The Muse and You

I'll be appearing with author and writing coach Mark David Gerson on his internet radio program Wednesday, July 29 at 1:30 p.m. eastern time. Julie Isaac will be on the first half of the one-hour show between 1pm and 1:30.

We'll be talking about creativity and writing and books and whatever else comes up. Here's the link for the show: The Muse and You.

You can find some of my thoughts about creativity in my Writer's Notebook blog called Writing Without a Net.

You can find some of Mark David's thoughts in his popular writing book "Voice of the Muse" and on his web site.

Stop by if you've got some free time!

--Malcolm

Novel focuses on Human Rights Abuse in Saudi Arabia

While reading Homa Pourasgari's recent novel, The Dawn of Saudi, I found myself stepping away from the well-plotted story of two women, one from Saudi Arabia and one from the U.S., who marry Saudi men and are trapped inside the barbaric hell of fundamentalist sharia law. I had to step away and remind myself that no, I'm not reading historical fiction, I'm reading a contemporary story.

Anger pulled me away: anger at the oppression of women based on an ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam and outmoded cultural views.

I found myself almost equally angry at the stance of the United States. We condemn human rights abuses around the world, yet we are mostly silent when it comes to those within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I have to agree with Pourasgari that we "remain quiet in the name of oil, greed and politics." How shameful these reasons are!

The Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia says that, “as documented by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Freedom House and even the US Department of State, Saudi women are among the most oppressed and marginalized citizens in Arab and Muslim countries.” In an author’s note at the end of her novel, Homa Pourasgari describes the social and legal environment in Saudi Arabia more directly: “Women have no rights and are considered the property of a man.”

Pourasgari's novel tells a compelling story, but the depressing reality of it is a heavy weight around my neck.

A Good Day for a Smile

Nora Roberts sells 21 books every minute. When you go to her website, you'll find all of her titles are available in an Excel spreadsheet. 160 of her books have been New York Times bestsellers. After all these years and all these books, I wonder if she still feels a sense of excitement and adventure on the day each new novel is listed on Amazon. On each book's official release date, does she sit back in an easy chair, smile and enjoy the experience?

My second novel, Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire, was listed there yesterday. Exhausted from non-stop proofreading, I didn't notice the listing until late in the evening and the book's description hadn't appeared yet. It's there now and yes, it does make me smile--partly because it's there, partly because my Jock Stewart character is so off the wall, I can't help but be amused at the antics he gets away with while following truth, journalism and the evil-doers who stole the mayor's racehorse and killed his publisher's girl friend.

Writing is an adventure that unfolds in the quiet of an author's den. My den's a mess and I have no clue where anything is. I'm the hermit of a room lined with books, some by Ms. Roberts and dozens of other authors whose work has also contributed to my on-going education. It's nice, though, to step outside the solitude once in a while and see what's going on in the world past my horizon of books. Seeing one's book listed on Amazon is a perfect excuse.

I have a smile on my face today. When you read the book, I hope you will, too.

That's The Way It Is

"It is hard to explain why Cronkite's death matters today. If you came of news consumption age after the dawn of cable news and the Internet, you have not known a time when commentators did not scream at each other, when they did not express political views, when shedding a tear when the president was gunned down was actually controversial because it showed emotion. -- Al Tompkins, Poynter Online

WCTV, the lone television station in Tallahassee, Florida during the 1950s and 1960s, was a CBS affiliate, ensuring that I would grow up listening to the evening news as presented by Douglas Edwards and then Walter Cronkite. With Cronkite's death yesterday, an era ends--figuratively. I cannot say that it ends in reality for cable and satellite news have, for the most part, stepped away from the best journalism of Cronkite's era and have replaced it with something unrecognizable to veteran reporters.

I trusted Cronkite for many reasons, the first of which was that he was a real journalist, honing his craft for United Press International in World War II. He was a reporter before he was an anchor. I also trusted him because, other than championing the kind decency any average person would champion, Cronkite seldom betrayed what he thought.

I know what most of today's anchors think and that's why I don't trust them. Walter's agenda was reporting the news as clearly and as objectively as he could. Many of today's anchors have expanded their agendas to include advocacy of one political spin or another.

Today's ratings appear to demand infotainment rather than true journalism for a high percentage of each hour's broadcast minutes. With Cronkite's death, perhaps we will stop and think what we have been doing to the art and craft of news reporting for the 28 years since we last heard him end a broadcast with his trademark "That's the way it is."

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For my latest Jock Stewart satire about the declining state of investigative journalism and newspapers, I invite you to read The Last Investigative Reporter in America. The post includes a link to the facts behind the satire.

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Copyright (c) 2009 by Malcolm R. Campbell

On the Beach

When I see the words "On the Beach," I can't help but think of Nevil Shute's novel and the movie that was made from it. That nuclear war movie seems a little dated now, though perhaps it shouldn't.

I'm on the beach at the moment, actually in a Daytona condo owned by a friend of my Florida relatives. Yesterday afternoon as we spent several hours in the ocean, I thought back to some of those timeless days growing up on Florida gulf coast in the days before cell phones and the Internet. In a beach cottage there, one could go for days without knowing what time or day it was, getting up without alarm clocks, eating when one was hungry rather than by clock or schedule, losing oneself in the whims and senses of the moment.

Daytona can't possibly replicate the natural areas of the gulf coast then--or even now. Arriving here a few days a go for the first time since I was in grade school, I couldn't help but be a little depressed at how paved over and commercial it was, how so little natural space along the beach was allowed to remain. It felt claustrophobic compared with the small town where I live.

But I've fallen somewhat into the rhythms of the place, enjoying the beach and the pool more than I thought I would. There's been a lot of unstructured time, and that's good, somewhat like those long-ago days when we'd take the boat from Alligator Point to Dog Island which was at the time mostly uninhabited. The commercialization of Daytona makes it impossible to do what I would do if the place were still natural--sleep on a screened in porch and awake with the sun, then to walk down a narrow path through palmetto and sea oats and sandspurs to a deserted beach where the view is 99% filled with the natural world rather than high-rise condos and hotels which (frankly) spoil the place more than synchronize with it.

So my unstructured time here tends to go to reading (good) or logging on (bad). Reading seems natural; logging on seems as unnatural as Dayton's paved-over approach to beach life. Even so, being away from my den has forced me to slow down, to be a little less preoccupied with the bench marks leading up to the publication of "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire," mowing the lawn, and other scheduled pursuits of daily life. Also good.

In contrast to Shute's version of the end of the world in his "On the Beach," I do think often of vacation spots that are figuratively at the end of the world--beaches or mountains with no people, cars, hotels, computers, cell phones. I long for the natural and the timeless where daily connexions are with the moment and the place rather than with the stuff of civilisation which has been transported into places that people first visited in order to enjoy the natural rather than the same old comforts of home toted down to the beach or into the mountain valley.

Even now, I'm a traitor to what I want just sitting at this computer typing these words, words I should only be able to scratch into the beach sand with a stick if they need to be uttered at all. But here they are.

The Sweet Poison of Vanity

"A writer never forgets the first time he accepted a few coins or a word of praise in exchange of a story. He will never forget the sweet poison of vanity in his blood and the belief that, if he succeeds in not letting anyone discover his lack of talent, the dream of literature will provide him with a roof over his head, a hot meal at the end of the day, and what he covets most: his name printed on a miserable piece of paper that surely will outlive him. A writer is condemned to remember that moment, because from then on he is doomed and his soul has a price." -- Carlos Ruiz Zafon, opening lines from "Angel's Game."

The musings of Zafon's protagonist David Martin are food for thought, the kind of food that you find at a dimly lit cafe on a narrow alley served up by a cook who looks like he doubles as a grave digger--most likely burying those he serves.

Yes, I remember the first time. It coincided well with those dreams of one day being mentioned in the same breathless praise as Faulkner was mentioned long after I had succumbed to my addiction to bad food and other poisons.

Rationalizing my choices, I believed then--as I believe now--that I was by no means the hapless Faust who made his own choices and then lived well and died badly. My collaboration with the dark side was, while more temporal, part of my quest to learn more about the ways of gods and angels.

I realize the vanity inherent in any occupation that places the name of the worker into the public spotlight along with the work. Had I been a grave digger or a chef in the service of others, anonymity, a good shovel and a few herbs and spices would have been my stock in trade. We don't post signs next to holes in the earth reading, "This grave dug just for you by Malcolm, grave digger for the stars."

Be that as it may, I paused for a long time after reading the opening line's of Zafon's "Angel's Game," a novel I was looking forward to after enjoying his "The Shadow of the Wind." Those lines were all too clear, clear enough to make any writer with an ounce of introspection in his nature stop and ask himself or herself, "Why do I write?"

The lurking poison not withstanding, my answer is always, "because I must." A weak response, I know, but otherwise my real answer lies within my work and those who find it and read it can decide the truth or the fiction of it.

As I move on into Zafon's novel, I don't intend to dwell on those opening lines. What a maudlin pastime that would be, though it would make an excellent excuse for writer's block. As I read, I'm happy to see more and more differences between David Martin and myself, one being that I don't live in Barcelona.

What Book Shaped You?

Writers are often asked for the name of a book that they feel was in some way a life-changing read; the inference here is that the selected book also impacted the decision to become a writer.

I find this an impossible question to answer, partly because my wont to write was shaped a long time ago by the books I checked out from the junior high and high school libraries. While reading the literature prescribed in class, I also tended to check out a biographies. But I no longer remember the titles.

Now, if I had decided to become a writer later in life, I might say that I was somewhat shaped by Pat Conroy's "Prince of Tides" or Carlos Ruiz Zafon's "The Shadow of the Wind." Or perhaps "The Time Traveler's Wife" or "Memories of Rain."

Everything I read has an impact and I'm changed bit by bit over time as I read each novel and nonfiction book through the filter of my own frame of reference.

I don't especially like the "what book shaped you" question in an interview because it's based on the notion that one book suddenly changed a person's life and sent them off in a new direction. Sure, this can happen. But it's more likely that their philosophy grew over time and that if any book "suddenly" make a difference, it was the catalyst that came at the right moment after a lot of soul-searching ground work had already been done.

Yes, I can say that I've been influenced by the work of Joseph Campbell, James Joyce, Carl Jung, Carlos Castaneda, and Jane Roberts. But saying that is somewhat misleading for it implies I was sitting their rudderless and empty when the book came along and that through the magic of the words, I made an important course correction in my lifetime journey.

I'm shaped by everything I read.

--Malcolm

100 Years, 100 Stories

Next year, the National Park Service will publish a book called "100 years, 100 Stories" as part of its celebration of Glacier National Park's 100th anniversary.

I'm happy to say that it will include a short piece of mine about the first day of the 1964 Montana flood as viewed from the perspective of those carrying furniture out of the lake level rooms of a flooded hotel.

At the time, the flood was viewed as the worst in Montana's history--it still may be the worst. In a pre-CNN, pre-cell-phone world, most of us were isolated and were dealing with the problems around us and had no idea how widespread the destruction was until we read about it in the newspaper many weeks after the fact.

Even though the road, our water and our power were knocked out and the flooded place quickly turned into a sea of mud when the water receded, we opened on time with a large convention. That was one of my more interesting experiences.

--Malcolm

Early Reviewer Copies are Out

Last night, I e-mailed copies of an uncorrected e-book copy of JOCK STEWART AND THE MISSING SEA OF FIRE out to several people who dared to read a pre-publication copy of the novel and say something about it. Since each of them had read THE SUN SINGER, I felt duty-bound to tell them this is a very different book--night and day, I would say--from my first novel. Things are moving forward and it still looks like the novel will be released on August 12 by Vanilla Heart Publishing.

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I'm tinkering with another Jock Stewart book. That led me to post the following on my Writer's Notebook and MySpace blogs. (Sorry about the odd line breaks; not sure what blogger is doing here since the lines look fine in the editor.)

Squash
by Laurence R. Campbell

Frankly, all squash to me is prose
And heaven only knows
Why it was invented
Unless by someone quite demented.

No matter who are the cooks
I don’t like the looks
Of squash.

Even with a small touch of it
There’s much too much of it—
That is, of squash.

As for the taste of it
Well, that’s a waste of it—
Of squash, I mean.

As for the smell of it
I hate to tell of it—
Of squash, of course.

As for the sound of it
I hate an ounce to a pound of it—
You’re right, of squash.

When it comes to squash
It’s an orange-hued mush.

So rather than eat it,
I beat it.


I'm receiving conflicting reports from my muse about a new novel still on the drawing board.

Last week I was stunned when a major character was found dead at a friend's
house. She went there to feed his dog while he was out of town and
encountered an intruder.

My first reaction was: somebody's going to pay for this in spades. While
my muse had been providing hints about the probable culprit in this
tale or arson gone bad, she hadn't given me a clue about whether he was
going to be found dead in the conservatory or the hall.

New reports seem to indicate he might not die at all and, frankly, the
other characters including the Chief of Police are up in arms about
that.

I'm taking a laissez-faire approach, otherwise known as the
turn-off-the-computer avoidance approach. Inadvertently, a generous
friend has provided assistance in the form of a large bag of
garden-fresh squash.

Unlike my late father, I like squash, though I must confess it lacks the
excitement of broccoli and the down home durability of potatoes.
Suffice it to say, an entire bag introduces pressure into my schedule
since--unlike potatoes--it can't sit there for weeks without
"processing."

Determined to forget Character ABC who is dead and Character XYZ who might end up
getting shot in the ass with a .22 caliber rifle on a snowy morning, I
escaped into the no-brainer world of squash casserole this morning.

While cutting up the squash, I considered bringing ABC back from the dead,
rationalizing that unless one thinks the story is already said and done
before I write it down, she's not really dead until the book reaches
print.

While grating the extra-sharp cheddar cheese, I considered quitting the
writing business altogether and joining the ranks of an honorable
profession such as grave digging or repairing Linotype machines.

While preheating the oven and crumbling saltines with unsalted tops into the
mixture in the bowl, I decided that perhaps Character XYZ might get
shot in the ass two or three times prior to heading to the State Pen
for the rest of his life and just maybe that was a high enough price of killing Character ABC.

I'm just a writer after all, reporting the news from Storyville and points
east, not a god sitting in judgement of the good, bad and the ugly
between the lines.

I'm renewed and breathing easier now and I have squash to thank.


Copyright (c) 2009 by Malcolm R. Campbell. "Squash" copyright (c) 1987 by the Estate of Laurence R. Campbell