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New novel....Untitled

So it's been three years since my last novel.  I feel like I'm in confession with that last sentence, and I guess it is a confession of sorts. I'm not sure why but none of the ideas that have come to me since my 2008 graduation seem story worthy.  And no reason I provide is logical or rational.  It's as if my brain just needed time gather its thoughts and then scream, holy ****, Tricky, do I have a story for you.

And what I have is a combination of a story that I dreamed up in the early 2000s, with a bit of a spin, and I am happy to say that it is a few thousand words and going strong.  Do I know where it is going?  No, my brain is a mean little cuss when it comes to things like providing details, but it's giving its secrets just when it seems like I need them either through hard work (i.e. outlining), inspiration, or through my dreams.  So I am hoping to work diligently through the fall and have something passable by year's end.

One of the main elements I am missing is a villain.  I have an idea of this evil fellow, he's a Hannibal Lechter-esque fellow.  Someone you love to hate and hate to love, and every now and again you find find yourself rooting for him or her--but in this case, I'd probably report you to the police if whomever this villain becomes since he is not the type you really want to like . . . I think.

So I am asking all of you, the internet community, to comment below and tell me who you're favorite villain of all time is and the reason why. Everyone has a favorite.  We must because, without them there really aren't many stories worth telling.

Let's hear' 'em--ball's in your court.

-T

The Devil and Preston Black

The Devil and Preston Black.

As a writer, I try to learn a writing lesson from every book I read.  With Jason Jack Miller’s The Devil and Preston Black (Devil) I learned a little about fighting writer’s block.  I mention writer's block because it seems that when I tell people that I have writer’s block, they say just write something.  Anything.  Just write what you’re trying to say.

But as much as writing is about saying something--it is also deciding what not to say.  And that is what is most remarkable about Devil.  Miller has an adept understanding of the nuance of language so readers can extrapolate a much more complex story than the one told on the surface.  He engages the reader, so that, in some strange way, the story channels a shared experience with the author.

When reading this book, do not ask what could possibly be said about the devil that hasn’t already been said a thousand times?--although I could argue that the answer from Miller is quite a bit--but rather what’s been “unsaid” about the devil  and the nature of evil.  Jason Jack Miller is a virtuoso and his writing style gives him an uncanny ability to employ understatement.  For every one thing that Miller chooses to say, he creates a complexity in his characters, settings, and plot--every element--that would be lacking if they were overstated.

Despite understatement, Miller’s images are rich his characters round; his understatement creates a reality and a believability.  Perhaps what makes this most striking is that Devil has a pinch of magic to the story that even the most stubborn I-can’t-suspend-my-disbelief readers will find to be believable elements in a realistic reality.

In addition, Miller is a skilled writer who impeccably breaks from his understated cadence and gives readers a tiny dose of overstatement, the result of which adds tension, creates mystery, and keeps the reader turning pages. And for this reader this is what makes Devil a truly remarkable book worth reading.

2010 Book List

One of my goals for the last year had been to increase the time I spent reading.  This year I clocked 22 books in all--19 fiction and 3 nonfiction.

I tried to hit a variety of both literary and popular fiction, trying to figure out what made each novel fall into that particular column.  As I analyzed them, a quote from Stephen King--perhaps it's because I returned to several of his works this year, after years away from them (my older brother's ratty copy of Cujo was one of the first novels I read as a teen)--kept coming to mind.

King says, "...there are two types of novelists...those who are bound for the more literary or 'serious' side of the job examine every possible subject in light of this question: What would writing this sort of story mean to me?  Those whose...writing of popular novels are apt to ask a very different one: What would writing this sort of story mean to others?  The 'serious' novelist is looking for answers and keys to the self; the 'popular' novelist is looking for an audience."

With this lens, each novel seemed to fit into its "appropriate" category.  And for me the  books that stuck with after reading and still creep into my head out of the blue, seemed to answer, or at least address, both questions.  Bag of Bones, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, and The Road were a few who successfully pulled this off.

One of the other treats for me this year was seeing how some writers are novelists and some are storytellers.  It's one of those distinctions that makes all the difference to the feel of the story.  With an industry where word counts matter, it was nice to see both types on the shelves.

Lastly, every year I try to take a look at fantasy fiction's past to better appreciate where it is today.  I do this partly because my first manuscript is considered fantasy and partly because I'm amazed with how well fantasy (and science fiction) can be at social commentary.  It's like a snapshot of people's beliefs (or ignorance) is at particular point in time.

Since modern fantasy started in children's literature, this year I chose George Macdonald's The Princess and the Goblin.  According to scholar Michael D. C. Drout, Princess is one of the earliest examples where the protagonists in a children's book face the very real threat of death.  As you read, this becomes obvious.  It definitely is a child's fairy-tale, but unlike Snow White or The Wizard of OZ (which I read last year), where it is pretty clear the characters will be in a better place at the end of their adventure, we don't know if the happy ending is coming in Princess.  In fact as you read, it seems very likely that the the bad-ass with the midnight cloak and bone-colored scythe will be the only one smilingly at the end.

I won't spoil the end, and children's literature is not for everyone, but for a kid's book, I dug it.

So without further adieu, here it is: the 2010 Book list list.  I did rate them 1-5 stars when I read them, but I omitted the ranking from this entry.  If people are interested, I could add them back.

January

• The Star Rover--Jack London
• Your Heart Belongs to Me--Dean Koontz
• Fahrenheit 451--Ray Bradbury
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime--Mark Haddon

February

• Neverwhere--Neil Gaiman

March

• A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius--Dave Eggers
• The Art of Happiness--Dalai Lama, Howard C. Cutler

April

• Last Things--David Searcy
• Heartsick--Chelsea Cain
• Princess and the Goblin-George Macdonald

May

• None--apparently it was a slow reading month

June

• Cemetery Dance--Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
• The Road--Cormac McCarthy

July

• Manhood for Amateurs--Michael Chabon

August

• InsideOut--Maria Snyder
• WWZ--Max Brooks
• The Bone Garden--Tess Gerritsen
• The ABC Murders--Agatha Christie

September

• Was a slow reader and didn't finish anything this month

October

• Bag of Bones--Stephen King
• Seize the Night--Dean Koontz

November

• American Gods--Neil Gaiman

December

• The Gunslinger (Dark Tower Book One)--Stephen King
• The Drawing of the Three (Dark Tower Book Two)--Stephen King

Atypical Book Review: The Star Rover, Jack London AND how it teaches writing style

I read "a lot" this year--more than I usually can read in a year.  Last fall, I sold my car and started taking public transportation to work, and I've found that sometimes the thing I look forward to most after a long day in the office is the commute home.

And it's certainly given me some insights as to who I am as a writer and my writing style.  So for the first book, I thought to review here, I've picked The Star Rover written by Jack London and published in 1915, which taught me that writing style is more than word choice.

The Star Rover is perhaps one of the least known, "out-of-character" books by Jack London.  It's not something you'd expect to see from the person who wrote White Fang and Call of the Wild, at least on the surface.  It is a story of a university professor on death row for murder, who finds himself in a state of solitary confinement, bound in something similar to what we'd consider a straitjacket.  To escape the confines, he trains his mind to convince his body that it is dead, and as a result, his mind is able to leave his body and travel into his past lives.  These previous lives are framed together through the prison story.

The writing itself felt dense, and it took me the better part of a month to get through it.  The writing style seemed to be much more complicated than the directness of the other works I read by him ("To Build a Fire" comes to mind).  Despite the denseness, the writing itself was beautiful.  London was able to create well developed worlds in a tight space, and was able to keep me wondering where he was leading me.

Despite the different feel to sentence structure and introducing the element of astral projection, The Star Rover felt like Jack London.  Each tale, including the main story--the prison story--is filled with adventure, suspense, hope, despair, and ultimately death--all elements you find in London's other works...and this intrigued me...

It intrigued me because, until I read The Star Rover, my interpretation of style was more closely defined by the arrangement of words an author chooses.  e.e. cummuings plays around with capitalization, Cormac McCarthy does not use quotation marks for dialogue or an apostrophe for words like "don't."  What The Star Rover taught me as an "early in his career writer" is that style is also determined not only by words but also by the big picture, those global, recurring themes, that an author chooses to explore in writing.

Take Stephen King, for example--most people consider him a horror writer, but the most of his stories--and all of the ones that resonate with me and stay with me long after I finish--explore the concept of love.

In summation, as a writer, we have a style--and getting to learn that style is part of the fun of writing.  When looking for your own style, don't be locked into thinking "my audience expects me to write a certain way."  Tell the story, but remember to be true to it.  Something about it has captured your interest, and it's most likely one of those global themes and your perception of those themes, that makes it your style, that makes it your.

Mike Mehalek AKA Tricky AKA Trickywriter is back from the dead

Hi everyone,

Seems like I've been on hiatus from the blogging world for quite some time. That is because I have been!

The last entry I had on  livejournal, dated April,  10, 2008, was one of those silly online quizzes--the end result of that particular quiz determined what would appear on my tombstone.  Ironically, I died from the online world and a few people may  have had concerns that I died in the "real world too."
Well like Lazarus, I'm back among the living, with a new outlook, a new home, a new hobby or two and a new hope for humanity.  I've been writing (maybe even publishing a few small things here and there) and reading the way I should have been reading all along as a person who identifies himself as a writer.

So what better way to demonstrate this celebration than with a blog?  Not just any blog, a better blog--I'm not sure I completely even knew what blogging was back when I started--a writer's blog.

Granted, there are probably millions of writing blogs in some shape or form--a quick Google search
returned "about 69,000,000 results (0.29 seconds)--so I've attempted to make mine different from those.

The focus will be to discuss areas of interests for writers who feel that they have moved beyond the realm of amateur but have not quite made the break into the business.  I am a jack-of-all-trades-type and my blog will certainly have that feel to it.  Topics will include book reviews, snippets of writing history, random trivia--great for writing and also winning Stump! Trivia--and any other topics that tickle-my-fancy from what is happening in the industry to interviews discussions with fellow writers.
 
Most importantly, this blog is to remind you that you are not alone in the often lonely road to publication.

Thanks for talking the time to stop by!  Come back and visit!  We'll chat soon.

-Tricky (AKA Mike Mehalek)