Sample Pitch

Here's a sample pitch for my novel "Doleful Creatures." I'm seriously thinking about entering Amazon's Breakthrough Novel contest. I don't have a ghost of a chance. But I'm going to do it anyway. What do you think of this pitch? What is it missing?

Jarrod is a murderer. Cold-blooded, the badger says. Sang as only a magpie can, glorious over the corpses of the beavers slaughtered in the box canyon above Purdy Farm. Watch him, young ones, and beware. For there is another who will use that evil amongst us to bring the creeping fungus black of death to this peaceful place, if we are not watchful. The marmots? They're simple, innocent folk, looking to take Purdy Farm into modern times. And for everyone's benefit.

Ware the murder of crows. They proclaim the magpie' s innocence. They distrust the industrious, prosperous marmots and their grand plans. They are allied with the evil that comes on the starlings' wings. Death they mean for us, if we welcome them and their news. We'll see the satyrs' dance and hear the owls hoot, if Jarrod is freed from his isolation.

Then freedom comes. But on the wings of sparrows and at the behest of the one who notes the sparrow's fall. The inhabitants of the barn and wood at Purdy Farm learn who the true DOLEFUL CREATURES are.

REVISION NO 1:

Jarrod is a murderer. Cold-blooded, the badger says. Sang as only a magpie can, glorious over the corpses of the beavers slaughtered in the box canyon above Purdy Farm. Watch him, young ones, and beware. For there is another who will use that evil amongst us to bring the creeping fungus black of death to this peaceful place, if we are not watchful. The marmots? They're simple, innocent folk, looking to take Purdy Farm into modern times. And for everyone's benefit.

Ware the murder of crows. They proclaim the magpie' s innocence. They distrust the industrious, prosperous marmots and their grand plans. They are allied with the evil that comes on the starlings' wings. Death they mean for us, if we welcome them and their news. We'll see the satyrs' dance and hear the owls hoot, if Jarrod is freed from his isolation.

Then freedom comes. Jarrod escapes his isolation on the wings of sparrows. At the behest of the one who notes the sparrow's fall, Jarrod awkwardly leads the animals of wood and farm to stop the evil they bear within and proves to the badgers the past they remember is not the past that was. The inhabitants of the barn and wood at Purdy Farm learn who the true DOLEFUL CREATURES are.

REVISION NO 2:

Jarrod is a murderer. Cold-blooded, the badger says. Sang as the magpie he is, glorious over the corpses of the beavers slaughtered in the box canyon above Purdy Farm. Watch him, young ones, and beware. For there is another who will use that evil to bring the creeping fungus black of death to this peaceful place, if we are not watchful. The marmots? They're simple, innocent folk, looking to take Purdy Farm into modern times. And for everyone's benefit.

Ware the murder of crows. They proclaim the magpie' s innocence. They distrust the industrious, prosperous marmots and their grand plans. They are allied with the evil that comes on the starlings' wings. Death they mean for us, if we welcome them and their news. We'll see the satyrs' dance and hear the owls hoot, if Jarrod is freed from his isolation.

Then freedom comes. Jarrod escapes his isolation on the wings of sparrows. At the behest of the one who notes the sparrow's fall, Jarrod awkwardly leads the animals of wood and farm to stop the evil they bear within and proves to the badgers the past they remember is not the past that was. The inhabitants of the barn and wood at Purdy Farm learn who the true DOLEFUL CREATURES are.

Naggy Electronics

I spent a half hour this morning, between 2:45 and 3:15 am, being nagged by my electronic devices.

At first I thought it was my Kindle Fire HD making the plaintive wail. It was a noise I hadn’t heard before, but as I’d recently added a few apps, I thought perhaps I’d missed shutting down an automatic notification.

But no. Everything looked good. Except the wailing continued every three or four minutes.

I couldn’t shut the Kindle off as it’s also my alarm clock. I thought, briefly, I’ll just bury the Kindle under the blankets. That’ll muffle the noise.

No. That put the noise next to the dogs, who woke up when it wailed again and decided since they were awake, it must be time to go outside.

As I stumbled out of bed to take care of the dogs, it dawned on me – The noise might be my new cell phone. Sure enough, the phone’s battery was dying and the poor thing was wailing. I tried to turn it off in the darkness. But it’s a new enough phone I couldn’t find the power button. I tried using my Kindle as a flashlight, but as I didn’t have my glasses on, I couldn’t see any of the buttons in the light anyway.

Now the dogs are really getting anxious and my wife is awake, wondering if I’m okay. I mumble something, take the dogs and the devices to the kitchen downstairs. The dogs go out, happily. I find the charger to my phone and plug it all into the wall, hoping that’ll shut up the wailing. I also dig through my bag to find the charger for the Kindle, as it’s starting to complain about a weak battery as well.

The dogs come in. Shutting off lights as I go, I follow them back upstairs, stuff them into bed and then fumble with my solar flashlight to plug in the Kindle charger. Then I go back to bed.

And lay there awake for five minutes, waiting for the Kindle screen to shut down.

I hate nagging electronics.

The Night Was Sultry

NOTE: Just a little writing exercise for my BYU-Idaho students.

Don’t feel like you’re being picked on, those of you to whom I’m saying to be more specific in your writing. That’s advice I give to the vast majority of my students, and to myself, as I write.

What do I mean by specific?

Talk of marigolds and dandelions, not flowers.

Talk of dachshunds or boxers, not dogs.

If you love to play the piano, show us what it’s like playing your favorite piece – and name it, even provide a YouTube link to it – so we can understand your joy as you explain.

Tell us a story. Help us remember what you’re writing.

Like this. Venus Flytrap, a DJ from the 70s sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati, uses specific examples to explain the structure of an atom to a wayward student.

Pretend you’re describing a scene for a radio audience. We don’t see the poor turkeys WKRP newsman Les Nessman sees, but we don’t have to. We have his vivid description to fill us in on enough detail to allow our imaginations to take over. And we don’t forget easily what he saw, either.

Listen to comedians tell stories. Listen to how they share specific details that transport you right into the stories they’re telling. Listen, to example, to Bill Cosby talk about his father, upset about the lack of gasoline in his car.

Here’s a writing exercise I love that encourages specificity. Find a clip of a favorite movie scene on YouTube. Write out all the dialogue. Then, using specific details from the clip, fill in between the dialogue as if you were writing the scene as part of a novel. Here’s an example, A SCENE FROM “Throw Momma from the Train,” one of my favorite films.:

The night was.

Larry Donner typed the words slowly. Slowly enough, he hoped, that when the S was struck, the next word would come to him. A slight breeze from the open window riffled the paper in the typewriter. But no word came. He turned his ear to the breeze, hoping the air would blow a word out of his skull.

The night was.

The night was.

Nothing.

He tore the paper from the typewriter, crumpled it, threw it towards the wastebasket. He went to the window, to the unhelpful breeze.

Cloudy.

Was the night cloudy?

No. Then he’d have to describe the moon. He couldn’t describe the night right now. How could he describe the moon?

Back to the typewriter. He folded his arms, rested them on the machine, cradled his head. He drummed his fingers, sniffing at the mixed scent of greasy metal and black ink seeping up from the typewriter’s innards.

The night was.

He lurched, groped for a piece of paper.

The night was.

The night was.

The night was nothing.

Now paper in.

The night was.

Nothing.

Paper out.

Paper in.

The night was.

Paper ripped out, the typewriter sounding angry at giving it up yet again.

The night was.

The night was tea.

Tea might help.

With a mug of English Breakfast, back at the typewriter.

“The night . . . was . . .” he said, dipping the teabag.

The night was.

The night was . . . not tea.

A few drams of spirits in with the tea.

The breeze brought thunder. The night was . . . thunder? Larry scowled, looking out the window.

No. He couldn’t describe the night or the moon. He was not going to describe thunder.

“The night . . . was . . .”

Spilled. A few drops of vodka-infused tea. On the desk. If he left it there, it would evaporate, leaving a stain only visible in the right light. And his room was filled with the right light. He would see it. No. It could not be. The night was nothing if not clean.

He came back with a sponge, erasing the drops. Cleanliness is next to godliness, he thought to himself, as he sponged the bottom of the mug, the typewriter where he might have dribbled a bit of tea. Or spittle from a sigh.

“The night . . . “

Tape. Clear tape. Sometimes he taped bits of paper together, bits of paper with words written on them, paragraphs, ideas, taping them together into a novel.

The night was.

He pulled a bit of tape off the spool, snapped it in his hands.

The night was.

The night was.

There were no words to tape together.

He stuck an end of the tape to his nose, the other end to his forehead.

“Oooh,” he said.

More tape. The night was tape. The night was TAPE!

“The phantom of the novel . . . is coming to haunt the pages of Larry Donner!”

Lon Chaney at the desk. He’d know what the night was. He, or the Phantom, would know. The Phantom played his sinister music. The Phantom stared at the paper in the typewriter, frantically.

The night was.

The night was . . .

“Geez, what the hell am I doing?” He pulled the tape from his face.

Now, watch the clip again, then read this bit after you’ve watched.

Challenge yourself: What details did I miss? What in the clip and in the writing shows Larry Donner’s frustration with his writers’ block, without using the terms “frustration” or “writer’s block”?

I’m not allowed to offer bonus points in this class. But I challenge you to find a clip of your own and try this exercise. See how it helps your writing become more vivid. The folks in Hollywood do it. You can to, if you just try.

Always look at the details.

Uncle Walter

NOTE: I do still enjoy printed books versus electronic books. But the sheer weight of this thing, coming in at more than 800 pages, is a strong argument in favor of electronic books. But I digress from Miss Deets.

He really is Uncle Walter. You know, Uncle Walter, the lecherous, loud-mouthed creepy guy who’s always at family parties drinking too much, being way too loud, spouting politics and other nonsense not because he’s the cute octogenarian and has earned the right to speak his mind, but because no matter what you’ve done over the years, he won’t shut the hell up.

I suppose maybe that’s a bit harsh to say of Walter Cronkite, but in Douglas Brinkley’s biography of the man, that’s kinda how he appears.

And like many relatives, he stays far too long after the other guests have given up and gone home. This biography is ponderous, oddly-written at times and stretched his twenty-year retirement out even longer than his seventy-year career.

And, most oddly, there’s very little of Cronkite in “Cronkite,” which seems oddest of all, considering the extensive amount of paper this man must have left behind after seventy years in journalism. Brinkley seemed too intent in talking with friends and contemporaries to actually dig into the paper trail to tell us who Walter Cronkite is.

And I’ve certainly read more engaging biographies. Not that I need to be entertained by every aspect of the book, but there are historians (Richard Rhodes and Barbara Tuchman come to mind) who have a style of writing that’s more novelistic while still remaining eminently factual. Brinkley never succeeds in breaking through the glass, as Dan Rather said of Cronkite, to connect with the reader.

Still, I enjoyed the read, if only to discover that Cronkie is a fan of C.W. McCall’s song “Convoy,” something which amused my older brother to no end, as he’s a McCall fan as well.

Here’s what I learned:

Newspapers have always had their bums stuffed with tweed. From page 47: “Joining the Ringling Brother or entering into vaudeville was considered nobler work than radio. Newspaper journalism crashed through daunting obstacles to find the truth and confirm facts. To be a newspaper reporter – whether trained at college or in the school of hard knocks at an obituary desk – was to uphold high standards of clarity, accuracy, and objectivity that had made newspapers “the fourth estate” across America, and an adjunct to decent democratic government.”

Radio, too, has its fair share of tweed-bum cases. From page 161: “Murrow found the noun anchorman repugnant, but he also thought televised conventions were a horror show where no hard news was made. To Murrow, television was all part of a public relations game, and CBS’ coverage of the 1952 conventions was essentially free advertising for the Democratic and Republican parties, not true journalism.”

Uncle Walter wasn’t above skullduggery. From page 164: Just how hungry Cronkite was to excel in CBS’s coverage of the conventions became readily apparent when he orchestrated the secret tape recording of the Repulbicans’ credentials committee meeting. Long before the Nixon administration bugged the Democratic National Committee office at the Watergate in 1972, Cronkite, after much deliberation, had a CBS technician wire the committee room under the shady rationale that the covert act was good for democracy. “He ran a wire,” Cronkite recalled, “up the outside of the hotel and into a broom closet several floors above. There one of our newspeople listened through earphones and rushed notes . . . to me downstairs. The sources of these reports baffled both the Republicans and my broadcast opposition.”

Yeah, stay classy, Uncle Walter.

Cronkite had blinders, just like any journalist. Form page 346: ”Walter was too skeptical, too savvy and had too sensitive a shit-detector to be taken in, but Walter could be diverted by machinery, by things with wheels and wings, and especially by things that float, and the military saw to it that he had a chance to see and use everything, go on air strikes, be made to feel an insider,” [Morley] Safer perceptively explained.

It wasn’t until Cronkite noticed the blinders himself and spent time away from officialdom and saw the Vietnam War firsthand that he realized what a stalemate the war was.

Bill Moyers (no surprise here) is an ass. From page 352: Bill Moyers claimed in hindsight that if Cronkite had been more courageous, like Murrow, and criticized the U.S. buildup in Vietnam in 1965 [President Lyndon] Johnson might have deescalated the conflict. This was ass-covering bullshit: every time the CBS Evening News ran a segment even slightly critical of Johnson policy, Moyers pounced with a White House threat. Cronkite thought that Moyers, a former reporter for Johnson’s radio-TV stations in Austin, was a phony, acting like he was one of the press boys when in reality he was an LBJ talking horse.

So a fascinating book, but what makes it fascinating is the subject matter, not the writing or the research.

Encouraging Cheating?

While Rebecca Schuman advocates eliminating the essay as part of college life (what better way to encourage students to learn to write better than dumping a writing requirement) is somewhat understandable, you've got to wonder if pointing to cheating on writing assignments as a good reason to dump essay writing in the first place.

Today in Slate she says this, re: the outrage over her stupid suggestion:

A halt to the college essay might also mean the abrupt stoppage of the gravy train for many of these righteously offended compositionists. UnemployedProfessors.com is a paper mill based out of Montreal—but it’s not just any paper mill. If you’re going to pay $200 for someone else to write your essay for that professor who insists essay-writing is the most important part of college, then at least have that essay be written by another professor who believes that essay-writing is the most important part of college.

Dumb argument. Just dumb.

Students are gonna cheat, yes. And since they're gonna cheat, it seems, unemployed professors unscrupulously writing papers for these slacker students ought to have the opportunity.

Really?

She points to Unemployedprofessors.com, where students can go to post their writing needs and unemployed academics can fill that need, as a reason to call it quits on essay writing.

How low will we sink? Cheating and plagiarism is already a serious problem in most schools. Schuman's drive to reduce writing rigor and her specious reasons for featuring this ethically bankrupt website as a reason to support her ideas is beyond stupid.

(From unemployedprofessors.com. I certainly hope they see the irony here. This student is an ass.)

Look, students (and professors) we know you don't want to write (or read) these essays. Doesn't matter you can better discipline your brain by writing -- doing things that are hard -- and helping your students become better writers and thinkers -- also something hard -- by reading what they write. But that's all too much work. So just cut the assignment, accept that they cheat, and hey, make a buck to help them cheat.

Brave New World, here we come. Why work hard to become educated when we can just cheat our way through life and work with professors who just want to get paid rather than teaching about writing or reading those essays?

Seriously, Ms. Schuman, get out of teaching.

'Be Willing to Rewrite'

I was kind of bummed this week when I missed out on the opportunity to have Doleful Creatures edited professionally (OK, by an intern at a small publisher looking to beef up her editing references). Missing out, it seemed, meant another opportunity lost to see my book published.

But the more I think of Doleful Creatures, I know it’s not ready yet.

And here’s another reason why:

Per GalleyCat, here’s what author Louis Sachar says about editing (particularly, self-editing):

When asked for writing advice, Sachar recommended that one “always be willing to rewrite.” He shared that he always comes up with the best ideas as he is re-writing. He feels that initial ideas can sometimes seem superficial and it is only in subsequent drafts that those ideas become more substantial. For Sachar, each book typically requires him to write six drafts. He usually devotes the first three or four drafts to ironing out the plot and character development. For his final drafts, he tries to write the story in the most artistic way he can.

So, there sits Doleful Creatures, having gone through two drafts. As I’ve said in the past, it’s still a developing book. And needs to develop more. Sachar is giving me the courage to continue with my own edits. Though outside eyes would have been nice . . .

CROWS!!

I'm not amazed that this crow figured out this complicated puzzle. I am amazed that people continue to be amazed at the intelligence of animals.

This is why I write about animals, the corvids (crows, magpies) in particular. I've seen enough of their behavior to my untrained eye to doubt that they're intelligent birds.

They learn. They communicate. And they experience joy and have fun.



I soak these videos up. I love watching how these birds behave. And I ought to, if I'm writing about them.

SOOPER DEACON, Borrowed from the Fridge

Just a little comic book excitement from the weekend, drawn by Dad and by the oldest son.

Okay, I'm Shouting. SHOUTING SHOUTING SHOUTING

Every day, it seems, there is something new we’re supposed to be upset about.

Over Super Bowl weekend, it was this Coke video, causing a few to spout umbrage and the many to spout umbrage over the original umbrage.

(In this case, the umbrage appears to be sponsored by Progressive.com, though it’s likely they’re just spot-sponsoring just about every video CNN produces so we shouldn’t assume that Flo either approves of or takes umbrage at the umbragic brouhaha.)

Today it’s a tweet by Stephen King, who is begging for mercy, being new at the whole Twitter thing.

It’s perfectly fair to have opinions about things. But as we share those opinions, and as we read them, we ought to be ready to read what’s said and either dismiss it as nothing worth our time or at least have a reasonable discourse about it. Of course, the way our national media and social media are set up, it’s a lot more fun to let things just get up our noses and stay there.

Part of the problem is that the umbrage over the umbrage gets applied wider and wider and wider until we go from understanding the upset belonged to a few people to believing the upset belongs to a larger group. I’ve seen this Coke ad thing explode from “a few” to “some” to suddenly “conservatives” all hating on the ad, which is false. But the umbrage over the umbrage of a tiny few too often spills over into latent umbrage against a larger group which, of course, makes everything easier and encourages everyone to want to talk things out over a beer, doesn’t it?

Getting upset feels like we’re doing something. But it’s doing nothing. It’s the equivalent of yawning after someone else yawns. It’s contagious, but doesn’t really do anything for us but get more oxygen in us for the next time we have to get mad about something. It’s clear proof that we’re not listening to what the other has to say, just getting ready with our own retort while they’re still talking.

I’m as guilty as the next ass, I know. I’m cutting back on the umbrage I spew and concentrating more on listening and agreement, even if that agreement is an agreement to disagree.

Seeds of Destiny

It’s an old writers’ fallback that setting a manuscript aside for a while and coming back to it with fresh eyes is a good thing.

It’s an even better thing if, as is discovered by Farmer Hoggett, as you put that manuscript away you have little ideas that tickle and nudge and refuse to go away.

I’m feeling that way about “Doleful Creatures.” Ideas keep coming. Things the characters need to do or say or be. And they all keep clicking into place in my head and (much more importantly) in the notes I’ve been taking, independent of looking at the manuscript again, like one of those little games in which you have to roll the BBs into the holes.

I take this all as a good sign that I’ve got a book that’s a keeper. Or at least the seeds of a book that’s a keeper.

And it’s not just additions that keep coming to mind. It’s subtractions. I’ll be hit out of the blue by thought like, “Eh, that chapter, it could go and nobody would miss it. Not even me.” I know when I revised the book last year I subtracted enough and added enough that I used it as my NaNoWriMo entry without feeling guilty; it was a new book by the time November was over. The process of pruning and splicing continues.