Havin’ a Pretty Great Day:

The older I get, the lower the bar is set, and I’m okay with that!

It’s been a pretty darned good day so far. Nothing spectacular, but that’s okay. I didn’t have to rush getting the lovely and talented Jess’ lunch and coffee ready this morning (I packed a lot of it last night). I didn’t have much of anything to do before I left for work, so I sat down and watched Headhunters on Amazon. A really funny Norwegian thriller about a short (and insecure about it) art thief who gets on the wrong side of a really bad guy. I heard about it from Adam-Troy Castro’s Patreon feed on the Facebook. He hasn’t let me down yet.

The movie ended, and I had time to do the stuff I’d forgotten I needed to do (wash dishes and fold laundry) with plenty of time left over to fix my lunch and head off to work. Jammed out to Elmore James and John Lee Hooker on the drive. Clocked in, and found a nice note from a student thanking me for my help with a paper.

Got an email from one of my favorite professors letting me know she’d posted a review of my novel A Rare and Dangerous Beast on Amazon and Barnes and Noble (5 stars out of 5! And she’s a literature professor, so she knows her stuff!).

Now I’m sitting here listening to Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook (one of the greatest singers of all time singing songs by one of the greatest songwriters of all time). Gonna follow that up with Let the Good Times Roll, a Louis Jordan collection. Don’t tell IU, but this is a great job! It can get pretty hectic occasionally, but mostly it’s like being the English Department version of the fire department – a fair amount of time spent just waiting for someone to need help. Plus, it’s something that I’m actually good at (both waiting and helping students with papers).

If all goes well, there’ll be a nap after work, with the lovely and talented Jess, followed by leftover meatloaf sandwiches and fried potatoes for supper while we watch Boy Swallows Universe (great show!) on Netflix. Eventually, we’ll go to bed, where I hope to finish Razorblade Tears, a great crime novel by S. A. Crosby before I sleep. By the way, if you like gritty crime novels, I highly recommend it.

I remember when it took a lot more than a few good movies, tunes, and books to qualify as a great day. I don’t miss those days. I’m enjoying not needing excitement or thrills or major accomplishments, or anything spectacular for a day to qualify as great. All it pretty much requires is a leisurely pace, low expectations, and simple (but high quality) pleasures.

In all honesty, I have a lot more good days now than I ever had before. Fewer big thrills, but let’s face it: those things are exhausting.

Anyway, if you’ve read this far and are wondering why I’m bothering you with this catalog of mundane delights, I guess the joke’s on you. There is no particular reason.

I was just sitting here thinking about how I have (entirely by accident) managed to avoid all of the pitfalls of everyday life that cause me far too much frustration, despair, and anger, and how grateful I am for that. That’s all really.

Well that, and I like to recommend books, TV, movies, and music that I love.

Anyway, hope you’re having a great day too!

Me at my overconfident best!

Things That Probably Don’t Need to be Said: Things That Need to be Said Edition

Prologue

None of this needs to be said – it’s just fun to say it! Proceed at your own risk, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Me at my overconfident best!

And now, on with the show!

I’ve been noticing that there are a lot of folks out there who suffer from the delusion that what they have to say NEEDS to be said. I first noticed this in the title of John Pavlovitz’s blog, stuff that needs to be said. While I found myself agreeing with Pavlovitz quite a bit (at least in general), that whole “needs to be said” thing seemed a little over-the-top, pushy, overconfident, pompous, or even – dare I say it – arrogant. I do approve of the lack of capital letters in the title though: it shows at least a degree of humility.

Another notable example is Frank Schaeffer, a former Christian fundamentalist and current “self-described Christian atheist” who has a blog/substack entitled It Has to Be Said. Once again, I found myself agreeing with a lot of what Schaeffer had to say, but once again (again), I found myself thinking that “It Has to Be Said” was kind of overselling it.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no doubt that these are smart guys (probably much smarter then me) and a lot of thought goes into what they have to say (waaaaay more, for example, than has gone into any of my own posts), but I wonder – does all this REALLY need to be said? I know that essentially nothing I have to say NEEDS to be said (if you don’t believe me, just ask the lovely and talented Jess), and in fact, the world would probably be a better, more pleasant place if I didn’t say most of the stuff I do say (ask anyone in my family).

Even the minimal amount of research I put into this turkey of a post (and honestly, “minimal” might be overstating it) fetched up a whole raft of books, videos, and websites full of things that people feel have to be said, and said by them. And I think that’s the key right there – saying it has to be said is the same as saying it has to be heard. Otherwise, it’s just screaming into the abyss. From what I can see by a quick scan of Google results, pretty much nobody with something that “has to be said” has anything that actually has to be said.

Once again, I fall back on that old “words have meaning” pet peeve of mine. I am under no illusions that anything I say “has to be said”, nor does it have to be heard. However, I will admit to feeling that frequently there are some things that I need to say, whether anyone hears them or not. Screaming into the abyss may not do anyone else any good, but it often really makes the screamer feel better.

I mean, when was the last time you read any kind of “has to be said” thing that changed your mind about anything, or really even made you think? If anything, in these days of customized information streams (“Let our algorithm choose what info is best for YOU!”), the chances are that if we actually come across anything that contradicts what we already think/believe, we’re just going to ignore it. If we think about it at all, it’s just as a marginal reassurance that our impending robot overlords have some glitches in their software that we can exploit when they take over.

Of course, sometimes you just get lucky and actually say something that didn’t need to be said that someone did need to hear.

I guess what really bothers me about this whole thing is the sense of self-importance that these writers/bloggers/content creators have. I know I would never dream of saying that anything I had to say “has to be said”. I know better and, if I’m being honest, humility has always been one of my most outstanding qualities.

On second thought, I guess sometimes I do have to say the things I do – I’m just sure that no one actually needs to hear any of it.

Except you. You know who you are.

Ridiculous Times: Stuff That Probably Doesn’t Need To Be Said – Superbowl Edition

Just like in Spaceballs when they skip lightspeed to go to plaid, we’ve surpassed the old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times” to live in a ridiculous time. Frankly, it’s kind of embarrassing.

Take the Super Bowl (or Superb Owl, or Superbowel, depending on how you feel about it). I’ll admit that I was happy the Chiefs won: not that I care about the game, but I’ve honestly been enjoying all the Taylor Swift conspiracy theories. To be honest, I know nothing about Taylor Swift, other than that she’s very pretty, very popular, she died horribly in Amsterdam* and apparently, she is the most powerful force in American politics today. At any rate, the Chiefs’ victory ensured a brief continuation of what is, for me, the most ridiculous (and entertaining) of the current crop of conspiracy theories.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Taylor Swift – The most powerful woman in America

Watching the MAGAmaniacs (MAGAniacs?) carry on about how the Swift thing is a psyop**to help Biden win in November is pretty damned funny. I’m not even sure how someone would go about satirizing that. To be perfectly clear, I don’t know anybody who doesn’t think that whole thing is abominably stupid – and the vast majority of my friends are staunch conservatives. It’s not a conservative or Republican theory, it’s a bunch of nonsense promoted by televised right-wing talking heads, politicians, and professional shit-stirrers.

It’s also notable that over here on the left side of the field (well, left/center), that none of the televised left-wing talking heads, politicians, or political shit-stirrers are taking it seriously (which of course doesn’t stop them from going on about it in search of clicks and ratings***). But don’t get too excited – there’s plenty of other nonsense for them to get waaaay too excited about. The problem is, for me at least, that while many of the left-wing screaming points are almost as ridiculous, they’re just not that entertaining – or original (This just in: Great Googly-Moogly! Trump said something racist, sexist, incendiary, or indecipherable! What you NEED to know!). Good grief, it is Tuesday already? I kinda feel like my own side is letting me down.

I’ve also been enjoying all of the whining about how people resent all the screen time wasted showing Swift during the games: “I wanna watch football, not some lefty bimbo!” (I’m paraphrasing). I mean, I totally understand where they’re coming from: having to look at a pretty girl for anywhere from 30-60 seconds of non-playing time during a 4-hour-long broadcast must be horribly frustrating.

The lovely and talented Jess and I got rid of cable/satellite TV years ago, because we hate commercials. I know how frustrated I’d be if my streaming services started interrupting my movies periodically for something I’m in not interested in at all (lookin’ at YOU, Amazon!). However, I am having a little trouble understanding the whole objecting-to-looking-at-a-pretty-girl-because-of-her-politics thing, to be honest (not that I would ever objectify a woman – gotta maintain my liberal-left-wing-commie-pinko-fag card).

In other Super Bowl-related ridiculousness, how about that “Jesus Gets Us” commercial? Apparently, everyone hated it, for reasons with absolutely no overlap: I saw a video from a guy who was horrified by it, because it apparently Wokefies Jesus – obviously a lefty plot. Gasp! The horror! This dude is apparently horrified by the idea that Jesus loves everyone, and that we should too****.

I followed that up by reading an article about how horrible the ad is, because of the apparently shady organizations/motivations behind it (the Hobby Lobby folks among others), are using it as a bait-and-switch to lure LGBTQI+, women who might be thinking about an abortion, addicts, and other folks like that, who are desperate for acceptance in so they can be either “fixed” or crushed and discarded as irredeemable. Obviously a conservative plot!

Then there are the sort of Christians that I know and love – you know, the kind who genuinely try to love and care for everybody. They’re offended by the fact that a gazillion dollars that could have been spent taking care of people/helping people was spent on an ad. Okay, this one, I actually get.

Even when we don’t like something, we’re not happy unless everyone else hates it for the same reason we do. We are ridiculous people living in an increasingly ridiculous country. So we’ve got that going for us!


* For my money, one of the best movies of 2022* (ironically, her character in the film was the victim of a conspiracy – coincidence? Don’t be ridiculous!)

** This Jesse Watters video literally made me laugh out loud. As an added bonus, here’s a really funny video I found in the comments: https://twitter.com/i/status/1723037915561746564

*** I hope this isn’t one of those “pot-calling-the-kettle-black” things!

**** This dude isn’t alone, either. Here’s a link to the commercial on the social media platform formerly known (and mostly still known) as Twitter: https://twitter.com/HeGetsUs/status/1756829657859772554https://twitter.com/HeGetsUs/status/1756829657859772554 As much as I normally avoid comment sections, I found the comments on this video kind of horrifyingly funny. Your mileage may vary.

Stories about Stories and Storytellers: One for All the Writers Out There

Yesterday was rough. The weather sucked, my arthritis was really acting up, I’ve hit a wall in trying to get my book published, and I had to go to the grocery, a weekly task which is never pleasant, but managed to sink to new lows yesterday. It was all extremely frustrating, and those of you who know me know my natural response to frustration is complete, all-encompassing rage. It was a real treat for the lovely and longsuffering Jess to come home from her work at a real job to my irrational, yet deeply felt, temper tantrum, I’m sure.

When I got up this morning, I decided today was going to be different.

Once I got through my morning chores, I had some time before I had to clock in at my work-from-home job as a writing consultant at IU East, which is generally not something I consider a real job (I’ve had real jobs and didn’t care for it), but is the first job I’ve ever had that I liked and was really good at, so I thought I’d watch a movie.

Instead of my usual fare of violence, bloodshed, and light depravity, I chose Cyrano, My Love, which tells a fictional version of the writing and making of one of my favourite stories, Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand. I’ve loved the story ever since I was a kid and saw the 1950 film version with Jose Ferrer, laughed my ass off at 1987’s Roxanne, starring Steve Martin, was blown away by the 1990 version starring Gerard Depardieu, and really enjoyed the 2019 musical version starring Peter Dinklage (it didn’t quite work, but Dinklage was impressive, as always). I’ve even read the play itself a couple of times, and I’m delighted to report that Cyrano, My Love did not disappoint.

It is laugh-out-loud funny, and pretty deeply touching, traits it has in common with Rostand’s play. The writing, acting, costumes, and sets, are all first-rate. The only drawback I can see (for some) is that it’s in French, with subtitles. If you love Cyrano, don’t let that stop you (if you don’t love Cyrano, I can only assume that you’re not familiar with it. Any of the adaptations I mentioned above would be a great starting point, but keep in mind that the Depardieu version, while the most visually stunning, is also in French).

But enough of plugging Cyrano, My Love (although seriously, you should see it). What I really want to write about here is my love of stories about telling stories, stories about stories, and stories about the magic of stories and books. Two examples that I’ve already written about are Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind, and Robin Sloan’s Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. A series I may have written about is Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series, in which Thursday, a literary detective has to find out who is kidnapping famous characters from their books. The Next novels are a wild, surreal ride through a literary amusement park – A lot of fun.

Sorry, but apparently it’s impossible for me to write about books without plugging those I really love. I’ll try to stay on track, but make no promises.

Anyway, all that got me thinking about the genre (?) of books about books, storytelling, and writing, which I’ve loved since long before I decided to try being a writer myself. I’ve been trying to figure out exactly WHY I love them so, and, to be honest, I really don’t think it’s all that complicated – they’re stories about my first, truly undying love, written by (generally speaking) really talented people in love with the same thing I love. They take characters I love in unexpected directions, while (also generally) remaining (reasonably) true to the original characters. It’s just FUN.

Then there are the books about books, which is to say books about why books matter, how a good one affects us, and what they give us. They bring books alive. Zafon’s book does that, beautifully. Another such story is John Connolly’s short story (novella?) The Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository, in which a book lover ends up interacting with both books and characters in mysterious, funny, and intimate ways. Connolly is best known for his Charlie Parker mystery series – sort of like if Stephen King started writing Philip Marlowe novels, and my favourites, the Samuel Johnson series, in which a young boy and his pet daschaund, aided by a couple of incompetent demons have to save the world from Armageddon (repeatedly) – really funny stuff – but I digress (again!). Anyway, The Caxton Private Lending Library and Book Depository is available as an e-book for $5 or $6 bucks on Barnes and Noble, and Amazon. Money well spent.

Then there are the books about writers writing (or at least trying), a sub-genre which I can really relate to. One of the best examples is Michael Chabon’s Wonder Boys which, I’m a little bit ashamed to admit, I haven’t read yet, but I did love the movie. It’s about a literature professor struggling with writer’s block (among other things). The great Stephen King has dipped his toes (talons?) into this pool a few times, with Misery, The Dark Half, the underrated Duma Key and the non-fiction On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. I know I can personally relate to feeling like something I’m writing is trying to destroy me.

It’s not just books though. Jess and I recently watched George Miller’s awesome Three Thousand Years of Longing. You probably know Miller from his awesome Mad Max series, or from the pretty-much-equally-awesome-but-in-a-totally-different-way family film (and Jess’ all-time favourite movie) Babe.

Three Thousand Years of Longing is about a scholar (Tilda Swinton) in the fields of stories and mythology who, while in Turkey, buys and accidentally breaks a vase containing a Djinn (Idris Elba). While she tries to figure out three wishes that won’t backfire on her, he tries to convince her he’s not a trickster by telling her stories of his life. Jess and I both loved it. It is funny, moving, and hypnotically beautiful.

It really reminded me of a very “for adults only” version of another favourite family movie, Secondhand Lions, starring two greats, Michael Caine and Robert Duvall. Chances are you’ve seen it. If you haven’t it’s a great, funny, and heartwarming movie about two cranky old coots telling tall tales about their lives to a neglected nephew. Both Caine and Duvall are on top of their game in this one.

Another great recent movie about storytellers is Babylon, with Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie, about the hedonistic chaos that ruled Hollywood right at the changeover from silent films to talkies, and before the Hays Code that amounted to self-inflicted censorship. It is very funny, a little heartbreaking, and very raunchy.

Of course, movies about making movies is a whole sub-genre of its own with a lot of standouts: Tarentino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Barry Sonnenfeld’s Get Shorty (based on a book by the immortal Elmore Leonard), the Coen Brothers’ Hail Caesar!, Ben Stiller’s hysterical Tropic Thunder and, of course, one of the greatest musicals of all time, Singin’ In the Rain. There are innumerable others, good, bad, and indifferent, but those are my favourites.

Anyway, I could go on forever about this, but I’ll wrap it up with the book I’m currently reading: Guy Vanderhaeghe’s The Englishman’s Boy. It takes place in two separate timelines, one in the Old West, the other in 1920s Hollywood. You may recall me waxing rhapsodically about another Vanderhaeghe book, The Last Crossing. This one is just as good, maybe even better. If you haven’t read anything by Vanderhaeghe, you really, really should.

Well, I guess I’ve beaten this dead horse enough, although just thinking and writing about this has put me in a really good mood (or at least better than yesterday). I think I’ll stop now, and maybe take a shower (a pleasant little after-work surprise for Jess – Yes, I am just that sweet).

Thanks for reading!

Words: A Tale of Disappointment

During my brief and unlamented period as a graduate student teaching the basic college composition course, and in my current job as a “Writing Consultant”, one of the most important things that I’ve tried to impress on my students and consultees (not really sure what to call them: clients? victims?) is that WORDS HAVE MEANING!!!! That the order/organization of the words in a sentence conveys meaning, and can either accurately convey the writer’s intentions, or confuse the reader, causing them to misunderstand what’s being said.

I fear that it is a futile endeavor. For a long time, I’ve been dismayed by the quality of writing I see in the public sphere, especially in regard to the news. Rarely does a day go by when I don’t notice some glaring grammatical, or even spelling, error in the news coverage of the day. Which leads me to the following headline from today’s Daily Mail, a British newspaper that also publishes American and Australian versions:

Cops: Georgia homeowner shot dead intruder breaking into his house

I will admit to a bit of confusion: initially, I thought the homeowner was killed, and was sad for a moment, until I read on, and realized that the homeowner is fine, and that he had actually shot a dead intruder for breaking into his house.

Now, as a fan of horror and apocalyptic novels and movies, I have to admit, I was both excited – there’s real-world zombie action! – and worried – there’s real-world zombie action?! Oh shit! Needless to say, I felt the need to learn more. I clicked on the link, and you can imagine my dismay when it almost immediately became obvious that I had been misled.

There are so many ways that this headline could have been worded to accurately convey it’s meaning: “Georgia homeowner shoots intruder dead for breaking into his house”, OR “Georgia homeowner kills intruder”, OR “Intruder killed by Georgial homeowner”, OR “Intruder shot dead by homeowner in Georgia”.

So why did the Daily Mail go with their headline? I don’t know. Maybe it’s a British thing, like adding U’s to words like honour, humour, etc. Maybe they are trying to appeal to a more morbid, gothic readership? Whatever the reason, my disappointment/relief about the apparently-not-impending zombie apocalypse was eclipsed by my disappointment in the sinking standards for public writing.

On the upside, bad writing, whether it be mechanical (grammar, punctuation, etc.), or communicative (actually conveying the intended meaning) would seem to be a unifying factor in an increasingly fractured world. It doesn’t matter whether a publication or writer is conservative, liberal, gay, straight, authoritarian, anti-fascist, or whatever other faction you want to mention, or if they’re a professional writer, semi-pro, or hobbyist blogger like me, or if the publication is reputable, disreputable, or just click-bait nonsense, apparently the idea that WORDS HAVE MEANING!!!! means less and less influence every day.

Of course, there are always exceptions – like myself. I pride myslef on vigorously proofreading every word and sentence I write, before sending them out into the world, lavishing all the care on them that most people apply to their children. I would be mortified if errors were to be found in any of my own deathless prose! Except of course, for those intentional errors I plant occasionally, just to prove to myself that readers are just as careless, and uncaring, about words as most writers are. The fact that no one has ever brought any such error to my attention proves that. But I dirgess.

To go back to my initial point, I have to say, irresponsible writing, like that evidenced in writing like: “Cops: Georgia homeowner shot dead intruder breaking into his house” certainly doesn’t make my job any easier. On the other hand, it does provide a certain amount of job security.

Another Review of My (So Far) Unpublished Novel, To Be Free: The Life and Times of Nate Luck.

Sometimes I’m glad I checked my email. This is one of those times. Enjoy this review from IndieReader!

Potential Book Cover I’ve put together.

TITLE: TO BE FREE (The Life and Times of Nate Luck)

AUTHOR: Lloyd Mullins

RATING: 4.8 stars (out of 5)

Half-Russian, half-Mongolian Nate Luck immigrates to America in 1854 and spends the next forty years seeking a path to social justice—a path soaked in the blood of the Black and Native Americans he calls family and friends.

In Lloyd Mullins’s historical novel TO BE FREE (The Life and Times of Nate Luck), a half-Russian, half-Mongolian young man immigrates to America in 1854 in the search for freedom from the confining pressures of his home. Anatoly Mikhailovich Lukyanov, now called Nate Luck, is often mistaken as Chinese, but he soon finds solace in work as a cowhand (calling himself a cowboy) with the help of his newfound friends Jack and Dave. Steered by his moral compass, when the Civil War breaks out, Nate fights for the Union to help end slavery, after which time he spends over a decade among Native Americans, marrying and having children with a wonderful woman named Coming Together. Gruesome and traumatic experiences later turn his new life upside down, but Nate continues to be consumed by thoughts of justice. His unique perspective and his lifelong theme of social justice lead to an ironic yet cathartic conclusion—if the ending is abrupt—with profound implications.

Each chapter is a self-contained scene describing a specific event Nate endures, sandwiched by wisdom he learns on that adventure. The introduction paragraph to each chapter is usually ominous and foreboding, as when Nate offers foreshadowing on the dangers of nicknames, while the conclusion is typically insightful—for instance, this follows a tense scene where character suggest names to tell three men named Dave apart: “Always beware a man who changes his own name, no matter what position he may hold. He is not to be trusted.” While each chapter is a self-contained scene, the chapters build on one another to progress the story forward at a steady pace propelled by character relationships and Nate’s personal ambitions. Nate is a moral man, driven to act in ways he feels are “right” and “responsible,” though he is often led astray by material distractions, like lust and money and revenge, which makes him both a likable and a relatable hero.

The book’s historical setting is masterfully cultivated, not only with era-appropriate content but also with dialogue that feels true to the time period. While most of the characters’ beliefs and values are products of their time, Nate and his friends tend to be more liberal, showing how social progress was made at the time. For instance, Nate is an avid reader of philosophy and shares his books and knowledge with Dave, who is a freed slave, but Nate often butts heads over this with Jack, who is fiercely loyal to Dave and aims to protect him from the dangers of white men who would kill a black man who knows how to read. Other minor characters, like Nate’s tenacious wife Coming Together, have full, lush personalities that challenge Nate’s beliefs and influence the plot while successfully respecting their individuality. While the book’s major antagonist at times feels one-dimensionally evil, most characters remain dynamic and complex. The traumas of Black and Native Americans are approached with tact and powerful empathy.

IR Verdict: With many moving parts and taking place over several decades, Lloyd Mullins’s TO BE FREE is a sweeping historical novel populated by richly complex characters about a man’s search for justice in a world rife with violence and discrimination.

Out of Time, Out of Place, Still Not Giving Up

There is so much bad and/or stupid stuff going on in the world, and I frequently find myself really, really wanting to write about it. Then I take a step back and realize there are enough angry voices out there, and that I just really, really, don’t want to be one of them – at least not right now. Instead, I’ve decided to write about something I love: Westerns. Specifically Western movies.

Yes, I know I really need to figure out how to resize these pictures.

I’ve always loved westerns. Some of my earliest memories are of my little brother and I building pillow forts to watch High Chapparall on the TV. The only movies I remember my family ever going to were John Wayne movies (although dad did make an exception for Jeremiah Johnson – a glorious experience for seven-year-old me!). I would guess that Westerns have had a stronger influence on how I see the world than just about anything else.

Like any genre, the greatest westerns are those about much more than just cowboys and indians and gunfights and wagon trains and schoolmarms and whatnot. To be truly great, any movie or book has to be doing more than just telling a story: For example, Silverado is one of my favorite westerns. I never get tired of it, but it’s a fun western, not a great one.

One of the themes of most of the truly capital-G Great Westerns that resonates with me more every year are those about the passing of time and place. Sometimes it’s The Wild Bunch or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, or The Long Riders going down in hail of gunfire because they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) change with the times. Sometimes it’s The Outlaw Josey Wales or Jeremiah Johnson or Shane trying to make a new beginning, to put the past behind. Sometimes, of course, it’s those burnt-out old cowboys and gunslingers showing they’ve still got some fight left in them, like in Unforgiven, Ride the High Country, and Lonesome Dove.

I think the reason I used to love those stories was that, in addition to being capital G Great movies, I felt a lot of sympathy for those characters – and glad that was never going to happen to me. Now, I love them because I can empathize with those characters – because I feel like it’s happening to me. The world I live in is very unlike the world I grew up in, the world of my salad days. Now, it seems like sometimes I spend as much time looking for the remote or cursing because I’ve-hit-the-wrong-damned-button-and-now the-TV-is-asking-me-questions-and-I-can’t-figure-out-what-I’ve-done-wrong-or-how-to-make it-stop, than I do actually watching a movie or show.

I’m pretty sure that in another 10 years or so, I’m going to need to pay a kid just to hang around, turn the TV on, change the channel, etc. It’s really frightening, how fast technology is changing, and how bad I am at keeping up with it. Most days, I don’t even want to try.

Of course, it’s not just technology. It’s society. It’s always changing, and the one thing that doesn’t change is that the generation shouting “We Shall Overcome” at us old fogies will, before they know it, hear a new generation shouting it at them (a tip o’ the hat to Sir Terry Pratchett for that joke).

I’ll tell you what, if you want to feel out of place, try being a retired veteran who’s always worked with his back and his hands, starting a Creative Writing graduate program at a really, really, liberal college like Miami University! It’ll freak you right out. I know it freaked me right out, and not only was I really, really, trying to belong there, everyone there was really, really, trying to make me feel like I belonged.

I’d never even known that pronouns were an issue, until the first day of the program (which was on zoom, talk about an adjustment!), when the Prof. asked us all to introduce ourselves and give our pronouns. At first, I thought it was some kind of English joke. It was not.

Don’t get me wrong – I have no problem with the whole pronoun thing. I figure you’re entitled to be referred to however you want. My issue isn’t philosophical or political or religion-based, it is entirely a matter of an inability to change, no matter how hard I try. It is embarrassing and frustrating to be unable to refer to a perfectly lovely human being as “they” when, for my entire 50+ years, it’s always just been “he” or “she”*. I would sit there stammering and stumbling and cursing, trying to correct myself to “they”, feeling like a jerk and a linguistic dinosaur the whole time (and this was in my last semester of the program!).

Fortunately they (meaning the individual in question, not everybody in the room) was very understanding, and when I apologized after class, told me not to worry, that they appreciated that someone like me would even try, which was more than they got from their family. Honestly, after that, I didn’t know whether to feel better or worse.

But I digress – back to the Westerns!

This morning, I watched Out of the Wild (on Amazon) which, if not a great movie, was a really good one, about a broken-down, alcoholic cowboy forced to take a job at a dude ranch after no real ranch would hire him. It was a beautiful redemption story, but not sappy or sentimental. It put me in mind of the TV movie The Good Old Boys, based on a novel by the late, great Elmer Kelton, about another cowboy facing the end of the cowboying days.

By the way, you can’t go wrong with Elmer Kelton, but his best, in my opinion, are The Good Old Boys, The Time It Never Rained, and The Day the Cowboys Quit, precisely because they deal with the changing times.

Thinking about The Good Old Boys got me thinking about Monte Walsh (the awesome Lee Marvin version, not the Tom Selleck one). Monte Walsh is another one about an aging cowboy, and honestly, I don’t think anyone can do that role better than Lee Marvin (and I just learned that Jack Schaefer, the guy who wrote the book Shane also wrote Monte Walsh! I just bought it – I’ll let you know how it is).

Anyway, this has all been (for the most part anyway) waaaaaay more fun for me than writing about all the things that are wrong with the world and how I’d fix ’em. Probably more fun for you, too. At the very least, you’ve got some good books and movies to check out! By the way, you don’t have to be a man to enjoy them, especially not The Good Old Boys or Out of the Wild, which are basically love stories that even a strong, manly man like myself can love.

I guess that’s about it, for now anyway.

Thanks for reading!

*Or, to my shame, as “it” whenever there was some question. That was years ago, before I became friends with a trans man, and had to seriously start thinking about this stuff, back when I was a much less decent human being, and less Christian, something I’m trying to rectify. Can’t fix something if you can’t admit it’s broken.

A Few Quick Reviews of Books Not by Me

In case you’ve gotten tired of reading about my book, which isn’t even published yet, I thought I’d turn the focus on some fantastic books by other authors that I’ve enjoyed recently. Happy reading!

Nightmare House by Robert Clegg. A really entertaining old-fashioned haunted house story. Not particularly terrifying, but has a great gothic creepiness to it. I’m not a big haunted house fan, but I do enjoy a good one (Richard Matheson’s Hell House is the best, in my opinion – yes, even better than The Shining!), and Nightmare House definitely falls into that category, if not on the same level as Matheson or King. It’s the first of a series of stand-alone novels about the same house, and I’m looking forward to reading the next one. If you’re in the mood for a creepy but entertaining good time, check it out!

The Son by Philipp Meyer. The basis for a great mini-series starring Pierce Brosnan, The Son tells the story of three generations of the McCullough family: Eli McCullough – raised by the Comanches who slaughtered his family, Eli eventually returns to white society and founds a Texas dynasty, Peter McCullough – Eli’s son, caught up in the racial struggles of south Texas of the early 20th Century, and Jeannie McCullough – Eli’s Great-Granddaughter, who struggles to find her place in the world of oil booms and progress. To be honest, I haven’t even finished it yet, but it is great, the kind of great book that gets into my dreams. If you like rough, tough, historical fiction about the Old West and early 20th Century, give it a try!

The Fervor and The Hunger by Alma Katsu. Excellent historical horror. The Hunger is a psychological horror story about the Donner Party, whose wagon train got lost in the Rocky Mountains and were forced to turn to cannibalism to survive. Even without the horror trappings, it’s a really good look at the Donner Party, and what drove people to risk everything on the long road west, to California. The Fervor begins in the Japanese Internment Camps of WWII, and follows Meiko and Aiko Briggs, the wife and daughter of an American combat pilot fighting in the war. A mysterious disease afflicts the camp, and things go downhill from there. Again, it’s more psychological horror than blood-and-guts, and like the best genre fiction, its about way more than it seems on the surface. Katsu is a really good writer, and I’m looking forward to reading The Deep, about a woman who survives a supernatural mystery aboard, and the sinking of, the Titanic, who ends up on its sister-ship, the Britannic, a WWI hospital ship.

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry – by Fredrik Backman. A very sweet, funny, and fantastical story about Elsa, a little girl whose loose-cannon grandmother dies, but not before setting up one last adventure for Elsa. It’s kind of a very modern, kind-hearted fairy tale about found family, love, and mystery. It’s not the sort of thing I normally read (like I said, it’s a very sweet book), but I may have to change my reading habits to include more of this sort of thing. Backman is the author of A Man Called Ove, which I’m looking forward to reading.

Strip by Thomas Perry. Perry is a fantastic writer of thrillers and comic crime novels. A small-time gangster has been robbed, and his goons have been informed that Joe Carver, a new guy in town, is the robber. He isn’t, but that doesn’t stop them from going after him, and finding out they’ve caught a tiger by the tail. An action-packed thriller with a lot of laughs and a great every-man hero.

The Last Crossing by Guy Vanderhaeghe. For my money, the best book on this list. It’s actually pretty similar to mine, but while reading it, I found myself thinking “Man! I wish I could write” and deciding I should start calling myself a storyteller rather than a writer. It’s about English brothers who come to the States in 1876 to find a third brother who’s gone missing. It is beautiful, harrowing, and rugged, and should not be missed, especially if you like historical fiction.

The Border by Robert McCammon. An apocalyptic sci-fi thriller in which two alien races lay waste to the earth, which lies on the border of their universes (dimensions?), the few humans left struggling for survival, and the possibly psychic teenage boy who may hold the key to save mankind and the planet. McCammon rarely disappoints, and pretty much knocks this one out of the park. It’s got everything you look for in your basic sci-fi apocalypse, and then some. McCammon’s already done the apocalypse a couple of times, with nukes (Swan Song), vampires (They Thirst), along with numerous other thrillers, horror, and historical novels. Sci-fi isn’t usually my thing, but I really loved this book.

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi. Another guy whose Sci-fi I always enjoy, it’s the story of a group who work in a different dimension, one inhabited by Kaiju (monsters like Godzilla and Mothra), to protect them, and keep them from destroying our dimension. Of course, there are nefarious forces at work to use the Kaiju for their own ends here on earth. A quick, fun read with a lot of humor and action. Honestly, you can’t go wrong with Scalzi.

The Good Lord Bird and Deacon King Kong by James McBride. McBride is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers. The Good Lord Bird is the story of John Brown, from Bloody Kansas to Harpers Ferry, told from the point of view of a slave boy mistaken for a girl and freed by Brown. A historical horror/tragedy told with humor and heart (for those of you who aren’t readers, it was made into an excellent mini-series starring Ethan Hawke as John Brown). Deacon King Kong is about an old church deacon in Brooklyn, 1969, who goes off the rails and shots the local drug dealer in front of the entire community. It is big-hearted, funny, and moving, but not sentimental. It is an amazing book – one of those that feels like it’s making the world just a little bit better, just by being read. Great stuff.

Finally, for all you book lovers out there (and if you’ve read this far, I’m guessing you are one), there’s Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan. Who doesn’t love a book-based mystery-adventure revolving around an old bookstore with mysterious, coded books and even more mysterious customers? Especially told by a down-and-out laid-off computer programmer who stumbles into a job in the store and becomes obsessed with solving the mystery of the store. Lots of fun. Really, it’s not going to change your world, but it is a delightful break from it.

Anyway, I guess that’s it for now. Happy reading!

The Latest Review of My Novel!

Hey all! Just wanted to take a minute to post a copy of the latest review of my historical novel To Be Free: The Life and Times of Nate Luck. The review is from the Historical Fiction Company, and has given my novel 5 stars and the HFC “Highly Recommended” medal!

Now, I don’t know if that’s going to impress anyone in the publishing industry, but I’ll take it! Feeling pretty stoked this morning. I also want to take a minute to thank all the folks who helped me get this turkey written: my brother David, my sister Sharon, my cousin Ross, Dave McCoy, Andy Miller, Judy Jennings, Beth Slattery, and all the others who gave me very valuable feedback and encouragement, my MFA committee – Brian Roley, Margaret Luongo, and TaraShea Nesbitt, and the folks who were in the program with me. Couldn’t have done it without all of you, so THANKS!

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the review:

To Be Free Review

To be Free is a biographical novel about Nate Luck, a Russian of Mongolian descent who immigrated to the United States in the 19th century. Luck’s Russian name was Anatoly Mikhailovich Lukyanov. The novel begins with his childhood in Russia, follows him through his journey across the Pacific, his time as a cowhand and Civil War soldier, his joining Native American tribes, and a legal officer. It opens with an editor’s note, which states one of the book’s most interesting features. Lloyd Mullens, the author, explains that he discovered Lukyanov/Lake’s unpublished memoir manuscript within a trunk his friend purchased. Mr. Mullens then says that he left most of the memoir intact, primarily editing the language common in the 19th century but offensive in the 21st. Other clues imply a modern hand had a larger role in shaping this novel. It contains direct, post-Hemingway prose that would have been uncommon for a writer in the 1890s. It also has an extensive bibliography of sources at the back, and most of all, contains modern conceptions about marginalized communities. For example, here is a quote from Esme, one of Luck’s primary love interests, about relying on men:

“There’s not a woman in this world that’s safe, and a woman who counts on a man to make her feel safe is a fool. Besides, anything I can’t handle with this, Samson’ll take care of.”

Samson was Esme’s pimp/club owner. Similarly, here’s a quote from a Native American chief justifying his people’s actions against white American encroachment:

“Enough!” Wolf Chief who interrupted, “You call us savages! We fight yes, to protect what is ours! Who wouldn’t? But you ve’ho’e who come here to take everything and leave us nothing — you call yourselves civilized! You bring nothing but disease and death and destruction, and all in the name of your Jesus Christ.

“I was there,” he continued, “when your soldier chief Eayre attacked our village at Ash Creek. Lean Bear rode out to greet them with your president’s paper in his hand, your president’s medal on his chest. ‘Don’t be afraid!’ he told us, ‘The soldiers are our friends.’ The soldiers shot him down and kept shooting his body as they rode over it.”

All of these elements lead To be Free to read like a modern composition. If the Editor’s Note is accurate, and the document was minimally edited, Mr. Mullens made a remarkable find and readers of biographical fiction have an exciting new entry into the genre. Like some other biographical novels, To Be Free acts as a fictional memoir. Unlike some of those contemporaries, (such as Marguerite Yourcenar’s Memoirs of Hadrian) it reads more like a first person novel than a memoir. The novel is largely dialogue driven, much of it excellently written, and each character possesses a unique voice.

The novel’s main theme is finding a place in American society as an outsider. Lukyanov flees Russia under the threat of violence and holds an idealistic view of the US, largely due to his Enlightenment-infused father. He quickly learns that his Asian features result in discrimination from his new countrymen, his first step toward cynicism. His Enlightenment views lead him to critique America’s hypocrisy on slavery, including this interesting exchange about American slavery and Russian serfdom:

Dave sat deep in thought for a while and then said, “You Russians sure done us one better.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well here at least, a slave’s free when he dies. You boys have figured out how to keep him in chains and make money off him even when he’s dead.”

Much of the plot also deals with US-Native relations, which contributes to Lukyanov/Lake’s disenchantment with his adopted country. He lives among them multiple times, once infiltrating a tribe as part of an Army assignment and once joining from genuine choice. Each time culminates in witnessing the Army’s brutality toward Natives. Lake’s outsider perspective allows him to see 19th century America more objectively than its natural-born citizens. By the novel’s end, he views much of American society as a corrupt sham, and no longer blames his enemies for their behavior, but society’s incentives. The end result is a tragedy of sorts. This means that To be Free shares themes with two of America’s greatest artistic works, The Godfather and The Great Gatsby. The first implied that assimilating into mainstream American society was impossible, the second made a similar statement about fulfilling the American dream. Lake’s commentary fits along similar lines.

Most stories prioritize either their plot or their characters. Biographical fiction generally falls into the latter camp, with much of the genre serving as character studies for their respective subjects. To Be Free does an unusually good job at balancing both. Its adventurous plot of voyage, cowboys, wars, Native Americans, love, rivalry, and corruption will keep most readers hooked through what is admittedly a long narrative. But Lake discusses his view of himself and the world, building a compelling psychological portrait. He discusses his support for the Enlightenment, his love of novels, his skills at language and in horseback riding, and his thoughts on Manifest Destiny, on killing during war, and on what makes a good life. Each chapter opens with a fragment about its theme, which is a nice touch and gives additional insight into Lake’s mind and beliefs. One of this reviewer’s favorite quotes was the following:

It was funny, but then I thought about “Blessed are the peacemakers.” In my experience, all too often, the peacemakers pay the price for all of us. Look at Jesus. Or Black Kettle. The world would be a whole lot better off if we’d listen to men like them rather than kill them because they’re inconvenient.

Side characters, such as Esme, a love interest, and Bill Morrow, Lake’s rival, also receive thoughtful character analysis that produces important character arcs. The romantic and conflict driven plot-lines help ensure a well-rounded narrative that will appeal to most readers.

In conclusion, To Be Free balances the different aspects of storytelling better than most novels. It contains an exciting plot and thoughtful characters, good dialogue and descriptions, conflict and romance, social commentary that is forward looking and doesn’t overwhelm the narrative, and even functions as both a biographical novel and a memoir. It is highly recommended for fans of creative nonfiction (biographical fiction) and westerns.


“To Be Free” by Lloyd Mullins receives five stars and the “Highly Recommended” award of excellence from The Historical Fiction Company

Today, My Inner Narcissist is a Happy Camper: Tomorrow, a Return to Despair

I’ve often thought that there is a certain degree of narcissism present in anyone’s decision to become any kind of artist. Just having the idea that I’ve got something to say, and I want as many people to hear it as possible, because it’s important to me and should be important to them too, strikes me as arrogant at the very least – of course in my case, it’s a charmingly self-deprecating sort of arrogance.

It is, however, really difficult to maintain that narcissism/arrogance/healthy self-confidence once you start sending your work out into the public. Take me for example – I spent waaaay too much money on research (I’m going to have to sell a lot of books just to pay for the books I bought to write my book*), and two years of my life thinking and writing and editing and rewriting and re-editing and so on, until I thought, “That’s it! That’s exactly what I want to say, and said as well as I can say it!” Then I started shopping my new baby around to agents and publishers, visions of accolades, best-seller lists, and movie deals in your head. “Hahahahahahahahahaha!” I thought (charmingly and humbly, of course), “This’ll show those naysayers who said I was dreaming/wasting my time!”

So I sent out a shitload of query letters and waited for the offers to start rolling in, for the agents to start slugging it out over representing me and my modest little book: “What? All this fuss over little ol’ moi?”

Except that’s not what happened. Responses start trickling in, but they’re all rejections – as of this writing, I’m up to 67 rejections from agents, with only a couple of tiny nibbles of interests. They’re almost all really, really nice, but still . . . I haven’t faced this much rejection since before I met the lovely and talented Jess . . . I’d kind of forgotten how much it stings.

It really gets kind of demoralizing but every once in a while, something happens that gives me hope. A few weeks ago, I learned that Frontier Tales wants to publish a chapter of my novel, which was a huge boost.

Last week, I entered my book in a Cinematic Novel contest. I broke down and paid an extra fee to get some feedback. I wasn’t hoping for much – after all, I’d sent my first novel, Thumperica, to Kirkus Reviews for an obscene (to me anyway) amount of money, and they trashed it. What made it even worse was that the reviewer clearly only read roughly the first half of the book (but at least I’m not bitter).

Anyway, today, I got the feedback from the contest. Here’s what the contest person had to say (by the way, IP stands for Intellectual Property – I’m guessing that by an “existent IP” they mean a character or story that is out in the world now, i.e. a franchise sort of character):

*****

Feedback (Cinematic Book)
TO BE FREE tells the action-packed, vivid story of Nate Luck, a Russian-Buriat immigrant to
America during the heyday of the “wild west.” As a rancher, a soldier, and a father, he transforms
effectively from a starry-eyed, adventure-craving idealist to a disillusioned but still principled
American in every sense of the word. The characters, plot and structure are all there to make this
a dynamic feature or limited series, and the storytelling should be noted as a standout. The
primary obstacle to adapting this work to the screen will be that it’s not based on existent IP, and
as a period piece may be expensive to produce.

One of the primary elements studios and streamers look for in adapting material is character, and
that is an area where this book really shines. Nate Luck is a captivating protagonist, driving the
action forward with his impulsive love of life, fighting spirit, as well as sunshiny optimism. Whether
he’s defending someone outside a brothel or battling the love of his life, Esme, the plot hinges on
his action and his character. He also is a unique protagonist in terms of his heritage, and the
specificity that brings to him navigating The West is truly wonderful. His strength as a horse-rider
due to his Mongolian grandfather and mother, his resistance to being seen as anything other than
independent, they are ripe for bumping up against this classic American setting. How he
transforms into someone who sees the cracks in the shiny marquee of The American Dream are
all the more heartbreaking for the great spirit he brings to fulfilling it.

The women characters are also refreshingly vital and active, which is all too rare in male-dominated
genres and historical stories. From the engaging way Nate’s mother is described to the feisty
Esme, there would unquestionably be desirable parts for actors of many different genders, ages,
and ethnicities. This diversity is a definite plus, but all the more so because it doesn’t feel on-the-nose,
but rather — simply — earned and factual.

Speaking of factual, the historical research would set this project apart for adaptation as well. They
add so much (seeming, at least) authenticity, whether talking about the cargo laborers traveling
on credit-tickets to the differences between the Cheyenne and the Nez Perce tribes. While at times
the line between reality and fiction is blurred, much like in the novel of The Princess Bride by
William Goldman, this only serves to plunge us deeper into the story and is effective. My only
caveat would be that some of the racial realities of the time, even if they are grounded, can be a
tough pill to swallow. For instance, Nate’s reaction to the Chinese as an “inherited prejudice” may
shut down some readers, even if he very quickly realizes the error of his ways in America.

My main word of caution is that, as the story is not based on existing IP, it will likely be more
challenging to get made. Typically, historical adaptations have had a well-known protagonist or a
connection to a specific, well-known event that can help sell the story. One thing to consider is
how Nate Luck can feel like a FORREST GUMP protagonist, traveling through many different well-known
events. Highlighting these instances structurally could perhaps help filmmakers connect
the dots. That said, this may be a challenge for the writer, no matter how well-told the story is,
particularly given the added expenses that come with any historical setting.

One quick thematic note: I really like the idea presented that, because Nate has a wealth of
memories to “draw on and remember,” that he can live as a “King of Infinite Space.” This poetic
counter to the ravenous demands of Manifest Destiny elevates the story into the arena of the best-themed Westerns, like NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, TRUE GRIT or UNFORGIVEN. Overall, this is a
highly readable story that has the action-oriented, visual elements to translate well to the screen.

*****

Yes, you read that right – it gets compared to No Country For Old Men, True Grit, and Unforgiven! Feel free to go back and double-check it; I’ve probably read that thing six or seven times since this morning. I’ve got to say, this came out waaaaay better than I expected. To be honest, I had very low expectations. I certainly didn’t hope for anything this positive, and I’m not sure how to process it. I was really expecting something that would just make me feel worse for wasting the money (lookin’ at you again, Kirkus!).

Instead, I got feedback that made me feel like they really “got” what I was going for, and that I kinda hit that nail on the head. I’ve had some wonderful friends and family who’ve given me very generous and favourable feedback but, outside of my thesis committee (who also liked it, but mostly seemed impressed by my ability to eliminate 50,000 words in a couple of weeks while keeping it a coherent narrative), there hasn’t been much in the way of outside/objective validation until now.

It’s nice to feel this way, even for a little while!

So now I’m doomed to have hope again, at least for a little while. To quote some British Sports commentator, “It’s not the despair, it’s the hope that kills you.”

Oh well, I never expected it to be easy.

*On the other hand, is money spent on books and travel ever really misspent?