All good news

News of a possible sequel to THE SHINING is big, but I think that The Guardian has buried the lead.  Almost as an afterthought, writer Alison Flood mentions that King has an idea for a new book in his Dark Tower series

“The working title for the eighth book in the series, King announced on his website, would be The Wind Through the Keyhole, but he added that he hadn't yet begun writing it and it would be "a minimum of eight months" before he did.”

King fans know that as great as a sequel to THE SHINING might be, the Dark Tower series represents Stephen King’s finest work.

What to say?

I’m still looking for a clever, witty, possibly subversive message to replace my standard “Thanks for reading my story” when singing a book.  

My wife likes “Buy another one” or “Makes a great gift”. While I love her for comments like this, even I may pass on this suggestion. 

Any ideas?

Tick tock… time’s a wasting

As a result of my many brushes with death, I make a serious attempt to live every day to its fullest, knowing full well that my existence could end at any time. I have constructed a life in which I attempt to get the most out of each day and not wasting time on immaterial and unimportant matters.

This means that I am a planned procrastinator, putting off tasks until they need to be finished in order to take better advantage of the day. If I have three weeks to complete an assignment, I will wait until the last possible moment before starting the work, fearful that I may spend my final day on Earth working on a task that did not need to be finished for days or even weeks. This does not mean that I miss deadlines or fail to complete tasks. It simply means that I finish them at the deadline. I work efficiently and quickly, but I do not believe in completing tasks any earlier than necessary. Though this might be stressful for some, I’m not the kind of person who worries about getting things done, either. Perspective like mine tends to eliminate most worries.

I also do not enjoy sleep, viewing it as a waste of precious time.

I attempt to structure my life in a way to maximize efficiency. I am hyper-organized, because doing so saves time. I am a minimalist, because things tend to clutter a person’s life and distract from the important.

I play through pain, even when resting my shoulder or elbow or even knee for a season might help it heal faster. I fear that the summer that I spend away from the golf course or the basketball hoops might be my last, so I’d rather play in pain then not play at all.

I fill my life with activities, projects, jobs, and people. Too much at times, but I know that our time is short and I must make the most of it.

These are just a few ways in which I attempt to live every day like it is my last.

Oddly enough, many of my friends mock this belief, finding the decision to live as if I am on the precipice of existence ridiculous. Many believe that my planned procrastination is a ruse used in order to avoid work. In explaining this philosophy to one of my wife’s friends just yesterday, she said, “Hey. That’s a good one. I’ll have to use it sometime.”

It’s not a good one. It’s a way of life, and it’s one that is espoused by many but followed by very few.

As odd as I may seem to my friends, I find it equally odd that someone would mock me for attempting to live by a code to which almost everyone finds merit even if they do not live by it themselves.

Is there really anything wrong with living as if today is your last?

This morning, I was listening to Philippe Petit on NPR’s Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me. Petit is a French high wire artist who gained fame for his high-wire walk between the Twin Towers in New York City on August 7, 1974. He is also an author and an artist among many other things.

A fabulous children’s book was written about his World Trade Center walk entitled THE MAN WHO WALKED BETWEEN THE TOWERS.

Petit espoused a belief very similar to my own during his interview with Peter Sagal, and while Sagal was respectful, he also mocked Petit’s belief.

Petit said:

“I am entangled in too many passions. I don’t know how to use the miserable hours that we have in a day. Am I going to write my next book? Am I going to plan my next high wire walk? I’m very frustrated that I am forced to sleep a few hours and stop here and there to eat and drink. What a waste of time.”

“Yes!” I screamed from the confines of my car. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

Someone who gets it.

But doesn’t everyone get it?

Even if they do not adhere to this philosophy, isn’t it one that can be understood and appreciated by all?

And yet (for reasons that I don’t quite understand) mock those who do?

Why?

When I was in high school, I carved my initials alongside those of my girlfriend into a willow tree in the Japanese garden in Roger William’s Park. 

Not the nicest thing to do to a tree but fairly romantic, especially for a sixteen year old.  

But why carve these same boyfriend-girlfriend initials into a the wooden frame of a sign hanging above the urinal in the men’s room of a local restaurant?  The girl is never going to see them, but countless men will have the opportunity to gaze upon them under decidedly less than romantic circumstances. 

What was the plan?  Did they guy tell her about his act of romanticism upon returning to the table?

Girl:  What took you so long, honey?  Your soup is getting cold. 

Guy:  I was using my handy-dandy pocket knife to carve out initials into the sign above the urinal.  And I managed to pee at the same time.  Isn’t that sweet?

Girl:  You what?

Guy:  I carved our initials into some wood in the bathroom.  Come see.  I’ll make sure the men’s room is all clear.

Girl:  YOU FILL IN THE BLANK.  WHAT MIGHT A LADY SAY TO SOMETHING LIKE THIS? 

Write a book

Earlier this month, Nathan Bransford asked: “Can anyone with enough practice be a good writer? What about a great writer? Is there a part of writing that is innate or can it be learned by anyone?”

As a teacher, I have to believe that with enough work, any reasonably intelligent person can become a good writer. It’s what I tell my students, and it’s what I believe. Give me a hard working, dedicated student and enough time and I can help that kid become a good writer.

Writing is hard work, but it’s not rocket science.

I am fond of telling people that I am not a very impressive person, and in many ways, this is true. I once thought of authors as brilliant, talented, almost other-worldly beings. Now that I have joined the club, their stature has diminished considerably. I can’t help but think that if I can do it, anyone can do it.

It turns out that authors are ordinary people like me.

In fact, I always tell the people who attend my readings and appearances that they should be writing, regardless of what they perceive their ability level to be. I firmly believe that everyone has a story to tell, whether it is fiction, memoir or something else entirely. In fact, based upon the success that I’ve had in the publishing world, I can’t understand why more people are not working on a book.

You never know when you might strike gold.

I like to say that publish or not, finishing a book is a major accomplishment.  It’s a goal that many, many people have but very few ever achieve. People spend their lives thinking about writing a book, envisioning their story, imagining the finished product, but never getting around to putting words to paper.

Finishing a book places you well ahead of this enormous majority.

And with the self-publishing outlets that exist for authors today, finishing a book doesn’t mean that it has to remain on your hard drive or in a stack of printed pages, even if you can’t find a publisher who is interested. Design a cover and a layout and print as many books as you’d like. Sell them from the trunk of your car, give them out as gifts or pass it onto your children as a timeless piece of you.

Either way, you will have written a book. That is quite an accomplishment.

“I demand that she be fired!” said the moronic dolt.

New rule:

Dissatisfied customers, angry clients and anyone else who demands that an employee be fired should be immediately terminated from their own employment on the grounds of petty stupidity and a failure to understand how a job loss can impact a family. 

One bad experience or one poor decision does not justify the demand for the possible financial ruin of an individual. 

Customers complain and receive refunds and compensation if the complaint is valid and the business is reputable. Employers terminate employees when necessary. This is how the world works.

To demand the termination of an employee demonstrates a penchant for self-righteous stupidity, which is the worst kind in my humble opinion.

Can I put my hand on your butt without offending?

This morning I played pick-up basketball with a woman, a former college player who was shooting around at the gym. Playing one-on-one with a girl who you don’t know is always a little complicated, especially in the beginning. This girl was a solid player with a decent outside jumper and she was capable of driving to the basket with both her left and right hand. In order to play defense, especially in a one-on-one game, I was going to have to make a certain amount of physical contact with her.

A hand on the hip.

Body-to-body blocking out.

The inadvertent hand on the butt when reaching for the hip or contact with a breast when reaching in for a steal.

Most female players understand this, but as a man, I must gauge the level of contact that my opponent will find acceptable and be careful to not be perceived as stepping over any unspoken line. It’s complicated, and it can be a little stressful until we reach a silent agreement as to what is permitted and what is not.

What I’d like to do is simply state the following prior to the game:

“Look. You know and I know that basketball is physical, especially when played one-on-one. It’s likely that at some point during this game, I will be placing my hand on your hip, and inevitably, that means an occasional hand on your butt. It’s also likely that my hands will come into contact with your breasts, inadvertently of course, but things happen. I’m very happily married and have a beautiful baby girl at home and have no interest in anything more than a competitive game of hoops. Is that cool with you?”

Instead, I must wait. Gauge my opponent’s level of physicality. Eventually take a chance and see how she reacts. A hand to the hip or a aggressive move to box her out from a rebound. Quite often this stilted play can lead to a loss in the first game, as my defense is inevitably porous and weak.

Today I took an elbow to the chin almost immediately, followed by a barely-audible apology and a layup while I was still doubled over. It hurt, but it was worth it. Right from the start, I knew that being physical would not be a problem.

Empires fall

If you’re a history buff, or more importantly, if you are appreciate the way that media can convey a complex idea, this is for you.

If you are none of these things, you should be, so watch it anyway.

Visualizing empires decline from Pedro M Cruz on Vimeo.

A Thanksgiving offering

I honor of Thanksgiving, I offer a gift for all of you who look forward to football just as much as you do the turkey, and probably more.

If you are a serious football fan, this is a must-read essay by the sometimes annoying but more often brilliant Chuck Klosterman.  It comes from his new book, EATING THE DINOSAUR, which I just finished and loved. 

It’s the kind of essay that football fans will bookmark and refer back to for years to come, and it is guaranteed to increase your grid-iron credibility amongst your pig-skin loving pals.  

In need of a copyeditor. And a brain.

In suggesting that the shooting at Ford Hood be labeled a terrorist attack (and implying that the Obama administration was rejected the label for political reasons), former Bush press secretary Dana Perino said no terrorists attacked the US while President Bush was in office.

“We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term. I hope they're not looking at this politically. I do think that we owe it to the American people to call it what it is.”

I realize that this claim was made on FOX News, which has been known for the occasional, hilarious mistake, but did everyone on that network completely forget about the worst terrorist attack on US soil?

I realize that it occurred about eight years ago, which is a long time for some people to remember, but I am relatively certain that the 9/11 attacks occurred while Bush was in office.

More disturbing was that no one on-air noticed her gaff and attempted to correct it. 

Of course, Perino wouldn’t be Press Secretary until almost six years after the 9/11 attacks, so perhaps she just didn’t hear about the destruction of the World Trade Center and has been too embarrassed to ask about that big hole in Manhattan ever since.  

Music critics: A dying breed?

It occurs to me that the music critic is a relatively useless profession, providing the reader with meaningless information on a fairly regular basis.

Theatre and movie critics can help you to decide if you want to invest two or three hours of your life plus admission on a film or play.

Book critics can help you to decide if a book is worth an even more sizeable investment of time plus purchase price.

Food critics serve a similar function in the restaurant business.

But a music critic? Most songs run about four minutes in length, and rarely does a person just sit and listen to music. As a result, making the determination as to whether or not a song is good and worthy of purchase is hardly an investment in time.

Add to this that most songs are available for free on the radio, the Internet, or in thirty-second snippets at an online music store and the monetary investment in making the determination of worth is almost nonexistent. Why would we need a music critic to defend or destroy the value of a song when we can usually decide for ourselves in less time than it takes to bring out the garbage?

My wife argues that music critics often introduce listeners to new music, but with Pandora, Last FM, iTunes’ Genius functionality, and the good old fashioned radio, do we even require this service today?

Worse still, music critics seem obsessed with writing about why one musician is being real or achieving authenticity while another sounds too commercial or inauthentic. They spend time disaggregating the politics behind a Guns N’ Roses song or the symbolism in a Prince tune when all we really want them to do is tell us if the album is any good, and even that is a stretch.

I like culture and music critic Chuck Klosterman a lot and think his new collection of essays, EAT THE DINOSAUR, is outstanding (his essay on football is damn near perfect), but I don’t think I’ve ever heard words like modernity and authenticity used more often than in his essays about ABBA, Weezer and Kurt Cobain.

There comes a point when it’s just music, man. It sounds good or it doesn’t, and no amount of “millennial irony” or “post-modern sensibility” will change that.

Write like Palin!

Slate is hosting a writing contest in which readers are asked to write like Sarah Palin. 

Brilliant. 

I wish I knew who at Slate should be credited with this idea.  The goal is to write a sentence that could be mistaken for one from her book.  The deadline is Wednesday. 

Slate defines the Palin style as “multiple references to local flora and fauna, heavy use of PSAT vocabulary, slightly defensive tone, difficult-to-parse meaning.” 

They also provide an example of such a sentence.  According to Slate's Going Rogue index, the worst sentence in the book (and presumably the most Palinesque) comes on Page 102: "As the soles of my shoes hit the soft ground, I pushed past the tall cottonwood trees in a euphoric cadence, and meandered through willow branches that the moose munched on."

If you decide to enter, would you be so kind as to share your entries here as well.  If I manage to write a respectable entry, I will do so as well.

internet

In reviewing the copyedits of UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO, I was saddened to learn that the word Internet still requires capitalization. 

Why? Can we please agree to stop the insanity!  

The internet is not a place like Tallahassee and Timbuktu.  It is a network of computers, no different than the telephone or electrical lines that crisscross our country.  Why is must still be capitalized is beyond my imagination.     

I dare someone to defend this ridiculous convention.

Waiting is the worst

My favorite literary agent in the whole world (and one of my favorite people in the world) is Taryn Fagerness. I am proud to call her my agent and my friend. She is a brilliant professional and my hero.

Hero? Heroine? I dunno. I think hero sounds better, but if she likes heroine, that would be fine, too.

Either way, despite my supreme adoration for Taryn and my assumption that all other literary agents pale in comparison, I recently discovered that there might be one or two other agents in the world who pass muster, including Nathan Bransford of Curtis Brown, LTD. Though I don’t know him personally, I’ve begun to read his blog and have become an instant fan, not necessarily for his literary agent super powers (of which I have no knowledge), but for the way in which he consistently brings interesting stories from the publishing world to my attention.

It’s become a blog that I read every day.

Recently, Bransford wrote a post about the excruciating pain that comes with waiting.

I understand his pain.

As a writer, waiting can be the worst. Whether it’s waiting for your book to sell or your agent to read your manuscript or your wife to read the latest chapter, waiting is absolute torture. Unlike the athlete or the musician, whose performance is instantly recognized and appreciated by fans, an author’s efforts remain unseen by most readers for more than a year after the words have hit the page.

This is bad enough. But waiting for an editor, an agent, or even your loving spouse can be brutal.  Yes, I know that reading takes time and people are not available at the drop of the hat, but I often wish they were. 

Bransford says it best when he writes:

“The frustrating thing about submitting to agents and editors is that there's nothing. you. can. do. about. it. Once you hit send you're at their mercy. The stress of always wondering if today is the day you're going to receive good or bad news, of always sneaking peeks at your e-mail, and trying to be cool and composed in front of the people who are invested in your work, and hearing all those nos before you get your yeses.... it's a steady stress that wears you down.”

Amen, brother.

Last summer, I was waiting for my publisher to make an offer on UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO. The interminable wait to hear if I was to be more than a one-hit-wonder was bad enough, but tied into this delay was my wife’s decision to teach during the subsequent school year. A good offer on the book meant that she could stay at home with our newborn daughter for another year. Otherwise, we would be forced to navigate the difficult and potential heart-wrenching waters of daycare.

A change in staffing and a restructuring of departments within the publishing house delayed the offer, making our wait even more excruciating. Eventually my wife and I were forced to hope for the best and submit her request for extended maternity leave, unable to wait any longer lest her teaching position ended up unfilled.

A stressful time indeed.

In the end, everything worked out just find, but Brandford is correct when he asserts that waiting is the worst part.

I’d take a bad day at the keyboard over a single day of waiting any day.

Tackle football one more time. Please?

The previous week has been quite interesting in terms of my athletic accomplishments. Last Sunday, I played nine holes of golf and beat my friend, Jeff, for the first time. Granted, he played poorly and I played well, but down two shots going into the final hole, I made par after hitting a wedge 90 yards and sticking it within five feet of the cup. I made the shots when it counted, and it felt damn fine.

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to beat either of my two most frequent golfing companions, and with a victory last Sunday, another resolution is done.

Earlier that same day, I played basketball with a different friend, one whose wife reminded me is about twelve years older than me.  We played a total of five games.  I lost 11-3, 11-1, 11-0 and 12-10.  In my only victory, I won 11-0.

Don’t ask me how that lone win happened. I wasn’t sure myself.

Six days later, on Saturday, I played flag football with a bunch of friends.  Even though we were playing with flags, we chose to honor the rule that allows defenders to hit receivers within five yards of the scrimmage line (an odd decision considering the use of flags, but one that I championed by hitting my buddy on the first snap). The result was three hours of smashing and hitting one another, followed by dead sprints down field and the occasional, accidental collision. In fact, the game ended on a collision, though I don’t remember exactly what happened. I recall running across the field, looking up for the ball, and then ending up on the ground with a blinding headache. My friend, Gary, came up limping beside me, clutching his shin.  Two other guys lay strewn around us. I’m told that in diving for the ball, my head collided with Gary’s leg, resulting in an audible smack and bringing the other two down along with me.

Considering that I’m prone to concussions and I spent the next day in a fog, I’m pretty sure I had at least a mild concussion. But I popped right back up, ready to play. Unfortunately, we were nearly out of time and Gary was having difficulty walking off the hit.

It’s 36 hours later and I can barely walk. Though my body is sore from the hitting, it was the dozens, and maybe hundred, of sprints that did me in. My hip flexors and quads are barely functioning this morning due to overuse.

Though I love to play flag football, my passion is for tackle, a game I didn’t get to play in high school as my school did not have a football team (one of my three greatest regrets in life). As a result, I played a lot of backyard tackle football as a kid, but without the benefit of helmets and pads and referees. Since those childhood days, I’ve played tackle on only a couple of occasions, as adults have little interest in spending a Sunday clutching and grabbing and hitting one another.

And this is my concern. I worry that I may have played my last tackle football game of my life. I’m 38-years old, and if I don’t play soon, I may never play tackle football again.

Sure I have a lot of basketball left in me and many, many more rounds of golf, but my football days may be winding down, and not for want of ability or desire, but for a lack of competition. Tackle football is hard and painful and even dangerous at times, but I love it, yet I may have played my last game without even realizing it.

This is one of the insidious aspects of growing up. You play your last tackle football game or lift your daughter into your arms for one final time before she is too big or speak to your mother for the last time before she dies without ever knowing it.

I was a pole vaulter in high school, and my last vault came at the state championships during my junior year. I thought I had another season of vaulting ahead of me, many more vaults left, but a car accident wiped that opportunity out and I missed my senior year of track and field.

You’re rarely given the opportunity to appreciate those closing moments of your life. They whisper by without any warning whatsoever.

Hopefully I can play tackle football one more time and revel in the finality of the moment.

New website up and running

My new author website debuts this morning at matthewdicks.com.  Everything that you might want to know about me and my books can be found there, including a link to this blog.  I am still in the process of filling out certain sections of the website, but it’s already full of lots of information, including a peek at the cover to my next book, UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO.

For those of you who want to access my blog directly, the address is now matthewdicks.com. 

I hope he’s right

Sometimes I worry that I might have entered the publishing world at the wrong time.  Falling book sales, an unsettled eBook market and the decline of the independent bookstore have caused massive upheavals in the industry.

Add to this experienced and respected authors like John Irving, who suggests that new novelists have a tough road and Phillip Roth, who has declared the novel to be dead, and I find myself a little worried.

Will there be anyone left to buy my books in twenty years? 

Will books like the kind that I write even exist?

Voices of optimism are difficult to come by, which is why I treasure video clips like this a great deal.       

Hoping for disaster. Again.

I plan on watching Oprah with my wife this evening, a talk-show that I never normally watch.  Elysha recorded Oprah’s interview with Sarah Palin, and I’ve been waiting to hear her speak about her new book, GOING ROGUE.

Just writing the title of the book makes me laugh.    

Admittedly, my desire to watch Sarah Palin speak in any capacity is akin to my desire to watch a NASCAR race:

I’m just waiting and hoping for the next spectacular crash and burn.

I can’t help it. I want another Katie Couric-Sarah Palin interview.  I want another impromptu, bizarre, nearly inarticulate resignation speech.  I want the hilarity of the Presidential campaign all over again. 

Those were good days.     

For those of you who did not catch the interview, here is an amusing account of the hour that she and Oprah spent together. 

Even if you did see the interview, it’s short and worth reading.

Happy to be alive

Yesterday I was interviewed by a reporter about SOMETHING MISSING and my life in general.  She was surprised to hear about the many things that I manage to squeeze into the day, and when she asked how I managed to do this, I told her that I sleep less than most and attempt to live my life like it is my very last day on Earth.

Considering my experience with near-death experiences, this is not an unreasonable position for me to assume.  As cliché as it may sound, I think I come damn close to achieving the much sought-after goal of living each day to its fullest.  

My perspective on death is simply more extensive than most.   

“So do you think about death all the time?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Then how can you ever be happy?” she asked, absolute incredulity in her voice.  “Doesn’t thinking about death ruin your day?”

I tried to explain, in vain, that my thoughts of death do not revolve around the means of my ultimate demise or the decay of my body, but simply in the constant, persistent reminder that my time is limited, and therefore I must accomplish as much as possible and take pleasure in every moment possible, as long as I live.  I am not consumed by morbid thoughts but instead by a sense of urgency and appreciation. 

After all, my heart and respiration have already stopped twice before, so it’s not unreasonable to think that a third time will someday come.  I simply live with this thought in mind at all times.   

I’m happy to be alive.

She didn’t buy it.  She couldn’t understand how someone who thinks about death as often as I do and lives with the notion that this hour, this minute, this second, could be my last could ever find happiness. But when you believe that today could very well be your last, you stop trying to make people understand this position.  It’s not the best use of my finite time. 

In the spirit of finite time, however, comes this fascinating study on mortality rates which demonstrates that your likelihood of death doubles every eight years.  As a 38-year old man, my likelihood of death is about 1 in 1,200.  But by the time I’m 42, that number will be down to 1 in 750.  

Oddly enough, the time between my first death (the bee sting) and my second death (the car accident) was also about eight years.

Uniformity be damned!

I find the degree to which authors differ in their approaches to writing utterly amazing. 

Alexander Alter of the Wall Street Journal has collected remarks from a variety of leading authors pertaining to the way in which they approach the process of writing, and they could not be more diverse from one another. 

For example:

“Orhan Pamuk writes by hand, in graph-paper notebooks, filling a page with prose and leaving the adjacent page blank for revisions, which he inserts with dialogue-like balloons. He sends his notebooks to a speed typist who returns them as typed manuscripts; then he marks the pages up and sends them back to be retyped. The cycle continues three or four times.”

“Kazuo Ishiguro, author of six novels, including the Booker-prize winning "Remains of the Day,"typically spends two years researching a novel and a year writing it. Since his novels are written in the first person, the voice is crucial, so he "auditions" narrators by writing a few chapters from different characters' points of view. Before he begins a draft, he compiles folders of notes and flow charts that lay out not just the plot but also more subtle aspects of the narrative, such as a character's emotions or memories.”

“Dan Chaon writes a first draft on color-coded note cards he buys at Office Max. Ideas for his books come to him as images and phrases rather than plots, characters or settings, he says. He begins by jotting down imagery, with no back story in mind. He keeps turning the images over in his mind until characters and themes emerge.”

I sit down wherever I am, open the laptop, and begin writing.

In comparison, I feel so… uninteresting.   Lame.

A veritable imposter.