BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

…is just a cigar.

Several years ago there was this great little sitcom called “Stark Raving Mad,” which starred Tony Shaloub (Wings, Monk) and Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howser, Dr. Horrible, How I Met Your Mother.)

The short lived series centered on best-selling (fictional) horror author, Ian Stark. I could go on and on about it, because I absolutely loved the show. Unfortunately, it lasted only one season, and oddly enough was canceled somewhere around one month prior to my own first novel, Harm None: A Rowan Gant Investigation, showing up in bookstores.

But, I’m not here to rant about stupid TV execs… Even though I’m known to do that from time to time. Firefly anyone? Drive anyone? But, I digress…

Nope, not here to rant on TV guys.  I’m here to talk about something else (as usual). However, we know how my brain works and it just so happens a particular episode of “Stark Raving Mad” popped into my head as an illustration of my point…

Episode 17 – THE GRADE: Quick synopsis – A regular character who is a friend of Ian’s, and who works at the bar on the ground floor below his apartment is going to night classes at the local college. She is working extra hours and in her lit class she needs to write an analysis of a book – as it happens, the book she has selected is one of Ian’s. Hilarity ensues, of course… However, the reason it ensues is that she is so busy she manages to talk Ian into writing the book report for her. Her professor, played by John Lithgow (another of my faves) gives her a B. Ian simply can’t stand it, since he wrote the report about a book he had written in the first place.  Upon Ian confronting the prof,  it is explained to him how “Maddie” (Ian’s friend) had completely missed the underlying meaning of the knife used in a murder. Ian tells the professor, “Sometimes a knife is just a knife.” What makes it funnier, however, is that even after the prof discovers that he is talking to Ian Stark himself, the author of the book as well as the paper, he continues to disagree (and if I recall correctly, even drops “Maddie” down to a C.)

And that, my friends, is “what I’m talkin’ about”…

Sometimes a knife is just a knife, a cigar just a cigar, and a redhead just a redhead – although I would prefer you not tell E K (or Felicity for that matter) that I made that last comment.

My point is, I write novels. And believe me, I dearly love the fact that there are people out there who become emotionally invested in the stories. I think we’ve already established in a previous blog entry that I do as well.

However (You saw that coming, correct?) based on some of the “fan mail” I receive I feel compelled to point out a few things…

They are stories. Works of fiction. Not instructional manuals for your Wiccan coven.

Just because you live on a street that has the same name as a street in one of my novels, that doesn’t mean I am writing about you. Really. Seriously. We’ve never even met, so how could I possibly be writing about you… Wait. Don’t answer that. I’m relatively certain I don’t want to know the convoluted logic…

Just because you have red hair it doesn’t mean you are Felicity.

You are not… I repeat NOT… the “reincarnation” of Rowan Gant. (Honestly, I don’t even begin to understand that one. He’s fictional, but even if we discount that fact, he’s not even dead.)

I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. Sometimes a cigar is just that… A cigar.

And a novel, no matter how entertaining, is still a novel…

More to come…

Murv

At first glance one might think I am talking about a bygone birthday. In my case, it would definitely be a “reflection” because 30 has been shrinking in my rear-view mirror for quite some time. In fact, I’m relatively certain by this point it has disappeared over the horizon, because I have very little recollection of it, save for the “sexy nurse” singing telegram my wife sent me – not stripper mind you, it was a singing telegram.

And the reason it sticks out in my mind is that E K, in her infinite evilness, sent her to my place of employment for maximum embarrassment. She’s kinda like that, as I’m sure you’ve already surmised.

But, first glance isn’t what I am talking about today. I’m actually talking about -30- as in the editor’s symbol meaning “The End”… “Fin”… Over… That’s all she wrote… Stick a fork in it, I’m done.

Yes, the good ol’ -30- is a “symbol” that denotes to an editor that there a no more pages. The end has been reached. And, it is something I type at the end of every manuscript.

Now, in this day and age, you will find agents out there who are so full of themselves that they issue stringent guidelines about this practice. I actually read an agent’s submission guidelines and he had such a stick up his bung hole that he literally stated he would automatically reject anything with a -30- at the end because he “should be able to tell where the end was without any help. And, if he couldn’t, then you obviously don’t know how to write.“

I think this particular agent has control issues and was probably spanked too hard when he was a kid. Or, maybe his wife slaps him around and he doesn’t know how to cope with it. Who the hell really knows? All I can say is, dude, get over yourself. You probably need to be on anti-psychotics, but who am I to say. I’m not a doctor. I just write books for a living, so what do I know, especially when it comes to something like putting a 30 at the end of a manuscript?

But, I suppose you may wonder, “Why 30?”

Well, I have no clue. I seem to recall hearing the story once upon a time, but years and alcohol have relegated it to a filing cabinet I am unable to locate. Suffice it to say, I learned a long, long time ago, that I was supposed to put a -30-, or even a 30 in a circle, at the end of my copy before I turned it in. This was taught to me by Martha Ackmann, my Journalism teacher, about whom I have waxed nostalgic in the past.

Now, it is entirely possible that they don’t teach kids to do this anymore. I haven’t been in a Journalism class in nigh on to 26 years now. Things change… I know this. However, the fact remains that the -30- is something I not only learned, but it became so ingrained that it eventually morphed into a major part of my writing ritual. Without it, I feel unfinished. Incomplete. Without end.

Literally. And, yes, maybe even a bit literarily too.

Now, this is not to say that I write -30- at the end of my to-do list,  grocery list, or sappy love notes I leave for the Evil Redhead (which reminds me, I’m probably due to scribble one of those to stuff into her lunchbox…) However, at the end of any and all of my manuscripts, novelettes, short stories, articles, or any other writing project, I most definitely do. Once I have done that, I can move on to the next part of the ritual – a glass of scotch and a really good cigar while sitting on my porch swing.

But, now that the -30- is typed, the scotch is imbibed, and the cigar is nothing more than smoke & ashes, what happens?

Well, I’m afraid that’s a story for the next blog entry…

More to come…

Murv

-30-