Stephen King scary funny

Writers Write has a story and the video of my buddy Steve with Craig Ferguson.

Craig Ferguson recently conducted a funny interview with Stephen King on his late night talk show on CBS. King's most recent book is The Wind Through the Keyhole. Stephen King says that in most print interviews he inevitably ends up being asked what he was like as a child that made him filled with so many horrific and wild ideas.

King then talked about an idea for a story he never finished called "The Ladies Room," which he says is the "one place Superman can't go." King says that in the story men's wives keep going into the restroom and never come out. He says he could never figure out what was going on in there and so he couldn't finish the story.

Ferguson said, "I feel like you got me all revved up and then left."

MN authors take a dip in e-world

The Star-Tribune has a good story about some Twin Cities authors coming over to the e-publishing world. It's wild, wild world out there ...

Landvik and other Minnesota writers are following a trend that began with a few blockbuster authors -- Stephen King has dabbled in this, releasing short stories as Kindle Singles while continuing to publish the traditional way. Barry Eisler has embraced it, turning down a $500,000 advance from his publisher in order to do everything himself -- and keep all the profits. 

"It's a good time to be an author," said Jim Milliot, co-editorial director of Publishers Weekly, an industry trade journal. "You do have a lot of choices. If you think your publisher is screwing you, you can just do it yourself."

Kino rides along on vacation

My son and I, and dog, recently spent a few days camping, hiking and fishing in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming and the Absaroka-Beartooth Mountains in Montana. I am working to convince my son that other manly pursuits, besides hunting, fishing and football, can include reading. I told him girls appreciate a well-read man. (I don't know that or anything else about women but I'm grasping for motivational straws to get him to catch the reading bug.)

Here Luke is on the drive home Saturday, absorbing "The Pearl." I like the fact that a 14-year-old boy is reading John Steinbeck. I like it a lot. It's not due to me though. It's summer reading required by the school. Whatever works!

And, by the way, we had a fabulous get-away. Kino could only wish to have had such a good time.

Some thinkin' for the weekend, sorry

The Evolution of a Creationist appeared recently in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. I would think both sides of the argument would find it interesting, but it makes me wonder too if people have open enough minds to ever reconsider their opinion on this.

Either way, I point it out to you anyway. Here's a snippet:

The mathematical odds of forming, by chance, a single protein molecule from its component parts can be shown to be so unlikely that it could not have happened anywhere in the known universe in 30 billion years. Much less could it be combined with the hundreds of other components to form the simplest possible living cell. 

Similarity of form does not prove common ancestry. It can also mean common design. (Young Earth creationists believe that the original Genesis kinds were intrinsically capable of great diversification, something we have seen with the breeds of dogs -- who remain dogs, nonetheless.) And fundamentally, fossils require rapid burial. Closed clams, seen all over the world, were covered before they could open in death. 

As to the age of the Earth, this seems to be the most formidable barrier to accepting biblical creation and requires more technical knowledge. Let me cite a few examples that point out the weakness of the arguments for old age and the increasing scientific respectability of a young earth view.

Gore Vidal's dad, a SD native, more interesting

Author Gore Vidal died yesterday. His father, Eugene, who grew up in Madison, SD, is more interesting to me.

Eugene Vidal is in the South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame. Eugene was in the 1920 and 1924 Olympics, participating in the decathlon. He had been a stud athlete at USD. According to Wikipedia, he was a Coyote from 1913 to 1916, Vidal was a football, basketball, baseball and track letterman. He was captain of the University's 1915 football and 1916 basketball teams, leading the basketball team in scoring in 1915 and 1916, thereby assisting the University in winning an Intercollegiate Conference Title during his participation.

His bio doesn't peak with his athletic accomplishments. Vidal taught aeronautics at West Point and was one of the first Army Air Corps pilots.

And maybe his biggest claim to fame ... it's alleged he had a romantic relationship with Amelia Earhart.

How cool is all that!? Gore had some big shoes to fill. Jonah Goldberg, at least, doesn't seem to think he did that great a job of filling them.

** Adding this link to today's Madison Daily Leader story on Eugene Vidal.

Will the e-book bubble burst?

This is a pretty devastating analysis of the state of epublishing and social networking for authors. Can’t say I disagree with much of it. Sure, I have a Facebook account, Twitter account and my own blog, but I’m not under the impression that they are the way to success. And, man, if I spent 80 percent of my time on social networking, I’d be a basket case (whatever that is).

My philosophy is to just write, and keep writing, and try to avoid run-on sentences, and overuse of commas, and stuff, like, that. Someday, lightning might strike or maybe not. But I'll have written a lot. As Mr. Morrison says ...

In the end it's all about stats: the hidden ones and the real ones. If you're writing and trying to self-sell and net-promote, do your own stats. Calculate your investment of time and money in writing versus social media. Do you want to spend 80% of 80% of your time Facebooking about cats in the hope that you'll make a 2.12% increase in sales on a book you had to write in 18 days? Do you want to spend 80% of your time creating unpaid market propaganda for the social media industry?

Or would you rather step away from the hype altogether and spend as much time as you can being a 100% writer?

Link-O-Rama

Okay, the kid's baseball season is done, my daughters' college registration is in place, my latest writing project is set to be shipped off to my editing posse. So ... let's do some bloggin'!

SD stuff

** Eighty years in the writing, Laura Ingalls Wilder autobiography finally to see publication.

** How's this happen? Rural Redfield, SD, club grows to rare, 10-hole golf course

** Sounds like a party! About 500-600 members of the Hells Angels will roar into Spearfish July 25 for their annual USA Run.

** Angling for that big fish: For woman who caught state-record walleye a little luck helps. 


** Unique KMAX helicopter helps in new construction at Terry Peak ski area. 


** This week marks the 40th anniversary of Mitchell, SD, native George McGovern's Democratic presidential nomination.  

** Scientists with the Long Baseline Neutrino Experiment are in the early stages of making plans to build their multi-million dollar experiment in Kirk Canyon.

Beyond SD booky stuff

** Really? Maybe if he called it a Book Club, this dude would be safe from The Man keeping him down.

** Hey nerds and engineers (but I repeat myself), check out man-made calamities that changed the world, and not always for the worse. 


** This headline just grabbed me. Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History by Florence Williams – review. Zoe Williams on why everything you thought you knew about breasts is wrong.

Miscellania that interests me and would you too if you were cool

** I’m a big fan of our military folks, do a lot of work with them and admire their high quality. My favorite bumper sticker is: God Bless Our Troops, Especially Our Snipers. But this IDF soldier takes high quality and commitment to a new level.

** I’m a runner so enjoyed this story, and they're not talking motorcycles: When the Bad Guys Ride Bikes 

Diggin' Wall Drug

I had the opportunity to go 4,850 feet underground this week at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, SD. It is the former Homestake gold mine turned high-tech super-nerd science lab. While underground I noticed this sign - one of the hundreds scattered throughout the world. Wall Drug!

'Joshua' makes it to Alcester

Here's Robin reading "Joshua's Ladder" to Scooter on their deck by Alcester, SD. She just started it and "loves it" so far, while Scooter had "no comment."

'Joshua' at a Houston Astros game

Angela here actually followed through on her promise (unlike some I won't mention, yet) who received a free copy of Joshua's Ladder with the understanding they would take a picture of themselves reading it somewhere interesting.

Angela took Joshua to a Houston Astros game. He said he enjoyed it very much. Thank you! It reminded him of a baseball reflection of his own from Joshua's Ladder. Here's an excerpt:

            “I’m bettin’ my dad would’ve expected more out of me.”
           “Dads always expect more out of their boys. Besides the
game isn’t over yet, Joshua.”
           “Well it’s been a long halftime.”
           “It’s your ball, son. You have to decide when to start
playing again.”
           The sports analogies were unavoidable in this man-cave.
            “Why isn’t what I’m doing good enough?”
           “It’s all fine, Joshua. Nobody would blame you for holing
up in the woods for the rest of your life, minding your own business,
harming no one. But is that good enough for you?”
           “I don’t know, Toby. That’s the shitty part. I don’t know.”
           “Do you remember your game against Pierre? Do you?”
           “Of course I do. Nobody forgets their state championship,
especially around here.”
           “Soyou remember Big John hitting that line drive to
center. No idiot in his rightmind would’ve tried to score from second
on a ball hit that hard. But youtried it anyway.”
           “Oncean idiot, always an idiot.”
           “You were ten feet from the catcher and he had taken the
throw and was waiting there for you. Score tied. Everybody and their
momma was hollering: ‘Slide boy! Slide!” But you didn’t slide. You
dumb, hard-headed, son-of-a-gun didn’t slide. You lowered your skinny
shoulder, blasted off your feet and knocked that doughboy six feet in
the air. The ball squirted out of his mitt like a newborn. You scored.
We won.”
           “That’s a pretty good play-by-play there Harry Caray.”
           “So what happened to that hard-headed son-of-a-gun who used
to knock people on their butts?”
           “You forget. I got the wind knocked out of me.”
           “Forever?”
           “Appears so.”
           “Not to me it don’t. A person don’t just lose that. Once
you have it, it can always be found again.”
           “How?”
           “Don’t ask me. I’m just a dumb bartender.”

The Juicy details

Seems a couple weeks ago I was going to post something "juicy." That was a clever play on words that actually makes no sense when you don't know jack about "juicy."

Juicy is the nickname of the main character in my current project/book/novel, whatever. Juicy is homeless. He lives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and is the care-taker/ring-leader/advocate of the city's homeless population.

As you will read, if I ever get done rewriting the rewrites and actually publish the dang thing, Juicy has more character and virtue than most of the city leaders combined. (Insert legal claim here: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and strictly a figment of the author's immense imagination.)

 If you like sex, drugs and rock-n-roll, you'll probably like this book. And booze, plenty of booze in it. Remember: It's just my imagination that comes up with these things. I don't know any people who've actually had sex, did drugs, or played in rock bands. It's all my imagination. 

The book is no deep-thinker. You won't learn nuthin' from it. There are no clever metaphorical nuances. It will never appear beside Shakespeare on the library shelf. But it's a fun ride. It will make you smile, and, hey, who doesn't need that now-a-days? And, guaranteed, you will never look at those pink flamingos in the neighbor's yard the same way again.

 I should probably go work on it now. But, look! Breakfast Club is on HBO! Maybe tomorrow.

Good news, bad news

First the bad news. Obviously, I haven't been very good about updating the blog the last couple weeks. Pathetic, actually. 

The good news though: That means I've been doing something else. Productive, actually.

 I've been writing in fits and spurts the past year on my next book and when I get on one of those spurts I don't write much else. Last week, I finished the first draft. It's done, start to finish. But it's still rough. There are portions where I've typed "insert details here." So now, I'm rewriting, proofreading and inserting "details here."

Once the rough draft is sanded down a little, I will send it out to my posse for their thoughts and editing. I think they are all out on parole now, so they should have better access to sharp objects like pens. Last time I cringed having to ask Agent #3: "How did you sneek that highlighter past the guards?"

This rag-tag group of advisors is my secret weapon. They are my Navy Seals and I'm the Def Sec. Their qualifications, besides all being able to consume mass quantities of alcohol, include being able to read the written word, sometimes also in mass quantities, and the ability to tell me to go jump in a lake (or words to that effect) and oftentimes taking great glee in pointing out my errors, omissions and idiocy.

So I just wanted to give you a heads up that I'm still on the green side of the sod. Later this week I'll tell you a little more about my next "juicy" novel.

Was doing some reading the other night about 19th century Brits, Lord Macaulay and Southey, and some interesting criticisms the former had of the latter:

"He does not seem to know what an argument is. He never uses arguments himself. He never troubles himself to answer the arguments of his opponents. It has never occurred to him, that a man ought to be able to give some better account of the way in which he has arrived at his opinions than merely that it is his will and pleasure to hold them. It has never occurred to him that there is a difference between assertion and demonstration, that a rumor does not always prove a fact, that a single fact, when proved, is hardly foundation enough for a theory, that two contradictory propositions cannot be undeniable truths, that to beg the question is not the way to settle it, or that when an objection is raised, it ought to be met with something more convincing than ‘scoundrel’ and ‘blockhead.’"

Those old boys sure knew how to call each other jerks without calling each other jerks.

The Quest

I always find it interesting what other people are reading. Seems the paparazzi, when not busy following me, caught Bill Gates reading “The Quest” during his daughter’s equestrian competition. Daniel Yergin’s book is about the changing role of global energy on the economy.

For what it's worth, I've taken a hiatus into the land of non-fiction as well and am currently reading The Assassins' Gate by George Packer.

It ... describes the place of the war in American life: the ideological battles in Washington that led to chaos in Iraq, the ordeal of a fallen soldier 's family, and the political culture of a country too bitterly polarized to realize such a vast and morally complex undertaking. George Packer's best-selling first-person narrative combines the scope of an epic history with the depth and intimacy of a novel, creating a masterful account of America's most controversial foreign venture since Vietnam.

SHOCKING: Long, boring novels are bad for book industry

Whodathunk it? Oprah was bad for book sales. And she didn’t do a lot for Rosie O’Donnell either. And don’t mention the 30 OWN folks out of work:

But despite her success as a taste-maker, Oprah apparently could not get America to pick up more books. According to a recent study, Oprah's endorsements may have actually hurt fiction sales overall by encouraging her fans to read novels that were longer and more complicated than their usual, less literary fare.

All of this also seems to say something about the incentives for the book industry as a whole. That is, it's probably not in publishers' interests to turn difficult, long novels into best sellers. The easier a book is to get through, and the quicker a reader can make it to the next title, the better it is for their bottom line.

Fortunately, my middle name is “Quick and Easy.”

Pertinear on the money ...

Seth Tupper at the Mitchell Daily Republic has a pretty accurate column on how to speak South Dakotan. I'm guilty and proud of using most of them including:

Hunnert: In many areas west of The River (see entry below) and even in some areas near The River, this is the correct pronunciation of “hundred.” Example: There’s a hunnert head of cattle down by the crick.

Pertinear (pronounced “pert-ih-near”): A combination of pretty and near, used to indicate the close proximity of one thing to another or the near completion of a task. Question: Are we there yet? Answer: Pertinear.

Thinking of those 'Under the Overpass'

Attended an event Saturday night and heard author Mike Yankoski speak about homelessness. Having attended a plethora of rubber chicken dinners in my day (though this food was excellent - bison and pheasant, mmm), it takes a pretty good speech to keep my attention; and it takes a really good speech to keep my attention for longer than 30 minutes. This guy did it.

I haven't read his book Under the Overpass yet, but I intend to. If the book is half as good as his speech was, it'll be worth it. He made me think, and that can be a hard thing to do.

From Publishers Weekly:

Yankoski's parents were right: It was crazy to live as a homeless person in six American cities for five months; fortunately, this crazy idea makes for quite a story. Yankoski, a Christian college student, challenges the reader to learn about faith, identify with the poor and find "more forgotten, ruined, beautiful people than we ever imagined existed, and more reason to hope in their redemption." The journey begins at a Denver rescue mission and ends on a California beach. Along the way, Yankoski and a friend learn the perils of poor hygiene and the secrets of panhandling. They meet unfortunates like Andrew, who squanders his musical talent to feed his drug habit, and hustlers like Jake, who gives the pair tips about how to look and sound more pitiful to get more money. Yankoski tends to moralize: "If we respond to others based on their outward appearance, haven't we entirely missed the point of the Gospel?" Still, the book features fine writing ("I awoke, rolled over and saw beads of sweat already forming on my arms. Saturday, early morning, Phoenix") and vivid stories, authentically revealing an underworld of need.

Nevermore ...

I've always been kind of a fan of Ed, and it appears John Cusack is also:

"He was a great romantic and he had a great sense of humor, and he was one of the great self-destructive lunatic writers of all time. He was the first rock star writer, first professional writer - he was quite a character. He was witty, sarcastic and very combative with other writers, he was a literary critic and always itching for a fight...He was a really lunatic kind of person - he would insult other writers and challenge them to duels. He was way out there."

Here's the story on the new movie about Edgar Allan Poe.

Where it's good to be a Golddigger ...

Attended a youth basketball tournament in Lead, SD, today. Lead is about 3 miles from Deadwood and both school districts merged years back to form the Lead-Deadwood Schools. As you will note in the photos below, there's a lot of history there. Lead is famous for its gold and Deadwood for its gambling. I thoroughly enjoy both towns.



In the Lead trophy case sits this basketball from their lone hoops championship back in 1918.






Here's the gym banner that shows the founding of each school: 1895 and 1896.





Here's a shot of the "old" gym in the Lead High School. It's a Hoosiers throwback gym. Note the cement bleachers and the running track around the top of the gym.

HaugEnmail ...

a Joshua's Ladder review:

"I just finished it on my trip to Florida last weekend. It was well written and I really enjoyed reading it - I laughed, cried, smiled, felt deep emotion for the characters and couldn't wait for the next chapter. The flow of the book, kept me wondering what was next - it was a fast read because I enjoyed it so much. It was simply marvelous. Thank you!"