A Return? On a 99 cent short story?

shlomi on April 21, 2012

I’m going to take the high road and assume that someone accidentally purchased Consent, meaning to buy a $200 tome instead. And I’ll make that my final answer, since I didn’t get an accompanying lashing of a review.

{grumble}

I doodled on a Generation to Generation cover, and quickly realized that if my stick figures weren’t awful enough, stick figures in perspective, spinning back in time, arranged as a double helix certainly didn’t showcase any nascent talent I might believe I have in that arena.

Splitting today into cooking, finishing G2G and getting it up online, and continuing to work on a WordPress plugin to integrate Google Charts into a blog site.

Dusting Off “Finished” Pieces

shlomi on April 19, 2012

The problem with writing is that, with practice, it improves. I went back to a really nice piece I’d written, intending to slap formatting on it and bring it up as an e-book short story. (As I did with Consent a few days back — thanks to all of you who’ve purchased it for the exorbitant, crazy price of under a buck!)

My writing friend JNE calls ’em ‘vampire words.’ They suck energy from scenes, dull down dialog… and the dang story dripped with them. ‘Began.’ ‘Felt.’ ‘Seemed.’ ‘Was.’

Rewriting is a recursive experience. One sentence leans on the next, paragraphs on their neighbors, and the whole short story on it’s scenes. The patient lies still on its word processing operating table, mostly put back together, but with yet a distance to travel.

Hopefully I can figure out how to create a cover for it — I really need to learn how to draw.

CONTEST!!! Speaking of publishing, with all the folks buying Consent there aren’t any reviews. Any and all would be much appreciated! I’ll pick a reviewer at random and write them into a story I’m just wrapping up. The higher the rating, the better the character in the story!

72197

shlomi on April 18, 2012

My mom spent eleven months in Auschwitz. She watched her parents get machine-gunned before her. Has bullet scars on both sides of her breasts. She survived the ghetto, and was one of the young people chosen to work in a suitcase factory until the ghetto was liquidated on September 18, 1943.

After the liquidation was completed (and I don’t know where she was during that time), she was forced to drag out all the bodies from the apartments in the town in which she was born and grew up. After all the bodies were removed, she, along with the other young people left, were made to take all the furnishings and belonging to the ghetto residents outside, to be loaded onto Nazi trucks and taken to Germany.

Before she lost the ability to be nasty and hurtful she talked about some of what she went through. Art Spiegelman used her for notes for Maus and Maus II.

She was angry and afraid and emotions I’ve never understood since the day I was born. She was easy in telling tales, tales I couldn’t stop asking about — and couldn’t block out of my mind.

I’ve thought about her scar, and the blurred blue ink underneath, since I was old enough to touch her arm.

72197

I want your number, mom —

the number
   first tattooed on your virgin flesh
then burned away
      in a pique of freedom

I need the number
   for a new covenant
   to wear your shame as
   my badge of memory
   one star
   one number
for each family lost
by each family serving
   as a Ner Tamid[1].

This is no covenant
   of secret mutilation
   passing a livestock brand
   from a time beyond memory
this –
   this is our new brand
   of bondage, body and
soul
   to the strength and power we lacked
   in ages past and present.

I claim this covenant everlasting
between me and my uncles and aunts
   my grandparents and cousins
   my parents and sister and children

This is a covenant between
   we new priests of memory
   and our havurot[2]
   and temples
    and synagogues
    and shtibles[3]
    and homes
    and hearts

This covenant is to teach and remind
   remember and relate
how god did not Pass us Over
and heard not the helpless cries from ghettos
   truck exhausts   rifle stocks   bullets
   boxcars   camps
   dry showers

This covenant is to preach
   that a people of memory without strength
   a people of knowledge without
   wisdom
   are a people doomed to repeat
   a history well remembered

I pray for wisdom to battle hate
I bind my mind with t’fillin[4] of discipline of the hand
   and love between my eyes
I mourn destructions and deaths in dirge and sirens
And celebrate Warsaw rebellions, Maccabean redemptions

Engage in pilpul[5] and hevruta[6] among
   The untaught and unremembering
practice the arts of understanding
kindness
   firmness
   resistance
   and war without quarter
    or mercy

Baruch anachnu hasordimba’alei zikaron k’dosheinu asher kidashnu et atzmeinul’sherut ameinu la’ad Blessed are we the survivors masters and owners of our martyrs’ memories who have consecrated ourselves to our people’s service forever

Amen.

Yom Ha’Shoah Ve’Hagvurah[7]
April 19, 2001

 

[1] Eternal flame, a light of remembrance
[2] Groups of students who learn together, or Jewish Reconstructionist congregations
[3] Small congregations of Orthodox or Ultra-Orthodox Jews meeting is small synagogues or family homes
[4] Leather phylacteries, leather straps and parchment boxes worn on the arm and head during daily prayers by Orthodox Jews
[5] Argumentative give-and-take used to understand and learn an academic point
[6] A pair or group of students learning together
[7] Holocaust and Heroism (Remembrance) Day

On Writing

shlomi on April 18, 2012

Listening to NPR, where Jonathan Gotchall reviews lists three of his top books. On Writing, by Stephen King is at the top of his list. I’ve bought and given away three copies so far. It’s a brilliant book: it helped me understand that the craft of writing overlays the art of writing. But one needs both to create a memorable piece of work.

With Consent up and being purchased on Amazon (thank you one and all!), I’m getting ready to publish a short fiction piece, Generation To Generation, a story that’s vaguely religious (and termed ‘heretical’ by a couple of religious publications). It should be up in a few days.

The Next ONE

shlomi on April 17, 2012

I’m seeing life through late middle age, post-first marriage, eyes, wondering about the ifs and whens of my next. And, as a compulsive observer, I’m seeing the primal pursuit of happiness in a different light.

For those seeking trust, BDSM has its attractions. For those looking for love, sex is a reliable, if saccharine, stand-in. And those looking for a partner, friends with interlocking technical needs (e.g., shopping, assistance with living, a shoulder to reliably cry on), with or without benefits, fit the bill. And for the hunters, pursuit is their way of feeling their oats. Loners run the gamut of belonging, sitting in the corner of the ballroom of life and watch the dancing and mating games. From musicians to aesthetes, surface gregarians to profound hobbyists, they are present, if not true participants, living their lives in their heads to the expense of investing in the fickle chance of another.

What does this have to do with writing? Observations such as these are key, to me, in finding less-traveled ways to develop characters. In Consent (available at Amazon here for a mere pittance) my central character is cold and removed from her society, a sufferer of PTSD. Her re-entry into the “normal” society was, for me, the core of the story, not the technology or situation, however interesting they are.

How do your characters fit into the society around them? Are they stable in their milieu? What are they striving for? Who is their next ONE?

Consent: New Short Story Out!

shlomi on April 16, 2012

This story has been stewing in the back, the standard 95.43% ready but not quite there. Now it is, complete with correct formatting as an e-book, a pretty cover and all that jazz.

Consent is about Jesse Munoz, a Medecins Sans Frontieres veteran who’s been through too much. Back in Texas, she works with long-term coma patients, determining whether their essence is really there, and whether further rehabilitation makes sense.

As someone who suffers from PTSD, I know first-hand how things seemingly entirely unrelated can trigger things. And what folks often do to shield themselves from the ‘black hole’ in their minds.

I’d love to see reviews of the story. To help that along, I’ll select a reviewer from the list of substantive reviews who will receive a $20 gift card. (To review one must read…) 🙂

One last thing: I have several other stories that could use another pair of critical eyes. If you’re interested, please contact me.

To Mentor, Perchance to Learn

shlomi on April 12, 2012

A friend of mine who worked with me at a past job was looking to upgrade his skills. He was thinking a rather expensive, intensive, immersion experience. Given where he was in life I suggested that I work with him, to challenge him, keep him honest and on track as he learned some new and remunerative skills.

Lest anyone think the word altruism, please don’t. I’m planning on getting some of my needs met at the same time. I need someone to challenge me, to keep me honest. I spent too much time on my own, with only myself to rely on deadlines. Yes, that mean’s I’m undisciplined with my time. Sue me: this will be a mechanism to instill discipline.

So he’ll learn a new, great skill, and I’ll have someone who knows English and deadlines, and will keep me honest to them.

Writing, Self-Distractions, and Real Work

shlomi on April 7, 2012

I’ve got about 30 things on my publishing and writing to-do lists, and here I am creating a plugin for WordPress. I know I’m distractable when there are tons of things on my list, but thrashing isn’t a way to get them done. One by one, according to priority. While I’ve got a whole other to-do list on coming up with a great solution for that, I decided I need to “treat” myself to new creativity between bouts of writing, editing, or chores. So this afternoon is dedicated to the plugin, which I’ll showcase here first before putting into the WordPress plugin library.

Goals for today:

  • Most of my home honey-do list;
  • Edit Coming of Age chapter one and submit to two online sites;
  • Come up with covers for the remaining short stories and get Consent and Sabbath Queen up on my shop; and
  • Get my existing published works up on SmashWords.

And no gaming or drifting until that’s all done.

“Hunger Games,” Transitions from Book to Screen and ScriptFrenzy

shlomi on March 25, 2012

While I disagree with the YA genre for the Hunger Games, on the basis of graphic violence rather than the usual idiocy about what kids know about sex and relationships by their early teens, it is a great series. The first novel stands firmly by itself, albeit a bit of a teaser at the end. What gave the book depth and the main characters power, at least for me, was the backstory: why the hunger, how cutting the deprivation, how evil the Pan Em Capital really was.

Give costuming its due: the frippery of the capital residents, their gaudy couture , awkward, vain hair & makeup

Translating this book to a movie reminded me how the movie industry has come to see these movies. Parse out all the plot lines, keeping all but the vivid or book-memorable ones. Discard extraneous characters, scenes. Seeing the movie last night gave me a hollowed-out visual to go with the book in my mind. Casting did a great job on the visuals for the lead actors, but, had I not read the book, I doubt I’d have caught the Depression Era costuming of the Districts. Aside from a one-line homage to Katniss’ backstory with her mother, or one nightmare glimpse of a mine explosion, entire sources of power that give Katniss her survival power and personal integrity disappear. As a result she appears much more the contrary teen than an empowered, angry, focused young woman.

I give it a 7/10 on the “fun at the movies” scale. I’m sure the sequels will be as beautiful. But hopefully better informing us of their inner strengths and motivations, and less of the jiggly camera stuff.

test

shlomi on May 6, 2011

Here are those Top 10 Facebook Pages details:

insights on top facebook pages

How did I calculate?

I had collected the ratios between likes and comments
from all these 10 pages’ recent week updates and tested the
average percentage (by converting ratios to
percentage) of active users in each of these top 10 profiles. You know
what? The average percentage of Active users in all
these world top 10 profiles is less than 20%
(Twenty- percent).