Poetry corner!

That Time of Year

by William Trowbridge

Leave marvel at how light they've grown, discover flight,
learn the barrel roll, the Immelmann. Grizzlies doze
over their morning salmon.
In Algebra I, it's time for the hard stuff already.
Hurricane Darleen and Hurricane Randy try the Swim,
the Tighten-Up, the Mashed Potato.
In the face of thirty-seven straight defeats, the Plattsmouth Eagles
Booster Club decrees a two-story homecoming bonfire,
which spreads through downtown.
The new moon's back at it, trading colors with the pumpkins.
In Halloween XXXII, Michael Meyers thins out another group
of tiresome though basically good kids, slashing every girl
too big for an A cup. Hitler is played by Frankie Avalon.
Rain-soaked patios and lawns just stand around, forlorn
as abandoned pets. A water gun settles under forsythia.
The 700 Club and the NRA lobby for a bill banning Halloween
as a Satanic feminist holiday and allowing gun owners
to shoot trick-or-treaters out after 9 p.m. The President will veto
unless a warning shot's required.
Dark as ever, our lost hour returns from daylight savings time,
tasting like icicles used to.
Inside the Mall of America, now petitioning for statehood,
it might as well be spring.
Opened once more, the steam pipes clank out their ghostly signals.


From The Four Seasons, published by Red Dragonfly Press. Reprinted with permission.

A squirrley story.

During my daily lunchtime walk, I saw a squirrel with a closed dandelion blossom in his paws. I immediately stopped to see what his deal was. The squirrel went to a nearby Norway spruce and sat by the trunk and looked at me, getting a little curious about what I was up to, the way squirrels do. And then he took the flower and placed it crossways in his mouth, like a dog carrying a bone, and climbed up the back of the tree. I couldn't see him, but the closed dandelion ascended the tree under its own power.

Then he reached a branch and took the dandelion out of his mouth and shook his tail and gave me the once-over. He picked up the dandelion and stripped some of the outer layer of the stem off, holding the dandelion much as you would hold a flute. I was enchanted.

Then he turned the bottom of the dandelion stem up and started to eat it with little crunches. I watched him for a while, then moved on.

I began to eye the dandelions. Did dandelions taste good to a squirrel? I have seen them eating maple blossoms off trees. Was a dandelion a spring tonic to a squirrel? I picked one of my own, and the white sap oozed out of the stem. Put a teeny bit between my teeth. The bitter went straight to the back of my tongue. whoo! Glad I'm not a squirrel.

Story update!

Deadline time is approaching for the raccoon story. I said I'd get it done by May and by God I'm going to do it.

I have 100 pages to go, most of which will have to be torn up and totally rewritten. I need to do 4 pages/day to get 'er done by Mother's Day. After which I want to go back and start rewriting it from the beginning. Lord willing.

I have told myself to stay off the damn computer. This means I can' t go trolling the blogosphere if I want to get out of doing work. Or procrastinate. There's this little issue I've been having about developing bad work habits and that's one of them.

The internet is the debbil.

Tonight I got some plotting issues lined out because the plot lines converged all at once and got into a hairy tangle. Part of the problem was that the novel's pacing has gone right out the window. The other part of the problem is that I'm just now figuring out what the heck is going on in this story. In this version, anyway. (You know it's going to change in future versions.)

Haven't heard back from any agents since my last post. I might send out a few more queries. But otherwise I'm just going to sit tight and write. And not check the Gmail every five minutes.

Thought you-all should know.

Poetry corner!

I forgot that April was National Poetry Month. Here's some Gerard Manley Hopkins, just for that Easter spirit.


God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs --
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and ah! bright wings.

Update on the raccoon story!

I've been working on the raccoon story today. (I'm up to chapter 19.) I just discovered something about my MC, Thorn, which I'd kind of suspected. Except this secret was the tipping point that caused my story to change audiences, from MG to YA. But I was like, for Pete's sake, if the story needs it, put it in, and let it be a YA. So what if animal stories are supposed to be MG. Just do the Watership Down thing and be done with it.

The story had already been scooching into YA territory because Silverlady, the other MC, wanted to get married and start a family, which is more a YA concern. I was trying to keep it MG by saying, "Well, what she really wants is a family, since she never had one." Well, so much for that!

But I'm happy that the story has decided to be a YA. It's strange, but I always felt a little constrained by the MG label everyone kept putting on my story. It's not that MG is less good. It's just that I kept thinking, "Well, I can't say that, I can't do that" -- like I had to censor myself because of the audience. And that I didn't love the novel as much because I couldn't let it be itself.

Anyway, Thorn's secret is awesome. Oh, the ending, you're going to love it! I changed it in light of this new knowledge, and now it's just so wonderful! I am so happeeeeeee! Okay, enough exclamation points.

Only problem is, I just finished writing the cool scene where he admits this secret, but just as soon as I finished that scene, the following scene seemed so utterly trite and pointless that I immediately felt stuck. I'm a wimp.

Sending stuff out.

I've sent out only two things in the last eight months: a query to an agent and a full MS to FSG. And that's it. Everything else I've been sitting on.

Editors' slush piles are overflowing because we're too busy sending out stuff, seeking stardom and fame and everything publishing promises. And a lot of stuff that's going out is premature. Or unfinished.

I have one finished novel. I thought my other projects were finished, but I looked at them again after my growth spurt and discovered they aren't.

I thought I knew that it took a long time to write a book. But then I discovered I really didn't know. That you gotta dig in and work on one book for months at a time, instead of flitting from project to project.

Granted, it is nice to have an extra project to work on if the main project keeps running you into that brick wall. But some days you have to keep slamming into that brick wall to make progress. Which doesn't make sense. But it works. It's one of those creative things that Maslov likes to talk about. (That Maslov! He's really a lot of fun, and super-helpful in teaching me all this useful psychological stuff.)

Today I'm going to hunt down some agents to send my Symphonians novel to. I should have started marketing it to agents when I sent it to FSG, but that was about the time the apocalyspe hit. Dang it. I'm such a slowpoke. That's my other failing.

(The apocalypse is over at work, btw! And it's so nice.)

It pays to be mean to your MC.

Cruising along, or close enough, on the raccoon story. A couple of calamities befall the main character at once, pretty bad ones, actually.

MEMBERS OF MY CRITIQUE GROUP: SPOILERS AHEAD.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Thorn, my main character, loses an eye in a big fight. And then the same raccoon he loses his eye to goes off and kills Thorn's closest friend. Who also happens to be the raccoon that is helping to prop up Thorn's authority in the tribe. And Thorn's authority's going to be questioned soon.

It's a bad wound. It affects him in small ways, such as drinking (when he's trying to lap the water, he keeps misjudging the water's surface and keeps getting water in his nose) and walking (keeps crashing into folk, or startles when someone comes up on his blind side). He's leery about getting back in a tree, since he's not sure how this is going to affect his climbing skills. Which is bad when you live half your life in trees.

But there are some bad things looming up. Because Thorn's trying to move his tribe out of that area, but because of his bad wound he's sick and dizzy. The area around the eye is hot, it's constantly hurting, not just an owie but hot-wire-through-your-skull pain. He pushes himself too hard and blacks out while telling his successor that they need to have a council meeting right away.

But at that point where he blacks out, the narrative demands that I change the pov to his successor, who's sharing the story, so she can go make some mistakes that she's going to pay for later.

Except I don't want to mess with that chapter. I want to stay in Thorn's pov. Because now I have to admit I'm suddenly more interested in Thorn. (I was having trouble with that earlier.)

I know he's up to the challenge. I've always known that he was a strong one. But now he can show his strength. He's become much more sympathetic. For all his guff and bluff ways, now he is going to show that he is truly a good leader, even when the rest of his tribe start questioning his decisions.

I'm kind of glad this happened, even though it's going to be very bad for him for a while. Now I have a MC I can really be proud of. He's getting a bigger reward at the end, though at this point I'm not sure what it is.

Have you ever considered underwear in the abstract?

Here's a poem by my (right now) favorite beat poet, Lawrence Ferlinghetti. I have a copy of him reading the poem aloud. You can listen to a snippet of that reading here. I love his voice. And he's the boss of City Lights, which is a bookstore and also the publishing house that published Allen Ginsburg's Howl.


Underwear
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti


I didn’t get much sleep last night
thinking about underwear
Have you ever stopped to consider
underwear in the abstract
When you really dig into it
some shocking problems are raised
Underwear is something
we all have to deal with
Everyone wears
some kind of underwear
The Pope wears underwear I hope
The Governor of Louisiana
wears underwear
I saw him on TV
He must have had tight underwear
He squirmed a lot
Underwear can really get you in a bind
You have seen the underwear ads
for men and women
so alike but so different
Women’s underwear holds things up
Men’s underwear holds things down
Underwear is one thing
men and women have in common
Underwear is all we have between us
You have seen the three-color pictures
with crotches encircled
to show the areas of extra strength
and three-way stretch
promising full freedom of action
Don’t be deceived
It’s all based on the two-party system
which doesn’t allow much freedom of choice
the way things are set up
America in its Underwear
struggles thru the night
Underwear controls everything in the end
Take foundation garments for instance
They are really fascist forms
of underground government
making people believe
something but the truth
telling you what you can or can’t do
Did you ever try to get around a girdle
Perhaps Non-Violent Action
is the only answer
Did Gandhi wear a girdle?
Did Lady Macbeth wear a girdle?
Was that why Macbeth murdered sleep?
And that spot she was always rubbing—
Was it really in her underwear?
Modern anglosaxon ladies
must have huge guilt complexes
always washing and washing and washing
Out damned spot
Underwear with spots very suspicious
Underwear with bulges very shocking
Underwear on clothesline a great flag of freedom
Someone has escaped his Underwear
May be naked somewhere
Help!
But don’t worry
Everybody’s still hung up in it
There won’t be no real revolution
And poetry still the underwear of the soul
And underwear still covering
a multitude of faults
in the geological sense—
strange sedimentary stones, inscrutable cracks!
If I were you I’d keep aside
an oversize pair of winter underwear
Do not go naked into that good night
And in the meantime
keep calm and warm and dry
No use stirring ourselves up prematurely
‘over Nothing’
Move forward with dignity
hand in vest
Don’t get emotional
And death shall have no dominion
There’s plenty of time my darling
Are we not still young and easy
Don’t shout.

Despite Armageddon, we're making progress.

Right after I blithely said, "See? The Armageddon isn't so bad," a sale book with 916 cows hit my desk and I got buried in the detritus.

Which meant I spent a lot of time staring at the sale book and longing, yearning, to get to a computer or notebook and work on my story.

Though if I'd had actual hours or even days to work on this story, I'd be devising all sorts of nefarious schemes to get out of any form of writing.

I seem to get more done when I have less time to do it in.

So lately I've taken to walking around the basement track during lunch time, thinking about story. I do a kind of walking meditation, working my way down into a trance state as I walk, and then I can come up with a few things to write about. Sometimes I come back with two or three useful story things, sometimes I come back with nothing. Sometimes you catch a fish and sometimes you don't. That's just how it goes.

A lot of it is just trying to visualize the characters, trying to see exactly what's going on. I like it best when I get an image. But usually everything's so blurry.

Sometimes I'll do a little typing during lunch, usually when other people show up in the basement to do some walking, and then I can't think and I go to my computer.

But in this way, over the last two weeks I've pulled together two chapters, and there's a lot of interesting stuff going on in them. I really think that walking, and giving myself time to visualize, and giving my unconscious mind time to pull goodies out of its metaphorical hat, has really helped get these chapters going.

Another thing that helped was finding (at last!) a song to listen to while writing. Last Saturday KKFI played Eric Clapton's "River of Tears" from his One Car, One Rider album. I bought it today (no time yesterday) off i-Tunes for 99 cents and during lunch I played it while I was writing. With the music, I finally got the emotion, the feeling, I was looking for from my main character. That was worth the price of admission.

And earlier tonight I finished up the sale book and came home. Did some storywork and finished this week's chapter and I'm ready to move on to the next.

So I'm feeling good.

Busy times.

The Apocalypse has hit at work. So far it hasn't been as awful as I imagined it (except when we get sale books with lots of cows that are not Angus, and then I must check each number and each name in each lot, individually, and that gets old quick). However, not a lot of computer time available, so I won't be able to check in as often as I used to for a while.

Just so you all know.

Oh, yes, I got my Cui Jian CD's yesterday, both at once! The Hong Kong disc is copy-protected, but the hits disc, which has 7 of 9 songs off the HK disc, is not. Oh I was happy. Playing the CD and hopping around the kitchen and singing stuff I didn't realize I remembered. It was fun.

Yes, 15 years is a long time.

I am a happy girl today. Last night we were at a Chinese restaurant. Behind us, the employees were eating, speaking to each other in their own language, when one of them mentioned Hong Kong. And out of the blue I sat up and remembered something I'd been trying to seek out for a long time.

When I was in college, about 15 years ago, my friend Xia gave me a tape to listen to that she'd brought up from Hong Kong. On the cover, a man had a red scarf over his eyes. She said that his music had been banned in China, and that the album was called "I See Nothing."

The music was awesome, a mix of Chinese folk music and instrumentation with Western music. I listened to the tape over and over, after we graduated and moved on, but soon the tape was in danger of breaking, it was so old and listened-to. I would take it out seldom and play it occasionally, always watching the reels to be sure that I could stop the tape if it started to jam, as it had a few times. But Oh! Where on earth could I get a CD of this excellent music that I could blast everywhere?

So after we ate I asked the people who worked there about the tape. They couldn't give me any information on the singer, though I sang part of "I See Nothing" to them (had to fudge the words of course).

"That sounds like he's Cantonese," the guy said.

Ah! A clue.

So, filled with determination, I went home and started googling. I'd googled this before, with no success. But this time I ended up on Wikipedia looking at Chinese rock. Cantonese pop definitely wasn't this guy's style -- he was loud and fast. But this Northwest Wind style sounded more like what I'd heard on the tape, with its fast tempo, strong bass, and aggressive singing.

And I finally found my man. He's the godfather of Chinese rock, Cui Jian! Except he says that "godfather" makes him feel too old. But still! But I found him on MySpace, and when the window opened one of his latest songs started playing, and I was like, "OMG! That's him! That's the voice!"

I went running down the hall to tell my husband, I was so excited. And then I went cruising all over the internet and finally found the album that Xia had lent to me ages ago, only now it's a CD, and it's actually called "I Have Nothing," and it's on its way here from Hong Kong right now! Or at least in a week!

And then I'll order all the rest of his albums, one at a time.

I LOVE the internet! Love it! Oh, I do.

Here's Cui Jian singing "Fake Monk," which is off that album. Oh, and my husband went on MySpace and totally friended him.

Let the raccoons be themselves.

I've finally figured out why I keep imagining my raccoons acting like little people.

As people, our way of life is based on our using our hands. We use them to touch, pick up things, eat, communicate -- everything.

Raccoons use their mouths. They'll use their hands in order to help them eat, of course, but most of their touching is done with the face, and they primarily fight with their teeth, not their claws.

I've noticed I've had a hard time when a raccoon has to point at something. My first impulse is to have them point with a finger instead of pointing with their head. The same thing happens when touch is shared. I keep imagining one raccoon patting another on the shoulder. No, all four feet would be on the ground.

I've been having a hard time visualizing my characters lately and I think this is part of the problem.

Not sure what the other part of the problem is. Though I did look at my MC's character sketch today and wasn't satisfied with it. I'm missing something that's pretty big. I wish I knew what it was.

New Year Revelations.

1) Get Symphonians accepted.

Because it's in halfway decent shape, due to all those revisions I've made for FSG.

I do need to send queries to other agents and editors, just to be on the safe side. Because it could get rejected.

2) Get Leavetaking (the raccoon story) "finished."

"Finished" gets parentheses because no story is ever finished, for real. But I can work on revising Leavetaking until I run screaming into the street from it, the way I did with Symphonians. Then repeat.

I do want to get a good draft by May, since I believe I should have news from FSG regarding Symphonians by then. (That's how it worked out last year -- because I sent the story to them last December, too, and they replied in May, sending me back to work.)

3) Teach my kid how to speak Spanish.

By hook or by crook, since I don't speak Spanish myself. So I get to learn the language, too!

4) Fix up the short story collection and send it to Dutton.

I got a nice letter from Dutton a couple of years back saying that they'd decided against making an offer for it due to the collection seeming not all of a piece. I've been piecing it together more securely ever since. I sent a few of the stories to Eileen Robinson of FirstPages for a critique, which should be back by the middle of this month. After that, I need to pull those stories together, tighten up the collection overall, and give it to 'em.

It would be nice if I sent some of the stories to fiction magazines. Or maybe not, depending on what shape the stories are in. Short fiction is so much harder to sell, since there's so much of it out there, and so much good fiction, and so few venues that pay worth a darn. I don't want to send out lousy material, even if I could make a buck off it.

*******

That's probably plenty for me to handle right there. More than enough, really. But the reach has got to exceed the grasp.

Finally.

I'm going to get the Symphonians novel sent off to FSG this afternoon. At last! I've been working on the novel's second part since early May, and finished it up last month, except for some nitpicking and tweaks.

Got the whole thing printed off and was astonished. It's at 325 pages and it looks like I have a whole ream of paper sitting there. That's a chunk of paper that could really hurt someone! Well, let's not go throwing it or anything.

I guess I should be all teary-eyed and wistful. But I'm not. It's more like, get out the door, you, I have other stories that I gotta fix up.

I feel like I have a good chance with FSG. I sent it to them last December (it was a requested MS) and got a reader's report back in May and the editor asked to see revisions. And now she's getting them. But if she doesn't accept the book, it won't be the end of the world.

Maybe I should submit a query for the book to other editors and agents. With the new, improved synop, of course. I shouldn't pin all my hopes on one publisher. I should have backup.

(P.S. The agent I sent the query to earlier said no. So it goes.)

Poetry corner.

I just found this poem last night and now I can't get enough of it.

Permanently

Kenneth Koch

One day the Nouns were clustered in the street.
An Adjective walked by, with her dark beauty.
The Nouns were struck, moved, changed.
The next day a Verb drove up, and created the Sentence.

Each Sentence says one thing—for example, "Although it was a dark
rainy day when the Adjective walked by, I shall remember the pure and
sweet expression on her face until the day I perish from the green,
effective earth."
Or, "Will you please close the window, Andrew?"
Or, for example, "Thank you, the pink pot of flowers on the window
sill has changed color recently to a light yellow, due to the heat from
the boiler factory which exists nearby."

In the springtime the Sentences and the Nouns lay silently on the grass.
A lonely Conjunction here and there would call, "And! But!"
But the Adjective did not emerge.

As the Adjective is lost in the sentence,
So I am lost in your eyes, ears, nose, and throat—
You have enchanted me with a single kiss
Which can never be undone
Until the destruction of language.

I got Snarked!

I put my hook for The Symphonians into the Crapometer that Miss Snark is running (submissions are closed). My number (293) came up today, and it got a critique.

Unfortunately, the critique went, "WTF?"

Whoo-whee! Last May an agent read the hook for this novel and said, "Girl, your synopsis is confusing as heck!" So I went and read through a previous Crapometer and revised the hook accordingly, which took a while. But even with the revised version I still managed to confuse the heck out of everybody, everywhere!

Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Here's the Charlotte review.

Catch the review here.

And Roger's blog here.

Charlotte's review outtakes!

Spoilers all over the place! So shut your eyes when you read this post for …

Charlotte’s Travesty!

Or, Babe III.

Before the movie started, they showed the preview to Bridge to Terbithina. Omg. And I thought this movie was so totally not in the book! Giants and odd creatures everywhere? Has it been that long since I read the book? Because I don’t remember that kind of fantasy aspect to it.

Pretty opening in the Garth Williams style.

No “Where’s Papa going with that ax”? What happened?

In the book, Fern talked Pa out of killing Wilbur. Because of her strong words, he gave her the pig. In the movie, Dakota pulled the pig out of her dad’s arms. What a pushover dad she has.

Nice cut to frying bacon after the farrowing scene, tho.

What on earth is that pig doing in Fern’s bed? It’s nice that she sang him a lullaby, but that’s so totally not a farm girl thing. Not to mention I don’t know what kind of parents would have this little backbone to say “No pigs in bed!”

Bucolic narrator: It was just a big red barn full of typical stuff.

You know, if Andy wrote about barns like that, he would have won the Newbery.

Bucolic narrator: Just because it was a barn didn’t mean it was full of life.

That really threw me for a loop. Anybody remember the beginning of chapter three, the lovely essay about the barn being a lovely place, full of interesting things and full of life? The barn as, let us say, a microcosm of the world, where so many beautiful things happen? But this film is so determined to turn that on its head. That’s part of the reason I’m so down on this film, because Andy created this beautiful world and they just deny it, except for the bravery and nobility of Charlotte and Wilbur and Fern.

My word, these farm animals are rude and condescending, calling Wilbur and each other names. So much of this movie follows that formula that you must have tension in every scene, even if the tension is nonsensical.

There’s the first fart joke. And then all the animals call each other names again. This is to show the viewer that the animals do not get along. I don’t think Charlotte could help this; I think they need therapy.

I do like that view of Templeton’s underground nest. That’s really cool. I wish they had viewed the barn with the same interest and fascination.

Now we have these crows and the old joke about the scarecrow, “When’s that guy going to look away?” which of course was not in the book. And do they not think that we have seen this corny joke before?

Horse: Spider! (faints)

--But why on earth would any farm animal worth his salt be scared by a spider?

And then the animals do their general disparagement of spiders. I can’t get over how rude these guys are.

Bucolic narrator: Ignorance is bliss.
Me: And I’m starting to believe it’s true. This guy is actually making a case for ignorance, like it’s a good thing.

The gander made a proper speech when the goslings hatched, right from the text. That rotten egg that Templeton rolled away was right up the filmmaker’s alley. At last, Andy’s text made a concession for them!

Fart joke #2 came up when the egg was broken.

They did actually stick to the Dr. Dorian scene. It was nice to hear actual text. Oh, thank you, thank you!

They did do justice to Charlotte acting like a spider, focusing on the legs with their flair for balletic movement. I liked that they did pay attention to some spider details, like when a spider lands anywhere, she always fastens her line to the ground next to her. And the scenes where Charlotte was building her web were awesome. I was pleased by that. Thank dog for special effects, or else I would have been griping all through this review.

So totally not the farm: slopping the pig at high noon, and the farmer struggling to get out of bed at 6 a.m., and the way they pen a bunch of high-manure-producing animals on the barn’s ground floor.

And then that damn narrator comes in with his clunky cornpone prose. Do they really think rural folks talk like that? Don’t they know that many farmers have a college degree in agribusiness?

I’m surprised they wouldn’t think that Fern knows about the fair. She’d surely know how to show her own livestock. She’s probably in the junior FFA already.

Third fart joke. But the audience laughed.

There’s those crows again being scared by a scarecrow. So they go chase Templeton instead. Doesn’t this rat know to stay out of sight? Oh, look, a toilet joke. Oh, well, it’s just cheap entertainment.

A second neat web-building scene. Aah, thank goodness.

Fern wants to take Wilbur to the fair. “Fern, what’s gotten into you?” says her mom. But people who own livestock generally show it at the fair and various contests, so their winning livestock or their progeny can be sold for higher prices.

Homer is complaining that if he enters Wilbur, that he’ll be out the entrance fee. Chill, dude. Entrance fee is pretty cheap. Why are you worried about the entrance fee anyway when, as a farmer, you’re about $10,000 in debt to the bank?

Nice father-daughter bonding. Nice that Fern got her Uncle Homer to go to the Fair after all, despite the fact that he doesn’t seem to know the first thing about farming or fairs. And there’s a nice bit with Fern and Henry Fussy. Fern runs off with Henry when Wilbur’s getting his prize, which is also right.

But what the hell is that speech that Homer’s giving. You have full access to Andy’s words and you wrote this!

Damn that’s a disgustingly big egg sac, bigger’n Charlotte even. No wonder she’s dying.

As usual I cried when Charlotte died. Even though I was totally aghast that they did not use Andy’s words. “She never moved again. Next day, as the Ferris wheel was being taken apart and the race horses were being loaded into vans and the entertainers were packing up their belongings and driving away in their trailers, Charlotte died. The Fair Grounds were soon deserted. The sheds and buildings were empty and forlorn. The infield was littered with bottles and trash. Nobody, of the hundreds of people that had visited the Fair, knew that a grey spider had played the most important part of all. Nobody was with her when she died.” No words at all.

But at least that damn narrator didn’t jump in with his own bit of trite prose.

Except in the next scene, he says, “Now that isn’t to say that Charlotte was gone forever.” Um, actually, she was. But see, in the book, it’s part of the grand course of life and death that goes on forever. In the movie, it’s like we have to gloss over it. Barely a glimpse of the ax in the first scene. No deathly fear and crying from Wilbur when he’s told of his impeding death.

It was lovely to see Wilbur standing in the snow until the narrator said, “It was as if Charlotte had shaken it out of the sky.” Come again?

When the baby spiders hatched, it started moving into horror movie territory. The wee spiders started crawling around on the farm animals’ faces, looking remarkably like little ticks. Ick!

But when Wilbur met the three daughters, that was so right, and they actually took that from the text, as well as the speech he made.

The audience liked fat Templeton.

“An ordinary barn and a pig that welcomed his second spring. Followed by many more. Because someone stopped to see the beauty blah blah.” You write for an advertising company or something?

At least they quoted the last sentence. Though to have quoted the last paragraph would have been better: “Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new spiders ever quite took her place in his heart. She was in a class by herself. It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.”

Ah, well, people, let's go read some books!

Jesus Christ Plays for the Royals

I got my edits back for the Charlotte's Web review. I wrote about 5 pages of notes on the movie and had to boil it down to 500 words. I plan to get the edits sent off by tomorrow morning. I'll post the stuff that didn't make it to the blog later. Not all of it, or course.

In the meantime, here's some silly stuff for your amusement. I don't think it's funny enough. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Jesus Christ Plays for the Royals

Denny: It’s the bottom of the ninth. Three on, no outs, here comes Jesus Christ to the plate. Well, folks, we know how this is going to end.
(Crowd noise: Son of God! Redeemer King!)
PA Announcer: Now batting for the Royals, #3 in one, the one in three, Jeeeeeeeesus Chrrrrrist!
Ryan: Sounds almost blasphemous when he says that.
(PA plays “The Devil Went Down To Georgia.”)
Denny: The pitch … Jesus swings … strike one, a called strike. And the crowd is letting the umpire know what they think about that.
Ryan: Can you believe the offer that Christ turned down from the Yankees?
Denny: Yeah. The Christ told Steinbrenner to his face to give away all he had and follow Him. Half of the Yankees followed Christ out.
Ryan: All these years Steinbrenner thought he was God, and now here comes Christ to prove him wrong.
Denny: The pitch. Low and inside. That almost got Him. Now the pitcher is kneeling on the mound and looking upset, and here comes Steinbrenner for yet another conference on the mound. The crowd’s going crazy.
(PA plays “Jesus is Just All Right With Me.”)
Ryan: That’s the sixth conference tonight. They’re having a bad time trying to walk the Lord of Lords.
Denny: Anybody would have a hard time with a batter with a 1.0 batting average. The pitcher stretches … Christ swings … a long fly ball … it’s gone! Over the top of the stadium again! The Royals win, 29 to 3! Christ hits fists with Sweeney, the dugout empties, they’re pretty jubilant. That was another thrilling game, though the ending wasn’t much in doubt.
Ryan: What the Royals saved in hiring Christ, has to go to the budget for baseballs.
Denny: You know, they found one of them in Gladstone. They built a shrine for it and everything. It’s amazing … blind people seeing, people throwing their crutches away …
Ryan: Look, Denny, my psoriasis! It’s gone!
Denny: Like I really want to see that.
Ryan: Word from the Vatican is that the Pope was going to step down, since he’s supposed to be the embodiment of Christ on earth. And obviously the chairman of the board is playing for us. Christ told the pope to stay where he was until the season was over. Then he and the Church are going to have a little talk about what happened over the last 2,000 years.
Denny: Ooh, I think I could skip that one.
Ryan: And now for the Friday night fireworks, provided by none other than Christ himself.
Denny: He’s giving Wal-Mart a run for their money. Tonight, tiny flames are flickering over the heads of the entire audience. What a sight.
Ryan: Why, Denny, you have a flame over your head, too.
Denny: Hallelujah! Abi doo zarbaza fooi! The Lord has preached unto his hosts!
Ryan: Amen, brother.
Denny: Whoo, that was all right. I’m over it now. I’m ready for a beer.
Ryan: Sounds good.
Denny: Though not with you. That’s all from Royals Stadium tonight, folks. Ryan will give you the stats. I’m the veteran and I’m outta here.
Ryan: It’s time for “Now Ask the Royals,” and here’s Jesus Christ to answer your questions.
Christ: Hello, Ryan, good to be here.
Ryan: Here’s the first letter. “Dear Ask the Royals: Does God exist? If so, could He create a boulder that He couldn’t move? Signed, Taylor in Prairie Village.”
Christ: Why in the name of me do they ask these questions when they could be doing good works for those in need? Aquinas was completely off base with his theory that God is all-powerful and all-knowing. But the church fathers were all over that. Other than that, I’m not at liberty to say.
Ryan: Thank you, Christ. And for speaking on Ask the Royals today, you will receive a $50 gift certificate for the Hoof and Horn.
Christ: Give it to the poor!
Ryan: And that’s it for this broadcast. Remember, baptisms will be held after every game in the fountain at the back of Royals stadium. And for the Royals, this is Ryan Lefebvre, saying good night.
Christ: And God bless, of course.

Villainy DeLuxe! But not really.

I'm creeping along on the story. Of the three chapters I'm working on, one chapter is maybe decent. The other two involve one of the bad guys (though for our sake I should just call him the antagonist, because truly, he doesn't believe he's doing anything wrong). I can't write these other two chapters yet because the only thing I know about Almon is that he is so evil. Maybe they should name a drink after him, he's so evil. One of those drinks that could kill you.

But that ain't the way you write about a character. Villains in all the stories and TV shows are evil. So what, big deal. Trite! I can't create a guy whose only reason for existing is to trip up the MC. Almon needs his own damn purpose. So maybe my MC is actually the bad guy, because he comes between Almon and what he wants. What does Almon want, anyway?

So today I worked on Almon's point of view. That chapter that I can't write because he's in it? I wrote up a scene from Almon's pov leading up to that chapter. Once that scene was done, I went back and looked for things that defined his character a little and brought those out. What he looks like, how he walks low to the ground, his voice. And I also kept asking, why does he do that? What makes him act that way?

And I looked for things that would make him human. Though technically Almon's a raccoon. Looked for things that showed that he had feelings like all the rest of us, that he wasn't just running around looking for evil stuff to do. And I paid more attention to those feelings and thoughts and deeds, kicked them up a notch. Even squeezed in the usual stuff about his cubhood. Though I could certainly do better than the 'usual stuff,' that nobody loved him, etc.

Next I'm going to take that lousy chapter and write it from Almon's pov. Get into Almon's mind, really look at my MC and his cronies through his eyes. This is also enlightening because I get all this extra stuff about my MC that I didn't see because I was looking at him from the inside instead of the outside. And also I get a truer picture of what's going on here.

What other things do you guys do to make your villain, or antagonist, whatever, more real?