THE FINAL "JUST WORDS"

I have always been a little embarrassed by this blog. My takes on writing are reasonably well informed, because I have been reading and writing for a long time. Other than one magazine-writing course in college, though, I have no formal training. So it is quite presumptuous of me to review the books of others or to suggest ways to write better to my peers.

I started this blog because Black Opal Books was kind enough to agree to publish my novel about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a doctor at a VA hospital. It is important that authors market their own books any more. In fact, most of the marketing is done by the authors, through a web presence, primarily. This blog was to be part of my web presence.

I’ve been fairly successful at writing and publishing, both fiction and non-fiction. Novels, though, are a hard sell. I have four finished novels that are quite good, but I can’t get an agent even  to look at them. One of the attractions of Black Opal is that they are willing to deal with authors directly, without an agent.

Since BOB accepted VETS, I assumed I could talk them into publishing the rest of my finished novels, and my WIPs, too.

My situation has changed, though. And it has not changed.

The part that has changed is that I don’t want to write any more novels. I have other things I want to concentrate on.

The part that has not changed is that I don’t like to market. I want to use my time in other ways. It would be unfair to ask BOB to publish my books if I’m not willing to help market them. I don’t want to work on a web presence, or any other kind of marketing presence, although I have enjoyed the book signings and speaking engagements that have come my way because of my writing. I am not a marketer, and I should not pretend to be one, any more than I should pretend to know how to tell folks how to write.

So, there is no need for me to continue this blog. Now I shall be free of the guilt of telling you how to write and what to read when I have no qualifications for doing so.

Best wishes in all your reading and writing.

Thanks for visiting the blog. You have been very kind to do so.

I shall continue my Christ In Winter blog, http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Words are Tools-a link to CIW

Today, in my Christ In Winter blog, I wrote of how words are tools. I think that fits here, too.

http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

Author guru Kristen Lamb says that author blogs are counter-productive, that a blog must be “high concept.” I have no idea what that means, but just forget about JUST WORDS being an author blog and consider it ‘high concept.”

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

MY OTHER BOOKS:

NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel & HarperAudio, with Czech and Japanese translations] Paul K. Hamilton, MD, the co-founder of CanSurmount, called it “The best book for cancer patients, by a cancer patient, ever.”

AN ORDINARY MAN [HarperPaperbacks] Randall MacLane just wanted to be an ordinary man. But sent with a message for Custer, he became a drifting lawman with a knack for killing, and a deep well of loneliness. Then a twist of fate brought him full circle…

THE STRANGE CALLING: Stories of Ministry [Smyth&Helwys] I didn’t want to be a preacher, but I made a deal with God to save my sister’s life. Was that really a “call,” though? I said, “I’ll try t for 50 years, and if I still don’t know, I’ll do something else.” These are stories of what happened in those years of questioning the call.

WHEN FATHER RODE THE MAIL and Other Stories of Christmas [lulu.com] ISBN 978-1-300-38566-0

If you like baseball poetry, take a look at “Frosty & the Babe” http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/frosty_and_the_babe.shtml

WRITING WELL all THE TIME

I’m always a bit stymied when it comes to titles for my blog posts. A title should be intriguing, but also informative. As a reader, I resent a title that suggests I’m going to get a joke about a chicken but it turns out to be a political screed, as in “Why did the chicken cross the road?” but it’s really about some congresswoman who was not courageous enough, in the eye of the one writing the title, to stick to her position.

So I try to intrigue with a title, but also inform the reader what to expect.

That is easier if I try to write well ALL the time, not just when I’m doing something BIG in writing. I pay attention to the titles of emails, not just blogs or articles or books. I don’t just hit the reply button and go with the re: thing. It’s just an email title, yes, but I try to give it intrigue and information. I pay attention to the emails themselves, too. I use good grammar and a full vocabulary. Why? Because if I am sloppy in “little” writing, I’ll get sloppy in BIG writing.

Paderewski, the great pianist, said that if he failed to practice one day, he knew it. If he failed to practice for two days, the critics knew it. If he failed to practice for three days, everyone knew it.

It is important to write as well as we can EVERY time we write, regardless of the occasion or the form.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

Author guru Kristen Lamb says that author blogs are counter-productive, that a blog must be “high concept.” I have no idea what that means, but just forget about JUST WORDS being an author blog and consider it ‘high concept.”

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

A double post

So that is why COMMUNITY DOES NOT LAST did not show up in Christ In Winter... I posted it in JUST WORDS instead!

COMMUNITY DOES NOT LAST, BUT...

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter… ©

I have known Paul Unger for almost 60 years. Throughout those years I have often been dismayed at things he said. Well, okay, always. Most recently, though, I actually got a little angry at something he said.

“Community doesn’t last.” That’s what he said.

Well, sure, everybody knows that, but why bring it up? Isn’t it bad enough that so many of our friends are dying? And doesn’t that fly in the face of Christian theology, “for all the saints,” and “so great a cloud of witnesses,” and “neither life nor death nor…”?

He’s right, of course. All those dismaying times, or almost all, he’s been right. He’s especially right about community not lasting.

We want it to last, though. That’s why so many of us identify so strongly with institutions, like university, or church, or even nation, and why we mourn when the school or church we went to closes, or is absorbed into something else. As long as that school or church or town is there, our community remains. As long as our nation is stronger than all the others, our community is intact, we think, even though our friends and family, and even we, ourselves, are no longer a part of it.

The Christian hope, though, is not that community, one way or another, will last, but that it can be reconstituted. No, it does not continue forever. But in its very failure is the possibility of something new to replace the old, something even better. Christian faith is really about resurrection, not immortality, something new, not just the same old thing going on forever.

The basis of community is love, and Paul, the Apostle, does remind us that even death does not conquer love. [Romans 8:31-39] Love does not just continue forever. It does something better. On the ruins of community that does not last, it builds something even better.

That’s the Easter news.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP], where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

STORY PERMANENCE

I used to have on-the-fly arguments with a young English prof at Eastern IL U, when we would run into each other while crossing the campus, about whether Updike or Bellow was the best/most important writer of the 2^nd half of the 20^th century. He favored Bellow, I stuck with Updike.

One way I evaluate writers is story permanence. Can I go back after a month or year or ten away from the partially-read book and know where I am in the story? I read many books a page a day. I learn quickly which authors can get my attention so well that it stays on the track of the story after a break.

I read Bellow’s Humboldt’s Gift over about 15 years. But I read the Rabbit series by Updike over a much longer period. Both authors are great at story permanence.

I am not a literary scholar or critic and have no credibility as such, but I know who holds my attention. I read an Updike book—the one about the old woman artist who is interviewed by a young woman who drives up from NYC—in which he describes for what looked like 3 pages but was probably only 3 paragraphs, the older woman making egg salad. I have no interest in egg salad or how to make it, but he described the process so well that I hung on every word. It’s like one of those New Yorker articles on water witching in Nowherestan. You haven’t the slightest interest in water witching or Nowherestan, but you are 8 pages into the article before you realize it. Not surprisingly, Updike wrote for the NYer.

Another way I evaluate is: how much do I skip? Elmore Leonard said that the key to good writing is to leave out the parts readers skip. If there is nothing to skip, that is good writing. I never skip a word of Updike.

There are a lot of writers contending for best of the first half of the 21^st century—Elizabeth Kostova, Donna Tartt, Jane Smiley, Marilynn Robinson, et al. I hope I run into some young professor crossing the IU campus [1] so I can argue with her about which is best.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

1] It is likely to be the IU [Indiana University] campus if this happens, since Helen and I are moving to Bloomington soon.

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

Author guru Kristen Lamb says that author blogs are counter-productive, that a blog must be “high concept.” I have no idea what that means, but just forget about JUST WORDS being an author blog and consider it ‘high concept.”

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

I hope you never need it, but in case you know someone with cancer…

NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel & HarperAudio, with Czech and Japanese translations] Paul K. Hamilton, MD, the co-founder of CanSurmount, called it “The best book for cancer patients, by a cancer patient, ever.”

NAMES & TECHNOLOGY

NAMING CHARACTERS 4: The Promises and Pitfalls of Technology

I once read something from Stephen King about how he changed the last name of a family in one of his books. He had chosen a good name for them. It fit. But it was long, and they were in the book all the time. He got tired of typing that long name all the time, so he shortened it to a one syllable, four letter name.

To young writers, that is so strange. Length of name is never an issue, in this age of cut and paste, and the “replace all” function on computers. But in the days when writers worked by hand, and then had to produce a typed manuscript, that was a real concern.

Technology makes a difference in writing. For years I did my first draft by hand. It worked nicely in any setting. You couldn’t sit in a coffee shop and type, even with a portable, because the clacking would make other customers crazy and they would react by throwing you, and your typewriter, into the watering trough. No one objected to a yellow pad and a blue pen, though.

Because I wrote so much by hand, that was the way my brain worked. I could not compose any other way. If I sat down at the typewriter at home, where they had to let me type, at least when others were not sleeping, I could not compose. My brain wanted a pen and paper. Typing was only for putting into legible form what I had already written. 

Then came computers. But they were big, and sat on desk tops. And their clicking sounded much like old typewriter keyboards. So I still used a computer just as a super typewriter, for final drafts, not for composing.

When laptops came in, though, and I sat with my stiff-back pad in the coffee shop and watched others use their laptops, and realized that when they got home, they didn’t have to spend the rest of the day putting into the computer what they had written by hand, I just bit the mouse and decided I would learn to compose on a keyboard instead of with a ballpoint. It was not as hard as I thought it would be. Once you get going, it’s nice to let the fingers fly. Bob Hammel, the great sports writer, says that when he sat at the keyboard and wrote, he felt like a concert pianist, notes flying from the ends of his fingers to compose a symphony.

So technology makes a difference in how we write, including what we can name characters. Or it used to. Not anymore. With computers, you can name someone the longest bunch of syllables in the language, and all you have to do is use an abbreviation and then do “replace all.”

But wait. Be sure that abbreviation is not something that would normally appear in other words, though. For instance, if you name a character Norman, and just call him Norm, or Nor, as you write, when you do “replace all” later, the word “normal” will come out as normanal, and north will be normanth. If you decide that Nat needs to be Tom and do a “replace all,” national become Tomional, and nature becomes Tomure.

There was a church where the secretary did the bulletin for funeral masses on the computer. It was fast and efficient, since the mass was the same every time. She just replaced the name of the deceased from last time with the name of the current deceased, via “replace all,” which was fine until the name of the last deceased was Mary, which is why the new funeral bulletin kept referring to “The blessed virgin Edna.”

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

Author guru Kristen Lamb says that author blogs are counter-productive, that a blog must be “high concept.” I have no idea what that means, but just forget about JUST WORDS being an author blog and consider it ‘high concept.”

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

Baseall season is almost here. If you like baseball poetry, take a look at “Frosty & the Babe” http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/frosty_and_the_babe.shtml

The World Until Yesterday- a review

Why review a book of social/biological science [NOT “sociobiology”] in a writing blog? Because this is HIGH CONCEPT, that’s why!

Also because Jared Diamond writes so well.

There is a big difference between information and communication. Many science writers only do information. Diamond does communication.

Personally, I prefer his GERMS, GUNS, AND STEEL, perhaps because I read it first, several years ago, and usually an author’s first book, the one you read first, remains the favorite, because it was new to you, and opened up new possibilities, but THE WORLD UNTIL YESTERDAY: What We Can Learn from Traditional Societies is definitely worth the read. [Viking, 2012] And for writers, there is a very interesting chapter [10] on language.

This is not a Luddite anti-modern screed, but a thoughtful look at traditional societies and the things we can learn from them, about child rearing, elderly care, war, and all the other major concerns of human society in any age.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

Author guru Kristen Lamb says that author blogs are counter-productive, that a blog must be “high concept.” I have no idea what that means, but just forget about JUST WORDS being an author blog and consider it ‘high concept.”

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

In 150 pp, Something Should Happen-a quote

“If I’ve read 150 pages, I have a right to expect something to happen!”

Helen Karr McFarland

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Should You Inform An Author You Have Used Their Work?

In my other blog, Christ In Winter, for 3-11-15, entitled “Send Your Cousin to a Conference,” I told the story of how someone took the ideas I wrote in an article and turned them into a lecture series and a book. He acknowledged me, but did not inform me. I would not have known about it had not my cousin been at the conference. The question arose for authors, which I asked in that CIW blog, Do we have an obligation to inform someone whose ideas we have used? If you are looking for an answer, you probably won’t find one there, but it’s sort of an interesting story to read.

http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/2015/03/send-your-cousin-to-conference.html

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

Author guru Kristen Lamb says that author blogs are counter-productive, that a blog must be “high concept.” I have no idea what that means, but just forget about JUST WORDS being an author blog and consider it ‘high concept.”

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

PASTRIX-a review

I’m not sure about reviewing Pastrix here. Nadia Bolz-Weber subtitles this “memoir” as the cranky beautiful faith of a sinner and saint. Religious people may find it more cranky than beautiful, for Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran pastor and founding pastor of The House for All Sinners & Saints in Denver, uses a lot of profanity, in the book as well as in her preaching, and she accepts into her church a lot of folks who do not fit the usual description of religious. She is much more into grace than works, to use the Lutheran definitions of those words.  Non-religious people may find it interesting but be put off by her commitment to religious acceptance in the midst of any chaos.

This is a blog about words, though, and she uses words so well. Not surprising, I suppose, for someone who made her living as a stand-up comedian while she was rebelling against her strict, fundamentalist, anti-woman upbringing with a life of booze, drugs, and promiscuity, what conservative Christians call “building a testimony.”

If you love words and good story-telling, this is well worth the read, even if you are not interested in Nadia’s move from fragmentation of life and soul to a shaky but defiant faith. The stories are so well told, and the people in them are so interesting.

Published by Jericho Books in 2013.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I write of my personal reaction to reading Pastrix in my Christ In Winter blog for Feb. 11, 2015. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/2015/02/pastrix-past-tricks.html

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

Author guru Kristen Lamb says that author blogs are counter-productive, that a blog must be “high concept.” I have no idea what that means, but just forget about JUST WORDS being an author blog and consider it ‘high concept.”

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721. 

A NAME SHOULD FIT THE AGE

Oops. I said on Monday that I would continue the series on naming characters on Tuesday, specifically how to make the name fit the character, but I forgot and posted a review of Karin Fossum’s Eva’s Eye instead. I hope you did not misname a character while my brain and half-baked ideas were absent to guide you.

Sometimes I go to restaurants where they ask for your name so that they can call it out when your food is finally ready. “John” is a good name for someone who is old and bald and white-bearded and extremely good looking. I do not tell the child behind the counter that my name is John, though, because when they call that out later, half the old men in the place will jump up and try to get my food. A long time ago, John was a cool name, so that’s how all the cool babies were called. Now it’s a “forever” name, in that every generation will have some babies named John, but it’s not a cool or trendy name. It’s mostly an “old” name, so it fits characters like I. [“I” doesn’t sound right, but I think it is a predicate nominative, isn’t it?]

To protect my food from predator Johns, I give a different name to myself for the occasion, a name to the kid behind the counter, a name no one else will have. No one would believe me if I say my name is Dustin or Trent. Also there may well be Dustins and Trents there waiting for food. I need a name no one else has. So I tell the kid behind the counter, who is wearing a name tag that says Dustin or Kristel, that my name is Ambrose or Oscar. There is hardly ever another one of those in the place.

One day I forgot what I wanted to be called and told the college girl [Yes, I know she’s a woman, but at my age, she’s also a girl.] to give me a name. She immediately said “Rumpelstiltskin.” She enjoyed it so much that she kept bringing me free food so that she could sing out as she came to my table, “You forgot something, Rumpelstiltskin.” She thought that was an appropriate naming of my character. Or else she was a kit lit or folklore major, which explains why she is working in a restaurant.

A character’s name needs to fit the age. If I tell you a character is: Beulah, Betty, Barbara, Bo, Belle, Becca, you can probably follow right down the age range, from 90 to 15.

In addition, if a character is major, she needs a memorable name. When I wrote a book for my granddaughter in her senior year of high school, I chose Bronwyn for the heroine. It’s different, memorable, and cool. If she is an ancillary character, give her a name that does not compete with the main character, something nice but common, like Mary or Brunhilde. OK, maybe not Brunhilde…

Oops, too many words for a “high concept” blog. More tomorrow.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Well, “tomorrow” is a moving target at the moment. Sometimes you are short on time and internet connections, which may be true for me the next four or six days. I try to post here every day, for personal discipline and sanity and enjoyment. Also, I think that if you are kind enough to come by on any day, looking for something new, there should be something new. Feel free to come back by any day; there may be something new, if I have time and internet. If I don’t, I look forward to that “tomorrow” when we can share a few minutes.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I hope you never need a cancer book, but if you know someone with cancer, you might give them a copy of NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE. Paul K. Hamilton, MD, the co-founder of CanSurmount, called it “The best book for cancer patients, by a cancer patient, ever.”

EVA'S EYE--a review

Kate Atkinson and Karin Fossum are similar writers, similarly excellent writers, each from a north land, each with a similar detective, who, like every other crime novel detective is middle-aged, divorced or widowed, single but looking, jaded but still trying. Both Atkinson and Fossum are intrigued by how one event leads to another, but Atkinson wants to see how one event leads to another in action. Fossum wants to see what happens inside the character’s brain as one event follows another. Atkinson looks outside; Fossum looks with the inward eye, in this case, Eva’s Eye.

Eva’s eye has so many dimensions. She is a painter, with a unique way of trying to find light in darkness. She is also able to see many possibilities, how Michio Koku describes human identity, “the ability to simulate the future,” an ability animals lack. Eva definitely does not lack it. She sees so many possible futures, for her daughter, for her father, for her friend, for her self, for revenge.

This is the first of Fossum’s Inspector Sejer novels. Apparently daughter Mary Beth read my many whines about always receiving the 2^nd in a series before the first when I receive a gift book, and so she went clear back to 1995 to get the first in this series, although I would not have been able to read it until 2002, because that is when James Anderson translated it from Norwegian.

I don’t ready many Norwegian crime writers, although if we lump Scandinavians together, as Americans tend to do, we could include Sweden’s late Steig Larrson, [The Lisbeth Salendar Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series], because there aren’t many, to my knowledge, besides Jo Nesbo, and yes, I write these convoluted sentences so that your brain will be exercised so well you won’t get dementia in old age. Nesbo is excellent, but dark. I like Fossum better. She’s certainly not “light,” but like Eva as she paints, Fossum thinks there is light that is worth looking for.

It’s tricky to read a translation. If you are confused, you’re not sure if it’s because of the author or the translator. I suspect translator James Anderson is British, for at more than one point the characters use the word “shan’t.”

It’s always a little harder to follow a foreign work. Unless you have been there, you don’t know the layout, and you don’t know how much a kroner is. When someone pays a thousand kroner for something, is that a lot, or is it like Italian lire?

That’s part of the fun of reading a foreign author, though. You get to be some place different, have to figure out how much a kroner is worth or if a Figueroa is a small or large car.

One of the confusing aspects of writing/translation in this book is the concept of size. Everyone keeps referring to the setting as a “small” town, but at one point the detective figures a trip to see a witness will take him 30 minutes. In my thinking, it will never take that long to get somewhere in a “small” town.

Inspector Slejus is appealing, but actually a minor character in this novel. Yes, it’s his series, and he solves the crime, but this book is really about Eva, and her eye. Note to daughters: I look forward to getting to know Slejus better in subsequent novels.

Eva’s Eye is a really good read.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

This started as an author blog, but writing guru Kristen Lamb says author blogs are counter-productive, that blogs need to be “high concept.” I have no idea what that means, but this blog is now high concept.

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2015.

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

HOW TO NAME CHARACTERS 2

Yesterday, in response to Black Opal Books’ question on FB as to how we name characters, I told how I remember the names of my characters as I write. Today, how do we help our readers remember which character is which?

I don’t know how Alistair Maclean ever remembered the names of his characters himself. I certainly couldn’t tell one from another. He named them all alike. The men were always Henderson, Peterson, Swanson, Johnson, et al son. Maclean was a fabulous story-teller, especially his WWII novels, like The Guns of Navarone and Where Eagles Dare. I could never keep the guys straight, though, unless I read Maclean in German, like Angst ist Der Schlussel, which I did to try to improve my German. I was so busy struggling with the Deutsch that I didn’t care which son was which. Mein Deutsch is sehr schrelich.

Maclean’s women were even worse. He named every one of them, in every book, Mary. [In all fairness, I do think he had a Marian once.] In one book he even named a Mary and a Mary 2, and blamed it on the characters. According to Maclean, since they were both Mary, Nelson and Henderson and Johnson and Gunderson dubbed them Mary and Mary 2, as though Maclean had nothing to do with naming them both Mary in the first place.

The key to helping the reader is to identify each character, regularly, by something other than name alone. That’s especially true if a character has not showed up for a few pages. Rather than just Chuck Shaw, or Shaw, say: “County Sheriff Shaw,” or “Sheriff Shaw,” or just “The Sheriff.” His position, profession, tells the reader more than his name does, especially if he is “fifth business.” [1]

Sometimes physical description helps the reader. “Beulah, the woman with three eyes,” or just “the woman with three eyes” reminds the reader quickly just who you’re talking about.

Tomorrow, making the name fit the character, so that the reader has a better chance of identifying the character even without a job category or physical description.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

1] A phrase used mostly in play writing. There is the hero, the sidekick, the woman, and her best friend. Everyone else is “fifth business.”

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

Author guru Kristen Lamb says that author blogs are counter-productive, that a blog must be “high concept.” I have no idea what that means, but just forget about JUST WORDS being an author blog and consider it ‘high concept.”

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

MY OTHER BOOKS:

NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel & HarperAudio, with Czech and Japanese translations] Paul K. Hamilton, MD, the co-founder of CanSurmount, called it “The best book for cancer patients, by a cancer patient, ever.”

AN ORDINARY MAN [HarperPaperbacks] Randall MacLane just wanted to be an ordinary man. But sent with a message for Custer, he became a drifting lawman with a knack for killing, and a deep well of loneliness. Then a twist of fate brought him full circle…

THE STRANGE CALLING: Stories of Ministry [Smyth&Helwys] I didn’t want to be a preacher, but I made a deal with God to save my sister’s life. Was that really a “call,” though? I said, “I’ll try t for 50 years, and if I still don’t know, I’ll do something else.” These are stories of what happened in those years of questioning the call.

WHEN FATHER RODE THE MAIL and Other Stories of Christmas [lulu.com] ISBN 978-1-300-38566-0

If you like baseball poetry, take a look at “Frosty & the Babe” http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/frosty_and_the_babe.shtml

REMEMBERING WHAT I NAMED A CHARACTER

Black Opal Books recently asked on Facebook how we go about naming characters.

There is a lot that goes into naming, starting with remembering which character has which name as you write.

I may rename a character later, but when shehe first arrives in the story, I use the initials of hisher role in the story for the name.

The physics professor is Paul Powell, county sheriff is Charlene Sellers, funeral director is Fred Davis, and so on.

I try to allow for age and ethnicity in those names. For instance, an Italian funeral director would be Franco De Fiore. That is not important in the beginning, though. I don’t want to slow down the writing by contemplating too hard on a name. When a funeral director suddenly shows up, I take the FD initials that come readily to mind. After all, the point of this initial naming is for ME to remember who is whom.

It’s easy enough to remember your main characters, but the lesser ones can be a problem. You don’t want to just guess and end up with more than one name for the same character, nor do you want to take the time to look it up in your index. The initials approach makes it easy to remember that the Spanish teacher is Serena Toscano. Of course, if you don’t normally use Spanish names, and thus Serena Toscano is really not easily conjured up, it’s perfectly okay to name her Sue Taylor. She still has the initials of Spanish Teacher.

More tomorrow.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

Author guru Kristen Lamb says that author blogs are counter-productive, that a blog must be “high concept.” I have no idea what that means, but just forget about JUST WORDS being an author blog and consider it ‘high concept.”

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

SLASHLINE

I read a lot of sports stuff. One reason is because sports writers tend to be really, really good writers… Bob Hammel, Frank Deford, Gary Smith, Mitch Albom, Rick Reilly, Jim Murray, John Skipper, Dave Revsine…

Also, I like sports. A lot. It’s a sickness. I don’t bet. I don’t do fantasy leagues. I’m always for the underdog, except on those rare occasions when the IU football team or the Cincinnati Reds are considered the favorites. My love of sports has no redeeming value. I do not think of sports as metaphors for life, or as training for other realms. I just like sports.

Also, I like new words. Sports writers try never to use a conventional word when they can find or invent a more “interesting” one. A basketball is a rock, or a globe, or an orb. A pitcher is a hurler. A home run or a touchdown is “taking it to the house” or “taking it downtown.”

I have read so much in sports, however, for so long, that I am always surprised when a new word appears in my reading. Should I not know all these words already? No, that’s the fun of it.

So it is with the “slashline” in baseball. For instance, Joey Votto’s 2009 slashline is 322/25/84, .322 batting average, 25 home runs, 84 RBIs [runs batted in]. I have seen those slashlines ever since I started reading the sports pages, but I have never heard them called that before. “Slashline” communicated immediately, though, as soon as I read it, because I’m familiar with the genre.

How should we use new phrases in writing, though, understanding that not every reader is up to date or familiar with the peculiar argot of the?

I read a lot of quantum physics and brain research. I’m not a scholar in either field. I have no background. So I can tell quickly which authors are trying to write for novices like myself, as well as readers more conversant in the field, by how they illuminate and illustrate the new terms as they arise.

It’s important, even as a fiction writer, to write for the novice, the new reader, as well as for the readers who are familiar with the ways of Miss Marple and her ilk.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

Author guru Kristen Lamb says that author blogs are counter-productive, that a blog must be “high concept.” I have no idea what that means, but just forget about JUST WORDS being an author blog and consider it ‘high concept.”

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

MY OTHER BOOKS:

NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel & HarperAudio, with Czech and Japanese translations] Paul K. Hamilton, MD, the co-founder of CanSurmount, called it “The best book for cancer patients, by a cancer patient, ever.”

AN ORDINARY MAN [HarperPaperbacks] Randall MacLane just wanted to be an ordinary man. But sent with a message for Custer, he became a drifting lawman with a knack for killing, and a deep well of loneliness. Then a twist of fate brought him full circle…

THE STRANGE CALLING: Stories of Ministry [Smyth&Helwys] I didn’t want to be a preacher, but I made a deal with God to save my sister’s life. Was that really a “call,” though? I said, “I’ll try t for 50 years, and if I still don’t know, I’ll do something else.” These are stories of what happened in those years of questioning the call.

WHEN FATHER RODE THE MAIL and Other Stories of Christmas [lulu.com] ISBN 978-1-300-38566-0

If you like baseball poetry, take a look at “Frosty & the Babe” http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/frosty_and_the_babe.shtml

The Opening Kickoff-a review

I often tell young people that if they want to learn how to write, read the sports writers, Bob Hammel [who mentored Michael Koryta] and Frank Deford and Gary Smith, and now Dave Revsine.

I usually mean it for fiction writing. Not that sports writers make stuff up, but they have to learn to tell stories in such a way that folks who already know the score still want to read about the game.

However, in the case of Revsine’s THE OPENING KICKOFF: The Tumultuous Birth of a Football Nation, [Lyons Press, 2014] I mean “write like a sports writer” for history, too. He makes me think of Bruce Catton or Shelby Foote writing on the Civil War, not like “history,” with all the dustiness that word induces, but as though it’s a really good novel. Revsine is simply a good story-teller.

Revsine uses so well the story of Pat O’Dea, the famous-then but forgotten-now U of WI kicker, as the red thread that runs through the book.

Revsine’s main historical conclusion is that all the ills that beset modern college football were there almost from the beginning.

Revsine writes just as he talks, as the chief studio anchor on the Big Ten Network, calmly, personally, thoughtfully, and reflectively—every word just the right choice, every word in just the right place. [Anyone who can keep Gary Dinardo and Howard Griffith under control, or almost so, is obviously a personage of considerable gifts.]

This story needed to be about more than O’Dea, so it’s not just a biography. Revisine rightly felt, though, the need to complete the story of O’Dea, beyond his college football years, so the book ends with the longest epilogue in the history of publication. I’m not complaining; the rest of the O’Dea tale is a good story, well told.

If you like football, or college, or history, or just good writing, you can’t go wrong with THE OPENING KICKOFF.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2015.

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

Since this is a review of a sports book, I’ll suggest that you take a look at “Frosty & the Babe” http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/frosty_and_the_babe.shtml

THE VANISHING PAST

The past has vanished.

No, I’m not talking about history. It’s the past tense that has vanished.

“The past, present, and future walk into a bar. It was tense.”

Can’t tell that joke anymore, because the past tense no longer exists.

Have you noticed on TV, etc that no one uses the past tense anymore? It’s all present.

Putting a past event into present tense used to be an effective dramatic device. No longer, since it is used all the time, for every past event, including football games and court trials that were twenty years ago.

Then Moses sees this burning bush, and he says, “Hey, this is different.” And I notice that he’s taking his shoes off, so I take mine off, and we go…”

Yes, present tense is dramatic. But, you know, the past tense is there for a reason. So is future tense. They help to clarify. At least, they used to…

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

Author guru Kristen Lamb says that author blogs are counter-productive, that a blog must be “high concept.” I have no idea what that means, but just forget about JUST WORDS being an author blog and consider it ‘high concept.”

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

SEVEN FOR A SECRET-a review

FAYE, Lindsay: SEVEN for a SECRET [Putnam’s, 2013]

Timothy Wilde is a woman, even though he is a rough and ready cop. I mean that in the best way.

The author is a woman. She has given Wilde, one of the very first “copper stars” in NYC, when the police force was first formed in 1846, more sensitivity than a man usually possesses. She gets him to think like a woman, even though he acts like a man—fisticuffs and the whole thing. That’s a good combination, at least in a novel.

The new police force is a background for the story here, as is Irish Immigration, romantic longing, child abuse, the “underground railroad,” and political corruption via Tammany Hall. With all that going for it, what else could it possibly need?

Well, “blackbirding,” that’s what, slave “catchers” who kidnap free blacks and take them south to sell them as slaves. That ignoble part of our history has been brought back to consciousness recently by the film, “Twelve Years a Slave,” Solomon Northrup’s real experience of having been blackbirded.

The phrase, “seven for a secret,” is from a children’s rhyming game, what happens according to how many magpies you happen to see. If you see seven, it’s “…for a secret, never to be told.”

That secret is told here, though, an important and intriguing story, told well.

I like Timothy Wilde. When he is short on brains, he recognizes it and tries to learn what he needs to, instead of doing something stupid just to advance the plot. That’s a refreshing change from a long list of protagonists in novels like this, who are so self-destructive you hope they fail.

I like his brother, Valentine, too, so unlike Timothy in many ways, a man of strong appetites more than strong sensitivities, but they work well together.

From time to time I was confused about which character was which in Seven for a Secret. Part of that is the setting. If most of your characters are Irish, they’ll have Irish names, and even though I’m Scottish-American, with an Irishised Scottish surname, Irish names tend to sound alike to me. If one character is named John Jones and the other Wing Fat, I’ll be able to distinguish them without the aid of titles, descriptions, etc. but if they are named John Jones and Bill Smith, or Wing Fat and Wong Foo, I’ll have trouble. It’s helpful if an author refers occasionally to “the sheriff, Bill Jones,” or “Mavis Maverick, the rodeo rider,” instead of just “Jones” or “Mavis.”

I am aware that it’s tricky to comment on the differences between male and female authors. Daughter Katie had a student in her college history class who did not like ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. “You can tell it was written by a woman,” he said. “You can tell she has no knowledge of war.” When told that Eric Maria Remarque was a man, who added the Maria into his name on purpose, and a five-times wounded WWI veteran, he decided that maybe it was a good book after all.

As usual, I read the 2^nd book in the series first, because that is the one given by my daughters. The first Timothy Wilde novel is THE GODS OF GOTHAM. I think what happens is that one of my daughters reads the first book in a series by a good new author, likes it, so buys me the 2^nd. Or something like that…

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

Author guru Kristen Lamb says that author blogs are counter-productive, that a blog must be “high concept.” I have no idea what that means, but just forget about JUST WORDS being an author blog and consider it ‘high concept.”

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

LOCATION IS A CHARACTER

The location of a story is often more than a setting. It is a character in the story in its own right. Walden Pond. St. Mary Mead. [1] The mountains in Mark Helprin’s A Soldier of the Great War. Prison, in Keith Hollihan’s The Four Stages of Cruelty. Salzburg, in the eponymous The Salzburg Connection by Helen Macinnes, one of the great and interesting thrillers.

Maybe I like The Salzburg Connection, though, because I have been to Salzburg. [2] Or I appreciate [love would not be the right word here], The Four Stages of Cruelty because I have been in prison. [3]

I love books set in places where I have been. I love even more an author who can make me think I have been there when I have not. Like Eleanor Catton in 1845 New Zealand, in The Luminaries, or Ray Bradbury in Green Town, IL in Dandelion Wine.

I don’t feel like I’m there, though, just because the author names all the streets the character takes, whether chasing a murderer or going out for a beer, as Michael Connelly does with LA or John Lescroix with San Francisco. Yes, it gives an idea of how people live in their cars, and how long a detective has to drive to serve a subpoena, but that gets old and boring in a hurry.

The location is a character, but like any other character, it can make you want to read more, or make you take another trip to the library.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

1] Stay away from Miss Marple. People die when she shows up.

2] Helen and I even danced in the gazebo where “The Sound of Music” was filmed.

3] I went to prison as a chaplain, but you still feel that shiver down your spine when you hear the doors of “stony lonesome” clang shut behind you.

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

Author guru Kristen Lamb says that author blogs are counter-productive, that a blog must be “high concept.” I have no idea what that means, but just forget about JUST WORDS being an author blog and consider it ‘high concept.”

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

MY OTHER BOOKS:

NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel & HarperAudio, with Czech and Japanese translations] Paul K. Hamilton, MD, the co-founder of CanSurmount, called it “The best book for cancer patients, by a cancer patient, ever.”

AN ORDINARY MAN [HarperPaperbacks] Randall MacLane just wanted to be an ordinary man. But sent with a message for Custer, he became a drifting lawman with a knack for killing, and a deep well of loneliness. Then a twist of fate brought him full circle…

THE STRANGE CALLING: Stories of Ministry [Smyth&Helwys] I didn’t want to be a preacher, but I made a deal with God to save my sister’s life. Was that really a “call,” though? I said, “I’ll try t for 50 years, and if I still don’t know, I’ll do something else.” These are stories of what happened in those years of questioning the call.

WHEN FATHER RODE THE MAIL and Other Stories of Christmas [lulu.com] ISBN 978-1-300-38566-0

If you like baseball poetry, take a look at “Frosty & the Babe” http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/frosty_and_the_babe.shtml

Giving Up Life To Be a Book--an SK quote

The great, anguished, existentialist Danish philosopher and theologian, Soren Kierkegaard, said, “I have given up life to be a book.”

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

Author guru Kristen Lamb says that author blogs are counter-productive, that a blog must be “high concept.” I have no idea what that means, but please forget about JUST WORDS being an author blog and consider it ‘high concept.”

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

WHEN MOOSE BECAME PIERRE

A woman from our past has recently been in touch. We remember her and her family fondly, for many reasons, including the tiny black poodle puppy her children named Moose. We moved away and lost touch with them shortly after they acquired Moose. As we caught up after not seeing each other for years, I asked about Moose.

“Moose was a disaster,” she said, and she told the story.

Moose bit everybody, tore up everything, peed on everything, would not cooperate in any way.

“We just had to get rid of him. But we had paid a ton of money, so we wanted to sell him. He was registered and all that. But we are honest people, so we knew we’d have to tell the truth, and so we were going to lose a lot of money. Only one woman answered our ad. When I took Moose over and saw how nice her house was, I knew this would be tragic. I told her at the door she shouldn’t let us in, but she invited us in, anyway. Moose immediately ran over to her nice sofa and peed on it. But she said, Let me keep him for a weekend and we’ll see. Somehow it worked out. She bought him. They got along great.”

“Why do you think it worked out for her when he was such a disaster for you?” I asked.

“She changed his name to Pierre and they moved to California.”

In writing a story, as in life, a character just does not cooperate unless s/he has the right name and the right setting.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

My novel, VETS, will be published by Black Opal Books in early 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

DON'T RECOMMEND TOO SOON

A follow-up to yesterday’s column on recommending books:

Helen started recommending Donna Tartt’s The Gold Finch when she was about 200 pp into its several thousand pp. [It only seems that way; it’s “only” 771. By contrast, the standard version of To Kill a Mockingbird has 296.]

Now she is sorry she did and is re-contacting the friends to whom she made the recommendation. She just got depressed by the main character’s downward spiral and decided she didn’t want to read any more about it.

I personally am glad I worked my way through all 771 pp. Tartt writes beautifully, both in style and use of words, and in ability to tell a story. I understand why it won the 2014 Pulitzer. I also understand why Helen got depressed reading it.

As usual with me, I read Tartt’s 2^nd book, Gold Finch, first. I’m not sure I’ll read her first, The Secret History, which was published clear back in 1992.

Chase Mooney, who was history professor of The South at Indiana University, had never read Gone With the Wind, despite its obvious importance to history of the South, because he refused to read anything over 600 pp. He said, “If an author can’t tell the story in fewer than 600 pp, it’s not worth reading.”

To Kill a Mockingbird is also important to the history of the South, and Mooney could have read it twice.

I’m not sure I agree with Mooney, but Gold Finch might have been better at 599 pp.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

BTW, Today I am a 25 year cancer survivor. My first oncologist gave me “a year of two.” I report my 25 years not to brag, but because I remember that in those first 2 years, the best thing that happened was when we’d meet someone who said, “Oh, yes, I’m a 20 year survivor,” or “I know a 20 year survivor.” So if you know cancer patients, tell them about me! [Or give them a copy of the book noted below.]

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel & HarperAudio, with Czech and Japanese translations] Paul K. Hamilton, MD, the co-founder of CanSurmount, called it “The best book for cancer patients, by a cancer patient, ever.”

DON'T TELL ME I'LL LOVE IT

Recommending books is tricky, because reading is subjective.

I am reluctant to read a book that someone recommends with, “Oh, you’ll love it.” It puts too much pressure on me. What if I don’t love it? What if I read it and the book only confirms me in thinking you are crazy? No, say that you loved it, but don’t say I’ll love it. You can recommend it, but you can’t tell me how to feel about it.

Daughter Mary Beth recently called her mother and said, “Don’t read that book I recommended to you, mother. It’s awful.” It had been recommended to her by a usually reliable friend, and she had passed on the recommendation before reading the book.

She said the story wasn’t bad, but there were so many glitches. At one point a man stood up three different times without ever sitting down. And the clue was the unusual name of the villain, written by the victim in her own blood, but it turned out the killer was someone the victim did not know, and the villain’s name was unusual, but even while dying, the victim spelled it correctly. Etc.

Will Schwalbe, in The End of Your Life Book Club, tells how he and his dying mother recommended books to each other. Sometimes the recommended book was not enjoyed, but they read each other’s books out of love.

I suppose that sometimes we should read a recommended book, even if we don’t like it, because it’s a good way to learn about the person who recommended it. But, please, don’t tell me I’ll love it.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2016.

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

BIRTHDAY BOOKS

Today is my birthday. In our family, that means new books. So far, I have received:

Daniel Silva, THE HEIST

Kristen Lamb, RISE OF THE MACHINES

Jane Smiley, SOME LUCK

Adam Johnson, THE ORPHAN MASTER’S SON

Diane Capri, DON’T KNOW JACK

Stephen Hunter, THE THIRD BULLET

Anthony Doeer, ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE

Karen Fossum, EVA’S EYE

Birthdays are great!

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2015.

My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write Christ in Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/

A PLUG FOR ONE OF MY OTHER BOOKS:

NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel & HarperAudio, with Czech and Japanese translations] Paul K. Hamilton, MD, the co-founder of CanSurmount, called it “The best book for cancer patients, by a cancer patient, ever.”