Re: University Protocol on Incidents of Student Plagiarism

A flash piece I wrote for Bryon Quertermous' flash challenge last year is now appearing in Word Riot. Link: http://www.wordriot.org/
Thanks, Bryon.

A Summing Up: Friday, May 16th

Because I have to go to my writing group tonight and disappoint them with yet another story where people die and die badly, and go to pick out plants with my husband first thing tomorrow, I'm doing this now. I thank all of you who joined me and implore others to give me a ring about next Friday. I'm nothing without you. And hey, go look at the complete reviews. These people have a lot of interesting stuff to say.

David Terrenoire, Cruddy, Lynda Perry
Sarah Weinman, The Late Man, James Preston Girard
Tom Piccirilli, The Hunter, Richard Stark (Donald Westlake)
Travis Erwin, The Me I Used to Be, Jennifer Archer
Bookwitch, Sapper, Herman Cyril McNeile
James Reasoner, The Siamese Twin Mystery, Ellery Queen
Megan Powell, Cuckoo's Egg, C.J. Cherryh
Bill Crider, The Night Remembers, Ed Gorman
Declan Burke, Wild at Heart, Barry Gifford
Kirsty, Other Stories and Other Stories, Ali Smith
Jeff Shelby, The Standoff, Chuck Hogan
Shauna Sturge, Crossfire, Jeanette Windle
Steve Allan, Splinters of the Mind's Eye, Alan Dean Foster
Ed Gorman, The Kidnappers, Robert Bloch and 361 by Donald Westlake
Baglady, The Crystal Cave, Mary Stewart
Kevin Burton Smith, The January Corpse by Neil Albert
Todd Mason, The Aleph and Other Stories 1933-1969, Jorge Luis Borges

FRIDAYS: Forgotten Books/The Book You Have to Read

FRIDAYS: Forgotten Books:

J.D. Rhoades, Author of Safe and Sound

My forgotten book is THE BEASTS OF VALHALLA by George C. Chesbro (and thanks to Jon Jordan for turning me on to this piece of truly bent thriller fiction). Chesbro's hero, Mongo Fredrickson (aka Mongo the Magnificent) is a dwarf, a former acrobat and circus performer, and a genius criminologist.

Wait, I haven't gotten to the weird part yet.

There's a mad scientist, a talking gorilla who ends up being one of the most human characters in the book, obsessed Lord of the Rings geeks, more Wagner references than you can shake a stick at, and (of course) a plot to save the world by destroying it.

And it all works. Not once do you put the book down and go "oh, come ON!" Instead, you laugh out loud with the sheer audacity of it. It's like watching someone juggle chainsaws.

Chesbro is a mad genius in his own right, and his Mongo series is his lightning-struck masterwork.

J.D. Rhoades

I'm putting these links up to other blogs now and I expect most of them will appear as the day wears on, some may not appear at all. I thank all of today's participants and hope they pass the baton to someone for next week, or write about another forgotten book. If I've forgotten someone, please let me know. I'm juggling these sites on tiny yellow post-its for some ungodly reason.

http://terrenoire.blogspot.com

http://www.sarahweinman.com/confessionsions

http://www.myspace.com/tompiccirilli
Click: Forgotten Books

http://traviserwin.blogspot.com/
http://bookwitch.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/sapper/

http://jamesreasoner.blogspot.com/
http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/
http://www.meganpowell.net/blog

http://billcrider.blogspot.com/
http://crimealwayspays.blogspot.com/

http://otherstories.typepad.com/
http://firstoffenders.typepad.com/offenders

http://shaunasturge.blogspot.com/2008/05/friday-book-recommendations.html
http://noirwriter.blogspot.com/2008/05/non-oprah-book-club-splinter-of-minds.html

http://newimprovedgorman.blogspot.com/

http://www.myboogpages.com/
http://bagladysblather.blogspot.com/
http://socialistjazz.blogspot.com/2008/05/friday-forgotten-books-jorge-luis.html

Thanks so much, Dusty. Check out JD Rhoades blog site at http://jdrhoades.blogspot.com/

Gracious Losers v. Poor Losers

My husband and I take a walk every night and almost always discuss politics since it's his profession and an interest of mine. Last night we discussed whether Hillary should drop out and whether she will be perceived as a poor loser if she doesn't soon do this.
Which took us to the subject of poor and gracious losers and we came up with a short list.

"Gracious Losers": Adlai Stevenson who lost to Eisenhower twice was known as the Beautiful Loser, he was so good at it. Also on this list would be Stephen Douglas who lost to Lincoln and immediately offered to help him, David Dinkins, in the New York mayoral race, Bill Bradley, Senator George Allen, Al Gore (although Republicans might put him on the other list)

In the "Poor Loser" category, we could come up with more names outside of politics. Tonya Harding, of course, Kanye West, Faith Hill, John McEnroe, the British football team, the Arsenals, the sports fans in Philadelphia. In politics, we have Ted Kennedy who wouldn't shake Carter's hand in 1980, Richard Nixon, of course, Kwame Kilpatrick in Detroit.

Any others?

Al Guthrie's Top Reasons for Not Finishing a Book

And I thought this might be interesting to share since Al Guthrie's an agent and we all want to know why they put our ms. aside. He graciously agreed to let me post it with the stipulation that he answered the question more as a reader than an agent. I know it helped me to see these issues spelled out and I have my red pencil firmly in my hand.

in no particular order:

- Summary narrative
- Lack of a problem/inciting incident
- Easy solution to the above
- Adverbs
- Exposition
- Starting at the beginning of the story
- POV issues
- Cliches
- Characters who speak in sentences
- Dreams
- Unnecessary interpretation
- Adjectives (particularly in pairs)
- Voicelessness
- Backstory
- Verbosity
- Writing that sounds like writing
- Scenes where the POV character doesn't have a goal
- Scenes where there's no obstacle to the POV character's goal
- Lack of sensory detail
- Repetition

Top Ten Reasons Why I Don't Finish a Book

In preparation for the horrific task of going back over my ms another time, I’ve been trying to pinpoint at what point an agent/editor would stop reading the ms. and why. And along with that I’ve been thinking about why I stop reading books. Hence:

Top Ten Reasons Why I Don’t Finish Books

I only finish about 30% of the books I start and it’s mainly because of quirks in my own reading habits. But sometimes I can pinpoint the reason. I’m making this list mostly to help myself as a writer so I’d be pleased if you added your reasons for not finishing a book on to the list. I have a friend or two that finish everything they start but most people probably put books aside. Why?

1. I put books aside because I find the writing itself unappealing. Either it’s poorly written, too dense or lacks grace. I read because I love language so I need to find some nicely put together sentences.

2. I find the subject matter itself unattractive. If there is too much talk about money, or arms deals or child torture, I will probably not finish it. (Maybe these are the very things that make you keep reading though) What don’t you like to read about?

3. There are too many POVs introduced too rapidly. I need to latch onto one person for a while and begin to see the world through his/her eyes. If each two-page chapter switches POV, I feel uncommitted and at sea. Who was that guy two chapter back? Do I need to remember he’s on a bus? Is the old man on page 5 Romaninan or Ukranian. I hate thumbing back.

4. Someone recommends a supposedly better book, says I have to read it and thrusts it in my hands. And similarly:

5. A book I have reserved at the library comes in and I only have two weeks to read it.

6. I am halfway though the book and it seems too familiar, and guess what, I remember I read it already. Or I didn’t read it but I read a book too much like it. Or a lot of books I’ve read are too much like it.

7. The print is too small or too light. This is a new one and is almost surely a function of my age. Is darker print really that much more expensive? (I also avoid blogs where the print is too small and dense).

8. The book begins to feel inauthentic. Characters start to act out of character. I lose a sense of place or period. There is no psychological underpinning for what the characters are doing. Events seems arbitrary--the reason I stopped watching LOST.

9. The story seems too drawn out or too rushed. Like the author was assigned a certain number of pages for the book.

10. The books is due at the library and I just don’t like it enough to pay the fines. I buy around 100 books a year, but I take twice as many out of the library. Of that 300 books, I probably read 75. Twenty years ago, I read 150 books a year. Largest reason: the Internet.

What’s the worst sin for you?

Pick One

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Mc3GQmGGms

A Brief Word

It's Pschobilly Monday and time to do what you know you wanna do--go out and buy Yellow Medicine by A.N. Smith. Preferred buying place is Barnes and Noble online or a brick store, or run over to your local independent bookstore as another good choice.

My Town Monday: A Book Review-The Virgin Suicides

My Town Monday Book Project:

The Virgin Suicides

I don’t exactly live in Detroit. My house is about eight blocks from the city limits and in an upper-middle class suburb. I have mixed feelings about this locale. Good schools, good city services, leafy streets, but a right-wing newspaper, Republican voting, certain limitations in what's available.

Since I work in Detroit and am there for cultural activities, ballgames, restaurants, I count myself a Detroiter. But for the purposes of this assignment from Travis Erwin: reviewing a book written about my community, I chose one written about Grosse Pointe: The Virgin Suicides. Most Grosse Pointers prefer Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides second novel, a more conventional novel despite its subject matter: hermaphroditism.

But I greatly prefer Eugenides first book The Virgin Suicides. Stylistically especially, I find it enthralling. Who else has written a first novel in the collective voice of a group of teenage boys?

The Virgin Suicides is the story of five sisters and the effects of their suicides, one after the other, on their community, and especially on the boys, who narrate the novel. The boys are under the sisters’ spell and watch helplessly as their mother, the community, the church, the school drive the sisters relentlessly toward their deaths. In particular, we see the mother, Mrs. Lisbon, the traditional Catholic mother from that era, as she tightens their leash in an attempt to control her daughters, pushing one after the other off the ledge. It's easy to see the seductiveness of suicide in this novel, how it looks like the only way out. The stakes are not so high for people under twenty, the finality is not apparent yet.

Eugenides attended a private school and experienced an even more privileged Grosse Pointe than most people in the community. But I think he captures the ambiance of a slightly lower echelon very well. But the book's greatest strength is its style. It's poetic. It's heartbreaking.

The Virgin Suicides was made into a movie by Sophia Coppola but filmed in Canada. I like the movie quite a bit but I like the book more.

Check out other book reviews about Home Towns at:http://traviserwin.blogspot.com/