writing

Julian Assange-Author?

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Julian Assange proves some information is still worth paying for – The Globe and Mail.

The Globe and Mail’s editor sees this book deal of Julian Assange as evidence that books still matter, and that people will still pay money for them. It seems to me that this is evidence that notoriety matters, and people are paying for the glimpse into a celebrity’s life, not for the writing.

I write fiction, the daunting task of facing the blank page, whether it’s on the computer or waiting on a desk with accompanying pencil(and eraser), dredging up images and characters from fragments in the brain. Writing non-fiction, or as this book will be, a memoir, requires a different set of skills, but skill it needs, and time, and research, if the facts are to be presented.

Mr. Assange never finished university, studying maths and physics while he was there. I couldn’t find any reference to written work, either fiction or non-fiction although he is called a journalist on Wikipedia.

A 1.7 million book deal for a guy whose claim to fame is cracking computers and releasing information in a lump. The book is supposed to be an autobiography, but perhaps they’re providing him with a ghost-writer. I wonder if the ghost writer’s name will be on the cover, in the spirit of reveal all.

Off to Spain

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I have been watching a lecture series on DVD, produced by The Teaching Company, taught by Professor Brooks Landon of the University of Iowa,  entitled Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer’s Craft. This is my first exposure to a university level course in writing, although I have taken other on-line practical writing courses and attended workshops, and read books on the subject, all practical, none with the in-depth discussion of the sentence as an art form, not considering just its function, but the way in which phrases and clauses, vowels and consonants play against and with each other. I’m enjoying this series, although some of the concepts are so new to me, that I will watch it a second time, take notes, do the exercises and explore at greater length some of the concepts, as well, I might add, as learning the new vocabulary, not included in the language I learned in medical school. It seems a practical course in many ways and it is great fun.

Sakineh: She’s still in that prison. I see that the Iranians have accepted five hundred thousand dollars as the price of an American woman accused of spying and released this week. Some people in Oman arranged it, so we are told. I wonder what it would cost to buy the freedom of Sakineh and the others.

Spain: I’ve spent the last few months trying to learn some Spanish, using the course supplied by RosettaStone, enough to be polite, and not assume that everyone that I meet speaks English. I did the same with Italian several years ago, finding that it took at least two years to gain enough language to communicate a little. It becomes more difficult as I get older, or so it seems. We’re leaving shortly, so this will be my last posting for a while, unless I have access to a computer somewhere along the way.

Three assaults on women

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Iran death row woman Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani to be hanged not stoned | Mail Online. The Daily Mail reports this morning that Sakineh was subject to a mock execution on Sunday. The attitude that allows for death by stoning apparently has stirred Sakineh’s captors to further sadism. They remind me of the perpetrators of serial murders, torturing their victims to get the most enjoyment before they kill them. I wonder if her jailers achieve sexual satisfaction from their actions as the serial killers do.

The Iranian media has labelled Carla Bruni, the wife of the President of the French Republic, a prostitute. This was apparently in retaliation for a letter she wrote in support of Sakineh. No free speech for any woman anywhere is their creed.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/africa-mideast/poison-gas-confirmed-as-cause-of-sickness-at-afghan-girls-schools/article1692235/?cmpid=rss1&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheGlobeAndMail-Front+(The+Globe+and+Mail+-+Latest+News)

The Globe and Mail reports that poison gas has been confirmed as the causative agent in the episodes of sudden illness amongst schoolgirls in a largely Pashtun area of Afghanistan. The boys in the same schools, who go on different days, were not effected, nor were any all-boys schools. A fine bunch these Taliban, poisoning children. I wonder if the leaders giving these orders are Afghani fathers.

Writing

Finally finished reviewing the proofs for The Facepainter Murders. It should come online today, if all goes to plan. Look for it as an ebook at http://www.writewords.com.

My current project involves converting a first person novel into a third person, in time to submit to Penguin UK which is opening for submissions, targeting non-agented writers, creating an opportunity for me, if I can finish before we go to Spain.

I notice Michael Ignatieff is calling for folks to return to “the big red tent”. I wonder if he’s been reading John Ralston Saul’s A Fair Country, in which Saul talks about Canada being an aboriginal country, and the aboriginal philosophy of “the big tent”.

Free media, free speech.

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Geoffrey York in the Globe and Mail, writing about South Africa:

The government of President Jacob Zuma is being accused of harassing the media, failing to improve the lives of the poor, and favouring its own cronies in dubious business deals.

Lawrence Martin also in the Globe and Mail:

Last year, as revealed by The Canadian Press, Prime Minister Stephen Harper lunched in New York with Roger Ailes, president of Fox News, and Rupert Murdoch, who owns it. Kory Teneycke, Mr. Harper’s former spokesman, was also present at the unannounced event.

Mr. Teneycke later became the point man for Quebecor’s Pierre Karl Péladeau in his effort to create a right-wing television network modelled along the lines of Fox News. The new network is a high priority for Mr. Harper, for whom controlling the message has always been – witness his government vetting program – of paramount importance.

In this regard, he scored a fantastic coup when Mr. Teneycke became head, courtesy of Mr. Péladeau, of Sun Media’s political coverage. It’s not every day that a prime minister sees his one-time spokesperson taking control of a giant media chain’s coverage of his government.

Now, I don’t think Mr. Harper is an idiot on the level of Mr. Zuma, who until lately denied the problem AIDS presents in his country. But I do think Harper’s overweaning desire to control almost everything, is becoming hard for him to disguise. Remember at the beginning, when he decided to protect himself from the hurly-burly of the scrum by hiding in a basement room of the Parliament, with selected members of the media present and taking only pre-vetted and few questions. Now he will have a whole network to lob easy questions at him and allow him to distort the facts with impunity.

The rot started with his success in proroguing Parliament, continued with the whole census debacle and recently found a respected Mountie out the door because of his support, along with all the rest of this country’s police, of the long gun registry.

It’s his agenda, his take on what the women of the world need, his belief that we don’t need facts on which to base decisions. How does he tolerate a man like Stockwell Day in his cabinet, with his prattling about “unreported crime” as an excuse for more and bigger jails? I begin to be concerned about what new crimes will soon be announced and how long free expression can survive.

Writing:

Last week and this I have been proof-reading the galley for my new book. This exercise leaves me with a renewed respect for all those who read and correct the millions—it must be millions— of words written every day.

Gardening:

The long spring and hot, humid summer are ending with what seems to be an early autumn. The swallows are making practice flights; the black squirrel is driving the dog crazy with his aerial foraging in oak tree; the brown-eyed susans are making a spectacular show with their mounds of intense gold and black. What does it all mean? A heavy, snow-laden lengthy winter? Our autumn will end with a stay in the south of Spain.

Books

I’ve been reading Frances Mayles  A Year in the World. She and her husband took our trip, first to Madrid, then to Seville and on to Ronda. I hope some of the restaurants and tapas bars she writes about are still open. Spain is having a tough time economically this year.

Sakineh

Her fate was supposed to be decided on August, but so far—nothing. the British Government has called in the Iranian ambassador to express its deep concern. I hope it expressed the full horror of civilized nations at the barbaric crime Iran is perpetrating on its citizens, and particularly this woman and the fourteen co-condemned, waiting out the tattered remains of their lives in that foul prison.

Please sign the petition at http://freesakineh.org

Iran

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The Guardian reports this morning that the deaths by stoning of the (mainly) women in Iran’s prisons are being quietly change to death by hanging. The article, goes on to remind us of the appalling state of justice in that Republic. The cases include that of a fifteen year old child bride, accused of her elderly husband of adultery, condemned not only to die by stoning but also to live for three years under that sentence because she was not yet eighteen. What a mockery.

Meanwhile Sakineh herself is tortured into reading a “confession” on television. Her lawyer is now in Norway, having been arrested in Turkey and offered safe haven in that country of EU officials intervened in Turkey. He of course can and is speaking to the press.

Please keep up the pressure on Iran. Sign the petition at http://freesakineh.org/

Ottawa Notebook – The Globe and Mail.

The census, still in the news. Earlier this week Tony Clement complained that he felt all alone in the census fight, with so many groups against him. Apparently he thinks he is the only one with revealed truth on this issue.

Then, the government, throwing a bone to Quebec, moves questions on language to the short form, because they couldn’t be assured of accurate data in a voluntary long form! Now do these people actually ever listen to themselves?

Writing

I spent an entire morning this week talking to Sean, at Microsoft for Word for Mac about a  strange problem with my manuscript. All the quotation marks were reversed. Sean couldn’t solve the problem for me and finally, I did a manual review and changed them all. As to the service from that department, it was great. Two phone calls back, the first to give me an update on the progress, and two days later to tell me that despite their best efforts there didn’t seem to be a solution.

Now comes the slogging part of writing — reviewing the galley proofs.

I Write Like

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The website that generated the badge below, purported to analyze a chapter of my writing and this is the result. I don’t know if it means my writing is so obscure that no one will read it ever, or if it will last forever. Fun to do.

I write like
James Joyce

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Was Dr. Johnson right?

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So here’s the thing. No one but a blockhead ever wrote except for money-Samuel Johnson. Is that true? Or do people write because their creativity is driving them, or because it’s a convenient hobby, or to exorcise their demons?

So I’m writing. Currently, the third book in a series about a doctor/genealogist who keeps finding corpses. Waiting patiently for me to return to it, is another, with a different protagonist. They’re on my mind, walking around with me, intruding on whatever else I want to do.

And I’m blogging, and a few people are reading.

And I’m trying to learn marketing in this electronic age – Facebook, and Twitter and finding groups to join and other writers to talk to.

When I started I just wanted to see if I could. Next,  I wanted to see if anyone would publish what I’d written. And now, well, I don’t think I’m a blockhead but so far very little money.

I’m still writing, so either I am a blockhead, or  it fills some other need, or answers some other call. I don’t know yet, but I still have stories to tell, so writing it will have to be, money or no. Oh,and yes, I want readers. No point in putting down in words except to communicate.

Retiring, and waiting.

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This is the end of the first full week of retirement for me. The office is closed and we are on our own. I think its the silence that will bother me, until I develop some activities that take me outside the house. Every day was filled with talk — talking to the staff, talking to the parents, talking to other doctors, but especially talking to the children. I miss the children.

Writing is a solitary occupation. In the past, I wrote in the corners of my life. Now writing can take as much time as it needs and some days, it doesn’t need very much. One book about writing suggested that if the muse fails, do something else “writerly” ie: blogging, reading marketing articles, research for the next book. I’ve done that, but still there is that silence. Maybe the CBC.

I’m waiting for the final publication of Murderous Roots,( http//www.writewordsinc.com )the print on demand version. The proofs are in; the publisher told me they have gone to press, but I have no idea how long this process takes. The print version comes under a different imprint at the same website – Cambridge Books.

The Internet Review of Books

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Bob Sanchez reviewed my novel, Murderous Roots, today for the Internet Review of Books.
The Internet Review of Books is a great source for information about both fiction and non-fiction. Check it out before making your next run to the bookstore, or the download site. Murderous Roots is my first novel, and I’m grateful for the review.
My short story, Freddie’s Athabaska, was published today in The Other Herald, an arts broadsheet from Northern New York state.
I’ve finished editing the galley proofs for the print-on-demand version of Murderous Roots, coming soon to Write Words Inc.
Amazon has been granted the right to a “bricks and mortar” facility in Ontario. This is a warehouse they will use for their Canadian customers. As I live in a small town, I’ve used Amazon frequently(except during the period when our son owned a bookstore). I can appreciate the problems of the small bookseller who faces the competition from giants like Amazon and Chapters. When you buy the book from these guys, remember that they have used their vast buying power to bully the publisher into a 40% discount, while your neighbourhood bookseller is paying the full wholesale price.
The publisher and the author pay for your convenience.
All that being said, the publishing trade is in a state of flux, with the fastest growing segment that of electronic books. Does this mean the days of books in paper are coming to an end? I hope not, at least for the small format paperback that is the easiest to read in bed! I read for many reasons: to be entertained; to be informed; to learn my writing craft; to pursue an interest in the arts. Most of these are better served by a book on paper, I think now. I’m going to have a look at a friend’s ipad today, and perhaps my view will change.

Mr. Pip

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Mr. Pip, by Loyd Jones. Alfred A. Knopf Canada, publisher. 2007.

This entrancing book comes with a distinguished record – winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize for best book, and finalist for the Mann Booker Prize.
At first, we are offered a mysterious white man, married to a madwoman, who becomes the teacher for the children when the teachers are lost to one of those brutal island wars of rebellion in the South Pacific. He is a Mr. Chips if you will – whose only remaining book is Great Expectations. Matilda, a child of the village, soon to become an adult, takes us into her life and the life, and death of the village.
The many layers of this story, the beautiful language, the characters who will remain in memory long after the book has been closed, and the tragic denouement, are lessons in writing the literary novel. This is a book about the transforming power of literature and is itself an example of it.