my way to being a big time writer. My great novel would have Hollywood busting down my door, wanting to produce my story into a movie. If you read Spoon Girl, you would know one of Jonathan’s (the main character) journeys is very similar, he writes a novel, and it becomes a movie. The book is deeper than that. Or I meant it to be deeper. His journey is more of self-realization and, spoiler alert, her journey too.

Jonathan “Jack” McVoy is the pseudonym for Jane Powers. Jane is a writer who was rejected as a writer when she wrote as female, but when she uses a pseudonym as a male, she is celebrated and thus becomes her internal conflict. We all have male and female parts and accepting them as they are is excepting ourselves. In the end, Jane accepts herself as she is, and eventually so does the public.

I entered my book into the Writer’s Digest Self-Published eBook Awards. Here is the review I received:

**************

2nd Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published eBook Awards

Entry Title Spoon Girl

Author: EJ Eisman

Judge Number: 3

Entry Category: Mainstream/Literary Fiction

Books are evaluated on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 meaning “needs improvement” and 5 meaning “outstanding”. This scale is strictly to provide a point of reference, it is not a cumulative score and does not reflect overall ranking. Ratings are not tallied, and are not reflective of placement in the competition judging. Our system only recognizes numerals during this portion of logging evaluations. As a result, a “0” is used in place of “N/A” when the particular portion of the evaluation simply does not apply to the particular entry, based on the entry genre. For example, a book of poetry or a how to manual would not necessarily have a “Plot and Story Appeal” and may therefore receive a “0”. A rating of a “0” does NOT indicate a low rating.

*If you wish to reference this review on your website, we ask that you cite it as such: “Judge, 2nd Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published eBook Awards.” You may cite portions of your review, if you wish, but please make sure that the passage you select is appropriate, and reflective of the review as a whole.

In some cases, you may see special or out of place characters/symbols in your commentary. For example, you may see that a character/symbol replaces an apostrophe, copyright, and other “symbols”. These substitutions occur for various reasons – and are unavoidable. They are often [programming] misinterpretations due to encoding, installed fonts, web based content/sources etc. Since the “content”[data] of the commentary is comprised of data sent from several different computers (programs, fonts etc.,) and from the internet (online entry system), you may at times see an interpretation of what had been an apostrophe, dash, quotation mark etc.

Structure, Organization, and Pacing: 2

Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar: 1

Production Quality and Cover Design: 0

Plot and Story Appeal: 2

Character Appeal and Development: 2

Voice and Writing Style: 2

Judge’s Commentary*:

This was a very confusing novel. “Spoon Girl” by E. J. Eisman is the story of a Nobel Prize nominated writer, his muse, and his collaborator. Jack McVoy and Jane Powers have written a novel, Spoon Girl. Jack has passed away and Jane is on her first book signing tour. But, the real Spoon Girl shows up at one of the signings. This sends the reader on a journey for the “true” story. But who is who? What is real?

It is a very interesting story idea and the characters of Jack, Jane, and Lisa are interesting and could hold the reader’s imagination. Finally unraveling the story of these characters could be a wonderful novel.

But there are way to many grammatical errors, misused words, run on sentences, partial phrases, and such that the novel is very hard to read , to follow and to understand. It jumps back and forth in time and between who is telling the story that the reader will be confused. Some very strong editing is needed to get this novel and this story where it needs to be.

*****************

I’m sorry that my book has caused confusion. Perhaps thinking of what is happening to Jack is a metaphor for what is happening to Jane in real life. It is a concept book. It’s a book of memories, and as with memories they have a tendency to jump around in time. Perhaps the trouble is that is written from Jack’s perspective for three-quarters of the book. At the beginning of the book, Jack is dying. The concept of Jack is dying. Knowing that Jack is a non de plume for Jane might make it easier to understand but that is a mystery; the characters we are forced to play in real life (Jack) in order to be noticed and the hidden parts everyone(Jane). Is it a love story? Yes! Is it a mystery? Yes! The story is all there.

I think Spoon Girl is a good book. I have gotten positive reviews from people. If it was better edited, it could be an excellent book. Publishing my first novel was a learning experience, and I will do better in the future.

Holiday Music

I love the holidays! I look forward to the holidays, thinking of all the special food, getting reacquainted with old friends and even older family, and of course some people seem to go out of the way to be nice. It’s fun to see people think twice as they race out the door to hold it open just enough for me to get through. It warms the cockles of my heart and does wonders to the holiday spirit. And who can forget all those Rankin-Bass and Charley Brown Christmas specials on television. Nothing like that at any other time of the year. Classic movies! Cold weather! Snow! It’s all a feast for the senses. Nothing attacks the senses like the Christmas holiday music. No matter where you go, this holiday music bombards you as soon as you enter any public location, turn on the radio, or even if you walk into your own house. Music is so burned into your brain, it starts to play inside your head, even when it’s not being performed externally. Christmas tinnitus! Sometimes there is no stop to it.

I find this most annoying when I’m trying to fall asleep. Lying in bed, starring at an empty ceiling, my head is somewhere hearing and imagining 32 feet and 8 little tails running through the snow. Or perhaps it’s a Latin tune of a little boy singing “Mamcita, donde esta Santa Claus?” My head is weary of all the songs. “Jiggity jig, hee-haw, hee-haw, it’s Dominic the Donkey.” The songs all are playing in my head as well as old standards: Silent Night, Oh, Come All Ye Faithful, Silver and Gold, Here Comes Santa Claus and others. There must be a way of stopping this. There must be a way of getting these songs temporary out of my mind. “It’s the most wonderful time….” AHHHHH!

Deep breaths. I must keep my focus. It’s only a few more days left till next year at this time, when those songs get dragged out. “Simply having a wonderful Christmas…” There is much more to the season than just these songs. There’s the spirt of giving. “Children laughing, people passing….” NO! Must not give in. “Smiles on faces as folks rush home with their presents….”  STOP!

Well, I hope you don’t have same issues. May your holidays be happy and not blue. “I’ll have a blue Christmas without…”   Don’t get stuck in the same trap that I have. Limit the music. Don’t let it over take you like it has done to me. Be wary of department stores playing tunes, because you never know what your brain will trap inside itself, and bounce around your head like a rubber ball, never getting out. Medication can’t help you; you are on your own.

Merry Christmas. Buon Natale. Joyeux Noel. Frohe Weihnachten. Kala Christouyenna. Mele Kalikimaka. Kellemes karacsonyi unnepeket. Feliz Navidad. Prospero ano y Felicidad.

Labels

If there is one thing I don’t like are labels, because labels have a tendency to still stick even after the meaning for the label has gone. When I was a kid, every kid had a label, whether they wanted it or not. Some were good: brainiac, nerd (I suppose that is OK now, not so much back then), or jock. Other were not so nice: nose-picker, butt-picker, asswipe, skeeze, slut, whore, doofus, dumby, idiot, fat, roly-poly, blubber, elephant, kiss-up, brown-noser, skank, etc. You never knew where these labels would come from, but I imagined there was a 3M plant somewhere working overtime to keep up with the dumb-mand. When I look back now with my 46 year old brain, we were not very creative with our sharp tongues. Take for example Shakespeare. Now there was a man that could give a good put down, and still make it seem nice. Of course, most American’s believe that anything spoken in the King’s English is bound to sound better.

“You scullion! You rampallian! You fustilarian! I’ll tickle your catastrophe!” –Henry IV Part2

Can you imagine a child’s utterance to bully such words? Confusion abounds! “I tickle your catastrophe!” First of all, using tickle and catastrophe in the same sentence is bad ass. To put them together in this manner, beautifully ugly. The bully would no doubt beat the child to a pulp, just for not understanding such words. Next, the g-word would come out, because everything that is not understood is automatically listed as “gay.”   Now that’s a big word used quite frequently, from children. Still I hear it from adults as if it was a norovirus wrenching from their mouths. Again, from not understanding, who they might hurt. Gay is a tough label to drop, if you aren’t gay. Even if you are gay, and not loud and proud, it’s a tough label to move forward from.

I was mistaken on more than one time for being gay, in my life, as well as teased by family and friends, for my dainty ways. I’m sorry that I like show tunes and the theater. I don’t like to get my hands dirty (because I didn’t like to hear my mother yell at me as a child).  I wasn’t considered manly because it took years for a mustache to grow.   You maybe can imagine the anger and frustration that this book cover had to endure, because its contents were different then the label placed on him.

One incident at a Philadelphia Phillies game that I won’t soon forget. My friend Joe and I went to a Phillies game, he a Baltimore Orioles fan and I a New York Mets fan, both dressed in our respective team’s jerseys and hats. The New York Mets were in town, and we got tickets. For most of the game, other than for someone above us shouting, “Mets suck here!” everyone was nice. I didn’t have any trouble, until I went to the restroom. The Mets were losing, and there was slim chance that they might win, but being a fan for many years, they were not having a championship season. I slipped into the restroom and stood at an open urinal, when this guy comes up and stands in close, in his Phillies jersey, yelling every racist, sexist, gay-hating bile you could possibly imagine directed at me, the “queer” wearing the New York Mets jersey. I was standing away from him facing the wall, but I could hear others in the restroom becoming riled to his politics.  He was bating me. I was scared. Part of me wanted to punch him so fucking hard with all the pent up anger from my childhood, but he and his buddies would have had me on the floor beaten to a pulp. I instead, resigned to my situation, I said nothing. I finished up, despite his flailing arms in my face, and walked away. And then he spit on me as I left. Let me make this clear, this person was at least thirty years old, spitting like a two year old. He was obviously drunk, but that is no excuse. I made it out of the bathroom, and I went back to my seat, rattled.

My estranged nephew came to visit my parents two weeks ago, and I heard the same bombardments from them about him. I hate to hear it. I hate to think that my parents are still levying this level of anger, and for what? What has he done that is so horrible? Haven’t they grown up through years learning to accept people? That hate leads to hate? My dad talked about my nephew’s “wimpy” handshake. Dad, if you don’t like his handshake, how about giving him a hug? A big hug for your grandson, since you haven’t seen him in ten years, regardless of what you think of my brother’s ex-wife, or the whole divorce that put a wedge between the two of you. Perhaps you forget how “wimpy” my handshake was, and how easy for you and my brother to trample on my feelings, when it pleased you. You weren’t making me tougher, you were making me older.   Now, my parents see me in a different light. Why would you afford your own grandson the same chance to be himself?

Labels are bad. They are no good. Save them for your Holiday Cards, and not for you friend, relatives, and enemies.