Writing Can be Fun, Just Like the Dutch

Writing can be satisfying, frustrating, monotonous… a whole bunch of stuff, but there are times when it is just fun. Those are usually when a character or a story take a turn the writer never expected. That happened when I started out to write a poem about the moon…

One cannot really be a poet

Without writing about the moon

Comparing it to something silvery

And luminous, like a clean plate

In a still-life by a Dutch master

Or the gleam and spark

From the blades of Hans Brinker

As he glides along a canal

Or the mushroom that sprouts

From rotten wood in the ship

Of a flying Dutchman

Who mistakes it for a beam

From the moon through the porthole

Reflecting on his mirror

The problem is that poems about the moon

So easily become poems about the Dutch.

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

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write, once in a great while, 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

When It Is Time to Give Up on a Piece

I recycled a novel today. Well, not the novel itself. I recycled the paper, handwritten and printed pages alike, and the note cards.

I have spent a lot of time on it. I did a lot of research. I like it. It’s a good story. I like some of the characters, or am at least sympathetic to them.

But I have not worked on it in a long time. I’m never going to finish it. I have just lost interest in it, mostly because I have gotten more interested in other things. Even if I finish it, my name is not Patterson or Koryta or Crais or Connelly or Child or Grisham, so I couldn’t get anyone to publish it. There is no reason for it to take up space in my file drawers.

Writers hate to give up on a piece. We have invested so much time and energy in it.  

In fact, not only do we hate to give up on a piece, but we try to use a piece of writing over and over, in different guises and disguises. That's the kind of recycling we prefer.

I’m all in favor of getting as much mileage out of a piece as possible. The idea of getting no use at all out of something I have worked on so long and hard is abhorrent to me as a writer, just as a vacuum is to nature, and to dogs.

There comes a time, though, when we just have to admit that, like any other relationship, it’s over, through death or divorce or neglect. That’s okay. There is no use sending good time after bad.

I do still have it on the unlimited space on my hard drive, though, and I am thinking about changing my name to Connelly Grisham Patterson.

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

In case you missed it, a Tweet Repeat:

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write, once in a great while, 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

EDITORS-Dreaming & Waking

I’ve had a lot of correspondence with my editor, Mike, at Black Opal Books, about my novel, VETS, which BOB will publish in 2015, so I guess it’s not surprising that an editor showed up in last night’s dream. Yes, the Dream Editor, the dreaded DE.

I first learned of the DE from Kathy Roberts, when the DE showed up just as her dream was almost done and told her she was dreaming wrong and had to start over.

My dreams often occur on a college campus. The first and most frequent of those dreams is the one where you suddenly realize it is time for the final exam and you haven’t even been to class yet because you forgot you were in that class.

My final exam dream is all the more embarrassing because the professor is always my friend, political philosopher Dr. Walter Mead, who writes books with titles like Extremism and Cognition. I never took a class from Wally, even though I like books with titles like that, but because we are contemporaries. That doesn’t stop my dream writer from putting him in as a character, though.

Wally and I live a long way from each other now, but I saw him in person recently at a memorial service. Afterward I told him about his role in my dreams. “Remember,” he said, “if that happens again, I’ll give you an Incomplete so you don’t lose credit.” Now, that’s a real friend, one who has your back even in your dreams.

Last night’s dream, though, was my other campus dream, where I have been to class but now can’t find my car. I look all over, conclude it’s stolen, call the police to report it, then remember where I parked it. Each occasion of this dream, the car is in a different place. Last night it was in the lot behind my rooming house.

I go to get it, but there is a new lock on the gate, three locks to be precise. I discover the keys for the locks in my mail box and try to use them, but the emblems on the keys, to match the emblems on the locks, are all the same. But wait, they are not all the same. There are small, subtle differences. I can do this… and then I woke up.

I begged the DE for more time, so that I could figure out the locks and get my car, my way of going places, but DEs aren’t much good if you are awake.

My waking editor, Mike, did not tell me that I was writing wrong and had to start over, but he did say I needed more action along about chapter 3. I had already agreed with him. I had a great action scene in there, but an agent had told me to take it out. I did so, but the agent declined to represent VETS anyway. Now it’s back in, and I appreciate Mike for understanding it needs to be there, because it moves the story and characterizations along, just like my car would if the durn DE would ever let me get to 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 2015.

In case you missed it, a Tweet Repeat: “There are no words left in the English language that can’t be used for sexual innuendo, including innuendo, if you know what I mean.

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

In Case You Make a Mistake

I’ve been fortunate to talk with so many interesting people, and to correspond with some who were not available to talk. You wouldn’t recognize the names of most of them, but they were far more interesting than most of the celebrity names you would recognize. Some have recognizable names, though, like Dave Barry, who was very kind when our grandson, the same age as his son, had cancer; or Frank Deford, who disagreed with my defense of 3 on3 women’s basketball; or Katie Couric, who wrote me a personal note thanking me for writing when her husband got colon cancer.

None of them compare, though, to the children at Bottenfield Elementary in Champaign, IL, when our daughter, Mary Beth, taught there, and when I was the guest author for their day-long writing fair.

Later, the kid wrote me letters, about 50, most of them decorated with quite lively and colorful art work. Mary Beth must have impressed them with my qualifications, for almost all of them thanked me “for taking time out of your busy schedule.” Here are some other excerpts:

Lynsey: “I’m The Blonde With The Blue Shirt and Flowered Shorts. Books Are Life! I would die without them.”

Mukta: “My imagination is like yours. You are a great writer.”

Kate: “I want to be an author like you when I grow up.”

Rachel: “The writing fair was fun, but having you come made it better.”

Natalie: “I think it’s amazing that you are a minister and a writer. Being a minister takes a lot of time and writing takes dedication. 5 years ago you also had cancer. Now that’s amazing!”

Sara: “The questions you answered were easy to understand.”

Marc: “Thank you for telling us about your life. It has amazed me of how you can accomplish so much in such a little time.”

Mark: “The next time I write a story, I’ll be sure to use your advice.”

Jan: “I want to write for the soul reason you do.” [Jan is either quite perceptive or a little off in spelling.]

Roger: “It really helped me to see how to get characters and settings. You said you didn’t consider yourself famous, but I think you are.”

Christopher: “Thank you for letting us ask you questions.”

Hans: “If I could remember the titles of your books, I would check them out of the library.”

David: “I was the kid who asked that question of how was it like having cancer.”

Jenary: “I have your autograph on my dresser. I saw someone buying your book.”

Kellie: “Maybe my next story will be about my two hermit crabs. One of them died, though.”

Lauren: “It was neat to meet a real author.”

The one I like best, though, is a little blond first-grader whose name I can’t remember.

“Do you ever make mistakes when you write books?” she asked.

“Oh, yes,” I replied.

“Well, then,” she said, “it would be good to write them in pencil, wouldn’t 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 2015.

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

In case you missed it, a Tweet Repeat: “Language is a constant source of humor because we misuse it so much.” Helen Karr McFarland

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

A RANDOM BOOK REVIEW: To Rise Again at a Decent Hour

If Paul O’Rourke had simply gone to Henry Louis Gates, Jr, he could have saved me 335 pp of confusion & good writing, and then Joshua Ferris and I could both be able TO RISE AGAIN AT A DECENT HOUR. [Little, Brown, & Co, 2014]

O’Rourke is a young and highly successful Manhattan dentist and, despite of and because of his NYC presence, a die-hard Red Sox fan. He desperately wants an identity beyond dentistry, a sense of who he is rather than what he does. It is a restless search that keeps him up nights, hence the title of the book.

He tries to find identity in a succession of women, each of whom is attractive to him because of her family, a place where there are roots, where there is identity. He wants each one more for her family identity than for herself, and thus always loses both.

Someone impersonates him online, and claims that he is actually an Ulm, part of a small clan that originated in the Holy Land. It is both attractive and disturbing, a real and exotic and unique identity, but his own individual identity had been pre-empted. People think it is he who is posting online, including some vaguely anti-Semitic ramblings, even though he once tried to be Jewish to get a girl.

Ferris never seems to be able to figure out which direction he wants to go, the best way to explore identity. The book is a mishmash of themes: family, women, whether to have children, religion, ethnicity, identity theft in the cyber age, etc. Maybe that is his theme; that there is no theme. Finally he just sort of gives up and has O’Rourke becomes a Cubs fan, which in the baseball world is both total identity and total frustration.

It’s good writing, but I’m glad it’s over so that I can, indeed, rise again at a decent hour.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

One of the great things about having more clothes and gadgets and sports equipment and tools than one could ever need or use up is that the only gifts left are books. So almost all my reading is from gift books from my wife, and our daughters, Mary Beth Connolly and Kathleen “Katie” Kennedy. Katie’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 late 2014 or early 2015.

In case you missed it, a Tweet Repeat: “A person should live their own life.” In this age, the singular “their” makes good sense, but it clanks so badly when I hear it I just can’t use it.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write, once in a great while, 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 End of Your Life Book Club

A RANDOM BOOK REVIEW: THE END OF YOUR LIFE BOOK CLUB, by Will Schwalbe

First, let me admit that I fell in love with Mary Ann Schwalbe. A fascinating woman. She was a classmate of John Updike at Harvard/Radcliffe. She chose both to work and to raise a family, with three children, at a time when most women were required to do one or the other, but not both. She started her career as a London actress. She became head of a girl’s school and director of admissions at Harvard. She founded the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women & Children and spent months at a time in refugee camps around the world. She was a woman of simple but profound faith in God.

                    

Throughout it all, she was a reader.

After she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, she and her son, Will, formed their book club. He often went with her to doctor’s appointments and treatments, and they discussed what they were reading in those times, from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo to The Elegance of the Hedgehog. [As one who has spent a lot of time in such places, this sounds like an excellent plan, although I used to make my fellow patients in the treatment room sing songs I “enhanced,” like Chemo Pushers Ball and Gonna Wash that Cancer Right Out of My Bod.]

One of the fascinating things about Mary Ann’s reading: she always read the end of the book first, because she didn’t want to waste her time on an author who didn’t know how to end a book.

If you want to meet a fascinating woman, or get a lot of good book recommendations, I recommend The End of Your Life Book Club.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

One of the great things about having more clothes and gadgets and sports equipment and tools than one could ever need or use up is that the only gifts left are books. So almost all my reading is from gift books. I think this one was from daughter, Katie Kennedy, whose Learning to Swear in America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press, in 2015.

My novel, VETS, will be published by Black Opal Books in late 2014 or early 2015.

In case you missed it, a Tweet Repeat: ”Some people are nice… and if you talk to them properly, they can be even nicer.” Colm Toibin, in Brooklyn.

I tweet as yooper1721.

I also write, once in a great while, 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

Joe Benevento & THE MONSIGNOR'S WIFE

JUST WORDS: A Review

Joe Benevento’s THE MONSIGNOR’S WIFE is one of the best mysteries I have read in a long time.

Monsignor Tony Cupelli is a modern Catholic priest, with a doctorate and a feminist theology and a strong ambition and faithful friends and a traditional Italian family, and a secret “wife.” He is rational in his theology and rationalizing in his behavior.

When his “wife” is murdered…

The story is set in NYC, Queens specifically, with a polyglot population, in the Roman Catholic ethos, and I wondered if a hillbilly Methodist living in the remote Upper Peninsula of Michigan could even understand it. Not to worry. Queens is one of the characters in the story, and Benevento writes so well that I not only could follow along, I enjoyed getting to know Queens, along with Cupelli and his friends and family and enemies.

The writing is good, the setting and characters are interesting, the plot is multi-layered. It’s just a very good story. I recommend it.

Now, don’t pay attention to the following quibbles. That’s all they are. This is a good book, and the quibbles don’t really distract from the story, because Benevento does so very well what Elmore Leonard called the secret of good writing: “Leave out the parts people skip.”

A tiny quibble: Do all RC priests in big cities, especially NYC, have to have brothers who are cops or criminals? I guess so. Cupelli’s cop brother, with whom he has always had a competitive relationship, is a necessary part of the story, though.

A small quibble: There is a LOT about food. Benevento uses it, of course, to illustrate the appetites in general of Monsignor Cupelli, but if Cupelli, in his mid-40s, really ate like this, he would weigh 400 lbs. And the food is ethnic, Italian and Lithuanian and everything else that a hillbilly, even a college-educated hillbilly, will not recognize. Past pork chops and sweet corn, I’m lost. I know, of course, just to enjoy the sounds of the names of the dishes. I can enjoy a story without understanding every word. In fact, being introduced to new words/dishes is a good thing. So forget everything I just said in this quibble.

Perhaps a larger quibble: Benevento is a professor. He uses long words. Not big words, not difficult words, just long words. They are not the words one usually sees in a mystery. The author is not showing off; he just has lengthy ganglia in his brain. Long words don’t distract me. In fact, I enjoy them. And Benevento uses them well. I worry, though, that some readers might be turned off when they encounter those words, along with references to Borges, Poe, et al.

Benevento’s next book, Saving St. Teresa, will be published by Black Opal Books in late 2014 or early 2015.

John Robert McFarland

A Disclaimer: My novel, VETS, will also be published by Black Opal Books in late 2014 or early 2015. BOB is a well-established publisher of romance novels but is branching out into other genres with writers like Benevento and myself. I wanted to read another BOB author but am not inclined toward reading romance novels since I have lived in a romance reality for a long time. I did not know about Benevento previously but liked the title, The Monsignor’s Wife. I’m glad I did.

In case you missed it, a Tweet Repeat: Some writers show you words. Others show you pictures.

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