Mark Douglas West

Hit the books

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God knows there's enough chatter in the world -- people full of sound and fury, signifying not very much, yelling at each other on the radio and television. Can't somebody just tell a story so we can have some fun? Just a little scary story with an honest-to-God villian, a bad guy to hiss, a hero to cheer? Somebody with a joke or two we can laugh at while the whole world seems determined to pile onto the hot rails to hell?

I've done my time in the punditry, the chattering classes, the nattering nabobs of negativity. Now's the time to write fiction where something happens, where the guy gets the girl, or the gold, or gets shoved out the airlock.

School's out. Time for recess.

Science fiction

I can remember being in second grade, which was in itself sheer torture. We had a teacher who went on weekend benders; Mondays she would sit at her desk, moaning; Thursdays and Fridays she would be planning the week's debaucheries with her compatriot in crime. The Spider Lady, we called her.

You might hope that such a woman would at least permit her little wards to read Damon Runyon, or James M. Cain, or Bill W. But no. It was Little House on the Prairie, all the way. Like I could care about those goody-goody Ingalls people. Those books desperately neeeded some vampires, and not the Edward Cullen sort, either.

And then one day I was watching the Flintstones -- the Flintstones! -- and a spaceship appeared and the aliens, for unknown reasons, started multiplying Fred. More and more Freds, hundreds, thousands, all mumbling 'Yabba, Dabba, Doo!' in a dull monotone.

This must have been how St. Teresa felt when Jesus showed up.

GT

We were supposed to write something about how the Ingalls family responded to adversity, and so I wrote about a plague of Fred Flinstones, boiling out from the ground like gophers, eating all the crops, tearing the animals limb from limb, their yabbas, dabbas and doos echoing hollowly throughout the barren landscape of Minnesota. I don't remember much, but it ended with Laura resorting to cannibalism, munching on someone's thigh while the last of the Freds scurried off into the distance.

I thought it was great.

That sentiment was not widely shared. Eventually the principal got involved, and I was told in about ten different ways not to have flesh-eating Fred Flintstones dismember the Ingalls family, ever again. And here I'd thought I'd done America a public service

And throughout a college career, I read plenty of boring stuff people tried to tell me was great -- "The Mill on the Floss?" Yikes! -- that could have been improved with the introduction of about a half-million zombis. James Joyce? Did he even read his stuff?

And that's why I love science fiction. If all else fails, send in the Freds.

Links

These are, no kidding, people whose stuff I've read and really liked, whose services I've used and appreciated, or who I have otherwise thought to be first-rate. I know this isn't like getting top-ranking on Google. But, on the other hand, there isn't enough money in the world to get me to say I think you're good. If you suck, I won't say you're good. Period. So here goes...

Dean Wesley Smith is the best writing teacher I ever had, and that includes all the courses up to and including a Ph.D. from the #1 ranked school of journalism in the country. And there is no bullshit with this guy. If your ego is fragile, or received wisdom matters to you, you should spend your money elsewhere.

Typewriters.com is a good place to get refurb typewriters if you're convinced computers steal your soul through your eyes while you write. If you'd rather use a pen, try John Mottishaw; his service is astonishing. Many of the other people in the pen world are slow as Christmas, and uncommunicative to boot.

Still, one must use computers. CoffeeCup makes a great HTML editor, and WordPerfect sucks less than the big word processor from near Seattle. Mike Shepherd, who writes those fun Kris Longknife books, uses WP, and that ought to be enough evidence for anybody.

If you write, you need books, and the best place in the world for that is Powells in Portland, which is beyond any bookstore except the Gibert Jeune and the Shakespeare & Co. in Paris.

The best place in Paris to sleep - but only if you're a destitute college kid.

Also in Paris is the world's best walk-in pen store -- Mora Stylo.

Best restaurant in the world? Try the restaurant Antico Francischiello da Peppino on the Amalfi coast, just south of Sorrento. World's best coffee-house? Cafe des Nattes, in Sidi Bou Said. Who says so? Chateaubriand, Flaubert, Lamartine, Gide, Colette, de Beauvoir, Foucault. No joke.

Perhaps you're a person who shaves. If so, check out West Coast Shaving. Quick service, and they carry the essentials -- Merkur slant razors, Feather blades, Tabac soap and aftershave, even Hoyt's for those special occasions.

What I know about art could be condensed into the phrase 'I know what I like.' And I like the paintings of Ray Cooper, who manages to somehow combine abstract and figurative in a way that makes sense to me. He was just awarded a big State Department grant, and I think he's part of the new course for art out of the stalemate it's been in since abstract expressionism.

I use CoffeeCup Software's HTML editor. It rocks.