And for your Sunday afternoon...

Because there is no age limit for books. Movies, yes, but books, no. The day they start putting Rated R ratings on books will be a sorry, sorry day. So until then, let's all read with a little reckless abandon.

Happy Sunday!



I tried my best...

Yes. As hard as I have tried, I just cannot finish reading James Herbert's Once. I guess there is a first for everything. I hope this doesn't mean I am becoming a crodgety old fogey so set in her ways that she won't welcome something a little different from her strict, unchangeable expectations narrowminded.

But really. I made a cardinal mistake, and that was to judge a book by its cover. I was impressed with the big white tome (and really, I can call this a tome), with its silver embossing and its fairy tale design. I was taken aback by the magic of the cover and eagerly opened it, keen to step into the magic inside. The statements covering the book about how James Herbert is one of the UK's leading horror authors also promised something good. Or at least substantial.

Now, don't stop this from reading it yourself, if you want to. I don't want my review of this - and you can hardly call it a review, considering I only got to almost halfway through - to impact your decision on whether to read it. I am just saying that, from my point of view, I could write better than this, this tome before me, spread open on my lap on my way home on the train from work earlier this week, at a moment in my day when I need a book, or I might as well not breathe. One should always read on trains. It helps distract from the boringness of it all.

So there I am, with Once, and finally, at page 188, I have to slap it closed. I lost patience with it. This is the first time in my entire life I actually lost patience with a book. If I could have thrown it out of the train's window, I would have, but it was a book loaned to me by a family member, who wants to read it on his upcoming September holiday, and I think he wouldn't have been happy with me chucking his as-yet-unread book out into the trees and brush next to train tracks somewhere between Sheffield and Rotherham.

And so.

I think this is an important post topic because it taught me that I can recognize my ideal writing style, and that, yes, poor writing (in my opinion), no matter how sexy a story is, does not work. At all. The fact that it got published just astounds me.

To give credit to James Herbert, I'm sure he is a fantastic writer. He certainly can't be one of the UK's leading authors if he wasn't. Perhaps Once was an experiment. I think he tried on a different writing voice for this novel. I think he wanted it to sound like a fairy tale (for adults: the porn element was there) but I think in this instance he tried too hard. I have read adult fairy tales that got their point across just fine. (One of which was a different take on the Cinderella story but unfortunately at the moment the title and the author's name escape me. I'll post it as soon as I remember!) But Herbert chose such a frilly, over-the-top style that kept me at such a distance from the actual story that it was as if I were balancing on tip-toe on one side of a high fence, uncomfortably, to see anything that was going on. Tried hard, but I just lost interest. It was too much work to read. And believe me, I have read some very trying books. Moll Flanders, Robinson Crusoe, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's News of a Kidnapping.

On the other hand, I have replaced it with John Hart's Down River. Which is a refreshingly good read.

Happy Saturday, all!

Yay Gov'na!

If you don't already know, this is a special day in history.



Being who I am, I always defined myself in terms of feminism: the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. I've always acted and felt that there was always the glass ceiling to break through, that we as a society should do away with words like 'actress' and 'manageress.' These thoughts haven't changed. We do not have doctoresses, we have doctors. I think a career should not change its name to suit the person's gender.

However, I have just found out today that, after thirty days following the official legalization of equal marriage in New York, as signed into law by Governor Cuomo, equal marriages are now taking place in New York! The Human Rights Campaign has done wonders to appeal to the US Government about discriminatory laws that need to be changed.

I recognize the need for the world to embrace tolerance and acceptance for everybody, not just women (or anyone who is not a white male). And so I am proud to support the LGBT movement in hopes that not only feminism but - what I like to call -  equalism will be accepted way forward. Everyone should have legal rights.

Alright, love?

Yorkshire Dales (picture from this lovely site    Credit: 47mki)

Step away from everything you know and come to a place that is rugged and enchanting, dark and mysterious, and where there's plenty of wine!

I also like to call it England. My home. I thought I'd give this post a charming title: a typical Yorkshire way of saying, "How are you?"

The Yorkshire Dales are not far from where I live, which classifies this part of the country as rural England. There are still cities and towns and, you know, traffic, but sometimes it is nice to get away, smell that fresh country air, perhaps on your way to Whitby through the North York Moors.

                                             North York Moors. (Picture from this lovely site.)



Now you probably have images of little, hairy-footed hobbits hopping around, or maybe Sherlock Holmes and that pesky (but illusive) Hound of the Baskervilles raging across a windy moor. Or both!

Now it's time for a nice spot of tea.

This day seven years ago...

...I was waking up, alone in pull-out sofa bed, in a guest room with my luggage exploded around me. It was my first full day in Doncaster. I had never been in the UK before, and the morning sounds (lounge door opening and closing, conversation, snippets of late morning television coming from downstairs) were coaxing me out of my dreams. I could smell coffee. I was jetlagged and felt as if I were floating somewhere between one time zone and the next, and felt the rush of reality: my home was somewhere thousands of miles behind me, way back West. I'd never been so far from home. I was in England now. This was a visit, though, and I was young, just twenty-one, and I had no idea that two years from now I'd be moving to England - settling in that very house for a time - permanently.

I went downstairs. Dave was there and so were his parents, welcoming me back to the land of the living (it was a long flight from Indianapolis via Newark via Atlanta to Manchester) and in my blissful confusion I didn't realize I'd lost a day. From travelling east. It was like I had gone back in time in another life. It was cloudy outside.

Another first: talking was strange because my accent didn't fit in.

While I am a "cheerful, genuine person," as some of my friends and colleagues have described me, I am not a morning person. My addled brain didn't know what time it was, though, so I accepted the proffered cup of coffee (warmth, caffeinated goodness) and was brought back down to the here and the now.

This will be an edifying visit. I would learn a lot about English history and British life and culture (with pictures to prove it), but I think I would learn more about myself than anything else.

Whitby Abbey (Bram Stoker's inspiration for Dracula)

This was going to be a very, very good trip.

Look out for the next installment of This Day in History!

Jack Kerouac's List of Essentials

Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy

2. Submissive to everything, open, listening

3. Try never to get drunk outside your own home

4. Be in love with your life

5. Something that you feel will find its own form

6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind

7. Blow as deep as you want to blow

8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind

9. The unspeakable visions of the individual

10. No time for poetry but exactly what is

11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest

12. In traced fixation dreaming upon object before you

13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition

14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time

15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog

16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye

17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself

18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea

19. Accept loss forever

20. Believe in the holy center of life

21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind

22. Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better

23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning

24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge

25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact picture

26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form

27. In praise of Character in the bleak inhuman Loneliness

28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better

29. You're a genius all the time

30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

I'd like to add one of my witty witticisms here. My list of essentials really involves only coffee and not putting 'dry clean only' clothes in the washing machine. Perhaps I should really develop my list of essentials. However. Everyone, writers or not, can get at least one thing out of Jack Kerouac's: #29. You're a genius all the time.

The healing effect of coffee

Black as the devil, hot as hell. Pure as an angel, sweet as love. That’s what coffee is.
 - Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord

Coffee and books go together so well. Coffee and life. Also coffee and red grapes, for some reason.

And so do coffee and mornings after nights of cartwheeling debauchery quiet evenings at your friends' house.

And by the way, how novel is this idea?


I am aware that there are people on this planet who don't like coffee. My oh my. I guess it is possible. Maybe you like gin better. Maybe you like water. Or maybe it's possible you even like such a thing as decaf. (People must or the stores wouldn't stock it, would they?) But whatever you like, I hope it is as healing as a good old fashioned cup o' joe.

Cappuccino. Cafe mocha. Caffe Latte. Espresso. Coffee. Milky. Black. With sugar. Or without. Tall. Grande. Venti. One shot or two.

It is the sun shining even on a gray day. It is warm when you've pulled your sorry bag of bones out of bed, especially on days when you really, really don't want to, and so it is like a nice blanket of warmth in a mug.

And even more than that: it is not just a drink. It is art.

Art.

And so I'm going to make myself another cup now. And then, in maybe fifteen more minutes, I will be ready to take on the world. Just give me fifteen minutes.

Have a rejuvenating Sunday.

Why I owe a lot to Juri Gabriel

If there were an award for Most Uplifting Rejection Letter, I think this imaginary award should go to Juri Gabriel.

(This best illustrates how I felt after reading Juri Gabriel's letter)

I have now received 16 rejections. This has been my 16th one, coming in the post earlier this week. I thought I would put what he wrote because, well. Because.

Dear Ms. Buckland (he writes),

Thank you for your letter from 27th June.

Please forgive me for sending you a form letter in response, but I receive about 1,700 book, film, tv and radio scripts each year, and there is only one of me.

I'm afraid I have decided not to accept your proposal. This does not necessarily mean that it is not sellable. All it means is that I do not think I can sell it - or that it does not make commercial sense from the agent's (10%) perspective.

Having said which, I feel I ought to make a few general points, which you may or may not find helpful.

1) From the hundreds of people of all kinds who write to me each year, I probably take on 2-4 new clients. (For most major publishers, broadcast and film companies the figures for unsolicited manuscripts are even worse: between zero and two out of literally thousands. Indeed, increasing numbers of them will only look at submissions made through established agents.)

2) However, the overwhelming majority (95%) of submissions are so hopelessly bad that one shouldn't really include them in any 'significant' statistics.

3) Last year getting on to 130,000 new titles (fiction and non-fiction and including new editions of previously published works) were published.

That there is a vast amount of undiscovered talent out there is a delusion. If you have genuine ability, persist; the real odds are less fearsome than they might at first appear.

Good luck!

Yours sincerely,

Juri Gabriel

Now, usually you get the form rejection letter that says something to the tune of this:

Dear Ms. Buckland,

Thank you for your submission, but I don't think it's right for me. The market is tough now. I have too many big clients already to deal with the no-name likes of you. What you submitted is squawking drivel that doesn't make any sense. Your vain attempt is an epic fail.

Best wishes for you in your search for suitable representation.

Kind regards,
Every Literary Agent You Have Submitted To So Far

And so, you can see how refreshing it is to read Juri Gabriel's rejection letter. It really is a breath of fresh air. It is like allergies going away. That he takes the time to write a letter of hope, even if it is, stripped down to its bare bones, a rejection letter, shows how much he cares.  Though he is clearly overworked - he could use some staff, a reader, an assistant perhaps? - he has not become jaded from the loads of rejections and trash he has to sift through in the slush pile every single day.

I think I'll frame this one.

Maybe I should be impressed...

Like many of you, I use public transport daily to commute to work.

If only I could see something like this on the train...

Or maybe something like this...

I'd even settle for this...

But I usually get this...

(Boring.)

But perhaps I should count my blessings. I mean it could be crazy if I had to try and not stare at, ahem, more interesting fellow commuters.

And if you commute like me and you get bored, there's always this site to keep you entertained.

Happy Sunday!

Hurrah! Saturday!

Sometimes, the only time we have is now. So go find a tree and turn it into a face!

Summertime: I am doing my best with my annual hay fever affliction. Windows are pleasantly open all the time, letting the breeze through and ruffling the curtains. Washing stays on the line until nine o'clock, when the sun is still on the horizon. Bugs seem to like flying into my eyes when I walk down the street on my way into town. To do errands. These errands are a lot more fun to do at this time of year. Do they (the bugs) know I am busy and they just want to annoy me? Also, on the subject of bugs: do flies annoy themselves with the noise they make? How can they not?



Discuss.

And have a happy Saturday.