Two Novels in One Image

From: Ads of the World.

Two Novels in One Image

Agents Vs. Zombies

Here's an exciting new game, available on both iPhone and Android.

A deadly new virus is turning writers into the worst kind of zombie imaginable; the kind that writes query letters! It's up to you, the intrepid literary agent, to overcome this assault! You`ll need to think fast and stay calm as you deliver your rejections, one bolt at a time, with your trusty crossbow. Remember, aim for the head, not the writing hand!

Agents Vs. Zombies

Why not try a book?

From DOGHOUSEDIARIES!

Why not try a book?

Of Lou Gehrig, Kate DiCamillo and Yamashiro Tomoe

Argh! The Demon is greatly annoyed. Why?  He came upon a list of the Top 100 Speeches as deemed by scholarly experts. Guess what? Lou Gehrig's farewell speech was...well...it was dissed! It ranked  #73 on the list. 

The Demon wishes no disrespect to the other speeches rated higher, but c'mon! With a mere 277 words, Lou Gehrig established a heartfelt connection with 61,000 fans at Yankee Stadium and with many more for generations to come. Two hundred and seventy-seven words - that's all it took.

And that recalls an earlier post on this blog about the power imbued in the economy of a few words:

I found the following observation (confession?) from Kate DiCamillo at The Pippin Insider: "Telling stories is hard work; the stories that I like, the ones that seem most powerful to me, have an ineffable quality of one word seeming to do the work of ten words."

One word for ten? Sounds daunting, eh? How about one word for a hundred? Let flash back to an earlier post of mine where I asked whether it was possible for one hundred words to the job of ten thousand. (i.e., a ratio of one word for one hundred).  Here’s what I wrote:

Is it possible for one hundred words to the job of ten thousand?

I've been contemplating this question since reading a wonderful short story, Bog Rhubard Shoots, by Yamashiro Tomoe (it's from the book, Reflections on the Way to the Gallows). It tells the tale of Mitsuko, a young Japanese woman, who, in the 1940s, was sent to prison for her involvement in the left-wing political movement (as was her husband, who was assigned to different prison).

Under the terms of her conviction, Mitsuko "could write only one letter of postcard length each month. Even though the frequency and length of the letters were limited, they still had to be checked over by four persons: the guard, the chief guard, the chaplain, and the supervisor of the guards. Under these circumstances, one hundred words had to do the job of ten thousand in the letters that Mitsuko and her husband exchanged. If a letter written under restricted conditions failed to pass the censors and was stamped 'To be handed over upon release,' the letter itself would probably shed tears."

And one last thing: "...today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth." That's the line everyone associates with Gehrig's speech. But there was another line: "When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed, that's the finest I know." That's the line that sends shivers up my back. It's why his speech is finest I know of.

'nuff said!

Of Lou Gehrig, Kate DiCamillo and Yamashiro Tomoe

An exercise in first lines

Apparently, the first line of a book is of great importance. It must be true: I read it in a book! Here are the results of my recent efforts at crafting first lines...

I once loved a woman who loved the Muppets.

He counted the bars as they went up, each like a giant meat hook mounted upside down, and wondered how many it would it take to do the job.

This is a story of three crows gathering in the moonlight, fireflies dancing by a stream, and dust, more beautiful than stars, floating in the sunlight.

If you had to write a story to save your life, what would you write?

It is Thursday and I am blind.

Once there was a rose and a sword.

I must have been born with a broken heart; that is the only possible explanation.

Time travelers are dicks, destiny is for douchebags and eternity ain't necessarily forever.

Deep in a cavern, far beneath the Black Mountain, the demon woke from his nightmare.

Above a mountain glade a procession of Black Butterflies followed the trail of blood, dark and shiny upon the grass, towards the stricken, snow-white deer: in their wake, the Golden Dragon followed.

An exercise in first lines

Anticipating Kate DiCamillo's Next Book

(DISCLAIMER: I am in a very silly mood. So silly, I cannot be held liable for any logical fallacies or literary mayhem herein.)

               rising..............an

       tiger                            elephant

A                                                      crashing 

                                                                        down!

                                                                          WHAT NEXT?   

I just read, The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo. I am currently reading The Magician's Elephant, also by Ms. DiCamillo, in which an elephant comes crashing down through the roof of an opera house. Tigers rising and elephants crashing down, oh my! 

What can we expect in Kate DiCamillo's next book? Perhaps something lateral? Here are my less than lucid speculations:

Sideways Monkey:  Jack gets cold feet during his bachelor party and suffers a concussion due to an unseemly incident involving a motorcycle helmet.  When he wakes, Jack discovers he is all alone in the world except for Miles, an enigmatic, Merlot hating, pot bellied monkey. Together they learn valuable lessons in friendship and how to stage a fake automobile accident.

The Night of the Reclining Giraffe: Ten year old Izhtak Schwartz hates Passover, having nearly gagged to death on Matzoh when he was seven. Like an Easter Bunny running for his life, Izhtak flees and through pluck, along with assistance from a clever plot device, makes his way to Africa where he meets a sarcastic, pagan-worshiping giraffe. Izhtak takes a liking to the long neck's  embittered view of the world and nicknames him, Groucho. After many life-threatening, yet hilarious adventures, the boy has an epiphany about  Passover. In the story's stirring climax, he teaches Groucho the Seder and the importance of reclining while they eat. Together they recline, eat Matzoh and imbibe of Manischewitz wine as wild hyenas and meerkats  serenade with a Hip Hop version of Hava Nagila. 

The Raven's Lateral: Billy, like his older brother, Biff, wants to quarterback the Ravens football team in the Chincoteague youth football league. Alas, Coach Parker Derm, the crippled yet vibrant gridiron mastermind, has installed a new trick play requiring the deft and precise execution of the lateral pass. Alas and alack, for Billy, no matter how hard he tries, is unable to master the deceptive pass! Then, one night, a friggin' raven taps on his bedroom window and teaches the aspiring quarterback to look beyond the hash marks.

Anticipating Kate DiCamillo's Next Book

Will I Feel This Way By Spring's End?

This poem, from Yosa Buson, caught my fancy!

The end of spring--
the poet is brooding
about editors.

(Translated by Robert Haas)

Will I Feel This Way By Spring's End?

Supreme Court Rules Predicates Unconsitutional

By Gram Marian, Disassociated Press – 1 hr 52 mins ago

WASHINGTON, DC - The Supreme Court has just ruled that predicates are unconstitutional. The case, Ms. Pelling v. Panda Ring, was the first grammar related case ever heard before the court. In an unanimous decision, the court stated, “We are a nation of laws, not men. Therefore, laws, not predicates should govern our behavior, despite the beliefs of certain well-meaning, but overly educated citizens. The Rules of Grammar cannot be allowed to stand above the Constitution, even within the confines of a sentence…”

In a related decision, the court voted 5-4 in favor of eliminating the use of ellipses…

Supreme Court Rules Predicates Unconsitutional

The Power of Books

I found this on 9GAG.com:

http://9gag.com/gag/93799/

The Power of Books

This may cause nightmares for writers and aspiring authors

Woke up at 3 A.M. with the following in mind as a prologue to my novel. (Warning: writers and aspiring authors may have nightmares as a result of reading this).

THE DEMON OF THE CAVERN OF THE BLACK MOUNTAIN

 Deep in a cavern far beneath the Black Mountain, the Demon woke from his nightmare. He rose from the jagged granite slab that was his bed, shaking his head to bring wakefulness. As he did this, droplets of dark oily glop flew from his face, raining down upon the stone floor. Fiery eyes glowed red and then pulsed as he remembered the horrid dream.

            Like all his nightmares, it had been about an author who was going to write a story.

            The Demon hated authors and the stories they wrote. Then again, he disliked most anything you and I love such as ice cream, good music, spring days with lots of sunshine and even chocolate (sad, but true!). More than anything, he hated a good story. With every fiber of his being, he despised tales filled with imagination and the joy they brought to young readers.

            His purpose in life was a cruel one: to stop authors from writing stories. To that end, he was utterly ruthless and had many tricks up his sleeve. For example, he knew all eight hundred and eleven ways to make writers doubt themselves (so they would lack the confidence to write even one sentence). He had mastered twenty-one effective techniques to fill the mind with excuses not to write. So dedicated was this crusher of creative spirits, he even knew a dark magic spell that transformed the joy of writing into a grinding agony. 

            More of the nightmare came to mind and it filled him with complete disgust.

            He had dreamt of a very special kind of author who was going to write a one-of-a-kind story!

            He had encountered these kinds of authors before. More often than not, he had been able to stop them from writing; their stories never saw the light of day. But every once in a while, an author succeeded despite the Demon’s best efforts. Of these, there were three authors the Demon despised more than anyone.

            One was a jovial man, with a handlebar mustache, who wrote of a girl named Dorothy and her adventures in a place called Oz. “Only a fool would be amused by a stupid Scarecrow, a rattling Tin Man and a Lion scared of his own shadow!” said the Demon with a mouth perfectly suited for snarling.

            Then there was that fellow, a professor at some fancy British college, who wrote of little people with hairy feet whose homes were holes in the ground. “What were those little critters called?”  The Demon struggled to recall. “Hobbits. Ugh! Pure rubbish!”

            Most recently, a woman had written a book – no, she had written seven books – about a young wizard at a school of magic. The books had been widely popular, a situation the Demon found deeply, deeply offensive; it even hurt his feelings.  “How could I have allowed her to do that?” he moaned in a very un-Demon like way.

            He squeezed his oily palms against his goo-covered forehead and thought about what he had done wrong. "I made the same mistake with all three authors: I failed to take the ultimate step of kidnapping their characters."

            Kidnap them before the story was written! Yes, that was the only foolproof way to sabotage an author. Imprisoned in the deepest cavern on earth, far below the Black Mountain, the characters would be doomed. Over time, they would become pale, embittered ghosts, their stories forever untold. 

            Yes, this time he would be sure to kidnap the characters! No author had ever been successful in the attempt to rescue their characters. The Demon allowed himself to enjoy a small smile. It was an odd sight to see on his monstrous, goo-covered face.

            “Author, I will find your characters!” The Demon issued his warning through grinding teeth.  He stomped his foot into the floor of the cavern and shards of granite flew everywhere. “I will find them and steal them from you.”

            The Demon howled with glee.

This may cause nightmares for writers and aspiring authors

Jane Ire

A new movie version of Jane Eyre is due to be released any day now. That got the Demon to imagining a hybrid (a.k.a. mutant) version of the novel combing the classic sensibilities of Charlotte Bronte with the modern, sick-puppy sensibilities of Quentin Tarantino.

Jane Ire

"The richness and depth of the book is universally respected yet often undiscovered..."

That quote comes from the website of artist, Brian Dettmer who creates beautiful pieces from altered books. Try doing this with a kindle!

For more, be sure to visit his website at: http://briandettmer.com/

"The richness and depth of the book is universally respected yet often undiscovered..."