Last Week's Reads

You'll forgive me if my weekly copying/butchering of Nick Hornby's playbook is a little sparse this week with the holiday and all.

This year I'll spare all of you the sarcasm about the celebration of colonial White oppression. No rants on the great U.S. of A.'s foundations on the principles of rejected religious extremists. No, not even "Happy Thanksgiving--have a blanket!" jokes. Just last week's reads:

• Isaac Babel, "My First Goose"
  
• Orson Scott Card, "A Cross-Country Trip to Kill Richard Nixon"
  
• Carrie Richerson, "...With By Good Intentions"
  
• Isaac Babel, "Guy de Maupassant"
  

Two Book Sales ago, I got an old edition of Isaac Babel's COLLECTED STORIES. This was back when I got hooked on Raymond Carver, someone who worshipped Babel. It all seemed beyond me at first and it wasn't until I read Lessing's "Homage to Isaac Babel" last week that I had a context in which to finally open up one of Babel's story and actually get it. It's not for nothing that folks often quote "No iron can stab the heart with such force as a period put just at the right place." from Babel's "Guy de Maupassant."

Back on the skiffy/fantasy tip, I dug out another one from Card's MAPS IN A MIRROR anthology. Even a casual reader could look at the title "A Cross-Country Trip to Kill Richard Nixon" and dread the hundred-and-one different things that could go wrong with a story with that premise. Thing is that any problems the story had, IMO, didn't have much to do with the premise. Just things that seemed unlikely to me, even in a fantasy tale.

The one thing that "Nixon" and the story "...With By Good Intentions" from the Oct/Nov F&SF had in common were the simple plots and premises drawn into simple, crafted tales. One might debate whether they were good or bad--I liked them both. But I'll be damned if Card and Richerson made it look so damn easy it almost made me sick.

Next week: probably some stuff from Harlan Ellison's DANGEROUS VISIONS anthology.

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Movin' On Up

ITEM ONE
It's taken a couple of years, but The Wife and I seem to have achieved a semblance of financial stability. Of course, it has to happen right before the holidays. We're simultaneously overjoyed and dismayed to find ourselves in a new consumer bracket, one that includes small pieces of antique (but functional) furniture, home appliances, and consumer electronics. Namely, a MacBook Pro for her and a 250GB external drive for me.

We're still close enough to our previous austere life to feel apprehensive shelling out considerable sums of money for things other than utilities. But when you've been working with old and busted second hand computers for as long as she has, or when you've already suffered near-catastrophic data failure like I have, all of a sudden these things really do start looking like investments, especially when our dreams and goals basically revolve around producing things as efficiently as possible. In the 21st century, you just can't do that with crap.

It's just a wierd feeling, is all.

ITEM TWO
Because, I'm just not used to being able to buy enough storage to backup my laptop six times over and be able to pick up a couple of cool CDs at the same time.

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Last Week's Reads

Shamelessly copying from Nick Hornby's playbook, and doing a botched job at that, I give you last week's reads:

• Carol Emshwiller, "Killers"
  
• Joyce Carol Oates, "Thanksgiving"
  
• Harlan Ellison, "The Few, the Proud"
  
• Jonathan Lethem, "Access Fantasy"
  
• Doris Lessing, "Outside the Ministry"
  
• Doris Lessing, "Homage for Isaac Babel"
  

I loved "Killers" from the Oct/Nov issue of F&SF. After reading it, though, I have a better understanding of the arguments of those who bemoan the fact that some stories that make their way into the mags nowadays don't have clear fantasy/sci-fi elements. You had to read between the lines of "Killer" to make out what those elements are and they're vague enough that you might be mistaken. My personal feeling is that it takes skill to do that, but that's just me.

It was the same with "Thanksgiving" by Joyce Carol Oates. I didn't plan to read it because of the upcoming holiday. It really was the next one on tap from her collection HAUNTED: TALES OF THE GROTESQUE. And it so happened that this was another story of some kind of possibly post-apocalyptic world featuring characters with all sorts of fears that seem reasonable to them, but go unexplained to us.

Needed something "manly," I read some Ellison. But I had no way of knowing what "The Few, the Proud" was about until I started reading. Sure, I guess some right-wing nut could label this story as anti-military propaganda, but the events in the tale are the sorts of things one intuits as having a ring of truth about them.

One thing I've learned about Jonathan Lethem's stories is that, IMO, you can't worry about the plot holes or you'll miss the payoff. This story is a perfect example of that. Most folks would go "WTF?" if I just tried to simply outline the plot. But then they'd end up missing the point of the protagonist's predicament, not to mention Lethem's opinions about the direction of society.

I was fed up with the Doris Lessing story I had been reading, but because I've continued to promise to read one, I went through her collection STORIES to pick out a shorter story. I read two short ones instead, the four-page "Homage for Isaac Babel" and "Outside the Ministry" which came after it. I didn't much care for the latter, between the confusing political intrigue and the fact that the story consisted of four men talking over the course of a half-hour. But the story gave me a valuable lesson on time when contrasted with "Homage," which was half the length, yet took place over the course of a week.

PASSAGE OF THE WEEK
No explanation, no context. Just the writing that grabbed me.

...and so they went down below the Undermall to the underground corridors, long echoey halls of tile, not so glamorous as upstairs, not nice at all really, the lengths apartment people went never to have to step out onto the street and see car people being really appalling sometimes.

Jonathan Lethem, "Access Fantasy"

Next week: I need me some Card and some Link, I think. And maybe something from out there on the world wide internets.

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Fan Mail

Hot damn, who'da thunk? This was forwarded to me from the offices of AMERICAN NERD.

I enjoyed your article in defense of 80s Chicago. I could have written it myself. I'm almost done with a doctorate in music composition (all but dissertation) and I've always appreciated all eras of Chicago, early, eighties, and even recent. I think the misunderstanding about the "jazz-rock band that sold out" meme is that they were never devoted to the "jazz-rock" hybridization like Blood, Sweat and Tears or 70s fusion bands in the first place.

To me, they're a "craft band." Every song they record is an expression of musical craft. There is as much craft in "Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon" as there is in "If You Leave Me Now," and, as you point out, "Hard Habit to Break." The fact that they shifted idioms from jazz to pop rock in order to express their musical craftsmanship
is only secondary.

Bravo on a well-written and pointed article about a misunderstood and vastly underappreciated band.

Robert [redacted]

This was a brand-new experience. I'm simultaneously thrilled and apprehensive. For where there's fan mail, hate mail is always a possibility.

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My Weekly Personality Analysis

I never claimed to be Honest Abe.

You Are A Little Honest

Sometimes you do the right thing, but not often You prefer to look out for yourself most of the time But sometimes honesty does get the better of you Here's hoping you answered this quiz honestly

How Honest Are You?

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Last Week's Reads

Once again, bastardizing Nick Hornby's playbook, I give you the stuff I read last week

• John Cheever, "The Enormous Radio"
  
• Joyce Carol Oates, "Poor Bibi"
  
• Cory Doctorow, "Return to Pleasure Island"
  
• Alison Lurie, "Counting Sheep"
  
• Kelly Link, "Some Zombie Contingency Plans"
  

I know what I said and I have been reading some Doris Lessing this week. I just couldn't git 'r' done, unfortunately.

I was off to a good start with Cheever's "The Enormous Radio," the first of his work that I've read (at least I can't recall if I have before). "Chekhov of the suburbs" is right. I picked it because it's referred to in a few places as an example of magical realism. It's not García-Márquez (it's not meant to be) but it does use those elements to deliver an uncomfortable truth or two.

If two weeks ago, I had the experience of finding the story I now love the most, then this week I found the story I loathe. Hey, not every story will click with folks. I know this and Alison Lurie and Joyce Carol Oates certainly understand this. "Counting Sheep" was solid, and ironically, is the story that has my Passage of the Week. But when I got to the end, I found myself asking, "Are you serious?" That's not the story I loathe, though. By the end of "Poor Bibi," I felt that I just got my chain jerked. It was a case of when you think you've figured out the ending of a story and you're given clues to indicate that you're probably wrong, but then you find out you were right all along.

I'm not 100% sure what "Pleasure Island" was about. Oh, I understood the plot (I think). And, I definitely like the way Doctorow seamlessly wove in disparate, unexplained sci-fi and fantasy elements into his story. Seriously, if I tried listing these elements separately, you'd think it was something he bogarted from Timothy Leary. But I can't say I got it on the first read. I'm not exactly sure when I'll get around to giving it a second one.

Kelly Link, as always, didn't let me down. There's nothing I can say about this story that I haven't said about her writing in general, already. Yet again, I was left with the feeling of "Why the fcuk do I bother?" One thing I will say about "Some Zombie Contingency Plans" is that the shoe that finally drops isn't necessarily the one you're expecting and I loved the way she pulled it off.

PASSAGE OF THE WEEK:

Whenever you tried to go for a walk or a picnic in the Lake District, the sheep had always got there first. Anywhere you might want to sit down, the turf had been churned by their muddy hooves and littered with their droppings, like greasy brown bunches of grapes.

-Alison Lurie, "Counting Sheep"

Next week: that freaking Lessing story already. Probably some Ellison, too.

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Threes

Ed Bradley's passing was sad. Hearing about Jack Palance was sad, too; this was a piece of my childhood gone this time (If I saw THE EXORCIST at 8, you don't think I would've seen SHANE?). But, now Gerald?? "Casanova" pretty much defined my love life in the late 80s.

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Enough Putzing

Have you voted yet? Go on, go. I'll wait.

Last week was the work week from hell (So far it's better this week, thanks for asking) that started off badly when I got some bad news from the Old Neighborhood. Yeah, that whole youthful I'm Gonna Live Forever vibe? Gone. Oh, it'd been slowly wearing away anyhow, what with drinking herbal tea, listening to Satanic smooth jazz, and bitching about local tax rates. Let's just say that when someone your own age passes away, someone with more to live for than I do (and I've got a LOT), it definitely puts things into perspective. Which is why, during what is hopefully my first in a long line of annual physical exams, I got the sort of exam that they say guys in their thirties need to start having. Not to mention getting a cholesterol test. I shudder at the possible results. What can I say, I'm from Cleveland, Land of perogis and smoked meats.

So, last weekend I caved and went to a local NaNoWriMo meetup and started something that I eventually titled EXPERIMENTAL PHASES. I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to keep going with it, though. My Writer side (the side that's the antithesis of everything NaNoWriMo stands for) has been pestering me with, "You've got two shorts to finish and one you haven't submitted yet! Get to it, NOW!" I got the submission in. But, instead of finishing the shorts, I'm blogging before work. Hey, baby steps, right?

Anyway, I've got my plans, I've got my time mapped out and...oh geez, 10 minutes before work, apparently.

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Last Week's Reads

Again, borrowing--then crossing out lines with a black Sharpie, writing notes on the side, and adding my own rules to--Nick Hornby's playbook, I give you what I read last week.

• Sarah Zettel, "Kinds of Strangers"
  
• Jonathan Lethem, "The Dystopianist, Thinking of His Rival, Is Interrupted by a Knock on the Door"
  
• Harlan Ellison, "Chatting With Anubis"
  
• Neil Gaiman, "The Daughter of Owls"
  
• Neil Gaiman "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar"
  
• Gabriel García-Márquez, "Big Mama's Funeral"
  
• Orson Scott Card, "Unaccompanied Sonata"

I hadn't heard of Sarah Zettel except through my copy of THE HARD SCI-FI RENAISSANCE. Her story was a solid example of everything that compilation stands for. It's a straightforward genre plot about a ship in deep space but the emphasis isn't so much on the science of space travel as much as the science of psychology.

"The Dystopianist" is your typical Lethem fare (that's not an insult, btw). It's a simple well-written story with one theme being, basically, about self-examination.

I got two Gaiman stories in because they were short and followed one another. I'd call "The Daughter of Owls" pleasantly grisly (Note to self: I think there's a comic adaptation of this around somewhere that I should check out). "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar," yes, refers to that Shoggoth and is set in Innsmouth. Truth be told, they were written as well as Gaiman's usual, but the stories were...well, okay.

Ellison's "Chatting With Anubis" and Card's "Unaccompanied Sonata" had some pretty straightforward plots as well. In them, the protagonists go through some pretty profound changes and not necessarily for the better. True, most like stories where a hero acts heroic and wins big. Some like the hero to lose, but still be a hero; more people can identify with a hero like that. But stories where the hero loses himself? Those stories, stories like these, can be a little harder for some people to stomach.

The story that blew me away was "Big Mama's Funeral." This is now, hands down, my favorite short story. The mechanics are nearly flawless and the language (at least insofar as the translation) is beautiful. García-Márquez's attitude toward the subject matter, i.e. his truth, isn't readily apparent until near the end, though reading it makes the last line of my choice for Passage of the Week more relevant.

PASSAGE OF THE WEEK

Now that the nation, which was shaken to its vitals, has recovered its balance; now that the bagpipers of San Jacinto, the smugglers of Guajira, the rice planters of Sinú, the prostitutes of Caucamayal, the wizards of Sierpe, the banana workers of Aracataca have folded up their tents to recover from the exhausting vigil and have regained their serenity, and the President of the Republic and his Ministers and all those who represented the public and supernatural powers on the most magnificent funeral occasion recorded in the annals of history have regained control of their estates; now that the Holy Pontiff has risen up to Heaven in body and soul; and now that it is impossible to walk around in Macondo because of the empty bottles, the cigarette butts, the gnawed bones, the cans and rags and excrement that the crowd which came to the burial left behind; now is the time to lean a stool against the front door and relate from the beginning the details of this national commotion, before the historians have a chance to get at it.

Gabriel García-Márquez, "Big Mama's Funeral"

This was only one of about five that I could've chosen. I still get shivers.

Next time: Maybe some of that Doris Lessing I promised last time and possibly a comment or two about Satrapi's PERSEPOLIS, should I decide to include comics in my weekly reading list.

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My Weekly Personality Analysis

See? That's twice in a row, so it's weekly again. (Well, at least for now.)

You know, I put my counseling/mental health books away a long time ago, but from what I remember, these results don't seem right. Then again, a cold-reading from a psychic hotline often produces better results than one of these online things.

Maslow Inventory Results

Physiological Needs (34%) you appear to have everything you need to survive physically. Safety Needs (44%) you appear to have an adequately secure environment. Love Needs (50%) you appear to be semi-content with the quality of your social connections. Esteem Needs (50%) you appear to have a medium level of skill competence. Self-Actualization (60%) you appear to have an average level of individual development.

Take Free Maslow Inventory Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

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Last Week's Reads

Writer Steven Barnes suggests that that you should read ten times as much as you write. Given that I should be writing every day and that I average about 2 pages (approximately 500 words) per day, and guestimating that the average short story is about 5,000 words, I've made it my business to read one piece of short fiction per day. (Non-fic doesn't count but I wonder if I should include comics.) Anyway, I've managed to do this every day for the past two weeks, religiously. What, you think I just buy all these books and never crack them open?

So, to put my money where my mouth is and make myself publically accountable, I'm modifying a page out of Nick Hornby's playbook and giving you Last Week's Reads:

• Orson Scott Card, "In the Doghouse"
  
• Gabriel García-Márquez, "Artificial Roses"
  
• Alison Lurie, "The Highboy"
  
• Swapna Kishore, "Reclaiming Lucy"
  
• Kelly Link, "Stone Animals"
  
• Harlan Ellison, "The Lingering Scent of Woodsmoke"
  
• Harlan Ellison, "Go Into the Light"

Three of these stories, "Doghouse," "The Highboy," and "Go Into the Light" had plots that I believed were predictable. Actually, they were in the sense that I was able to predict the general outcome of the plot. But these writers had to know I would, so they wrote in a such a way as to me care more about the journey than the destination. But, it's a tricky business, that. Knowing where the plot was going almost turned me off each time. This is where name recognition comes in handy, though. I mean, it's Card and Ellison, for pete's sake. I might not have liked the story by the time I got to the end, but I was confident it wouldn't suck in any case being who they were, so I stuck with them.

Lurie's story I liked least of the three, but I think that's partly because the collection it's from, WOMEN AND GHOSTS (at least the edition I have) is made to look like some sort of horror thing, but it isn't. It can't be, when some of the stories had previously appeared in VOGUE, REDBOOK, and HARPER'S BAZAAR. But even for what it was, "The Highboy" was IMO a good example of what Orson Scott Card calls "the millieu story" and it made clearer to me something about the sort of changes a protagonist in a story can go through--but that's a rant for another time.

I read "Reclaiming Lucy"--a very nice, straightforward short horror piece--because I keep running into the author's name as I pore through various online mags looking for new markets. The quality of her writing (at least the two or three stories I've read so far) seems to have a consistency that I'm trying to develop. I really need to go back through and put all of the links to her stories into del.icio.us.

Link's "Stone Animals" gave me my passage of the week (see below). She can be an acquired taste, I've heard, and I can see why (although I knew I loved her stuff the moment I first read STRANGER THINGS HAPPEN). Most of her stories have a plot, no doubt. It might not be completely understandable, and it resists examination from a "big picture" point of view, but it's there. But to examine a story for the plot misses the point of some of her stuff. Her writing is beautiful. Clever, but not for its own sake. It follows, to use Alice Sebold's term in her review, dream-logic. Like a dream, Link's words make perfect sense in the moment, as you read them.

Yes, I liked Link's story this week better than "Artificial Roses" by the original master of the ethereal story. That's not to say that García-Márquez didn't blow me away, as usual. The further I get into his COLLECTED STORIES (and this could be for 101 different reasons), the more I'm able to get his stories. Granted, I'm reading translations but if they're at all accurate, then I'd say his stories are as dream-like as Link's--except his dreams are more vivid. His stories are the dreams you have that make you swear you're 100% awake.

PASSAGE OF THE WEEK
No explanation, no context. This is just the writing that stuck out to me this week.

She said, "If you don't like it, then I'll keep it. Look at you, look at those sleeves. You look like the emperor of Japan."

They had already colonized the bedroom, making it full of things that belonged to them.
-Kelly Link, "Stone Animals"

Next week: a whole new crop of stories, most likely some Jonathan Lethem and maybe some Doris Lessing.

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My Weekly Personality Analysis

Ganked from somewhere, partially in honor of the Very Short Stories--six-word pieces from some top sci-fi authors--that ran in WIRED, I give you the Two-Word Meme, where each of the questions below is answered with two words.

1. Explain what ended your last relationship? Partial meltdown.
2. When was the last time you shaved? Monday morning.
3. What were you doing this morning at 8 a.m.? Soundly sleeping.
4. What were you doing 15 minutes ago? Starting this.
5. Are you any good at math? Sort of.
6. Your prom night? Which one?
7. Do you have any famous ancestors? Infamous, maybe.
8. Have you had to take a loan out for school? Of course.
9. Do you know the words to the song on your myspace profile? No song.
10. Last thing received in the mail? Action bills.
11. How many different beverages have you had today? Both caffeinated.
12. Do you ever leave messages on people's answering machine? On occasion.
13. Who did you lose your CONCERT virginity to? Depeche Mode.
14. Do you draw your name in the sand when you go to the beach? Hardly go.
15. What's the most painful dental procedure you've had? Some drillin'.
16. What is out your back door? The patio.
17. Any plans for Friday night? Staying quiet.
18. Do you like what the ocean does to your hair? Never cared.
19. Have you ever received one of those big tins of 3 different popcorns? One time.
20. Have you ever been to a planetarium? Long ago.
21. Do you re-use towels after you shower? Too often.
22. Some things you are excited about? Having written.
23. What is your favorite flavor of JELLO? NyQuil Green ;).
24. Describe your keychain(s)? Too heavy.
25. Where do you keep your change? My pocket.
26. When was the last time you spoke in front of a large group of people? Office party.
27. What kind of winter coat do you own? Gray wool.
28. What was the weather like on your graduation day? Don't remember.
29. Do you sleep with the door to your room open or closed? Slightly ajar.

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Calling to Me

No, I haven't decided to, yet. Haven't decided not to either, though I did swear it off last year. There are so many damn reasons not to, not the least of which is the need to write more stuff that'll sell.

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Because There's Not Enough To Do

Not.

I got this stuff (and these are just the fiction books) last week at the Tompkins Country Friends of the Library Book Sale (N.B. I couldn't include Alison Lurie's WOMEN AND GHOSTS in the layout, here). I still hadn't gone through the backlog of last spring's books.

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So, I've decided that the only way I'm going to get through them all is a pre-planned rotation. Don't forget that I've still got these in the mix as well (including HAUNTED: TALES OF THE GROTESQUE by Joyce Carol Oates).

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Okay, I'm cheating--two of the books up in that last set were new. But the point is, the plan is one story per day, which is completely doable, and actually has been for the past 7 days.

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Fancy Colours

(Make one)

But at least I'm not contagious.

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Bring Out Your Dead

(Make one)

Ah, the joys of working in university health care.

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My Weekly Personality Analysis

My Life: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

• Opening Credits: Chicago, "Aire"
  
• Waking Up: Air, "Ce Matin La"
  
• Average Day: Doobie Brothers, "Takin' It To the Streets"
  
• Falling In Love: Helen Merril, "'S Wonderful"
  
• Love Scene: Casandra Wilson, "Poet"
  
• Death of a Loved One: Queen, "Who Wants to Live Forever"
  
• Bad Love: Michael McDonald, "I Keep Forgettin' (Every Time You're Near)"
  
• Sad Love: Doobie Brothers, "What a Fool Believes"
  
• Break Up: Jimmy Ruffin, "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted"
  
• Reunion: Chris Botti feat. Jonatha Brooke, "Forgiven"
  
• Fight Scene: The Roots, "Thought@Work"
  
• After the Fight: The Geto Boys, "Damn, It Feels Good To Be a Gangster"
  
• Adultery: Squeeze, "Tempted"
  
• Guilt: Chicago, "Sonny Think Twice"
  
• Bad Day: Black Crowes, "Thorn in My Pride"
  
• But Life's Okay: Sons of Champlin, "Misery Isn't Free"
  
• Deep In Thought: Don Henley, "The Heart of the Matter"
  
• Secret Love: Atlantic Starr, "Secret Lovers"
  
• Party: Sheila E, "The Glamorous Life"
  
• Dance Scene: Yvonne Elliman, "If I Can't Have You"
  
• Crying Scene: Peter Cetera, "No Explanation"
  
• Breakdown: Cousteau, "The Last Good Day of the Year"
  
• Driving: Styx, "Fooling Yourself (Angry Young Man)"
  
• Flashback: Night Ranger, "When You Close Your Eyes"
  
• Regret: Flaming Lips, "Fight Test"
  
• Long Night All Alone: Cat Stevens, "Wild World"
  
• Death Scene: Eric Clapton, "Layla (piano exit)"
  
• End Credits: Johnny Cash, "The Man Comes Around"

Well, sort of weekly. Look, stop...stop yelling at me. I'm ill, leave me alone!

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How About That?

If sitting in with a jazz quartet for $10 and the two times I got paid union rates for a couple of trumpet gigs technically made me a professional musician, then I guess I'm now, technically, a professional writer. I got word last night that a webzine wanted to buy one of my stories. It came on the heels of another rejection, so needless to say I feel pretty good.

I'll put the link up when it's up, which should be sometime next month. That's when I'll send the inevitable mass email rather than making it a "Bandwidth Conservation Post."

For those keeping score, that's:

1 sale
4 in circulation
3 withdrawn

Okay, actually that was more for me to see where I stood.

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Unfocused, Still

I've been posting today from the coffee shop that I once believed could serve as my home away from home the way this place used to. It's not quite there. I've finally had to accept the fact that, as counter-intuitive as it would seem moving to I-town, there just isn't a place where I could work like I did in A-town.

It's times like these, like at any other "job," where there's nothing else for it but to just get to fcuking work, unfocused or not.

I did get one thing accomplished. I subbed another tale to the place that just rejected me. That's something, right? One thing. One thing I can point to that, even if I end up jerking off for the rest of the day, I can say I got done.

Please, no comments about how ostensibly hard I'm being on myself. This isn't about being hard on myself or a potential cautionary tale about work/life balance. This is about one of those many instances where the rubber needs to meet the road in order to do what you set out to do.

Because, as the gentleman on the left says, What you're supposed to do is act like a fucking professional.

I think I need to get some reading done. I suspect that's been part of my problem lately: not enough creative input to fuel the creative output.

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New Books

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I've finally taken the amazon.com plunge and discovered its crack-like ease of addiction. I guess there goes my devotion to local book stores(?). Anyway, it enabled my financially-challenged @ss to get two writing books that are worth a good 75% of the writing books I have so far.

Ursula K. LeGuin's STEERING THE CRAFT is a series of ten exercises on the writing craft that can be done alone or in a group. It's a book that I can always go back to (and have at the local library several times) whenever I feel like I just don't have siht.

I have no real interest in writing plays (at least for now), but when I borrowed TO BE A PLAYWRIGHT by Janet Neipris and saw some of the general writing advice she had, it was too good not to eventually buy. I can see why a lot of writers (especially comic book writers, believe it or not) are influenced by playwrights.

Go ahead, discover how easy it is, if you haven't already. You can start with my wishlist icon over to the right. You know you want to.

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