The Order of Odd-Fish Week: CONTEST RESULTS

It is the moment many of you have been waiting for. Tonight, Murphblog crowns the lucky winner of the The Order of Odd-Fish Contest. After hours of rereading the entries, deliberating, passionately arguing, and yes, a fair amount of dithering, James and I finally agreed on a winner. He graciously offered to defend our decision, and so has written the following. It should be said that I wholeheartedly agree with everything that follows (even the bit about Lambada), in spite of what I felt were below-the-belt criticisms of my mother during the judging process. Such is the withering force of his personality and the undeniable wisdom of his infallible logic. And now, from the fingertips of Mr. James Kennedy straight to your eager eyes:
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First of all: a very sincere—and startled—thanks for everyone’s hilarious contributions to the “Create Your Own Odd-Fish Specialty” contest!

I was bowled over not only by the number of entries, but the consistent excellence. It was very difficult to choose between them. But chose I did! My process of elimination follows.

Off the bat, we got three entries that were quite gross. Now, the book reviewer Lynne Farrell Stover, in VOYA, memorably trashed my novel The Order of Odd-Fish as a mixture of “ridiculousness and depravity” in which characters are “obsessed with bodily functions.” This is an interesting accusation from a woman who once alphabetized her own phlegm, but Lynne Farrell Stover is more or less correct: I am not overly averse to gross humor.

And the disgusting entries of Dame Ruby (studying children who eat their own “rhinoliths”—a euphemism new to me), Dame Tina (studying children created by their father’s earwax) and Anonymous Dawn (the study of what is delicately referred to as “toots”) certainly fall in the tradition of Odd-Fish’s comfort with digestions, innards, brains, and general ickiness. But unfortunately for them, I have turned over a new leaf.

Lynne Farrell Stover and I have been in frequent contact ever since I ribbed her in this blog post a couple weeks ago, and as often happens between a red-blooded man and a red-blooded woman, what was once disdain has blossomed into love, and long story short, we moved in together last week. She says she's going to civilize me! I hotly retort that I'm like the wind, I'm the last American cowboy, I'm a flaming maverick centaur in a zero-gravity bordello—but am I really?

How can I resist Lynne Farrell Stover? When she purses those lips, when she flounces about so enchantingly, when she gives me that come-hither look? Why, maybe she'll "civilize" me after all. Sorry, booger-jokes, earwax-jokes, and fart-jokes—you should've got me last year.

Another worthy entry came from Dame Anita, who proposed to walk the highways of America, studying discarded hubcaps. But surely Dame Anita must know that her proposed project was anticipated, and indeed rendered unnecessary, by the pioneering efforts of Sir Cornelius, over six hundred years ago—before hubcaps even existed? Before America was discovered—before a single hubcap was fabricated—Sir Cornelius had already deduced the location and dimensions of every discarded hubcap in America, using pure unaided reason. For Dame Anita to wander all over the country, empirically gathering data that Sir Cornelius had already divined, six hundred years before the fact, without leaving his armchair, seems to me pointless in the wrong way.

Dame Kelly proposed to study “outdated dance moves with a subspecialty in headbanging.” This is a brilliant idea, and indeed was a strong contender for first prize—if it wasn’t for a single fatal sentence that threw serious doubts of judgment onto Dame Kelly’s project, her aesthetics, and indeed, her alleged soul. See if you can find the flaw:

“I will rent old movies such as Saturday Night Fever, Footloose, Dirty Dancing, Flashdance, and even the B movie Lambada.”

Lambada as a “B movie”? Unforgivable.

Sir Big Plain V proposed to specialize in food with alcohol in them. This seemed to me to be a promising topic: I was looking forward to recipes for proponol pies, for butanol beefsteaks, for formaldehyde frittatas, for isopropyl ice cream. No such luck: Sir Big rambled on endlessly about “Guinness ravioli, Guinness Jell-o, Guinness enchilada soup,” etc.

Memo to Sir Big: most of Sir Alec Guinness has already been drunk, long ago—by myself and some college friends, as it happens, in a youthful prank—rendering your project moot. (Interestingly, the distinguished thespian provided only a mild buzz.)

Sir Rylander promised to study “talking mustaches.” This is a project near and dear to my heart, as I published a short story about a disembodied beard in the Chicago Reader in 2008. Sir Rylander trots out several possible talking mustaches for study—those of his uncle Dieter, of John Waters, of Alex Trebek, and Tom Selleck—but that is precisely the problem.

What discussion of “talking mustaches” can presume to ignore—on a Michigan-based blog, no less—pitcher Rollie Fingers’ legendary trash-talking mustache, which caused such fury to Alan Trammell in a 1982 Tigers-Brewers game that Trammell refused to look at Rollie Fingers’ mustache again—and from that game onward, the livid Trammell kept his eyes shut whenever batting against Fingers? The notorious denouement, when Trammell lopped off Brewers catcher Ned Yost’s head with a blind, wild swing, we must pass over in silence; and accordingly I must pass over Sir Rylander’s entry as good in theory, but does not live up to its potential. (Tasty “Ned Yost heads”—a kind of fried pastry filled with marmalade and steak frites—can still be purchased on the corner of Michigan and Trumbull, though many vendors have sadly forgotten the treat’s origins. “Get yer Yosts! Get yer pipin’-hot Yosts!” is a hawker’s cry that will always take me back to childhood memories of afternoon ballgames with my social worker.)

Dame Betty nearly walked away with the prize for her outstanding proposal of researching different kinds of nose-blowing techniques. Her quest to discover more about apocryphal nose-blowing methods tickled me, especially the legendary one which she claims “requires a third nostril to perform”—a line worthy of Douglas Adams. However, Dame Betty goes fatally awry when she claims that a “Ms. Snoseful” of “Sneezeville, South Dakota” blew her nose and found an image of the Holy Mother in her handkerchief.

Dame Betty: I have Google Maps. There is no “Sneezeville, South Dakota.”

There is, however, a “Sneedville, Tennessee” and a “Snellville, Georgia.” And you know what kind of “miracles” they have in those small towns, Dame Betty, you sneering cosmopolitan? How about the daily “miracles” of civic pride, hard work, and clean living? But you wouldn’t understand those, Dame Betty, would you, with your endless cocktail parties, your predatory sensuality, your devil-may-care hedonism—well guess what, Dame Betty—the devil does care, and he’s coming after you and your thoughtless blasphemy. In your whimsies you imagine the Holy Mother in a handkerchief? In my reality I stand before this sign, and say to you:






So much for Dame Betty. On to Lady Liana, whose entry was another near-winner. Her proposed specialty, of “improbable and illogical animals,” was the most purely Oddfishian of the bunch. (Possibly because the category already existed. Dame Delia in The Order of Odd-Fish studies Absurd Animals.) However, Lady Liana puts her own spin on the topic, by inventing a system of classification that can decide whether an animal may logically exist or not. Her goal is to prove, using her system, that most animals in fact don’t actually exist and that we don’t need to worry about them. This would be laudable were it not for this inconvenient fact: Lady Liana is herself a only very clever alpaca. For her project to succeed would, paradoxically, negate her own existence! I cannot allow this to happen. The world would be a poorer place without Lady Liana’s heartwarming alpaca antics. Permission to pursue this specialty is hereby denied—for Lady Liana’s own good.

Go! Run now, and graze in the pampas, my furry alpaca friend! I, as a responsible gaucho, will keep you safe from your alpaca logical paradoxes.

Blogger Tracy Edward Wymer proposed to uncover the truth about lightning bugs’ mating habits and displays of affection. Tracy, I trust you will not be offended if I am rather terse with you. I have struggled for years to overcome my addiction to insect pornography. Please, please, do not mock me.

Sir Jambuku proposed to study the words missing from the very proposal he was submitting. I appreciated the clever, self-referential aspect of this entry! Jokes about recursion are as funny as this joke.

Which leaves us with our winner: Dame Monica, who will formulate a thesis on the things that "should have been." Her entry is worth quoting in full:

"I, Monica, the Muse of afterthoughts, will formulate a thesis on the things that "should have been". I will research statements made by historical and nonhistorical persons about things that were expected to go differently, but didn't. I will then determine alternate timelines for every possible outcome, and depict those timelines in a mural that will cover one side of one of the pyramids of Giza. I will then use that mural to formulate an algorithm for world leaders to use, to make decisions. The algorithm will support decisions made about warmongering, disease control, and inventions of new technology. With this algorithm, decision makers will be able to examine ramifications of decisions made, before they are decided, instead of waiting until afterwards. This algorithm will eventually be mandated for use in all areas of society."

Monica must have known I have that very pyramid in my backyard! I found it, half-sunk in the weeds and mud, when Lynne Farrell Stover and I moved into this run-down shack we now call home. When Lynne Farrell Stover and I first left our respective families and atrociously eloped, setting up our infamous menage in the face of public scandal and furious denunciations in the op-ed pages of the New York Times, it had seemed like very heaven. Why, it was Lynne Farrell Stover and me against the world!

But time is cruel to passion. Now I spend more and more time staring at this inscrutable pyramid of what might-have-been in my backyard, while Lynne Farrell Stover, a Salem Light drooping from her too-red lips, leans out the back door, screeching at me as she woozily swings around her glass of rum-and-Vernors.

"Why d'yuh spend all day starin' at that damn pyramid, haw? Whuddabout me?" she slurs, stumbling down the steps toward me. I avert my eyes. What have I done with my life? I bury my head in the timelines and algorithms of Monica's prophetic pyramid. My tears stain its theoretically limitless possibilities, mathematically worked out to the millionth decimal . . . and yet now, I am that decimal, a forgotten dot lost in the jostling fates of countless others, my unique, beautiful destiny thrown away for a couple weeks of passion with Lynne Farrell Stover—and all because I wanted to be "civilized"!

Oh, Monica, if you had only shown me this pyramid earlier! Oh, merciless fate, to grind my nose into this obelisk of infinite possibilities, at the very moment my actual life narrows to the intolerable, eternal dot of Lynne Farrell Stover!

For teaching me a crucial truth about myself, and life—and for making me realize why I must leave Lynne Farrell Stover now, and return in penitent humility to my beautiful wife and darling child—I award Monica top honors in the Odd-Fish specialty contest. Thank you, Monica!

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Monica, to claim your prize email Mr. James Kennedy at kennedyjames@gmail.com. Send along your address and the first five pages of a manuscript you'd like critiqued. Congratulations!

(Note to James: Although we share a last name, Monica and I are in no way related. Just wanted to preempt any suspicions of impropriety.)

Thanks again to all who participated. Let's do it again some time.

Writerly Advice

There are many places on the Webosphere that offer advice for writers on overcoming a myriad of writing-related problems. Writer's block got you down? Try talking to a monkey. Does your prose suck? Avoid using the word "thing." Do your essays lack organization? Well then be careful you don't put socks in your underwear drawer. Maybe you just can't think of any good ideas for your next story? Don't worry, some loser has thought of some for you and he's willing to let you steal them.

With all this great advice out there, I thought I might provide some of my own regarding a little discussed problem: cold fingers.

I just came in from outside. It was a nice enough night and I thought a change of scenery might do me some good. I sat at the junky Wal-mart patio set that we have on our equally junky "deck" and turned on the laptop (also junky). It was very quiet and the ideas were flowing like grape Kool-Aid, which is to say, copiously and without impediment, as grape Kool-Aid is wont to do. I was really cooking. Then one of the neighbor's dogs must have run across something rather disagreeable because she started going bonkers with the yipping and whatnot. Not to be outdone, another neighbor's dog decided to get his two cents in. It was quite a rhetorical battle. Against this melodic backdrop, some schmuck decided that 8:30 at night would be an excellent time to mow his lawn, and around this same time, the neighbors on the other side of the privacy fence got into a lengthy discussion that seemed to center around the idea that fishing is more enjoyable when one actually catches fish. (Not making this up.)

And on top of all that my fingers were getting cold.

So I came inside to blog because the only sound in my writing cave is the faint audio of The Biggest Loser drifting in from the living room. (By the way, does it bother anybody else how almost every single contestant on that show uses the word "pull" to describe their weight loss? It's never, "I dropped six pounds this week" or "I shed four pounds" or "I was pretty bummed that I only lost two pounds." It's always "I pulled a six this week." I don't even know what the hell that's supposed to mean.) And horror of all horrors, I could scarcely type, so paralyzed were my digits. I tried blowing on them. Didn't work. I tried making fists. No luck. Finally, I found a solution and I would like to share it with all those who also struggle with cold fingers.

No, not this.
Not this either.

This. (Note: not me.)

You're welcome.

Update

As longtime readers of Murphblog know, it is my stated aim to one day take over the Webosphere. I strive to achieve Oprah Winfrey-like influence. (Although I have to say that if I gain that kind of power I'll use it for something other than ruining perfectly good fast food promotional giveaways.) I was beginning to doubt the likelihood of this happening. Until this week.

Egads, people! Have you seen the skyrocketing number of followers? Just last Friday I was strutting around the Murphblog corporate office saying, "Twenty-five! Twenty-five, everybody!" I even let the staff leave an hour early. But holey fonts, Batman! Just 24 hours later this blog has 31 followers! Thirty-one! (Yeah, I know it's a prime number, but I'm just too excited to care right now.) The lesson I have learned? Well, there's two. First, blogging about your followers is a good way to attract more of them. Second, total Webospheric domination is still a possibility.
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Contest entrants will be happy to know that Mr. James Kennedy, author of The Order of Odd-Fish, emailed me today and sent me his top five. I also have a top five. I will be using a points system based loosely on the algorithm the BCS uses to determine a national champion to pick a winner. James has already written a response to each and every entry and so I'll be coordinating with him before the winner is revealed, but it should be soon. I'm guessing Wednesday.
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I spoke (by phone) with Agent Guy (and if someone can come up with a cleverer (ererer) monicker then please, by all means) this past Thursday. Spoke for about 45 minutes, mostly about the book. Long story short: I took out some stuff that I shouldn't have, and I still need to work on making the novel feel like one cohesive narrative. He's going to be sending me a detailed revision letter so for the next couple of months I'll be working on that. Wish me success. Or don't. Whatever. Be that way if you want.
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As is customary (and because I actually, sincerely, for reals appreciate it), thank yous are in order to the new followers:

• Jambuku, who's been an infrequent lurker in the past, but has decided to commit to the relationship.
• My good friend from high school, Sarah and her husband, Matty. I am one hundred percent sure that Sarah is the only reader I have in Ukraine.
• Myra, who appreciates potty humor and admits it (unlike Debra who suppresses her natural inclination to titter at anything with the word poop in it) and who is the best query writer I know. Girl sent out five queries and got three requests for fulls.
  
• Jodi, a girl who I grew up playing pickle with (that sounds wrong) at our fathers' softball games and who probably still has a deadly jump shot.
• Steve, who I don't know at all, but he's published books and has a new one coming out in July.
• And Shirley Harazin, author of Blood Brothers, the book I am currently reading.

Thanks for coming aboard, all!

Unfocused Friday

As noted by Tracy in "The Mexican Express" comments, Murphblog now has twenty-five followers. I have no idea how this happened. I'd like to think it is the result of intense and creative efforts by the underutilized Murphblog marketing team. They tell me that this spike in Followership is the fruits of their tireless labor. There was the free chip clip with proof of Followership, the zero percent financing, a direct mailing campaign, that donkey hoof promotion, and of course, who could ever forget the deluge of spam? But I don't believe them. Marketing people are notorious liars.

Nope, I think the explanation is far simpler. Dumb luck.

Well, dumb luck or ingenius marketing, thanks to Followers Sarah, Angie, Tina, and Betty for giving me the very pleasing number of 25. (Betty's reading The Order of Odd-Fish. I sell books too, Anita. Just not as many.)

And now, today's totally useless content...

School Story:

Our second grade classrooms tour places around town in an attempt to teach the chiddlers about their community. I work in the county seat, so one building they visited was the courthouse. As Mrs. H's class entered a courtroom last week, one child blurted out, "Hey Grandma! Hey Uncle Ron!"

Let's just say Grandma and Uncle Ron do not work at the courthouse.

Googling:

Like all bloggers, I have tracking software than enables me to see how people have arrived at Murphblog. One person today googled "Mike Murphy Mother What I Meant To Say Poem." I do not know the poem, but I imagine it's a rather sappy affair that only finds the light of day at this time every year. I wish I could have been there to see the look on the guy's face when, excited that he found what he was looking for and already imagining the tears it would bring to his grateful mother's eyes, he clicked on my blog and was confronted with runny poo.

Runny poo strikes again!

Blame Myra

Myra, you want runny poo? I'll give you runny poo.

(Dear The Wife and Debra, you may want to skip this one.)

THE MEXICAN EXPRESS


By Paul Michael Murphy


Last night I ate three tacos.
They tasted really great.
But now I've got a problem,
and it doesn't want to wait.
The train has left the station,
it's barreled down the track.
It's pushing at the barrier.
It's looking for a crack.
Sweat crawls down my forehead,
my stomach really hurts.
I sprint into the bathroom
I've got the Hershey squirts.

An Original Poem

BOOGER SURPRISE

By Paul Michael Murphy


When I get bored my fingers,
wander here and there.
Sometimes they scratch behind my ears,
sometimes they twirl my hair.
Today one went a'searching
in a place it often goes.
It passed my mouth and headed north,
it darted up my nose.
It was gone for quite a while,
but eventually withdrew.
And then I saw that it had found
some unappetizing goo.
I thought that I might wipe it
on the bottom of my chair,
but when I went to do so,
there was some already there.

So Here's the Deal(s)...

First, I'm sure most of you want to know whether or not your greatness has been recognized by James and I. The answer is, it has. But we don't have a winner. We do, however, have an excellent excuse.

James and his wife gave birth earlier today to a baby girl, Lucy Momo Kennedy. She weighed in at nine pounds, three ounces. James, being the conscientious judge that he is, immediately emailed me to request a postponement. Request was granted. If you'd like to wish him congratulations, his email address is kennedyjames@gmail.com.

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I have other news of interest.

First, I heard back from Agent Guy today and he has requested a second revision. Without getting too detailed, I swung the pendulum too far in the opposite direction. The good news: I now have one draft with too much and another with not enough. Between the two of them (and some more rewriting), I ought to be able to find a happy medium. One would think.

Also, I'm on facebook now. I don't know how one links to such a thing, but if you search me out (I'm using all three names, mostly because Chris likes it so much) I am confident you will find me. I've already found some of you.

Two pieces of entertainment commentary today:

1. If anyone knows how Danny Gans died will you please share? I did not know Danny Gans. I never saw Danny Gans perform. But if having your mug plastered all over town is a sign of importance (or totalitarian rule), than Danny Gans was one important (or possibly despotic) dude. What's the matter with the Vegas coroners anyway? Ever hear of something called "leaking information?"

2. Eddie Money, quite possibly the greatest living musician in the world, is branching out. Not content to mesmerize and inspire through his musical genius alone, Mr. Money has written an autobiographical musical. Money says, "It's different than (the Billy Joel-Twyla Tharp ballet) 'Movin' Out;' there are dancers and songs, but it does have a narrative arc, which I think is very important to the quality of it." If you're thinking, "That Eddie Money is one talented dude," then prepare to be shocked. He has also plans to release an album featuring country versions of his hits that he recorded last year in Nashville with John Ford Coley and a guest appearance by Vince Gill. Don't know about you, but when I hear "Two Tickets to Paradise" country-style, I just might die and proceed directly to heaven.


Almost done.

I won my second award, and just between me and my fellow bloggers, it's about flipping time. I mean, these things are being passed around like strung-out groupies in the back of Motley Crue's tour bus, and I've just now won my second? At least someone out there appreciates me. Thanks, Debra. I have to pass this award on to ten people, but this post is a little long already, so instead I'll go all-sixteenth birthday on y'all and post some pictures of my new whip. (That's what the kids call a "car" nowadays. Hip, huh?)

The Order of Odd-Fish Contest

The Order of Odd-Fish's mission is to research an appendix to an encyclopedia.

"It is an appendix of dubious facts, rumors, and myths. A repository of questionable knowledge, and an opportunity to dither about," explains Colonel Korsakov. The appendix holds information that is "unreliable or useless."

To this end, each knight of the Odd-Fish specializes in an area of research.


Sir Oort studies discredited metaphysics.
Dame Isobel--usual smells
Sir Alasdair--unlikely musical instruments
Dame Delia--absurd animals
Dame Myra studies improbable botany
Sir Festus researches ludicrous weaponry.
The main character's father studied imaginary languages.
Her mother studied obscure cults.

You get the idea.

THE CONTEST:

1. Describe your own Odd-Fish specialty.

2. Write a short proposal describing how you would go about pursuing your line of research.

3. Funny is good; absurd is better.

James has agreed to assist me with the judging. In the event of a disagreement, The Wife (mine) will cast the tie-breaker. (I'd ask Vice President Biden, but he's busy spreading mass panic.)

Contest runs through Sunday night at 9 p.m. EST. Any entry after that will have to be really good to win.

The winner will receive the following:

• A personalized, hardcover copy of The Order of Odd-Fish, straight from James Kennedy's very own library.
• The Order of Odd-Fish soundtrack, which can be heard here.
• James has offered to critique your work-in-progress (or finished novel in a drawer-- whatever). He would like me to relay that he has never taken a single writing class. He has, however, promised to do a "diligent, careful, and supportive job." But let's face it-- anything he tells you is probably going to be more helpful than your Aunt Helen's feedback. He's got a high-powered agent, a book published with Random House, and he's extremely well-read, so at the very least he'll be able to give you his honest opinion as a reader and isn't that what really counts anyway?
  

Begin!

The Order of Odd-Fish Week---James Kennedy Interview, Part Four

Before we get to the fourth and final part of the interview, a warning: Do not, under any circumstances, start reading The Stand any time soon. Unless, of course, you enjoy sleepless nights, paralyzing fear that someone in your presence will cough, and the possibility that life for us humans may be nearing its end. (I'll bet King didn't figure on pigs bringing us down, though.)

Today's interview questions have nothing at all to do with writing, so if you're looking for that sort of thing you should read the back issues. The following will enable you to get to know the real James Kennedy better than you probably realized you wanted to. You can know a person through his deeds. You can know him through his words. You might even make some accurate assumptions based on his shoes. But most of all, you can get to know a person by seeing how he refuses to be confined by a multiple choice format and instead gives whatever answer pleases him, thus rendering the title of this segment totally misleading.

Pick ‘Em:

90210 or Dawson’s Creek?

V.

Team Edward or Team Jacob?

Team Vulturi

Back to the Future or Indiana Jones?

Blue Velvet

Store-bought chocolate milk or mix your own?

I hate milk. (Editor's note)

Motley Crue or GN'R? (in their respective heydays)

I believe that the true heydays of both bands are still ahead of them. The true question is who would win in a fair fight: Dr. Feelgood or Mr. Brownstone?

Rappers: East Coast or West Coast?

What, no love for Midwest rappers?

Mario Kart or Simpsons Road Rage?

I bike or take public transportation.

Go for two or kick the extra point?

Switch the channel.

Cha-Cha Slide or Macarena?

Butoh

Best Jedi Perk: Mind-trick, telekinesis, or lightsaber?

Best Jedi perk is starting life as Ewan MacGregor and ending it as Alec Guinness.

And now, a reading. This one co-stars my daughter, who is two and a half. (Editor's note: The exploitation of Little One for the purposes of entertaining the readers of this blog was approved by The Wife.) As usual, Little One steals the show. However, because her diction is in the developmental stage, I have provided the transcript below. (Oh, and note the knife Little One wields. Pure happenstance, but it works, eh?)

Transcript:

In a flash of inspiration Ken Kiang barked "steak and eggs" and shoved the menu back at the waiter. Yes--steak and eggs must come with a steak knife! He could then kill the Belgian Prankster with the knife. It was a beautiful plan. Ken Kiang marveled at his own ingenuity. He was so clever it hurt.

"Actually, Mr. Kiang, it is fortunate you dropped by," said the Belgian Prankster. "There is some business I mean to conduct with you."

"Business!" cried Ken Kiang, standing. "There will be no 'business' between us, you mad Walloon, other than the business of vengeance!"

The Belgian Prankster snuffled merrily. "Still sore from my little joke, Mr. Kiang?"

"No man calls me a boobly-boobly-boo-boo and lives!"

"Oh, but Mr. Kiang, didn't you know?" said the Belgian Prankster slowly. "I am no man."

The Order of Odd-Fish Week---James Kennedy Interview, Part Three

What are you working on now, and can you tell us anything about it?

I’m working on a science-fiction comedy called The Magnificent Moots. It’s The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy meets Ender’s Game meets A Wrinkle in Time meets The Royal Tennenbaums. There might be a graphic novel aspect to it. If it comes off the way I hope it does, it will be delightfully strange, much weirder and funnier than The Order of Odd-Fish.

Other than imagining humorless critics as parasites living in your fingernails, how do you handle bad reviews?

I actually write all my bad reviews myself, in the occasional drunken fit of self-hatred, and publish them under pen names. No actual, competent reviewer would ever give me a bad review. What could they possibly criticize? To ask such a question is to answer it.

If you were to pretentiously start writing your autobiography tomorrow, what would you tentatively title it?

Iacocca: A Life.

The language in Odd-Fish is advanced. What is one word you really like that is NOT in the novel?

Let me see . . . nope, sorry, I got the words I wanted in there.

What is one thing that you have always and will always find hilarious?

This:

Finally, has the fire really been burning since the world’s been turning, or can we actually place blame on some individual, generation, or entire culture?

Billy Joel protests too much. I’m guessing he’s the one who started the fire.

Check back tomorrow for the following:

• Unlike V.P. Biden, James weighs in on the Great Chocolate Milk Debate, and the answer will shock you!
• The Order of Odd-Fish soundtrack
• My two-year old "reading" from James's book. (This one's iffy. She's a fast learner and all, but just a tad strong-willed.)

And on Thursday night, be the first to enter The Order of Odd-Fish contest!

The Order of Odd-Fish Week---James Kennedy Interview: Part Two

Today's questions deal with the book, The Order of Odd-Fish. For some reason, not everybody has read it yet (although I'm sure you all plan to), so here's Booklist's brief synopsis:

The basic plot of Kennedy’s first novel is fairly standard fantasy fare—Jo, a 13-year-old girl who gets whisked off to a strange world, discovers that she is a child of destiny and must combat evil forces bent on the destruction of the world—but it’s so dizzyingly arrayed with Monty Python–inspired window dressing that one might not notice. Jo is a squire to an order of knights dedicated to “fiddling about” and studying such topics as “the philosophy of napkins.” Talking cockroach butlers, a Russian colonel who takes orders from his digestive tract, and a villain called the Belgian Prankster, who wants to either destroy the world or tell the worst joke in history, are just a few of the blatantly weird characters that veer the story into the ludicrous at nearly every turn. Some might find it difficult to sustain interest in such determined high jinks, but in small doses, this is quite hilarious, and readers with a finely tuned sense of the absurd are going to adore the Technicolor ride.

And here's my review:

It rules.

And now, part two of my interview with James Kennedy:

The plot is pretty wild. Was it planned that way or did you just write awesome scenes and then try to figure out some way for the scenes to further the story?

A little bit of each. When I started Odd-Fish my only goal was to move from one entertaining scene to another, keeping the structure open-ended enough to accommodate whatever goofy idea I had next. But then I got to the point where Jo and her friends woke up in the belly of a fish, and they discovered a mysterious building in its stomach, with a mysterious man in the kitchen. And that’s when I started to ponder what exactly the story was about. I stopped writing for a year to brood over it, and I came up with Eldritch City, the Order of Odd-Fish, the legend of Jo as the All-Devouring Mother—the meat of the book. I revised the chapters I had written thus far to make them consistent with the new direction I was taking. But even though it was now turning into a proper “story,” and not a picaresque set of adventures, I wanted to preserve the beginning’s carefree romp feeling. But now I wanted the romp to begin to deepen and transform into something scarier, with higher stakes.

My favorite parts of the book are things that probably aren’t all that critical to the story. Were there more things like this in early drafts that you were asked to take out, or did you add some of the stuff in subsequent drafts to serve as sort of comedic interludes?

Surprisingly, almost everything that I wanted to be in the final version of Odd-Fish actually made it into the final version. The stuff that got left on the cutting room floor was edited out before I ever found an agent or a publisher. I don’t rule out introducing some of that material in a sequel. There was a comical subplot about Dame Isabel (whose specialty for the Order of Odd-Fish is unusual smells) doggedly hunting various scents around Eldritch City. There was a scary scene in the eelmen’s neighborhood. The beginning was longer, especially the scene at the Dust Creek Café. But I like the book as it stands, and I wouldn’t change anything about it now. I’m actually surprised I was able to publish it in the form I had envisioned. And really, even some scenes that seem arbitrary at first—such as Ken Kiang tempting Hoagland Shanks with increasingly avant-garde pies at the illicit patisserie in Paris—do have a role in the story as a whole, even though when you first read it, it may seem just like self-indulgence. But isn’t the very act of presuming to write a book self-indulgent?

What I really want to know is this: What is the philosophy of napkins?

Only years of earnest study and unsparing self-mortification will yield such difficult truths to the heart that is pure and the body that is undefiled. Let us not pry too deeply into higher realities that, if trifled with, would only annihilate our fragile souls. And the higher reality will laugh at you, even as it annihilates!

The cast is rather large. Any tips for writers dealing with similar population density?

Make every character as aggressively themselves as possible. The reader should be able to know Aunt Lily or Colonel Korsakov is speaking without the tags of “Aunt Lily said” or “Colonel Korsakov said.” If you can make a different character say the same line without loss of meaning, then the line is probably badly written.

Also, establish a kind of hierarchy among the characters. Humans are social animals, and when we’re confronted with a large group of people our minds instinctively try to figure out who’s on top of the pecking order and who’s not. We’re geniuses at figuring this out very quickly, so the writer should exploit this inborn ability in order to make the characters distinctive. Who’s the bully in the group? Who’s the martyr? Who’s the scapegoat? Who’s the person everyone rolls their eyes at? There’s one in every group. Who dislikes whom, and why? It can be a subtle pecking order, or even a dynamic one where roles are always shifting, but once you figure it out, characters become very distinct very quickly.

Even if the cast is large, the reader can hold all the personal information in their mind—indeed, it’s a pleasure to negotiate these imaginary social networks. Listen to kids talk about all the different rivalries, loyalties, loves and hates in the Harry Potter world. It’s a rich, complex social system, with many different elements, but we can keep track of it because it’s our nature.

My favorite scene in the book is the following:

You studied physics in college, so tell us this: is it really faster to run through the bag at first base than it is to dive headfirst into it? As a lifelong fan of Chet Lemon, I have my doubts.

David Lynch has an interesting idea about art called “The Eye of the Duck.” He says that, when you look at a duck, and grasp the relationship between all its parts, you realize that the duck’s eye is in precisely the right place on the duck’s body—that if the duck’s eye were placed on its abdomen it would get lost, or if the eye was located on its bill it would be too busy. There’s no firm reason, structurally speaking, that the duck’s eye should be where it is, in the center of the head—except that it’s perfect there and nowhere else.

David Lynch uses this to explain that in each one of his movies there’s a scene, which he calls the “eye of the duck” scene, which may be inessential to the plot and mechanics of the movie, but is absolutely crucial to the overall artistic effect of the movie. It’s the kind of scene a well-meaning editor (though, I hasten to say, not my editor) would want to cut in order to “keep the story moving.” But if you cut that seemingly extraneous scene, the entire work would suffer, though you couldn’t put your finger on why.

When Sir Oort explains to Jo the relationship of Eldritch City to our world, that’s the “eye of the duck” scene in The Order of Odd-Fish. It seems unnecessary, it doesn’t “move the story forward,” but it’s exactly where and what it should be, and in its own way it sums up the spirit of the whole book.

It’s also a kind of homage. When Sir Oort explains his crackpot cosmology of bugs on crumpled wads of paper to Jo, I’m referencing Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, when Mrs. Whatsit is describing tessering to Meg by asking her to imagine an insect crawling along a thread. I’m also referencing Douglas Adams’ The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, when Ford gives Arthur a convoluted, ridiculous story of how the universe began. It’s a kind of loving send-up of those “explanation scenes” you often have in speculative fiction.

And Chet Lemon was the “eye of the duck” of the 1980s Detroit Tigers.

There is no Acknowledgements page in the novel. Care to acknowledge anyone?

I regret not including an acknowledgements page. It wasn’t because I’m not thankful to my friends, family, editors, and agents. It was just that I was sick of the egotistical, ludicrous ten-page long acknowledgements I’ve seen in other books. There was a hilarious takedown of Elizabeth Wurtzel’s self-regarding acknowledgements sections in Salon a couple years ago, and the effect of reading it made almost all acknowledgements sections seem pompous to me.

But that’s an overreaction. I now realize that I should’ve thanked my wife, my family, friends who had read the various drafts, my agents Lisa Bankoff and Tina Wexler, my editors Stephanie Elliott and Amalia Ellison, and my publicist Dominique Cimina.

But you know what? I’m sure none of them are losing sleep over it.

To be sure, I didn’t include an author photo, either. If one is going to go through all the trouble to create a fantasy world, why include anything that yanks the reader back into our world? As a kid I would read books by, say, Madeleine L’Engle or Isaac Asimov, and all I really knew about them was their queer, fascinating names. From that scrap of data, my imagination filled in a kind of ideal author for me. Is anything else really necessary?

Here's James reading from his book. Note his enthusiasm in contrast to my own rather drab performance above. Sorry, I'm tired.

The Order of Odd-Fish Week---Part One

*Note--Please try to ignore any font or formatting issues that follow. Blogger hates me.

I first heard of James Kennedy through Jacqui's blog, where she linked to his post on the ALA Awards. I thought it was the funniest thing I'd read in a long time and so I vowed to buy his book, The Order of Odd-Fish. I finished it a couple of weeks ago. I liked it. A lot. It's the kind of highly imaginative book that I wish I could write. It's one of those books with parts crafted so deftly they demand to be read aloud (and I did, to The Wife). It is everything I like in a novel: smart, original, fun, and, most importantly, extremely entertaining. When I finished it I emailed James to tell him how much I enjoyed it. He emailed me back and offered to do an interview. I accepted, and because I went a little hog-wild with the questions, The Order of Odd-Fish Week was born.

I caught up with James through the magic of the Internet. Part one of my interview, in which I ask him some questions about writing and publishing, follows.


Complete this sentence: I write because…

I like my stories, and I think there should be more of them.

Tell us about the road to publication for The Order of Odd-Fish.

It took ten years, and it was a long, complicated, interesting road. I almost never worked on the manuscript full-time; years would go by and I wouldn’t look at it at all. In the meantime, I was busy teaching junior high school science, living and working in Japan and learning Japanese, writing other stories, traveling around Asia, working as a computer programmer, trying my hand at improv comedy, participating in music projects, helping my friends make a movie, throwing costume parties. All of those experiences contributed to what eventually became The Order of Odd-Fish.

When I finally finished the manuscript, I had a very hard time landing an agent. I didn’t have any contacts in the publishing world, so I just blindly sent out query letters to whomever I found in Publisher’s Marketplace. I got rejected by over a hundred agents. In my petty way, I logged them all into an Excel spreadsheet and saved all my rejection letters. When I visit schools for author events, I sometimes bring along a collage made of all the rejection slips I’ve ever received. The idea is to teach the students a lesson about perseverance, but when they see this big reject-collage, they just pity me. So I rarely bring it anymore.

I finally got my lucky break in 2006, after three years of rejections. Up until then, I had been only querying smaller agencies, because I figured the bigger agencies wouldn’t be interested in me. But after nearly everyone else had already rejected me, I figured, what do I have to lose? So I queried ICM—one of the biggest, most established agencies in the world—and I was shocked when I got a swifter, more polite, more professional response than any of the nickel-and-dime, dog-and-pony agencies that had rejected me before. And to my astonishment, ICM (through the agents Lisa Bankoff and Tina Wexler) wanted to represent me! It was a total up-is-down, the-world-is-insane moment for me. The mediocre agencies had said no, but the cream of the crop was saying yes!

But my trials weren’t over yet. Lisa and Tina landed a deal with a major publishing house—but the editor wanted to cut the manuscript’s length in half. I was aghast. The editor’s rationale was that “long fantasy doesn’t sell.”

Huh?

I realized I couldn’t work with this editor. Even though this was the only deal on the table, I walked away from it.

It was a difficult decision. Was I burning my only bridge? Was I walking away from the only deal I was likely to get? What if no other publisher offered to buy Odd-Fish? But I couldn’t conceive of putting out Odd-Fish in a mangled, truncated form. I stuck to my guns—and amazingly, through their mystical agent ninjutsu, which I can’t even begin to fathom, Lisa and Tina somehow got me another deal, this time with Random House’s Delacorte Press, with a fantastic editor, Stephanie Elliott, who is a great fit for my sensibilities.

So everything worked out after all. But it was a long wait, there were some risky decisions, and there were some harrowing moments.

What was a lesson you learned while writing your first book?

I learned that it’s okay to plan and structure the book in advance, which is something I resisted at first. When I started Odd-Fish in earnest, I wrote in a very improvisational style. The story went wherever the jokes went. I discovered that you can generate some good scenes this way, but I eventually also realized the story as a whole wasn’t hanging together in a larger sense. I had to do a lot of retroactive editing to previous chapters every time I finished a new chapter. I found out that without a good overall structure, even the best, funniest individual scene will fall flat.

I’d never taken a creative writing class, and I didn’t know where to start when it came to story structure. So I sat at bookstore cafes and read book after book on screenplay structure. I found them to be really helpful. The screenplay books had a no-nonsense, frankly mercenary tone that appealed to me. I didn’t follow them to the letter, but it was nice to learn what was conventional good structure. Once I had a clearer idea of story structure, I gained the confidence to go off on flights of weirdness without being afraid that the whole metabolism of the story would be disrupted. Structure gave me the freedom to be weirder.

Coming Up:

Tomorrow night: Interview Part Two: The Book (including a vee-log of me reading from The Order of Odd-Fish. And I know how much you all love the vee-log.)

Tuesday: Interview Part Three: About the Author (new pictures included!)

Wednesday: Interview Part Four: Pick 'Em--In which James makes a stunning revelation about chocolate milk!

Thursday: The Order of Odd-Fish Contest--Win an personalized copy of the book and a copy of The Order of Odd-Fish soundtrack!

Sunday: Contest winner announced

While you're waiting, buy James's book. Amazon makes it really easy.

Husband Fail

About a week ago The Wife gave me a new job. I did not apply for it. She said, "Murph, your job is to remind me to brush Little One's teeth before bed." I said okay, although I was pretty sure I'd forget.

Last night, The Wife attended a charity fundraiser (that sounds a lot cooler than it actually was), so it was left to me to put Little One to bed. I was very proud of myself for remembering to brush her teeth. I walked her into the bathroom and grabbed her tiny toothbrush. Then I looked for the toothpaste. I vaguely remembered that Little One used different toothpaste than Mommy and Daddy did. There was a tube lying next to our toothpaste so I assumed that was it. I grabbed it, squeezed some out on the toothbrush and went to work. Little One started gagging and I thought, "Oh, she's like me," because I gag easily. In fact, of all the scary things in a doctor's examining room, tongue depressors fill me with the most dread. I've considered hiding them before. So I kept brushing her teeth and things were going well. Except for the gagging business.

Then I went to rinse the toothbrush and the stuff was not acting like toothpaste. It was like washing butter off a knife. It got wet and smeary and I suppose some came off, but mostly it just spread and became real filmy.

Me: Hmm, this isn't right.

So I picked up the tube. DESITIN, it said.

Me: Oops.

I told Little One that I used the wrong toothpaste and quickly went to work scrubbing her teeth and tongue with a towel. I got most of it. Then we brushed teeth for realsies and I gave her a huge cup of water.

Me: Let's not tell Mommy about this one, okay?
Little One: Did you use the wrong toothpaste, Dad?
Me: Yeah.
Little One: I didn't like it.
Me: I'm not surprised.

Put her to bed. Checked the google to see how toxic zinc oxide is (not very, thank God). Waited for The Wife to get home, which she did minutes later. I fessed up for three reasons.

1. Little One would have told her anyway.
2. It was funny.
3. Chances are high I'll be banned from doing this job henceforth. And that wouldn't be all bad.