10 Years After

Where I live, the events of 9/11 were not just images on a television or messages of heartfelt sadness. They were those things, of course, but they were also a motorcade of funerals, a stream of floral arrangements, a vital Thanksgiving meal months later. That day led to random moments of pain and sadness when otherwise meaningless things were noticed to be missing. And it also led to phone calls from people whose voices had almost been forgotten, calling..."just because, well, it's been a while, you know?" and we knew.

For me, 9/11 was highly personal for reasons I won't get into here. But it changed things in me about my writing, about what I wanted to accomplish and be remembered for: Writers write.

Those who know me personally or even merely from random lines in places like AgentQuery Connect or From the Write Angle or via Twitter probably get a sense that I like to joke around. Often, I joke because I take most of life so seriously — sometimes too seriously, perhaps. After 9/11 I took my manuscript very seriously. It had been mostly notes before that day. Maybe a few dozen pages of tripe were written. I don't think any of it survives except for its setting. My story took place in Hoboken, New Jersey, which is just across the river from New York City. The attacks were a point of demarcation unlike any other in my lifetime and I needed to decide when my story took place.

I decided that it was to be a year in the life of a family: From 9/10/00 to 9/10/01. I wrote nightly for months and most of that ended up on the cutting room floor, so to speak. It was my first serious attempt at a novel, and I made the mistakes that most writers make on such efforts. Too much back story, too many details that don't matter. I ended up putting it aside for months and working on other things. Short stories, mostly. A lot of freelance assignments. Some of which I'm proud of.

Eventually, I went back to my story, took it apart piece by piece, and started to build again. Perhaps too subtly, I wove 9/11 into the manuscript. It's there, but the story takes place before the events, so it must be done with care. I've had people tell me to change the date of the story or to make it more apparent. And I still think about it. The manuscript still has elements I'm uncertain about, and I've put it aside several times to work on other projects and let my mind work through those elements and help me decide if they're flaws or just need a bit more polishing.

By the time the polishing is done and it goes off to agents, I suspect I'll have come close to finishing another manuscript and several other short stories and a bunch more articles I'm proud of. But this story is one that will be with me forever, whether it gets published or not.

In a sense, it will be part of my personal 9/11 legacy. If nothing else, I have that.

McCourt's Ashes

After the sad passing of Frank McCourt recently, I decided it was time to reread Angela's Ashes. It must be almost a decade since the first time I read it, and I was amazed at how much I had forgotten. Perhaps the forgetting was a defense mechanism, for his tale is so sad and depressing that forgetting seems like the most appropriate way to deal with it.

But, as McCourt's life of survival and success would suggest, remembering it and talking about it makes all the difference. For Frank McCourt, survival was success. If you're unfamiliar with his story, McCourt was born in the United States to parents who were on the cusp of poverty and quickly fell deep into it as the children arrived with regularity. Two of young Frankie's brothers and his sister died from hunger and ignorant neglect. His father's alcoholism and inability to hold a job hammered nails into his children's coffins.

It is a powerful story, made doubly so because it is true. As a lover of fiction, even I must admit that this memoir stands above many of the greatest works of fiction. It is written from the perspective of young Frankie, and he hides nothing from his audience — not even his frequent masturbation — making him indelibly real in the reader's mind.

I haven't read his other works: Tis or Teacher Man, but he will be best remembered for Angela's Ashes. And I recommend it to all. It is a sad tale, but it is most certainly worth reading.

Nonfiction Writers Wanted!

If you're a writer of nonfiction who's looking to get his book idea into shape for agents, you might want to visit and join AgentQuery Connect, where a nonfiction discussion group was recently established. For those of you who are familiar with AQC, you probably know that it's primarily populated with fiction writers, but nonfiction remains the biggest segment of the publishing world and AQC recognizes that.

I don't work for AgentQuery, I'm simply an active member of that community, and while I'm there to gain insight into getting my fiction published, I'm a working journalist with ideas for several nonfiction works, so I'll be an active participant in that area too.

There simply haven't been many participants yet, so come on in and join on the ground floor of an active online community of writers. I'm sure you'll like it.

My Name Is John Connolly, and I Didn't Come Here to Kill

I've just finished the last of the Charlie Parker novels in my possession -- The Black Angel. While I enjoy a good thrilling movie as much as the next guy, I've never been much for reading thrillers. But I've enjoyed reading John Connolly -- though my favorite of his works is The Book of Lost Things, which is decidedly not a crime thriller. (TBOLT is a very clever twist on fairy tales and growing out of childhood.)

Connolly has definite talent for description, and the frequent themes of redemption and salvation are ones that I enjoy reading about, especially when done well. He's a writer I'd love to interview, which he might appreciate as an Irish journalist who interviews other authors. Check out his interview with Stephen King, who seems more candid or "willing" to speak about personal subjects than I think I've ever found in the oft-interviewed author.

One thing I'd love to talk to Connolly about is his intense depictions of brutality. I'm both appalled and intrigued by his willingness to express such vivid scenes of dismemberment and evisceration, for example. These are things that most mainstream writers -- and I consider Connolly in that category -- would not deign to show. Even in his later work, the scenes of murder and the details of fingers ripping through skin and organs continue and are not for the weak of heart. But if you can stomach scenes of sometimes cringingly disgusting murder, Connolly's Charlie Parker books are fast reads and cleverly crafted works.

I recommend one starts with Every Dead Thing, which feels like two books in one. It sets the background for why Parker is the way he is, and the horrifying death of his wife and daughter aptly prepare you for the steady stream of bloody murders that continue throughout the Parker books. While Charlie Parker makes a cameo appearance in Bad Men, it's not in the same family of works. Call it a neighbor, as it takes place in Maine -- as do most of the Parker books, at least in part. But Bad Men lumbers without quite the payoff. I'd have edited it differently.

Though I have The Nocturnes collection waiting atop one of my bedside stacks, I'm taking a break from Connolly for now. I recently bought The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Michael Chabon's first novel, and began reading it last night (in the midst of a blackout). Chabon may be my favorite writer currently working. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and Summerland were wonderful, and friends have told me that The Yiddish Policeman's Union is excellent too. And when I arrived on squad duty this morning, I found Rules for Old Men Waiting waiting for me. I read the first two paragraphs and discovered that Peter Pouncey is a wonderful novelist. It's nice when discovery happens like that, and I love when friends recommend good writers.

My mailbox remains open wide (as do my comment areas) for people who would like to recommend any fine work -- even your own -- and I'd be happy to share my thoughts on them.

[BTW, for those who don't catch the reference in my headline, it's a (somewhat hackneyed) reference to a Black 47 song, James Connolly. I didn't mean to imply that John Connolly has posted anything to my blog, though he would be most welcome.]

Tag, You're It!

Back from vacation and after digging through the first strata of emails, I received this today: an announcement that Barnes & Noble has launched a video magazine series called "Barnes & Noble Tagged!"

Though I've peeked at its first couple of minutes, I've not watched enough to say it's well done or not, but my initial impression is the image quality is good, the volume level may be a little low (which means you have to remember to turn your speakers down later or you may blast something later), and the books are decidedly mainstream. I intend to watch it more thoroughly, and I encourage book lovers and writers to give it a shot. We all need more ways to promote reading and to promote writers of all levels.

Personally, I'd like to see less about Jodi Picoult, who has done well to establish an audience, and more about excellent writers who remain relatively or completely unknown. Of course, I have a vested interest in that, since I hope to be one of those "relatively unknown" excellent writers who claws his way to everyone's consciousness and sells boxes full of books.

[And for those of you who asked: No, I didn't finish all the revisions this past week, which I regard as a blessing. It means that I'm putting in the appropriate amount of time to make sure I do it right (these weren't merely correcting a couple typos; it's a matter of weaving things in and tightening up loose strands), and that I actually relaxed a bit during the vacation. I needed that! And thanks for asking.]

Even More Competition

This story from the Los Angeles Times made me wince. It hadn't occurred to me that in addition to the writers' strike consigning us all to a springtime of reality shows sprouting up like weeds, it will also pose a new challenge to authors (like myself) hoping to break into the ranks of the publishing world.

Those people who are able to spin teleplays to us over the TV screens are looking for something else to fill their time as the strike continues. So they've turned back to the novels they said they'd write "eventually." Well, Eventually has arrived, and these people should have the discipline to actually finish their work, unlike the people like me who have strong drafts that need a little tweaking but who put that off to do things like attend a Burns Supper on a Saturday night and recover the next morning (to read, mostly).

Ok, that's not so bad. People have to enjoy life in order to write well about it. And I'm not truly threatened by the "increased" competition that's out there, primarily because the industry is so difficult to get into any way that these other writers don't really scare me. What's another hundred zombies (ick) when you're already up against ten thousand?

So bring it on, writers' strike! Challenge me! Challenge us all. As long as we all get some good books out of it, I say: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the competition, I will fear no evil.

Hello NaNo WriMo

As you can see from the yum-yum yellow banner on the left-hand side, I've ventured into NaNo WriMo Land. They only require 50,000 words -- not 90,000 -- so it's not quite as rigorous as I'd feared. (I should have known better; my 282-page novel clocks in at around 95,000 words. I guess this novella would clock in around 120-125 pages.)

To any of the writers from the competition coming by to visit (and anyone else for that matter), welcome! I hope we can develop a little conversation and dialogue here. Think of the Bookshelf as a place to rest your pint glass that doesn't require coasters. Scotch drinkers welcome too. Sorry, no smoking.

The Portable Graham Greene

I'm taking this book at its literal word -- well, at least its title. This book, edited by Philip Stratford and published in the early 1970s, long before Graham Greene died, is my new train reading. I tend to avoid long books for my morning commute, if for no other reason than they're heavy and I have enough in my stuffed briefcase than I already need; a book, however, is a necessity.

Anyway, Greene is one of those writers I've meant to read and never have. One of my favorite movies of all time is Orson Welles' The Third Man, which is based on a Greene novel and for which Greene wrote the screenplay. Two of the key themes in that work, and as I'm discovering, in much of his work, are borders and betrayal. I'm not going to go into a dissertation here about my thoughts on that, now. (though I'm sure it would be enthralling ;-)

But the sense of betrayal and of fragile communities are themes I explore in my own work. Plus, Greene was originally known as a Catholic writer, which is also a topic (Catholicism, that is) that I explore, at least in the one novel I've completed. So it was only a matter of time before I ventured into Greene's land.

This morning, while sipping at bland coffee, I read a description that caught my attention and which seems appropos for this day and age:

How can life on a border be other than restless? You are pulled by different ties of hate and love. For hate is quite as powerful a tie: it demands allegiance. In the land of skyscrapers, of stone stairs and cracked bells ringing early, one was aware of fear and hate, a kind of lawlessness -- appalling cruelties could be practised without a second thought; one met for the first time characters, adult and adolescent, who bore about them the genuine quality of evil.

Captivating stuff! I'm going to let that sink in before writing about it, but I think I'm going to enjoy going Greene.

This Writer's Life

While I intended this site to basically be about writing and writers, I allowed it to become basically a place to post my own book reviews. But since I've not been writing them as quickly as I'd hoped, I've decided to modify the site back to its original mission.

That means I'll be posting items about writing, about writers, about writers talking about writing, book reviews, well written scripts ... You name it.

Also, I've added a blogroll on the side. These are writing-related sites I've found interesting. One is the blog of a guy who used to write for me (no, it's not Christopher Moore, though I used to write for a guy by the same name. Go figure.) And I'll be happy to add new links for other visitors if you give the address (got that Tom?). If a few people actually start to visit, I'd love to start discussion strings on writing.

So, writers of all stripes -- poets, novelists, journalists, short storyists (is that a term?), screen writers, Wikipedians -- and readers galore are all invited and encouraged to check out what the Elephant has to offer.

If I may add a different subject: I've embarked on a new project; I'm researching John Paul Jones for a museum exhibition. While I've already started to read some of the major biographies and background works on the father of the American navy, I'd be happy to hear what others might suggest about source material.

I'm also in the midst of a freelance piece on refugees. So far, it's about one event in particular following the fall of Saigon, but I envision this developing into a broader project of stories from people who've left their homeland to find a new beginning in the United States. Anyone with suggested materials, I'd love to hear frmo you.

Anything?

I was spinning around the Internet looking for information about how to avoid scummy, sleazy literary agents, when I found this page. It's an old post (in the archives). But I found it helpful.

It's about a letter from a self-published reader who sends a note to an editor in response to something on the editor's blog. There's a funny little aside that made me laugh:

Jim Frenkel was once approached at a convention by an attractive young lady, who said, approximately:

“Golly, Mr. Frenkel, I’d do anything to be a published author.”
“Anything?”

“Anything.”

“Then write me a good book.”

Perfect!