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Flashpoint’s Daughter

Sortmind Blog - Michael D. Smith Posted on November 6, 2010 by Michael D. SmithJune 30, 2020

Hand Bones, copyright 1997 Michael D. SmithWhat’s up with bones, daughters, and duplicate titles?

Several years ago I began to wonder why so many novels had the word bone in the title, and I went through the library catalog to make an extremely long and astonishing (but by no means exhaustive) list. I recently updated the list of “bone” titles, trying to include only novels, though I may have inadvertently picked up a few biographies or nonfiction, which can be equally enamored of bone. Here are a few of the titles:

A Bone From a Dry Sea, Bad to the Bone, Blind to the Bones, Blood and Bone, Bone by Bone by Bone, Bone Crossed, Bone Dance, Bone Deep, Bone Factory, Bone Harvest, Bone Mountain, Bone of My Bones, Bone to the Bone, Bones of Empire, Empire of Bones, Dead Man’s Bones, Dragon Bones, Dragonfly Bones, Feast of Bones, Harvest of Bones, House of Bones, Lovely in Her Bones, The Lovely Bones, The Bone Garden, The Bone Orchard, The Bones in the Attic, The Bones in the Cliff, Trail of Bones, and Zero at the Bone.

You can only marvel that the use of bone in novel titles has not yet been universally derided as a cliché. What is an author or publisher trying to convey with such a title?  Are we really supposed to be so thrilled, scared, or impressed? I’m not commenting on the content of books themselves; as an example, I recently read Deborah Crombie’s Dreaming of the Bones, ostensibly a “police procedural” but in reality an excellent literary work.

The fact is that bone is a strong word. Its use as a marketing concept doesn’t change its connotations of death, rot, fear, vulnerability, horror, or the obverse of all those qualities: underlying structure, strength, permanence or at least relative permanence, the truth, the end of denial, the beautiful deep architecture transcending the day-to-day.

Bone has a great sound, and that may be why it gets overused. It also instantly signals mystery or thriller; only in rare cases do we get a philosophical overtone of Hamlet in the graveyard. But using bone so much may be like playing “Stairway to Heaven” over and over and over and over …

After bone, I began to consider the overuse of daughter. So I made another list of novels with “daughter” in the title. Again, biographies make use of the word and I may have snagged one or two of those. While the word can be used a variety of ways, the most common seems to be: The X’s Daughter, where X stands for a profession, as in:

The Colonel’s Daughter, The Courtesan’s Daughter, The Dreamthief’s Daughter, The Executioner’s Daughter, The Fortune Teller’s Daughter, The Gold Miner’s Daughter, The Gravedigger’s Daughter, The Hummingbird’s Daughter, The Mapmaker’s Daughter, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, The Minister’s Daughter, The Mortician’s Daughter, The Narcissist’s Daughter , The Optimist’s Daughter, The Piano Man’s Daughter, The Preacher’s Daughter, The Prodigal Daughter, The Red Queen’s Daughter, The Serpent’s Daughter, The Spinner’s Daughter, The Storyteller’s Daughter, The Tailor’s Daughter, The Thief Queen’s Daughter, The Virgin Queen’s Daughter, and The Witch’s Daughter.

Amy Tan (The Bonesetter’s Daughter) and Ted Dekker (BoneMan’s Daughters) manage to incorporate both our words.

Daughter also has a great sound, though not as striking as bone.  But daughter too is rich in associations and these titles are striving for more honesty than bone used as a thrill word. Daughter connotes vulnerability, innocence, hope, possibility, inheritance, continuation, entitlement, empowerment, pride–as well as their opposites when the parent-child relation is poisoned and those positive qualities are thwarted–which often seems to be the theme in these daughter novels.

But, though I know that many of these daughter titles are high quality fiction, what is the point of going to the same well over and over again and pulling out the same tired title form? There must be some marketing angle to it, but it just doesn’t make sense to me why an author would want to have a title that looks like everyone else’s.

Or IS everyone else’s.  Welcome to Flashpoint, where the third list, which I started compiling years ago along with the Bones list, shows just a small sampling of identical novel titles. Try Flashpoint (or Flash Point) with at least thirty-four titles by authors including:

Bernard Ashley, 2007
Linda Barnes, 1999
Sneed B. Collard, 2006
Frank Creed, 2009
Suzanne Brockmann, 2004
Jane Donnelly, 1981
Katherine V. Forrest, 1995
Connie Hall, 2008
James W. Huston, 2000
Nancy Baker Jacobs, 2002
Stephanie Newton, 2010
D. A. Richardson, 2006
Jill Shalvis, 2008

Or Second Chance (or The Second Chance, 2nd chance) by

Judy Baer, 1991
Jackie Calhoun, 1991
Jerry B Jenkins, 1998
Almet Jenks, 1959
Claire Lorrimer, 2000
Dan Montague, 1999
James Patterson, 2002
Hildegarde Schneider, 1987
Vian Smith, 1966
Alan Sillitoe, 1981
Danielle Steel, 2004
Kate William, 1989
Chet Williamson, 1994

Other duplicate titles with numerous authors include: Against All Enemies, All That Glitters, Brothers in Arms, Dead Ringer, Dead Wrong, Deception, Deceptions, Desert Heat, Exile or The Exile, Fire and Ice, Fire and Rain, Firestorm, Flesh and Blood, Gates of Hell, Pendragon, Ransom, Riptide, Running Scared, Sacrifice or The Sacrifice, The Sandman, Scarecrow, Secret Admirer, Sleeping Beauty (excluding fairy tales), Sound of Thunder, Split Second, and White Lies.

There are also several novels titled The President’s Daughter.

I’m sure I could make the duplicates list much longer, but I started it with random searches through the library catalog and by testing certain “cool-sounding” titles for matches–which I almost invariably found. But this task was tremendously time-consuming, as opposed to doing keyword searches for bone and daughter.

It can’t simply be that publishers are unaware of these duplications. It’s a simple matter to consult a library catalog, amazon.com or another source to see what’s out there. Something about these titles must strike either the author or publisher as catchy, marketable, safely familiar, or impressive to the masses. Yet many of these titles are pretentious and bathetic, and I wonder at how anyone can be taken in by them. And I still can’t fathom how anyone can issue a new Flashpoint knowing that a fairly famous author published a Flashpoint just a few years ago. There will undoubtedly be more Flashpoints in the future. And I suppose we are expected to be tingled anew by each new appearance of that title.

And while I don’t think much of the other extreme, finding some outlandish and wacky title to make absolutely sure your novel is unique, I certainly don’t want any of mine to be on that duplicates list. I do check before settling on a final title. In fact, it was the discovery of other novels called Property that led me to rename my novel of that name to CommWealth. My first student novel, Nova Scotia, probably does share its title with a travel guide.

Of course, sooner or later one of my novel titles may be duplicated, or has been already and I just don’t know it yet. But that’s life. In any case, it’s a good thing we can’t copyright titles.

copyright 2010 by Michael D. Smith

Posted in CommWealth, Marketing, Novels, Publishing, Writing, Writing Process | 1 Reply

Exhibit A: “Slime in the Mind,” by Edward Duce (The Politically Correct Theology Student Song)

Sortmind Blog - Michael D. Smith Posted on October 29, 2010 by Michael D. SmithJune 28, 2019

Deleted from an early version of my novel Sortmind, the chapter “Twenty Years Ago at Darkforce” (its 9,600 words omitted here), recounts theology student Edward Duce’s interrogation before the Feminist Trial Board of Darkforce Theological Seminary. Duce, the future founder of Sortmind’s paramilitary For the Triangles Foundation, struggled to employ all-inclusive language, but it still took him forty pages of transcript to demonstrate that his song, brazenly and disrespectfully performed during “Celebrate the Feminine Week,” was in fact entirely satisfactory to his inquisitors and in full accordance with Carnationist religious doctrine.

hold my stinking hand
it’s the best our crippled atrocities will permit
as I betray the LORD with my gland
collapsing into a gore-overflowing cesspool where Mind must numbly split

imprisoned in these crotches that shall never rise
we notice that somehow the LORD always seems to thwart all our sallow dreams
as we nurse our miserable pus, sing and weep for piteous victims we also despise
we stand ready to be sliced to atoms by GOD’s avenging beams

yes, think of all the grime that’s in the air
you sit on a solid porch but it turns to liquid despair
sit in here, and then we’ll sit out there
and feel the scary moonlight on the chair …

He or She will blow us apart with His or Her Song
as we struggle towards our hopelessly insane just desserts of grace
we’ll accept our civilization’s death throes as being certainly not wrong
when our angry LORD uses kingdoms lacerated with pain to attack the human race

oooh, in the slime of our minds
our worthless slimy minds
in the slime of the Mind …

copyright 2010 by Michael D. Smith

Posted in Novels, Satire, Writing | Leave a reply

Total Annihilation: Camouflage!

Sortmind Blog - Michael D. Smith Posted on October 11, 2010 by Michael D. SmithOctober 31, 2021

Orange Rhinoceros copyright 1994 Michael D. SmithWhy should I post a play I wrote at the end of my freshman year at Rice? Because it does seem timeless to me. It seems like one of those wise childhood things we sometimes write and then forget for decades how to do. It’s also has fun and zany archetypes, it was performed three times in 1972 and once in 1973, I DID play the War Correspondent, AND I now have an opportunity to format the play according to standard guidelines, just to get a feel for how it’s done. It was educational to format my Word document to include the proper tab stops for stage, scene, and character stage directions, but for the purposes of the blog I’ve just centered or indented them as looks best.

This post is another homage to past influences: believe it or not, the revelation of how Dostoyevsky used dialog in The Brothers Karamazov, which I first read in Spring 1971. Several people have remarked, and I agree with them, that one of my strengths as a writer is dialog. Especially the kind where people are saying absolutely crazy, emotionally off-the-wall things to each other, like Fyodor to Father Zossima.

So it often seems natural for me to go one step further in a novel and have a chapter be a recording, often secretly made by one villain or another, in which I can just have the characters function as actors. No descriptions of long regal noses or who brought whose coffee cup to whose lips, just raw dialog. That’s not a real play; in fact, I once attempted to rewrite a novel as a play and it failed horribly. So I’ve been content with occasional dialog scenes. To effect a suitably dramatic ending to the secret recording, often where I can cut a character off in mid-sentence, I often resort to technological disasters such as: “Hey! Don’t step on the tape re–” or “Watch out, idiot, you spilled your drink right on the tape re–”

TOTAL ANNIHILATION: CAMOUFLAGE!

CHARACTERS

ISAAC: high school philosopher
JERRY: high school jock
BRENDA: high school cheerleader
MARY: high school poetess
WAR CORRESPONDENT

PROLOGUE

(A stretch of devastated dirt. Smashed pasture fence. A few bullet-riddled German army helmets, strewn randomly. A skull. Dead and rotting blackbirds. Some gray stones. Fog, smoke, the smell of gunpowder. Ominous yellow light in the background. Somber silence.)

(Enter WAR CORRESPONDENT, a typical World War II U.S. battlefront war correspondent, helmeted, dirty khaki uniform, bearded, exhausted. Carries pencil and notebook.)

WAR CORRESPONDENT
(voice taut with anguish and exhaustion)

This … this is all that’s left … you people on the sidelines, safe back on the mainland, you people didn’t get involved in it. In this terrible war. You didn’t understand … you didn’t …

(gropes for words)

You–you sat at home on soft couches, you read magazines, went to parties … but … while over here, this happened …

(pause)

I’ve covered this war since it began. I’ve seen the hell and misery, the glory, the heroism, and the senseless death of it all. I’ve touched this war with my own hands … I’ve …

(chokes)

And now you’ll see it as it really happened …

(looks through his tattered little notebook; philosophical)

Let me tell you that war doesn’t begin with the first killing–it’s born in the hearts of men from the day their Maker endows them with the breath of life, from the day of their birth which the Devil corrupts mightily and here ever after fire and brimstone almighty. September first, August fourteenth, Berlin, Paris, Washington, Tokyo–dates and places do not matter. It’s the evil born into men that starts wars! And so this little history I’m about to give you shows the senseless, hateful, Devil-inspired evil … the evil of … man …

(pause)

It all began on April 15, six years ago, in a little smoke-filled nightclub in Paris …

(Voice trails off, lights dim, curtain falls slowly.)

ACT ONE

(A Jumbo Burger joint at night. A counter and four tables. At table second from left two teen-aged American guys, ISAAC and JERRY. At table on far right, two teen-aged American girls, BRENDA and MARY. All four well-dressed and beautiful. WAR CORRESPONDENT behind counter silently taking notes.)

GUYS’ TABLE

(Munching hamburgers; JERRY wearing high school letter sweater; ISAAC wearing black Hamlet costume)

Yeah … yeah–do you see–yeah–yeah yeah! Ha! Ha! So I said to–fine with me–good stuff–yeah yeah yeah–yeah–yeah–O.K. Fine. Yeah yeah! Ha! Ha! Pretty cool!

GIRLS’ TABLE

(BRENDA in cheerleader costume, MARY in a dress somewhat influenced by latest hippie fashions)

Yes! Giggle, giggle–so I told him–yeah yeah–giggle!–what did–yeah–no! But if–yeah yeah yeah–O.K. Yeah yeah–I see now–but what if–hey look at–where? Yeah yeah–oh yes! Fine with me.

ISAAC

(Clutching a copy of Kierkegaard’s complete works, and The Freedom of Reason by Konstantin Kolenda)

In the end, man must face his utter loneliness and choose his freedom in a reasonable manner.

(Sits on Jumbo Burger counter and reads menu aloud)

To be or not to be, that is the question … Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!

MARY

(Stands up, goes to audience, pleading)

In this world of unmitigated sorrow and despair, how can we survive … to be or not to be … we’re alone, all of us … it’s original sin that’s done this to us. We’ve got to wake up.

(MARY and ISAAC return to their seats without noticing each other.)

JERRY

Getting double-edged super roundabout twelve-inch dual side glasspacks for my Cuda.

ISAAC

Fine.

BRENDA

Imagine the principal throwing me out of the school for my dress being too short! I’m so mad I could just burn up!

MARY

Serves him right.

(ISAAC and JERRY notice BRENDA and MARY at the other table. Magical silence.)

JERRY

Say, look at da knockers on dat cheerleader babe!

ISAAC

What a noble expression of deep suffering, of tragic commitment to life, lies on the other one’s sweet face–like a soft veil, ready to be plucked off by–me …

(Lights dim. WAR CORRESPONDENT comes from behind counter and steps around the frozen figures of the four.)

WAR CORRESPONDENT

And so it began. On a small scale at first, but the evil grew. Isaac and Mary signed a mutual defense pact just three days later. Jerry and Brenda signed a treaty of non-aggression the next day, and later became allies. And so the sides squared off and waited … eighteen short months … before the killing began …

(Exit WAR CORRESPONDENT. Curtain.)

ACT TWO

(High school basketball game at halftime. Usual paraphernalia of high school gym, also decorated for The Big Dance. The WAR CORRESPONDENT kneels in the center of the deserted court wiping up a pool of blood. In the crowd milling around the edge of the court, ISAAC appears in Hamlet garb with upraised sword.)

ISAAC

(lofty)

Now might I do it pat, now he is praying.
And now I’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven.
And so am I revenged.

(normal)

Yes, man is alone. He must take the burdensome responsibility of his own freedom, destroying all Establishments and those who would interfere with his emotional urges, the urges to negate life in all forms and paradoxically exploit life at the same time. Thus …

(WAR CORRESPONDENT disappears into the crowd. Cheerleaders, led by BRENDA, appear and dance. ISAAC stares in lustful admiration.)

LOUDSPEAKER

And so Jerry North, star basketball player, is reported in critical condition after his serious injury on the court tonight …

CROWD

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

MARY

(Appears beside ISAAC)

What happened to poor Jerry?

ISAAC

So ’tis thee, thou bitch! My best friend Jerry, if thou must know, was smashed on the head with the pom-pom of one of thy fellow bitches, that cheerleader Brenda!

MARY

Thou meanest not my best friend Brenda!

ISAAC

Yes, your best friend Brenda killed Jerry ruthlessly and forever, just as you killed me ruthlessly and forever when you threw my abundant love into the toilet and flushed it, me, and all my dreams down into that dank morass of excrement and despair! All you ruinous bitches are the same. Get thee to a nunnery!

MARY

I will, thank you. Oh poor Jerry! Such a hero in the face of life’s tragedies! Such a manly hero!

(Runs offstage.)

JERRY

(Offstage, screaming)

Told da bitch I loved her! What the hell more does she want! Just a cock-teaser, da bitch!

(Twenty feet apart, ISAAC and BRENDA begin to exchange a long meaningful stare. As BRENDA drops her pom-pom and ISAAC drops his sword, both moving slowly towards each other with wide eyes and open mouths, the WAR CORRESPONDENT appears from the crowd with a director’s chair. He places it between ISAAC and BRENDA. A weary helplessness on his face. Slowly he takes out pencil and notebook and begins taking notes.)

ISAAC

(blushing and stammering)

Fair, thou … tender beauty and … miraculous sweet-scented night … the rose-bud May … ne’er so abundant in … joy and … fresh growth …

BRENDA

Why is it you’re so quiet? Don’t you like me?

ISAAC

Well–er–I–ah, well sure, but well … I … ah–well you see, I’m a–a philosopher of sorts–I–ha ha …

BRENDA

You can’t philosophize all the time, can you?

(sweet laugh)

ISAAC

Well …

BRENDA

Come …

(ISAAC and BRENDA fade into the crowd, which is lowly murmuring. JERRY and MARY, arm in arm–bandages on JERRY’S head–walk past and also fade into the crowd. WAR CORRESPONDENT stands up.)

WAR CORRESPONDENT

Well, I’m sorry about shocking you with all that gore and violence, but–it was necessary, to show how horrible the destruction was …

(pause)

But it wasn’t quite as simple as what you just saw.

(pause)

Though originally staunch allies, Isaac and Jerry fought bitterly over the rights to the borders and the natural resources of Mary and Brenda. Mary and Brenda, on the other hand, sought trade and the military protection of the supergiants Isaac and Jerry. None of the four powers could decide which alliance was most favorable to the changing circumstances, and so shifting alliances and terrible imbalances of power were the order of the day for the next four years. And that’s a lot of days …

(pause)

At any rate, the four powers, realizing the unbearable casualty rate and supply losses of their conflict, finally agreed to the Big Four talks which took place in Geneva, Switzerland …

(Exit WAR CORRESPONDENT. In the background, crowd’s murmuring voices. Curtain.)

ACT THREE

(Harris High school classroom. Thirty desk-chairs arranged in a circle. Blackboard, on it two calculus problems and the complete “To be or not to be” speech. Also “Freedom of Reason reports and Kolenda biographies due Monday.” The Big Four sitting at chairs. No one else in room, except silent WAR CORRESPONDENT at teacher’s desk.)

ISAAC

(simply, quietly)

Man is alone in the midst of an absurd game. Man must break free of all role-playing, all absurdity, all camouflage of his true multi-faceted self. Man must be free. Thus …

JERRY

Shaddup, for Chrissake … now let’s get down to business.

BRENDA

(To ISAAC)

Thou owest me an apology, thou rotten bastard.

ISAAC

O that this too too solid flesh …

MARY

What about my letter?

JERRY

What letter?

MARY

The letter I wrote my whole life into and which I must have back in order to regain my reputation–

JERRY

Oh that one. I lost it.

MARY

Oh no no no no no no no!

JERRY

Whoever finds it will mimeograph it and send it to all the top leaders of the world.

MARY

(in hysterical convulsions)

Oh no no no no no no no!

BRENDA

What did the letter say?

JERRY

It said “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from your darling Mary.”

MARY

Aohyieeeeeee!

(She rushes to the window. ISAAC grabs her arm.)

ISAAC

Wait, beloved Mary. I love you, divine Mary. Stay with me, beautiful Mary. I’ve always loved only you, darling darling–

(MARY jumps out the window.)

Hmm. We’re six floors up.

BRENDA

It’s me he loved.

JERRY

No! You loved me!

ISAAC

Well …

BRENDA

No, he loved me!

JERRY

No, he never loved you, nor did you he!

ISAAC

Well …

BRENDA

No, he loved me, but I never did love you, and he loves me still, and I do not love you now!

JERRY

No, not he, but me you loved. Not you he, but you me, not he you ever, but pretends you, though I love you now as always–

ISAAC

Well …

BRENDA

What the hell!

(To ISAAC)

Why are you so quiet?

ISAAC

I–er–ah–well, I’m a–philosopher of sorts …

BRENDA

Come …

JERRY

Not if I can help it!

(Slaps BRENDA, who cries.)

Now cut the crap and let’s get down to business. Tell Mary to get back in here and we’ll review the complaints. If we can get Mary and Isaac to agree to agree, then Brenda and I–

ISAAC

But Mary jumped out the–

JERRY

So? Tell her to get back in here.

ISAAC

But you don’t understand …

BRENDA

(bitterly)

All either of you ever wanted was my body! Well I’m leaving!

JERRY AND ISAAC

Stay, I love you dearly, my darling, if you only knew how dearly, my darling–

BRENDA

The hell with you!

(Gets up to leave. JERRY embraces her with mad passion.)

JERRY

Oh how dearly, my darling–

ISAAC

(fiery rage)

Thou shalt pay! Out sword! Make hamburger out of this knavish chap!

(Stabs JERRY repeatedly.)

JERRY

I regret …

(Dies)

ISAAC

Dead, dead for a ducat, Polonius! Dead, dead for a banana, King Claudius! Thou knavish hamburger!

(Throws JERRY’S body out the window.)

BRENDA

Oh how horrible! In the end how regrettable!

ISAAC

(comes to his senses)

What?

BRENDA

And now I suppose you’ll want to rape me for your victorious plunder!

ISAAC

(still dazed)

Why, not at all, fair maid.

BRENDA

(disappointed)

That’s all I am to you, a lowly scrubwoman! You never loved me!

ISAAC

Why, that’s untrue.

BRENDA

Then you would rape me for your victorious plunder.

ISAAC

Victorious plunder? Where did Jerry and Mary go?

BRENDA

(angry)

Out for a walk, the rotten bastards.

ISAAC

“Jerry and Mary.” That’s cute, like a little poem. Rhymes.

BRENDA

“Brenda and Isaac.” Trash!

ISAAC

I guess so. We should finish our meeting. Call in Jerry and Mary, that poetic twosome.

BRENDA

They went for a walk.

ISAAC

Call them here.

BRENDA

Don’t you understand?

ISAAC

Just call them–

BRENDA

Don’t you understand?

ISAAC

(thinking)

Let’s go for a walk.

BRENDA

All right …

(They walk to the window.)

ISAAC

You first.

(Curtain)

 

EPILOGUE

(Exactly the same as in prologue. WAR CORRESPONDENT enters, moves more tiredly than before, stares at the ground for a minute, looks at his watch, looks at notebook, throws notebook away. Looks directly at audience. Broken voice.)

WAR CORRESPONDENT

This … is all that’s left …

(Slow foot-dragging exit. Curtain.)

 copyright 2010 by Michael D. Smith

Posted in Early Writing, Plays, Writing, Writing Process | 5 Replies

Is Abstract Art More Difficult?

Sortmind Blog - Michael D. Smith Posted on September 23, 2010 by Michael D. SmithJune 10, 2015

Why does abstract art seem more difficult to me than does representational art?  Abstract would seem to be play, and sometimes in fact it’s easy play.  But the easy gifts are just that, gifts.  The gifts are welcome to an artist, and often the clearest channel to the Source, but they come … when they feel like it.

Most of my abstract art has been necessary and difficult.  So difficult that I often wonder, especially after the exhaustion of a painting, why I bother to do it.  But it’s the necessity that pushes the painting out.  Although my need for writing is greater than my painting need, writing is such a different process that I can’t compare it to painting at all.

“Difficult” can signal “on the wrong track,” of course.  A poor tuning to the Source, poor channeling, distraction, tiredness, can frequently lead to the place where the initial free play eventually morphs into the inevitable “problem.”  “Getting into trouble” is a phrase I often find myself using as I slide towards this state.

Why is abstract more difficult, then?  Is it just a matter of too many variables to control?

  • colors
  • shapes
  • transparency/opaqueness
  • textures
  • amounts of paint required
  • forms of meaning
  • forms of listlessness
  • composition, aesthetics
  • passion
  • energy
  • chemical nature of paint
  • expected reactions/results
  • unexpected reactions/results

There’s an obvious comparison to music, especially instrumental music, in that the paint, and the musical notes, don’t refer to anything in the outer world, and the endless variables must be combined to open a channel of meaning and passion without reference to that outer world.  If this effort fails, the result is dull singsong, clever little patterns, no divine energy.

Continue reading →

Posted in Acrylic, Art Process, Drawing, Painting | 3 Replies

Case 9 of the New Fritening Experiences: Attack of the Taoists!

Sortmind Blog - Michael D. Smith Posted on September 5, 2010 by Michael D. SmithJune 9, 2015

The following is offered in homage to my literary beginnings as a fifth grade science fiction author of such works as “February 11, 1971, DOOMSDAY,” “Blast-Off to Eternity,” “MONSTERVILLE, U.S.A.,” and “Journey to the Center of the Sun.”  “Fritening Experiences” was one of several series I worked on, its last being Case 8, “Slave Boy of Venus.”  Case 9 which follows is true to my fifth grade format, spelling, and comprehensive understanding of Grade B 1950’s science fiction movies.

Guacoazezama copyright 2010 Michael D. Smith

Chapter I.  The Aleins Big Mistake

In the year 1952 aleins from Gaucoazezama (Gwa-Ko-a-ZEZ-a-ma) plotted the destruction of the Earth.  Soon they found that Taoist Masters (MAAH-stirs) didn’t want them on Earth and vowed war against the aleins.  Soon a big war began, and soon the aleins were losing because their death rays were slower than Taoist Mind Rays and the Taoist Masters could fry many aleins at once from the mountain of the KLONG-TAR province of China.

One day an alein was trying to flee the scene of a big battle the aleins were losing with his arm blown off.  The Alein, known as GARTHAX-5, was driving a stolen car he had stolen to get away when it ran out of gas.  He was afraid of being killed by the Taoists so he hid in a house.  He was a coward and knew he would be killed by the Gaucoazezama warlords if they knew he ran away.

But in the house he found a MULTIPORT SHAMAN (MULL-tee-Port SHAH-man) and soon he was radioing a space message how the aleins could beat the Taoists.  If he knew what was about to happen he would be even more afraid than he was.

See Chapter 2, “Wrong Plug of Consousness” Continue reading →

Posted in Early Writing, Science Fiction, Writing | 2 Replies

Core Self/Art

Sortmind Blog - Michael D. Smith Posted on August 30, 2010 by Michael D. SmithJune 9, 2015

CoreSelfArt copyright 2010 Michael D. Smith

Posted in Art Process, Drawing | 2 Replies

A Mule for Billy

Sortmind Blog - Michael D. Smith Posted on August 28, 2010 by Michael D. SmithAugust 28, 2010

My one and only foray into anything even resembling Texana.  Don’t panic.  There is no Chapter 2.

Chapter 1.  Growin’ Up ‘n Plantville

When I wuz growin’ up ever day Ma ‘ud yell “Billy, come inta dinner, yuh hear NOW!” and I’d yell back, “Cain’t, Ma!  I’m whittlin’!  Cain’t yuh see I’m whittlin’!”  So I’d go on whittlin’ like as the devil’ud take me, out behind the barn by the stump where Granpa had his stroke ‘n turned all blue durin’ the big drought everbody still talks bout till they’s just bout as blue in the face as he wuz.  There warn’t much ter do in Plantville back when I wuz growin’ up and I’d whittle, Lord, did I whittle.

“Billy, if yore pore dad wuz still kickin’ he’d whale the tar outa you now c’mon ta dinner, yuh hear boy?”

Guess I shud mebbee mention my ole man done gone like crazy bad back fore I really knew ‘im and mebbee that’s why I’m such a “prollum case,” whatever that means, I wuz too young ter know ennythin’ then but Lordy do they still go on here in Plantville bout when Larry Crucker done shot up the Dairy Queen and kilt fourteen people and then the cops had ter come and blow ‘im clean away right in the parkin’ lot a Lordy!  Shore as ennythin’ I still drive his ole red pickup with the bullet holes innit and people do talk specially the preacher but peoples round here do have long memries makes you wonder and all, specially when they see that truck aroarin’ inta the DQ parkin’ lot at two in the mornin’, straight pipes a’burstin’ with a rumblin’ and a groanin’ you ain’t never like ter hear in yore life.

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Posted in Satire, Writing | 2 Replies

Trust

Sortmind Blog - Michael D. Smith Posted on August 19, 2010 by Michael D. SmithJune 28, 2019

Eccentric Mandala 4It’s odd to consider that, by definition, trust begins with complete strangers.  Each must assess the level of honesty in the other.  There is no “communal trust.”  It’s always between two people.  A hundred thousand people might trust a writer, but each does so individually.  “America” or “culture” can’t trust a writer.

The same kind of trust is involved in a publisher buying your manuscript, a reader buying a book in a bookstore, or a librarian ordering a book for the collection.  Do I trust this author’s contribution?  Do I accept it, or reject it?

Even after a purchase is made, a decision to retain or reject remains.  Booksellers return unsold books to the publisher, publishers can decide on a second book or reject it, readers thin their collections when their shelves become crowded, and librarians weed to reduce clutter and keep their collections up to date.

The decision to accept or reject is based on trust.  This has to be a two-way street.  An author is not entering a religious temple of certification and apotheosis, but coming to make a contribution.  Is the author’s psyche is in the right place to make a contribution?  Is his or her potential for contribution evident to others?

The bottom line is often money, but I’m not concerned with trying to game that system.  A decision to trust an author mainly because “the work will sell” is a form of trust, sure.  But not the kind of deep trust of quality I’m speaking to now.

Aside from my one published story, my brief Rice University stint as editor of the infamous Wiess Crack, and the faint hint of “publishing” involved in posting on my web site or blog, I live on the outside of the publishing world.  My first two eras of sending novel queries, 1984-1986 and 1992-1994, were marked by half-hearted attempts to assail the Castle with unassertive query letters.  Looking back, I see I wasn’t ready to make any sort of contribution.  Both I and my writing really weren’t ready.  I had no concept that I should enter into a trust relation with other human beings.  Instead I saw sending a query as akin to buying a lottery ticket and hoping I “hit the jackpot,” because I “deserved” to have my novels published and receive enough money from them to live on.  I had no sense of a real contribution to make, no thought that the contribution would also imply a responsibility to back up what I had written with my own life, to articulately defend and explain my vision, to be able to speak out and assist and even educate where necessary.

I wanted to send the novel query off and two weeks later receive a letter stating that publication was scheduled for next year.  The letter would also include an advance large enough to purchase a three hundred acre farm and ensure I never had to work again.  I didn’t want even a phone call, because then I’d have to talk to someone.  It would be OK to meet my editor at the publication party, where I’d finally allow myself to shyly hobnob with literati before retiring to my new farm to await the ever-increasing royalty checks.  No interviews, ever, as I was petrified at the idea of having to think on my feet.

Of course, despair followed the above unreality: with a million other entrants and the editors’ desks piled high with the clamorings of wannabees, why should anybody want to read my lottery ticket?  How could I expect any frantically busy slush pile reader to stick with my novel long enough to experience the slow unfolding of pure genius?

My next thought was that I could fall back on my visual art.  After all, you know in a second whether or not you like a $1,000 painting, whereas it takes several days to read an unsolicited ms. and form a judgment, with maybe a $1,000 advance if you make it all the way to a publication decision.  The first case has a half day of work producing $1,000.  The second has five years seeking the same result.

So for a long time I denigrated attempts to publish as time-consuming and non-lucrative.  I knew I’d still have fun writing, but I’d look to visual art to make that great first impression.

The error of this supposition is that without a willingness to trust and be trusted, without an honest desire to explore the core energies, you’re left with flashy visual symbols and pizzazz-plus writing that are only designed to hook someone.  Hook someone into being … hooked a little further … until the money/fame/adulation starts flowing from them to you.  Until you’ve successfully siphoned off their gas.

Both visual art and writing have their ways of confusing their victims.  An artwork can pack a stunning initial impression, which, upon closer examination, is seen to be empty.  Often large size achieves the effect, but so can passionate complication, meticulously reworked patterns, startling color, photo-realistic daring-do, and bizarre or repulsive distortions.  In writing we have the famous “first sentence that grabs you,” accompanied by the promise of the complex page-turning pyrotechnics of a standard political military detective science fiction horror thriller.

But do you really think you’ll impress, startle, overwhelm or conquer a reader with the clever first line?  Is everyone really clamoring to be dazzled by pizzazz?  Do you really think you can blast your way in with that volume?  An amplifier can make any messy guitar riff sound powerful, but ultimately it’s not in accord with the universe and nobody will ever really benefit from it.

Secondly, what is the “in” you’ve blasted into?  The only true value of being “in” would be to take on responsibility for the word.  Whatever that entails.  There will be no noisy fame, no quiet fame for that matter, no ego-striking accolades, no deification.  What have you got to contribute?  Are you willing to work creatively with other honest human beings to further that contribution?  Why shouldn’t everybody win?  Are you trying to put something over on someone?  Are you imbued with the fear that editors are doorkeepers who need to be dueled with and outwitted?  Yes, maybe some of them are.  Are they your kindred spirits?

I’m sympathetic to editors.  Any author who can, for the purposes of a novel, imagine himself as a soldier, a little girl, a theatrical producer or an astronaut should certainly be able to imagine what it would be like to be an editor surrounded by ten thousand unsolicited manuscripts, deadlines, personality insanities, and financial pressures.

Nobody of merit or nobility wants to deal with a swashbuckling liar.  But liar’s crap can get published by someone who wants or needs to be fooled.  Enormous marketing resources can hype and market vile nonsense.  If the deceit is charming enough, everyone down the line can be twisted by it.

The only thing is that it will collapse, and be ugly when it does.

What is the author’s real agenda?  To become rich and famous, the writer at the top of the heap, the winner?  Does the writer give a damn about his reader?  Does he care about wasting the reader’s time and life energy?  Are we just going to continue the primal scream therapy and project it to people in pain?  So that pain can feed upon pain?

It does take longer to assess writing than it does visual art.  But consider that power writing can manifest itself in a few pages.  If there is genuine, honest power, trust can start within a few paragraphs.  Real power can’t be gimmicked with the clever first sentence.  There is no one to impress.  There is just something important to say.

Power writing is the compelling truth that comes through one person, yet it’s writing that we can all see as channeled through that person from the universe.  What we applaud is how well the writer channeled.  What we receive as a gift is the universe’s energy and insight.

Don Miguel Ruiz writes in The Four Agreements: “The word is not just a sound or a written symbol.  The word is a force; it is the power you have to express and communicate, to think, and thereby to create the events in your life.  You can speak.  What other animal on the planet can speak?  The word is the most powerful tool you have as a human; it is the tool of magic.  But like a sword with two edges, your word can create the most beautiful dream, or your word can destroy everything around you.”

Mailer wrote in The Deer Park: “ … for part of a man’s style is what he thinks of other people and whether he wants them to be in awe of him or to think of him as an equal.”  This quote about a writer’s style has stuck with me for decades.  Despite the fact that its first phrase is overblown, this was the first time I’d encountered this concept.

In Chronicles Volume I, Dylan wrote: “Most of the other singers tried to put themselves across, rather than the song, but I didn’t care about doing that.  With me, it was about putting the song across.”

In approaching publishing, each of us knows exactly where we’re starting from.  Are you a total unknown, or a well-established author?  What does it mean, how does it affect the writing, how does it affect the level of trust between author, editor, and reader, to write and submit at any given point along the continuum between 1) when you have no idea if the work can be published, and 2) when you are 100% sure it will be published?

No successful writer would ever want to go back to unknown status, to start over again.  Some have cockily tried out new directions under a pseudonym, which is valid.  But imagine the temptation to nudge that a bit and say, by the way, you do realize that I am really Famous X …?  Which is why pseudonymous books often wind up declaring themselves “by Famous X writing as Unknown Z.”  Unknown Z must also become “famous” so the new brand can be successfully marketed.

Trust comes from feeling yourself in good hands.  It’s a gut feeling of honesty and integrity shared between two people.  You know the writer has something to contribute and is seeking to do that honestly, paying attention to reality and not living an ego-stroking fantasy life.

An honest effort can be marred by some degree of ego and delusion, which will likely lessen the trust you’re willing to place in that author.  But depending on the amount of real honesty and potential for contribution, trust might still get shakily established and grow in the future.

“Word of mouth” is an example of trust.  Still, the initial decision to publish, to put the work out there and eventually make word of mouth possible, came from a source vetting the manuscript, a publisher with whom you established mutual trust.

I could be wrong, but I’ve had the feeling that small publishers, like small art galleries, establish their comfort level of trust by having their business cater to the work of family and friends.  Yet this is understandable: trust is needed, the business is just starting out, one needs to be sure of the folks one works with.  All the same, the results are sometimes comical, for example, there are plenty of Writer’s Market listings that read thusly:

Joe Crampton Books.  Receives 500 manuscripts a month.  Publishes two books per year.  Pays in contributor copies.  Tips: “We only accept the best.  Don’t submit here unless your work is of the highest quality.”  Last book published: A Flight of Preposterous Sick Angels, by Joe Crampton.  Coming next year: Cooking with Beeswax, by Melinda Crampton.

Where is the real quest, where you don’t worry about what your imaginary editors and gallery owners think?  Where what you are doing is so important that it doesn’t matter if anyone buys it?  And that art is the kind that must make its way in the world, as honest human beings eventually respond to it–even if it happens to be after you’re dead.

What are all your sly self-promotions, emails, web sites, query letters, and artist statements really intended to accomplish?

Where is the compelling writing that is self-evidently power and speaks for itself?

It isn’t easy to acknowledge, but it’s quite possible that “I” may not be destined to channel that power.  What if “Michael D. Smith’s” secretarial/channeling skills, or his internal wiring, are not up to what the universe needs?  It’s a possibility, and if it proves to be the case, I must accept it.  I may have already made all the contributions I’m destined to make.

But somehow I feel there is more in store.  The adventure, the psychological novel of it all, is still going full blast.  I think the Michael D. Smith ego is not going to figure into the equation at all anymore except as a support system.

I wouldn’t mind using a pseudonym, as I’ve recognized that “Michael D. Smith” is not exactly a catchy author name.  But so far I haven’t felt one reverberate as something that would look great on the title page of a story or novel.  Could I summon one the way I come up with titles for paintings?  In the name of the new writing that must come from beyond my daily identity?  And I consider this not out of a desire to “hook readers” but just because aesthetically, “a novel by Coronae Erg Rhinos” looks a lot better on a title page than “a novel by Michael D. Smith.”

The new writing can’t be distant, clever “sci-fi” that hides the real self.  What if I were to really speak to what has really been going on?

Isn’t that what real writers do?

We’re often told to write about what we know as a way of writing with authority as well as establishing rapport and credentials with our audience.  Okay, but what about exploring new territory?  In other words, is it really a choice between “safe writing”–even if it’s fascinating, say the author is an expert on the Civil War and his alternate Civil War novels are factual and believable and highly entertaining–and writing that risks a great deal of psychic security, that may be prone to errors?  Can you trust the author to do valid experimentation and exploration?  Yes, bad psychic errors are grounds for distrust, but there are valid mixtures–confused but struggling for the truth, deluded but with important points to express.

I distrust memoir writing even as I’m attracted by it.  Coming to grips with a massive life calamity is a major accomplishment.  But it does seem too easy to decide that after it’s over, when you’re basking in your relief, you can plunder your life and so eloquently describe it all in Shadow Dream: My Decades of Depression Following My Diagnosis as Bipolar Manic Depressive Barr-Epstein Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Life in Words and Pain.

I recently discovered there are people who teach courses in memoir writing.  I’m sure there is a way to learn how to do this.  I’m sure it could have improved my one experimental foray into this genre.  But is it just more safety?  Shouldn’t we risk a little more and probe for even deeper energies through the novel?

Wouldn’t that be a way to trust ourselves more and to establish deeper trust with each other?

copyright 2010 Michael D. Smith

Posted in Essays, Novels, Publishing, Query Letters, Trust, Writing, Writing Process | 3 Replies

Five Query Letters

Sortmind Blog - Michael D. Smith Posted on August 9, 2010 by Michael D. SmithJanuary 21, 2019

At 1,793 words my first blog entry may be a little long, but each of the following letters is like one blog post, hopefully easily digested.  They came about some time ago as I was battling my way through a staid query letter for my novel Sortmind, then finally decided to let it all hang out in a series of experimental letters.  Each represents a different ego approach, from the breathless newbie to the exalted master, addressed to “Mitchell Emerson, Publisher of the Gods.”

The letters are geared to the not-quite-outmoded process of mailing paper copy letters, synopses, and SASE.

1.

September 1, 20__
Mitchell Emerson
Publisher of the Gods
112 West Doomboat Ave.
New York, NY  10001

Most Glorious Sir!

I’m actually submitting my novel, Sortmind, for your consideration!  I think it’s not very good, and I’m just starting out, and I wonder if you’d publish it?  It’s sort of a mixture of literary and science-fiction things, and Nancy says it’s funny, all about whether tiny triangles should be removed from buildings?  Also about the Telepathic Database at the public library, which starts Mindwiping everyone, and aliens monitoring everything.  Some of the main characters are Oliver and Sam, these two high school art students and their fathers who’re fascists‑‑sort of‑‑you find out later‑‑who started this Citizens Against Triangles thing!  But don’t think I’m wasting your time because I know I’m not very good at this sort of thing.  This is actually a query letter!

It’s 2,200 pages, 550,000 words and way too long I know, the whole book that is, not this letter!  You probably don’t want it for that reason alone, all books tell me.  Very, very long, would take you forever to read and it took me forever to write and I know you a lot more important authors and a lot of money than me.  But look Sortmind is on my computer and you could just print it straight off!  Nancy thought I should send it to you, so finally the books told me to send sample chapters and then get an agent and negotiate with you, so I am sending this query letter now to save you as much trouble as can possibly be saved.

Enclosed are my table of contents, my list of characters, and my Sortmind first three chapters.  Although Nancy told me not to send this stuff because it’s boring and would prejudice you into hating the novel before you even know me.

So I’ll see my Snortmind in all your bookstore in a few month!  Don’t steal my idea though!  You can send the check directly to me so we can get started on our big farm in the Texas Hill Country.  Take your time but I could really use the money before the end of the month?  Also on interview tours anytime but give me a call so I know, Oprah would be the perfect choice and I will be the next Oprah book if she ever will be an Oprah book again!  She is very nice!  I am sure you are very nice too.

Sincerely,

Michael D. Smith

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Posted in Marketing, Query Letters, Satire, Sortmind, Writing | 2 Replies

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