Reading for the Future

I spent the Songkran vacation upcountry (well, it's looks like "downcountry" on a map, but it's distinctly UPCountry). The house is only about 20 years old, and so has power (usually) a telephone (sometimes). and a television which manages to deliver Thai soap-operas 24/7. There's even an instant-on water heater in the shower (when there's enough water pressure to turn it on). The last couple of times I've tried to connect to the web from there, though, I've spent way too much time tinkering with connections and setup to make the effort again. This time, I decided to just go Cold Turkey. I packed a briefcase, the backpack I usually haul all my laptops bits around in, and, for good measure, the conference bag picked up at Learning 2.0 - with BOOKS, and every day I treated myself to a couple new volumes.

First of all, I decided to catch up with some of my favorite novelists, and also to try on a couple of new ones. I started with Joe Hill's first novel (Heart-Shaped Box) and found out that indeed, the nuts don't fall far from the tree (and no offence to either King or Hill. I own every novel King's written and a lot of his short fiction. I think he's vastly under-rated as a novelist because of his selection of the macabre as his vehicle). Hill's prose is so much like his Dad's (Stephen King, if you didn't make the connection) that my reaction was a bit like it was on reading a Richard Bachman many years ago. ("Hey, this guy writes just like Stephen King!).

My appetite for the bizarre truly whetted, I went on to read the first two volumes of the Marvel version of King's "Dark Tower" opus ( the Gunslinger Born and The Long Road Home). Now there is a reading/viewing/imagining experience! I think I'm hooked on graphic novels.

Just to vary things a bit without really giving up on the theme, I read "Vampire Academy" by Richelle Mead. It's a YA, and as such, I couldn't fully relate, but it's good enough to recommend to my HS readers looking for a followup to Stephenie Meyer. Still, perhaps I should have reversed the order of the reads. After Hill and King, Mead was a bit of a letdown. I've still got a new Neil Gaiman in hand, though (Gaiman and Reaves' "Interworld"), and a day left in the break. I've saved the final chapter of "Heart-Shaped Box" but maybe I'll still get to another really thought-provoking read.

I did, of course, offer myself a bit of that along the way. To counter the spare plot and predictable dialog of the YA, I turned to one of my favorite writers of recent years. I missed his work when he first hit big, but since "The Road" (written, coincidentally, at pretty much exactly the same time I was doing the first draft of my own "road-novel" - this one) I've been a McCarthy fan, and the real joy in missing him in the '90's is going back to catch his earlier work.

This vacation, it was time to read "Cities of the Plain", the final book of McCarthy's Border Trilogy. As usual, McCarthy absolutely transports me to the lean, mean and sometimes desolate world of his 20th-century America, and in "Cities" I found a world that I could relate to on a truly personal level. I grew up in a small Canadian version of John Grady Cole's New Mexico ranch. I spent the first seventeen years of my life trying to escape the farm, and yet, oddly, I find myself in the new millenium, harkening back more and more to that world. Being globally connected is great, but McCarthy connects his characters to the world in an earthy way that resonates with me in ways that silicon sentences and digital data just can't replicate.

Heading into this break, I figured I also would have some time on my hands (like during the 13 1/2 hour drive down) when I wouldn't be able to read, but I could listen, so I downloaded several new titles to my phone (I don't have an iphone, so need to list on my O2). I recently listened to "One Second After" and decided I wanted something along that line, so I had 12 hours of "Apocalypse 2012" (Lawrence E. Joseph, 2009) to chew over.

But to provide a bit of timeless food for thought, I also tried out one of our new MP3 CD audiobooks. This gave me another 9 hours of "Zen and Now" a recently published followup to the classic "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". For anyone who has ever read and mulled over Robert Pirsig's reflections on "Quality", "Zen and Now" is a great followup. Mark Richardson offers up his own road-trip along with unique insights into Pirsig's philosophy, and details of the Pirsig's personal journey that, as a rider myself (and with several motorcycling incidents detailed in my own book), I found absolutlely rivetting. A "must-read" (or listen. Actually, this is one of those titles that I find huge pleasure in going back to again and again to listen while the miles spool by). Don't miss it!

Of course (and not, in any way comparing myself to any of the above), do yourself another favor, and try out a new and yet unknown author and order your copy of "Mai Shangri-La" (Amazon). Do me a favor, and write an Amazon review if you find the book has any redeeming qualities. I'd love to write the final instalment of the Mai Shangri-la story, but unless the first book reaches and audience, I'll probably never get to it.

One Second After

One Second After, by William R. Forstchen, is the first book in two years to have jarred me from my preoccupation with the threat of climate crash. For the first time since reading McCarthy's "The Road", I have had to admit that society's collapse could come from a completely different tangent than I have been obsessing about. It could come "like a bolt from the grey" as an EMP

If my postings here have not convinced you to buy my book, then go with an established writer, and get "One Second After". Read it in hard copy, on your Kindle, or listen to it in an audio version - but make it the NEXT book you add to your lifetime reading plan. You owe it to yourself, to your children, and to all our futures. The future is "Mai Shangri-La", but we'll never have to face it if Forstchen's dark vision comes to pass.

Earth's Hope - and Someone who's Inspired Mine

His name is John D. Liu. You can Google him and find nearly 1000 references to his work over the past decade. But you need to go to the source to really get the message.

Check out either the blog or the website (in particular, the video "Lessons from the Loess Plateau" for "Earth's Hope", the foundation that John has most recently spearheaded in his efforts to disseminate the global ecological lessons he has learned in China and Africa over the past 2 1/2 decades. The image that fronts the website, says it all. We - every citizen of the world today, need to become contributors to "Earth's Hope" - before the promise of that hope is lost.

My novel, "Mai Shangri-La" (available at Amazon) is my rather dystopic view of one global future if we maintain "Business as Usual" in our relationship with the environment. John Liu has shown me that there is another possible future - and it literally is...Earth's Hope.

Educate yourself. Buy my book if you want to be depressed about what could face us. Join "Earth's Hope" if you want to become part of the solution!

Mai Shangri-La - available at

Mai Shangri-La

- an Amazon Print On Demand Title

Why Did I Write "Mai Shangri-La" (Reprise)

Somewhere in the deep, distant past, I wrote about this, but even if it's here in the Archives, it's time to bring the reasons to the top of the heap again.

Why did I write "Mai Shangri-La?

1) Because the world is going to Hell in a Handbasket, and most of us still have our heads in the sand about it. If I can convince ONE reader to be more aware of the possible consequences of modern society's "full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes" behavior - and to take some kind, any kind of concrete action to change his or her behavior, the effort will not have been in vain.

2) Because I want to be able to look my son in the eye when he asks me "where were you when the world was going into the toilet, daddy?" and at least say, "I was working the bathroom plunger, son, to keep the crap from overflowing..."

3) Because I've always wanted to create something that would live beyond me. I've collected books since I was a kid, and many of these old friends have now outlasted their authors - but that doesn't diminish their appeal to me.

4) Because I just had to give writing a shot; to see if I could be the next Frank McCourt. SOMEBODY has to be his succesor - and it would sure be nice to have a way to keep a bit of cash coming in after I hang it up as a teacher...

There was more - a lot more, but that's the gist of it.

Buy my first book to help give me that initial "Boost". Buy my SECOND one (in the pipeline now) only if the first gives you some pleasure, or insights into "the meaning of life" I'm not looking for (much) charity, here.. ;0)

Rob

Buy this Book...

...and help a struggling new author establish a "real" presence on Amazon:)

I need a few sales - and more importantly, a few Reader Reviews, to fuel my next round of Agent Queries. I'm hearing that chapters 1-4 really need excising, but I'm busy right now getting the sequel (The Wayback Machine) ready to submit to ABNA 2 - and the deadline's close!

But as they didn't really ever say "It ain't over 'till it's Over." In the world of POD, I can keep tweaking this thing forever until I get it right - IF I've got a basic vehicle to work with. I think so - but I need some outside opinions. Looking forward to yours!

Time to Fish?

...or Cut Bait?

As a participant in last year's ABNA contest, I recently received an invitation to join the second generation contest, with the entry date coming up fast at February 2nd. My first inclination was to get right to work on The Wayback Machine to whip in into shape for entry. But then, in working through the thread from last year's contestants that never left, I came across references to Authonomy. Being as how I'd just submitted my seventh draft of Mai Shangri-La to Createspace and basically decided that I was done with it except to let it sink or swim on its own merit, I decided to just have a look. Boy, did I get routed onto a alternative-destination siding!

In a nutshell, I joined up, posted four chapters from Mai Shangri-La, and waited for other authors to read my excerpts, give me a few "Attaboys" and then tell me to keep writing. Instead, I got several focussed, perceptive and mildly scathing, and most importantly, generally consistent critiques of the four chapters telling me, in different ways, that I was;

-neglecting the "story" at the expense of the "back story"
-overwriting the hell out of the story that I did manage to commit to paper
(too much description, too many adjectives, etc)
- relying on "tell" rather than "show" at almost every turn, and what is worst of all,
- committing the cardinal narrative writing sin of "infodump"

It seems that I was so passionate about the underlying messages I thought Reuben James's story were illustrating that I didn't trust his story toactually illuminate and reveal those messages. Seems I felt it necessary to hit readers over the head with my concerns for the environment, my dire prognostications for the future if we continue down the "business as usual" path, and my incandescent descriptive prose describing that dystopic future.

Talk about getting taken down a peg or five. To make a long story short, I'm hooked into posting on Authonomy at least several times a day, I'm looking at completely excising at least four chapters from the MSL manuscript, and I seem to be committing myself to an almost complete rewrite to address the concerns that the Authonomy folks have raised.

More on this new path as I follow it. The Wayback Machine's back on the back burner. Let's see if we can whip Mai Shangri-La into the shape that will garner the same consistency of critique from other writers that it has thus far - but this time with a positive spin.

Back to the drawing board!!! Who knows? Maybe MSL will be different enough when I'm done that it will be worth re-submitting to ABNA.

Stay tuned...