Mort Castle

MY BIRTHDAY GIFT FOR YOU

 

The day this column appears, July 8,  is my birthday. I am 63. I do not feel a day over 62.

And truly, I am upbeat about the whole aging thing. I mean, we have the optimistic words of Cicero, who sagely said:

As I give thought to the matter, I find four causes for the apparent misery of old age; first, it withdraws us from active accomplishments; second, it renders the body less powerful; third, it deprives us of almost all forms of enjoyment; fourth, it stands not far from death.

Cheery guy, huh? You know … If life hands you a lemon, say, “What in the hell do I want with a goddamn lemon? And besides, I’m allergic.”

Not that I’m feeling old … But my thumbs hurt. I mean, arthritic thumbs: Where the hell’s the telethon for that? You contribute to the March of Thumbs lately? And you know, I’m a guitar player, and the thumb thing is not doing my Travis picking any good.

You see, the syncopated style of thumb and forefinger playing was pretty much developed by Merle Travis (who wrote “Sixteen Tons”)–and right up until the end of his life, he was known for the limberness of his thumbs. He died at age 66 … Goddamn.

Here’s another Power of Positive Thinking quote:

There was no respect for youth when I was young, and now that I am old, there is no respect for age–I missed it coming and going. –J.B. Priestly

You mean Rodney Dangerfield “I don’t get no respect” nailed it?

Anyway, as a writer at this stage of my life, I’ve started to clear away that which I no longer need and / or will never use. I got rid of the four Citizen ribbons for the dot matrix printer that spouted first noise, then smoke, then flame back in 1987. I donated to the library my issues of Writer’s Digest from 1973-1978, including that so helpful issue in which Richard Bach, author of  Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah offered his “10 Point Checklist for Writing Popular Philosophy.” I pitched that letter from Vantrash Publishing that assured me they were indeed seeking new authors and that subsidy publishing had been the route that led to Edgar Alan Poe’s success and lifelong happiness.

But I came across a number of story openings from years gone by. Just openings. The stories didn’t get written. And I decided I was as likely to write the stories sometime soon as I am to take up ballet.

So, here is my … Happy Birthday Gift to you!

More than a few writers have declared launching the story is the most difficult task in the entire storymaking process, so …

Take any one of the story prompts below.

(I still like ‘em. Really.)

Write the story.

Keep it under 1,500 words.

Send it to me before August 8 (of 2009–this year in which I am 63 years old!) as an attachment to onlywrite@aol.com. Slap Storytellers Prompt in the subject line.

The three I like the best will win … What else? I’ll send you a Mort Castle book of some sort, a rarity that will be signed to you (or to Ebay upon request).

Now howzat for a birthday gift …–from the birthday guy who, truly, is not feeling all that old, in part because of his good and artistic wife, his jolly friends and talented students who do not allow fossilizing, and those wonderful people who’ve gratified me by giving a chunk of their lives to reading what I’ve had to offer.

Cherish all your happy moments: they make a fine cushion for old age. –Booth Tarkington

 

I. It was Saturday night. Harlinville’s graveyard.  The full moon was lovely, Lee Anna thought. It was silver and it was gold. The night was beautiful, warm but not muggy, with a breeze so gentle sometimes it surprised you, because, suddenly, when you weren’t noticing anything else, there, there it was.

Lee Anna Covington was 15. Her father was A) _______, B) _______, C)_________ or D) Who the hell knows or gives a double-dutch goddamn. Her mother was a drunk and a doper and a whore.

###

II. Last Saturday, I asked Phyllis why it is that no one warns you: Middle-age is hard. There are times it seems you are either coping with loss or  preparing  to cope with loss.

Phyllis said she could have told me that a while ago.

But I would not have been ready to listen.

###

III. “Nobody ever dies there,” he said.

“Fathers don’t go away there,” she said.

“No.”

“No one goes away. They don’t go away and leave their little girls alone.”

“They don’t go away.”

“–don’t go away and leave you alone.”

“…alone you got no chance, no chance.”

She called herself Chance, EZ Chance and that’s the way it was for her. The aloneness.

 

YOU’VE GOT TO READ THIS!

 

The title of my entry today has been shamelessly stolen from a book called (what else?) YOU’VE GOT TO READ THIS. Edited by Ron Hansen and Jim Shepard, it’s published by Harper Perennial, and is subtitled CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN WRITERS INTRODUCE STORIES THAT HELD THEM IN AWE.

 You probably already have a pretty good idea of what the work offers, but Donna Seaman’s BOOKLIST review will give you the details:

 Writers are passionate readers because literature is an ongoing dialogue. And you can learn a lot about writers by knowing what they love to read. Editors Hansen and Shepard decided to ask some of their favorite American writers to identify stories that fell into their you’ve-got-to-read-this category. The end result is an anthology of terrific tales introduced by essays that open windows onto the creative process of 35 top fiction writers. Each story is introduced by the writer who was inspired, intimidated, or moved to extreme emotion on reading it. Here’s some examples: John Irving chose “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens; Mary Gordon selected “The Dead” by James Joyce; Oscar Hijuelos acknowledged his debt to Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Aleph”; Lorrie Moore was stunned by John Updike’s “Packed Dirt, Churchgoing, a Dying Cat, a Traded Car”; Joyce Carol Oates picked Kafka’s unforgettable “In the Penal Colony”; and Louise Erdrich couldn’t get over Robert Stone’s “Helping.” This is almost a two-for-one deal for story-lovers: a glimpse into the reading minds of one set of popular and talented authors, together with a selection of outstanding stories by their mentors and peers.

 All of us who write–and, I dare say, all of us who really read–have had that book or that story or that poem that has sent us out into the madding crowd, grabbing people by the arm, not suggesting, not urging, not recommending, but dictatorially telling ‘em, “You’ve got to read this”–and then adding the essential “because …”

 Of course, your “You’ve got to read this” guidelines can and will change as you change; that’s how it works. As somebody (Lionel Trilling? W. H. Auden? Harold Bloom? Wayne Allen Sallee?) said, “Real books read us,” and US is a dynamic and malleable beast as we live and grow and grow older and grow old. Maybe once you were that 13 kid waving CATCHER IN THE RYE and yelling, “You’ve got to read this because this Salinger guy HAD TO BE living in my house and in my head to know my real true feelings so well … ” Chances are, you’re not that same kid today and CATCHER doesn’t catch you in QUITE the same way. I’ve had two different nephews tell me that STAR WARS was the best book ever written–in fact, all the STAR WARS books were the best books ever written because all the STAR WARS movies were the best movies ever movied, but these fine lads, having aged a tad, are no longer certain that the Skywalker and Co. saga belongs on the same shelf with WAR AND PEACE.

 All the above is by way of wordier than usual prologue, so that now I can say to you: You’ve got to read this.

 My criteria: I’m doing a shout-out only about stuff I’ve recently read–say, in the past year. I’m bringing to your attention a writer whose work can be found relatively easily, and yet a writer who’s not a brand name like Grisham or Patterson or Drano or Ajax. I’m pointing out to you–no, I’m telling you–YOU’VE GOT TO READ THIS.

 It’s a story called “Wickedness.”

 It breaks most of the rules of short story writing. Indeed, it might be called “experimental writing,” but unlike much of that oeuvre, this is an experiment which deserves to leave the laboratory because it succeeds. It does not have a single main character, as a proper story (ahem) ought. Instead, it gives us a series of characters and each is as main as the other.

 Nor does “Wickedness” have anything like a traditional “A leads to B, B leads to C” PLOT. Instead, we have a series of vignettes presenting the characters who are caught up in a sudden Nebraska blizzard in 1888. Some of them live, some live but are damaged, some die. (Vonnegut might add here, “And so it goes …”)

 But in its presentation of that blizzard, the story does something to me I’ve never previously experienced in a short work of fiction: It makes me feel the intensity of the cold, the dead white quiet in the center of the winds, the smallness that is our human lot when hit by–apologies for the cliché—a “Force of Nature.” (yes, I’ve had a similar feeling when reading Dan Simmons’s masterful novel THE TERROR, but a short story has intensity that a novel, a lengthy novel, cannot provide.)

 In previous UNPLUGGED columns I’ve quoted Cyril Connolly’s “Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice.” I’ll be reading “Wickedness” again, more than twice, pondering the title, feeling that blizzard, and observing moments in lives rendered in words with the memorability of an Impressionist master painter giving us scenes of the ordinary–and unforgettable.

 Oh, I see I’ve forgotten to mention the author of “Wickedness”; why, it’s none other than … Ron Hansen, YOU’VE GOT TO READ THIS! co-editor (with Jim Shepard, also a dynamite fictionist).

 I’ve been reading Ron Hansen’s books for years and using them in my classes at Columbia College Chicago. He’s a writer of tremendous range, giving us THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD and HITLER’S NIECE — and a modern comedy of manners / errors novel called ISN’T IT ROMANTIC?: AN ENTERTAINMENT. Other books include ATTICUS and MARIETTE IN ECSTASY and the nonfiction A STAY AGAINST CONFUSION: ESSAYS ON FAITH AND FICTION, which proves that “religious writing” does not have to be on the level of “God has a Son on the Honor Roll in Heaven” / bumper sticker theology. His writing has never disappointed me …

 –But “Wickedness” astounds me.

 You can find the story in Hansen’s collection NEBRASKA from The Atlantic Monthly Press.

 It’s my “You’ve got to read this!” for this STORYTELLERS UNPLUGGED.

 And to my fellow UNPLUGGED STORYTELLERS and all the readers of this blog, I’m asking:

 What’s yours?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

PS. Apologies for the early post, but I’m moving around and about some these days–and have to tack stuff onto the bulletin board when I can at a time “close” to when I’m supposed to …

 

Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.
–T. S. Eliot (1888 – 1965)

Ah, sometimes the burning bush talks, and instead of an offer for male enhancement drugs by email, you are given the chance to, once again, don the editorial chapeau and…

Tally ho! I am now the editor of DOORWAYS, and though publisher Brian Yount has dubbed me Chief Editor or Editor-in-Chief, I do not have or want control of artistic design, in that I can barely perceive parallel lines let alone draw them, nor, for that matter, all the magazine’s editorial content: a number of the magazine’s articles deal with paranormal, supernatural, metaphysical True Facts such as former President Jimmy Carter’s fishing trip on which he was attacked by a somewhat demonic rabbit and the latest attempt by the government backed AMA to suppress chicken soup cures for the common cold. The far outré is simply not my bailiwick: I was abducted by Grays in my eighth year and conveyed to their native planet (called Indiana) where I was given all the wax lips, Silly Putty, and Playboys I desired, but I had to promise my otherworldly benefactors I would never explore or exploit “Such things as Humanity was not meant to know” unless we watched A&E in the afternoon.

So, for DOORWAYS, I am handling much of the non-paranormal themed non-fiction, like arranging and editing the interviews with authors who actually abide in this dimension (you’ll soon get to meet novelist-publisher-educator-Italian Tom Monteleone, Ray Bradbury biographer Snappy Sam Weller, and fictionist-philosopher-Elvis impersonator Wayne Allen Sallee). But mostly, I’m editing the fiction that appears in DOORWAYS. Horror fiction, fantasy fiction, avant-garde, post-modern retro-fitted neo-noir, para-ultra-ab-normal fiction.

Good fiction. That is what I seek.

(Good fiction: to paraphrase Nixon’s Strokin’ Supreme Court attempting to define pornography—“I know it when I see it… Yeah!”)

Good fiction. That is what a number of people have sent me.

What I say to such people is, “Hey, that’s good. I’m going to use that.”

Fiction that could be good. That is what a number of people have sent me. If you send me something that wants to be good, that strives to effectively present your fictive vision, I will do what I can to help you achieve your goal.

And so I say things to such authors like…

A short story must be credible, a lie that can be believed. 
That’s because no one wants to be lied to. When reading a story a reader must be able to say, “Yes, given these circumstances, this could really happen.”

And credibility results when story people act like real people–or real people who have sense and act upon it.

Now, when do your story people stop acting like real people who have sense…

Or I say things like …

Remember, good dialogue sounds as real as real life conversations — without being as boring or meandering as 
most real life conversations.

Or I say things like …

A well developed protagonist is a fictional someone who is every bit as alive and just as much a unique individual as anyone we really know–really well–out here in RealityLand. That way we get to know the character so well that we like or dislike, or hate him. You never want a reader to feel only indifference toward a character–which is what we do feel toward people (fictional or real!) that we don’t know well.

And that means you must know your characters just about as well as you know yourself.

That’s why, when I undertake a novel, I put together a 10 to 15 page single spaced character sketch for each of my principals. My reader might never need to know if my protagonist prefer s real mayo to Miracle Whip, if his first car was a cherry red ‘67 Ford Mustang, if he likes Willie Nelson’s songs but can’t stand looking at the singer, if he had a pet collie named Lizzie when he was five, etc.–but I have to know if I am to present this character as a three-dimensional, well rounded human being–as I must.

And often, when seeing “could be good” fiction, I ask the submission’s submitter to submit a revision after thinking about my comments.

Then there’s, ah, other stuff I see.

For instance, little notes which serve as introductions for stories:

I know your guidelines say you want stories of no more than 3,500 words. This runs slightly over that: 8,500. I hope, though, you’ll make an exception in your word count requirements because…

At 8,500 words, my friend, your story had better be Moby Dick—with all sorts of new stuff about improving harpoon accuracy—and if you have that info in your story, you had better be Herman Melville.

But you wouldn’t tell Stephen King to limit his creative wonderfulness to 3,500 words. You wouldn’t tell Peter Straub to limit his creative wonderfulness to 3,500 words. You wouldn’t tell Herman Melville to limit his creative wonderfulness to 3,500 words.

No, but I will tell you to limit yourself to 3,500 words—the way our guidelines tell you to limit yourself to 3,500 words.

Or the cover letter that reads:

Hey, Mort, and how’s it goin’, man? Hope all is well with you.

Mind you, this comes from someone I’ve never met when I was in a conscious state, but hey, we have English in common, and we both can afford Internet service, so the tone is supposed to be chummy myfacey, right?

So … Well, thanks for you concern, but to tell the truth, even though my blood pressure is pretty all right and the cholesterol what it should be, I’m having a lot of pain in my left foot. I’m afraid I might have a spur on the heel. And, when the weather changes suddenly, my knees make it pretty rough to get up and down the stairs with the grace and speed for which I was once known.

Anyway, dude, I’m sending you my story. I think it’s pretty awesome. It’s made for that magazine you edit, I forget the name, okay? So, man, as soon as you can, let know when you want to use it.

Peace, man.

Thanks, man, and you know, I forget to mention above, but I’ve been having like memory problems myself, dude. Like I can’t remember what magazine it is I’m supposed to be editing but, you know, I’m sure that it’s an awesome magazine and as soon as I remember, I’ll let you know if I remember so we can use your awesome story, if I remember.

Another submission, from someone striving to convince me of his professionalism: He has… credits!

I’m sending you my story, “Southbound on the Westbound in the Night of the Long Day.” I have previously published novels with Authorhouse, Iuniverse, and Exlibris.

Let’s hold it there. I am of course pleased to learn of a writer’s credits: It helps me know if other gatekeepers have chosen to swing wide the portal and bid you enter the Realm of the Published.

But Authorhouse, Iuniverse, Exlibris, Exuniversalauthorhouse, ColorMeWriter, BookABunch Buddies… You haven’t been published—that is what you are telling me. You are either naive about writing professionally or you are pathologically and pathetically egotistical about publishing—that is what you are telling me. You are not for real—that is what you are telling me.

That is how you have introduced your story.

Then we have the cutey-pie-see-how super-eccentric and therefore creative as SponegeBob Jesus I am…

My story came to me from the mouth of Hell. It bubbled up in my brain as I lay in the viaduct where I squat with 17 gerbils named Fred. This is lair of the Siggorth Luvkraft and the Ramalamadingdong. Outside of that, I work as an account executive for Winky’s Hockey Puck, Inc.

Ah, I get it: You’re not writing surrealism. You live it. Obviously, you’ve mistaken me for Pharmacopeias by Mail and you need to visit their website to refill your prescription.

Now, truthfully, here is a recently received cover letter:

Here is my story. Thank you for your consideration.

Here is my response.

Every word of your 750 word story is a needed word. There’s cleverness in the language. And your writing is obviously informed by the wide, wide, wide of world of thinking and reading…

I read this and I’m glad I did.

I want your story.

The story is called “The Tiniest Souls.” It’s by Brian Price. You’ll be reading it in DOORWAYS.

It’s a good story—which is what this editor wants.

Mort Castle

by Mort Castle

If you wish to succeed as a writer, you have to have ambition. You’ve heard that before. Of course, there are some dissenting voices to be heard:

Ambition is the last refuge of failure.
–Oscar Wilde

It is the constant fault and inseparable evil quality of ambition, that it never looks behind it.
–Seneca

Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices: so climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping.
–Jonathan Swift

It should go without saying, but I am going to say it: a writer has to have talent. Of course, there are different ways to look at talent.

If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent.
–Isaac Newton

Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson

As writers, we know that we must strive for originality.

About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment.
–Josh Billings

No question, though, if you unite ambition, talent, and originality, why, writer, you can make… ART! You can be an ARTIST!

Fashion is a potency in art, making it hard to judge between the temporary and the lasting.
–E. C. Stedman

The people who make art their business are mostly imposters.
–Pablo Picasso

Well, maybe we don’t want to aim that high. We’ll settle for just entertaining, right?

The only way to amuse some people is to slip and fall on an icy pavement.
–Ed Howe

And let’s not forget, as writers we have the opportunity to teach–and there are many interesting lessons we can provide:

I teach that all men are mad.
–Horace

To be good is noble, but to teach others how to be good is nobler—and less trouble.
–Mark Twain

He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.
–George Bernard Shaw

But no matter how you view it, writing is a great business.

Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile.
–Sinclair Lewis

Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.
–Jules Renard

Hope you’ve enjoyed these words about words, my words of wisdom for this installment of STORYTELLERS UNPLUGGED.

Cleverness is not wisdom.
–Euripides

Oh, yeah? Sez who?
–Mort Castle

By Mort Castle

The most exciting and moving romantic vampire story since somebody else wrote an exciting and moving romantic vampire story.
Lualu Beeble
Author of the Fabio LaCroix Vampio
series of Moving Romantic Vampire Novels

Page turner plot, characters more multi-dimensional than Sybil, heart stopping suspense, low in trans fat, and providing long lasting spiritual renewal, Joe’s Big Tush is the read of week!

Morg E. Lualu
Author of Chicken Soup for Chickens

Every so often, writers ask me for blurbs: those chockfull of pith quotes that can be slapped on a book’s cover or dust jacket and are guaranteed to boost sales by at least 127%.

(Digression: Either that or they don’t…Hey, I just bought a book because it was blurbed by Joyce Carol Oates, who wrote, “There are many words in this book.” Then again, every so often, I see a blurb on a book and that does make me say, “No thanks; if that yutzo likes it, not my speed.”)

Sometimes I say, “Yes, of course I am happy to write a blurb for your book.” This response is warranted when I’m dealing with a writer whose work I know—and have known—for a goodly length of time. If a Bob Weinberg, Gary Braunbeck, Wayne Allen Sallee, or Liz Massie were to seek a Mort mini-paean of praise for a book, there’d be no question: these writers are bonded. The worst book they could come up with would be a noble failure; the best book… Well, take a look at Ms. Massie’s Wire Mesh Mothers or Mr. Sallee’s The Holy Terror.

Sometimes I say to I. Seeka Blurb… No.

Why the negative?

Oh, that could be because I just plain don’t feel like it. Hey, this fame thing… you get tired of seeing your name everywhere, you know.

Or it could be because I am simply not the right reader for your work. If you’ve read all the Tom Clancy books and you are writing “in the tradition of Tom Clancy” then you probably should ask Tom Clancy for a blurb because Tom Clancy is not my taste—though I recognize his professional word-slinging skill and have no problem with the fans of his work, because one man’s ceiling is another man’s sauna, etc.

Or it could be because… I’ve seen your work and you’re more likely to be one more anonymous name on the roster of a 12 Step Program held in the basement of a Methodist church in Bungee, Wisconsin than on the NY Times Bestsellers list.

Or it could be because… You are a jerk. You have done something bad-jerky that involved me, my friends, the community of decent people, and I am not Buddha enough not to carry a grudge, so, hell yeah… I’ll give you a blurb—if I can be assured it will be on any work of yours published posthumously.

You jerk.

But to most blurb-seekers I say neither yes nor no.

I am the “Maybe Man.”

Certainly I am gratified—hell, flattered—when someone thinks a word of commendation from me might matter.

But I am careful. I do not hand out those commendatory utterances like the new kid at school passing out Valentines on 02/14.

(Digression: Are there authors who do that? Probably not. Nah… I don’t know where the idea might have come from…)

What I say to most people who request a Mort-blurb…

Mort on the Soap Box:

I like to think that when I praise something, it means I am praising it. I like to think that I have earned a reputation for having taste. I like to think that readers think I think.

Therefore…

I will read your book.

If I can honestly say, “I like this,” then I will indeed say that. Publicly. Loudly. And happily.

And, I hope, with more word-élan than you have here.

After all, this guy has been a teacher since the decade Dewey started his Decimal System, and educating means you guide people to what is worth reading.

If I have to say, “No, I am sorry; I cannot laud your endeavor,” then I will also say so. To you. And to no one else.

I owe you that.

And of course, I realize—unlike other egoistic, narcissistic, solipsistic souls—that my opinion is just and only my opinion. I recently said “Sorry, this doesn’t make it” to an author whose book proved to not need a Mort Castle blurb: instead, the publisher used a nice quote from Publisher’s Weekly.

Mort Castle’s latest book is the newest book to be released since his last book.
–Mort Castle
Storytellers Unplugged

by Mort Castle

We at Storytellers Unplugged know that many of our readers come for advice: they seek to be wildly successful writers, just like all of us Unplugs.

It’s 2007. It is the dawning of the Age of Aquarium. Time to quit handing out the same old bromides, borscht, and boushwah: Read widely. Revise constantly. Study the markets. Mumbo-jumbo-tick-a-tee hoo-hah …

I am coming clean in this new year. Here’s the real stuff.
(Oh, you ask why I didn’t share this before? Truth: I was afraid you’d become my competition. But things have gone so well for me lately that I now devote all of Wednesday and most of Thursday to counting my money.)

FICTION OR NON-FICTION
Which should I write?

A lot more non-fiction than fiction is published.

But think about what non-fiction is: It’s factual! Facts require research. If you want to learn how to square your hypotenuse or bronze baby shoes or babies, if you’re checking out the history of fried foods and the manufacture of 45 RPM record inserts, if you want to assemble a discography of pop superstar Debbie Boone or a list of Uganda’s five star hotels, you’re going to have to spend as much as many hours looking up stuff!

Fiction is all made up.

You can make up stuff a lot quicker than you can look up stuff.

End of discussion.

WRITING RESOURCES

What about “how to” magazines like The Writer and Writer’s Digest? You think those magazines are designed to give you knowledge?

Wrong.

They are meant to sell you things.
That is why they are loaded with advertising. Here’s a “Glow in the Dark” porta-desk to use while hanging upside in the closet by your “Increase Acuity & Dizziness Grav Boots” and “Think-n-Type Thought Recognition Software” and “Summer Camp for Short (under 5′ 1″) Story Writers,” and …

You probably already have a computer or a typewriter or a pen or a pencil. Or a crayon if you are not permitted to use sharp objects.

You don’t need anything else.

You need to write stuff.

But aren’t there books that …

Certainly there are books. And where do you see them advertised?

Get it now?

AVOIDING THE READING TRAP

Become an avid reader in the genres you wish to write as well as in all forms of literature, popular, literary, classical.

And don’t talk back to your mother with your mouth full, especially on a day in which you’re not certain if your underwear is clean.

Nobody pays you to read books.

You get paid for your writing.

You can waste as much time reading as you can researching.

Perhaps as important, it’s possible you’ll damage all your wonderful, original, originality because of influences picked up from reading all the stuff out there.
Put pernicious published writings into your cerebrum and next thing you know, you’re writing To Kill a Hummingbird and The Lovely Ligaments or A Staggering Work of Heartburning Genius or The Silence of the Chickens.

You don’t need other writers.

Trust yourself. Plato said that. Or Newt Gingrich. Or Jesus.

Somebody said it. I’m not going to waste time looking up who.

LIFE EXPERIENCES = DOODLE E SQUAT

How often have you been told that your very own life is the best source of writing ideas?

Go to the mirror, my friend. That is one sad sack of a schlepper looking back at you. Dull? If you were a food, you’d be Crisco.

Today I’m going to write a novel based on my having had root canal three weeks ago. And let’s not forget that grippingly dramatic and dramatically gripping brouhaha when my little sister ate my orange popsicle and …

Hey, tell me you actually read anyone’s “Holiday Newsletter”; that dreck is news like the “Benjamin Franklin Invents Electricity” is tomorrow’s headline. You are living your own newsletter and it’s a chronology of events that would make Dale Carnegie deem you a walking coma.

As a writer, your life is utterly worthless and meaningless for creating stories people will want to read.

Accept it and move on. Or if you’re having trouble dealing with it, tune in Oprah or Dr. Phil or Jerry Springer or Judge Judy …

THANK GOD GOD INVENTED TELEVISION

Television is a writer’s best friend.
It is full of ideas that are sure to appeal to mass audiences.
You argue?

The losingest loser of a television program, something that is canceled in 47 minutes flat, still has a bigger audience than any bestselling novel!

Television show concepts are certain to resound with your audience.

But won’t the audience reject an imitation of a TV show …

Uh, that’s why there is only one successful Survivor type show. Right. That’s why American Idol has spawned all sorts of Fill in the blank Idol–with Hillbilly Yokel Klezmer Idol scheduled to debut this March.

So, let’s turn on the television and get ready for a deluge of dynamite ideas: The desperate housewife who yearns to work with Donald Trump is Lost beyond Jericho as she attempts to slay a vampire who is Sammy Soprano, the Bloodsucker of The Next Generation.

ESSENTIAL WRITING TECHNIQUES

Dialogue
“Said” is a very boring word. Your fourth grade teacher was absolutely right to tell you that; after all, she earned her job teaching fourth grade.

Here are a whole bunch of words that are much neater and more awesome than said: laughed rejoiced giggled joked lilted sang out cried agonized bawled blubbered lamented sobbed groaned sniveled wept mourned insisted bossed demanded preached dictated professed ordered raged miffed seethed fumed retorted thundered blurted barked cried out cried screamed jabbered bellowed groaned howled shrieked roared grieved wailed yelped quaked stammered shuddered quivered trembled empathized accepted consoled crooned comforted sympathized agreed mumbled struggled emitted wearied beseeched begged implored pleaded entreated responded retorted replied rejoined acknowledged acquiesced added addressed ad-libbed admitted admonished advised advocated affirmed agreed alleged allowed announced articulated assented asserted assumed averred avowed babbled beckoned …

There are more.

To show how these words can enliven what might otherwise be dull dialogue:

“Oh!” she babbled, “Yes! Like that!” She gasped. “More!” she entreated.

“Oh! Ah!! Oh, oh, ah … Oh, oh, oh!” he ejaculated.

Strong Language

We’re not talking about active verbs and specific nouns: We live in a time in which dirty language has become commonplace and if you want today’s readers to respond to your writing, then you had better use strong language and lots of it.
Not:

“I’m sorry to tell you, Mersault, but Mother is dead.”

Mersault put a hand to his forehead. “Mother … Dead… ”

But:

“I’m fucking sorry to fucking tell you, the fuck, Mersault, but fucking Mother is fucking dead.”

Fucking Mersault put a fucking hand to his fucking forehead.

And we punch it up with:

“Mother Fucking … Dead the Fuck…” Mersault sobbed sobbingly.

We live in an age of honest and open communication, so don’t fuck around.

Gimmick
A signature gimmick helps any writer.

Kurt Vonnegut at his most profound or with nothing to say will toss in “And so it goes.”

The early Charles Bukowski avoided capital letters in his stories.

Charles Frazier used — instead of ” ” and wound up winning a National Book Award for Cold Mountain.

You can borrow the gimmicks of others or mix ‘n’ match and combine ‘em with your own:

–i’m fzcking sorry to fzcking tell you, the fzck, mersault, but fzcking mother is fzcking dead ώ ώ ώ ώ ώ

fzcking mersault put a fzcking hand to his fzcking forehead ώ ώ ώ ώ ώ –mother fzcking … dead the fzck… mersault sobbed sobbingly ώ ώ ώ ώ ώ

THE CONFIDENT MARKETER

Writers fail for the same reason everyone fails. They don’t believe in their work.
You believe, right? You know your stuff is good. You know there are still all those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. You know the tooth fairy is rubbing her hands waiting for your molars! You believe!

When you have completed a manuscript, it’s time to send it to a publisher. Do so with confidence. Show that you are aware of the shining worth of your creation and that the entire world had damned well better give heed.

No wimpy letter, then, along the lines of …

that you will please, please, I most heartily entreat you, consider my humble manuscript for …

But:

Listen Up! Here’s a bestseller! You thought the Bible had an audience? 24 of The Virgin Springer will revolutionize the revolution and unscrew the inscrutable …

So are you going to publish it or are you going to lose a gazillion dollars?

That’s it. With what you know now you’re on the way to one bestseller after another.
Thanks to me.

You’re welcome. The fzck.

–Mort

by
Mort Castle

I don’t know about you, but like a lot of writers, I read those “Notes on Contributors” that appear in anthologies and literary magazines. They give you real insight into the writing processes and pathologies of the people you call your colleagues or competition.
There are those we see as prolific:

LORRAINE LIFTSHOES has had poetry in more than 17,000 literary magazines in the past month. Recovering from a recent lung, kidney, and liver transplant, she has had to slow down considerably. “I feel a tremendous urge to write poems,” she says. “I can only wonder how much greater my output would be if I actually had anything to say.”

Of course, there are the experimental writers, those who maintain that the rules of expression worked out over the past eight to ten thousand years no longer do the job and must be broken or utterly abandoned in order to address the issues and peoples of a World Gone Ipod.

DON R. N. BLITZEN says, “I want to make my stories as incomprehensible as Life itself. Though I am of course constrained by the constraints of constraining language I have elucidated that former the sparrow Ulysses my electric morning mad foot dog toe whistles. Poot ape patootie.” He has won the National Book Award, the International Book Award, the Book Center for the Book Award, and was a first runner-up in the annual Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes lottery last year. As BLITZEN says of his latest non-novel, HOUSE OF MY FLICK FRIENDA: “Activate your flutie.”

Well before Swift suggested cooking Irish children (no fava beans but heavy on the parsley) and eating them right up (what, you’d eat ‘em without cooking ‘em?), literature has been seen as a means to advance causes:

KENYATTA MBULU LOBOTOMI (AKA Lincoln Smith): “I am black and an angry black and a proud angry black. I live in a racist, oppressive society dedicated to the physical and spiritual destruction of the black man, and it pisses me off.” In his senior year at Harvard, KENYATTA plans to enter the field of corporate law.

There are those who, unable to locate a different drummer to provide the beats take up arrhythmic banging on their own:

NICK PACHYDERMIS has published more than sixty short stories in My Mag, the little magazine he publishes, prints, and distributes from the trunk of his 1987 Chevrolet Nova. His novel, a dramatic fictionalizing of his traumatic experience helping his mother wrap Christmas gifts, is entitled Gifts Are Forgiving But I Am Not, and will be published as a special book length edition of My Mag. Of his work, he writes, “My stuff is too raw and real for the New York lit mob, and too true and tight for most of the small press elitists, so I publish it myself. It would be even better if I could just put things up on a website but I can’t, because they control the new media, too. You know they do.”

And when you have publication, you have … academia!

McBUNDY LAETRILE is an assistant professor of English at Some State University in East Jesus, Missouri. This is his first published poem, but he plans to write many more in that he likes his job and wants to keep it. “I get medical and there’s a dental plan.”

MARYLOU SWEETSWEAT won the prestigious TRELLIS PRIZE for
her work in translating the poems of e.e. cummings into English.

Though there are respectable folk a’plenty publishing these days, now that we have about 400 colleges offering Creative Writing majors, the field of literature still has a place for its true outlaws:

ANDREAS “MOONGLOW” HELDT is serving a 500 to 1,500 year term in Super-Max Solitary at a Prison that Cannot be Named Unless You’re Looking for A Number of Operatives to Do a Patriot Act on You. Convicted in 1983 of killing 46 children in the production of a kiddy porn snuff film, HELDT has come to regard imprisonment of anyone, but especially himself, as morally unjust. Later this year, BULLSHOT PRESS will bring out his first book, the fictional memoir, I Didn’t Do It 46 Times, But If I Did …

We encounter the editor/publisher wearing a different hat.

D.O.A. WISENESS continues to compile material for his planned anthology, Poems Of Famous Dead Poets. If you are a published dead poet, or plan to be in the near future, he urges you to contact him as soon as possible. Don’t bother to enclose SASE.

And sometimes we meet …
MORT CASTLE, who used to do standup but decided to sit down and write and who hopes, on occasion, and when intended, that he can still provide a laugh or two.

###

PS: Hey, it’s that season for giving–and you’ll have something to give if you first do some buying, buying, buying! No, don’t get DNW a paisley tie; he’s already got a handsome one. And forget those instructional audiotapes for Steve Saville: HOW TO TALK LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE. Everyone on your holiday list will want a copy of ON WRITING HORROR, from the Horror Writers Association, edited by yours truly and just released by Writer’s Digest Books.

by Mort Castle

Last month we had some fun here, some of us, choosing to publish fiction.

This month, I am going to share with you some poetry.

This is prompted by my being asked a question — the question — the other day when I was working with high school freshmen. This was a new crew, some really tuned in to this “writing thing,” some not quite sure if I was a substitute teacher, NBA, college, or Army recruiter, or apprentice custodian, and some in telepathic touch with their native planets.

But this guy asks, “You’ve really devoted your whole life to this, haven’t you? Could you explain why?”

I first had to explain why a long time back. The why came at a bad time: I had given up the sinecure of the daily teaching gig and I wasn’t bringing in a whole lot of dollars. I was averaging seven to 12 rejections for every short story acceptance. The publisher of my last book had gone under. My then agent said, “Damned if I can figure why we’re not getting anywhere but we’re not so we might as well break up.”

Then I got a nice day’s workshop at a high school in Chicago.

And then, just about a year later, I heard from a kid who’d been in that workshop.

And then I knew why I had signed on for the duration in this craft and sullen art, knew it all over again. Renewal, bucky.

And I had a poem.

And every so often I read the poem again. My hairline has changed since the poem was written, my chin has grown another to keep it company, I’ve known the deaths of at least as many friends and family and dreams as the typical guy my age, but that poem still talks to me about why it is I do what I do … still do and will do until they pry my …

And why I encourage others to go ye and do likewise.

This is the poem:

the high school writers’ workshopThe question is asked as it is always asked, this time by a young man (so young, I think, he is almost brand new) with new wave hair and the shrugging casual innocence of Wally Cleaver.

“Why write?”

I have done years of these workshops but for some reason, the answer doesn’t simply snap back this time, no, not this time, because I find myself thinking of my last year’s writing income, less than I’d have earned painting numbers on curbs all summer.

And I’m thinking of my friend, my teacher, Bill, a poet, dead at 44, dead by his own hand that held the hypodermics and the pills,

and thinking of a fools’ conga line of American authors who’ve drunk-staggered up to claim their Nobel Prizes…

Hey, I am here to run a workshop: If you have questions, I have answers.

“You write because you have something to say…”

We get on with it, discuss elements of fiction and poetry; at the end of the day, I have a check for $250, not a bad day’s work, better than I’d earn painting numbers on curbs.

A year or so later, the questioning young man sends me a copy of his poem printed in his school’s literary magazine.

The poem’s last lines are: I knew I knew how to love/but only after my brother died.

by
Mort Castle

Thank you, to me you have been so kind, very kind. Living, I did not wish to continue, no, no more, but my life, you preserved my life, returned it to me. So please, I will repay you, as I am honor bound and in accordance with the customs of my land. I will truly repay your goodness, I will. All must be repaid.

Therefore, do you see how upon the paper scrap, I draw the circle of magic as it is done in my country? No, it matters not upon what surface we place our circle. Ha! How foolish to think so, even. Magic is magic, it is so, and we do not need a good or better quality bond paper, of course not.

The source and power of Magic comes from intention and my intention toward you, oh, my uncalled for friend, why there is no end of the gratitude which is mine for that which you have done!

Thus, I draw the circle! There! The circle of magic, and thus, with sincerity and humility of the utmost, I do present it to you!

Of course I shall explain! Upon the circle of magic, please to gaze. And as your eyes focus upon it, then think of the one person in your life responsible for bringing to you the most pain.

This might be the love of your youth — a love which was unrequited.

Might it be the cruel parent–or worse, the absent mother or father?

Might it be, oh, just might it be someone you hate because this someone is someone you cannot stop loving?

Think of this someone, please, yes, this individual who burned your heart until it became a hard glowing cinder the smoke of which still comes from your lungs when you remember …

Oh, I cannot this answer for you. You must answer for you.

And now, friend to me of the most unselfish graciousness, all you need do is place your finger within the circle and the magic will occur:

Never again, not ever again, will you think of this person!

Here, take the circle of magic.

It is my thanks to you.

###

– Mort Castle

by
Mort Castle

All writers get asked, “Where do you get ideas?” And all writers eventually come up with a reply based on their experience, belief, or smartassedness, answers ranging from, “Ah, grasshopper, where is it you do not get ideas?” to “I pray real hard and the Lord sends a whispering seraph to inspire me,” to “If I tell you, then we’d both know.”

No question, though, “Ideas are the root of creation.” Ernest Dimnet, the now little read author of the 1930s bestseller The Art of Thinking, produced that quote, and if this statement of the obvious rendered in the most overt way represents the state of his art…

But what most seekers of truth are really asking is, “Where do you get good ideas?”

You know, the kind of idea that has guaranteed reader grab, that will make someone plow through all nine gazillion pages of your novel to learn what happens in the mad captain’s obsessive hunt for the great white whale, that will assure you the story reader sticks with you all the way with every swing of the descending pendulum in the pit, or that will be certain to keep your poetry peruser thinking (and thinking and thinking) about why the woods are dark and deep and just how many miles there might be for all of us before we sleep …

Good ideas. Ideas that people want to read, that editors want to buy, that you, as a creator, can use.

Guaranteed Good Idea (henceforth know as GGI–which sounds like an unpleasant but authoritative medical test involving fairly flexible piping and your gastrointestinal tract but isn’t): Write about a woman who makes a dress out of her curtains and knows that “Tomorrow is another day.”

GGI: There’s this man who awakens to find himself transformed into an insect.

GGI: There’s a strange visitor from another planet who comes to Earth with powers and abilities …

All GGI material, right?

I don’t think so.

I’ve come to think, as writer and teacher of writing, that there are no GGIs.

Conversely, I’ve come to think there are no bad GGIs.

There are only ideas, period, those “roots of creation” that Monsieur Dimnet lauds–in his utterly laughable expression of his idea!

Here’s an idea, one that might perhaps seem a tad familiar and not brimming with originality: This guy loves the girl. The girl loves the guy. Their families hate each other.

Oooooh. That’s so cliché, such an obvious lift from Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet. I even read

the Cliff notes on that one …

Chances are Shakespeare read the Cliff notes on that one because the idea was already a cliché in the Bard’s time. And if you don’t think this story springboard creaks with contrivance, then you probably think every car chase in The Dukes of Hazzard was not only enthralling but absolutely essential to the plot.

Yet Romeo and Juliet with its done to death (squared) premise came alive for Shakespeare’s audience and for the audiences that came after and even for…

“Hey! Here’s a good idea. See, the guy loves the girl. The girl loves the guy. Their families hate each other.” And Arthur Laurents and Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim give us West Side Story.

Now, let’s take the same premise, the same idea, and hand it off to none other than (the late) Mr. Aaron Spelling, the man who brought us such enduring gems as Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, 7th Heaven, Pacific Palisades, and Sunset Beach. You may be sure the result will find a Fox Network slot, high ratings (for a time) and will attain the mediocrity its producer spent much of his career striving for.

GGI or GBI (Guaranteed Bad Idea)? Let’s update Ulysses, huh?

Think of what writers and filmmakers have done and will do to this concept.

Charles Frazier gave us Cold Mountain.

No UFO or school for warlocks or Memento mental gymnastics, what we do is film a couple of guys talking over dinner.

Argh, there’s a film I’d want to see. Yeah, I remember in high school we videotaped the whole gang talking such kewl talk during lunch and then the whole gang went into the kewlest comas when they tried to watch it …

Let’s try My Dinner with Andre.

Do you understand why, when I lead a writing workshop, one of the ground rules is that no one is permitted to say, “That’s a good idea (for a story, novel, what have you),” or “that’s a bad idea”?

Are you seeing why writers like Tom Piccirilli with his Choir of Ill Children and Elizabeth Massie with her Wire Mesh Mothers and Glen David Gold with Carter Beats the Devil are probably not saying, “Here’s this good idea for my book” but are more likely coming up with, “Here’s an idea that, for whatever the reason, grabs me–and I’ll see if I can present that idea in a way that makes it grab others”?

GGI, GBI, for me, neither one exists.

What does exist is the challenge of mastering the craft and clarifying the originality of vision that will metamorphose the neither-good-nor-bad IDEA into a writing that satisfies both reader and writer.