The No. 7 Fireworks Embalming Pump Mail-Order Skeleton, And Others!

Find a nice comfy chair, boys and girls, because tonight's blog is one of the long ones.

Fortunately for you, most of the length is composed of photographs. As long-time readers of the blog know, I am fascinated by fireworks, and tend to get excessively camera-happy around the 4th of July.

This year was no different. Indeed, I had three cameras trained on the sky. Two were digital, one was film. The only film processing shop in Oxford is closed until they get parts in for their developer, so you will spared the film photos, at least.

And for a treat, I'm featuring photos taken by a real photographer on a real camera as well as my own amateur offerings. Karen Tuttle, who many suspect may be my wife, took her Canon Rebel SLR to the fireworks show, and got some truly amazing shots.

But before we get to the exploding things, let's take a brief detour into the past. Our vehicle will be a comic book I unearthed while searching for an old solenoid. The comic's cover is gone, so I don't know the name of the series or even the year, but I suspect it to be from around 1969, because that is the year I learned that Life is fundamentally hostile and that no good can come of it.

SKELETONS ARE A BOY'S BEST FRIEND

Direct your gaze onto the advertisement below. Try to see it through the eyes of a bookish six year old who loves all things strange and eerie.

Oh yeah. This is the stuff dreams are made of...

Life-sized monsters. Seven feet tall. SEVEN FEET TALL. That's tall, people. With glowing eyes! Reaching hands! Imagine the terror, indeed.

For a dollar.

Did I absolutely have to have a seven-foot-tall glowing skeleton of my very own?

Why yes. Yes I did.

So I shoved a buck thirty-five into an envelope and checked 'Boney the Skeleton' and the clock on my frantic little life came to an abrupt and screeching halt the instant that envelope hit the bottom of the mailbox.

I'd never wanted anything so bad in all my life. I went to sleep dreaming of the fun Boney and I would have! We'd stroll around town, scaring Hell out of everyone. We'd sit out on the porch and wave to horrified passers-by. We'd be the terrible talk of my tame little town, and if any kid came around with some lame Frankenstein's monster we'd knock his block off.

That is what I dreamed. Such thoughts consumed my every waking moment. And oh, did the moments drag. The ad didn't include the traditional admonition to allow six to eight weeks for delivery. How many hours did I spend, pondering the significance of that mysterious omission? Did the fine creators of Boney the Skeleton rush their sinister creations to the happy owners in a matter of mere days, instead? Was there, even now, a dark, unmarked truck speeding through the night toward Oxford, an eager Boney at the wheel?

Hours dragged. Days crept. Weeks crawled.

Moment by agonizing moment, I waited for my skeleton friend's arrival, forsaking all lesser concerns.

One Week. Two weeks. Three weeks, four. I lost my appetite. Lost interest in all things unrelated to the subtle click of clever bones.

Five weeks. Six weeks. Seven weeks, more. My eyes developed dark circles beneath the lids. I walked with a slump. Dragged my feet. How long, I wondered, so often the very words left paths in my brain. How long must I endure this never-ending sojourn through darkness?

Then, on rainy Tuesday afternoon in September, my mother met me at the door, smiling the smile of a relieved but patient parent.

I knew. I knew without words that Boney had arrived!

He was home, home at last, all seven glorious glowing feet of him! All 206 intricately connected phalanges and metacarpals and femurs and mandibles!

I was alone no more.

I was....complete.

I raced into the kitchen, sure Boney would be seated at the table, waiting to give me a cold but friendly embrace.

Instead, atop the tiny Formica eating table, sat an envelope.

An envelope. Thick, yes, and larger than the usual bills that came to us.

But only an envelope. No more for more than a single toe-bone. If that.

Mom must have recognized my confusion.

"It's from the right place," she said. "Open it! You've waited so long."

My mind raced. All right, I thought, though I'm sure I didn't use those words. Boney's delivery has been delayed. Or maybe they send a letter ahead before the actual skeleton arrives. Yes, I decided, as I tore into the paper. That must be it. It's a warning, so people won't be frightened.

Mom moved to my side.

So she was right there, for that awful moment when I removed the contents of the envelope, watched them unfold in my hand, and realized that Boney, my magnificent life-sized seven-foot-tall skeleton friend, Boney of the glowing eyes and the reaching hands, was nothing more than a cheap piece of plastic with a crude rendering of a skeleton painted upon it.

I do remember quite clearly thinking this:

Life-sized. They said it was life-sized. That means sized like life, with height and width and thickness.

They lied. The lying liars lied.

I dropped Boney on the kitchen floor and started bawling.

The weight of every moment of the long agonizing wait fell over me like a tidal wave. I had to say goodbye to my skeleton pal Boney forever, because there really wasn't any magic at all in the world, not even for a dollar plus thirty-five cents shipping, not even from storied New York.

Mom is gone now. Boney, who I kept, flaked away into bits of dust decades ago. I turned quickly past all the ads in my comic books, because after that I knew darned well Sea Monkeys didn't wear festive outfits and build little cities in your fish-bowl, and X-Ray Specs were just cheap plastic frames with concentric circles drawn on the lenses. No. Those were merely more lies. The world is what you see, nothing more. Jobs and bills and tired Dads and worried Moms and pets that sometimes never came home.

And all that came rushing back when I lifted that old comic book out of a stack of cast-offs and saw that ad again.

I still miss ya, Boney my skeleton pal.  Maybe one day.

Maybe.

This is life before the Internet, kids. Count your blessings.

THE SUPERIOR EMBALMING PUMP No. 7 SPECIAL

As I've mentioned before, my friend Matthew Graves is making another movie. Entitled The Embalming,
it's a macabre little film which will debut during the Oxford Film Festival next February.

I got to build a couple of the props for the movie. An embalming pump will be featured in several shots, as well as the sign on the door of the mortuary at which all the action takes place.

Building weird movie props turned out to be a lot of fun. The pump is actually just an old electrical box joined with a clear dog food tub, some hoses, a few lights and switches, and the contents of my cast-off plumbing parts drawer. But it pumps goo, and it looks appropriately creepy, if I do say so myself. But you be the judge!

There are some stains even Formula 49 won't touch.

If your initial reaction was 'yuck,' I've done my job. Now imagine the fluid tank filled with a bubbling concoction of syrup, old coffee, soup, and maybe just a dash of clam bits. Add bubbles, and presto! Instant gag reflex.

The stains are actually a mixture of mineral spirits and hardened mahogany wood stain, with some splashes of melted black crayon and floor dirt rubbed in. Not sure if you can read the label in this pic, but it claims the pump was made by Superior Embalming Pumps of Arkham, Massachusetts, as a shout-out to H.P. Lovecraft.

The guts of the device. I know, real guts would have been more impressive, but Karen says they stink up the place.

That's the pump that makes the whole rig work. My cordless drill powers it, so even if my lines spring a leak mid-shoot no one gets electrocuted.

And here's the sign!

I'm proud of that sign. I did the text, the fonts, the graphics, and had them printed on a clear vinyl decal (thanks Vistaprint!). The frame is wood, and aged to look a bit weathered, but better maintained than the pump.

Sorry for the reflection in the image!

But now, let's see some THINGS EXPLODE IN THE FREAKING SKY!

THINGS WHAT EXPLODE IN THE FREAKING SKY!

First, Karen's pics, because she has a good eye and a good camera. I have a good eye too, but I keep it in a jar in a safe deposit box.

That Canon Rebel never ceases to amaze me. Look at the detail it captured, without a hint of blur. Go on, blow it up -- incredible.

Same here, and here. The optics can capture so much so quickly.

Karen really needs her own webpage of pics. I think she said she shot 800 during that single fireworks show.  I'm just not that fast. Speaking of which....

AMATEUR HOUR

I took my cameras, too. I've got a Fujifilm S1000that I put on a tripod and set for long exposures. I've tried this before, with no success, but this time I captured a couple of images I liked.

Here's the first one:

Boom.

The smoke, the flash, the colors -- okay, it's not National Geographic worthy, but it's pretty cool.

Below is another one from the S1000:

Neat, huh? Not everything is in perfect focus, but I like it anyway.

I had friends on that Death Star!

My other camera is a much older 5 megapixel box I've had for years. But it takes great pics. Here are a few it captured.

Boom. Hope you enjoyed the fireworks, sorry about the skeleton, and wash your hands thoroughly after each use of the Superior Embalming Pump No. 7 Special featuring High Pressure Cavity Inject.

Shooting for the movie starts this week, so expect some pics from the set next weekend!

Until then, don't pin your hopes on mail-order skeletons, son, because they'll burn you every time...

Markhat is Grinning Tonight!

Fig. A: Inside the author's mind, which is almost always in a tree.

I have some very good news!

My fearless beta reader, the tireless and eagle-eyed Kellie, has read the first draft of the new Markhat novel.

Her verdict: It's a good book. The word 'loved' was used.

You may have heard my sigh of relief all the way from Mississippi.

I was terrified the series was going the way of so many others and getting stale. She said The Five Faces  avoids that entirely, which is exactly what I intended to avoid. She saw what I doing, even though I didn't tell her beforehand, and that makes me very happy indeed.

So. I'll make another thorough pass while reviewing her comments. If I feel another passes (or ten more) are required, I'll make them too. But hopefully The Five Faces will be off to the publisher for their consideration very soon.

I won't lie to you. Every time I finish a story or a book a mean little voice starts whispering from the cluttered corners in the back of my mind. "Oh, they'll all see what a fraud you are this time, they will," it says, in Gollum's voice, of course. "Know you for the poser and the no-talent hack you are, they will!"

"Why do you sound like Yoda?" I ask. That usually shuts it up for a few minutes, but by then the damage is done.

I'm not alone in harboring persistent doubts. Every writer I know endures that same little voice, from time to time.

I keel you! I keel your career!

After all, what we do is so very subjective. It is entirely possible -- heck, it's inevitable -- that one will find intelligent, educated, tasteful people who will love Book X, and persons with the very same qualities who will loathe Book X.

Which doesn't mean Book X is bad, necessarily. Or that it's good, for that matter. It simply proves the old adage 'you can't please everyone.'

There are plenty of good books which are despised by many. Any Harry Potter title, for instance. And plenty of bad books which are much beloved -- I'm looking at you, Fifty Shades of Grey, and by the way put some pants on.

I understand that. I know not everyone is going to love my books. And that's fine. I don't rail and shout and argue when I get bad reviews.

If the reviewer has a valid point, I try to remember it, and do things better the next time around.  TEACHING MOMENT, for my writing class students: Don't EVER argue with a reviewer, particularly online. Don't even respond, not even to say thanks, because (in my opinion) the review area is for readers, not writers.

Your baby, your book, is on its own. Let it stand on its own two metaphorical feet. Let it fight its own mighty battles of analogy.

You, the writer, should be so consumed by work on your next project you're barely aware of reviews anyway.

Isn't that right, writing class peeps?

But I digress. The little nattering whispers of negativity I'm talking about tonight come from inside.

Those, you must absolutely ignore.

Writing is a lot like walking a high wire, except of course most writing is not done with one's feet. Once you're out there on the line, you've got nothing to keep you going but your wits, your balance, and most of all your nerve. If you start focusing on the whispers that tell you your next step is your last, you are going to fall.

Sure, you're not on a wire stretched hundreds of feet in the air, and the worst thing that will happen physically is a dropped participle, but your act comes to a screeching halt in both instances.

I've learned to all but silence that nasty little voice while I'm working on a project. But once I'm done, here's how my mental processes usually proceed:

Stage One: Euphoria. The book is done. Done, and I love it. I am clearly a genius. A prodigy. Future generations will praise my name and sell Frank Tuttle bobbleheads in the Tuttle Writing Museum Gift Shoppe. Another novel complete. Parades, confetti, and the really expensive Ramen noodles with the added flavor packets all around!

Stage Two: Evaluation. Sure, the book is done, but is it any good? Frantic re-reads. Edits. Re-writes. Repeat of Step One, if the book is deemed worthy. Adoption of air of quiet confidence.

BOOK SUBMITTED HERE

Stage Three: Night of the Panics. OMG what was I thinking? Did I really send that manuscript off? Is it too late to recall the email CANIDESTROYTHEENTIREINTERNETTOPREVENTITSRECEPTION where are my PILLS where are my PILLS AAAAAAGH.

Stage Three usually only lasts about half an hour, but it always occurs at 3:33 AM and is accompanied by an inexplicable apparition of Isaac Asimov shaking his head at me in profound disappointment

Maybe I should stop picking my own mushrooms.

Anyway, I am now firmly in the midst of Stage Two with The Five Faces. I am bolstered by Kellie's appraisal of the book; while my cruel little voice freely questions my judgment, it cannot dismiss hers.

So ha ha, little voice. Maybe the Markhat series will someday jump the shark and lurch to an unseemly end, but that day is not today.

WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGERY AHEAD

Well, sort of.

I'm building a prop for a friend of mine, the talented and lovely Mr. Matthew Graves, who makes documentaries as well as movies. Matthew needs an embalming pump for use in his upcoming film The Embalming, so I'm whipping one up from bits of this and chunks of that.

Now, when you see the picture you'll probably think 'Yuck what a disgusting object. It's filthy. I hates it, I do, nasty Hobbitsess with their thieving little handses..."

And I'll point out that we're both far too familiar with Gollum-speak.

But yes, the pump is dirty. It's supposed to be. There's an art to making things look dirty, by the way. I use a thin film of Elmer's Glue, spread by hand, followed quickly by a liberal dumping of a just-filled dustpan on the housing. Blow off the big stuff, let the dust stick, and viola, instant dirt (the glue dries clear).

Soon, the pump will be bubbling with a disgusting fluid, which shall be a viscous mixture of water, clam chowder, black coffee, syrup, and tomato juice. The soggy grey bits of clam -- oh, they add so much delightful texture, as they whirl past in the clear tank...

I plan to use hand-pumps to make the mixture flow and bubble. Matthew said he could add a mechanical whir in post-production.

So, without further adieu, the prototype pump, still under construction:

Not UL Approved.

Finally, and on a wildly unrelated note, let me share with you a comment made by one of my writing class students, who yawned as I expounded on the merits of showing, not telling, and then explained herself thusly:

"Sorry, Mr. Tuttle, but I stop listening when you start monologuing."

So let that be a lesson to me. No more monologuing! Instead, I shall speak from the heart, and also carry a small but powerful taser, because no one likes absolute honesty.

That's all for this week. Take care, people, and remember -- if you can't get real congealed blood from a rotting corpse, syrup and black coffee will suffice.

Walk Like an Egyptian

First of all, gentle readers, allow me to introduce a new member of the Tuttle writing team.

Bear Kingsley, seated center, says hello.

Now, long-time fans already know Mr Bones (seated, skeleton right) and Mr. Skull (resting left). Please say hello to new bear Kingsley, who came to me all the way from the UK courtesy of my friend Sue Sadler.

Sue, please know that Kingsley is quite happy in his new home. Mr. Skull and Mr. Bones are thrilled to have someone new to talk to, and it turns out even British stuffed bears have remarkably melodious accents. So thanks! I need all the inspiration I can get!

Speaking of Egypt (yeah, we weren't, but clever transitions are the first to go when I've got a headache), there is disturbing news out about the place. No, I don't mean political unrest -- I mean the old gods awake from slumber, plagues of locusts, a hundred days of darkness kind of disturbing. 

I refer to this news item, which reports that a 4,000 year old Egyptian statue has been observed turning in circles inside its sealed glass case.

That's right, people. The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb is awake! It will not rest until it has VENGEANCE!

Or until they slip some rubber vibration dampers under the case. Or VENGEANCE! You've got to admit that's more dramatic than simple motion transfer. I suppose if one wanted one could combine the two, and assert that the angered statue is seeking vengeance by turning in slow circles inside its case when heavy traffic passes by, but that lacks a certain Old Testament flair.

Anyway, here's a link to the story of the moving statue, and since the source is The Sun, you know it's the unvarnished truth.... 

NEW FEATURE: NAME THAT HAIRY BUG!

Many claim Nature is filled with multitudinous wonders.

I say Nature is full of bugs.

Think I'm wrong? Turn over a rock. Look under a log. Leave a pristine fried egg sandwich out on a clean white plate for 30 seconds. I don't care if your plate rests on a table inside a sealed nuclear confinement chamber deep inside a super-secret Shadow Government Doomsday project, a fly will land on that sandwich even if it has to crawl through sixteen miles of hot glowing magma to get there.

Because that's what bugs do.

I was out with my camera earlier when I spied a white fuzzy crawling thing making its way up the trunk of the massive silver birch tree in the backyard. I watched the white fuzzy crawling thing for a moment, because MY LIFE IS TRULY THAT BORING, and maybe some bug sixth sense warned the caterpillar it was being observed because it ducked beneath a piece of bark.

I set my trusty Fuji for near-field and took the following shots:

Bloody paparazzi, can't crawl anywhere these days...

It seems Mr. White Hairy Bug has friends! They watched me watching them, waving their antenna in what I can only assume was a friendly greeting.

Despite my expert wilderness tracking skills (I once found an open Wendy's burger joint without using a GPS, in a light misting rain), I couldn't name these creepy-crawlies. So I went to the net, and found that we are viewing a cluster of common caterpillars called F. Horriblis Terriblis, which will spend 120 days in the caterpillar stage before entering a cocoon and ultimately emerging as:

Yeah, a can of Raid isn't going to work here...

On the upside of having a monster gestating in the backyard, that really should end our mole problem once and for all.

BEHOLD, THE SUPERMOON!

Nature isn't all about deadly bugs who seek to consume our tender, tasty flesh.

It's also filled with enormous celestial bodies careening towards our fair planet, intent on smashing it into molten, lifeless bits.

Even the Moon gets in on the act, now and then. You see, the Lunar orbit is, despite what you've been told, wildly variable. Sometimes the Moon comes within sixteen miles of the Earth's surface. Sometimes it veers off course and threatens to hurl us screaming into the sun. It has even been known to hit your eye like a big pizza pie (what astronomers call 'an amore').

That's all according to the History Channel, at least. Which should be re-named the 'Aliens Are Here to Kill Us All' Channel, and should be put next to 'Dim-Witted Rednecks With Too Many Regressive Genes' channel (formerly TLC) in the lineup.

The truth is that this weekend's so-called 'supermoon' was basically indistinguishable from your run-of-the-mill Joe Six-pack workaday moon. Yes, it was at its orbital near point to us, but we're talking a truly small measure of near.

But hey, it was a clear night, so I stepped outside with 35 billion biting, stinging, gnawing bugs and had a look.

I even took photos, as seen below, in the stunning image NASA DOESN'T WANT YOU TO SEE!

Bonus points to anyone who can correctly explain the significance of this genuine, un-retouched image! Heck I'll send a signed copy of THE BROKEN BELL to the first one to email me with the name of the pipe-smoking man in the image. 

Maybe the next supermoon, I'll remember to adjust for the Moon's inherent brightness, so I won't wind up with 62 pics of a featureless white disc. Nice going there, Frank!

MYSTERY SOLVED!

A few of you may recall mention of a local 'best of' contest here in my hometown of Oxford, last week.

Here's a link back to the blog entry concerning that.

But that's not the end of the story! It seems that a number of Oxonians, upon reading my name in the local paper as winning the Best Local Writer title, called and emailed the local paper's editor asking just who the heck this Frank Tuttle character is.

There was, it seems, suspicion that I am not even real.

Face it, there's something fishy about this Tuttle character...

That suspicion stems from an old episode of the TV show MASH. In that episode, Hawkeye and Trapper created a fictitious captain named Frank Tuttle and diverted all his pay to the local orphanage. 

All was well until the Army press caught wind of the selfless and heroic Captain Tuttle. Hawkeye and crew then faked the Captain's death to get out of the mess they created.

So naturally, forty years after that episode aired, a few of my fellow citizens decided I was nothing more than the long-planned realization of that TV trope.

The editor of the paper (The Oxford Eagle) called me and we had a good laugh verifying my existence. You can see the start of the story that ran last week here.

So that mystery, at least, is solved. I am me, and I have the paperwork to prove it. 

Unless I forged all that too....bwahahahahaha.

In writing news, well, I have plenty. The first draft of the new Markhat is out with my fearless beta-reader, who is even now probably trying to think of a gentle way to tell me I jumped the shark on Book Number Eight.

The new Meralda and Mug, which is entitled All the Turns of Light, is officially underway! So I beg just a little more patience from fans of that series. I promise it won't be long!

That's all for this week. Be sure to tune in next Sunday for more awe-inspiring pictures of things I find crawling around and inexcusably overexposed images of Earth's closet neighbor, the planet Krypton.

Not Bad For an Old Dude

Fig. 1: The author.

As you can see, I'm holding up quite well, despite just turning fifty. Could use a manicure, but Mrs. Chan just screams and runs when I enter the nail salon these days. Must be my new hairstyle.

A few weeks ago, the local paper (the venerable and always informative Oxford Eagle) ran a contest to name the 'best of' Oxford in various categories. One of the categories was writer.

Oxford is home to a number of renowned authors, both living and dead. William Faulkner lived, worked, and drank here, usually simultaneously. John Grisham was an Oxonian for a long time before moving away. Barry Hannah was a instructor on campus. Ace Adkins lives not far from me. These are big names with powerful followings, so I never expected to be mentioned.

But the votes were counted, and somehow I won the thing!

I'm not accustomed to seeing my name appear in a larger font than that of John Grisham. So, to all the locals who voted for me, THANK YOU! And I'd also like to point out that my status as a living author has been confirmed by the professional press. So put the mallets and the wooden stakes away. I'm just pale, people. And a lot of men wear capes nowadays. Fashions change.

The first edit of the new Markhat book continues. I hope to wrap it up this week. I'm eager to finish it and get started on the new Meralda and Mug book, All the Turns of Light.

ON THE TURNTABLE

But Frank you ask, in a stunning non sequitur of a transition, what music are you listening to right now?

Glad you asked, because I have a new album to rave about! See the cover below...

Yep, if you thought you recognized the name, you probably did -- Natalie Maines is/was the lead singer for the apparently dormant country group The Dixie Chicks.

I'm not a huge fan of country music. But some voices transcend genre, and Miss Maines is one of those rare talents.

Mother is a solo album, and of course my favorite track of the album (and I mean album as in vinyl, baby) is her version of Pink Floyd's legendary Mother.

But that's not to say the other songs are less worthy. Each is a tour de force. Maines can sing anything -- rock, folk, country, it doesn't matter. She sounds amazing just standing there silent. Yeah. That good.

The last time I was this happy with an album was when I first heard AA Bondy's brilliant When The Devil's Loose.

Look, I'm one of those hard-core nutjobs who believes vinyl recordings capture some magical essence of music that digital media simply misses. Mother is loaded with that special kind of musical magic. The songs soar. They march. They float effortlessly. They resound.

Gargoyle and Dragon approve!

The moods range from happy to melancholy to wistful to sad and back again. The quality of the recordings is top-notch. Listening to this record is akin to being hot and filthy and exhausted and being treated to a sudden cool rain. Or a sandwich and a beer. I'm trying to say it's a genuine journey, laid down with soulful sounds.

Do I recommend this album? Yes. Yes I do, in the strongest possible terms. If you have to crawl through swamps and bite snakes in half the whole way just so you can use the carcass to swat away giant leeches while fighting off mutant flaming crocodiles do so and get this album. It will be worth the effort, and anyway I for one could use the exercise.

I hope another album is in the works.

Natalie Maines, it's good to have you back.

I should get back to editing now. So all you crazy kids go listen to some good music while you read a good book, and I'll see you back here next Sunday!

A Post Five Decades in the Making

© packo michael | Dreamstime Stock Photos

I turn 50 tomorrow.

The rational part of me realizes any birthday is simply an arbitrary and entirely artificial milestone that has no relevance beyond the realm of cheesy birthday cards. My fiftieth birthday? It's just a number. I'll be no different tomorrow than I am today, on any meaningful level.

The irrational part of me (roughly 89% of my makeup) is running in panicked circles screaming bloody murder because I may no longer count myself among the young.

Sadly, I resemble both images.

Face it, man, when you start getting those AARP membership forms every couple of weeks, the needle on your YOUTHFUL TIME REMAINING METER just fell into the red, hit the zero, spat gears, and started smoking.

Too, I'm attracting a lot of interest from buzzards lately. I get the feeling they're eyeing me with regards to how much oregano they need to have handy.

© Odm | Dreamstime Stock Photos
So what do weigh? 190? 200? Just asking, no reason...

Of course there are upsides to growing older. Really, there are. I'll list them all below:

• Yep. Ought to be something written here.
• Here too.
• This is a lot harder than it looks.
• I give up.

Now, if anyone wants to give me a birthday present, go to Amazon and review one of my books if you haven't already. Especially Brown River Queen. That would be so awesome of you I'd start rocking faster in my squeaky old rocking chair.

Grim reminders of impending mortality aside, I do have one bit of news for Markhat fans. Drumroll and fireworks please:

Boom.

The first draft of the new Markhat novel, currently entitled THE FIVE FACES, is finished!

Finished. Done. Complete. Yes, it's only a first draft, but it is done.

The village mob seems pleased.

Now, if anyone believes that a completed first draft is subjected to a cursory spell-check and then shipped straight to the printer, I have bad news. Because that's not at all how the process works. 

This first draft, beloved though it is, is flawed. Deeply flawed. It's full of typos and poorly-chosen words and scenes that don't work and plot holes I can nearly shove my old-man electric mobility scooter through. 

My work on it is far from done.  

I'll start by doing a cold read, beginning to end, making notes as I go. Then I'll address plot holes and big issues. Once that's done, I start again, this time looking for scenes that don't work. Again, to check dialog. 

Then again with spelling and word choice.  

By this time, I'll be so sick of the book I'll need to pass it off to my fearless beta reader Kellie, who will wade into the fray and no doubt laugh at my authorial shortcomings.

Only after that will the completed manuscript get anywhere near an editor, because A) I'd rather publishing industry professionals not realize the true depth of my incompetence and B) See A.

But, even with all the work that goes into editing and revising, completing that first draft is all-important. Without the first draft, without all its warts and faults, there can never be a final book.

So, as I look back on a half-century of life, I can at least say I wrote a few books. I hope people have enjoyed them. 

Well, I'm off to start the edits. Here's to another fifty years of avoiding prosecution!

Cheers, all. Have a good week!

Found Money and Lost Plots

First of all, a yellow-green ladybug perched on a flower!

I attempted to interview the ladybug, but it turns out they aren't fans of social media. Who knew insects could even make that gesture?

If you read last week's blog, you may remember the bird I couldn't quite identify. Well, I got a good close look at her this week, and she's a mockingbird, complete with distinctive wing-stripes.

The first draft of the new Markhat book is nearing its end. We're talking the last ten thousand words or less, which means it's time for the big dust-up and the aftermath.

I'll certainly finish up this month, and get a good running start on the next book, which will be the sequel to All the Paths of Shadow. I plan to finish it within the year as well.

I'm eager to wrap up the last few scenes of The Five Faces (the new Markhat book) and do a re-read from start to finish. I have a nagging suspicion this book is going to go down as the darkest in the series thus far. I'm not sure why it wound up that way, but it certainly has. All necessary, of course, because this book deals with some intense subject matter -- Markhat is forced to relive some of his experiences as a dog handler during the War, for instance. He and his dog Petey explored Troll tunnels, hunting owl-eyed giants down deep in the dark. There's absolutely no humor to be found there.

An exploration of free will versus pre-ordained fate also crept into the plot. I won't even give you a hint as to where I land on that.

Oh, and here's a hint for my writing class -- don't EVER write yourself into a corner that requires you to solve the 'Grandfather Paradox.' Talk about a headache! But I believe it was worth it, because it really lent the ending quite a punch.

A start-to-finish cold read of a newly-written novel is necessary for a number of reasons. My primary mission on my first read is to seek out and resolve instances of what my friend Denise Vitola calls pocket amnesia.

Denise describes pocket amnesia as it relates to writers in her blog Thomas Talks to Me. Her entry on pocket amnesia describes the phenomena as akin to unexpectedly finding a twenty dollar bill in a jacket pocket. Yes, you left the twenty there, and yes, it was important (because to all the writers I know, a twenty dollar bill is something that happens most often to other people), and yes, you completely forgot about it as soon as you took off that jacket and stored it away for the winter.

Think of chapters as jackets, and the twenty as a plot element, and then wipe that smile off your face because the literary form of pocket amnesia isn't nearly as much fun as the money-finding kind.

It's like this. Say I state in Chapter Five that my hero, Markhat, is allergic to shellfish, but in Chapter Ten, I sit him down to a lobster dinner.

That's a simple example of pocket amnesia. That one is easily fixed; either omit the allergy reference altogether, or serve beef in Chapter Ten.

The danger, of course, lies in not catching the problem in the first place, and winding up looking careless and inattentive to your editor. In extreme instances, you might also find yourself facing an insurmountable plot conflict -- what if I established, in Book Two, that vampires can always tell when a human is lying, but the pivotal scene in my current book, Book Eight, relies entirely on all-too-human Markhat successfully lying to a vampire?

You can't go back and re-write the previous book. Gutting your current book is tantamount to applying sandpaper to your own tongue. But despite the work and the pain involved, the problem has to be fixed.

Not that I suspect I've done anything quite that disastrous. But the fear is always lurking, a constant companion on that perilous first reading of a first draft.

What if I've neglected to address some fatal plot flaw? What if this entire intricate plot is about to collapse, flying apart like a house of cards in a whirlwind?

And people wonder why we writers are such a morose, glaring bunch. It's because we're always just a few words, a single turn of phrase, between fame and infamy.

Okay, that's a bit melodramatic, especially in light of the irrefutable fact that most of us are so far from actual Fame we'd have to buy time on the Hubble Space Telescope just to get a distant glimpse.

It's either Fame or Fomalhaut, either way, I can't make out much detail...

But we are always at risk of losing that precious unspent twenty-dollar bill.

And for the modern writer, that's a sum we can ill afford to gamble.

Wish me luck this week! I will of course post a bonus IT IS FINISHED WOOHOO post as soon as I type the last word.

The Big Green Birds of Spring

All too often I get wrapped up in my own little world of private jets and international espionage and I forget about the small dramas playing out all around me.

That's easy to do when you're, say, trying to open your secondary chute after leaping from a flaming 747 twenty thousand feet over the French Alps (that was Tuesday afternoon, I believe), but it's true.

Consider, for instance, the birds. They're everywhere, now that summer is near. Chirping, flapping, pecking at the ground, relaying messages to former KGB cells -- in short, going about the business of being birds.

Most of what I know about birds involves pounds of body weight and hours spent basting in an oven at 375 degrees. I can usually distinguish between a bluebird and a mockingbird, or a hawk and an incoming Exocet missile, but that's about the extent of my birding skills.

So when I noticed the chirping of baby birds coming from an old birdhouse I stuck in the crook of a Bradford pear tree last year, I naturally assumed they were bluebirds.

Now, I'll go ahead and say what most men fear to whisper, which is that all infants of all species are ugly. Sorry, but they are. Shriveled and wrinkled and usually an odd shade of blue, babies just aren't pretty, and these are no exception.

Still, I didn't see a mother bird, or a father bird, or even a social worker bird from PCS.

So I grabbed my camera and, after quickly dispatching a pair of Ninja assassins hiding in what they failed to realize was a bed of poison ivy, I waited for mama bird to appear.

The following pics are the fruits of my patient labor.

The birdhouse. One bedroom, one bath, priced to move at 120K.

You can see the little birds poking their heads out. Below is a close-up:

We demand bugs!

Here's another shot:

Look, maybe we're cute from a distance.

I waited for a long time, before I saw Mama bird, perched in the next tree over, giving me the eye. If anyone knows what species she is, let me know! I suppose she is a bit blue, in a greyish-green sort of way, but frankly she doesn't look much like a bluebird. Of course I'm colorblind so I'm not the best judge of these things.

I managed to grab a single image of Mama actually feeding the babies, and then I decided I was making them all nervous, so I left. But here it is!

Notice how even in the image above she's looking at me and saying, in Bird, "You want I should peck your eyes out? YOU WANT DAT MONKEY-BOY?"

This next pic is just a green leaf. But it's the green you get only in spring, and only for a few weeks of spring. Soon the rains will stop and things will turn desert-dry and blast-furnace hot and this shade of green will go brittle, touched with brown, and dry.

I like this next image because it captured green, blue, and white, all in the same frame. It was shot looking up beneath a young oak tree.

Next up are many shades of green, taken over a blackberry patch:

Finally, and this is just for anyone who occasionally collects weird images to use as samples or bits for webpages, this shot of weathered cedar:

Birds and random leaves aside, I've been working hard to push the new Markhat novel to a close. And I'm getting there, via the most complicated ending I've ever written. I do like the way what started as Markhat's most mundane case (finding a little dog named Cornbread) turns into a mess that, as Stitches warns, could result in the unraveling of the entire universe.

But some days are like that, aren't they?  

I meant to have Mug's contribution to Sidekick Sunday ready for today, but alas, it was not to be. Instead, I'll leave you with a link to an MP3 sound file of me reading aloud 'The Knocking Man,' a scary short set in a cemetery where the dead are laid, but seldom rest....

The Knocking Man

Problematic Paranormal: Ghost VS Dynamite

Maybe you believe in ghosts. Maybe you don't.

I believe ghost hunting reality shows have truly jumped the shark.

I won't name the show, because the guys making it seemed like good guys doing what they believed was right, but when your ghost hunt culminates in blowing up a 'ghost trap' with very real dynamite it's time to re-examine your investigative protocols.

First of all, the ghost trap featured in the show. They constructed what has been called a 'devil's toybox,' which is simply a cube, about a foot on each face. The interior surfaces of the cube are lined with mirrors.

The premise is that the hapless ghost enters the cube only to find itself unable to exit, because the mirrors prevent this. How do mirrors prevent this?

Because, you know, they're mirrors. Reflective and, um, stuff. Partly magic. Magic, because apparently the ghost is forced to remain at the center of the cube and ponder its own reflection for all eternity, which is quite a trick considering their lack of optical surfaces or detectable reflection.

Curse you, moderately reflective surface!

Another problematic feature of the so-called ghost trap is this -- if a ghost passed freely through the mirror to get into the box, why can't it do the same to get out?

A mirror is nothing but a sheet of glass backed by a reflective substance. Silver was once commonly used, but the mirrors you get at Walmart use cheaper reflectors (probably aluminum), so there goes any kind of superstitious mumbo-jumbo about the mystical properties of silver. After all, you never see vampire hunters or the like cry 'Halt, vile spectre, for I wield the power of sacred aluminum!'

Side note: Telescope and other special optical instrument mirrors place the reflective surface on the front, to prevent refraction as light passes through the glass. They are called 'first surface' mirrors for this reason. That science moment brought to you by the letter I (for incredulous).

If you want to get really snippy with the whole ghost trap critique, wouldn't it be necessary for each and every interior seam to be perfectly reflective? Since that's impossible to achieve with flat mirrors cut and glued to plywood, wouldn't the 'ghost' (which hasn't been proven to exist anyway) simply slide out through any imperfect and therefore unreflective joining of walls?

Okay. Forget all that. I'll give them a pass -- let's say some mystical property of mirrored surfaces does act to block the movement of spirits. You've caught a ghost, huzzahs and Miller Lites all around.

That still doesn't explain what these ghost hunters did with the trap after confining their ghost.

They took the trap outdoors, put dynamite around it, and blew it up.

Eat C4, Casper.

Okay, that's a first for a TV ghost hunting show. Dynamite, things blowing up? Not the usual visuals.

But really?

Let's say the mirrored cube did somehow trap a disembodied spirit.

What possible good would blowing up the trap do?

Wouldn't the spirit simply be freed? One second it's pondering its lack of a reflection and wondering why it can traverse space and time but can't pass through an eighth of an inch of cheap mirror glass. Then some guy presses a button, and BOOM the mirrors are rapidly-expanding clouds of dust and the plywood cube is a million windborne splinters.

Wouldn't the ghost simply float away, possibly to return to its home and resume bedeviling the unfortunate homeowners?

Not according to some. Trap the ghost, detonate the trap, problem solved. Roll credits and previews for next week's show.

Sorry, I cannot complete the mental gyrations required for that to make sense. If a being is immaterial, neither mirrors nor dynamite can interact with it. If a being is NOT immaterial then it can be seen, photographed, and probably even heard screaming to be let out of the bloody box.

Now, I'll be the first to admit the mirrored ghost trap has a certain dramatic appeal. I plan to steal the concept and use it as soon as I can in a book or story, simply because A) it's cool and B) it has a certain intuitive logic about it. Mirrors creep people out, always have -- so naturally they would affect ghosts in some way as well. That's how our brains work. We're always making sense of out a nonsensical world.

But that doesn't make any of it real.

So I'm pretty much giving up on ghost hunting shows. Not ghost hunting, mind you -- just the TV depictions of it.

I do wonder what's next for that particular show. Will they go after pesky poltergeists with shoulder-launched missiles or hidden Claymore mines? Will viewers be treated to one-sided firefights between ghost hunters armed with shotguns and unseen ghosts returning fire with silenced ectoplasmic spook rifles?

If the network smells ratings, possibly so...

Work on the new Markhat book continues. Hey, I do have a favor to ask -- if you read the last Markhat book, BROWN RIVER QUEEN, and you liked it, how about giving me a quick review on Amazon? Reviews mean sales, and sales mean money, and money lets me buy dynamite to blow up ghosts. You do want to see ghosts blown up, right?

Right?

So please, a review, if you will! Thanks.

Speaking of reviews, check out this review of ALL THE PATHS OF SHADOW. Look, too often book reviews themselves aren't much fun to read, but this one is a hoot. And yes, Meralda does spend a lot of time in her laboratory doing math....

FANTASY REVIEW BARN

Finally, a record review. Record as in vinyl music LP, and review as in not a review because I can't play the album.

I didn't know I couldn't play the album at first. It's a standard-sized album, entitled Strange Cacti, by Angel Olsen.

I carefully put the record on my turntable and then scurried upstairs to get to work.

The first song started.

Now, I bought this album based on whim and caprice. I'd never heard of Miss Olsen, or her music. I have no idea what her style is. The earnest, bearded young man at the record store praised my choice, so I thought I'd stumbled on a hidden gem.

The sounds emanating from my homebuilt speakers were anything but precious, though. If ghosts in traps sang, this is what their songs would sound of -- discordant, growling, unintelligible.

Okay. I'm an open-minded dude. Pink Floyd has some weird intros too -- A Group of Small Furry Mammals in a Cave Grooving With A Pict, anyone?

So I kept listening.

It got worse. Growling, keening, muttering. The music, too, was strange -- slow, dragging, like a funeral procession gone inexplicably underwater.

Thor looked up at me, his head tilted in doggie confusion. He listened with me for a moment, and then he came to his feet and, for the first time in all my years with dogs, he began to howl at the record.

I went downstairs, sure I was experiencing some sort of turntable malfunction. I tried a different track with the same results.

Then I looked at the tiny print on the record label, which indicated the album might be a 45, rather than the usual 33 RPM record.

The jacket said nothing of the sort. Indeed, the jacket is so secretive it's hesitant to even reveal the album's name.

I switched to 45 RPM, and the sound quality improved, although the vocals do seem, to put it kindly, distant.

Anyway, I haven't made up my mind about Strange Cacti, since Thor won't let me play it without growling.

Okay, back to work for me! Have a good week, people. Be nice to strangers, kind to animals, and show cheese who is boss.

Weird News Roundup

Meet Nick and Nora, resident buzzards. They're now roosting in my backyard. I hope they weren't led here by anticipation of a good meal...

This image popped up as I snapping away trying to get a good shot of Nick and Nora in flight. Yes, it's blurred, and the exposure and shutter settings are all wrong -- but look at the tree trunk on the right side. Doesn't that look like a monstrous spectral eye, looking back at you?

It isn't, of course. That trunk belongs to the cherry tree not 30 feet from where I sit. It's not haunted, or hexed, or even spooky. It's just a bad photo, which produced a weird image.

Scouring Google Earth and the like for bizarre images is a hobby for many. Not for me, because I'm too lazy to sift through tens of thousands of entries hoping to find that one picture that is truly unusual, but thankfully not everyone is as slothful as I. Case in point -- the so-called 'Antarctic Nessie' video you can see for yourself below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkwwJ3QepiM&feature=youtu.be

I'm not saying it is a frozen sea creature. Without any indication of scale, it could be fifty feet long or five thousand; we just don't know. But it is interesting, in a 'hey look at that guy he's really too exhausted to blog today' way.

Next up, there's a sea serpent video you may or may not have seen. It's relatively clear, as these things go, and it honestly does look like the creature's head emerges ahead of the body. But see for yourself!

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/other-shows/videos/alaskan-monster-hunt-sea-monster-witness.htm

Here's some decent underwater video of a Swedish lake monster, with English translation, because without the translation most of us won't have any idea what the Swedish lake monster is saying (it's singing the old ABBA tune Waterloo,fiy).

http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/blobbogey-vide/

Sea monsters aside, this Bigfoot video answers the age-old question of whether Bigfoot prefers boots or sandals.  Watch the feet as they leave the water. Seriously, people, if you're going to fake a video TAKE OFF YOUR FREAKING GALOSHES.

http://www.cryptomundo.com/bigfoot-report/mount-beacon-bigfoot/

And now to UFOs. This story is out of Quincy, Massachusetts, and it's ongoing. An unidentified aircraft has been doing low-and-slow flyovers of the city for days now, and while the FAA admits it's there and they know it's there they won't say who is flying it or why. The FAA was quick to point out it wasn't a drone, though. Because having a spy plane filled with actual spies is a lot less scary than a robot drone?

Here's the full story:

http://www.realufos.net/

Ghosts? You bet! Here's a new ghost video that's caused some stir. Story with video...

http://metro.co.uk/2013/02/19/ghost-caught-on-cctv-at-haunted-community-centre-in-south-ruislip-3503584/

Scariest ghost images of 2013? Meh. Most seem to me to be explainable. Judge for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hfeRCEFchqo#!

Okay, this is a prank and it doesn't pretend to be real -- but it is funny. Done by a Brazilian TV show, about a little girl ghost in a malfunctioning elevator...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N5OhNplEd4

Finally, the best sketch from SNL's Kristin Wiig host gig last night. Mom's a Korean Water Ghost!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_ssWzqc62g

Have a good week, people!