I mentioned Earl Thompson in an earlier post. Out there in web-land some folks have already put some great information together on this wonderful author. Here, in one place, are the links I’ve been able to find:
Earl Thompson, Kansas author, Map of Kansas Literature.
PowellsBooks.Blog – Earl Thompson and A Garden of Sand – Powell’s Books.
Not loads of links, but it’s better than nothing, and well worth a read of them all.
Maybe I’m a little autistic but I like to ‘complete’ things (although I’m sure my boss would disagree). If someone buys me a book I like to read it, if I buy myself a CD I like to listen to it, a DVD watch it… And so on. But it seems to me that it’s getting impossible in this day and age to be this way. And thus, for us ‘completists’, it means we’re constantly battling against the material world to maintain our inner peace of mind.
I’m not sure what the answer is and/or how to change, but I think I’m going to have to.
What happens, the world throws so much stuff at us these days, and at the same time, more and more is expected of us at work and at home and in the community so there is less spare time than ever before (whatever happened to the notion that computers were going to give us all this free time?).
The two things don’t marry up, and hence the internal battle.
I reckon, by the time I’ve finished reading the very large book I’ve just started (Stephen King’s Under The Dome, if anyone’s interested) I’ll have received maybe another four or five books as Christmas presents. This is nice – they’ll no doubt be books I want to read. But I’ve already got a hundred and fifty or so unread books on my shelf (many of them as large as Under The Dome) and I also have a Kindle and have downloaded a whole host of free books (Dickens and James and Doyle and London…) and together I reckon I have enough reading material to last ten years, maybe longer. Almost certainly longer. But, of course, health and natural disasters permitting, I’ll probably have more Christmasses and birthdays during those ten years and books will continue to pile up and friends on newsgroups will insist I read “the greatest book I’ve ever read” and the advice from professionals will be to keep up with what’s selling…
And that’s not to mention newspapers and magazines.
CDs / Downloads…when I was a lad it used to take me, on average, four weeks to save up enough money from my paper-round to be able to buy an LP. Armed with the money I’d cycle into town and spend a leisurely couple of hours perusing HMV before finally making my choice and buying some Hendrix or Allman Brothers, Frankie Miller or Rory Gallagher, Free or Clapton or whatever. And then, for a month, I’d listen to that album scores and scores of times until I knew every note. And albums were only about forty minutes long and I had lots of spare time… Now I can buy a boxset of jazz CDs and have about five hours of music to listen to and never get through the whole thing once. But I don’t just have one boxset – I have dozens, and there are iTunes podcasts (I’m a huge fan of Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History shows – but those things last hours!) and free CDs off newspapers and more pressies (not ungrateful – I just wish I could unwrap a couple of weeks of leisure time this Christmas!) and guitar magazines that have free CDs on the cover and all in all I reckon I have enough listening material already to last me the rest of my life. Even if I live another 40 years. Yet I still buy more because there’s so many of those “You have to listen to this album, it’s the best album I’ve everheard…”. Damn, I still haven’t really got to the botton of Kind of Blue yet, despite listening to it dozens and dozens of times.
DVDs…boxed sets full of extras. Same thing. I love the fact that one can get these classic movies and TV series and have the director give a voice over and the script-writer (especially the script writer) and that there are documentaries about the making of the movie /series but who has time to watch the main feature let alone all this extra stuff? I have several series by Ken Burns that I’ve watched and long to watch again. I long to watch Carl Sagan’s Cosmos again. I have music concert videos coming out of my ears (well, my cupboard) that I’m looking forward to watching again (and, in several cases, watch for the first time). Not to mention guitar tuition stuff that doesn’t only need watching but needs months and months of practice too… Again, I altready have more stuff that I could possibly get through in a lifetime.
Yet, there’s always more that I want or think I want or people want me to have (especially those pesky marketing folks).
And then there’s blogs…the last thing in the world I needed was to create a blog that I then have to spend time updating…but at least it gives me a chance to clear my mind and maybe let my brain know that I am thinking about it!
All of this is just stuff stuff. Things. I get as much enjoyment out of cycling or fishing or motorcycling or walking the dog…those things just need time.
Time.
Sigh.
All of which is my way of saying “Enough”. I think if I have a resolution this Christmas (I have others for the new year) it’ll be to stop accumulating stuff and start enjoying the stuff I already have. It sounds oh so simple.
All the best for the festive season!
Musically I inhabit that lonely territory where several genres, none of which are popular with the contemporary masses, converge. I’m talking swing, gypsy swing, western swing, rockabilly, honky-tonk country and death metal…
I had the idea of taking some licks from the 40s – specifically Charlie Christian riffs from his days with the Benny Goodman Orchestra, and some of Django’s ideas –hot-rodding them a little, then seeing how they sound over a modern rockabilly backing.
The results of this lifetime’s work came in at about one minute forty seconds long and can be seen at:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/w-MX26rOpZU
But interestingly – or maybe the word should be surprisingly – I’ve had a lot of nice comments via email, on various guitar web forums, and on Youtube itself…so maybe this particular cross-roads mightn’t be so lonely after all. Perhaps I’ll even put up a concession stand.
I even added an explanation video that extended my life’s work beyond the half an hour mark:
That’s all!
We’re so used to being able to tap a name into a search engine and get reams of information thrown back at us that we almost take it for granted that there’s all this data out there about everything and everybody. In one way it’s nice that this isn’t actually always the case – that there’s still a bit of mystery left in this shrinking world – but other times it’s a crying shame. Maybe my taste runs to the esoteric or the rare, but more and more often I find myself reading and rereading books by folks whom time and the internet appears to have forgotten.
Currently falling into this category is Junkyard Dog by Robert Campbell – one of a grand series featuring Sewer Inspector Jimmy Flannery. It’s a tremendous series and ranks right up there with the best. Campbell, often known as R Wright Campbell, also wrote the majestic Whistler series – or the La La Land books, if you’d rather. I love this series too - gritty and unafraid to look at the dark side of life.
At the absolute opposite end of the literary scales is the wonderful feel-good book Love On A Branch Line. A sweet and tender look back at how we all wish England really was. It’s a fantasy and a love story and there’s jazz music in there… and as far as I know it’s the only novel John Hadfield ever wrote.
At the third opposite end of these scales is the mighty Earl Thompson. His books are huge and powerful, sexy slices of realism from the mid-west just after the second world war. Thompson pulls no punches – but just look at his reviews on Amazon to realize how much he’s loved.
Then there’s John D MacDonald. Maybe you’ll find a little more on the web about JDM but nothing compared to what you ought to find. One of the great story-tellers and if I’ve ever learned anything about writing the chances are I learned it from him.
I’ll probably discover loads more of these mostly unheralded authors as I avoid the mainstream (not because I’m being deliberately marginal, but because I picked up a few best-sellers recently and realised I had better things to read in my rare spare time).
That’s all.
I’ve entered the Cafe Doom competition for the last five years (including this one) and have always thoroughly enjoyed the experience. What’s unique about the competition is that all the contestants judge / score the stories themselves and everyone gets to see everyone else’s choices – and, often, detailed critiques. This makes it one of the few places where you can really learn lessons about the varied taste of the reading public – and see how one person’s absolute rejection is another person’s top of the list. Furthermore, you get to match authors against taste against comments and start to really be able to build up a good idea of those people whose fiction philosophy matches your own and thus you can focus in on the comments and thoughts that really matter to you.
The last few years the format has been that the authors vote on the stories and then a professional editor makes a final judgement on the top ten and allocates first, second, third place.
These are the tales (oldest first):
The Chicken Shack Kid – 3rd place
Envelope # 6 – 4th place in public vote / 9th in editor’s top 10
When You Next Awake – 9th in public vote / 6th in editor’s top 10 / 2nd in Ed’s (the organiser) list of favourites
Whispering Snakeskin Blues – 4th in public vote / runner-up (by a whisker!) in editor’s choice / in Ed’s favourite list
Kill – 1st place in public vote / didn’t place in Editor’s pick / one of Ed’s ‘top choices’
I think I’m going to set myself a 2012 objective to see if I can’t place all these stories for publication. I think they are all good enough and some readers clearly do, too:
Kill
‘Kill’ was perhaps the most professionally told story with a good concept, ending and a real authors voice that rolled through from beginning to end.
Excellent. First rate writing.
This is one professionally slick piece of writing
Tense, fast-paced, engaging from beginning to end
Kill is awesome. It has the strongest opener, in my opinion, of any story here. It’s suspenseful and relentless from the moment it begins. This story was totally satisfying, in my opinion.
Exciting, good pacing, thrilling, every detail comes together
Very good story. The concept was interesting and disturbing, and the writer did a good job at invoking suspense.
Clever finish, tension built all through
Excellent concept! I wish I’d thought of it.
A real fast pace to this one, just the kind of thing I like.
What a ride. This story starts fast and ends with a bang.
Tight, fast paced writing. A fun ride
I absolutely love the premise of this story
Whispering Snakeskin Blues
I’ll freely admit to being a sucker for New Orleans stories, but this one captured, not only the feel of the place–through sights and sounds and smells–but also the essence of it: which is essentially a big, dirty, dangerous con.
Superbly written
This story was just delicious
Very well told, beautiful and dark
This took you somewhere and did so beautifully
The tone here is wonderful; you can really ‘see’ the landscape with all of your senses. Kudos for atmosphere.
I liked this. It’s a full-blown story with a great POV. The setting is evocative, and the closed circle of the story is nice.
Lovely imagery and vivid descriptions in this one—a very sensual piece.
Terrific evocation of hot, sweaty Southern gothic atmosphere and wonderfully paced storytelling
When You Next Awake
The characterization was really well done.
Both characters were so distinctive, they had individual personalities and goals, and the story just mesmerized me.
Well-written with an intriguing theme
A beginning that pulls you in, and a character that you find believable and interesting, which then allows you to really feel for him when the torture starts (something almost none of the tortue porn movies can pull off)
Excellent and by far the best story for me
Envelope # 6
From the great first line to the twisted ending a very well told tale that made me cringe and smile at the same time. Good job!
I like the idea, like the characters (not actually like them but the idea of them….) and the end just finishes it off nicely!
Good, believable dialogue, good flow, nice finish
First…because of the terrific premise and great pacing – loved the final twist
The Chicken Shack Kid
Very convincing portrayal of the horrors that kids do (and go on to do). Reminiscent of Stephen King’s treatment of teenage relationships.
Rejection… we’re all familiar with it. Not just writers (most of whom are very familiar with it) and musicians (what, nobody’s clapping?) and anglers (why doesn’t that fish take my bait?), but all of us, probably every day of our lives. Yet, going back to writing, why does it hurt so much to have a story rejected and why does it keep on hurting despite thirty years experience of it happening?
I recently entered a fiction competition in which the contestents are also the judges. You get to read their stories and then see how they vote and, in most cases, read detailed comments on what they thought of all the stories.. They get to read yours and see how you vote and read your comments. It’s wonderful and enlightening. Almost everyone likes a different story – and though a few tales rise to the top in terms of voting – overall it’s easy to see how different we all our taste-wise and how a story that you absolutely love does nothing for someone else, and vice-versa…but vice-versa over and over again. It’s as if a big sign is held up saying “LEARNING POINT: Just because one person doesn’t like your tale doesn’t mean that someone else won’t love it best of all!” And it’s a sign that is held up over and over again. Furthermore, dozens and dozens of people have ignored my story so far – but for one person it’s their favourite, it’s just their thing 
I must be a slow learner. Just had my latest submission rejected and it’s still a horrible feeling. But I do know that out there somewhere is an editor for whom this tale will be just their thing.
Mind you, I didn’t catch any fish last time I went out either.
