Malcolm R. Campbell's Blog, page 240

Oh no, I'm multitasking again

I like being totally present in the task at hand. I'm not sure what that means exctly because I seldom experience it. But I think it means, figuratively speaking, not thinking of Sue while kissing Jane.

In my case, it means keeping my worlds of satire and serious fiction separate. In the world of serious fiction, I'm still at work on my heroine's journey novel Sarabande. And, I'm still talking about heroine's journey resources at my Sarabande's Journey web log. My most recent post focused on "The Light of Nature," the information we learn directly from nature.


During the past few days, though, I've been multitasking. Vanilla Heart Publisling has just released three "Jock Talks" e-books. Available at 99 cents on Kindle and in multiple formats at Smashwords, these collections feature the more insane, bothered and bewildered of the posts on my Morning Satirical News weblog from the last several years. I've had fun working on them even though I can still hear Sarabande's voice inside my head saying, "Hey, you left me stranded on a mountain top and I'm getting cold and hungry."

Meanwhile, I've been doing a little more volunteer work at the Crawford W. Long Museum as the April 15th opening day of the Civil War Medicine exhibit approaches. Last night, we were carefully removing the fabrics and weaving exhibit from two display cases in the general store building to make room for the new exhibit.

I feel like a juggler with 20 swords in the air. Does this happen to you?

--Malcolm

"Holy bear puke," she screeched.

Malcolm's Wednesday Teaser

The Teaser:

She grabbed an apron off the table next to the door and put it on. "I fell asleep in the damn tub." Her eyes were puffy and her face was redder than her tangled hair.

"You must thank me," Sonny said.

"What?"

"I have saved your life," he said enthusiastically. "If I had not whistled like this—Hoooo hoo-oooo, hoo hoo—you might have drowned."

"Shut up before I put a fist in your mouth," Cinnabar shouted. She was wiping her face off with a dish towel, and the harsh motion and the fire in her eyes told him well enough this was not a good time for more sarcasm. "Mother, get him out of my house by tomorrow night," she said, gesturing at Sonny as though he were some stray dog Gem had brought home.

The Title: "The Sun Singer"

The Reviewer Says: "The Sun Singer is gloriously convoluted, with threads that turn on themselves and lyrical prose on which you can float down the mysterious, sun-shaded channels of this charmingly liquid story." — Diana Gabaldon

The Price: $4.99 on Kindle

Later This Year: Vanilla Heart Publishing will release "Sarabande," the sequel with more mountain magic.

Search For Peace Displays Poetry and Art

Portland, Oregon's Search for Peace is now displaying art and poetry honoring the search for peace in 2011. As a concientious objector during the Vietnam War, I'm happy to see a site that focuses on a non-violent approach.

I'm also pleased that the site is displaying art work and three poems by my brother Doug Campbell. His acrylic painting is entitled I Pledge Allegiance to the Fish. His three poems are Balancing Act, The Journey, and Things.

There is much to like on in the 2011 selections.

--Malcolm

'Garden of Heaven' Give-Away Winner

I put a handful of names into a figurative hat yesterday just before midnight to select the winner of the April 1 Garden of Heaven Give-Away.

Congratulations, Leah! I drew your name. I hope you enjoy the book, a hero's journey adventure about a man who discovers that his first lover might be his last and that there are times when the roads to heaven and hell get mixed up.
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You might also like:

On Not Looking Inward - Sometimes we forget to take time for quiet contemplation.

Mysteries of the Dark Moon - A look at Demetra George's book as a reference in the heroine's journey.


--Malcolm

Four Fools in Three Minutes

On April Fool's Day, the fool's thoughts turn to literature. I've swiped this information from the publishers to make sure it's neither foolhardy nor foolish.

Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew #19: April Fool's Day by Carolyn Keene


"Nancy, George, and Bess have been invited to an April Fool's Day party at their new schoolmate's house. It sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun — each guest is bringing a gag to the party, and the best prank will win a special prize.

When two of the guests' fancy new electronics go missing, Nancy knows something's up. Is this someone's idea of a joke? The Clue Crew certainly isn't laughing, and they're on the case to find the missing gadgets."
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Ship of Fools (the film) by Katherine Anne Porter


Porter's only novel, released in 1962, was released as a black and white movie in 1965. Directed by Stanley Kramer, it starred Vivien Leigh, Simone Signoret, José Ferrer, Oscar Werner and Lee Marvin.

"An all-star drama in the grandest of Hollywood traditions, Ship of Fools is now a glossy, Oscar®-nominated relic from a bygone era, when actors were valued more than special effects. "Prestige" is the keyword in describing this high-toned Stanley Kramer production, and the passage of time brings the pros and cons of Kramer's filmmaking into stark relief. In adapting Katherine Anne Porter's acclaimed novel set aboard a German liner sailing from Mexico to Germany, Kramer and screenwriter Abby Mann (who shifted the story from 1931 to 1933) attempted to display the oncoming horror of Nazi Germany in microcosm, as represented by the ship's colorful variety of passengers, including maritally combative artists (George Segal, Elizabeth Ashley); a has-been baseball star (Lee Marvin); a pair of illicit lovers (Oskar Werner, Simone Signoret); a despondent divorcée (Vivien Leigh, shockingly garish in her final film); and several others who play symbolic roles with varying degrees of obviousness."

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Fools Die by Mario Puzo


"From the blockbuster author of The Godfather comes this bold international best-seller about the feverish world of a big-time gambler. Merlyn and his brother, Artie, obey their own code of honor in the ferment of contemporary America, where law and organized crime are one and the same.

"Set within America's golden triangle of corruption and excess-New York, Hollywood, Las Vegas-the novel plunges into the glittering and ruthless worlds of gambling, publishing, and the film industry, where greed, lust, and violence hold sway. As high rollers, hustlers, and scheming manipulators use power, sex, and betrayal to win, the strongest survive-but fools die."
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Fools (a play) by Neil Simon


"Leon Tolchinsky is ecstatic. He's landed a terrific teaching job in an idyllic Russian hamlet. When he arrives he finds people sweeping dust from the stoops back into their houses and people milking upside down to get more cream. The town has been cursed with Chronic Stupidity for 200 years and Leon's job is to break the curse. No one tells him that if he stays over 24 hours and fails to break the curse, he too becomes Stupid. But, he has fallen in love with a girl so Stupid that she has only recently learned how to sit down."


Happy reading and viewing.

--Malcolm

What are you looking forward to reading ASAP

You have a wish list, right? Or, possibly, a large TBR pile of books next to your computer? If you don't have a Kindle, perhaps you have another list of books now in hardback that you're trying not to buy until they come out in paperback.

As for me, I can say yes to all of the above. Sure, I'm supposed to be moving ahead on my novel in progress Sarabande . For goodness sakes, my publisher is already tinkering with the cover art work. Sorry Kimberlee, but I'm not going to stop reading for anyone. (heh heh)

I have two books on my ASAP reading list, one old, and another I finally got around to buying.

The new one is the widely discussed The Tiger's Wife from the highly touted Tea Obreht. I generally avoid books from people who are highly touted because I think all that touting is simply BIG PUBLISHER publicity and/or because I'm jealous that I'm not being highly touted.

The Publisher's Weekly review begins with the words: "The sometimes crushing power of myth, story, and memory is explored in the brilliant debut of Obreht, the youngest of the New Yorker's 20-under-40."

We'd all like a review like that, right? The book is here on my desk, and after peeking inside, I think all the touting might be right. One negative review on Amazon gave me pause, that from a reviewer who's apparently familiar with the locale Obreht used for her book. The reviewer says she should have stuck to the real legends rather than making up new ones and misinterpreting old ones. Fair point, but I intend to see for myself.

You can find the LA Times review of the book here. And here you'll find the story about Obreht's Orange Prize nomination.

THE OLDER BOOK


Also here on my desk is a paperback copy of Samantha Hunt's The Seas . More recently, she released The Invention of Everything Else.

The very thing that makes this book NOT some people's cup of tea, makes it mine. Here's a woman in a "bleak northern fishing town" (as Publisher's Weekly sees it) who's fallen for a shell-shocked sailor. She thinks she's a mermaid. Reality and truth are mixed up here with a whole lot of ocean.

In addition to the Amazon link above, you can learn more about the book here.

ANOTHER FOR YOUR LIST


Okay, I'm cheating here to include a book I've already read. If you're a writer, take a look at The Sister from Below by Naomi Ruth Lowinsky.

That sister is your muse. As the publisher says, she speaks "to all those who want to cultivate an unlived promise, those on a spiritual path, those who are filled with the urgency of poems that have to be written, paintings that must be painted, journeys that yearn to be taken." I mentioned the book in The Spookiness of Written Truth.

Here's Lowinsky's blog with more information about the author and the book.

THAT ARE YOU READING?

What's on your ASAP reading list. Let me know in a comment. I hate running out of fresh reading material, so I really would like to know what your eager to get a copy of and start reading.
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YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE THIS POST: Heroines' Voices in Literature


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--Malcolm

Heroine's Journey Blog

I have started a new blog called Sarabande's Journey to focus on the heroine's journey as I discover it while working on my sequel to The Sun Singer called Sarabande.

For years, pscyhotherapists, mythologists, authors and others have said that the hero's journey structure doesn't directly apply to the inner work done by women throughout their lives, much less to transformational literature about their paths to wholeness. As an author, I approach the subject as a generalist, researcher, reporter and--I hope--a sensitive interpretor.

I am relying, therefore, on two worlds of information as I write Sarabande. The story my muse and my imagination bring to me. And, the work done by such authors as Jules Cashford, Anne Baring and Laurens Van Der Post; Maureen Murdock; Sylvia Brinton Perera; Demetra George.

Writing a book is a journey in itself. It widens my horizons, it expands my consciousness, and it adds depth to my understanding of the world and of myself. This was very much the case insofar as the hero's journey was concerned as I wrote The Sun Singer and Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey. After the fact, as others began to ask where the themes and ideas originated from, I wished I'd kept a bibliography as the works progressed.

This time, I am. I make no claim to expert knowledge about the heroine's journey. I can sidestep that issue somewhat by saying I am, after all, writing fiction and not a definitive work on the journey itself. The books I discover are not the end of the journey for others who may be interested in this subject. They are a beginning.

I invite you to stop by Sarabande's Journey as the blog gets underway, evolves, twists and turns, gets stuck in labyrinths and, from time to time, finds ideas of interest to other seekers on the path.

--Malcolm

Author's Bookshelf: The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior

You will know an author's passions, favorite topics and locales of choice by looking at the reference books on his shelf. Birds play important roles in my novels, especially ospreys, eagles, hawks, crows and ravens. Like many authors of my generation, I grew up with the Peterson Field Guides .

Whether you're a bird watcher with a "life list" or simply like to look up what you see while hiking or camping, the Peterson Guides are compact, encyclopedic, and small enough to fit in a knapsack. I refer to them often for quick reference about descriptions, size, range and bird calls.

However, if your characters are observing birds--or simply noting them in greater detail than comes from a casual glance or mention--then I recommend my favorite: The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior . The picture shown here is of the cover of my hardback edition from 2001. However, if you prefer the Internet for your research or want information about later editions, you can learn more about the Sibley guides to birds and trees on this website.

This book is large, lavishly illustrated by David Allen Sibley and, for the author or novice bird watcher, quite definitive. If you don't use a Peterson Guide for quick facts, this bird life and behavior book is a fine companion to the Sibley Guide to Birds.

From the publisher: I envisioned it as a book that would function the way a good field trip leader does – pointing out the things that make the birds more interesting and that relate the birds to other species and to their environment, enriching the whole birding experience. I drew on my 11 years experience as a professional bird tour leader to set the style and to choose the types of information that would be presented in the guide.

Example of my use of the book: I have seen Ospreys in Glacier National Park, but until I looked them up in The Sibley Guide, I did not know that once they caught a fish in a lake, they turned it facing forward as they flew. This excerpt comes from The Sun Singer , a novel that mentions ospreys quite frequently:

Fractured world, tangle of sunlight and water, burst of air bubbles, golden pebbles beneath the surface, white flowers above the surface, and he explodes into the sweet air, anarchy of water and wing. He pauses, is pausing and shaking out his plumage, adjusts the fish he's taken with its eyes forward, and rises on great wings onto the soft back of brother Wind and scans the wide blue for Eagle, thief of fish. Fish-hawk, he owns the sky and gives bent wings into the air, then glides, is gliding over rock toward the tall pine and the safe nest with two young soon to fledge.

If you are fascinated by birds in general and/or use them as characters, totems, symbols or as simply part of the scenery, I believe you'll enjoy The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior.


PS: I also use The Peterson Guides , referring often to my shelf of blue-covered paperbacks. Yet, for reasons of nostalgia, I'm drawn most often to the autographed Roger Tory Peterson 1941 edition of A Field Guide to Western Birds that once belonged to my mother. Note how tattered the dust jacket has become.



--Malcolm

Who do I have to sleep with to get a drip coffee maker that lasts?

Writers need coffee more than they need a muse.

Drip coffee makers make that coffee fairly quickly with a minimum* of hands-on labor. The trouble is, they don't last.

I discovered several years ago that $70 to $90 coffee makers don't last any longer than the inexpensive brands. This discovery occurred about the same time I wised up and noticed that $70 - $90 sneakers fall apart just as fast as $20 sneakers.

Our Proctor Silex PS Auto Pause Coffee Maker came into the house on January 20th. The day was sunny and cool and there were no ominous omens, portents or other warnings present near the Family Dollar store on Washington Street or in our neighborhood.

According to the appliance maker's web site, Proctor Silex (a Hamilton Beach Brand) products are tested and proven. I would think so, because one expects a company that's been around since 1920 to know how to make great products.

Truth be told, my fictional characters and I swore by that inexpensive ($12.00) PS Auto Pause Coffee Maker day after day since January 20th. Two pots a day, every day, except during the week we were in Florida when (I think) we used a Mr. Coffee.

Tonight at 9:15 (eastern) while the BIG MOON was somewhere out there behind clouds, Sarabande--the protagonist in my novel in progress--and I swore at our Proctor Silex PS Auto Pause Coffee Maker because it just sat the like a bump on a log, like a dog that won't hunt, like one of the huddled masses of other plastic appliances taken to the county dump after a few months of faithful service.

I feel so used. After two, long months of merrily dripping away, my Proctor Silex crapped out. I know what to do when a coffee maker craps out. Boil water in a pan (which is made of metal and has been in the family for 20 years), and pour it through the basket of Maxwell House ground coffee.

Yes, Mr. Proctor and/or Mr. Silex and/or Mr. Hamilton and/or Mr. Beach, I kept the sales slip and the coffee maker instructions, and I read about the warranty. It's good for a year. All I have to do is box up my PS Auto Pause Coffee Maker in a manner that will keep it as safe from harm as an infant in a new car seat and mail it (prepaid and insured) to you for inspection and replacement.

Who are you kidding? The postage will be more than the pot is worth. That, plus the cold turkey withdrawal of NO COFFEE for the for the two to three weeks it takes you to send back a replacement. I don't need tarot cards or the I Ching to tell me I'll be shopping for a coffee maker tomorrow.

Whatever I buy won't last. Today's world is plastic and throw-away as the growing size of our dumps and landfills proves. But coffee is a drug. I've been hooked on it since May 25, 1963, a cold Montana day when I spent the morning shoveling a snowbank the size of a house out of a hotel driveway. The transitory warmth of a steaming white mug of Chase & Sandborn coffee led to a lifetime addiction.

I should have known better, but I was young and immortal then. I thought I knew everything, but I didn't know about all the nights in all the cheap motel rooms with nothing but lousy coffee or all the mornings at truck stops and diners paying for one cup after another; I didn't know that 48 years later, I'd be ready for a dime bag of anything before I'd try to sit here at my desk and write without my drug of choice.

Writers aren't allowed to crap out. We do what it takes to keep our readers supplied with the humor, horror, sex and thrills of books filled with drug-induced words.

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of three coffee-induced novels, "The Sun Singer," "Garden of Heaven: an Odyssey," and "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire."

*Don't even try to convince me that my habit will be well-satisfied by making coffee with one of those contraptions that brews one cup of fru-fru coffee at a time.

Site for Writers: Polka Dot Banner

The Polka Dot Banner advertises itself as "an author's gathering place." While I wonder if the word authors' might be more appropriate here, I think sites like this should be great for authors. I like the name of this gathering place, so I'm spending a little time finding out what's available.

There are interesting articles, blogs, a place to load your latest book, and a forum for questions. Personally, I think the least important aspect of this (and similar sites such as Author's Den) is uploading information about my book. Doing that tends to give people the impression the sites are great for selling.

Frankly, I don't think they are. When it comes down to it, most of the people uploading books want to sell and few of them want to buy. Why don't they buy? Because they make purchases based on buzz, including word of mouth, reviews, an author's commanding Internet presence and possibly what they stumble across on Amazon or in a bricks and mortar store.

It's hard to sell books on sites that are filled with would-be sellers and very few readers. To me, then, the value of a site like the Polka Dot Banner is finding information, tips, links and other information of value to writers. Now that's something a lot of us can use.

What has been your experience with Red Room, Gather, Author's Den and other authors sites and book selling?

Recent Posts on Malcolm's Round Table


The Father of Florida Folk - Remembering singer and songwriter Will McLean

Crown of the Continent Resources - Listing of some of the agencies working on behalf of the environment in Montana, Alberta and British Columbia

A powerful story of motherhood, seasons and snakes - A review of Patricia Damery's wonderful new novel

And, a St. Paddy's Day satire called Broccoli and Beer on the "Morning Satirical News."

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

--Malcolm