So she’s perceived as cold and calculating, while he’s seen as just nasty, even cruel, pandering to the audience – in other words, a rich bully.
Suggests another bumper sticker:
Tag: Life
HOW MANY VARIETIES OF TOMATOES ARE YOU STARTING?
Each variety can be remarkably unique. If you’re a gardener, you’re planning a range, not just for taste, either, but to ripen as far across the season as you can. And then? It’s a lot like sampling good wine, one after another.
COLORFUL BENEFITS
The poems collected in my volume, There is no statuary in our garden except for the plastic spacemen occasionally surfacing, come together as a set of field notes of my experiences, especially, in reclaiming the city lot where we live. We have a small kitchen garden on one side of the house and a larger one, “the swamp,” on the other. The lessons never seem to end.
the garden looks great, so luxurious to have cut flowers indoors
a second sprig of laurel in my lair
against the deep velvet of Siberian iris
now we’re sinking to detail …a bucket of strawberries, to the office
For more on my poetry collection and others, click here.
TRIPLE PLAY
Any writer tackling a large work such as a novel or screenplay will need to consider the matter of structure. The easiest way out, of course, is to follow a conventional model.
In fiction that might mean 60,000 words, more or less, spread out over 20 to 24 chapters, typically in a straight chronological order, past tense. For the film, something that would come in a little under two hours. To that you’d add pacing, points of conflict, resolution, number of main characters, and so on.
Sometimes, though, you find that’s not the best way to organize your material.
For example, in its revisions, Promise emerged with three sections, each set in a different locale – Prairie Depot, the Ozarks, and finally the Katonkah Valley. Each one, as it turns out, can be viewed as a novella held together by the central couple, Erik and Jaya.
I didn’t intend it this way. The original version had five sections, for one thing, which I came to feel were simply too unwieldy. The cuts provided what I feel gives a better balance.
Let me also admit to a fondness for shorter novels. Novels, mind you, not simply novellas, no matter how much I enjoy them, as well. Maybe it’s a reflection of my typically crowded schedule.
Still, both short stories and novellas stand as kinds of orphans in today’s literary scene. They should be more popular than they are. An occasional solution, one I’ve enjoyed reading, runs a central character through a set of short stories to culminate in a volume of novel length. It’s a tricky strategy, though, and hard to pull off.
Maybe that’s one more reason I feel a special satisfaction with Promise.
Hope you do, too.
~*~
For your own copy, click here.
WHAT ABOUT THAT “BROAD CONSENSUS” IN THE CONSERVATIVE CAMP?
My introduction to the news site Politico came in being handed some of its articles for our newspaper to republish. The problem was in refitting them to our available space – they were way, way too long, and very difficult to distill. For the record, I love long, closely reasoned reports, even though I’ve also been an avid briefs fan for much of the daily news budget.
From the pieces our publisher had selected, I perceived an underlying leaning to the Republican establishment. Still, having such connections can allow access to unique insights and information. I’ll listen, as long as it’s grounded in fact.
More recently, I was surprised to learn that the organization includes not just the oft-quoted Politico.com website, either, but is more crucially built upon a Capitol Hill newspaper that is published anywhere from once a week to five times weekly, depending on the political insider news happening. (Oh, how I love that flexibility. Just imagine being free to say, “Let’s hold off another day.”)
As we sink into the big money at play in the ongoing Republican presidential primary season – and the congressional and statewide elections to follow – Politico’s investigations into the billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, become especially intriguing. I’d thought, as conservatives, they’d all be in the same camp.
Instead, Politico is ruthlessly on their trail. It makes for some fascinating – and frightening – reading.
For some of the latest, click here.
GOT THOSE SEEDLINGS GOING YET?
It’s potting-soil time and then the shelves with the grow lights.
We know we’re in good company, and it’s fun to swap tales. Any advice for the novices, for starters? Or what’s the worst advice you got along the way?
GUESS WHO WILL PAY
Bribery is corruption. And that’s what we have in big-money political donations. Yes, it’s for a campaign. But it’s no “donation.” They’ll want their money back, in spades. From the public purse.
At least Donald Trump is admitting as much. As for the others? Follow the money, if you can.
For some of the latest, click here.
HIDING OUT AND FLYING
Where does genius find safe haven?
How does it fly across the centuries?
Where does a Laundromat fit in the action?
Who’s serving your coffee this morning?
You’re new in town, aren’t you?
Maybe welcome?
~*~
For your own copy, click here.
ABSOLUTELY, THAT HIGH COURT DECISION WAS CORROSIVE
How can we have political equality when one voice can pay to drown out all others? Or buy off all the candidates?
The flood of campaign spending from the super-rich has already corrupted our democracy. At what point does it destroy it?
Conservatives like to quote Lord Acton, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Now it’s time to look in the mirror.
Repeal Citizens United.
One way or other.
For some of the latest, click here.
MAINTAINING A BALANCE?
Not just big government – big business, too.
And, for the record, the labor movement’s anything but big anymore.
So where’s the balance?
For some of the latest, click here.
Jnana's Red Barn 