Monthly Archives: May 2017

If You Give a Man a Cell Phone

Posted on by under Original writing

[With apologies to Laura Numeroff and her whimsical “If you give a <something> to a <something else>” series of children’s books.]

If you give a man a cell phone…

He’ll want a case, a screen protector, a charger, extra cables, SD cards, a bluetooth headset and external speaker, and a pile of other accessories.

With all those accessories, he’ll ask you to give him a man-purse to carry them all.

The man-purse will leaving him questioning his sexuality. In his insecurity, you’ll have to buy him a huge, 4-wheel drive pickup truck with a hemi and a deliberately crippled muffler.

He might find that a large, loud truck isn’t sufficient to compensate for his lack of masculinity, in which case he’ll put a gun rack in the back window of the truck.

If he’s going to have that gun rack, he’ll need a rifle to feel truly macho.

He’ll ask himself, “Why do I have rifle if I’m not going to use it?” and he’ll ask you to take him hunting.

You’re too smart to accompany him, so he’ll go alone to spite you.

When he goes hunting, chances are his rifle will misfire causing him to accidentally shoot himself in the foot.

Alone and bleeding profusely, he’ll crawl back to the truck and try to drive for help.

Loss of blood will cause him to go into shock so he’ll pass out and drive into a tree.

Hitting the tree will trigger the airbag, which will concuss him.

He’ll spend a comatose month in a hospital in a town where no one knows him.

By the time he recovers and returns to his old life, everyone will believe he was dead so he’ll discover…
he lost his job,
his apartment was sub-let,
and his girlfriend has moved in with his former best friend.

The stress of all that loss will drive him to drugs and alcohol. It won’t be pretty.

When you finally get him to admit his addictions, you’ll have to check him into a rehab in northern California.

He’ll fall in love with his nurse who thinks his man-purse is cool.

To support his new laid-back lifestyle, they’ll move to a ranch in rural Montana…

which won’t have cell coverage…

so he’ll need a new cell service…

You’ll have to give him a new cell phone.

[Now all I need is adorable illustrations and I’ll be ready for a copyright infringement suit.]

What a character!

Posted on by under Books

It’s not a revolutionary statement to say everyone is different. It’s made patently obvious simply by looking around. I believe one difference is how we approach our reading. Some concentrate on plot, some on prose, and others on message, with lots of other facets in between and plenty of combinations thereof.

I’m starting to think I’m a character guy. (It’s not just the fact that so many people have said I’m a character. That’s a coincidence. Maybe.) In every novel I read, I seem to be drawn first to its characters. As I wrote before, though I can’t explain why, I care deeply about what happens to these fictional people. It makes no sense, but there it is. If a book’s characters annoy me, there’s a better than even chance I won’t care for it, no matter how well regarded it might be.

It turns out that maybe that characteristic has carried over to my writing. More than one reader has commented on my protagonists, Fania in A Slippery Land and Calandra in A Song in the Storm. (Both are young women. Go figure.) I expect myself to be obsessed with my characters, but it’s a supreme compliment when I hear things like:

I can’t stop thinking about Fania.

Fania is a great role model for my daughter.

I agree, but I have a different perspective. Hopefully, Calandra will have a similar effect on readers.

It’s not just the leads, but even the minor characters get under my skin. That makes the writing and reading so much more fun. And since of necessity I read my own books many, many times in the revision and proofing processes, it’s good to know I’ll be spending time with people, er, characters I care about.

I hope you care as much as I do. But maybe you’re a plot person. Hopefully I’ll have you covered, too.