Another Good Day in the Writing Game

I went into the current book not knowing who the villain was going to be. I mean, had a pool of likely suspects, but I really had no idea which one was guilty. 


In traditional whodunnit mysteries,  you can lay false trails and red herrings every which way, but there are a couple things you must do to play fair with readers:


You have to introduce the villain early enough to lay in real clues that point to him or her–no popping the bad guy out of hiding on the last page before the reveal. This is much easier to do if you know who did it; otherwise, you have to go back and add it into the second draft.


You also have to provide logical, determinable reasons, and not just because your brilliant investigator sees something nobody else could possibly see. No deus ex machina stuff:


"Come, come, Watson, surely you knew that the temperature in Borneo seldom drops that low! And there was a solar eclipse, and a neap tide! There is no other explanation!"


I never used to do books this way. Always there would be little bits I didn't know about I'd uncover along the way, worth a grin, but the hero and villain? Never a question. I knew going in. Got the yin and yang, everything else circles around that.


If it was a whodunnit, I'd try to keep it hidden, but offer clues so a reader paying attention would have enough to figure it out. If they went back  and looked, they'd spot them, once they knew who it was. 


If it was a whydunnit and they knew who the bad guy was from the git-go, I'd try to make them understand why s/he was doing it, even if they didn't approve.


Yeah, yeah, guy is a bad-ass, but I can see how he might have started  down the wrong path ...


But of late, I've started trusting my autopilot to fly the plane in places, and so far, it has kept me on course. And allowed me to look out the window and enjoy the scenery.


Yesterday, half way through the draft and some, I realized who the villain was.


Whoa! Surprised me, it did. I didn't see it coming. Likable character, but my subconscious had given me clues, and all of a moment, there it was.


Son-of-a-bitch! Wouldja look at that! Who knew?


And maybe if it surprised me, it will surprise readers, too. 


So today, I got to write the scene in which the hero and the villain face off and talk about why. I figured there would be a big fight sequence, in which the hero barely ekes out a victory, after, well, heroic effort, and there you go.


That didn't happen, either.


In the moment, as they were talking I realized that was not the right way to finish it. I like the way it went much better. 


The scene flowed like lava, hot, unstoppable, and when I looked up, I was done. As good a fifteen-hundred-word chunk as I've ever done, at least from where I sit. And the fun part is, I didn't know it was coming, so it was an unexpected joy.


Which of late, besides the money, of course, is the reason to do this stuff. Because if you can't have fun, why bother?

Rhoddy Blooms

Usually around Mother's Day, the rhoddy out front peaks. Here the rhododendron display for 2012 ...

Eagle Style

Photo by Han Bouwmeester

(Thanks to Nataraj)

You know that a lot of martial arts use animals as their inspiration, right?


Here's why ...

Guilty TV Pleasure of the Season: Smash!

This season's GP is Smash, a series that explores the behind-the-scenes goings-on of the genesis of a Broadway show. The idea is a musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe, and what goes into getting that idea from somebody's head onto a Broadway stage.


It is a soap opera, pure and simple. Who is doing what, with whom, and to whom, the relationships, the characters, that's what the show is about. Nobody is all cardboard, there are all kinds of good and bad about all the main players. Even the most Goody Two-Shoes among them has a bit of a dark side, and ambition flows every which way ...


It doesn't hurt that the musical numbers are good, the show-within-a-show is good, and the dancing and singing and acting are all on point. There are fantasy numbers, it's a musical about a musical, and the Bollywood number a couple weeks back was flat-out terrific. 


We see the unfolding from the heads of the writers who come up with the idea and  who do the book and music; the producer, the director, the actors, chorus, and it all has such a real feel to it that it hooked me from the get-go.


I know a woman who once toured with a Broadway roadshow and I asked her about it. Yep, that's the kind of stuff goes on, all right.


There is romance, some of it hetero, some of it gay, some of it interracial, some of it cheating on a great marriage, some of it cold and calculating, and all of it sometimes painful. 


The cast is great and gorgeous, and the central wonder of who will wind up playing Marilyn, the blonde, the brunette, or the movie star, doesn't get decided until the last episode, which airs tonight.


I'm a sucker for good soap opera. Upstairs, Downstairs, the old British series, is one of my favorite TV shows ever. I'd stay up until midnight on a work night to watch that when it was on  originally. Smash isn't as good as that, but for my money, it's better than just about anything else on network TV at the moment.


Which, since I like it so much, means it'll probably get cancelled, but at least I got the one season. (Editor's Note: This just in, the show has been renewed for at least fifteen more episodes.)


If you haven't been watching it, don't start now; pick up the DVD and watch it from the first episode. (Homophobes need not bother, because there are like, you know, guys kissing each other, but this may be one of the best portrayals of gay relationships ever.)


Smash. For me, it has been ...

The Avengers: Quick Look

I finally got around to seeing it, week after it opened. Even so, the theater was relatively crowded. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out a lot of folks are going back to see it again. My son and I watched the 2D version and didn't miss the extra EFX at all. And I'd watch it another time on the big-screen, too. 


Best summer movie since the X-Men reboot, and it was a good thing, too. They have been sticking hints and previews into every Marvel movie for the last few years. 


Did they pay it off?


Absolutely. 


Yeah, the story is thin, and the characters not really deep either, unless, of course you have seen those movies featuring Thor and Iron Man and Captain America and the Hulk, which, if you are a fanboy, you have, so you come equipped to accept the characters for who you already know they are. 


Loki is back, and bad as ever, and the high-tech whiz-bang stuff goes whiz and bang in spades. 


For the first time ever, Bruce Banner and The Other Guy, as he calls the Hulk, steal a movie. The two best lines in the picture are directed at the Hulk: One, by Captain America, and every fanboy in the world screamed and laughed when they heard it. The second is when Loki has something to say to the Hulk and if you don't laugh, your humor bone is broken beyond repair.


Everybody gets a super-hero turn, and they all kick serious ass and take names, exchange witty remarks, and by all means, stay until the last credit rolls for the tag. (There are actually two tags, once showcasing a possible villain, one funny one.)


Worth the trip.

Force Decisions: How the Law Makes 'Em

September last, I did a preview of Rory Miller's new book, Force Decisions. You can click the link and read the preview, but to sum it up, this one is about how the police come to their rules-of-engagement. Who to hit or not hit; when and where and why. Shoot, don't shoot, taze, don't taze, like that.


I gave it a good review, because as in his previous books, I like Miller's writing, the information he has to impart, and how he lays it out. 


This one is designed for citizens unfamiliar with how the police come up with their rules and regulations regarding such things. Good book, you should get it. 


 My one caveat was that he didn't seem to know any bad cops, so sections dealing with LEO's who step over the line were exceedingly thin. 


If an officer is following the agency guidelines, then s/he is covered, and when citizens get pissed off because of some awful thing the po-lice did, they don't understand that such was allowed under the scope of duty. (Sometimes these policies are suspect and need to be changed, and that happens, but if the officer involved in a dust-up was following them properly at the time, both management and the union will stand up for them. In theory.)


That police step over the lines happens, and I've pointed out several egregious examples of that here over the years, ranging from bean bagging twelve-year-old girls; to using live shotgun rounds on a suspect instead of bean-bag rounds as intended; to beating the crap out of the wrong guy who just happened to be walking along at the wrong place and time. 


When somebody gets beaten to death by police officers on the street and the coroner is shocked at the damage, somebody overstepped a line. Shit happens, of course, but suspected pissing in the bushes is not generally considered a capital crime ...


Usually these result in big lawsuits and almost every time, the city or county sponsoring the agency loses and has to pay out big bucks. 


That said, Miller's book is out and it is a must for people who aren't police but who want to understand how these things are determined.


Get the book here. 

Wink

Now you knew I was gonna talk about the new knife, right? 

Let's start with  philosophy, then anatomy, and physiology …

I have always favored smooth grips on my guns and knives, and I have a fondness for wood and ivory, (or faux-ivory, so that Jumbo doesn't have to die for my sins.) Nothing wrong with textured ones, but for me, small adjustments can be made easier if the handles are smooth. Look at the revolver grips by Bill Jordan and Jerry Miculek, respectively, (below) and what you see are hand-filling, smooth woods that allow you to slide to optimum position easily.

Both of these men could drive tacks with a revolver–Jerry still can, and faster than most people can fire a semi-auto.

Of course, there is a drawback, because if something can slide, it might when you don't want it to, but it's something you can train to do until it becomes automatic. And while twirling and manipulating the knife in contact-juggling play to get used to it is great fun, and there are folks who make it look like pen-mawashi, for me, once you pull a knife for serious and necessary self-defense purpose, you don't do that. I might drop it showing off; I won't once I lock my hand onto it. Last thing you need is to drop your weapon because the adrenaline-storm has washed away your fine motor control, which it is apt to do. 

Ever see those car-cam videos of police unloading full magazines of their nines at bad guys no farther away than the length of a pick-up truck and missing every shot? You wouldn't think that was possible, but it happens.

While I have only a nodding experience with the Filipino arts–arnis/eskrima/kali–so I never got much rattan work, we did like sticks in Okinawa-te, so I learned a baton-sized single-stick form. Didn't learn the double one, opted for sai instead.

Later, I had a chance to pick up a little about the yawara, sometimes called kongou, which is a short stick slightly bigger than your closed hand. I learned it using rhythm sticks, aka claves, which look a lot like Wink's handle. So I'm okay with smooth and round. 

Chuck's design of the guard keeps my hand from sliding onto the blade, and a hard stab in icepick grip would have my thumb behind the handle's end, too. 

The indentation just behind the guard on the edge side is unmistakable under your fingers, so you can tell without looking where your edge is.

The blade is almost a quarter-inch thick at the spine, cutting edge is three inches, the handle is five inches long. 

I debated whether to use paste wax on the steel–that's how they do it in some museums when they can't get to knives under glass to oil them–but decided to use what I like for most of my steel, which is pure sandalwood oil. This is spendy stuff, more so than clove/mineral oil, which is what I once used on the katana, but it it only takes a drop to feed a blade this size, and that includes the guard, I can afford sandalwood. Works on the wood, too.

Icepick, edge up (above.)

Showing the thickness (above)

Strong-side grip (above.)

Icepick draw. 

(Interestingly, if you side the sheath back to SOB carry, the draw shifts naturally to saber. Reach back as if you are tucking your shirt-tail in, it's right there.)

So there's the general b.g. on the new toy. 

And no, I'm not pleased at all ... 

Hey, Check This Out ...

You've Got a Friend in Me

In the current book-in-progress, I have some characters who get into big trouble and who are in dire need of help. Fortunately for them, they have friends who are willing to step up and risk their own asses to bring it. 


In the sorting out of the whys and wheretofores of explaining such a relationship succinctly, I found myself reëxamining the subject. This is necessary for a writer. The biggest truths are all found in fiction and you can't convey them if you don't on some level understand them.


I like to do that now and again; take some old toy out of the box, dust it off, and look at it closely, seeing how it's made. Sometimes, when you haven't played with it for a while, you forget how it works ...


Friends come in various weights. There are work-friends, school-friends, drinking buddies, gym-partners. People who are into the same philosophy or avocation–that woman you met at the yoga and meditation class; the guys at the model railroad club; the gang down at the dojo. Soccer moms and the PTA. 


Politics can make for strange bedfellows, too.


The heavyweight friends–the ones who will come if called to help you bury a body and wait to ask questions afterward? Those are apt to be few and far between. 


I've had some like that over the years, though most of those folks aren't in my life these days. I'm not overly-disturbed by this; the dynamics of relationships are fluid. Set-in-stone philosophy tends to crack and fall apart more often than not when it comes to the give-and-take of day-to-day living. Form follows function. That wonderful theory of absolutes will, as often as not, undergo some Whoa, there! alterations when the rubber hits the road.


If you don't have children but have theories on how to raise them? That's always fun to watch when the real baby comes along.


The map is not the territory.


For me, there have been disappointments in the friend-front, and the worst were because I made some bad assumptions. People weren't what I thought they were–I was their friend, but it turned out, they weren't mine. Probably lot of you have been there, and it's something of a shock when you come to realize that you had, uh, missed a big clue.


The Homer Simpson "Doh!" moment when you wonder, What the fuck was I thinking? Did I leave my brain in my other hat?


I have pretty high standards, I admit. Nobody is perfect, we all have our flaws, and you factor that in, but there's is a line below which you aren't the game for me. People who claim to have dozens or scores of friends aren't talking about the same thing I'm talking about when I say the word. 


Some of the friend-not-friend equations are because things change. You were best buddies, you ran close and parallel for a while, then looked up one day to notice that one or both of you have veered from the side-by-side path. Life throws up a roadblock, your buddy goes around it, but it changes his direction a hair. A half-degree different, the path isn't parallel any more; it's only a matter of time until the divergence grows wider.


Sometimes, you catch it and make the decision to adjust your course. (Marriage is like this, I believe. You have to pay constant attention, you can't let too much time elapse before you take stock and check on each other. You have to be willing to swing back onto a common road. As long as you are, the marriage can flourish. If you  or your spouse aren't willing to do that? Eventually, it stops working.)


To have a friend, you have to be one, and you have to pay attention, keep the lines open. Sometimes, it's not that you've burned bridges, it's that you have diverged so far when you finally look up that you can't see each other any more. 


And if the paths are too different, you or they can't–or won't–make the adjustment.


Things change, worlds move you need not wonder why ...


Part of a song lyric written by one of my best old ex-friends.


Um. All of this is to say that if you are lucky enough to have a real friend, one for whom you will move mountains and who is willing to do the same for you, treasure them. They are worth more than a boxcar full of diamonds.

Dog Woes

Now and again, for no reason I have been able to discern, my female dog attacks her older half-brother. Jude is twice as big, but Layla is determined, and it's not the nyah-nyah where one dog rolls and gives up, but sometimes gets bloody.


Last evening, it happened again. No food guarding, nothing like that, as we went out back to crank up the barbecue grill she bowled into him and started biting. I grabbed her and jerked her away, but there was damage done; a spot of blood on Jude's right foreleg, up high, and he hasn't been able to put any weight on it since. Some obvious swelling, hematoma, Appetite seems fine, and he'd pee if I haul him out back and put him down, but he's not getting around, save on three legs.


So, off to the vet this a.m. and the diagnosis is what I thought–doesn't appear to be any infection, no cracked bone, nothing in the ligaments, but a couple of holes and some crush injury. He'll gimp around for a while, on antibiotics to make sure there's no infection, some pain pills, and with any luck, be right as rain in a few days. 


My wallet will be lighter, but hey, it's only money; nothing compared to my furry boy's welfare ...

The Game's Afoot!

The second season of the updated-to-contemporary-times Sherlock Holmes began last night, and for my money, it's far and away the best thing Holmesian since Jeremy Brett's turn from twenty-odd years ago.


"A Scandal in Belgravia" offers up the hot new version of Irene Adler, a woman who needs no introduction to Holmes' fans, but boy, is this one different. Here, Adler is a brilliant dominatrix, a bad girl who has incriminating photos on her cell phone of some unnamed young woman Royal, and Holmes is brought in by his brother Mycroft–and wrapped in a sheet because he couldn't be bothered to dress–to Buckingham Palace to get the case.


There's much more to it than that, of course, and we have CIA assassins, terrorist plots, wheels-within-wheels, and all manner of skullduggery and mayhem afoot, each twist more fun than the previous one. I especially like how Adler, knowing that Holmes is coming to visit, spends hours getting ready for him, and the costume she chooses is absolutely stunning and appropriate ...


The episode begins where the previous one left off, with Holmes and Watson facing off with Moriarty and about to blow them all to pieces.

Obviously that didn't happen ...


As usual, there are some great clues, some false clues, a couple of great twists, and to play fair with a viewer, the last an best reversal has a direct clue that should, if you are paying attention, tell you it is coming. 


I am not a fan of the Robert Downey versions, they are fine movies, but in no way Sherlock Holmes. Iron Man in a Victorian costume, but this one, I do like a lot.