The End of Baseball
Current mood: ecstatic
Category: Writing and Poetry

Just in time for Opening Day, my friend, Peter Schilling, has a new book in stores now...

The End of Baseball is a fictional reimagining of the 1944 season when Bill Veeck, Jr., fields the first all-black team in major league history.

You should rush out and by it, not just becasue my name appears on the acknowledgement page, but becasue it is a great read.

Publishers Weekly says:

" With this debut, sportswriter Schilling has written one of the best baseball novels since Howard Frank Mosher’s Waiting for Teddy Williams. Using actual events, Schilling has fictionalized a fantasy scenario in baseball history-the integration of black players into the major leagues in 1944. Bill Veeck Jr., a Marine veteran from a prestigious baseball family, buys the Philadelphia Athletics in 1943, becoming the youngest man to ever own a major league club. Veeck is a genius at publicity and promotion who wants to win the World Series-but using black players. He signs the best of the Negro League to the Athletics, against all conventional feeling and the opposition of Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, the vicious commissioner of baseball. The Athletics romp through the 1944 season behind the on-and-off diamond antics of real-life stars like Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige and Roy Campanella, with Veeck struggling to raise money, avoid race riots and flummox Judge Landis. This exciting, fast-paced story is a fine commentary on baseball lore, race relations, and American sentiment during World War II, and it will have the reader hanging on every pitch, wondering how Veeck and his players will overcome racial discrimination to prove they can play in the major leagues. "

How can you not be interested in that? Happy reading.

Currently reading : The End of Baseball: A Novel By Peter Schilling Release date: 25 April, 2008

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Strategies for Revision
Category: Writing and Poetry

Revision, which is different from editing and polishing, is the opportunity to re-imagine and check your vision of your story.

Consider craft elements:

• Structure
• Point of view
• Themes 
• Conflict/Stakes
• Character
• Setting (including sensory details)

Don't be afraid to break some eggs:

• Spread out the entire piece to get a sense of flow
• Physically cut and rearrange to experiment with organization
• Ask questions or have someone else ask questions about the story
• Rewrite a scene from a different character's perspective
• Consider point of view and narrative distance
• Consider the beginning. Is this the best place to start the story? Does the beginning hold the end in it?
• Walk away and let it cool to gain objectivity (days, weeks, months)
• Without consulting the first draft, completely redraft a piece to see how it comes out.

Write a summary of what you envisioned for your story and then write a summary of the actual story as it appears on the page. Compare and contrast these two summaries and check for balance.

Write one sentence that captures what the story is all about.

In order to get the story "off the page" read it aloud. Revise as necessary.

Read as many stories and novels as you possibly can. Read actively, searching out all the relevant elements of craft. Mark these in the margins. Point out what you like and figure out why that is so. Also look for things that are not working and determine the cause.

Borrow and/or model elements that you admire.

Take risks in your writing.

Currently reading : How Animals Mate: Short Stories (Sewanee Writers’ Series) By Daniel Mueller Release date: 01 February, 1999

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Veteran’s Workshop covered in Tampa Tribune
Category: Writing and Poetry

The good people at the Tampa Tribune were kind enough to run a short article about the local workshop I'm beginning. The reporter was nice enough during our twenty-minute phone interview and despite the typos I think the article captures the essence.

Check it out the online version at http://www.tbo.com/westchase/MGBYZXC5M9F.html

Currently reading : Surreal South By Laura Benedict Release date: 10 September, 2007

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This week’s sign of the Apocalypse ?
Current mood: irate

Is it just me, or is the following article an example (or is it a symptom) of how seriously fucked up the the state of literacy has become in this country?

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Borders Adds TV Watching to Its Bookstores' Entertainment

Happy Veteran’s Day!

Thank you to everyone who ever wore a uniform. No matter the roles we played while we were "in" we should all be proud to have served.

Happy Veteran's Day!

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South Florida ranked in top 10 !

It's hard to believe, but the University of South Florida, my "little commuter school" is ranked in the top 10 for college football. The USF Bulls are number 6 in the AP poll and number 9 in the USA Today poll. Either way, it's a huge deal for the USF Bulls, including alums like me who graduated before the football team even existed.

The best part is that I was one of the 67,012 screaming fans in attendance at Raymond James Stadium as the Bulls beat then-ranked number 5 West Virginia University (can someone explain that annoying finger-flutter, hand-clap thing the WVU fans do when their team gets a first down?).

Go Bulls!

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Tagged

I've been had. Usually, I ignore things like this, but there is no denying Valerie. So, for the sake of MySpace Kharma (or is that Karma?) I'll indulge her...

The rules state:

"Each player starts with eight random facts/habits or embarrassing things about themselves. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog."

So:

1) Most people know of my cigar prediliction, but few know that my nicotine addiction started when I was thirteen and had my first pinch of Copenhagen.

2) I lived on Guam for two of the longest years of my life.

3) My first love was my third grade teacher. She was smart and hot, but alas, I was only eight years old.

4) When I'm not writing or reading or working out or smoking cigars and/or drinking, I like to play the drums. (I suck at it, but that's cool.)

5) Speaking of music, I'm still, and always will be a HUGE Metallica fan.

6) I wrestled in high school (but had been street fighthing since second grade). And, yes, I wore the required uniform.

7) I was in the Navy when Top Gun came out, and for that entire year, I didn't mind wearing the dress whites.

8) In college, I missed graduating with honors by .04 becasue I got an F in algebra the semester I met Lauren.

9) I write poetry in addition to everything else.

10) I'm not comfortable enough with this web stuff to include pictures here.

Now for the eight people to tag:

Jeff, Barbara, Pete, Sheryl, Claudine, Jason, Kevin, Pinckney

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RIP Don Ho
Category: Friends

As you may or may not know, Donald Tai Loy Ho (a.k.a. Don Ho) passed away on April 14 from heart failure. Ho was best known for his iconic hit "Tiny Bubbles" which was released in 1966, but he was also an ambassador of the Aloha Spirit. If you've ever been to Hawaii, you know what this is. If you haven't been, make it a priority to get there.

The reason I bring this up here is that only upon his death did I learn that Mr. Ho was not only a veteran, but that he flew fighter jets in the U.S. Air Force. Though he wasn't known as a writer, he was an entertainer and a creative individual and oh yeah, here's an interesting shot of Don taken on our first trip to the islands in 1999, just before his nightly show (and signed afterward) at the Waikiki Beachcomber. 

Obviously, Don was happier to meet Lauren than my clean-cut self. But, if I listen closely enough, I can still hear Don slurring "Tiny Bubbles."

Don Ho (1930-2007)

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Fallen Heroes' Ride Across America

Cyclist raising awareness and support for several non-profit charities with the Fallen Heroes' Ride Across America 

St. Augustine, FL (Friday, March 23, 2007) - Ed Acevedo will set off at 11 a.m. from the St. Francis Barracks on 82 Marine Street in St. Augustine, Florida on a cross-country bicycle journey from Florida to California to honor America's disabled veterans and their families.

The goal for Acevedo and his organization is support and visibility, and they're hoping local and national media will show interest in the event, which will help highlight his cause and those of the non-profit groups he's supporting. With support from the media and visibility, public supporters can contribute to the organizations on Acevedo's Web site.  

The Fallen Heroes' Ride Across America is a long-distance cycling tour from Saint Augustine, Florida to San Diego, California. Starting on 23 March 2007, the event will be dedicated to raising awareness and funds for disabled veterans and the families of military members killed in action. The intent is to pay a symbolic tribute to the stamina, endurance and courage needed by our disabled veterans and their loved ones on their road to recovery.

"I'll be making the journey with basically just a few at first, with some support from my staff and friends as well as some people interested in the cause," Acevedo, a West Point graduate and former Army officer, said. "But I want to pick up as much support as possible along the way at all my stops."

Major communities along the route include: Saint Augustine, FL; Gainesville, FL; Tallahassee, FL; Pensacola, FL; Mobile, AL; Baton Rouge, LA; Houston, TX; Austin, TX; San Antonio, TX; El Paso, TX; Las Cruces, NM; Silver City, NM; Tempe, AZ; Phoenix, AZ; San Diego, CA.

During the journey, Acevedo will be posting to an online journal and providing updates and photos along the way so people can follow his progress as he makes the journey. His main stops will be at various facilities in the above cities which support disabled veterans and their families.

For more information, please visit www.bike4vets.org, or call 904-485-0177.

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Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road”
Category: Writing and Poetry

He pulls you in by the chin and you follow.

You know the premise: A nameless father and son make their way south, leaving tracks in the post-apocalyptic dust that covers everything in this gripping depiction of what realistically could be our future.

Fascinating as the conditions may be, there is no explanation or justification for the tragic events leading to the state of the world (a world where crimes of robbery, rape, and cannibalism are common and wholly unpunished -- unless you count karma). 

The entire time the father and his boy trek south along the ever present road toward the coast, they search for food or water or medical supplies in places like abandoned houses and barns, long ransacked by other desperate hands. Their luck often borders on writerly coincidence, but you're too emotionally invested to cry foul.

You see them starved and hobbled as they transport and defend their meager possessions and you find yourself rooting for their escape and their next meal because this is the tension that drives every page of this novel. Their most basic survival needs provide all the suspense necessary to flip pages well past bedtime or make you miss your train stop.

The old line in fiction writing workshops is to make your characters want something, even if it's just a glass of water. If you haven't read this book yet, you'd be amazed at how that simple premise is handled by a master storyteller.

The ending of this book is wholly unsatisfying in the best possible sense of the term. It is, in fact, disturbing. There is change and an establishment of a new order, but since there is no neat bow on top of this story, it resonates in my mind all this time after having closed its covers.

Currently reading : Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West By Cormac Mccarthy Release date: 05 May, 1992

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