At long last, the publishing journey is coming to a close.

Silent Manifest (which was, for the longest time, titled Caretaker) has entered the preorder stage--the book can be purchased from Amazon and Barnes and Noble for their e-book systems (Kindle and Nook, respectively). 

I hope my benefactors at EDGE Publishing will forgive me, but this was not the smoothest of roads. Despite a very quick acceptance, and therefore a very quick offer of a contract by the folks at EDGE, progress on the novel stood in limbo for a very long time. I must admit, I was considering informing the publisher that the many delays would force me to withdraw from the contract, as I felt they were in breach thereof. 

At the eleventh hour, however, communication was restored and the project moved forward. The editor assigned to me was meticulous in her attention, and she and I worked together to tighten the manuscript. Also, my publisher put me in touch with the cover artist, and after a few false starts, arrived at the final product.

All in all, my experience was a series of give-and-take discussions. Sometimes I made demands which my publisher met, sometimes they made demands which I met. I know there is a somewhat romantic vision of writers: we are wizards, operating in mystery but more importantly solitude, and that we brook no interference with our arcane plans. In my case--and I suspect most writers' cases--this is not so. The relationship between the writer and her or his publisher must have a degree of flexibility. As much as we might think that nothing can or should compromise the writer's vision--no jot nor tittle nor title can be changed--that's not how it works out. Oh, I'm sure those writers at the very top of their field can make more demands: Stephen King probably can dictate terms to his publisher without fear of being dropped. But for the rest of us who have not reached that level of influence, we have to work with those on the business side.

I don't go in for self-publishing, but I suspect that one of the aspects that makes that approach so attractive is the idea that one does not need to answer to anyone else. There are no concessions, no compromises--the writer's word is the final law. Perhaps that is something that makes people publish their own work. It's not for me, but I can respect those who make that decision.

I am looking forward to completing the last bits of business for the novel--EDGE Publishing favors Facebook launches. Those are generally a good time: the question and answer sessions are fun and interesting. As always, I will keep on writing, hoping to grow my readership and improve my craft.

Be seeing you!

Yesterday, the President of the United States pushed a message that one of his supporters was himself pushing--that 2 extra years be granted to this President’s term because the first two years had been stolen. It’s true that President Trump misspelled “stolen” (he wrote “stollen”) but that’s not the issue. The issue is how casually brazen this all is.

I am not going to recount how many things President Trump has done or said that are flagrant violations of the Constitution, or of the rule of law, or of longstanding convention. I’m also not going to get into the many, many lies he’s told (reports are that he recently topped 10,000 lies while in office--this milestone was reached on April 29), nor will I expose his blatant, obvious racism.

What this all shows me is how much I, and by extension so many of us, take this thing called the United States of America for granted. And I do mean, “for granted,” as in, “it’s been granted to me and it cannot be taken away.”

All my life as a boy, (then a young man, then a middle-aged man, and now a man straddling the line between middle-aged and flat-out OLD) I grew up believing in America. I don’t mean believing it was a special place to live or that things were good, no matter what little things cropped up to bother us. Much of my youth was a sheltered one--as a middle-class straight cisgendered white male, countless instances of discrimination and systemic maltreatment sailed right past me while I blissfully went about my life. Yes, I had a little red wagon into which I put my puppy dog (and eventually my younger brother as he served as the willing crash test dummy for our increasingly outre science experiments with mass and inertia); I played baseball and watched Saturday morning cartoons and had two loving parents who provided everything I could want. I had no reason to think life was anything other than simple, safe, and fulfilling.

Thus I thought of America. As my mother Gina and my father Jim were my immediate parents, America itself was a sort of third parent--one who provided freedom, security, and fulfillment. Even when I went off to Occidental College, a liberal arts college where a young Barack Obama had previously attended, and I read about the downtrodden in other parts of the world (and even in America) it didn’t feel real. Not in the sense that I didn’t believe it--in the sense that I had no comparable experience. I couldn’t imagine being harassed or denied opportunities or worse yet attacked or killed because of my race, or gender, or orientation. I read books and essays, about it, and even as my eyes were opening to the reality of my own upbringing, I was still not able to see America as anything other than “granted.” Flawed though it may be, I never considered that what America was, or what it could be, would ever change. Yes, I saw the wrinkles in America’s face, but I never thought she could die.

I liken this to the Biblical quote in 1 Corinthians, 12 and part of 13: “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. (13) For now we see through a glass, darkly.”

I can’t say that I can clearly see the end of America. I still can’t bring myself to believe that. But the difference now is that I can conceive it. I’ve seen enough of this President and his New Republicans to know that America is not granted. It is not immutable, or invincible, or even immortal. It can change, it can be conquered, it can die. This idea of Jeffersonian Democracy, the noble experiment in governance, this flame of liberty, is not inextinguishable. There are other paths America could have taken, and other paths she can still take.

Maybe my brothers and sisters in America who didn’t have the privileged upbringing I did, and who did share in the harvest that upbringing when they grew up have always known what I am coming to know, slowly. Maybe they have always seen clearly what I am seeing through a glass, darkly. If so, then perhaps the accidental benefit of this awful realization is that I have grown closer to those whom I have been alienated from due to my privilege.

If America survives, I will cherish that, at least.

Be seeing you!

​

It's a strange thing, going back to revisit a work one has completed rather a long time ago. Maybe it's the nature of this particular manuscript, but once I had written this one, I very much put it away in my mind. It could have been because of how cathartic this one was, or maybe because I got to work on many other projects. Hell, I'd written FOUR other books since my publisher got to Silent Manifest, so it's possible those other stories crowded this one out.

Anyway, the editor my publisher assigned to me was a very assiduous worker, going over the manuscript with extraordinary care. The edits were both large-scale and small, covering story problems as well as style weaknesses. I can see how a person would regard this process as insulting or off-putting, but it was a necessary one. Going back and revisiting relationships, characterizations...it was a homecoming. 

Still, I don't think I want to revisit this one again. Not because I don't like the story or think it's not one of my good works. I'm proud of it, and I think it's good. 

But the emotions it awakened in me were ones I don't care to experience again. I always thought I wrote this at least in part as therapy. as a way of taking control of something in my past that I had very little control over. The strange thing is--I wrote about a man who found that the answers he sought were worse than the questions.

So in what sense was this therapy?

The idea of catharsis (or katharsis) is a complex one--the purging of emotion, especially pity and fear, by the process of watching something awful happen to someone else is not an easy concept to grasp. Did I accomplish that with Silent Manifest?

I don't know. 

Maybe I never will know. 

The incident that happened didn't happen to me--I was an observer. A helpless observer. As all helpless people do, I tried to help. Did what I could, which was nothing. A lot of nothing. In the end, events unfolded as they were going to, with all our actions meaningless.

I guess it's a kind of nihilistic therapy. If there is such a thing.

I have to be honest--I'm not really looking forward to the publicity tour on this, insignificant and inconsequential though it will be. Don't kid yourself--a few Facebook posts, some blurbs here and there which almost no one will read--the publicity stuff will be meaningless. But even so, I don't relish the thought of revisiting this work.

Be seeing you!

What is love?

Baby don’t hurt me...don’t hurt me...no more…

Sorry. I had to.

Seriously, though--for a word that is arguably the most important word in the English language, we have so many different views on the word.

At the risk of being pedantic (though I should probably just embrace my inner pedant) I like the ways the ancient Greeks looked at the word. They had several terms for the various kinds of love. “Eros” was one such word, from where we get the word “erotic.” But it didn’t mean just sexual love--it meant passionate love, and even Plato defined it to mean “deep love for the beauty of another person,” even and especially inner beauty. Hence “Platonic” love in the sense of “love that isn’t predicated on physical attraction. Then there was “philia,” which meant a kind of love and loyalty between friends, as well as love towards an activity. It came gradually to mean “love” in its most general sense, as in the suffix -philia or -phile that we see in so many words, not all of them “bad.” Bibliophile, for example, is a person who loves books. There was also “storge,” which was love in the sense of empathy, like love parents might have for their children, or perhaps love of country or of a tribe. Lastly, there was “agape,” which was a sort of godly love, a sort of “pure” love one might have for one’s spouse or for God.

So what does any of this have to do with “love” in the modern sense?

Well, let’s see. I am quite attracted in a physical sense to my wife. I don’t wish this to become naughty, so suffice to say I have difficulty maintaining a rational thought process when I see her. I find that whatever I was thinking about prior to looking at her just sort of fades away and different feelings take their place. More to the point, though, is how I feel about her “inner beauty.” Specifically, her deep and fierce passion in defense of child welfare. She is not only a highly competent teacher, fighting for her students in every facet of their education, she is equally fierce in her defense and advocacy of our children. So, let’s just say eros is very much alive.

I also consider her my dearest, closest, and most long-standing friend. I have never subscribed to the theory that one’s spouse and one’s “best” friend can or should be different people. To me, I just don’t know how else I could have lived my life without Sue walking next to me for about 35 years now. So, philia is between us.

Storge doesn’t quite apply here--she’s not my offspring, nor does she represent a nation or tribe. I suppose I could say I love her in the sense that she is the mother of my children, but I don’t think that is quite what the word means.

On the agape level, I am not religious. I don’t believe in destiny, or fate, or any plan for the cosmos. I don’t believe that every person has a “soulmate” or a “true love.” Things just happen, and we humans make them happen or not. But at the same time I firmly and solidly believe that, I also believe that Sue and I were destined to be with each other and that we are one another’s soul mates. Yes, I know--contradictory. But to quote Walt Whitman, “Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.” Or to quote Francois de La Rochefoucauld, “when we are in love, we often doubt what we most believe.” So there is no divine being, and he or she brought Sue and I together to fulfil the plan for us that doesn’t exist.

I love my wife, my friend, and my partner Sue. The ancient Greeks came closest to summarizing my feelings for her, but even they fell short. I guess the testament of 35 years and counting is the closest definition for the word.

​

No, I don't mean that phenomenon wherein people give to charity (money, time, resources, what-have-you) in order to show other people how charitable they are, though that is a thing and it shouldn't be--I'm referring to this other weird phenomenon that, as far as I know, doesn't have a name. 

It's people who watch "influencers" on YouTube or Snapchat or Instagram or wherever else those odd creatures dwell, and then give money to them for no other reason than they were asked to.

I obviously don't watch "influencers" or "reality stars" or the like. But I gather what they do is speak directly into the webcam and talk to their "followers" (was ever an internet phenomenon so aptly named?) directly. They speak on a somewhat intimate level--that is, there's a certain friendliness that transcends mere pleasantries. In a way, it's even more intimate than pornography. These influencers and YouTube personalities (streamers, I think they're called) speak to their followers as individuals, as if each and every one of them is a friend. 

Thus, the followers get a false sense that they occupy a special place in the Internet personality's life--as if they "know" him or her, and therefore would of course donate money (made so easy via PayPal and other online services) towards whatever cause the personality is championing, or even in some cases for nothing at all.

I think--and I am by no means an expert--that this plays into our need to belong to something, to be a part of something, to have friends. More importantly, to have friends who are powerful, famous, or just well-known. And the way this is done is to play on our sense of narcissism: that we are being paid attention to, that the influencer or streamer is talking directly to me.

I know some of you will say, "it was ever thus," but was it? I don't think people in the nation thought Walter Cronkite or Johnny Carson was speaking directly to them. And if they wanted to see a celebrity, they at least had to go out and find one. Now, the electronic tendrils of the Internet are reaching out to us, and they have an uncanny way of finding our weaknesses.

The thing is--there are people who like you, who love you, who care about you. They are the people in your daily life with whom you interact every day. Your teachers, your fellow students, your family, your real flesh-and-blood friends. Go say hi.

​Be seeing you!

A little while ago, I received the edits for the manuscript I sold to EDGE Publishing some time ago. The edits are of three types: formatting changes (em dash, font, spacing, and general typesetting stuff); consistency of style (for instance: spelling out digits, capitalization of specialized nouns in the parlance of the novel, etc.); and what I'll call "story problems."

The first two are largely easy to resolve. I am engaged in a conversation about the past perfect tense ("I had gone to Disneyland before my brother did") as opposed to simple past ("I went to Disneyland before my brother did") but otherwise, those edits are going quite smoothly. I am happy to oblige my editor in this.

As to the story problems...

Let me put it this way. I spend a significant portion of my day grading student essays. I write COPIOUS notes for each student when I give back the essays, and my kids say that this helps a great deal, damn them. It means I can't really stop doing it. If any of my students are reading this, know that I, too, get notes on my writing. So kids, you're not alone. Even I, the Great and Powerful O, gets told when his writing isn't as good as it could be.

I really am grateful for the comments. I know the stereotypical view of the writer is some kind of crazed genius (I'm only half that) who refuses to be rewritten or corrected. My prose is golden--GOLDEN, I SAY!--and no one no how will tell me what to fix!

The truth is much different, at least, for me. I welcome my editor's comments. Sure, I won't agree with all of them. And we'll talk, and I'll present my case, and she'll present hers, and the stronger idea will win out. I'm sure she'll capitulate on points she isn't terribly invested in, as I will on points about which I lack passion. Most of the time, the give-and-take on the manuscript works, and if done right, can strengthen the work. An editor's job is to help the storyteller, well, tell the story as best he or she can.

Approaching this process with that mindset can result in a stronger work, and how can I refuse that?

Oh, on another note, the publisher wanted a writeup on the main character's appearance for cover art, so I expect to get a look at that soon.

Be seeing you!

Once again, we find ourselves trying to grapple with evil that lives among us. I wish I could say I feel for the victims and their families. I can’t--I don’t know what feelings will help them. They don’t know me, I don’t know them. I try to imagine my own feelings if someone I loved were gunned down, and I can’t. I weep for them, for their innocence, for the world in which they live. This was not a natural disaster, or a disease--this was not the Universe striking down one of the souls who populates this blue marble. We did this ourselves. Humanity failed.

A 28-year-old Australian citizen named Brenton Harrison Tarrant killed at least 50 people on Friday, March 15, 2019 in Christchurch, New Zealand. He walked into two mosques and killed those praying and engaging in religious services.

He also electronically published a lengthy manifesto, and part of what he did in that manifesto was do a sort of “question and answer” section. In that section, he explicitly says this was a racial attack. This point is made clear--not from inference or supposition, but by his own direct comment. He also says directly that this was a terrorist attack. There is no interpretation needed, as if his actions didn’t speak loudly enough.

Furthermore, he said he was a supporter of Donald Trump as “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.” He added also, “the person that has influenced me above all was Candace Owens. Each time she spoke I was stunned by her insights and her own views helped push me further and further into the belief of violence over meekness. Though I will have to disavow some of her beliefs, the extreme actions she calls for are too much, even for my tastes.”

All of that was context. Here’s what I am not saying, nor taking a position on in this entry. I will not claim here that Trump or Owens, or even the right wing in the U.S. is responsible for what Tarrant did. I may one day write my thoughts on that, but I won’t do it here.

Instead, I am wondering: if I were named thusly in a manifesto written by a terrorist--if I read that a terrorist claimed to have been inspired by me, or indeed was a supporter of my ideology--I would be horrified almost beyond my capacity to express. I can not imagine the feeling that would engender. Knowing that a deranged mass murderer took me as an example would throw everything I am into question. It would certainly make me examine my own actions. I don’t think any amount of self-talk, or support from even those whom I admire and respect, could eliminate the feelings of guilt and remorse, even if they were unearned, I would have. It would devastate me, possibly break me forever.

Trump, on the other hand, has said nothing of consequence. His lackeys have said “it’s absurd to connect him to this,” even though the murderer directly did so. Owens went a step further: ““LOL! 😂 FACT: I’ve never created any content espousing my views on the 2nd Amendment or Islam. The Left pretending I inspired a mosque massacre in…New Zealand because I believe black America can do it without government hand outs is the reachiest reach of all reaches!! LOL!”

Putting aside for the moment the pesky truth that Trump has called for a “Muslim Ban,” and putting aside for the moment the pesky truth that Owens has indeed created content about the 2nd amendment, what does it mean that for both of them, their reactions were to lash out angrily at any accusation that they hold any culpability for the murders? Wouldn’t a stable, mentally healthy, moral individual examine their own actions in light of this? Responsibility or not, wouldn’t one’s initial reaction be shock and horror at the possibility?
I can only conclude that this is the natural outgrowth of Trump’s “never show weakness--never apologize” ideology of life.

If one equates compassion with weakness, if one equates reflection with indecisiveness, then yes, never show compassion, never be reflective. Compassion does mean, after all, you are sacrificing some of your own well-being (materially, spiritually, ethically, etc.) to aid another. It means understanding how another person might feel, and acting in a manner to ease their pain. If that is weakness, if seeing how another person is being harmed and working to mitigate that harm is lack of strength, then indeed, the Trump ideology is being followed. Owens did not, as far as I know, decide to show compassion for the dead, or look at her own actions to see why a mass murderer would claim she was “the person who influenced [him] above all,” in his own direct words.

Even putting aside the argument about culpability and responsibility--what kind of a person sees the murder of fifty innocent people and thinks about him or herself first? What must have happened to the soul of a person who sees this unspeakable tragedy and uses the Internet abbreviation, “LOL?”

Show no weakness.
Never apologize.
The meek will inherit nothing.
Cast the first stone.


Be seeing you.

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