When Not in Rome, and Sick.

I may be the only person to have caught the flu in July. I caught it on the airplane flying home to Kauai. There was a woman on the plane across the aisle who spent most of the flight face-down on her service tray. I hate to leap to conclusions, but I'm thinking she might have been unwell. Two days later, so was I.

The major remaining issue is a cough, which unfortunately enjoys waking me up in the middle of the night. Three times I have ended up on the bathroom floor next to the toilet, just in case the coughing evolved into barfing.

The cough has also torn something in my rib cage, which makes the coughing pretty @*#$&( painful. Moral of our story? Get your flu shot. Every year. Especially if you're made of gristle.

Nothing writery has been going on, but great times for the readery stuff. I'm slowly trying to clean the house while ill, which works about as well as you might imagine. It does allow for much listening to audiobooks. Hope the neighbors enjoy my taste in fiction. And the fatigue of manual labor while ill means I get to knock off early and spend the remains of the day reading.

You see what I did there. In any event, here is my completed reads for the past month, including flu days:

Sebastian Barry - The Secret Scripture
Eli Gottlieb - Now You See Him
E.L. Doctorow - City of God
Thornton Wilder - Bridge of San Luis Rey
Jack Kerouac - On the Road (Original Scroll)
Barbara Kingsolver - The Poisonwood Bible
Carson McCullers - The Member of the Wedding

Currently Reading:

Katherine Anne Porter - Ship of Fools
Robert Penn Warren - All the King's Men

*cough*
*ow*

Another Review...

Oh, happy day...

Jul 02
REVIEW: IN THE FACE (LORELEI ARMSTRONG)
Published in Uncategorized by apexrev
In The Face
Lorelei Armstrong
ISBN: 9780979372056
Iota Publishing
Reviewed By Jennifer Walker

Official Apex Reviews Rating: (4 1/2 stars out of 5)

If you had the option to surgically enhance your child so he would grow up with beautiful, perfect features, would you do it? What if there were a risk the procedure could go wrong and your child could be hideously disfigured for life – would it be worth the risk? In the world that Lorelei Armstrong has created in In The Face, "shaping" has become a common practice conducted by legitimate surgeons and fly-by-night hacks alike. Hopeful, well-to-do parents take their children to "shapers" in the hopes of having a beautiful, perfect child who will one day make it big in the movies.

One of these children is superstar movie actor Evo Selig, the crowning glory of shaper Jai Varent. Evo is perfect from his hair to his toenails and irresistible to almost everyone who sees him – male and female alike. The only problem is, some of his fans become so obsessed that they create simulated movies to play out all of their fantasies with Evo, then sell them on the black market. This practice is a minor annoyance until a dead body shows up on Dr. Varent's patio – and the security footage shows it was Evo Selig who left it there.

Closer examination of the footage shows that it was yet another simulation, which must mean that someone is out to get Evo – or Dr. Varent…which is it, and why? Detectives Terry Cleinrath and Daniel MacEvoy are put on the case with the strictest orders to keep it quiet. The two must prove that Evo is innocent and find out who the real culprit is, which plunges them into the world of studio politics, illegal simulations, and obsessed fans.

Ms. Armstrong's vision is close enough to modern day that the reader can imagine it happening within the next hundred years, yet far enough off to be a fascinating look into another time. Although people still drive cars as we currently know them, computer technology has vastly evolved – in a very believable way. Films are altered by computer to change the time of day or weather, and computers operate on voice commands. Chat rooms have evolved to virtual reality experiences in which you can talk to other people avatar to avatar, and you might even meet the fabulous Evo Selig himself.

Ms. Armstrong spins an intriguing mystery with surprising detail of her future world. The descriptions of the shaping process are fascinating, and her attention to detail regarding the murder investigation and movie filming sequences are excellent. All in all, In the Face is a fascinating read for fans of mysteries with a futuristic twist.

http://www.authornation.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=REVIEW-In-The-Face-Lorelei-Armstrong-.html&Itemid=109

Writers Go to Conference.

I lived ten miles away from the Santa Barbara Writers Conference for ten years, and for ten years I did not go. I knew it was there. I knew it was one of the-- if not the-- best writers conferences in the world. And I knew I could not find the courage to go.

I was completely intimidated.

Surely writers conferences were for real writers, not for me. The SBWC had to be for those who were already published or who were marching relentlessly toward that august state.

I was a total idiot. I was also afraid.

Criticism sucks. Let me refine: receiving criticism sucks. Here's what I did: I did not expose myself to criticism until I knew I (and my writing) could survive it. Nothing terribly wrong with that, until you think of the time lost. Ten years. With a bit of good criticism, it might have taken me five years to cover the same ground.

What happened when I finally dragged my cowardly carcass to the SBWC? Well, I entered their 1,000 word contest with a vignette that began "Candy Sakaida was a good kid." That sentence, and those thousand words, now begin my novel.

Sigh.

These days, I'm better known for giving than for getting criticism at the SBWC, and I've discovered that that is difficult, too. It's tough to leave yourself out of it. It doesn't matter if I like what I'm hearing, in terms of genre or whatever. It's not about what I want; it's about what the writer wants. And that's difficult to remember. I'm as opinionated as the next writer.

Before every session, I write W.O.E. at the top of the page. That stands for without ego. A reminder that does not always work, but I try. Every year I try.

Cheers to those writers smart and brave enough to get to a good conference earlier in their careers.

Perhaps I Am Insane.

Because I argue with agents on their blogs. And yet, I do so cheerfully. The topic in this case? Well, an agent suggested that writers should learn from Dan Brown, because he has so many readers. Ten million readers, I am told, cannot be wrong.

Yes, I say, they can.

And here I fall into a philosophical ditch. Because Dan Brown knows what Danielle Steele and the rest know. Simple entertainment. And is that not valuable? Of course it is.

Good show! Valuable! People work hard. They drive a zillion billion miles on four-dollar gas. Their kids are texting what-have-you on iPhones that their mother/father bought them when they promised not to, their cars are eight seconds from breaking down, their neighbors have fallen into foreclosure and whatever, and they just want an easy read. Ten points for settling for a book and not a beer or twelve and a hundred points for choosing a book over whatever crap NBC is now offering in prime time.

But just because many people like it does not mean it is good. I'm sorry, but what Dan Brown is doing is appallingly obvious, and I don't want to do it.

What I told the agent was that ten million readers can certainly be wrong, in terms of what is good writing and what is not. Because they do not read enough to separate the good from the bad.

I drive a 1989 Porsche 928 S4. The 928 raced at Le Mans. There are not many of them in North America. Maybe a thousand in the model year. They are crazy expensive to run. Fifteen miles to the gallon? On high test? On a 23-gallon tank? A splitter that raises the cost of an oil change to over a hundred bucks? Ignition wires that run $75 each and there are eight of them? A car with tires that run $850 minimum and cannot be rotated?

This is a magnificent car. The sound it makes coming off the fire is brobdignag! A deep rumble only elephants can hear. A sound that will make Boxster drivers weep.

If anyone said that the engineers who built the 928 should have learned from the designers of the Toyota Camry because it sold more units, I would punch them in the face.

The Camry exists for people who care nothing about cars; they just want them to start every time. And that's fine. They have places to go and other priorities. Groovy. I can dig it. But I am out of my mind. I want a fantastic car. I want a car that makes me feel I could turn down and drive at speed through the center of the Earth. A car that could grow giant demon wings and fly. A car made of male that could not possibly bear a female name. A weapon. I am willing to take the chance that it will break down once in a while and leave me on the side of Wilshire Boulevard on a Friday night.

I want a car that can go 170. I want a car that can make other drivers cry. That's me. I seek the epic.

Same with writing. I want to write like Doris Lessing or Cormac McCarthy or Louise Erdrich or Steven Hall. Want to tell them to learn from Dan Brown? No. I believe William Burroughs when he said "If I really knew how to write, I would write something, and someone would read it, and it would kill them."

Yeah, like that.

Random Post Upcoming...

Just back from the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. Comments to follow in days to come...

More Reviews!

“Lorelei Armstrong writes with a flinty edge that sends sparks flying on every page. This is a bullet-train of a thriller filled with compelling characters and crackling dialogue. Hang on, because there are a lot of twists and curves.”

- NewYork Times and Los Angeles Time best-selling author, Raymond Obstfeld, Anatomy Lesson, On The Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance

“In the Face offers a creepy look at star-struck fascination in this innovative murder masterpiece. Gritty, psychological, timeless—Armstrong gives Hollywood a new look in her debut novel.”

-Pamela Guerrieri, editor and literary judge

Book Expo America.

Aloha, Amazon! Thank you to my friend Muroku, who told me I could syndicate this blog over there. Look! I did it!

I spent Saturday at the Book Expo America. I was invited by my publisher, his wife (and business partner), and the company's publicist. What a seminar in publishing that show was. First, it was huge. Both halls of the Los Angeles Convention Center. I've been there before for the L.A. Auto Show and a screenwriting conference. Neither was so large as the BEA, neither in the number of companies present nor the size of the crowd. And the BEA is not open to the public (unless they don't mind the $40 price of admission). This is a trade show. This is the business.

There were thousands of people there. Not many writers; mostly people working for publishers, printers, distributors, etc.. I found it absolutely invaluable. And being there with my publisher meant that I got to listen in on the business they were doing and learn a bit more about what a huge task it is to publish a book. Iota Publishing is taking a big, big chance on me and my book.

I now know my book will be printed in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and warehoused in Chicago, Illinois. I found the book on page twelve of the distributor's Fall Small Press catalog. And I met my book! A galley copy sitting on the shelf in the IPBA display. My book.

And then Iota's publicist handed me a galley copy. My book in my hands. I cannot tell you how strange it is to open a new book and know all the words. I hadn't thought about it before. It's like an extreme form of déjà vu. I carried that book all day, and drove home with it on my lap. It's sitting here on the back of the sofa.

I'm not crazy about Los Angeles. It's a hard place. It's big, it's violent, it's unpredictable, it's immobile, it's waiting to be wrecked again. But there in the heart of L.A., in the giant convention center, I've had two of the happiest moments of my life. I won a large screenwriting contest there in 2004, and I met my book for the first time on Saturday.

Thanks to Iota for taking this chance. I know how much you have at risk. And thanks to that big crowded building. During the week you stand in for airports for film crews. Next weekend you will host an erotica convention. But twice you have been my own personal Happiest Place on Earth.