Malcolm R. Campbell's Blog, page 117
December 8, 2019
Novels are like cigarettes: it’s not easy to quit
When I wrote Giving Yourself Permission to Quit, I resolved to stop working on my follow-up novel to my “Florida Folk Magic Series” because the plot was giving me too much grief and I was seriously sick and tired of researching more than I wanted to know about the KKK. I resolved to stop smoking many times (yes, I finally did quit) but failed more often than now. Some said it was harder to get off cigarettes than heroin. I don’t know if that’s true, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
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Safer than writing?
I’m rationalizing that I haven’t failed because, although I’m still working on that novel, I’m not inhaling. That means I’m doing more research and tinkering with notes about characters and thinking about how to untangle the story. But I’m not really doing any writing. This rationale never worked with real cigarettes, so I expect my resolve about this book is probably in the toilet.
The novel’s working title is “Dark Arrows, Darker Targets,” but that’s just speculation because I’m not really writing it even though my muse and other dark forces are telling me I really need to do it. When I lived in northern Illinois and my house and car were snowed in, I once walked several blocks to buy cigarettes because I was out of them. That took grit, I want you to know.
Quite possibly, writing this novel will take the same kind of insane grit. Please, I don’t want either applause or pity, especially from non-smokers out there who don’t know what it’s like. Smoking, as I mentioned in an earlier post, is an addiction that never really goes away. I haven’t smoked a cigarette in 25 years or so, but I’m still addicted. Like AA and drinking, one cannot smoke a Marlboro every once in a while and be in the clear.
The same must be true of writing. Like any sane person, I’ve tried to quit numerous times, but telling stories is worse than being hooked on heroin. Think about that when you sit down at your PC and think “what could it hurt?” and type the words once upon a time.
Yes, it will be a joyful experience for a while. But then, before you know it, you’ll be writing more and more and you’ll be choosing darker and darker subjects. At this point, you’re pretty much toast and you need to go to a meeting and say, “My name is ____________ and I’m a writer.”
Seriously, must of us who aren’t smart enough to go to that meeting write what we write because the stories are important to us whether they find readers or not. I have no idea why this is so. Years ago, when I worked at a developmental disabilities center and was rising up through the ranks until I became a unit manager, one of the directors asked about my goals. I said that I thought that after working there for a number of years, I would ultimately become a patient. They didn’t like that.
So, when I speak of the mental problems surrounding writers, I know how innocently is starts and that even if you begin by shooting aspiring writers while they’re still happy (as Dorothy Parker suggested), you’ll ultimately choose the dark side and become a writer yourself. There’s no exit.
And yet, when this book I’m not writing is complete, I’ll feel a sense of accomplishment. “Smokin’!!!!! Now the story’s all said and done,” I’ll be thinking when the first copies of the book arrive in the mail. After that, my muse will suggest a new book and I’ll be back to the daily grind after pretending for a while that I’m strong enough to quit.
If you’re a writer, are you trying to quit? No kidding, a pack of Marlboros might start you off on a safer addiction.
December 7, 2019
Looking for an image of an old Rosetta Tharpe recording – UPDATED
[image error]If you’ve been around for a while and/or like vintage gospel, jazz, and blues, you know who Rosetta Tharpe was as well as how influential she was. As Wikipedia notes, “Tharpe was a pioneer in her guitar technique; she was among the first popular recording artists to use heavy distortion on her electric guitar, presaging the rise of electric blues. Her guitar playing technique had a profound influence on the development of British blues in the 1960s; in particular a European tour with Muddy Waters in 1963 with a stop in Manchester is cited by prominent British guitarists such as Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Keith Richards.”
So, one would think that finding a picture of a 1951 Decca release of “His Eye is on the Sparrow” with Marie Knight would be easy to locate on the Internet. Perhaps, but I can’t find it and would really like to see what it looks like so I can mention it in a novel. I could fake that, I suppose, by assuming that it looks like the other Decca recordings of the era, but I don’t feel comfortable doing that.
I spent a couple of hours this morning looking for the image. So far, I’ve found everything but. Seriously, I’d rather be writing the novel that pulling teeth, research-wise, for every fact I use. I’ve mentioned Tharpe before in my “Florida Folk Magic Series” because my character Eulalie was a blues singer and knows who all the singers of her era were. In the novel in progress, the main character is named “Sparrow” so that’s why this recording is important. Plus, I like the song, one that everyone and their brother or sister has recorded. Since the book is set in 1954-1955, the 1951 recording is the most reasonable release to use.
If you’re thinking about becoming a writer, obsessions like this will often take over your days.
UPDATE:
And here it is, compliments of Sandy Daigler who picked the one method of searching Google’s images that didn’t occur to me:
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Looking for an image of an old Rosetta Tharpe recording
[image error]If you’ve been around for a while and/or like vintage gospel, jazz, and blues, you know who Rosetta Tharpe was as well as how influential she was. As Wikipedia notes, “Tharpe was a pioneer in her guitar technique; she was among the first popular recording artists to use heavy distortion on her electric guitar, presaging the rise of electric blues. Her guitar playing technique had a profound influence on the development of British blues in the 1960s; in particular a European tour with Muddy Waters in 1963 with a stop in Manchester is cited by prominent British guitarists such as Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Keith Richards.”
So, one would think that finding a picture of a 1951 Decca release of “His Eye is on the Sparrow” with Marie Knight would be easy to locate on the Internet. Perhaps, but I can’t find it and would really like to see what it looks like so I can mention it in a novel. I could fake that, I suppose, by assuming that it looks like the other Decca recordings of the era, but I don’t feel comfortable doing that.
I spent a couple of hours this morning looking for the image. So far, I’ve found everything but. Seriously, I’d rather be writing the novel that pulling teeth, research-wise, for every fact I use. I’ve mentioned Tharpe before in my “Florida Folk Magic Series” because my character Eulalie was a blues singer and knows who all the singers of her era were. In the novel in progress, the main character is named “Sparrow” so that’s why this recording is important. Plus, I like the song, one that everyone and their brother or sister has recorded. Since the book is set in 1954-1955, the 1951 recording is the most reasonable release to use.
If you’re thinking about becoming a writer, obsessions like this will often take over your days.
December 6, 2019
Oops, a friend’s e-mail was hacked and the hacker tried to scan me out of $$$
I got an e-mail from a friend this morning asking if I could do her a favor.
“Sure.”
She responded, “I’m traveling and need somebody who can pick up some iTunes cards for my daughter.”
I had no idea what those were, so I asked where they could be purchased.
[image error]Apparently at a grocery store or drug store. The thing was, she wanted three $100-cards and provided instructions for how to e-mail the card’s number (or whatever).
$300?
If she had asked for a $25 card, I might well have done it. But three cards at $100 each? I don’t have that kind of money even with her promise to pay me back when she got back home.
It was a scam. Her e-mail had been hacked, she told me, in an e-mail later in the day.
I told her the scammer was greedy and thought I’d send $300 worth of stuff. Apparently, the hacker changed her address for replies in a way that was hard to detect. I might have sent $25 and never known she had nothing to do with the request.
We apparently have to remain constantly vigilant!
–Malcolm
December 5, 2019
Breaking point-of-view rules
Several days ago, I posted this comment on my Facebook profile and, as it turned out from the comments, I’m not the only one who thought the author was breaking point-of-view rules:
I’m reading an interesting mystery, filled with misdirection and clues that may or may not be true.
I won’t tell you what it is because I’m not here to bash the author but to mention point-of-view errors that mar the book. Like many novels, this one is told in alternating chapters about the major characters, each in a third-person restricted point of view.
This means that if the character doesn’t see it, hear it, think it, or intuit it, it (whatever) can’t be there.
What mars these chapters is the intrusion of the suddenly omniscient author who says things like:
“Bob did not see the man hiding in the shadows behind the steps.”
“Sally turned off the TV set just before a major story from her hometown aired. Had she seen it, she would have done things differently.”
You can do this if you’re writing from a consistently omniscient viewpoint. If you’re writing from inside a character’s head in first or third person, you’re playing games with the reader.
Most of those commenting thought the writer as sloppy and/or that the book needed a better editor. One person mentioned the distinction between “close” and “distant” third person. As Writer’s Digest puts it, “The advantage of middle-distance and far-distance third person is that instead of hearing the opinions and reactions of one person, the POV character, the reader can now hear those of two people: POV character and author. Distant third person lets the author put in his two-cents’ worth of interpretation of events.” Frankly, I think this is an abomination because the author has intruded himself or herself into the story.
So, what do you think?
[image error]Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of “Eulalie and Washerwoman,” one of the three novels in the Florida Folk Magic Series in which the narrator is a cat.
December 4, 2019
When politicians eat crow, are they happy?
I’ve never eaten crow, figuratively or literally so I had to Google “eating crow” to see what it tastes like. One answer on a Q&A site said crow tastes a lot like an owl (well, that’s helpful) or like a duck without the grease. When I was in high school, a lot of my friends hunted ducks and they pleased my mother no end by ringing the doorbell and handing her a lot of duck corpses. I knew how to clean ducks, but I was in college, so mother got stuck doing it.
[image error]With that in mind, when the growing list of interwoven, atrocious news stories finally comes to an end, the politicians who end up eating crow might have a pretty good meal–a little gamey, perhaps–but not so bad. It’s too bad crow doesn’t taste like chicken since many of the politicians mentioned in recent news were either acting like chickens (scared) or running around like chickens with their heads cut off.
Have you noticed? Every day’s news is weirder than it was the day before. In fact, it all reads/sounds like satire, like some Peter Sellers or Jim Carrey or John Cleese movie. There’s no way everyone out there is telling the truth or even knows what it is. That means, we’re going to need a lot of crows.
As it turns out, crows are smarter than a lot of people in Congress. What a shame to kill them, broil them and feed them to all the liars. How did things come to this?
I guess it’s our fault, the voters, that is. We elected these people. And now, look at the mess they’ve made. I have no idea how to fix it, though I do thinking that eating crow might seem like a reward opposed to, say, fear and trembling and/or jail time. Apparently, we haven’t been minding the store. Out employees–Senators and Representatives–have been doing what they want rather than listening to us. That’s insubordination at best.
Do you have a solution for the mess in Washington, D.C.? Term limits is my solution because it keeps people who are supposed to be working for us from becoming all-powerful millionaires at our expense. No doubt, their staffs keep crow in the freezer just in case.
December 3, 2019
New “In the Spotlight” Page on Website: Landmark Florida Trial
The 1952 murder trial of Ruby McCollum in Live Oak, Florida had a very strong impact across the state, even catching the attention of those of us who were in grade school at the time. The story was in the newspapers. Adults talked about it. The consensus among many of us was that she didn’t get a fair trial in part because she wasn’t allowed to speak, to tell her story about being continually raped by a prominent white doctor over a six-year time frame.
I mention this trial in Eulalie and Washerwoman because it’s the kind of thing Eulalie, the conjure woman, would have things to say about. I’ve mentioned the case previously on this blog. Today, I decided it was time (probably far past time) to update my website’s In the Spotlight page which I use for announcing new books and commenting about places and events mentioned in the books. So as of today, the spotlight is now “The Case of Ruby McCollum.”
Florida residents and others interested in civil rights history should find this subject fascinating, angering, and sad.
–Malcolm
[image error]Eulalie and Washerwoman is the second book in my “Florida Folk Magic Series”
New “In the Spotlight” Page on Website
The 1952 murder trial of Ruby McCollum in Live Oak, Florida had a very strong impact across the state, even catching the attention of those of us who were in grade school at the time. The story was in the newspapers. Adults talked about it. The consensus among many of us was that she didn’t get a fair trial in part because she wasn’t allowed to speak, to tell her story about being continually raped by a prominent white doctor over a six-year time frame.
I mention this trial in Eulalie and Washerwoman because it’s the kind of thing Eulalie, the conjure woman, would have things to say about. I’ve mentioned the case previously on this blog. Today, I decided it was time (probably far past time) to update my website’s In the Spotlight page which I use for announcing new books and commenting about places and events mentioned in the books. So as of today, the spotlight is now “The Case of Ruby McCollum.”
Florida residents and others interested in civil rights history should find this subject fascinating, angering, and sad.
–Malcolm
[image error]Eulalie and Washerwoman is the second book in my “Florida Folk Magic Series”
December 2, 2019
Thank goodness, I’m not sending out Christmas letters
My parents sent out a yearly Christmas letter, one that–by the time they passed away–had well over a hundred people on it. As he moved up in the University teaching profession, my father taught at many universities. Each one added to those who got a copy of the letter. Many of their friends also sent out letters or cards with a lot of info on them, so we all saw (figuratively) a lot of people growing up whom we hadn’t seen in years.
[image error]When my father passed away, it fell to me to let people know on his Christmas letter list. The following Christmas, I heard from them because many of them knew the history of my life through Dad’s letters. So I added those people to my own Christmas letter list. They were up in years, so we lost them off the list year by year, and that was kind of sad, really, because while I had never met most of them, they were in many ways an extended family.
My wife and I sent out our own Christmas letter for 10-15 years but gave it up when most everyone on the list knew all the news already from MySpace or Facebook or e-mail. Long before we gave up on this, Christmas letters had become kind of a joke, partly because people sent out the good news and downplayed or hid the bad news.
I don’t know how my dad maintained an interesting letter from 1942 to 1986 because I found Christmas letters a real chore. We only send out 35-40 of them, but still, I was never sure what kind of information to send out and what to ignore. Those letters belong to another age and another generation and I’m glad we have it all up some years ago.
We have copies of our parents’ Christmas letter. Oddly enough, it’s a history of our growing up years. Whenever we can’t remember what year something happened, we look it up in those old letters.
We still send out some Christmas cards each year, though the number is declining. The cards cost more these days and so does the postage, And people seem to care less about cards that come in the mail when they can simply say “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays” to everyone on their e-mail and Facebook lists by clicking on SEND.
We still get a few Christmas letters every year. Some are interesting. Some are boring. Great letters are, perhaps, a lost art.
December 1, 2019
The holidays make a nice scapegoat
I saw a graphic on Facebook several days ago that said, “Stop blaming the holidays, you were fat in August.”
Well.
Likewise, I suppose we can also say that we were behind on our chores in August, our letter writing, our hobbies, and a lot of other things that we’re now blaming on the holidays.
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common scapegoat
Who believes our excuses anyway? Wouldn’t it be simpler to say, “I’m overweight because I eat too much” and never get any exercise rather than blaming those 75 extra pounds on Thanksgiving and Christmas?
Or, admitting that we’re short of funds because we spent too much of Black Friday due to a general lack of discipline rather than suggesting Black Friday came along and drained our bank accounts?
We’re all in this scapegoat business together, aren’t we? Let’s say you’re at a cookout and are just grabbing for your 5th beer when somebody says, “I really need to cut back but I don’t want to be rude.” Everyone joins in because, WTF, who wants to admit being rude. Likewise, granny invites us over for dinner. We don’t want to be rude, especially if we think it might cause granny to have a stroke, so we eat enough for three people and need to borrow granny’s walker to get out to the car.
In general, people seem to like ready excuses for why they got drunk, ate too much, or lost their jobs. These excuses are worth their weight in gold. After all, what sane person wants to accept responsibility for the insane habits they’ve spent a lifetime developing?
So, I’m here to tell you, if you’re eating or spending or drinking too much during the holiday season, it’s not your fault.
