Being Prompt

I went to Plinky.com to pick out some potential prompts for today. There were a couple of possibilities, but some of the suggestions are clearly for the MySpace generation.

• Fictionalize a real argument you’ve had; write only in dialog. Nah. Boring. I can’t remember the last argument I had anyway. It was probably lame and odds are, I lost.
• Write a story in dialog; your characters: Two cops in Alaska. Okay, this one tempted me like a giant hot dog suspended from a Voot cruiser tempts Pipi the gargantuan hamster of doom. But no. If I wanted to publish fiction on my blog, I would (as opposed to my fiction blog where I DO post fiction). When I did post fiction here, no one liked it (hit counts don’t lie, people).
• Something about comfort food. Yeah, right. I don’t get comfort from food, I get fatter. And I don’t need to carry on about something I love to eat that I can’t afford anymore. Pass.
• Defend your vice; how did you start? Last time I did this, commentator Bob got his feelings a little hurt and it took a while to get things worked out. No thanks. I’m not here to ruffle feathers, I’m here to have a little joy. Besides, I gave that vice up and haven’t decided what I’ll replace it with yet.
• Describe what you looked like in high school for your memoir. Eh? What I looked like in high school? Why would that make it to my memoir? Jeezum crow, I don’t know if I can remember what I looked like in high school My wife’s behind me going, “I was hot! I was hot!” I rolled my eyes.

Plinky’s prompts stank, frankly. I got bored after these (but that Alaskan cop one kept coming back to me), so I quit. I bitched to my wife, who told me to use the Creativity some-crap-or-other.

So I get the URL and hop over there. I have to dig a little, but I finally found the writing prompts.

• High school… That’s it. Nothing more. I’m like, “WTF?” Nah.
• I remember… That’s it. Nothing more. I’m like, “WTF?” I remember lots of things. C’mon. Seriously, c’mon.

Okay, that’s far enough, I can’t take it. So I sit back, sigh heavy and wonder what the hell I’m going to blog about today.

Suggestions?

-JDT-

©DarcKnyt All rights reserved

Blowin’ his own HORNS

Over the weekend I did a lot reading. One of the books I’ve already told you about – Robert Jackson Bennett’s Mr. Shivers (see last post).

One of the other books is by a guy quickly becoming one of my favorite writers because of his style and strength of prose, but losing me by pushing his own … I dunno … self, I guess, in his books, on Twitter, yadda yadda yadda.

Anyway … I’m not going to talk about why I don’t like it. I will say, it’s a good strong effort, well-written, a page turner. Despite being almost 400 pages I finished it in two sittings, which is unusual for me.

The book is called Horns, and the author is Joe Hill (King).

It’s no secret I love his dad, have had a hero thing for his father since the late 70s. But Joe has won my admiration on his own merit apart from that, with his good writing and familiar style. I like how he writes, period. His first novel, Heart Shaped Box, was a pretty interesting ghost story with an un-King-like happy ending. His short story collection, Twentieth Century Ghosts, showed a huge variety of stuff and I found most of them enjoyable.

In Horns, the story starts with a strong hook – a guy is drunk and doing terrible things. Next morning he wakes up with horns on his head. Horns … like the Devil’s horns. The story is how a young man, trapped in a dead-end town with no future to speak of is haunted on the anniversary of the death of his girlfriend by memories of their romance, tragic break-up, and her rape and murder.

Joe unfolds the story in a good way, building the pressure on his protagonist in ever-mounting degrees. Before long the protagonist is finding out the Devil really is in the details and he’s finally figuring out what happened that fateful night a year ago.

Halfway through the novel, the timeline changes to his first encounter with his sweetheart ten years earlier. We meet the other key players in the events, and for a while we stay in tight third person with the protagonist. But at another point, we shift POV to another character and we learn more about why things went the way they do. In the end, there’s the final confrontation between the protagonist and antagonist and it’s sort of a role reversal because the protagonist is the one who looks like Satan.

Not an OTTBF*, and I thought just a hair anticlimactic, considering everywhere Joe might’ve gone with the book, but it was still mostly satisfying.

Once again, it’s full of things which made me roll my eyes and snicker (the theology in it is absolutely hysterical), but I really liked the style and the ease of the read. It went down smooth and warm, like a fine sherry.

So, I recommend it. I give it four out of five stars, but then, I’m partial to the Kings.

-JDT-

* – Remember, this is Over The Top Big Finish; when a book, movie or play goes way too far, way to farcical, in an attempt to create that big-bang ending. I don’t like ‘em.

©DarcKnyt 2010 All rights reserved

Case of the SHIVERS

Mr. Shivers, the debut novel of Robert Jackson Bennett, is a book I just finished reading.

Normally, I don’t say anything about books on my blog unless it’s been a particularly helpful how-to book on the writing craft, and I feel other writers might benefit from it. In this case, though, I’d like to say, Mr. Bennett did an excellent job  and sort of left me dumbfounded about how to classify it.

I think I can make a case for the ever-elusive “literary horror” I’ve been hearing so much about for the last couple of years. Here’s how:

The plot is a simple one: catch up to the bad guy who killed the protagonist’s daughter and kill him in revenge. At all costs. Regardless of collateral damage.

That’s it. The whole book centers on the protagonist’s search for an elusive killer which may or may not be human. The profound effects the pursuit has on him become clear throughout the story. In the end, we see a very different man from the one in the opening of the book, and the (sorta kinda predictable) ending makes it clear there has indeed been an internal change in the character.

The tension in the book is amazing, the writing gripping. As simplistic as the story is, the jacket promotional copy was misleading. At least to me. The story unfolded nicely, had good prose and the author clearly did his research on the time period. I don’t know how authentic the language was for dialog, but he built a convincing world and sucked me right in. I guess I’m not the smartest person on Earth either, but still – I thought it well executed. And the best part is, he only implies when the story takes place and gives you a general era, not a specific year.

I’m considering doing an Amazon review for this book. I’ve never done that before, but I’ve read a couple of really good ones this weekend and thought they were worth the trouble.

Anyway, I recommend Mr. Shivers by Robert Jackson Bennett. He does an excellent job of telling what I consider to be a character-driven story and creating a sense of horror without over the top gore or a finish which makes an atomic explosion seem mild. Bravo, Mr. Bennett.

How ‘bout you? Read any good books lately?

-JDT-

©DarcKnyt 2010 All rights reserved

Why Friday

Well, blogging bud and fellow wannabe writer Linda asked a great series of questions at her place about why writers write what they do.

It gave me a great deal of pause, really. I’ve never thought about why I might be doing what I do when I sit at the keyboard and write. She had some great insights and shared some pretty honest stuff about her writing and then tossed it out to all of us in the Peanut Gallery: Why do you write what you do?

But she went deeper than that – as any good writer would – and asked a few more questions I found interesting. I’m not deep enough to expound on those things, or even to pontificate on them. But I did find them thought provoking and figured I’d at least try and scratch the surface here.

Why write that? Why write what you write?

I know if I move in certain circles I’ll be condemned eventually for what I write as fiction. Oh, I won’t go into the reasons here, because it’s never happened and even if it did I wouldn’t much care. But I’ve long held the belief what I write could never be what the condemning crowd reads. The twain can never meet, period.

But I thought about it and now I wonder. Hm.

I don’t write because I have to. I’ve stopped; stopped for a good long while. And I can stop, but won’t. I don’t care how many “gurus” and “published authors” say it, I’ll never heed the advice if you can quit, you should; real writers can’t stop writing.

That’s poppycock. I know a lot of writers and at some point, most of ‘em stopped for a time. Voluntarily. Until such a time as they didn’t want to stop anymore. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is their prerogative. I may be the best artist on God’s green earth, but if I don’t feel like drawing or painting, I ain’t gonna, and no one can tell me I have to.

I don’t write horror because I have to, either. I’ve written plenty of non-horror stuff, but it’s always gonna bend dark. Yessir. Some may not call it horror, and that’s fine. I don’t do gore, but I don’t do happy either. (Drives my wife crazy.) I tend toward the dark, the sardonic, the weird, the creepy and downright scary if I can achieve it (rare for me). Don’t read my stuff to feel good. Not gonna happen.

I don’t write for myself. I’ve tried that. It just doesn’t work for me. I’m not saying it’s not okay for others, but I know myself. I have to have someone read my work or I’ll go bonkers, end up twitching and drooling. I need the knowledge of intake by another person. My kids NEED to have one of us look at and approve of their drawings when they do them – all of them. No exceptions. My level of busy is irrelevant. Stop, Dad, and check out what I drew  and say it’s cool or else there’s no point to us drawing.

They obviously get that from me. I have to have someone see what I’ve done. I have to. Megalomania? Narcissism? Maybe. But I need to have someone read my work.

This actually helps me a bit. Now I know one reason I write: To be read. But why do I write what I do? Why the horror feel? Do I need a plot or can characters drive my story? (I don’t think I exactly know what that last bit means, no matter how I try.)

I don’t know. But I know I write to be read, and the next logical step in that process is to get published.

Well … okay. The next step is to have something I can submit. Heh.

Details.

What drives your passion? Writers, why do you write what you write? do you know?

-JDT-

©DarcKnyt 2010 All rights reserved

‘Net Peeves

‘Net Peeves – that’s my little coined term for things you see on the Internet which affect you roughly the same way fingernails on a chalkboard would. Maybe it’s when people start substituting letters for words (“where r u? we’re gonna b l8! ne1 there?!”), although this is more common in text messages and chat programs or IM conversations.

For me, there are many. Way too many to list. I have a short list below, but I want you all to know NONE OF YOU, faithful readers, are the subjects of these items. None. I mostly get burned and chaffed by seeing this stuff in either print (yes, I’ve see it in books I’ve read from the library recently), and from people who really should know better, should’ve been taught better, need to know the rules better and don’t.

Here are a few of mine:

• “internet” instead of “Internet” – This is a proper noun, guys. It’s capitalized. And I’ve see so-called “professional writers” (like journalists) do this in print and online. Meanwhile, I can spell, write in complete sentences, and can’t seem to get a job. WTF? And similarly…
• “god” for “God” – gimme a break. And by the way, this doesn’t bother me for the reason you might think. If you mean the Judeo-Christian deity, and let’s face it you know you do when you say things like “oh my god” because I dare you, dare you to try that with the Muslim god-concept – then it’s capitalized because it doesn’t refer to a generic god-concept, neither a generic class of beings or a generic member of that class. Don’t believe me? Look it up. I guess my question is, what’s the motivation for NOT capitalizing it? ‘Cause it ain’t for good grammar’s sake. (And likewise, if you reference the Judeo-Christian religious texts it’s capitalized too: “Bible” NOT “bible”.)
• “step foot” instead of “set foot” – as in, “I won’t step foot in Yellowcat’s restaurant unless I know she’s not there!” If you’re going to be so hackneyed as to use a stupid cliché, at least get the cliché right! (There are a LOT of others, but this one came to mind while writing this post.) Again, I see so-called “professional writers” do this. Correct: “I won’t SET FOOT in Yellowcat’s ….”
• “would of”/”could of”/”should of” for “would’ve”/”could’ve”/”should’ve” – C’mon, are you serious? You’re really telling me you think the word “of” should and can follow would, should or could? That you really didn’t know the correct term is a contraction for would have, should have or could have? Really?
• supposably (or some equally stupid variant) for “supposedly” – If Microsoft Word’s spell checker hates it, there might be a reason. Why not look it up? If you’re writing for Internet (see the uppercase “I” there?) and using a program without a spell check feature, you need to be sure you know what you’re doing and have sufficient mastery of the language to get by. Typos are one thing; ignorance of vocabulary is another. We all have limits to our vocabulary; that’s what dictionaries are for. If you can’t install a spell check utility (there are tons of really awesome free ones out there), why not use dictionary.com or something? Please.

Okay, those are a few of mine. How ‘bout yours? Do you have a few ‘Net Peeves which drive you to rip your hair out and gnash your teeth when you see them? And more importantly, do you see them here, on my blog? (Egg on face!! Tell me so I can FIX it!) Maybe you hate when I write “gonna” instead of “going to” or “lemme” instead of “let me”. Whatever it is that grinds you, sound off.

Sound off and lemme have it!

-JDT-

©DarcKnyt 2010 All rights reserved

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