Moby Dick for Breakfast

No, this isn't a recipe post.

I have gone all four decades plus of my life without reading Herman Melville's Moby Dick, a situation I find myself in a position to remedy. Of particular shame is the fact that my mother used to teach that book to high school students. So, instead of the abyss that is pre-5am cable television, I consume breakfast and the classic tale of obsession at once. And not in print, either: this will be my first e-book read.

The technicals: I'm reading it on a netbook with a stand-alone (and free) application called Calibre. I'm very pleased with it and the options for print size and general appearance of the page. For the work itself, I downloaded it from Project Gutenberg (also free) and I'm quite successfully resisting the urge to turn the netbook on its side to read it. Not necessary, and, in fact, clumsy. Reading it keyboard down is quite sufficient. I've even been known to haul it into waiting areas/rooms, since it's unnecessary to be connected to the Internet to use Calibre. The only problem? If your netbook/laptop isn't booted up, you'll have to wait for that. It kind of rules out the quick "pick up and read".

Why an e-book? The wave of the future, friends. My future, especially, as you will soon see.

At the moment, though, I'm about half-way through Moby Dick and I am surprised at how friendly and accommodating the narrator is for the age of the work. There is, of course, more archaic knowledge about whales and whaling than I can almost stand, but the sentence structure is so fluid and pretty that it "feels" in my mind as if it's being "spoken" in a classic boilerplate hand. Melville, it seems, could write just about anything and it would turn out pleasant.

Some words are more pleasant than others, however. A few of my favorite quotes:

• There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.
• ...There is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.
• ...It's against my principles to drink with the man I've diddled.
• ...Man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence.

I'm enjoying it immensely. Can't wait for tomorrow morning.

A Question:
Have you taken any forays into e-books? Did you like the format? What was it like?

Wordshopping: Guns at Obama's Town Hall Meetings

When an Arizona man was questioned by a reporter about why he was carrying a gun outside a Town Hall meeting where the President of the United States was speaking, his response was "It's time to water the tree of liberty."

I agree. Not with the act he is justifying, no, that's ridiculous. That's what happens when you don't think about what you're doing because you're only thinking about your opinion.

But I still agree with the words he spoke taken completely out of context, wordshopped, barely recognizable remarks from Thomas Jefferson used in support of a position without regard for the intentions of the speaker or the situation in which they were spoken. The notion that the tree of liberty is in distress? Oh, yes. It's dry. Very dry. Desiccated. A veritable Hawkeye Pierce martini of a tree.

I suspect that we would even agree on the cause of the tree's need of a long, cool drink: tyranny. Despite the hazard of examining the issue further, both of us feel that certain core rights are being taken away from us. But the divide between our opinions comes when we talk about which rights are in danger.

The speaker was making a reference to President Obama's "tyrannical" gun control measures "taking away" his right to own guns. I don't know that there actually is any legislation in the works along those lines, but when you're wordshopping, relevance to reality isn't really necessary. You only need the words that produce fear and/or anger and support for your position (see "death panel"). "Tyrannical"? A little old-school, but that works. It even looks creepy, which helps. "Tyrant?" Nah, not so much, but "tyrannical"? Not bad. Dinosaurian overtones. Chomp ya right up. "You. It's what's for dinner."

So, which rights do I think are in danger from tyranny? The right to free speech, of course. Let's wordshop the situation. A group of people who are within their constitutional rights to have guns in public ("armed protestors") is standing outside a venue ("barricaded") where unarmed people ("prospective victims") go to speak their minds ("the opposition") and to get answers to questions about an entirely different issue ("avoiding the real problem"). String together the wordshopped version and who would want to go to that? Not me. I would have made the "choice" to stay away and keep my "socialist" solutions to myself and stay "safe".

Isn't that fun? You have to be careful, though, because a good wordshopping shouldn't be examined too closely. It tends to lose its ability to motivate once people actually look at the issue and the original text in depth. So we won't, otherwise we "treehuggers" wouldn't be in "complete agreement" about the tree of liberty issue.

"Liberating", isn't it?

Comments Elsewhere: Notecards Solution

Left this comment on Creative Writing Corner, one of the blogs I follow, when asked What do you do when you're torn between creative possibilities and real-world responsibilities?

When I'm working on a real-world something and inspiration strikes, I make notes on a 3x5 index card. Too small? Nope. All I'm doing is making notes, not writing the thing. I include the specific reasons why the idea took me over in the first place. I spend no more than fifteen minutes and one index card to make my notes. Then I set it aside until a more opportune time. It's hard sometimes, but it beats having the rest of your responsibilities turn to mush while you're doing something else.

For an ongoing solution, I try to make sure to schedule both real-world and creative responsibilities into each workday. Sometimes both won't fit. When they do, though, it makes a huge difference. Balance is good.

Beginnings Being Hard

Well, here I am. And here you are. And I have a question: what do you want to read for fun?

My credentials: I've been writing since I was twelve years old. Along the way, I've won an award, gotten a degree, and dabbled pretty constantly in writing. I've written everything from poetry to novel-length manuscripts, audio plays to stage plays and most of what's in between. Dabbling. Fun.

As I now find myself with a disgraceful amount of time on my hands, I've decided to formalize the dabbling into a job. That's where you come in.

Does romance trip your trigger? How about stuff with triggers? Trigger the horse? Horses of a different color? Let me know. I'm not saying I'll write in all of the genres for the suggestions I get. It's hard enough to write adequately in one genre, let alone many. But I want to write what you want to read. Whatever I don't know, I'll learn.

Eventually, there will be stuff for sale and links for donations and all that. The good news is that it'll be freebies for a while. I'll be posting things here and there that I've written and also serializing a web novel soon. As I have post-able comments or opinions or writing tips, I'll put those on here, too. These will serve as samples of my work, so that when I do have something for sale, you'll want to pay for it. The genesis of this project, what I really want to do with it, is to write something you want to read. I want to start with that and earn your trust.

Really, isn't that the way it should be? You're the consumer; wouldn't you want to have a say in what the authors you follow should be writing? After all, you're the ones who are buying.

So, let me know what you want to read. I can't wait to get started.