would read something like this.

(cover)Dude, I totally would have wished you a happy birthday, but there were these giant frozen Cthulhu on a collision course with the solar system and I had to find a way to adjust their trajectory without awakening their wrath.

(inside)All that to say, felicidades.

I went to a play reading this past weekend. A clever one-act, the action of which took place around a Sunday dinner table in small-town Mississippi. Very O'connor, very Southern Gothic, very tongue in cheek. And it was a good play. My favorite line was voiced by the matriarch in regards to religious pamphlets through the mail:

"Well, I had no idea you could worship God through literature."

What a broad nod to Southern literature!

After the reading (and a brief potty break), those audience members who wished were welcomed to voice their appreciation and concerns to the playwright. Some very fine minds were in the chairs around me, let me say. And the playwright was receptive to the discussion (always important). But, he was defensive of his characters and their actions because the actions were true to his relatives.

A lot can be said for and against working your personal relationships into your art. The problem begins when you replace believability with actuality, verisimilitude with 'the facts.' As the saying goes, truth is stranger than fiction. Whether it 'really happened' or not, your audience has to be able to find it consistent with the 'reality' of your creation.

For the sake of your work, separate your character from the inspiration. The question is not whether or not your aunt is a lesbian. The question is whether your character is, and how that information informs her actions, her lines, the play.

In the words of a religion professor: Sometimes you have to lie to tell the truth.

This happens.

(The internet was down at work for the first few hours and 90% of my daily tasks come over the inter-tubes. So, I wrote this blog post.)

My wife and I worry about different things. Recently we were discussing our fears about the house. Her worries focus on the size of our bathroom, sleeping arrangements when football season starts, how to organize the kitchen cabinets. My worries tend toward the horrific. The chimney is going to fall away from the house. The walls are going to fall down. A tree too close to the house will fall over on a whim and crush our newly updated kitchen. (Everything seems to be falling. The sky is next!) My lovely wife helps to assuage my implausible fears and I try to help figure out solutions to hers.

All that to say, not everyone in your poem/play/book will think like you do. Some will. Some may be exact analogs of your psyche (if you're into that sort of writing), but the beauty of characters is that they are separate individuals. The sparse beauty of Beckett's Waiting for Godot comes from the interplay of personalities between Estragon and Vladimir. Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is successful because R and G offer different observations of the same experiences. Unless you are writing some sort of social or scientific critique(Stepford Wives or Never Let Me Go, respectively), your characters cannot be clones.

Conflict is neccesary. Resolution is nice, but not neccesary. Conformity is boring.

On a related topic, your readers are also not you. The beauty you find in words won't jump out and bite every reader. Not that the secret of literary success is compromise. It's not. Let me say that again, It Is Not. But your fascination with alliteration and evolving structure throughout your chapters may turn off some readers, and you should be aware of this.

It's mostly done. Hooray!! Pictures below.

Remember when we started? The project has taken us awhile, but I believe we're in the home stretch. We just have to figure out where everything goes!!

It's a bit of a mess right now and the wife would kill me if she knew I was posting these. I'm doing the dishes tomorrow morning, but I just had to share. I'm pretty pumped.

The first picture is a panoramic collage of the view from the second. The second is the view from the first. Bon apetit!

So, I have this interview in the pipeline with Nash-town songsmith Charlie Hardin. He and I grew up close to each other and while our creative outputs differ, I still think of him as a kindred spirit.

Most of the peeps who read this blog are involved in the writing process. And while I don't pretend to think that crafting epic three part space operas and writing short fiction are the same thing, it all comes down to words. Writing is the dysfunctional union of text and Story and Charlie's music is the marriage of language and sound.

I'm going to ask Charlie some questions about writing habits and High Fidelity and the long journey toward stardom. If you have any questions you'd like me to ask the Chuckster, leave a comment or send an email to bnagelblog AT gmail DOT com.

While you're on myspace, make sure and check out Old Bear. This is Charlie's most recent old band. It's also a reference to Arrested Development (see previous post).

If you love them, watch Arrested Development on Hulu.

Lucille: He's an alpaca!
Michael: He has alopecia.

I was sure that Edmond Dantes cut his way out of the funeral sack with a knife made of a candle. A sharp piece of wax.

It was a knife made from a candlestick. Of iron. Big difference. And this is why you should pay attention when you read. Otherwise you spend the next 18 years of your life shaking your head.

Nope, not a commercial for milk of magnesia. This is a remodel update. Our bathroom appliances aren't new, and we were prepared for slow drains and partial blockages left from previous tenants. But on August 9, our plumbing backed up such that waste water (fortunately gray water instead of black) was filling up our tubs. Had a guy come out and run the snake, everything worked like a peach. Home warranty meant it only cost us $60 for a weekend emergency visit. Awesome.

Then today while shaving, the toilets started bubbling again. Then the back one overflowed while flushing. Then both toilets stopped flushing and stood at full. To my frustrated new-homeowner mind, this 10 day cycle seems excessive.

And I'm not quite sure what to make of this, but when I looked in the bathtub to make sure nothing was winding its way up those tubes, a tree frog was sticking its head out of the overflow drain.

Is this the beginning the worst horror-documentary ever, or is this normal?

Today's Flashy Fiction prompt by Casey has a lot of things going for it. And not simply because it's a picture of Scrabble tiles. I think you should totally check it out and put your responses in the comment section. Everyone at FF is real supportive and cool and we don't allow no h8erz.

Whether your response is cute and cuddly or . . . not, bring it on.

Listened to Superchic[k]'s Last One Picked the other day. This ditty is still stuck in my head. Maybe because I'm still wandering in fairyland, maybe because I'm susceptible to a quick beat, maybe because I like to laugh. It's bouncy and fun and cute. Like a puppy. As Reese Roper used to say, "Hope ya hate it." (That's code for "I hope you enjoy it.") Have a good Tuesday!

I have a question for you: If your husband had a slight hearing difficulty that resulted in you having to repeat yourself pretty frequently, would you encourage him to pursue a hearing aid? Note, this same husband is able to eavesdrop over phenomenal distances and hear you whisper to your sister from the other room. Also note, this husband also misplaces his wallet/keys/glasses/earrings frequently; do you really want him to be responsible for tiny technology?

There is no such phrase as in tact.

If you are trying to say that somebody told you that you are drunk or that your fly is undone without announcing it to the whole room, you mean to say they did it tactfully or with tact.

If you are trying to say that you have an awesome push-pin with a prehistoric bug encased in amber as the head, I might let you get away with in tack.

But, if you are trying to say that the item is whole or together, you mean to say intact.

That is all.

(Also, a big welcome to my new friends and followers: The Journalizer, Elzabeth, Frank and Shelli. Thanks for reading!)

things down. I like to continue my title/subject line into the message. My lovely wife hates it. She believes subject lines are negligible.

Les Paul died today.

Dr. Horrible won a Hugo.

Cats do not like the smell of wet paint, but they like to put their paws (and hair) in it.

Gathering and organizing mailing statistics for the past fiscal year sucks. It also takes a lot of time b/c we ship borrowing and lending together, but the budget lines are different.

We have a painted closet that we can hang clothes in. No more digging through suitcases for work shirts. Hooray!

For several nights over the past week or so, I've stayed up well past my bedtime to sneak in just a few more pages of Rabih Alameddine's gorgeous novel The Hakawati. The novel begins and ends with this curious imprecation to the reader: "Listen." Not 'pay attention,' not 'read this twice,' but "listen;" An indication that what is to follow is meant to be heard, meant to be oral.

Just check out the opening lines:

Listen. Allow me to be your god. Let me take you on a journey beyond imagining. Let me tell you a story.

I could write a whole blog post about that paragraph.

For those like me in the dark about Lebanese culture, a hakawati is a storyteller, something like the minstrel or bard in fantasy novels. The most familiar example of a hakawati to the Western world is Scheherazade. Yeah, the woman who stayed alive by leaving the king wanting more of her stories.

The Hakawati weaves myth and legend and family history and war into an amazing tapestry (think Persian carpet, the flying kind). Magic and the supernatural live in this book, as do sex and death. If you haven't read the uncensored One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights), you may be surprised by the variety of sexual activities. It's not just Aladdin urging good teenagers to take off their clothes. So reader be aware that not only do guys and girls get it on, but there is man-boy, girl-girl, guy-guy, girl-Other and so on.

Alameddine has a very similar style to Rushdie (Midnight's Children), but that connection could be solely from the cultural immersion. At 513 pages, it's not a small book, but the stories are compelling, the weaving is intentionally and cunningly muddled, the characters are mysterious and achingly human.

As a tale that deals with the telling of tales, it delves into the realms of meta-fiction: What are our stories? How and why do we tell stories? How do we create the stories we tell? One of my favorite sections (and there are several) comes from chapter eighteen toward the end of the book:

Uncle Jihad used to say that what happens is of little significance compared with the stories we tell ourselves about what happens. Events matter little, only stories of those events affect us.My father and I may have shared numerous experiences, but, as I was constantly finding out, we rarely shared their stories; we didn't know how to listen to one another.

It's a journey from beauty to beauty on waves of intelligent prose. This is a BIG recommendation. (Note: I first started the book back in April. Life delayed the finish, but not the enjoyment.)

Reed Business Information is working to divest most of its trade magazines including Library Journal, School Library Journal and, of particular interest to me, Publishers Weekly.

Full story here.

Now, I don't know how much of a player PW was or is in the world of publishing resources, but I know that I've perused many an issue for information and job postings. I'm hopeful that whoever buys PW won't change too much.

I'm also hopeful that I'll be able to reuse this tag in a more celebratory post, such as "Publishing News: I am."

Anyone ever seen The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)? All of the Bard's work condensed into a two act play. Lots of humor and slapstick, just like Willy liked.

In high school we performed the scene shown below.

Went to Ice Age 3D with mi familia. Halfway through, the projector bulb went out and then the projector room caught on fire.

Awesome.