AVATARIC GRUMBULATIONS

I know some disgruntled sci fi addicts have been arguing Avatar is too 

much like Dances With Wolves (and a few other pics).  In my opinion that's 

an unfair comment in this age of genre driven entertainment.  I didn't 

hear any outcry that The Hurt Locker was too like The War Lover or The 

English Patient or Platoon.  

Was Avatar a perfect picture?  No, of course not.  Every picture fights

production realities from the moment it is green lighted.  But you have

to think it broke new ground in filmic directions as did Kubrick with 2001.

Was Avatar some revolutionary new story concept?  No, but I don't know 

how you can say that about any story since the Greek theater.  

As those who are grumbling about  a 'waste of millions upon millions of 

dollars', what's that all about?  Wasted on what?  The production of 

Avatar certainly employed a lot of people in this business for a long period

of time, and it was financially successful and so the filmmakers

live another day to make more pictures in the uncertain and fickle 

entertainment industry.

Go Nuts!

WRITERS QUIETLY OR SECRETLY HIRING OTHER WRITERS TO WRITE FOR THEM

An author who hires ghosts to do the actual writing under his name makes a statement about himself, his work, the publishing industry and readers who accept the practice.

James Patterson (who reportedly assembles novels in this fashion) isn't Hemingway any more than genre writing is great literature. Still, pure genre writing has different standards than classic literature and arguably a different purpose.  Higher?  Lower?  Depends on your point of view.  Is the man who paints a house any less noble than the man who paints an oil of a pot of swirling sunflowers?  Some might say so, seeing the sunflowers are worth millions while the painted house is, well, sitting there fading in the sun.  You pick; it's your POV.

Publishing, regardless of what you've heard, is a business, and house painters generally make lots more than struggling novelists.  So, again, who is more noble?  And since publishing is a business, just how does nobility apply in the first place?

Patterson is popular and successful, so whether or not he writes by assembly line, paint by numbers or connect the dots, I don't read him, so I don't care how he manufactures his novels.  He's found his way just like Henry Ford; it works for him, it works for his publishers, it works for his readers.  As a scribbler myself, doing it his way would make me uneasy, but that doesn't tell you much because I don't collaborate well.  I find it too crowded for more than one at the keyboard.  You too, maybe?  My partner barely taps a sentence in and I'm struggling to get past his or her elbow to the delete key.

That said, have you read Vincent Lardo's attempts to write "Lawrence Sanders" Archy McNally detective novels?  I place the name Lawrence Sanders in quotes because poor (rich) Lawrence is dead and yet the publisher has put the deceased author's name huge on the covers, as if LS actually wrote the new books.  Then, in small white type at the bottom, the tiny disclaimer, "An Archy McNally Novel by Vincent Lardo."  The first problem I have is with the grossly misleading presentation, presumably some sort of quiet arrangement between enterprising publishers, ambitious Lardo and the Sanders estate.  Readers certainly weren't asked, or they might well have advised that Lardo had not mastered Sanders' plotting or his style.  Yet my opinion on this is a little unfair; the McNally novels are so deftly wonderful that maybe nobody could ever do them justice.  

I'll give you another example: Robert B. Parker trying to write Raymond Chandler novels. Parker had (he died recently) a marvelous style of his own and several firm narrative voices. Spenser first and foremost, principled and yet laconic, thuggish and yet aristocratic, a master of taut, haiku-sparse narration laced with humor. You'd think Robert B. would be perfect to continue Chandler's sparse tough guy style.  But he wasn't. 

The real problem--and it folds neatly into our original discussion, if in a somewhat back-door way--is that ghosting is tough stuff, friends.  Let's show a little sympathy here.   Let's set aside Patterson in favor of his unsung deck-o-scribblers.  My hat is off to the scribes themselves, the lonely journeyman craft-persons who can plow and weed and hoe and harvest popular tales flavored by the wealthy master and somehow keep their spirits alive while sharecropping in the shadows for peanuts.  To them one and all, I doff my cap and say You're a better man (or lady) than I am, Gunga Din. 

best,

John K. 

THE BEST BOOK TRAILERS

I do make a really mean book trailer.  Should you doubt this, go to www.youtube, go to search

and type in 'gnarkgnark1'  You will have no choice but to agree.  As for the picture, that's an ancient shot of me on the set of the Steve McQueen racing movie LeMans.  It doesn't have anything to do with my book trailers...well, not directly, but use your imagination.

THE BIBLE ON YOUTUBE

Oh, yeah!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFtngfuPKXc

TWISTED TAILS IV named FINALIST in FOREWORD AWARDS BOOK OF THE YEAR

TWISTED TAILS IV: FANTASTIC FLIGHTS OF FANTASY has placed as Finalist in the Anthologies category of the 2009 ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards.  The 16 short stories in TT IV are:

1. Megan’s Baby by Kim McDougall

2. Anti-Diver by David L. Kuzminski

3. Osculating Bufonidae by J. Richard Jacobs

4. Repo Girl and the Fortune Faerie by Marilyn Peake

5. The Man Who was a few Pixels Out by Biff Mitchell

6. And Dance by the Light of the Moon by Joyce K. Jensen

7. The Guardian by Todd R. Snow

8. La Niña by Terence West

9. Crimson Dawn by Margaret Whitley

10. Atypical Traits by Ann Dulhanty

11. Roller Duck by John Klawitter

12. Brutus and the Pig by J. Richard Jacobs

13. Space Ace by John Klawitter

14. Last Flight by Clay Rhett

15. Sex and the Emerald City by K. L. Nappier

16. Evil Witch by Ann Dulhanty

J. Richard Jacobs' TT IV has been chosen along with anthologies by many big names in literature. One book, edited by Peter Straub, includes short stories by Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, and Ray Bradbury, and classic writers including Edgar Allan Poe, F. Scott Fitzgerald,Tennessee Williams, many others. Another book includes classics by authors including John Steinbeck, Jack London, Mark Twain, many others. Here's the list of Finalists in the category:

http://www.bookoftheyearawards.com/finalists/2009/category/anthologies


Winners will be announced at BookExpo America on May 25

AMAZONIAN ADVENTURES

There are times, when I set out on amazon.com, that I feel like I'm somewhat up the creek without a paddle.  I found out today that my 'author's page' only showed one of my dozen or so books.  The ritual is, I had to go to this special page and 'claim them.'  It makes me wonder how many other web opportunities I've been ignoring, chances to market my novels.  Key words, for instance.  I won  two EPPIE Awards last year, one for Best Non-Fiction Book and one for Best Action/Adventure novel.  There's got to be some way to input that somewhere so some readers hear about the wonder & the glory that is...well, err, uh...me..