Have you seen the literal video versions making their way around the Internet?
Take a video, usually from the 1980s, and re-craft the song to match the actual footage.
Hilarious and brilliant. And completely consuming my morning when I should be writing. Here are two of my favorites:
The trailer for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland was posted online this week, along with a press release that reads:
Tim Burton’s twisted take on the classic children’s story Alice in Wonderland doesn’t hit theaters until next year, but the trailer has just been released.
Have you ever read this book (properly titled ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND)? As twisted as I know Tim Burton’s work can be, this book is already unbelievably twisted. I attempted to read it last year and eventually quit, finding it as indiscernible as Virginia Woolf.
It’s reported to be an example of literary nonsense, a style “that plays with the conventions of language and the rules of logic and reason via sensical and non-sensical elements. The effect of nonsense is often caused by an excess of meaning, rather than a lack of it.”
Yeah, right.
I’d like to meet one person who has actually read this “classic children’s story” to an actual child. The original novel, I mean. No adaptations.
Anyone?
This week’s episode of Books on the Nightstand has some excellent book club suggestions. My favorite was that the person who is choosing the book must have read it first. Not only does this guarantee a good choice, but it also provides the person choosing the time to do any additional research on the author or topic, in order to promote conversation and become a quasi-expert on the book (also a suggestion from the podcast).
I will be proposing this suggestion to my own book club. Ironically, it is one that I have unintentionally adhered to since our book club began.
My first appearance as an author takes place on Sunday, August 2, at Written Words Bookstore in Shelton, CT. I’ll be discussing the book and signing for anyone who is interested.
Hope to see you there!
Not to be outdone by my mother-in-law…
My Uncle Bob recently sent me some copies of SOMETHING MISSING to sign and return to him so that he could give them out as gifts. He also provided me with a FedEx shipping label to cover the cost of their return, and I assumed that his address and other information was contained within the barcode. It was not, and so the package went out without an address.
Fortunately, the FedEx label did contain the name and contact information of the purchaser, so the company contacted Uncle Bob to retrieve his address. In the midst of the conversation with the representative, he said, “It’s very important that the package arrive safely. My nephew wrote a book and he signed some copies and was sending them back to me.”
The representative assured Uncle Bob that the package would arrive by tomorrow and the they concluded their conversation. Five minutes later, his phone rang.
“Hi, this is Claire from FedEx. What’s the name of the book that you mentioned?”
Uncle Bob told her the title and the premise of the story.
“I’m going to buy that book!” she said. “It sounds really interesting!”
It’s nice to have such enthusiastic, persuasive family members.
I have some amazing people working to promote my book: my agent, my editor, my publicist, and all of the booksellers working for my publisher and staffing fine bookstores everywhere.
But sometimes I wonder if my mother-in-law might not be the best of the bunch. I received this email today:
So I went into Posner's Bookstore at Grand Central Station and asked why the book was not on the front table of the store. The man looked it up and discovered that they had one copy.
"So where is it?" I asked.
"In the mystery section."
"OK. Let's check it out." I found it on the shelf tucked ALL THE WAY in the back of the store on the next to lowest shelf of the mystery department. I explained that my son-in-law had been written up on the FRONT PAGE of the Sunday Courant, written about in the Boston Globe, and written about in USA Today, and how could they possibly sell this one measly book if they have it in the section that it doesn't even belong in? I was outraged.
"Well, I will look into this and peruse the book," said the poor chap!
"Yes, and talk to your boss about ordering more copies for all of your Connecticut shoppers. They will be looking for the book." I explained that both Barnes and Noble and Borders has the book displayed prominently in ALL of their stores and that they are doing themselves a disservice by having only one copy hidden away. I told him that I will be back in two weeks and that hopefully it will be on the front table (at least six of them) then.
He laughed and said that he will do his best. He is going to look through the book and then talk to his boss.
I'm doing my best to promote and sell the book. On the lower shelf in the back of the store in the mystery department? Damn! We can't have that!
Yesterday my wife and I brought our daughter to the pediatrician for a quick checkup. As I walked through the waiting room, baby in tow, I noticed a woman sitting on the far side of the room, reading SOMETHING MISSING.
It was thrilling. Someone was sitting there, reading my book.
Now it turns out that this woman is a friend, a former student-teacher, but I didn't realize this initially, as her head was buried deep within the pages. Even so, I was pretty excited.
My first SOMETHING MISSING sighting “in the wild.”
I have no intention of becoming political on this blog, but just in terms of writing, did you see or hear Sarah Palin’s farewell speech from yesterday? In terms of the writing, which is what I typically deal with here, take a look at these two paragraphs, the second and third from her ten minute address:
“And getting up here I say it is the best road trip in America soaring through nature’s finest show. Denali, the great one, soaring under the midnight sun. And then the extremes. In the winter time it’s the frozen road that is competing with the view of ice fogged frigid beauty, the cold though, doesn’t it split the Cheechakos from the Sourdoughs?
And then in the summertime such extreme summertime about a hundred and fifty degrees hotter than just some months ago, than just some months from now, with fireweed blooming along the frost heaves and merciless rivers that are rushing and carving and reminding us that here, Mother Nature wins. It is as throughout all Alaska that big wild good life teeming along the road that is north to the future.”
They are nearly incomprehensible. Seriously. How is this even possible?
Try reading the paragraphs aloud. It’s even more shocking.
A local lawn company sent a solicitor to my door today.
TruGreen man: Hello, I was treating your neighbors lawn today and was wondering if you might be interested in our lawn care service.
Me: No, thank you. We’re all set.
TruGreen man: Are you sure?
Me: Yes.
TruGreen man: Can I ask what you’re currently doing for the lawn to keep it healthy?
Me: Keeping TruGreen employees off it. Now leave.
It should also be noted that TruGreen ChemLawn dropped the second half of its name about two years ago, becoming just TruGreen. According the company’s website, the name was changed because:
“…one word is all you need for a great lawn. We have shortened our name to make it easier for you to remember that we are the experts of lawn care.”
Thank goodness for this blessed bit of corporate wisdom. I have to admit that the lengthy, two-word name was tricky to remember, so one word, albeit a compound one, is much better.
I’m sure that it had nothing to do with the implication and constant reminder (through the use of the word Chemlawn) that this company is routinely bathing our lawns and shrubs in chemicals so potent that they necessitate the planting of little yellow warning flags after each treatment.
Writer and teacher Jim Cullen recently reviewed SOMETHING MISSING for his blog and was kind enough to contact me and let me know that he had done so. While I’m admittedly biased (especially considering the review is quite favorable), I found his comments about the book to be extremely insightful. And it’s always an honor when someone takes the time to read and write about your book.
I’ve also been asked by a couple readers if there have been any negative reviews that I have avoided posting here. So far every review pertaining to SOMETHING MISSING that I have found or have been pointed to has been linked to or copied on this blog in its entirety. There are a couple less-than-favorable reviews on Amazon if you’re looking for criticism, but one of the reviewers refers to the protagonist as Mark instead of Martin and implies that writing a novel in the third person is uncommon and difficult, so I don’t know how much stock I would put into that particular review.
But there is certainly criticism of the book out there if you’d like to look hard. Thankfully, it requires a diligent search, as almost every review so far has been extremely positive.
The Hartford Courant reprinted last week’s front page article about SOMETHING MISSING in their i-Town magazine in the Sunday paper today. The article also appeared on the Chicago Tribune’s website.
I also found out that Bunch of Grapes, the independent bookstore on Martha’s Vineyard, has chosen SOMETHING MISSING as one of their staff picks. Very exciting. And I also found their blog to be quite interesting as well.
Since the book first appeared in stores a little more than a week ago and the article was published in the Courant last Sunday, I’ve had many, many readers contact me to chat about the book, my writing process and my career, and almost as many people have stopped me in person to do the same. Their messages have been positive and encouraging, and I appreciate all of the communication.
One of the most interesting of these people is a woman who picked up SOMETHING MISSING in Politikens Boghandel in Copenhagen. She writes, “Politiken is a daily newspaper and the bookshop lies next to the town square, your book - together with some other English novels - on a table right by the door.”
The world certainly seems a little smaller when someone in Copenhagen can find my book on a table by the door. And thanks to her, I am now a member of LibraryThing, and you can find my author page on the site.
The Second Pass, an online publication devoted to reviews, essays, and blog posts about books new and old, recently proposed ten novels that should be removed from the canon. Of the ten, I have read five of them.
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, which I enjoyed but agree that it should not be included in the canon. I’ve read many other post-apocalyptic novels at least on par with The Road.
On the Road, by Jack Kerouac. I’ve read this book twice, in two different decades, and I have yet to grasp the affection that so many have for this book.
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, which I also liked but agree does not require a place in the canon. Very good but not great.
Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf. See below.
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. I adore Dickens and have no issue with this or any other of his novels being included in the canon. Fabulous storytelling and unforgettable characters. Read them all. Twice.
Had the editors of the Second Pass asked, me, I would have added a few novels of my own to this list, including:
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. I read this novel in high school and remember it being the worst book that I had ever set eyes upon. That was twenty years ago, and though there are days when I feel like I should give the book another shot, especially since it’s so slender and wouldn’t occupy more than a couple days of reading, my loathing and disgust for this book remains. Suicide via sleigh ride? Gimme a break.
Anything written by Virginia Woolf. Sorry, but I just don’t understand anything that this woman writes. During my freshman year of college, I was required to read To the Lighthouse as part of a feminist literary criticism class, and I remember being unable to comprehend the book. I was an English major and I couldn’t understand what the words in a book meant. Since it was 1996 and the Internet was still in its relative infancy, I survived the class by searching on specific references in the book and reporting on them during class. But my inability to comprehend the text nearly caused me to switch majors during my first semester.
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Stories that have non-chronological plotlines are annoying, and the book just isn’t as funny as everyone seems to believe.
Thoughts on the list? Would you like to propose any additions?
Back in March, I wrote about the first sentences in books. I’m expanding on that post a bit here as the topic has recently been tickling my brain cells again:
I like the first sentence of THE CHICKEN SHACK, the book I’m currently writing, a lot.
They tried not to receive corpses on the same day as chicken, but since it was impossible to predict when a logger might fall from his bucket truck and break his neck, the two deliveries occasionally coincided.
I like to think that it works because it’s unexpected, a little mysterious, but contains enough specificity to make the initial image real for the reader. Why chicken and corpses would arrive anyplace on the same day is strange, but the specific image of the logger’s fall is enough to also establish the reader within the story.
At least I hope.
I also like the first sentence of UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO:
The moment that Milo Slade had attempted to avoid for nearly his entire life finally arrived under the sodium glow of a parking lot florescent at a Burger King just south of Washington, DC along interstate 95.
Again, the sentence contains that combination of mystery and specificity that I like. The moment that Milo has been trying to avoid for his entire life is left undefined, but the setting is clearly established. In doing these two things simultaneously, I like to think that I both intrigue and ground the reader in the story at the same time.
However, this sentence was not originally the first sentence of the book. Prior to the addition of the prologue, this sentence appeared closer to the end of the book than the beginning. The original first sentence was:
When he spotted the video camera the first time, sitting on the end of the park bench beneath the dying elm, Milo didn’t take it.
While I like the new first sentence better, this isn’t bad. The use of the phrase the first time lends an air of mystery, yet I again attempted to make the specifics of the scene (end of the park bench beneath the dying elm) clear to the reader.
The first sentence of SOMETHING MISSING reads:
Martin opened the refrigerator and saw precisely what he had expected.
I don’t like this one nearly as much, but it accomplished the goal at the time. Compared with the other two books, I put in significantly less thought into the first sentence of SOMETHING MISSING, but my intention was to begin with action, knowing how much of the story would take place within Martin’s head. I also revised the sentence much later to include the words precisely and expected, knowing how appropriate they are to Martin’s character.
One of my favorite first lines of a book comes from CHARLOTTE’S WEB:
"Where's Papa going with that ax?" said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.
It’s probably my favorite because author EB White appears to have the same goal in mind as I do when writing a first sentence. "Where’s Papa going with that ax?” is certainly intriguing, but White also firmly establishes character and setting in the second half of the sentence.
My wife’s favorite line is the classic line from PRIDE AND PREGUDICE:
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
I recently attempted to challenge this line, claiming that it may have a foundation in sexism, patriarchy, and/or materialism, but my wife threatened to go out to the shed and get Papa’s ax if I said another word.
But still, doesn’t it?
I’m currently reading PRIDE AND PREGUDICE AND ZOMBIES, the retelling of the Jane Austin classic with “ultraviolent zombie mayhem!” Expectedly, the famous first line of Austin novel was re-written for this retelling:
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.
No question of sexism there.
Do you have a favorite first line to share? If so, please do.
Since I spend a good portion of my day on a keyboard, its design is important to me, and especially important is the specific placement of the keys. I have five laptops in my home right now, three that I no longer use because the hard drive is too small, the screen is cracked, or some other issue, one Mac Book Pro that I use only for video editing, and my current machine, a Dell Studio XPS.
All of these machines have served me well and have offered me a variety of excellent features, but for me, the most important feature of all on any laptop is the placement of certain keys on the keyboard: Page Up, Page Down, Home, End, Shift, and most especially, Delete. Though it makes no sense, these keys are located and sized differently for each of my laptops, even though all but the Mac are made by Dell.
The Mac does not have a delete key, of course, but instead relies on the user to use Backspace in its place. This is annoying and stupid and one of the reasons I do not write on this machine. The lack of the second track pad button, providing me with the ability to right-click, is the other.
Steve Jobs needs to get over his issue with buttons.
The keyboard on my current machine is my favorite by far, with the Delete key located in the top right corner, easy to find and strike, and all the other important keys (PgUp, PgDn, etc.) stacked along the right-hand side of the keyboard, also easy to find. The keyboard is also backlit, and being a person who types with four-six fingers at a time and often is forced to look at the keyboard while doing so, this is a great feature.
Lenovo recently came to understand the importance of keys like Delete and made a change in their keyboards, the first significant alteration in years. Recognizing that Delete and Esc are used quite frequently, they increased the size of these keys. This has led to a decrease in accidental tapping of the keys surrounding these two and improved efficiency and speed, at least in the tests they conducted.
This is good, since the keyboard is actually designed to be inefficient. In the nineteenth century, when the original keyboards were being designed, fast typing would jam typewriters, so the keyboard layout was designed to purposely reduce a typist’s speed. This is why the “A” key, for example, was placed on the far left of the keyboard. If the keyboard was designed for speed, more frequently used keys would be centered in the middle of the keyboard, but a quick look at the keyboard shows you that this is not the case.
This is exceptionally frustrating for those of us in the twenty-first century who have keyboards that can now keep up with the fastest of typists, yet with no way of improving the design of the keyboard. Imagine if the tool you used most often at work was specifically designed to slow you down.
A hammer that misses the nail every fourth time.
A thermometer that requires you to take a patient’s temperature three times and average the totals.
A computer program that inexplicably shuts down once an hour. Well, many of us suffer with this already.
But despite its poor design, my biggest complain in terms of the keyboard is the Caps Lock key, which has always been the largest key on my keyboard (save the space bar). For those of us who do not always look up when typing, it can be exceptionally frustrating when you finally take a peek at the screen and see that the last 400 words have been typed in capital letters. From what I understand, Caps Lock is important to programmers, database managers, medical staff, and other work-specific tasks, but do we really need to keep this extra-large button alongside the second most frequently used letter in the alphabet? Are people really switching Caps Lock off and on with a rapidity that requires the key to be so prominently placed on the keyboard and with such great size?
Another anonymous friend sent along a couple of positive reviews of SOMETHING MISSING from readers on LibraryThing.com.
Appreciated as always!
My manuscript for UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO arrived in the mail today along with a letter from my editor, Melissa, detailing her suggestions for edits and revisions. Some are broad and will be difficult to manage and others are small and simple.
Overall, I agree with Melissa’s assessment of what needs to be done to improve the book, but much of it involves “killing my darlings,” which is never easy for me.
As a writer, I have learned that the struggles with my writing center upon my tendency to ignore plot in favor of character, my propensity to digress and obsess on areas of the story that I find interesting but others do not, and an overall blindness and disregard to pacing. In Melissa’s notes, for example, she suggests the elimination or serious reduction of chapters dealing with two minor characters who I adore but admittedly do not serve the plot as well as others. In sort, they slow down the story and serve as digression rather than progression. Of course, my agent, Taryn, made similar suggestions as we revised the manuscript prior to submission, but I attempted to deflect Taryn’s concerns by wrapping these two characters into the plot more cohesively, though in my heart, I knew that these two characters, a man and a woman, were still guilty pleasures, characters who I loved who might not be right for the story.
To Taryn’s credit, she tried to alleviate my sadness over the possible loss of these characters by suggesting they might be right for another book. Just not this one.
She’s an excellent manager of my emotions.
So begins the dance between the revising of UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO and the writing of THE CHICKEN SHACK. Do I put THE CHICKEN SHACK aside for a few weeks and focus on my revisions, or do I attempt to work on both, dividing my time and energy evenly? Or should I give UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO the majority of my time but leave a little bit left each day to peck away at THE CHICKEN SHACK?
My wife suggested I prioritize: If I want to see UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO out next summer, I should turn my attention to my revisions first, and then get back THE CHICKEN SHACK later. While this may make sense, the problem with this strategy is that I am enjoying my work on THE CHICKEN SHACK immensely and would hate to put it aside for even a day. Besides, I told my wife my latest aphorism:
Prioritizing is for losers who can’t get their stuff done on time.
I’ll just do both.
My author’s website, where you will be able to access this blog, will be up shortly, but until then, here’s the latest news about SOMETHING MISSING.
First, a few appearances at local, independent bookstores and libraries have been scheduled, including:
Sunday, August 2: Words of Wisdom Bookstore in Shelton, CT (time TBA)
Thursday, August 13: RJ Julia Booksellers in Madison, CT (7 PM)
Thursday, August 27: Wilton Library authors discussion in Wilton, CT (7 PM)
Also, I learned that the audio book version of SOMETHING MISSING will be available on September 9 of this year for those of you who have been asking.
Lastly, for those of you who asked, the cover art for SOMETHING MISSING was designed by Erin Schell, who is no longer with Broadway but can easily be found on the web.
It’s been quite a day. The Hartford Courant ran an article about SOMETHING MISSING and my life story on the front cover of today’s paper, above the fold, and alongside stories about the death of Walter Cronkite and the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 missions.
It’s an enormous story that carries on for two pages and offers details about my life, the writing of the book, and my future projects. Overall, I’m pleased with the results. What began as a small story intended for the Lifestyle section of the paper eventually landed on the front page of the Sunday paper, so how can a guy complain?
But the process of interviewing for the article was a stressful one. You speak to a reporter for hours and hours, day after day, and you begin to wonder what material will ultimately be included in the article. News about the book, of course, but what else? There were lots of questions about the robbery that is detailed in the story, but we also spoke at great lengths about a number of topics, including my two near-death experiences, my childhood, my mother, my relationship with my former step-father, my writing process, my career as a teacher and a wedding DJ, and much more. She also interviewed at least half a dozen other people for the story and came back at me with follow-up questions from the interviews. For a while, I felt like I was interviewing for a full-length memoir, and I began to feel guilty about failing to share at least two other important stories from my life that never came out in the interview process.
Maybe for the release of the next book.
But in the end, I thought the reporter, Vanessa de la Torre, did a fine job, linking and weaving elements of my life to SOMETHING MISSING rather effectively and pointing out possible connections between me and my protagonist that had never even occurred to me. She also excerpted part of the novel for the front page and included the cover art as well, both of which can only serve to help sales. There are a couple spots in the story where I can see the heavy hand of the editor’s pen, but overall the writing is excellent, too.
Still, as exciting as it was to see my book featured on the front of the Hartford Courant, it was a little awkward for me as well. There was a lot of hype (advertisements for the story in Friday and Saturday’s paper), a lot of drama, and a lot of sharing about parts of my life that most people know nothing about. I’ve had friends ask me why I never shared these aspects of my life with them, but these are simply not stories that one tells over dinner or during a round of golf, and for the longest time, they were stories that I could not tell.
Still, people were surprised.
But congratulatory phone calls, emails (many from complete strangers), face-to-face conversations, and messages on Twitter and Facebook made today a little less awkward for me, so thank you to everyone who was kind enough to send along well wishes. They meant a lot.
Like I said, it was quite a day.
A side note: I never had a chance to actually look at the story until late this afternoon. My wife got out of bed around 5 AM this morning, the first time ever that she has ever risen from bed before me for anything except feeding Clara, and chased down a paperboy in order to purchase a copy of the paper after discovering that the local gas station was closed. She then brought it home and read it to me as listened from my pillow, still half asleep. An hour later I was on the golf course with friends (two pars, three bogies, a double bogie, and three unmentionable holes), and immediately following the round, we were off to the birthday party of a friend’s daughter. It wasn’t until 5:30 PM that I was able to sit down and look at the piece and the photos that were included.
I think part of me was avoiding it, fearful that the photo they chose to use made me look dumb. But as with the story itself, the photography worked out well.
Oh, and there’s a small photo gallery on the Hartford Courant’s website as well, in case you’re interested.
Overall, it was a fine day, and hopefully the attention that the book received today will result in more people reading my story. If I have to feel a little awkward and overly exposed to increase my readership, that’s a small price to pay.
My wife found an article that tries to explain the inexplicable means by which the Amazon sales rankings are calculated.
Confused? Me too.
A lot of people, friends and strangers, via email, Facebook, Twitter, and in person, have been asking me how the book is doing in the bookstores. Unsure myself, I asked my editor, who explained it to me that it can take a while to find out how a book is doing. “Right now we’re very happy with the number in-print and out to stores, but it’s sort of in the consumer’s hands at this point.”
As the book sells, she explained, bookstores will place reorders, and if the book does not sell, the bookstores will return the books to the publisher. Through this process, we will eventually get a sense of how the book is selling.
She also told me that it can take a while for a book like SOMETHING MISSING to reach its audience (I’m no James Patterson), but that the work of the marketing department and my publicist will go a long way in spreading the word and building enthusiasm. So tell your friends, your neighbors and complete strangers about the book whenever you can, and remind them that it makes a great gift and that I’m happy to sign any copy placed before me!
My wife does this especially well.
So in answer to all of you who have been kind enough to ask about the sales thus far, the short and honest answer is that we have no idea how the book is doing and won’t know for a while.
On an anecdotal basis, I can tell you that most of the bookstores in my area are sold out and many of the reorders have already been claimed by people who were placed on a waiting list, but I have lots of friends in the area, so this isn’t too much of a surprise.
Friends and relatives have also reported that the book is sold-out in stores in New Jersey, Florida and Massachusetts, but again, there’s no telling if the stores in question ordered one book or twenty books, so these reports are difficult to rely upon.
Amazon gives every book a sales rank based upon sales conducted through their site, and I have a friend who has been watching my sales rank closely and reporting it to me, but even this data is difficult to understand. On Tuesday, the release day, SOMETHING MISSING jumped from #68,000 to #25,000, and by Wednesday afternoon it was at #8,000 and had cracked the top 100 in the humorous category.
But a day later it had shot back up to #42,000, and today the book ranks #6,152 as I write this post.
So who knows? I assume that my book is so new that the numbers will remain volatile for some time, but I have no idea how Amazon’s sales rank works or what the data even represents.
But when I hear some news, good or otherwise, I’ll be sure to share it here with all of you!