Mort Castle

RETURN TO THE STORYTELLERS HOMEPAGE

To: JERRY WILLIAMSON IN SPRINGTIME
by Mort Castle
Dear Jer,

I figured it a good time to write because it is April and spring has come to Illinois–more or less, it hath, because last week snow still lay on the ground and a mixture of the same and rain is predicted for this weekend …

See, remembering over the many years, it was always this season when we both shook off hibernation and got springtime-goofy in those long, late night phone calls in the era when making a long distance telephone call was an event, a ritual, and a real expense. (Yes, dear hearts, hard to believe, but there was a time when Blue Tooth was not surgically inserted in the human ear at birth!)

“Hey, Jer, it’s springtime and the snakes are molting!”

“Uhm, uhm, uhm, I’ve been waxing poetic and the floors but I think I might have left my good leg at the Steak ‘n’ Shake.”

Bouncing words and laughs–wordplay!–at each other. And then you were onto the good stuff, the news, the ideas, the possibilities: Always a Williamson project or two in the works and a dozen or more a’borning: a new novel, this time combining Non-Euclidean geometry, silent movie history, werewolves, serial killers who are out to murder the Kabala and a lonely teenage waif whose parents won’t let her date the Golem. Or the newest MASQUES; you’re right, Jerry, no reason for that series not to go on forever. Or a series of columns or something that got all the neurons sparking in that ultra-quick and world-and-history-ranging brain you had.

(Jerry, I told lots of other people but did I ever tell you I considered you the only “genius” writer I knew? It wasn’t because you knew so damned much, though you did know so damned much, but you could find ways to connect it all and make others give credence to those connections.)

But what was I doing? You always wanted to know. Anything you could do to help me keep on doing the doing?

You always wanted to know.

Nah, Jer, we haven’t had that sort of telephone conversation for years. That’s somewhat your fault, what with your dying in 2005, but, I want you to know I miss our good talks. More than that, I’ll confess I am nostalgic for who we were in those spring seasons. Maybe time held us “green and dying” but the green felt fine –jes’ the sap a’rising–and the dying, hey, if you’re a writer, you can beat that wrap: A little talent, lots of perseverance, and some Good Luck, hey, you’ve got your shot at Immortality.

I also wanted to write to tell you the Gauntlet Press MASQUES V came out ever so fine. Your son, Gary Braunbeck, son in everything but DNA, definitely offspring of your heart and brain, did so well in making it happen. The anthology is Williamson’s guiding editorial vision aided and abetted by Braunbeck’s sniper sharp 20/20. Gary’s just won two new Stokers. He’s helped and is helping others write. I know your pride in Gary, and, wherever you’re hanging out these days, Jer, you can keep on being proud of him.

Oh, rebirth type news for this spring of 2008: You have some publications coming up. I’ll publicize ‘em as soon as deals and dates are fixed and firm, but it seems the graphic novel format books we produced with David Campiti that we called J. N. WILLIAMSON’S MASQUES: AN ANTHOLOGY OF ELEGANT EVIL will be out in new deluxe editions. And how many times did we kick around a collaboration? Looks like we’ve got that in the works with your Sherlock Holmes novella: THE SPECTRE OF DEATH. With the four-fifths of the story you left behind and that detailed outline–I still use the outlining method you taught me on every lengthy fiction I undertake–I’ll finish it up. And you know, something? I don’t anticipate any problems in our working together on this one.

“Ever the best of friends; ain’t us, Pip?” as Joe said to Pip.

(Jer, it’s not easy these days finding folks with whom I can swap the good old lit’ry allusions. I’m grateful for Adam Niswander who can sling great lines of poetry from Robert Service and Don Blanding, the Vagabond Poet. When Niswander starts to top me, however, I toss in some Yiddish theater verse; that’ll teach ‘em bastards to mess around Chancevyville!)

Oh, and Jerry, I did want you to know that I’m just back from the World Horror Convention, which has been my regular spring event for eight years. This year, Salt Lake City was the site, and the chair, Charlie Harmon, and her crew did a splendid job. In my writing workshop, we had the largest turnout ever–and there is no one who was there who cannot succeed in the writing business. And yeah, as always, I started with the Prime Rule of Writing, that so simple maxim that can be so hard to follow: YOUR WRITING MUST BE INTERESTING.

You taught me that, Jer, and it’s the foundation for what I write and what I teach. And yes, hooray for me, way back I did thank you for that teaching and I thanked you again more than a few times at the WHC workshops.

You know, Jer, at WHC, one young guy referred to me as one of the “great statesmen of horror,” and it felt weird, the realization of just how long I have been at it, and to realize that what I preach about this writing business not being a sprint but instead a marathon seems to be true after all. But couldn’t help thinking, and it made me sad, that a certain guy I consider one of the “great statesmen of horror” wasn’t at the convention.

Wish you had been. Your peers and compadres (us other “statesmen”), would have been glad for your company. And the young ones, these horror writing very nice young people of whatever age, they know your work, they like you, they really, really like you.

So, that’s the letter for now, except for one other thing.

It’s spring and I miss you, pal.

Best,

Mort Castle

What do you think of this? he wants to know.

This is his concept for a horror novel and he is enthusiastic.

Because I have written horror stories, have led workshops on writing horror, have edited a book dealing with horror, he has come to me.

And then, he shares this with me.

***

Earlier, on the morning of this same snowy day, I turned on my radio to learn which tollways were icy and if commuter trains would be running late.

Tollways were normal and trains were on time and there was news about what had happened in Tinley Park, a suburb some 20 minutes from mine. Five women had been found shot to death in the back room of a clothing store. Police announced they had died in a botched robbery attempt.

***

Vampires, he says. More vampires than any one book has ever had. A greater variety of vampires. Some will drink only the blood of children. Others have forsworn drinking blood. Some are devout Christians. Others see themselves in a God-abandoned universe…

***

The clothing store specialized in plus sized apparel. This was mentioned so often that it is as though it were something of great importance or even a clue or a code.

Mentioned almost as often was the fact that the victims had been bound with duct tape. It was not thought to be duct tape that had been in the store. The killer had brought his own.

***

You see what we can have here? It’s a totally claustrophobic atmosphere, with walls of blood and rivers of blood and showers of blood. The poor human beings who are caught up in this world, well, what chance do they have? It’s like Lovecraft meets the Naturalists…

***

The women who died ranged in age from 22 to 42. They had not known each other prior to their becoming the women who were bound with duct tape and shot during a botched robbery attempt.

***

Okay, I ask, what about the people?

They’re, you know, just people, like people you could meet everyday. But now, they have to be more than just people, okay, because they are encountering the Greatest Horror anyone could ever know. There is no safety.

So they can hide or they can fight.

And as they confront the horror, they have to reach deep within themselves.

***

One woman was the store manager. One woman was a nurse. One woman was a recent college graduate. One woman was a social worker at a high school. One woman was a stay-at-home mom.

***

You see, there’s not just gimmick! There’s humanity here.

***
Something quite strange happens. It is late in the day when we have the news that there was a sixth woman. She was shot but the bullet just grazed her neck. She is alive and in protective custody.

We do not learn if she was shot first or fourth or last. Somehow, the news teams are held at bay and not permitted to ask if she was praying or crying or if she now feels there is a special grace in the universe reserved for her.

The survivor is able to provide police a description. There is a reward offered.

The survivor says, “My deepest sympathies and condolences go out to their families and friends … Please know that during the unfathomable events of that day, their thoughts were focused on you and coming home. My heart aches that they were unable to do so …”

***

So, what do you think, he asks. Do I have horror or do I have horror?

Vampires hunting people

I don’t know, is what I say.

Because right now, I don’t think he knows anything about horror.

And neither do I.

STORYTELLERS UNPLUGGED

Many of my compatriots have tackled the issue of “Writer’s Block,” but, in that I can’t think of anything original, I decided to commence Unplugging 2008 with that very topic my own self.

Q. What is Writer’s Block?

A. Writer’s Block is the situation in which you cannot write.

I do hope that was helpful. Next month, I’ll devote eight words to the subject of “Mental Health for Writers.”

Okay, enough boffo humor.

Granted, there are those rare writers who have never encountered writer’s block. Their production is as regular as Lawrence Welk’s alleged rhythm section. Bill O’Ladin, creator and sole author of the high-tech, monosyllabic men’s adventure series, Stone Bloodsquash: Terror Trampler, (Number 1,014, Wiesbaden Waterboarders just released, Philaslot Books, mmb), brags he’s never missed his 90,000 word novel per month deadline.

“Writers who are blocked,” opines O’Ladin, “simply have never found what works. Way back when, I discovered the formula for Terror Trampler and I’ve stuck to it. Oh, I change locales: Sausalito Slaymakers, Osaka Osamas, Nogales Nutjobs, etc., and my protagonist uses different weapons in each adventure: a kosherkin, which is a six pointed throwing star, or a carbide cannon from the Johnson Smith catalog, or a Tom Cruise missile. And certainly, Stone has changed over the years. His weight’s gone from 193 to 197.

“But I always know what I’m doing and how to do it because I’m always doing the same thing! McD’s doesn’t try to invent a new quarter pounder with cheese every week. What’s it going to weigh this week? Should we put cheese on it?”

“Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.”

When challenged with that quote from Bernard Berenson, O’Ladin responds, “What series does he write? I’ve got 100 billion readers in over four countries.”

Many writers, however, do have IQs, and so cannot approach wordcrafting in the O’Ladin way; they are prone to periods of undesired non-productivity.

Constance Smiley had authored three children’s books, Herbert the Happiest Hedgehog, Orville, the Optimistic Opossum, and Jamal, the Jolliest Jackal, which won the Insulin Award for Uplifting Kiddy Lit, when writer’s block fell on her like a ton of blocks.

“I couldn’t write a thing. No jovial jackass, no ebullient emu, no merry monkey… Zero,” she recalls, lighting up an unfiltered (copasetic) Camel.

It required 28 days of intensive psycho and aroma therapy, which was exactly what was covered by her health insurer, for her to learn that her “Inner Censor” was holding her back.

“You see,” Smiley explains, as much to herself as to anyone who might possibly be listening, “Growing up, I was always the one who tried to do the right thing. Oh, maybe I yearned to try something wild and crazy, you know, like my slutty sister, or my pretend Uncle Jack, but I had this voice within telling me ‘No, no, no.’” Smiley knocks back three fingers of Early Times, which, while lacking smoothness, will get you there.

“Mr. Inner Censor,” sneers Smiley through smoke, “was still with me, still always saying ‘It would be wrong.’ Inner Censor went to work on my writing: You can’t write this, you can’t write that!’”

Laughing, Smiley pours Early Times. “I had to find a way to shut Inner Censor up.” She laughs. Coughs. Laughs. “Make that, drown the little bastard.”

Apparently she did, for now Constance Smiley reaches for a manuscript. In a voice ripe with incipient emphysema, she reads, “‘Hop your green tail onto this lily pad. It’s prime slime time. Let’s go frog giggin’!’ Then Freddy’s tongue shot out, but he was not catching flies…”

Constance Smiley’s newest is called Freddy, The Fornicatingest Frog and it will be published in June by Big Golden 8 Page Press.

When Jogging with an Electric Shaver, a humorous memoir of growing up in a poverty-stricken, inbred, bipolar, sexually and sarcastically abusive family was published to stunning reviews — “The most comic and lyrical depiction of rape and beating with extension cords of the season!” — and three chair-flinging appearances on Springer, author Clarence Harrow seemed unlikely to be a victim of writer’s block.

“But I was,” he attests. Always a believer in generic metaphysics and liking the philosophies found in brightly colored New Age catalogs, Harrow tried a styrofoam diet, hours spent in a Christian Science Reading room, a double sided DVD of Zen teaching and flower arrangement, accordion playing (which led to his almost completely severing his left nipple during a performance of “Lady of Spain,”) and such psychoceramic mind enhancing drugs as Pepcid and Mentos in cola.

“One day, I just began crying,” Harrow remembers. “I looked at the sheet of paper in front of me and there was nothing there. There was absolutely nothing. Not a single thing.

“It was then I heard a voice. It was as though I had an iPod™®® in my head. Only without earbuds. The voice was spiritual. Like the Reverend Ike back in the day.

“And that voice told me…”

Nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’

“And that voice told me…”

You gotta have somethin’

“And there was this pretty nice, if somewhat dated organ riff, but that’s not important. What’s important is I had a revelation. It was like Moses at the burning bush, only I didn’t have to take off my shoes or anything weird.”

“You gotta have somethin’.

“I had to have somethin’. Didn’t matter what it was. Anything. As long as it was somethin’. Not nothin’.”

“Just like that! Bam! Presto Sta-Puff! I started writing again. I started writing something.”

he heard old man was floating see more level of conscious beckoning him he knew it was and he was even if you don’t you hear all smiling and hell with the done million degrees shower run very hot while he razor smells like burnt plastic erases another patch spot the razor in the kitchen snap against her heel when she table

We have, above, a sample of the something Clarence Harrow has been writing. “What is it? I don’t know. It’s something. I sent in 50 pages of it to the National Institute for the Arts and they sent me a 50 thousand dollar arts fellowship, signed me up to do a series of readings at Starbucks and VFWs around the nation, and I’ll be appearing at the Ford Center with Chuck Palahniuk, Sally Field, Dr. Phil, and the Amazing Kreskin.”

While Harrow’s blockbuster came from a psychic source deep within him, aid of another person can play an important role.

“Ooh,” she says, “Writer’s block is icky. It is so, Ohmigod, bad.” Tiffany Amber Spangler-Fowler speaks in a sort of “swallowing burps breathlessly” manner that reminds you of Marilyn Monroe, had Marilyn Monroe not been feigning stupid helplessness. “I had no reason to think I’d ever have writer’s block…”

But it happened. No matter that Ms. Spangler-Fowler earned her MA, an MFA, and a Publisher’s Clearing House Post Grad Certificate in Creative Writing from Benford on Hudson Near Puddlington (UK) University. Several years after matriculations, she decided it was time to attempt to write something.

“But I couldn’t!” she wheezes. “I couldn’t finish anything.” With a wisdom that belies her intellect, she adds, “That was because I couldn’t start anything.”

Spangler-Fowler did not lose herself in a morass of self-examination and introspection. Throughout her time at the university, she had found she could always rely on teachers to serve as older and wiser mentors. “I spent a lot of time under some very fine men. And women.”

Thanks to a classified ad not far from a column listing “Intimate Deep Massage,” Spangler-Fowler discovered The Professor. “He insists I call him that. He deserves to be a real professor, and not just a man with lots of leather accessories. The Professor explained to me that all artists need discipline. He offered to discipline me.”

In order to motivate her, Spangler-Fowler explains, The Professor employs The Motivator. A typical weekly session begins with The Professor rigorously questioning Spangler-Fowler about her productivity. “If I’ve written only one page, instead of the 20 I’m supposed to, well…”

She blushes blushingly as her whispery voice drops to a seemingly fevered sibilance, “Well, then I have to be punished.”

The Professor employs The Motivator. “And after each one,” Spangler-Flower explains, “I have to say, ‘Thank you for motivating me. May I have another?’”

When Tiffany Amber Spangler-Fowler leaves The Professor, “I can’t sit still! I’m just burning up to get at my writing so I can maybe someday please…” Her misty eyes glaze over and then her glazed eyes mist over…”The Professor.”

Writer’s Block. It’s like the weather. Everybody talks about it, but mostly, it’s the humidity.

And it’s also a way for me to kick off my contribution to Storytellers Unplugged 2008, for which I have never had so bad a writer’s block that I missed a deadline.

Not even this one.

AN INTRODUCTION

I like language. I use it a lot.

In fact, I don’t think I’d have become a writer were it not for language.

***

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT GRAMMAR

Subjects and verbs don’t have to agree but they should at least tolerate one another.

Nobody is sure where end marks of punctuation go in regard to quotation marks. Except for the Spanish. But they put them in upside down as well as right side up so they have their own problems.

To make sure, then, try it this way:

“Hello,”, Mort said. “I think I’ll rant about language today!”! Mort added, ,”, If that’s okay with you.”.

ON USING SENTENCE FRAGMENTS

Don’t.

Except sometimes.

“Okay?”?

A SIMPLE RULE

The transgenedered verb may only be used as a declension in the sublatative or presumptive voice. This is based on the Latin: Ergo cogito bluto hoho.

***

OH, YEAH? SEZ ME!

You can turn any words into terms of vituperative threat.

I will post your toasties and maneuver your heimlich!

I’ll indigo you, girl!

Bare naked, ladies!

Potter my Harry!

Cheese curl!

If I were you, though, I’d never threaten anyone with … I’ll wonka your willie.

***

UNDEFINING

How to strip all meaning from a word:

Read the following aloud:

Foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot oot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot oot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot foot

Get it? Foot, yes you do. Foot what I foot am foot at? Good foot, you foot!

***

THE GREAT COMMUNICATOR

I listened to George W. the other day.

What did language ever do to him?

***

LOVE AND HATE

We have a special category of illegal activity called Hate crimes. I’d like to see a new classification added to the jurisprudential lexicon: Love Crime.

as in…

I loved him so much I had to kill him when I learned he was foot with that foot down the foot. Killed her, too, the foot. Shot her right in the foot.

***

UGLY MAGIC WORDS

I’ll bet you have a magic word! When you hear this word, you are utterly repulsed, totally disgusted. It’s a visceral thing. The word ticks at the gag reflex, makes you want to vomit.

Thought so.

For the next 30 seconds, don’t think of that word.

***

AS WEBSTER HAD IT

Lewis Carroll was full of prune whip: Words mean exactly what they mean and that’s it.

For instance… Calendar.

You know what means?

Right. It means calendar.

It sure as hell doesn’t mean foot.

End of discussion.

***

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Granted, in any country worth visiting, everyone will know English, or at least understand enough if you just talk loudly and slowly, but in case you need a few casual phrases…

FRENCH

Georges Cluny chevrolet coupe. Oou’reyay oiletstay areay owherenay earnay asay ilthyfay asay eythay useday otay ebay!

SPANISH

¿Senor, frito loco taco dorito, chess? ¿¿Ooyay ikelay ihauhauchay?¿?

GERMAN

!DEUTSCHLAND Panzer kindertotenlieder! Achtung mein Volswagen! Onquercay anyay ountriescay atelylay?

RUSSIAN: Nietschevo pravda tolstoy Tovarich da, da, malenoko boris bolshoi! Atwhay? Inenay ina orningmay anda obodynay’s unkdray etyay?

ARABIC: Salaam ali baba ibn sesame bin bubbelah! Erehway ancay Iay indfay a oodgay osherkay othay ogday?

***

LANGUAGE FINIS

“And,”, Mort said, “think we’ll end this edition of STORYTELLERS UNPLUGGED, my last for 2007, with that universal expression of best wishes for a joyous holiday and a good new year:”:

“Foot!”! One and all!

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

Mort Castle
October 8 2007

It’s story time once again, so…

14 VERY SHORT HORROR STORIES
(in slightly different form, originally appearing in the
Program Book of the 14th World Horror Convention)
by
Mort Castle

1. the music of the night

“Listen to them, the children of the night!” Dracula said to his guest. “What music they make!”

“It is terrible, but I will try to work with them,” said the Phantom.

2. MIND CONTROL

In the next 60 seconds, think of those horrible, depressing, painful, miserable, flat-out and utterly wretched experiences you’ve lived through; come up with as many as you can.

Good.

Now think of the words: If only . . .

Okay. All through. Don’t think of any of this stuff again.

3. OF COURSE THEY SAVED THE BRAIN

Hitler’s brain. And of course the head made such a practical and
aesthetically pleasing container, that it, too, was saved.

And the brain decided it was time.

And the eyes blinked. And the Chaplinesque mustache wriggled like a mildly palsied caterpillar.

And the men of science, Japanese and German and Russian and Korean and Cuban and Saudi and American, waited.

Then the mouth issued the command: “Ja! Der Tag!”

And simultaneously Japanese and German and Russian and Korean and Cuban and Saudi and American fingers pressed the buttons.

And every cell phone in the world exploded.

4. KIP’S QUESTION

kip was four years old and like nearly
every day he had been hell on jet-skis all day

aluminum foil in the electrical outlets and
see what happens when
you turn on every faucet in the house
and let’s play bowling with cantaloupe
in the supermarket and
she had thought about smacking
him and smacking him but good
but as a kid she had been smacked good too
many times for too many reasons she
usually had not understood and
now even if kip should be in bed
she did not want to fight with him to
get him to bed and he was just sitting
there about three-quarters of an inch
from the television and the news was
on and kip was watching because he
would watch just about anything that
moved for about 26.5 seconds or even a minute
sometimes if it was loud and flashing
minute sometimes and
then a story came on with a lady
being taken away by police and the
lady was a mom who had been telling
lies about someone stealing her car
with her two kids in it because what
really happened was she was the one
who killed her kids and
now kip was big eye riveted to the
television and
then kip turned his head and very
quietly asked
why did that mom kill
her kids
and even though she did not want
to say it something low and mean and
insistent made her say it and
what she said was
because they were bad

5. WEDDING GIFT

Belittle me, will she? Hah!

The Shrew! Call me feeble and weak. will she? Hah!

Dare to laugh at my … stamina and demean my technique? Call me
fool, will she? Dare I think–her words, mind–I could even hope to provide her the least satisfaction?

Hah!

Very well, then, my dear. Oh, very well but perhaps not so well for you.

On the night of our. . . nuptial celebration… I assure you, you will receive a quite special wedding gift.

Call me mad, will she? Hah!

I have created life, do you hear me, LIFE in the laboratory!
Hah!

Let us see what our most singular wedding guest can do for you.

6. The child molester reveals the secrets of success

I know how to listen.

7. Headline: AGENT OF BIOLOGICAL WARFARE FOUND IN IRAQ

They brought him in.

They sat him down.

They made him confess.

WMD?

No, he had a URI, upper respiratory infection.

His orders?

Sneeze or cough on as many Americans as possible.

8. ADVICE

Why don’t you just ask that nice colored man to bust up the chiffarobe for you?

9. Inspiration

Couldn’t come up with anything.

Zero. Nada.

Went outside. In the garden, he heard the roses singing.

Went inside. Sat down.

Then Walt Disney created Silly Symphonies.

10. URBAN MYTH: HALLOWEEN

Got to love the Internet.

Hey, razor blades in apples, Ex-Lax chocolate pumpkins. Peanut brittle with needles. LSD gum (talk about double your pleasure).

All those Halloween horror stories, why, that’s all bogus. You know that, don’t you?

Because you know how to find answers fast and you have checked
out all the Latest BS and Vintage BS dot corns, the Urban, Suburban, and Rural Legends websites. No murderer on the extension phone upstairs, no hook hanging from the door handle, no fingers in the Doberman’s mouth, no beehive hair-do providing condominiums for all manner of biting, boring, breeding insect. . .

And you’ve got a built-in BS detector, right?

Trick or treat.

Treat or trick.

I look forward to a visit from your kids this Halloween.

11. American Iconography in a South American Revolution

“. . . able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!” Miguel’s English is accented, naturally, but enthusiastic. A pause, not all that long really.

“No,” Juan says.

Miguel laughs. “Que lastima. ”

Such a pity.

“A mi me toca,” Juan says.

My turn.

High above the verdant jungle, Juan grips Sister Consuela’s arm and hurls her from the helicopter.

“The Flying Nun!” Juan says.

12. in the nursery

Stop it! Stop that screaming at once!

Put something in his mouth!

Do not twist about like that! Stop your carrying on!

That’s better. Now, hold him more tightly.

His arms, John. There.

Sit on him, Michael.

We shall soon have this shadow sewn back on Mr. Peter Pan, Esquire, shan’t we just?

Even with so little cooperation.

13. REST FOR THE WEARY

No, no, sit down please.

You’re safe here. Tomorrow, you can tell me everything about the
people chasing you . . .

They’re… Well, whatever, tomorrow we can discuss it.

Sleep now. You’re exhausted, aren’t you?

Your drink? Please, just diet soda.

Why would I want to …

That’s it, stretch out.

Here, let me slip this nice pod under your head.

Sleep.

14. EXPIRATION DATE

Monday. June 6, 1985

And so you sit down to eat breakfast.

The clink-click of the cereal in the bowl is almost more than you can bear, but you have to eat because …

You have to eat.

And you take the carton of milk and on the side is a picture of a child.

Your child.

And on the top of the carton is a date: June 8, 1985.

And on the wall by the telephone is a calendar you don’t have to look at to know the date that is circled is June 1 and within the circle is a clearly written lone word in your handwriting: Funeral.

Then you pour the milk on the cereal.

You have to eat.

You have to eat.

by Mort Castle

What are you working on now, Mort?

Nothing.

***

There’s a question frequently asked of a writer by editors, other writers, agents, friends, or those casual acquaintance / everyday people who figure they need to direct meaningless chatter your way instead of gassily blathering via Bluetooth to someone even less real than you.

What are you working on now?

After all, you…

1. … just finished proofing galleys on the 37th volume (11,800 pages plus!) in your Interstellar Neo-Military Alternative History Romance Series, HELL’S HOPSCOTCH: WAR CHALLENGES OF THE CROWNED PERIWINKLE AND PLUME;

2. …are done with the final draft of an 8,000 word Gothic short story, “A Gothic Rose for Emily the Goth” which will appear in Martin Greenberg’s anthology HOW DOES YOUR GOTHIC GROW? (DAW BOOKS);

3. …completed the research on buggy whip manufacture in Lutchveldt, Illinois in 1878 (not only were buggy whips produced in this quaintly useless hamlet but also the sockets wherein they were placed) and are now prepared to write the definitive article on the subject for PICAYUNE GAZETTE.

So…

What are you working on now?

History Time: My first novel came out in 1967. My first pro level publication, academic though it was, preceded that by two years. Since then, I’ve edited four books, written 11, edited or produced or packaged a small slew of magazines, comic books, trading cards, published close to 600 “shorter things,” hither, yon, and in Poland…

The day this STORYTELLERS UNPLUGGED appears, July 8, I will be 61 years old. Thank you, thank you, a donation in my name may be made to me… Cashiers checks preferred. (Still digressing: old people tend to ramble… Four days earlier, yes, Independence Day, Jane and I marked 36 years of marriage–to each other! We’ll celebrate with ten days in France in August.)

Undigressing: As you can imagine, from back when the Queen Mother was knee high to a crumpet, I’ve been hearing:

What are you working on now?

And I’ve always, always, always had an answer.

There’s the novel about gunfighters: one’s an old whiskeyhead (which was the case for many of ‘em) and the other a former prizefighter who’s missing a hand … The book was called TROUBLESEEKERS; I wrote it about 1981. It didn’t sell. It shouldn’t have.

A comic book: See, we’ll have a Hemingway “tip of the iceberg” approach instead of the over-the-top narration that’s come to be called “comic book story”: it will be subtle … That comic was NIGHT CITY; art by masters Don Kramer and Mark Nelson. Called “perfect comic book stories” by the Hartford-Courant. Nominee for “Best Illustrated Narrative,” International Horror Guild. Didn’t sell 500 copies.

I think my novel THE DEADLY ELECTION, 1976, ought to kick off a series: THE DEADLY SCHOOL BOARD MEETING, THE DEADLY DOORKNOB, THE DEADLY DOGFOOD (Hey, was that last one prophetic or was it?) Series did not happen. Probably just as well.

Jerry Williamson’s asked me for a story for MASQUES. I wrote it…

Mort, what are you working on now?

I’ve got to be working on something. Got to. This brings in the bucks. This earns the rep. I’m going for all of it: Super-quality. Super-commerciality. Super-Stardom.

I’m working on:

Hey, just got a great opportunity to do a Batman©®™ novella with The Catwoman©®™ and all kinds of other licensed©®™ characters…

Time to research Southern Illinois AKA “Little Egypt.” The last man legally hanged in the state went to the gallows in Benton, Illinois, my wife’s home town! Tell me this is material I won’t use in a story. (The story is called “Buckeye Jim in Egypt” and it’s one I’m proud of.)

An anthology of writing by school kids and senior citizens? Yeah, I’d love to make that happen!

Jerry Williamson asked me for a story for MASQUES II. I wrote it. (It’s called “If You Take My Hand, My Son.” Visitors to ELALEPH, the leading science-fiction/fantasy website in South America, voted it the Fourth Best Horror Story of All Time, Mort said, braggingly. You can find it comic bookized in J.N. WILLIAMOSN’S MASQUES: AN ANTHOLOGY OF ELEGANT EVIL; you can hear it, along with Joe Lansdale’s “God of the Razor,” in the Grist Mill’s audio production www. amfmtheater.com)

What are you working on now?

Truth: Before this year, there was never a time in my writing life (and how do you separate that from you life life? You don’t!) when I haven’t had answers aplenty to that inquiry.

It’s how the mind works for a writer, isn’t it?

I’m working on a musical for claymation puppets and once I finish up the “how to” article on varnishing cicadas I want to do a series of related short stories about Tom Sawyer’s sister, Mary…

Sure, the brain is always linking this to that, making the connections, coming up with ideas—and the excitement that propels you to start hammering out the words.

A paperback series based on the concept for a videogame concept that was conceptualized by a nearly literate nephew of Colin Powell? Just titles: To Kill a TweetyBird; The Bite At The End; For Whom the Bell Gongs; The Secret of the Secret…

Jerry Williamson’s asked me for a story for Masques III. Oh, there’ll be a Masques IV. Oh, yeah, Jer, glad to. Cripes, buddy, you and me, we’ve been at this a while, haven’t we… It’s Masques V. Hey, Jer? Jerry?

And then, last February, at a department meeting of the fiction writing faculty at Columbia College (where, I am proud to say, I teach with a whole bunch of teachers—who teach!) I was asked:

Surprise, surprise…

What are you working on now, Mort?

And my answer was, “Nothing.”

And the response of some of my colleagues…

You’re what? You’ve always got something going. What are you working on? Can’t talk because of a contractual issue? Afraid you’ll jinx the project? Accurse the creating?

Come on, man. You’re prolific. “(Prolific = publishing a few things each year for a lotta years!)

Give us tuchus affen tish, the legit goods.

What kind of creative hustle you got going?

So okay, here’s what I am working on:

I’m reading many good books but trying to do it in the way of the thoughtful reader, someone who wants to experience the book as an experience—and not as the reader-writer with an unblinking editorial eye and an always muttering judgmental brain saying, “Yeah, you can use his transitional device to get into your flashback—and how about the way he picks up the pace by…”

I’m going to the Art Institute and looking at Manet’s The Absinthe Drinker without speculating about the old sot’s earlier life, which I plan to incorporate in my novella “Childhood of the Absinthe Drinker.”

I’m listening to the piano solo treatment of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition without trying to visualize the motion picture it should be a soundtrack for—the film I should be writing.

Hey, this evening I’ll go uptown with Jane to “Cruise Night” and look at these old cars and I won’t be concerned if I don’t memorize the 1949 Hudson’s grille so I can use it in the story of…

And you know what? I’m playing a lot of guitar. I’ve got some Gary Davis style stuff down, am getting comfortable with fairly complex jazz progressions, etc. My hands don’t work as nimbly as they used to (if you live in the Midwest, you will get arthritis!), so I’ve had to go for style.

So, Castle, you’re not writing?

I wouldn’t say that. Just the other day, I put together a really fine lesson plan for my “Researching and Writing Historical Fiction” class; I will definitely use it next semester.

I’ve never missed writing my STORYTELLERS UNPLUGGED column; don’t plan to.

Let’s say I’m not writing much—now.

There’s a line in that wonderful movie Hard Times, in which Charles Bronson is a tough street / prize fighter. He says, “I’m just filling in the in-betweens.”

I have the not unpleasant feeling these days that I am filling in my in-between. The first 60 years are racked up—and now we’ve hit the drifting / floating spot that precedes the next 60.

Taking a bit of a breather.

Books I might want to write? Stories? Maybe a stage play or two? Comics? A lengthy narrative poem? Some thing for a medium that is only now being invented?

I think they’ll happen.

Indeed, I’m thinking about saying “yes” to a novella that Brian Yount proposed I do. Brian edits Doorways, which is on the way to becoming a really fine magazine—and I’d like to contribute and so, assuming an idea commands, demands, and politely seeks my attention…

But—

What are you working on now, Mort?

I’ve got 903 writing related projects, mini-projects, and tedium tasks I’ve gotta get done before noon so I can take care of the monster sized slate by evening…

I think I’ve outlived those days, days laden with self-inflicted panicked compulsion. (What makes Morton run?) Perhaps in its time that creative drive produced enough work that pleased me and still pleases me, currently bringing on a sense of, if not “That’s good,” then at least “That’s good enough,” so that, when you ask…

What are you working on now?

I can say, “Nothing. Well, nothing much…

—But I’m really into it.”

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