Uhhh...

Why do people want me to keep talking and interacting with the general populace? Have I not scared you all away by now? No? (waves hands) Shoo! Go away! Leave me to be disturbingly introverted so everyone can question if I'm the next Phantom! (looks around) Why are you still here?! (sits back) Nicole put you up to this didn't she? So I'll write? (sigh) There's a lot of diabolical in that tiny bit of height...Alright, alright, I'm going...But I don't have to like it...

                                                                                                                     Nikki W.

Stranger than fiction...

As one who hails from Boston, MA...

I have very little to convey of our city's recent few days in the national spotlight.  I was at work, sitting in front of a lap-top in a quiet office when a co-worker said she'd heard about the Marathon explosions on Twitter.  (I'd heard about 9/11 in much the same way.) The next day, I get a robo-call from the city telling me the subway has been shut down.  As it slowly sank in that, for all intents and purposes, the city itself had been shut down, it felt increasingly surreal.

Like a modern-day version of some cheesey old western; the whole town shuts down, everybody locked in their homes, the curtains drawn as two gun fighters meet under the noon-day sun in the middle of a dusty street.  Or, one of those Grade B action movies complete with car chases, gun play and fleeing desperadoes throwing bombs at pursuing cop cars.  But, this was reality (whatever that is.)  It was hard to believe two punks with a few guns and home-made bombs could have the power to shut down a whole city.  An over-reaction on the part of city government, perhaps.  Whether it's likely to encourage or discourage such terrorist exploits in future, only time will tell.

And, as always, we take what we can, or need to, from the aftermath.  There was a celebratory mood in Boston after the sole surviving bomber had been captured.  It was as if we'd won a sporting event or something.  "Boston Strong" became our mantra of the moment.  We'd weathered the storm and come out stronger.  Okay.  We locked ourselves in our apartments for a whole day and proved a city this size could survive an attack by two guys.  Forgive me if I fail to see how we've earned this degree of self-congratulation. It seems at times like this we almost need explosions of madness like this to make ourselves feel stronger.

Crazy perhaps, but then so is our seemingly insatiable fascination with evil, as reflected in popular fiction.  We love these kooky police procedurals featuring psychologically disturbed FBI agents and profilers matching wits with ridiculously lurid serial killers, evil geniuses who are about as close to reality as Batman villains.  The elaborate artistry of fictional serial killers...the human butterfly sculptures of Hannibal Lecter, the forest gardens of buried corpses with their hands held aloft as if in greeting, naked women impaled on moose antlers.  A guy with an Edgar Allan Poe fixation who somehow brainwashes a woman into writing his name over every inch of her body and then fatally stabbing herself through the eye in public.  (We're a deeply sick culture.)

Quite apart from the obvious (and pathetically adolescent) obsession with misogynistic violence, maybe the real reason we create fictional villains out of the darkest parts of the frustrated male psyche and then write stories in which their grotesque and intricate puzzles are unraveled by profilers and ingenious police shrinks is because we take comfort in the fantasy that evil can actually be dissected, analyzed, understood and anticipated.  In fiction, the super criminals and serial killers are always predictable by virtue of their brilliance and complexity.

In real life, evil is much more primal, instinctive and simple minded.  Or, at least more opaque.  We really don't have a clue what makes seemingly normal, well-adjusted, educated, intelligent men hijack an airliner on a suicide run into a sky scraper in the belief that 70 virgins await them in paradise.  Or, what makes one troubled young man out of thousands pick up an automatic weapon (legally obtained, BTW) and shoot up a school, butchering countless people, children included.  Or, what makes two brothers emigrate halfway round the world for a clumsy, haphazard rampage of random violence, supposedly in the belief that God wants them to.

Maybe we obsess over these random explosions of violence because they divert our attention from the larger patterns of sane, organized mass murder that have been going on since the dawn of time.  The sane among us have for centuries marched train by train like lemmings into gun fire.  As the world has changed and evolved, warfare has changed with it.  Gone are the days of declared wars between nation states; wars with clear objectives, beginnings and ends.  Now, civilization seems to be degenerating into an Orwellian nightmare of perpetual war, complete with rocket bombs that kill civilians anywhere and everywhere, both the Geneva Convention and due process of criminal law be damned.  No rules.  Torture becomes an acceptable, even laudable part of national security, and this shapes our culture.  As I sit here typing this, I'm watching a television show in which the heroes (FBI agents) brutally torture information out of a prisoner, blood streaming from his mouth as they finally wrench the truth from him.  (Oops...they just shot him dead.)  The villain they're hunting is a madman; he lives in his own private reality.  But, what reality are we creating for ourselves?

We won't let go of our guns or our predator drones or our nukes.  But, we will let go of our civil rights.  We will incarcerate, institutionalize, shock, water board, or otherwise torture anyone we decide might be dangerous.  But, that's okay:  We're the sane ones.

As a fiction writer, I create some pretty crazy landscapes, wacky worlds and bloody-handed monsters.  A lot of it is directly inspired by the reality we all see on the news daily.  And, most of it really can't hold a candle to the real thing.

Tom Olbert (author:  "Long Haul")
http://tomolbert.blogspot.com

Putting the Sizzle in Steamy Scenes: Part Two (Contains ADULT Content)

Last month, we began a two part post about writing steamy scenes. To refresh, this was Part One. This month's offering delves much more into the writing of graphical scenes. The example, therefore contains more explicit language. Picking up where we left off:

So, we have covered setting the mood, and foreplay. How do you get down to the nitty-gritty? The brass tacks. The graphics. First of all, by not resorting to out-dated euphemisms or coy symbolism. There is still no need to get crude, but there is less tolerance for the "straining manhood" and "womanly nest" of the past. Unless you are recapturing a period mood or style. Today’s audience can handle more graphic wording, and expect it if it is tastefully done. For example, in the following:

As soon as Peter had shut the bathroom door, Beth stepped to the bed and sat on the edge of it. It was hard, yet yielding. She closed her eyes as she ran her hands along the spread and imagined lying back on that surface, and looking up as Peter knelt over her. She bit her lip. What was she doing here? She chuckled throatily to herself...just taking a little advice and "going for it" She opened her eyes and saw his jacket on the bed beside her. She swept it up and cradled it to her breasts, taking a deep whiff of the scent of him. She hugged it tightly. And smiled wickedly as a thought came to her. She laid the jacket back on the bed, and slowly reached for the next button on her blouse. Should she...?

Coming to a quick decision, she slipped the last two buttons undone and dropped the blouse on the bed, and then she reached behind her and unzipped the velvet skirt, dropping it to the floor. She took a deep breath. No turning back now. "Just do it!" she whispered, biting her lip again.

Stepping to the bathroom door, she put a hand on the knob, and all of a sudden had a heart stopping thought. What if it was locked? God...let it turn....

The knob twisted beneath her hand, and she pushed the door open a crack. A wave of steam billowed out at her. It caressed her bare skin like a lover's kiss, and she shivered. Then she slipped inside the bathroom and closed the door softly. The water roared in the shower, and she felt her nipples tighten in anticipation. Silently, she stepped forward and pulled back the rear of the shower curtain.

Art Imitating Life

Here we are once again, friends.  The start of another new month as we charge bravely toward the summer.  And what an exciting month April was!  I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve been glued to all the coverage of those tragic bombings in Boston, MA.  I was, like everyone else, horrified by the initial story.  Not since Sept. 11, 2001 have I felt that overwhelming sense of mass panic.  The little town where I live is hundreds of miles away from Boston, but I had heard rumors that the bombings were not isolated and everyone seemed to be on edge, waiting to see which city would be hit next.  Then, later in the week, I was intrigued by the manhunt and capture of the surviving bomb suspect.  It really was like something out of a movie.  Coming soon to theatres:  Taken 3:  Marathon of Terror.

Which brings me to the topic of my rambling today.  Does art imitate life? 

As a writer, I ate up all the gory details of the Tsarnev brothers’ lives and exploits, looking for two things.  One, how could human beings commit such a violent act against other human beings?  I think during something like this, we all have that need to make sense of a senseless act, but I think that as a writer, that need is even more intense.  Like most of us, I can’t imagine staring into the smiling face of an eight- year old boy as I place a bomb at his feet, knowing that it will likely kill the child instantly.  The writer in me wants to know how a person could become so jaded, or crazed or “radicalized” that that would seem ok.  What was going through the mind of those bombers? Did they justify it to themselves?  Did either one ever feel the slightest pang of remorse or even think for a second about turning back?  What about the victims?  Did they have a premonition that might have warned them?  It’s said that we all have guardian angels that remain hidden except in times of extreme distress or at the hour of our deaths.  I find myself wondering if maybe that little boy saw his angel and was unafraid.  I hope so.

My point is—each person involved in such a horrible event is a character, or as Stephen King might say, “a bag of bones.”  Observing the players in this gruesome drama has inspired me in a way I hadn’t thought of before.  I find myself filing them away for future use:  victims, police officers, FBI investigators, firefighters, doctors, concerned citizens that rushed in to help, and yes—even the bombers themselves.  A stockpile of characters that I can pull out at will.  Heroes in the top drawer, villains in the bottom.  And always keeping in mind that no one is the villain of their own story.

Art in all its forms, is not just a monument of the world we live in.  It is how we understand it.  It gives us empathy and bolsters our faith.  I hope that someday, perhaps through writing, I’ll able to understand, but I’m not holding out much hope.  I suppose I’ll just have to settle for faith.

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If you’re interested in making a donation to the victims of the Boston Bombings, check out The One Fund here:  https://secure.onefundboston.org/page/-/donate9.html

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My books can be found  at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, All Romance eBooks and anywhere quality eBooks are sold.

Ten Successful Authors Speak to You

You have to be a reader to be a writer, at least that's what I always thought. You have to read the styles of others, find out what you enjoy, find out what you don't enjoy and mold/craft your own style to showcase your unique voice.

It's also important to read in many different genres to see what other writers are doing with different subjects. Ed McBain, the author of the 87^th Precinct series, had a writing style that was short and to the point, but also delivered a lot of information in very few words. His word pictures were easy to imagine because he provided just enough detail. Same goes for Robert B. Parker, Raymond Chandler, and some of Octavia Butler's works.

C.S. Lewis has a markedly different style. Where as Ed McBain is quick and hard-bitten, I find that C.S. Lewis offers a softer, more descriptive style. He sets you firmly in his scene and continues to add nuances of smell, sight and sound even as you read. When you finish reading a scene in his books, its almost as if you've been there.

Alice Hoffman is the magical word spinner, the one who transports you with the unique juxtaposition of her words and usage. She puts two disparate things together, writes about words cutting your tongue and people smelling of burnt lemon sugar.

These authors wrote in whatever style spoke to them – and you should too.

Ten quotes from successful authors – some about writing and some not...

"Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it. " — Raymond Chandler

"If your writing doesn’t keep you up at night, it won’t keep anyone else up either".— James M. Cain

"Writer's block? I've never heard of a plumber complain about plumber's block." — Robert B. Parker

"Avoid Prologues. They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword." — Elmore Leonard

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot." — Stephen King

“Books may well be the only true magic.” ― Alice Hoffman

"You can make anything by writing." — C.S. Lewis

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” ― Madeleine L'Engle

"First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice." — Octavia E. Butler
The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. --Anaïs Nin

Bonus:  Never be afraid to sit a while and think.--Lorraine Hansberry

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