Today begins Banned Books week. To celebrate I’m re-reading a frequently banned book, Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck. I chose it because:
1. I like it.
2. I haven’t read it for a long time.
3. It’s short, and will be easy to read in what will be a very busy week for me.
For more information on Banned Books Week (sponsored by the American Library Association) check out this website.
At a little after 3:00 Tuesday morning, a guy came into the store with a little over $20 in rolled coins, mostly pennies. He used them to buy kerosene to heat his trailer. Temps were in the mid 30s F, his place was freezing, and his four-year-old daughter has a cold. He and his wife each have jobs that pay only slightly more than minimum wage, yet they were recently turned down for heating assistance.
That’s right. We’ve got people rolling coins (!!!!!) for heating oil now–in September, mind you, long before snow’s gonna fly–while Mr. Bush and his cronies are giving a bunch of greedy, incompetent corporate assholes a $700 billion handout…excuse me, I meant to say bail out.
Is something wrong here, or is it just me?????
At a little after 3:00 Tuesday morning, a guy came into the store with a little over $20 in rolled coins, mostly pennies. He used them to buy kerosene to heat his trailer. Temps were in the mid 30s F, his place was freezing, and his four-year-old daughter has a cold. He and his wife each have jobs that pay only slightly more than minimum wage, yet they were recently turned down for heating assistance.
That’s right. We’ve got people rolling coins (!!!!!) for heating oil now–in September, mind you, long before snow’s gonna fly–while Mr. Bush and his cronies are giving a bunch of greedy, incompetent corporate assholes a $700 billion handout…excuse me, I meant to say bail out.
Is something wrong here, or is it just me?????
I’m excited to announce that Waiting For Spring is now listed at Web Fiction Guide.
“Web Fiction Guide is a community-run listing of online fiction. Our goal is to help you find stuff you want to read.
Web fiction is original fiction that writers have chosen to publish on the web — sometimes instead of on paper, sometimes as well as on paper. It runs the gamut, from complete novels, to ongoing serials (web comics without the pictures), to short story collection and anthologies.
Here at the Guide, we list anything that is original and story-oriented (we don’t list fanfic or erotica), and that is available for free to read.”
Readers get a chance to read, rate and review the works listed. If you haven’t had a chance to read Waiting For Spring, you now have one more place to find it. If you have read it, and feel so inclined as to give it a rating or review, it would be greatly appreciated. You can find it HERE
You can find lots of other great stuff there in a wide variety of genres, including Ann M. Pino’s Steal Tomorrow (see right side bar…also being serialized at Readers and Writers Blog). So check it out!
I’m excited to announce that Waiting For Spring is now listed at Web Fiction Guide.
“Web Fiction Guide is a community-run listing of online fiction. Our goal is to help you find stuff you want to read.
Web fiction is original fiction that writers have chosen to publish on the web — sometimes instead of on paper, sometimes as well as on paper. It runs the gamut, from complete novels, to ongoing serials (web comics without the pictures), to short story collection and anthologies.
Here at the Guide, we list anything that is original and story-oriented (we don’t list fanfic or erotica), and that is available for free to read.”
Readers get a chance to read, rate and review the works listed. If you haven’t had a chance to read Waiting For Spring, you now have one more place to find it. If you have read it, and feel so inclined as to give it a rating or review, it would be greatly appreciated. You can find it HERE
You can find lots of other great stuff there in a wide variety of genres, including Ann M. Pino’s Steal Tomorrow (see right side bar…also being serialized at Readers and Writers Blog). So check it out!
***** WARNING: Some very major Waiting for Spring spoilers follow. Read this prior to Chapter 34 at your own risk. *****
“Kill your darlings” is a literary term that refers to the process every writer goes through of weeding out brilliant or beautiful, but unnecessary, elements of a story so it can move along more smoothly. It is quite often a difficult, even painful, process, since it’s easy for an author to fall in love with his or her own writing. Unfortunately, it meant something different to me when I was writing Waiting for Spring. Along with those [seemingly] brilliant and beautiful, but unnecessary, passages that needed doing away with, I had to kill a different kind of darling: Rachel LaChance, Brian’s lost and abused sister.
If you’ve been following the book at Readers and Writers Blog, today’s the day you discovered that Tess’ assumption at the end of chapter 33 was correct; Rachel really is dead. And please believe me when I say that no one mourns her loss more than I do.
Rachel was doomed to meet a violent end the moment I brought her to life, a literal sacrificial lamb, as evidenced by her name (Rachel means “lamb or ewe”). Her death was a literary necessity. Because when an author has presented her readers with a major character (Brian) whose biggest fear is that something terrible will happen to the sister he has raised, and another major character (Tess) whose biggest fear is that something will happen to put her relationship with the other major character at risk…well, there’s only one thing for that author to do.
And yet when it came time for me to write Rachel’s death, I just couldn’t do it. I had grown to love Rachel too much to kill her off. She’d had such a hard life. She deserved a happy ending and I tried for weeks to figure out a way to give her one, I really did. But, in the end, the story has to take precedence over the fate of one character. Even a character you’ve grown to love. Especially a character you’ve grown to love…
So don’t hate me for killing my darling. Mourn with me instead.
————————————–
Also posted today at Readers and Writers Blog: Chapters 10 and 11 of Ann M. Pino’s Steal Tomorrow.
***** WARNING: Some very major Waiting for Spring spoilers follow. Read this prior to Chapter 34 at your own risk. *****
“Kill your darlings” is a literary term that refers to the process every writer goes through of weeding out brilliant or beautiful, but unnecessary, elements of a story so it can move along more smoothly. It is quite often a difficult, even painful, process, since it’s easy for an author to fall in love with his or her own writing. Unfortunately, it meant something different to me when I was writing Waiting for Spring. Along with those [seemingly] brilliant and beautiful, but unnecessary, passages that needed doing away with, I had to kill a different kind of darling: Rachel LaChance, Brian’s lost and abused sister.
If you’ve been following the book at Readers and Writers Blog, today’s the day you discovered that Tess’ assumption at the end of chapter 33 was correct; Rachel really is dead. And please believe me when I say that no one mourns her loss more than I do.
Rachel was doomed to meet a violent end the moment I brought her to life, a literal sacrificial lamb, as evidenced by her name (Rachel means “lamb or ewe”). Her death was a literary necessity. Because when an author has presented her readers with a major character (Brian) whose biggest fear is that something terrible will happen to the sister he has raised, and another major character (Tess) whose biggest fear is that something will happen to put her relationship with the other major character at risk…well, there’s only one thing for that author to do.
And yet when it came time for me to write Rachel’s death, I just couldn’t do it. I had grown to love Rachel too much to kill her off. She’d had such a hard life. She deserved a happy ending and I tried for weeks to figure out a way to give her one, I really did. But, in the end, the story has to take precedence over the fate of one character. Even a character you’ve grown to love. Especially a character you’ve grown to love…
So don’t hate me for killing my darling. Mourn with me instead.
————————————–
Also posted today at Readers and Writers Blog: Chapters 10 and 11 of Ann M. Pino’s Steal Tomorrow.
I don’t watch American Idol for the same reason I’ve never visited a hot dog factory: I don’t like the resulting product, so I have no interest in seeing what disgusting things are thrown into the pot used to make it. I do have an idea of how the process works, though, enough that when my buddy, Elle, told me about the Live Journal version for writers, I knew it was right up my alley. Here’s the deal:
“This is a writing contest community where the entries are submitted and then posted anonymously…and voted on by community members only…no tricks…no gimmicks…no pimping…no recommended reading lists…because after all…
…it really IS just about the writing!
Can you be the last writer standing?
There is a weekly prompt…everyone submits an entry for that prompt…the entries are posted anonymously and voted on anonymously. People give constructive criticism or “notes” on the entries. As people are voted out it is revealed who wrote what. In the end there will be one writer left standing…will it be you?!”
It starts tomorrow, so if you’re interested in joining, click the picture up yonder. If you don’t have the time/interest/desire to participate in the writing prompts, you can join the community anyway to read and vote on entries. Either way, come on and join the fun!
I’ll keep you posted on my progress, and post my entries here each week after the voting is concluded.
I don’t watch American Idol for the same reason I’ve never visited a hot dog factory: I don’t like the resulting product, so I have no interest in seeing what disgusting things are thrown into the pot used to make it. I do have an idea of how the process works, though, enough that when my buddy, Elle, told me about the Live Journal version for writers, I knew it was right up my alley. Here’s the deal:
“This is a writing contest community where the entries are submitted and then posted anonymously…and voted on by community members only…no tricks…no gimmicks…no pimping…no recommended reading lists…because after all…
…it really IS just about the writing!
Can you be the last writer standing?
There is a weekly prompt…everyone submits an entry for that prompt…the entries are posted anonymously and voted on anonymously. People give constructive criticism or “notes” on the entries. As people are voted out it is revealed who wrote what. In the end there will be one writer left standing…will it be you?!”
It starts tomorrow, so if you’re interested in joining, click the picture up yonder. If you don’t have the time/interest/desire to participate in the writing prompts, you can join the community anyway to read and vote on entries. Either way, come on and join the fun!
I’ll keep you posted on my progress, and post my entries here each week after the voting is concluded.
Thanks to some quick-fingered formatting from my good friend Rafi, Waiting For Spring has a new home. That’s right…the novel is now available to read, in its entirety, directly through my website. Click here to check it out. If you haven’t had a chance to read it, or if you wanna read it again, now’s a great time!
I’ve tried to make it as easy to read–and to navigate–as possible, but please feel free to contact me with any problems or suggestions, either here in a comment or by email (rjkeller.wfs@gmail.com).
I’m keeping the old googlepage version up for now, because I know some of you are still reading it there, and it’s no fun to have to switch formats in the middle of a book. For now the links in the sidebar still lead there, but I will be changing that by the end of the week, so be sure to bookmark the page if you need it. It’s also available to read at Mr. Sid Leavitt’s Readers and Writers Blog; to download on PDF file; or purchase the hardcopy at my Lulu storefront.
A big thank you to Rafi for saving my poor thumb and my nerves, and again to Tom Griffin for hosting the site, and for being such a huge help.
R.J. Keller 