Uncle Mike's Band: A tribute to Michael A. Arnzen

I'm a Mike Arnzen fan, I'll admit it.

I also have to admit that I really didn't know Mike all that well--being the uneducated reader I was back then--when I first met him in 2006.  He was a mentor in the writing program I had begun attending at Seton Hill University, the professor that it seemed like all of the horror writers wanted to be their mentor.

But then at a book signing I picked up one of his books 100 Jolts, a collection of over 100 flash stories and randomly flipped to a story entitled "Taking Care of Baby."  After reading that little puppy I must say--well I've already said it haven't I--I became an instant fan*.  

And like all good fans I tried to emulate the master.  Below is my own Arnzen-inspired poem written around the time I first became enamored with flash fiction.

Looking at it now, I know it's not my best work, but it takes me back to the early days of my writing career. 

NOTE: It's best to read aloud using your best Arnzen impression. 

(Blog Continues below...)

Uncle Mike’s Band

Severed-head-disco ball scouts the dance floor, spinning its absurd axis.

Demons dance...Spirits fly...down the gullets of hoary beasts.  How they shriek, as they digest, over and over for eternity. 

         The band is ready.  Human tendons tuned on monstrous bass guitars.  Flesh stretched tight on primal drums.  Lead Siren spitting words, her lyrics hiss from snaky speakers.  The patrons groove in a trance.

         The bloodied staff cries in angst, werewolves howl, vampires feast.  A VIP guest am I, earning high status for my life.  Hell’s a party. Hell’s a blast.

Hell is the VIP pass.

Hell is Disco for the dammed.  Doomed to numbing light and sound.

Severed head, disco ball, I scout the scene, spinning on my absurd axis.

Photo by Jason Jack and Heidi Ruby Miller

Currently, Mike is working on the Fridge of the Damned poetry magnet kickstarter, and like all of Mike's works, you'll want to own a part of it.

Be an instigator, support the Fridge of the Damned poetry magnet kickstarter

*And to date I seem to have survived the ordeal with minimal physical and emotional scars

Dog Star Books New Cover Reveal: A MIRACLE OF RARE DESIGN

Well, while we are getting slammed (or so the weather reporters would have you believe) with snow up here in New England, and any semblance of my humanity goes into deep freeze until such time as Punxsutawney Phil grants absolution, I was granted a small reprieve and a moment of respite upon learning that Dog Star Books have landed and will be launching one of Mike Resnick's books A Miracle of Rare Design in the warm summer months of 2013, with another amazing cover by Bradley Sharp.  Exciting, exciting news! 

BOOK: A Miracle of Rare Design

AUTHOR:  Mike Resnick

ARTIST: Bradley Sharp

PUBLISHER: Dog Star Books

GENRE: Anthropological Science Fiction

SUMMARY: The best way to learn about an alien species is not only to live among them, but to become them in both physical form and function, but could a human really learn to think like an alien, and at what cost to his humanity?

Journalist and adventurer Xavier William Lennox becomes obsessed with the rituals of the Fireflies, an alien culture of gold-skinned inhabitants living on the planet Medina. When he gets too close to their mysterious society, he's captured, tortured, and banished for his curiosity, but vows to learn what it is that the aliens are so desperate to hide, even if it means becoming one of them.

But his curiosity doesn't end with the Fireflies. As opportunities arise to study more alien races, Lennox undergoes a series of cosmetic surgeries so that he can blend in with their cultures. But each time his humanity is stretched until he faces his biggest challenge—trying to return to the ordinary life of a man who has experienced the universe in ways he was never meant to.

RELEASE: Summer 2013 

LINKS: Dog Star Books - http://dogstarbooks.blogspot.com

Mike Resnick – http://mikeresnick.com
Bradley Sharp - http://www.bradsharp.co.uk/

2012 Reading List and year end review--of sorts: Are You Too Cool for School??

While 2012 was another year of little reading (disappointed sigh)--I plan to try to push myself to read 50 books for 2013--I have nothing but good things to say about all of my reading for 2012.  Looking back, it seems I have been a little heavy on the Dean Koontz in 2012, but there was a new Odd Thomas book as well as one that I read for a small reading group.  I usually try to be a little more diverse and spread my limited reading time across more genres.

Every year I put up some type of post about my reading for the year on "Writing is Tricky" as a means of reflection (and action for the next year) as well as hopefully to bring something useful to all of you.

So this year I decided to make my reading list a bit more interactive. Rather than summarize what I read or give details on what I was doing and where I was when I read each story, I thought I’d set up a little quiz about the books that I read to test your writing prowess (and coolness).

(Note: Designing this quiz was WAY more challenging than anticipated.  Do not expect an end of year quiz for 2013!)

Pre-quiz instructions PLUS a TOTALLY AWESOME 80s flashback!!

Picture Pages! Picture Pages! Time to get your Picture Pages.  Time to get your crayons and your pencils.  Picture Pages! Picture Pages! Open up your Picture Pages. Time to watch Bill Cosby do a Picture with you!

Matching will be the format that we use for the quiz, 30 questions, totaling a possible 300 cool points should you answer everything correctly.

 


You’re on the honor system (answers are below).

Note: This is an “open-internet” quiz--feel free to websearch, and no you don’t need Mortimer Ichabod Marker* to take this test

Matching Part I Match the book to the author

1. Hellbender                                    A. Matt & Natalie Duvall (editors)

2. The Blood Poetry                           B. Gary A Braunbeck

3. Days of Reckoning                          C. Troy Aaron Ratliff

4. Cloud Atlas                                    D. Gail Z. Martin

5. A Game of Thrones                         E. Stephen King

6. Odd Apocalypse                              F. Dean Koontz (Used 3 times)

7. The Last Werewolf                          G. Leland Pitts Gonzalez

8. 30 Days to Social Media Success        H. Jason Jack Miller

9. To Each Their Darkness                    I. Ansel Dibell

10. 77 Shadow Street                          J. David Mitchell

11. The Wind Through the Keyhole         K. George R. R. Martin

12. What the Night Knows                     L. Glen Duncan

13. Little Bernie’s Map                          M. Chris Stout

14. Hazard Yet Forward

15. Plot

Matching Part II Match the summary/description/theme/quote/observation/etc… on the left to the story/book to the right

1. First installment of A Song of Fire and Ice               A. Hellbender

2. Make social media marketing work for you              B. The Blood Poetry

3. Features a young fry cook who sees the dead          C. Days of Reckoning

4. Literary vampire novel yet without one poem           D. Cloud Atlas

5. Anthology, which my story “The Turnpike”             E. A Game of Thrones

6. Creepy old hotel, inhabited by “The One”               F. Odd Apocalypse

7. Roland Deschain & the Man in Black in DT4.5       G. The Last Werewolf

8. Femme fatale aid in crooked cop’s gory demise      H. 30 Days to Social Media  

                                                                                      Success

9. Family stalked by a poltergeist seeking revenge       I. To Each Their Darkness

10. Reviews essential story structure in all fiction        J. 77 Shadow Street

11. Harness your own horror when you write      K. The Wind Through the Keyhole

12. Struggling family’s drive becomes a nightmare    L. What the Night Knows

13. Appalachian gothic/literary novel set in WV         M. Little Bernie’s Map

14. Story structure resembling matryoshka dolls        N. Hazard Yet Forward

15. “Humboldt's Gift on the highbrow shelves,          O. Plot

      Shogun on the low"--best quote from this novel              

ANSWERS

Part I                     Part II

     1.     H                       1. E

     2.     G                       2. H

     3.     L                        3. F

     4.     J                        4. B

     5.     K                        5. N

     6.     F                        6. J

     7.     L                        7. K

     8.     D                       8. C

     9.     B                       9. L

     10. F                       10. O

     11. E                       11. I

     12. F                       12. M

     13. C                       13. A

     14. A                       14. D

     15. I                        15. G

 

Scoring (Each question is worth 10 cool points):

< 200 -- We probably have very different reading tastes and differing views of “cool”

210-250 -- I’d probably buy you a drink in a bar just so we can keep talking books

260-280 -- I like you.  Can I buy you a shot?

290 -- You’re one twisted SOB…I mean honestly...Can we be friends?

300 -- You must know me, ARE me, or are the principal reason I don’t publish my address

*If you are anything like me and devastated never to have had a Mortimer Ichabod Marker, then click here because Tricky found out how to get one of your very own.

Writing Like a Magician Series Part II: Misdirection

Back in June I started what would hopefully transform into a mini-series on how a writer can employ the techniques of a magician when they are working on a piece of fiction.

The premise for this approach is this: by thinking of crafting a story like a magician thinks about crafting a trick/magic show, then by default, many other essential literary elements flow naturally into the story rather than by deliberate planning.

In my experience when these other elements happen organically rather than by being contrived, the story elements themselves makes more sense in the context of the tale, “feeling” more like a book. 

Admittedly all stories are contrivances--I guess what I’m getting at is that for me my conscious mind and unconscious one communicate better when I employ these techniques.

It could be because any bit of magical chicanery is in reality a story.

Today, I’d like to start a discussion that focuses on Misdirection.

Misdirection has been defined in many ways by numerous people for almost as long as magic has existed.  The way I think about Misdirection goes like this.  It is the way in which a magician is able to shift the attention of the audience from where the audience naturally wants to focus to someplace the magician prefers that attention to be.

In its most basic form--QUICK LOOK BEHIND YOU!--to its most diabolical stratagems, the success (or failure) of any illusion lies in the magician’s ability to mis-direct its audience.  The word “misdirection” itself is a deception as it implies that a magician tries to divert focus away from one area to another with Misdirection, when in fact the true Misdirection may be the magician forcing attention towards whatever area it is that the illusion will take place. (See how sneaky we are).

A simple silk handkerchief serves as a perfect example. This handkerchief is opaque.  It contains no trapdoors, no holes, no mirrors--the threads don’t pull apart for an opening.

A magician who passes the silk out to be examined while stealing a stack of coins from behind his suit lapel is using the silk to divert attention away from the secret move. On the other hand, the magician who uses the silk to covers a stack of coins to conceal the method he will employ to turn the coins into a dove is focusing attention towards the secret move, i.e. using the silk as a cover.  There is even a possibility that if the attention were not centered on the transformation, the secret switch would be detected.

Here is a clip of magician Michael Ammar performing his Coins Through Silk illusion, which employs Misdirection.  Michael uses a silk to focus attention towards and away from the coins at different times in the trick.  Using Misdirection, he will eventually pass the coins through the silk.  Michael’s challenge? Unlike our silk, his is transparent.    

One distinction I’d like to clarify now will become very important to us as we segue our discussion from magic to writing, one point that many non-magicians (and some magicians) neglect and are thus fooled by the magician, and it is this.  Magicians manipulate both time and space when they perform.  In those terms it sounds like wizardry, but this far-fetched-sounding declaration is true.  Misdirection exists as spatial misdirection and time misdirection.  Categorized into these two major types, Misdirection is the most powerful tool in a magician’s (and writer’s) toolbox.

Thus far you have probably imagined this concept as it applies to spatial misdirection, shifting focus from one physical spot to another, so let’s direct your attention--darn you, Tricky, you’re tricky--towards time misdirection.

Time misdirection is the act of altering an audience’s perception of time in order to accomplish an act of tomfoolery (running out of synonyms here).  If you’ve ever experienced a “loss of time” sensation, such as working on a hobby for hours but thinking only minutes have passed, or upon getting home from work realizing you do not remember your drive, then you have experienced time misdirection.  Magicians attempt to create similar experiences, but they have an additional challenge.  Unlike these naturally occurring instances, magicians work to disarm your senses so that you are not conscious of these lapses in time.

There are many ways a magician can do this.  Like a book, every trick has a beginning, middle, and end; and like a book, the beginning, middle, and end is not always the same for the magician (or writer) as it is for the audience (or reader).

During a magic show, for example, the magician may be setting up his next trick, but to the audience it may appear that he is wrapping up his previous one.

I’m reminded of the magician Max Malani who would attend private dinner parties.  After dinner, without leaving the table, he would produce a large block of ice from under a borrowed hat.  To the dinner guests, when Max first asked to borrow the hat, the trick is beginning, but for Max the trick began when he loaded that block of ice.  Where he hid it and how he kept it from melting is a lost secret, but from what I understand of this trick and of Max’s style as a magician, if the conditions weren’t perfect, then the trick never began for the guests, and ended for Max wearing a pair of wet slacks.

My novel Only Human (OH) serves as an example in writing.  I wrote the manuscript of OH out of order.  It started by writing the first and last chapter but evolved to the first sentence and last sentence of a paragraph then the beginning words and ending words of a sentence.  Eventually these ends met and knitted together.  In addition, there are two major storylines in OH.  I wrote one and then the other.  Finally I carved them up and ordered them appropriately.  Obviously, that is not the order the audience would want to read it.

And with that I must end here for now.  This entry is getting a bit cumbersome, and I have fiction writing to do.  In the next installment we will look more closely at how Misdirection* can be used in fiction writing.  I ask that you forgive my pause here, fantabulous blog reader.

I’ve included two anecdotes and videos below for your enjoyment (and to misdirect you away from the fact that this is only half of our discussion and to give you something to think about until the next post is ready).  Know that I appreciate all of your support and patience. I hope this is of some value to you.

*Please note:  As a whole, spatial and time misdirection both exist in all magic tricks, and I generally denote this inseparability in my writing by using a capital M.

Consider the power of time misdirection: I am often asked how David Blaine levitated on his first TV special. I’ve done this myself over the years and have gotten great reactions from people. The method I use is similar to the one featured below.  I must admit that David's TV version looks more impressive (wait 'til you see it!). The reason?  The time misdirection that David employs is more powerful than what I can muster (although I must admit once when I did this, I had a person call me the Devil and refused to talk to me after that--no I am not kidding) 

Or this: I watched David Copperfield perform Portal at a live performance in Pittsburgh.  For his finale, David selected an audience member and teleported  to Hawaii taking this person with him.  While I can only speculate as to some of the methods used, it is clearly accomplished with Misdirection.