I'm Still Alive

I have two somewhat flimsy excuses to explain my absence from the blogosphere.

1. I've been on vacation. I don't mean, like, summer vacation, because duh. I mean I was in a car and traveled first to Traverse City and then to Wisconsin. I won't entertain you with the details. I realize this excuse kind of sucks because both places I stayed had better Internet access than I have at home. Nevertheless, it's not cool to go off and blog while on vacation. That, my friends, is dorky.

2. School is starting. I've been in my classroom on three occasions and I sat in on job interviews for an entire day. We've got a new math program that I've yet to sink my teeth into and I have to teach a couple of subjects that I haven't taught in a few years. This excuse is also poor because I haven't actually done any teeth sinking and I haven't looked much at the content expectations for the subjects I haven't taught. But I feel a little guilty blogging when I know I should be doing responsible things and so I haven't. This is the same reason I didn't read much in college. I just couldn't justify reading Stephen King when I'd already decided to neglect 100 pages of assigned text.

Apologies for not commenting on any of my faithful readers' blogs. It would be political of me to assure you that I have been reading them, really I have, but it would not be the truth. Haven't read a blog in weeks. I trust, though, that you're posting more frequently than I and that you haven't let the quality slide. So keep it up, everybody!

Oh, and this has nothing to do with anything, but a while back The Wife was reading off things other people had said on Facebook and my favorite, in response to this story, was "Way to go, Jesus!"

I have taken to saying this just because I think it's hilarious.

So, fellow bloggers, Way to go, Jesus!

Didn't See That One Coming

I started running over Spring Break and I've been really good about keeping at it all summer. And if you would have told me back in April that the biggest problem I'd have in August was painful nipples, I'd have given you the same look I gave the TV when I watched this.

Apparently, nipples are sensitive. Some of you may have already known this, but I've always had a strict policy regarding my own. Specifically, I like to pretend they're not there. Adhering to this policy has become difficult, though, because whenever I run five or more miles the suckers really hurt.

The Wife did some research (because, in accordance with the above stated policy, I was busy pretending the pain was a figment of my imagination) and learned that the problem is pretty much what you'd think. You sweat, the nipples get hard, they rub against the shirt, and the salt in the sweat acts like grains of sand, and there you have it, sore nips.

So now, before I run, I put Band-aids on them which I hate doing because 1. We don't have that many Band-aids in the house and I'd hate to actually need one and find them all gone because I used them on my stupid, shouldn't-be-there-in-the-first-place nipples, and 2. they don't work all that well because you put them on when the nipples are smushy and then when they turn unsmushy the Band-Aid is no longer flush and you've got the potential for chafing anyway and 3. the whole process forces me to spend way too much time thinking about, looking at, and tending to my nipples.

I have figured out a remedy, though. I've never once even thought about them while sitting on the couch eating ice cream.

Jim Jamo Lost

I'm pretty sure it's because the Lansing State Journal did not publish my letter to the editor. The Wife was unsurprised by this. (She's also unsurprised that Joe Biden has yet to reply to my chocolate milk question.) I'm not entirely sure how the LSJ decides which letters to print. Yes, mine was obnoxious and full of obvious falsehoods. It was not serious in any way. But who decided letters to the editor have to be serious or, you know, factual? Read through them some time. Most of the political ones are full of nonsense, and I find at least half of them obnoxious. I guess the difference is intent. The lesson is clear: if you want to make an ass out of yourself, don't be too obvious about it.

In other news I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo because as a person living on the planet Earth in the year 2010 I believe it is required. The Wife warned me that there was a ton of backstory in the first 100 pages or whatever, so I was prepared for it and it didn't really bother me. Once it gets rolling it's hard to put down. I read all six hundred plus pages over three days.

Also read The London Eye Mystery and enjoyed it, especially the voice of the autistic main character. Really well done. It's not as good as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, but there's no shame in that.

Closing in on the end of my novel. It looks like the first draft will be done by the start of school, which was the goal. I'll spend a couple of months smoothing out the story, fixing inconsistencies, dropping in details that didn't become necessary until later, etc., and then I'll be looking for readers to affirm my worst suspicions.

I'll be vacationing for most of the next two weeks, so basically nothing will change with respect to the blog. Feel free to reread this post over and over again or, even better, go back and read some old stuff from when I was funnier.

Vote for Jim Jamo

With the elections coming up this Tuesday I've been researching the candidates. Yesterday, I created a tally table to record how many yard signs each candidate has within a three mile radius of my home. I figured I'd just vote for whomever had the most signs. That way, I help to ensure that people who spend the most money get the most votes. Hey, it's worked so far, right?

Right?

However, there is one man for whom yard signs cannot dissuade me. His name? Jim Jamo. He's running for circuit court judge. With all the letters to the editors floating around this time of year, I thought I'd write my own. So many of these letters take things way too seriously. I took a different tack. I sent this letter to the Lansing State Journal today. They probably won't publish it, so I offer it to you, free of charge:

I support Jim Jamo for Ingham County Circuit Court. I’ve known Jim since before he was born, when he visited me as a spectral fetus while I slept. Even then he impressed me with his overwhelming integrity. Jim has more integrity in his left nostril than you have in your entire family. When Jim Jamo blows his nose, he uses a Brawny paper towel because Kleenex is unable to contain his integrity.

Jim Jamo’s experience as a lawyer will make him an excellent judge. He once wrote a brief so eloquent that the judge who read it wept. In 1992 I witnessed Jim defend a client with nothing but a series of well-placed facial ticks and exasperated sighs. Defendants will be unable to lie in front of Jim Jamo. Thanks to his integrity-laced mucus, Jim can sniff out a liar at a distance of thirteen miles. Tough, all-seeing, phlegmatic--that’s the kind of judge we need. Vote for Jamo. (Or he’ll flick an integrity booger at you.)

I'm Getting Close! (And a Writing Tip)

Almost done with my latest book. I love this feeling.

I'm at 60,000 words and probably have ten thousand more to go. I have a writer's tip tonight:

We all get to the point where we're not super excited about writing the coming chapter. It might be one of those chapters that are necessary but not as exciting as the ones before or the ones that will come after. If I were a good writer, my advice would be to find a way to make that chapter interesting, but since I'm not, here's what I do instead:

• I think about just skipping it and going to the next chapter.

• Then I tell myself that I'm avoiding the issue and ultimately doing nothing but delaying the inevitable and besides, it's just easier to write it in order.
  

• So I write the chapter, but here's the tip:

I write the thing as quickly and as crappily as I can. Well, I don't intentionally write it crappily, but I tell myself not to care if it is crappy. I tell myself the same thing I told myself during every finals week at Michigan State University: Doing well is not as important as getting it over with. And while that probably wasn't the most effective self-talk in college, it works just fine in writing, because if it is in fact crappy I can go back and make it better later. But usually, I find it's not 100 percent crappy; there's usually a few lines or at least ideas that get to hang around. It's like 95% crappy most of the time and since just about the whole first draft is 95% crappy, there's really no reason not to just spew the words out.

So that's my advice: Crappy writing is better than no writing.

Word.

Hey, I finally bought an ipod. I bought it because I always felt guilty about disappearing when I wrote. I would leave The Wife and The Wife likes hanging out with me even if I'm not really conversing or listening to her and am totally in my zoned out writing mode. But she likes to be in the same room regardless. I can't blame her. I like hanging out with me, too. Anyway, I bought the ipod because I'm sitting there in the same room as The Wife and she tends to watch really bad TV while I'm trying to write. Tonight she had Joy Behar's pathetic excuse for a talk show on. So I put the headphones on (my ear holes are too tiny for the ear buds that Apple provides--maybe that's why I never hear what The Wife says. Ha.) and I can write without being interrupted by Nancy Grace or Joy Behar or one of the Kardashians while still being in the same room as The Wife. That's problem solving, folks. So I've got the thing going right now and Dolly Parton's Here You Come Again is playing. Why do I have Dolly Parton on my ipod, you ask?

When what you should be asking is why you don't.






Also, I have a pimple on my nose. Because apparently, my nose didn't get the memo that I'm no longer 15. Due to the pimple and the blogger's unrelenting vanity, there will be no v-logs anytime soon.

My Day at the Beach

Yesterday we went to the beach. I'm not really a beach person. I hate the feel of sand between my toes. The water is usually too cold and full of things I'd rather not think about. I don't like people. And I try not to be seen without a shirt.

But I figured, how bad could it be? It was a Monday. We were going to a state park. State parks tend to attract a certain clientele, many of whom are overweight, ghostly white, and hairy. I'd fit right in.

No such luck. It was like a convention of skinny, well-tanned people. I've read there's an obesity epidemic in this country. Could have fooled me. Everywhere I looked, gorgeous people frolicked in the surf. A group of buff seventeen-year-old dudes engaged in some horseplay and Frisbee. Wispy blondes strolled along the sand, smiling and checking out the guys playing Frisbee. Old guys with ponytails and smooth chests made out with fit, leather-skinned ladies. It was a nightmare of beauty. All of which is to say I kept my shirt on, as you can see in the pics. This was not a crowd that would have appreciated my fine pelt of lustrous back hair.

Little one had fun, but only because she's too young to know any better. About thirty seconds after entering the water (you'll notice me helicoptering like the over-protective parent I am) a chunky five-year-old swam over and admired my daughter's Ariel toy. She asked to play with it. My daughter handed it over. Big mistake. Because later, this same ragamuffin came strutting over while Little One and her father constructed a badly misshapen sand castle. I had placed Ariel in the moat area and commented that she was swimming in her pool. The fatty corrected me. "That's not a pool. That's a river."

"No," I said, "rivers have sources. Rivers flow downhill. Rivers have a current. That, young lady, is a pool."

She chose to ignore me. Then she plodded over to where we were keeping our other beach toys and hijacked a plastic watering can. She came over and gave Ariel a shower. Little One cried. We took Ariel and went back into the lake, hoping to escape the roly-poly snot. We got away. Ten seconds later, I look back to see The Wife pointing at the watering can floating aimlessly in the lake and telling the little shit to go pick it up. The little shit did not. "It's not mine," she said. Obviously.

The Wife retrieved it. Later, when the whale came paddling toward us yet again, I steered Little One away, and since I was carrying a yellow plastic pail I decided to put it to good use. Nonchalantly, while walking away and not looking at her, I scooped up a bucketful of water and tossed it into the air where it just happened to fall on the head of an impertinent little thief who didn't know how to respect other people's space or privacy.

Yes, I felt kind of bad. Thirty-four-year-old men should not be throwing water on five-year-old girls, no matter how annoying they are. But then again, five-year-old girls should have parents who actually watch them and teach them to not be jerks.

John Grisham Proves It: Writing for Kids is Hard, Yo.

I'll admit it, I was excited to read John Grisham's first foray into children's literature, Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer. I've read about 20 of his books and generally enjoyed them. (Especially The Firm. That book rocks.) So because I am cheap, I waited until the other men in their mid-thirties returned the two copies the library computers claimed to have and I snagged one a couple of days ago.

I read it. It sucked.

At first, I had a hard time believing Grisham actually wrote it. Then I thought, Well, okay, he wrote it but it couldn't have possibly been his idea. His marketing team must have talked him into doing it so he could branch out and ensnare a new generation of readers to replace all the old trial lawyers who're dropping like flies due to long hours and stress and amicus briefs.

I still hope this is true.

Because it was like Grisham forgot how to write. He's never been Hemingway or Faulkner or other authors known for their comparison usefulness, but Grisham knows how to tell a story. He keeps the tension high. The earnest young lawyer is constantly in trouble as he fights an enemy with both limitless power and sinisterness. His books move at breakneck pace. He cares not for fancy language and wastes no ink with metaphor or allusion or other such literary crap. John Grisham tells good stories simply.

In Theodore Boone, the story is awful. There is no tension. Worse, there are tension teasers which never develop into anything. It's almost like J.G. was afraid to put his young lawyer in any real danger because he thought he might scare his readers. In fact, most of the problems I have with the book derive from what quickly becomes abundantly clear: John Grisham has no clue how to write for kids.

First, the voice is third person omniscient and not even moderately appealing. It's stodgy, like the story is being told by a fifty-five year old former Southern lawyer. Grisham wastes little time writing scenes. Instead, he just tells the reader whatever it is he needs to know.

Theodore Boone was a good kid who didn't care about girls and never got into trouble and really really liked the law.*

Stuff like that. Also, Grisham commits that most heinous of kidlit sins. He uses his book to preach. His sermon: "LAWYERS ARE NOT ONLY USEFUL TO SOCIETY, THEY'RE INDISPENSABLE AND REALLY GOOD PEOPLE, TOO." I suppose he's trying to head off all the lawyer jokes that his innocent readers will be exposed to about the time they hit high school.

Theodore Boone himself is too good to be true; he is a character without flaws. His parents, both lawyers, work hard, care about Theo, and volunteer at a soup kitchen (I'm not making that up) when they're not working diligently (and honestly) for their clients, even though they really don't make as much money as you kids hear about on the television. And Theo, because he's such a law freak, is constantly helping his poor classmates (and even an adult here and there) with their legal problems. He provides advice on divorce, foreclosure, and a DUI, to name a few, and he does it all gratis because charging would be unethical (Theo's not a "real lawyer," after all.)

Another problem (not that preaching and a lack of conflict isn't enough) is the seemingly random sidebars (see what I did there?). In order to establish Theo as a legal expert, Grisham has him give the aforementioned advice to his classmates. But none of this, including what could have been an interesting bit about his best friend (a girl) going through her parents' divorce, ever has anything to do with the main storyline. I kept waiting for these bird walks to come back and matter and they never did.

I could go on. But I think it's interesting to note that John Grisham,who could sell a few hundred thousand copies of his grocery list, wrote such a horrific novel for kids. Why? I posit the following:

1. He just didn't give a damn.

2. He doesn't understand that kids want a great story just as much as adults.

3. He adopted a paternal stance and instead of writing to entertain, he wrote to guide and to educate. There are a number of places in the book that read like a primer on America's legal system. Grisham has young Theo tell his classmates all about how the start of a trial will work so that his readers can understand such terms as "prosecution" and "witness stand" and "jury box." It was as if Grisham didn't realize kids watch TV and movies and probably already know all this shit.

4. It's not easy to write a thriller for kids because you can't just hack up bodies to create suspense and intrigue. Grisham, to his credit, realized this and had the murder in the book be a tidy strangling. There were other moments where you could almost sense that Grisham wanted to have a bad guy do something naughty but couldn't quite pull the trigger. I guess he was protecting his readers. (See #3)

5. He hasn't read much middle grade and young adult fiction.

Anyway, I've gone on long enough. The book stunk and I think you should read it to revel in its stinkiness.
________________________________________

* Not an actual line from the book, but trust me, it's close enough.

Tidying Up

A quick post because The Mom, The Wife, and The Jonathon have all pestered me about announcing a winner for the poetry contest. I mistakenly thought that since I was offering no prize that no one would care about winning. Guess I was wrong.

The winner is Tina Laurel Lee. Tina's poem was so completely baffling to me that I just figure it was probably awesome. My experience with poetry (and modern art and Kafka and string theory) is that if I don't understand it it's because I'm too obtuse to recognize its inherent genius. So Tina wins!

Also, I'm going to the beach today.

And a teaser: I read John Grisham's book for kids, Theordore Boone: Kid Lawyer. It gave me a blog idea. When I get back from the beach, I might write it. And you will agree with me.

I'm So Pumped!

Been churning out the words on my work-in-progress. And I love it like whoa.

I'm at about 50 thou out of what'll probably be around 70. Then I'll add a bunch of useless shit that I think is hilarious to push it up to 80. Then I'll cut most of that out when I realize it's really not all that funny and end up right around 70 again. This one's totally getting pubbed. It actually has a plot. It's an absurd plot, but a plot nonetheless. (I like "nonetheless." Three words in one--can't beat that. (Or maybe you can. Are there any four words in a word words? Say that three times.))

And can I just say that my story has awesome characters? Okay. My story has awesome characters. I'd share, but you really have to read the thing to get it and I'm not letting you read it.

Yet.

If I let you read it now, you'd be all, "Where's the ending?" And I'd be, "I said I wasn't done, but you were impatient. Let that be a lesson to you." And you'd be, "There should be an ending." And I'd walk away (virtually, of course. I don't actually meet my beta readers. I mean, could you imagine the awkwardness? We'd start a conversation and I'd trip all over my words and you would be, "You don't trip over words on your blog." Jerk.)

Oh. And I have repetitive bits. I love repetitive bits. "Running gags" you might call them. There's one about of one my characters who dated a girl with an "enchanting chin." See, this girl---never mind. Just trust me, it's killa funny.

So what are you up to?

________________________________________

I read Ray Veen's Talonshale this past week. It's seriously good. I don't even read that genre much and I thought it was seriously good. And I'm not just saying that because he reads my blog. If I didn't like it, I just would not say anything at all. (But behind his back, I'd email other people and be like, "Oh, my god. That sucked so bad. What a waste of my time. If he asks you to read it say you're going on vacation and they don't let you read there.") Seriously, it's awesome. If he lets you read it, you should.

_________________________________________

Haven't heard jack squat from any agents in about six days. New round of queries goes out the virtual door tomorrow.

_________________________________________

Congratulations to Spain. You are the best at the most boring sport on the planet. Even though it took you almost two hours of playing time to score a goal, I'm sure the three people in America who were watching were really excited when it finally happened. Muy bien futbol. (I don't know how to get those diagonal slant things above the letters. They're stupid anyway. Other languages...pssh.)

How About a Poetry Contest?

I got this idea from Tracy, so blame him.

He posted a poem called "Kick a Little Stone" on his blog and then said, "The simplicity of this poem blows me away. Topics [in the book] range from kicking stones to going to the beach to swinging up, up into the sky."

So. Go to Tracy's blog. Read the poem. Get a feel for it.

Then come back here and write your own.

The Rules:

1. Keep it short. I'm not looking for Paradise Lost.
2. It must be about something children do.
3. You can be serious or funny. Please don't be oblique or metaphorical. I'm not up for that today.

Small print: No prize will be awarded, but a winner will be named.


Mine:

Wagon Bumps

Daddy pulls the wagon

Over sidewalk cracks

He rolls it through rain puddles

The wheels leave skinny tracks

We hurry under dripping trees

My mouth is open wide

We take a hairpin turn so fast

The back wheels start to slide

I’m shaking in my wagon seat

Rattle-battle-thump!

And then my wagon’s in the air

It’s hit a tree root bump

Daddy stops and looks behind

There’s worry on his face

But I just smile my biggest smile

And say, “Pick up the pace!”

Etc.

• It's hot.

• I sent a few queries out today even though I know nobody's working, and lo and behold I got a rejection just hours later from Joe Veltre. I appreciate those agents who send out rejections while the rest of the country takes the day off.

• The Wife and I watched Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief last night and holy smoke did it suck. I can't think of a movie I enjoyed less. I turned it off with ten minutes to go because I just couldn't take it anymore and because it was almost eleven o'clock and I figured even the local news would be more interesting. I was right.

• Conversely, we just got back from Toy Story 3 and it was awesome.

• I read a book for grown-ups recently, Michael Crichton's Pirate Latitudes. It was found in his files and published posthumously. Now I know why. Here's a tip for all you successful writers out there: If you have unpublished novels just lying around, get rid of them. Because after you die your family members, caring more about money than your reputation, will publish them to your embarrassment (assuming you can still feel shame in the grave). My guess is most of the music in Michael Jackson's vault similarly blows. (But I'll probably still listen to it. I mean, c'mon, it's Michael Jackson.)

• I'm struggling to find books this summer and my reading is suffering. The local library has a limited selection and my checking account has limited funds. Most of the stuff I'm excited to read (Fat Vampire) isn't out yet. So recommend some slightly older books for me, will you? I'm looking for titles that are maybe a couple of years old that fell through the cracks and I forgot about them. Young adult and middle grade preferred, go heavy on plot and if there's some humor all the better.

Out.

Elena Kagan for the Court

There's some question about whether Elena Kagan is qualified to serve on the Supreme Court because she's never been a judge. People complain that there isn't much a paper trail because she hasn't had to rule on cases and this makes both sides of the aisle nervous. There seems to be a lot that isn't known about her.

But if judging is what I think it is, then Kagan should be confirmed based on her answer in the following clip alone:



I wish you wouldn't, indeed.

I Read The Deathday Letter

I'm not going to review the book because a. I suck at reviews and b. the author has been known to stop by this blog so 1. If I write a complimentary review people (who, I don't know) would say, "Well of course you wrote a complimentary review" and 2. If I didn't write a complimentary review I'd a. feel like a dick and 2. would be lying.

But the book got me thinking, although not about the stuff I was supposed to think about.

It got me thinking about how difficult it is to succeed writing a book like The Deathday Letter. And by succeed I mean selling lots of books, becoming a household name, and then treating people horribly.

First, I should say that Shaun David Hutchinson made it further than I think most books like this do or will. The Deathday Letter, if you do not know, is about a fifteen-year-old kid who receives a letter telling him he's got one day left to live. It's a clever premise; one that's easily understood and tickles the imagination. And it's funny. And it's well written. And there's a serious message, too.

But the book's target audience is unabashedly young adult males. And I love that. I wish there were more books for these kids. I like to read books like this and I like to write books like this so I wish The Deathday Letter all kinds of crazy success. (Seriously, just buy the book. I did. See photo above.)

Unfortunately, the book has and will continue to fight an uphill battle. I bought the book at a honest to goodness bookstore. It was in the YA section which was on the back wall and took me ten minutes to find. I bought it the day after it came out and it was sandwiched between other authors who last names start with H. And there were two copies.

Conversely, I knocked down seven vampire books with black covers and was screamed at by a gang of goth girls because they thought I was disrespecting Richelle Mead on my way to the YA wall. This was because the vampire books were practically placed in the middle of an aisle so that you needed to go out of your way to avoid them.

Now I know Shaun is just elated to have the thing published and out there and there's no way he'll ever complain (I wouldn't either), but let's just look at the hurdles he's had to clear to elbow aside enough books to get his own on the shelf.

• First he had to write it. This is hard.

• Then he had to get an agent interested in it, even though the target audience tends to spend a lot of time playing video games and watching YouTube and playing sports and staring at girls. And when they do read, they pick up fantasy novels or books for adults. (I know. I mostly read Stephen King in high school. I didn't even know there were books for high school kids.)

• And then said agent had to get a publisher interested, in spite of the above challenges.

• And now I'm skipping some steps, but after all that there were two (now there's one) copies of the book in my local bookstore (and it's a big one) and you pretty much had to be looking for it like I was to find it.

It depresses me. Mostly for selfish reasons because before I sit down to write another novel I will think to myself, "I really want to write a funny book for high school guys, but will anybody read it? And if nobody is going to read it, then do I have a chance of finding an agent? And if I do find an agent who gets it and loves it, which might be kinda hard because 90% of YA agents are chicks, will he or she be able to find a publisher (more chicks) who not only likes it but thinks it will sell enough to make it worth her while?" And I won't be the only one.

So here's hoping The Deathday Letter gets great word of mouth, high school dudes buy a copy, and publishers are suddenly clamoring for more books like it. Because I really want to click on an agency Web site and read, "I'm always on the lookout for books with penis jokes and scatological humor." Because, dude, that's my kind of agent.

Goals for the Summer

Summer for me does not start on whatever date it's supposed to start. It starts when I'm done teaching. That day is Friday. So I've been thinking about what I'd like to accomplish over the next three months with respect to reading and writing. My goals are all things I can do without help from anyone. This is why you will not see ACQUIRE AN AGENT. ACQUIRING AN AGENT relies on someone other than me (or Anita or Tracy or The Wife or The Mom) reading my stuff and recognizing it for the pioneering genius that it is. Unfortunately, I have discovered that literary agents have a huge blind spot when it comes to appreciating pioneering genius. I call that blind spot The (Il)Literati's Collective Bias Against Anything Written by Paul Michael Murphy.

On to the goals:

1. I am going to query like a madman. My plan is to query over 100 agents for both my middle grade novel and my YA. Ideally, I'll be able to stop somewhere before 100, but I will not stop querying until the agenting community has publicly denounced both my books and me personally. If I were them, I would start with my chin. My chin deserves widespread scorn.

2. I'm going to finish my third novel. I have one that stalled out about halfway through but I still like it quite a lot. So now that I don't have to grade papers or plan lessons or enter stupid data into the stupid work database or watch Criminal Minds, because I think I've seen them all, I can look at it with fresh eyes and finish the thing.

3. I am going to read 40 books over the summer. My reading has been a little behind last year's pace, partly due to lack of initiative and partly due to the cinder block that was Under the Dome, so I'm going to make it up this summer. I still plan on hitting 100 books by year's end.

P.S. Westerfeld's Leviathan was cool.

I Have Discovered a Magic Formula for Titling Books

First, before I share my genius with the world, can I just say that "titling" is an odd word. I want to either read it as "tilting" or think of it as slang for a tiny breast. Just me?

Now. Sometimes, admittedly not very often as evidenced by my lack of blogging activity in the last few months, I am struck by the God of Great Ideas and given some rare insight that we mortals call an "epiphany."

Today's struck in the shower. (This seems to happen more often than not, which makes me think I should spend more time attending to personal hygiene.) I was standing there, you know, with the water beating my chest and et cetera, when a title came to me from out of the mist. Picking Blueberries in the Rain, that was the title. Not too shabby, I thought. Not something I would write, but I could see it as one of those books Target always puts at the end of the aisle. You know, the ones I walk past on my way to walking past the glut of vampire novels so I can find the one or two titles that I might actually consider reading. Picking Blueberries in the Rain would be right next to Three Cups of Tea or Water for Elephants. That kind of book.

And then something else happened. (We're back in the shower now.) Another title came to me. This one was Drawing Pictures in the Dark. I thought that was pretty good too. Kind of mysterious. Might be about an artist with autism. It didn't take divine inspiration to then make the following leap. I soon realized that by using a very simple formula, you, yes, even you, can make your own eye-catching, imagination-sparking title. From the God:

"ING" VERB + PLURAL NOUN + "in the" + A PLACE = AWESOME TITLE.

Try it. Pick any verb, plural noun, and place and presto! Even the bad ones are kind of good, like Licking Marbles in the Bathroom.

You could do much worse.

I'd make this a contest, but I suck at sending prizes, so just have at it. Using the above formula, leave your titles in the comments. Go nuts. Leave all you want. But please know that the Murphblog legal department would like to inform you that any title you post can (and probably will) be stolen and used on a future Target aisle book. Someday you'll see it, right next to Making Rainbows in the Sand.

Yes! I've Been Tagged!

Anita tagged me. I believe she thinks I don't like being tagged, but she couldn't be more wrong. I love being tagged. Unlike Tracy, who pretends to be put out by the obligation, I relish the opportunity to talk about the one topic I both know and love--me.

You don't know how often I start to blog and then stop and say, "Come on, Murph. Think of your readers. I know you love talking about yourself and yes, it is true that you live a fascinating life full of dangerous escapades like drinking milk even though it's supposedly expired, but it is possible, just possible, that your readers don't feel quite the same way." And then I delete the entire post about exactly how I beat LSU in College Football 2007 on my X-Box or how I found an old Cheeto between the couch cushions and just for a second considered eating it or how Quality Dairy has chocolate milk on sale. And I write some lame review about a book that garners five lousy comments instead.

But being tagged gives me permission--no, it demands that I tell you all about my inspirational existence. And so, without Freddy Adu...

Where was I five years ago?

I can't remember five days ago. Not kidding.

Where would I like to be five years from now?

Doing exactly this. Blogging about myself so that five people can read it and three people can comment. That would be so awesome. Personal growth and ambition are overrated anyway. I prefer the Vanna White method of self-improvement: Find something anybody can do and stick with it.

What was on my to-do list today:

• Pick up new dining room set from furniture store. Did it.

• Put set together. Yeah, right.

• Mow the lawn. Figured it could wait another day.

• Write blog post in which I answer questions nobody cares about. In fact, I'm betting most of you have already considered clicking off here.

Five snacks I enjoy:

1. Cheetos
2. Combos
3. Just about anything on a toothpick (see photo above)
4. Pringles
5. Ice Cream

If I Were a Billionaire I Would:

Wait until the Powerball jackpot reached $300 million. I would then buy 196 million tickets because the odds of winning are about 1 in 195 million. I would buy every possible combination, therefore insuring my victory. Provided I don't have to share any jackpots, I would make a profit of about $100 million each time I did this. I would then write a book called How to Win at Powerball--Guaranteed! and make infomercials like that Kevin Trudeau guy. And when people saw me, they'd say, "Hey, I recognize that guy from somewhere." And someone else would say, "Yeah, I think he sells food dehydrators." And the other guy would say, "No, that's not it."

So I Read Will Grayson, Will Grayson

And...eh.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I did not, like the rest of the world, particularly love Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and I judge John Green unfairly. Simply put, his books are so awesome that I expect them all to be. And that's kind of a high standard.

Let's get the good stuff about the book out of the way first:

1. I liked the format. Alternating chapters is cool with me and it works in this book. It in no way feels disjointed. The story flows nicely.

2. There are funny parts and I'm all for funny parts.

3. One of the things I like about Green is how he writes dialogue and how he handles male friendships. Once again, he did not disappoint in these areas. Levithan's dialogue was just as good.

4. I always admire how Green handles parents in his book. He gives them their due, but keeps them largely in the background. So many authors create stupid parents or evil parents or neglectful parents or parents who are on vacation so they (the authors) don't have to deal with them. Green writes parents who actually love their kids. It's refreshing in YA.

And now the things I didn't like so much. I've tried to put these in order from that which annoyed me the most to the least.

1. The characters--Tiny Cooper and Straight Will's dad are I think the only two characters I liked.

2. The story--In short, there ain't much of one. There's a nice little surprise about a third of the way through that concerns Gay Will, but that's about it on the plotting front. The term "character study" was created for books like this, and since I'm in the rejection process right now and getting a fair amount of "I liked this and this, but there just isn't enough story," I'm kind of sensitive to books that have this and this but not much story.

3. The gayness--Yeah, yeah, I know it's about the universality of love and whatnot, but I think we all like to read about characters we relate to and I just didn't.

4. The ending--Sorry, not buying it.

5. I have a prejudice against original song lyrics in books, especially when said lyrics are intended to be funny. First, it's impossible to read the song the way the author hears it in his head, so it's like reading poetry with terrible meter. Second, it's obvious the author thinks he's being clever and that's annoying. Third, how the characters react to the song lyrics says something about how the author views his own song writing ability. So if the author thinks it's all kinds of funny and has the character say something like, "I almost fell on the floor laughing" then the reader knows that the author thinks he wrote some funny shit and funny shit should be funny shit on its own. When a character laughs, I usually don't.

6. Too much theme--This is an issue in all of Green's work. (I haven't read enough Levithan to make the same criticism.) Green gets a little too didactic, especially near the ends of this books. He kind of hits you over the head with the message.


And can I say that I feel for the writer who's trying to write a book that gay kids will pick up? (And I think that describes this book, although I'm sure the authors would not admit to it.) On the one hand, we want being gay to be, like it says in the book, just another characteristic of the person, like having blue eyes. The character is this and this and this and, yes, he happens to be gay. This sort of treatment seems to get the most positive reviews, especially among those who are gay. But there's also a rule in writing that your characters are who they are for a reason. I once read a review that called a main character "ethnic for no reason." It was meant as a criticism. Implied is that if you make your characters Latino or black or gay, then that Latinoness or blackness or gayness must somehow matter to the story.

And so there's a conflict. By making gayness just another personal trait, the author is saying it doesn't matter. Like the color of the character's eyes. But clearly, it has to matter, or the reader will wonder why in the hell the author made the character gay. And I don't think this conflict only exists in the world of fiction. We claim to want equality, but is equality really enough? Don't we celebrate our differences? Don't we think our differences make us who we are? Don't they matter? And if they do, don't our differences drive each of our personal stories? Do we not form our self-identities based mainly on that which makes us stand out from the pack?

Equating gayness with blue-eyedness sound nice and is certainly the politically correct thing to believe these days, but is it the truth? Do gay people really want books where a character's gayness doesn't matter?

I don't know. Maybe they do. But I sort of doubt it.

Quick, name a fun word that starts with G

Gentrified.

Your turn.

Good News Abounds

First off, let me publicly congratulate Anita for landing an agent. Read about it here. I myself may never get published, but Anita's success means that I might get to see my name in print--on the Acknowledgments page of her book. Of course, now things get interesting for the rest of us. From what I can tell, most writers, upon meeting with success, react in one of three ways.

1. They stay pretty much the same.
2. They start tweeting with well-known authors and dropping the words "my agent" into every other conversation and they just generally piss everyone off with their vainglory.
3. The initial dose of success isn't enough and it isn't long before they start complaining about how their agent can't sell their book or how unfair the publishing word is or how, yeah, they sold their book, but gawd---did you see the cover? And what's up with that release date? And so-and-so got a bigger advance. You know the type.

I'm guessing Anita will be a 1.

More good news: I have now lost 12 pounds. I ran my first 5k last week and yesterday I ran six miles (without stopping. Is that implied?). I hope to lose 10-15 more. I usually need some sort of motivation--the last time I lost a fair amount of weight was the summer of my wedding--but I don't really have a reason this time. I want to be healthier? Eh. I want to look good in a bathing suit? Not possible without major back hair removal. I want to be able to eat terrible food and drink beer all summer? Okay. That'll work.

Something I thought was good news, but actually wasn't: My laptop stopped working and wouldn't turn on. After consulting The Whole of the World's Knowledge, AKA the Internet, I bought a new battery. Popped it in and voila, it worked. For two hours. Then it quit again. This shouldn't have happened because I had the thing plugged in. So the good news is I did some new work on my current project. And the bad news is there is still something wrong with my preferred writing device.

Not good news at all: That oil spill in the Gulf. No one will ever accuse me of being an environmentalist, but Jeebus, that thing is nasty.

The Dicken Elementary Snafu--Some Context

For those who missed the story on the news, Dicken Elementary (Ann Arbor, MI) principal Mike Madison, in an effort to help struggling students, set up a "Lunch Bunch" composed only of African-American students. He then took these students to hear a black rocket scientist speak at the University of Michigan. When the kids got back, those excluded from the trip booed them.

Now, what he did was just plain stupid, not to mention probably illegal. (In 2006, Michigan passed Proposal 2 which bans preferential treatment based on race.) I've never quite understood the idea that we achieve racial equality through inequality. If we hope that kids will judge each other on the content of their character and not race, then dividing them based on race seems a little counterproductive. Sending one group on a field trip while the others stay back at the school reinforces a message that these kids hear all too often: that they're different because of the color of their skin.

Also, if the situation was reversed, I have a feeling Al Sharpton would be coming to town. It's difficult to even imagine a white principal scheduling a field trip for only white students. Perhaps they could visit an NBA team and listen to a white basketball player so they see that they too can play in the League.

So why would an otherwise intelligent person and, from what I can gather, good principal, do something so dumb?

Answer: No Child Left Behind

NCLB requires schools to make "Adequate Yearly Progress," which means that the percentage of students scoring "proficient" on the state standardized test must go up by a certain percentage every year. Too many years of failing to make this improvement and the school faces progressively harsher sanctions, many of which will cost the school money (money they don't have).

So why does that matter? Because people who work in schools are no different than anybody else. If they are judged largely on the basis of one test then they will focus their energies on preparing students for that test. If they must improve the overall percentage of proficient students every year, then they will focus their energies on improving the performance of those who didn't pass the test the year before, assuming, usually correctly, that those who already passed the test will pass it again. All of which means that an incredible amount of energy, time, and money are put into helping the least successful students and very little time, energy, and money is spent on the high achievers.

But it doesn't stop there. NCLB also requires that each school achieve AYP in a number of subgroups, one of which is race. So is it any wonder principal Madison did what he did? I am sure that if we looked at Dicken's MEAP scores we would see an African-American population that performed below the level of their white counterparts.* To increase these students' performance, the principal creates this Lunch Bunch and then looks for opportunities to motivate the kids. The white kids are ignored because a. they scored better on the MEAP as a group and b. they are not an official "subgroup." In other words, they get the same treatment most students who do well in school get: they largely get ignored.

All of which leads to this conclusion: When put in ridiculous situations, even smart people will be do ridiculous things.

And for what it's worth, as a white kid, I think I would have dug listening to a rocket scientist. No matter what he looked like.

_______________________________________________
* I don't know Dicken's demographic breakdown, but statewide 89% of white fourth graders scored proficient in reading versus on 69% of African-Americans.