Movie Review of the Day

Okay, faithful readers. I got a good one for you today. Going My Way. Not sure how many of you have already seen this one. I'd seen the title a lot, but never got around to actually watching it--until last night, that is. Why should you see it?

Bing Crosby.

Well, him and the ten Oscar nominations (7 wins) the film earned. Here's a tidbit for you--it's the only movie to ever earn an actor nominations in Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. (Bing won for best actor, his co-star Barry Fitzgerald was the one nominated for both. He won supporting.) It's directed by Leo McCarey, who helmed some other films you might have heard of: An Affair to Remember and Duck Soup.

The story's pretty basic: Bing plays a priest called in to help a church get out of a mess of debt. He's young and liberal-minded when it comes to religion. The priest he's sent in to help is old and traditional. Bing uses the power of his charm, wit and golden vocal cords to overcome all opposition and save the day. (Honestly, sometimes I wonder why we didn't just send Bing to Germany in World War II. The man would have turned the whole thing into a musical number, summoned some picturesque snow, and left whistling merrily on his way.)

It's got some nice songs (Swing on a Star won the Oscar), good acting, lighthearted humor and is overall worth an hour and a half of your time. Plus, it's on Netflix streaming, which is always a big plus. So give it a whirl--tell me what you think.

And have a nice Monday.

Bryce the Book Pusher (and a Publisher's Weekly announcement about a certain book deal . . . )

So TRC has been devouring the Animorphs series, which I picked up from a certain library that was getting rid of theirs. (Gotta love the donation shelf.) I've been really happy to see him with a nose in a book a lot of the time, but I couldn't help but wish he'd get into something a bit more . . . lofty, shall we say. (This isn't meant as a jab against Animorphs. I've never read the series, so I don't feel like I can disparage it.) In any case, I brought home Over Sea, Under Stone from my library and gave it to him about a month ago. It languished amidst his other books, passed over for things with flashier covers time and time again. I knew he could handle it, and that he'd like it--we'd listened to A Wrinkle in Time on the way down to Pennsylvania at Thanksgiving, and he didn't want it to end. But the packaging of the book just wasn't up to today's standards. (It's not the cover I included to begin this post. It's the first edition. This one:



Anyway, he finally ran out of Animorphs, and it was a bit before we could make it to the library again so he could pick out some more, so I suggested he try Susan Cooper again. He agreed and took it with him to bed. The next morning, I asked how it went. He made it through two pages and gave up.

Not good.

Was I just out of touch? Was the book not as good as I remembered? I vowed not to give up so easily, so last night I offered to read it to him. We read the first chapter together, and then I said he could keep reading, but my voice was tired. I gave him the book. He read the next three chapters on his own, and he's off and running now.

Mwa ha ha ha!

(By the way--has anyone noticed the overabundance of adverbs in that book? I never saw it as a kid, but it really grated on me now. Still like the book, and it might have been different if I hadn't been reading it out loud, but still . . . )

Anyway, once he's got The Dark is Rising polished off, I'll start him on Prydain and Narnia, and then it's just a short jump over to The Hobbit, and we all know what comes after that. Lord of the Rings, baby. I read it when I was in second grade. I'm wondering if TRC can get to it by the end of first. Maybe, if Denisa would stop taking him skiing so often. :-)  Growing a superhuman isn't easy, but between the two of us, we're working at it.

And in other news, here's the announcement about Vodnik that appeared in Publisher's Weekly Children's Bookshelf Newsletter yesterday:

Stacy Whitman at Lee & Low Books has bought Bryce Moore's debut novel Vondnik, for publication in spring 2012 by the Tu Books imprint. The YA fantasy tells the story of Tomas, a Roma boy who returns to Slovakia and discovers that the folk tale creatures he befriended as a boy are more dangerous than he knew, and he must strike a bargain with Death to save his cousin’s life. Eddie Schneider at JABberwocky Literary Agency brokered the deal for North American rights.

So they got the name of the title wrong (Vodnik, not Vondnik) but I still thought that was pretty nifty. Nice to see things moving along. I'll be working on that rewrite very shortly. Can't wait!

When Libraries Flood: Acting in Times of Crisis

My library flooded yesterday. All us librarian folks were in a staff meeting when some students reported water in the basement. Students report things a lot of the time, though. Maybe someone had spilled their soda. Or maybe it was tracked in snow that had melted.

Or maybe a water main had burst in the locked janitor's closet, with water streaming out underneath the door faster than Niagara Falls.

Just as no one expects the Spanish Inquisition, no one expects a burst water main. I haven't been in too many situations where immediate action is required. Sure, there are car accidents--or near accidents--but those are over and done so fast, you're not quite sure what happened. With this, who knew what was going to happen. How long would the water keep flowing? How high would it get? What was the best way to get the books to safety? You don't have time to sit around debating what to do and what the best approach is, and chances are, what you do won't be ideal. But you have to do something.

What did we do? Someone called facilities, someone called the fire department (they have a lot of experience with water and buildings, after all), someone managed to get the closet open and hold back some of the water, others started moving books onto library carts to get them higher. Others moved books onto higher shelves.

I'm happy to say that all that action resulted in a lot of good and no real bad. The water main was shut off, the books were moved out of the way of damage, and the fire department and facilities did a wonderful job getting the water down into the elevator shaft, where a sump pump whisked it off to who knows where. So all's well that ends well. For now at least, until we find out if there's a mildew problem, or if the carpets need to be replaced, or if the books absorbed any of the evaporating water.

In any case, it just got me thinking about emergency response. I hadn't taken a single moment to think about what I would do if there were ever a flood in the library, so when the time came, I wasn't sure what to do. Yes, I helped out, and yes, it all ended well, but the disaster could have been worse--and maybe if I'd thought about what to do ahead of time, the actions I chose to take would have been more appropriate in that situation. (Again, I'm not meaning to say that I screwed anything up--I think we did a great job of keeping damage to a minimum. What I'm saying is that forethought and planning can make a big difference in times of crises.)

This is why we as a family periodically go over what to do in the case of a fire. This is why school's have fire drills. Why firefighters in the area regularly burn down old buildings so that they can get practice fighting fires. Because if you wait until the emergency's right on top of you, then you have no idea if what you do is going to be a Good Plan or not. Of course, it might turn out that what you planned ahead for isn't relevant in the heat of the moment, but at least you'll have thought some things out, and you increase the odds that you're making an informed decision instead of just going on a hunch.

What are your thoughts? What emergencies have you had to deal with, and how happy have you been with how you dealt with them? Do you have a plan ahead of time, or did you wish you had? Do share.

Ski School for TRC

TRC started ski school yesterday. He gets something like 10 two hour classes for around 90 bucks, which I consider a steal. Of course, this is also our first experience with the infamous Cart Your Kid Places syndrome, which turns parents (typically mothers) into taxicabs for the next 12 years of their lives. Denisa had quite the time getting the skis into the car, getting the kids dressed for sub zero wind chills, picking TRC up from school and making it to the hill in time. But she managed to pull it all off, because she's good like that.

How did it go?

From what I heard, very well. TRC has been looking forward to this for months. He came home last night and I asked him how it was. "Good." Monosyllabic answers, for the win. He opened up a bit more about it later--he did have a good time. There are only five kids in his class, so I think he should get plenty of practice in. Meanwhile, Denisa is giving DC ski lessons, too. We borrowed some kids skis from some friends, and Denisa picked up boots back at the school used ski sale. Right now DC is learning how to keep her skis together while Denisa pulls her around, and she already wants to go up the tow rope or the T bar. (I think she thinks it'll be sort of like the rides at Disney World.) At her age (not even 3 yet), the main point is to make sure she has a good time. If things go well,  maybe next year all four of us can go out skiing regularly.

Anyone else out there teaching their kidlets to ski? For some reason I don't recall knowing that many people teaching their kids when I was in Utah, but that might well have to do with the fact that we weren't that far along in our child rearing years. It also helps that it's significantly cheaper here. From what Denisa said, there were quite a few kids out on the slopes for lessons yesterday. When you get as much snow as we (usually) do, you might as well learn how to play in it, or winter's going to be awfully long each year . . .

My Thoughts on the Oscar Nominations

First of all, how cool is that hat? I want one. Maybe I should buy one and use it as the yearly trophy for my Oscar competition. Tempting . . .

Anyway--the Oscars. That yearly self-congratulatory time for cinema. It's as if I said I'd start having a ceremony once a year where I gave awards to myself for the coolest things I did all year. Sure, the first few years would seem rather strange, but after I'd been at it for thirty or forty years, it would turn into a Venerable Institution. I might even be able to sell TV broadcasting rights. (Note to self: look into this.)

That said, I love me some Oscars. I don't really know why. I just enjoy watching them and grousing about how this year wasn't nearly as good as ten years ago, or how the hosts aren't as good as Billy Crystal. (Anne Hathaway has one thing guaranteed this year--she'll look better than Billy). In any case, the nominations went out this morning. What are my thoughts?

Well, I don't get to see as many of the Oscar nominations before Oscar night as I'd like to. I've seen the following nominees:

• Inception
• Toy Story 3
• True Grit
• How to Train Your Dragon
• Day & Night
• Tangled
• Alice in Wonderland
• Harry Potter 7.1
• Iron Man 2

I'd imagine many of you have seen more of the films than I have. I'm also reasonably certain quite a few of the films I haven't seen will earn the majority of the awards. So I don't really feel like I can opine on who "should" win, since in order to do that, I feel like I should have seen all the nominees in each category. And that's what I want to talk about.

12 nominations for The King's Speech? 10 for True Grit? I suppose I'm just disappointed in the trend these days to have a few films end up gobbling up so many nominations. I'd like to see the love spread around a little. I'm sure Social Network, King's and Grit are all very deserving. I loved True Grit, myself. But can you honestly tell me that there aren't other movies out there just as deserving in some of these categories?

I hate how the Oscars seems to turn into a popularity contest. (But not TOO popular, mind you--otherwise they'll be accused of selling out). Ideally, I wish everyone involved in the nominations would watch all the films, then nominate the ones they personally liked the most. In actuality, movies have Oscar campaigns, with PR people trying to jostle for best exposure. Blech.

And yet I keep returning year after year. Maybe I'm just mentally deranged. (Don't comment on that, please.) In any case, bring on the Oscars. And somebody buy me that hat. I'll post pictures if you do. :-)

Frozen Pipes and the Stomach Flu: A Match Made in Heaven

It's cold up here in Maine. How cold? 15 below this morning, with a wind chill of You Gotta Be Kidding Me. I woke up ready to go out to brave the cold, only to find out my stomach had other ideas. Maybe there's some big red button in my body somewhere, and when it thinks I'm going to do something it doesn't want to do, it slams the PANIC button. Or maybe my stomach's just good friends with the flu bug and decided to have a sleepover last night. I have no idea. All I know is I'm not going out today.

Of course, the cold decided to fight back at my decision to stay in by coming in, as well. Denisa tried to get the dishwasher going, only to have a whole lot of nothing happen. (No, the rest of our pipes aren't frozen--no worries. And even if they were, we get most of our heat from our wood stove, so we'd be just fine. Thanks for wondering, though.)

So this was mainly just a hassle. That said, if left unchecked, it could be a fairly expensive hassle. So I dragged myself out of bed, grabbed the trusty hairdryer, and went to work. The dishwasher complained some, but it's now functioning again, and no burst pipes anywhere, so it all has a happy ending.

Except for me. No happy ending here. I'm going back to bed. Carry on without me for the day, world.

Marriott Ditches Adult Pay-Per-View: Observations on a Mormon Mentality

I just read over on USAToday that new Marriott hotels are no longer offering adult pay-per-view films. If I read it correctly, they're not offering pay-per-view, period--switching over to some sort of internet-based option, instead. Why is this noteworthy? Well, for one thing, it's noteworthy because up to this point, no other large hotel chain has done this. (Omni, which owns about 50 hotels, did it back in 1999.) For another thing, Marriott was started and is owned by a Mormon, and I've always found it curious that they would tacitly endorse pornography--even profit off it. My brother used to work for Marriott, and I asked him about it back in the day. He said it was simple economics: if Marriott didn't offer pay-per-view porn, then they'd lose business travelers. It was that vital to success in the hotel industry.

Wow.

I thought that was wrong on so many different levels. First of all, why is it that business travelers need their porn fix that badly? Second, what happened to sticking up for what you believe in? Marriott hotel rooms all come loaded with a Book of Mormon, after all. Why not stand up against porn in a public way?

So now Marriott's ditching it at last. Yay? Well, maybe not. See, when Omni ditched its ties to porn in 1999, it did so because it said it didn't want to make a profit off that industry. Marriott's reasons today? It's no longer as profitable. (Why not? Well let's think . . . There's this little thing called the internet that seems to have taken off recently. Heard of it?) I want to believe that what this really means is that it's no longer so all important to business travelers, and so they can ditch the porn and keep the business. Maybe that's the case. Or maybe it's just economics again. Porn isn't profitable for Marriott, so they're eliminating it, just like they'd phase out breakfast buffets if those started costing the company too much.

I realize that life is not simple. As  much as people would like to boil everything down into a black and white decision, that's not how it works. Marriott's a publicly traded company. It has obligations to meet to its shareholders. (BTW, shares today are down 1.15% today so far.) It also isn't a "Mormon" company. And in the end, why do I care what the religion of the founder and owner is? I have no clue what religious persuasion Howard Johnson adhered to. I've never even stopped to consider it until just now.

There's a tendency of Mormons to identify with other Mormons--to root for the Eagles because Andy Reid is a member, or vote for David Archuleta on American Idol because he is. I've even seen this affection extended to people who used to be Mormon, but aren't any more (or aren't active, at any rate). Amy Adams, Eliza Dushku--there were even extensive rumors that Steve Martin had converted about 10 years ago. The same holds true with fantasy/sci-fi authors. Off the top of my head, I can list Brandon Sanderson, Orson Scott Card, David Farland, Stephanie Meyer, Tracy Hickman, Shannon Hale, James Dashner and Brandon Mull. Mormons generally know who else out there is Mormon.

I'm not sure why this is--I have to guess it has something to do with a perceived persecuted status--an "us against them" sort of mentality. Maybe Mormons feel like it validates their beliefs when someone famous is also a Mormon. "See? Steve Young's a member. Gladys Knight converted. The church must be true." If you want to join a church based solely on its star power, there are certainly other well-documented options out there.

Besides, you just have to visit any Mormon congregation to see there's a wide variety of ways of living the religion. Yes, things are generally the same, but if you start asking specific questions, you'll find a fair bit of disagreement on specific points. That's how you end up with Orrin Hatch and Harry Reid both being Mormon. So just because Steve Young is Mormon, how does that impact you? In the end, your faith shouldn't rely on what other people believe. It should rest on what you believe. If Marriott wants to open up a topless bar in Vegas, so be it. If they change their name to The Mormon Marriott Hotel Chain, and then open up that topless bar, you might hear me start to object a bit more.

Any one from other religions out there want to chime in on this? Do Catholics all know who else is Catholic? Do Episcopalians care if someone else is Episcopalian? Do share.

Why I Love Maine Reason #532

I really enjoy this new state I find myself living in. There are many reasons--some of which I've gone into detail at length on my blog (my continued Eternal House Project, for example). But one thing I haven't said is how great it is to drive in western Maine,. The roads are empty, there are lots of trees and turns and plenty of gorgeous views to keep you occupied, and you never know when you're going to see another cool old house around the next bend. I trekked to Augusta and back this morning, and on the return trip, I didn't get stuck behind any slow drivers--hardly saw any other drivers at all. The sun was out, music was blasting, and it was smooth sailing the whole way.

Perfect.

Of course, it helps to have a GPS, since the roads can get fairly bewildering quite quickly. Also, I need to drive to Bangor tomorrow for a library meeting, and there's 3-6 inches of snow forecast, so we'll see how much I like driving tomorrow.

Still, for a guy like me who likes his roads fast and empty, western Maine can be a pretty great place. Every time I leave the state and go elsewhere, I'm reminded how miserable traffic really is. To me, traffic is getting home in 6 minutes instead of 5.

:-)

The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Successful Characterization (or Lack Thereof)

A week or two ago, Denisa and I watched the new Sorcerer's Apprentice, the Nicholas Cage "remake/revision" of the Mickey Mouse classic. What did I think? Well, I didn't rush right out and write a review, and that might tell you something. (Although I also saw the Coen Bros. True Grit, and I loved that one--4 stars easy. A perfect Bryce movie.) But in this case, I was a bit conflicted about my review.

The thing is, I loved the world of the movie. The special effects were fantastic, and the plot line is one I'm typically quite content with: boy learns he has magic powers and uses them to defeat evil. When you get right down to it, that's the plot of a slew of successful fantasies. Fantasies I've read or watched again and again. The production value of this movie was good, the actors were decent, but . . .

I just couldn't get into the characters themselves. You know how people tell you not to write stereotypes? If you've ever had a hard time understanding what that means, then you need to watch this movie. It should clear all that up for you. The sorcerers in the movie are cookie cutters: the Evil One. The Good One. Why is one good? Uh . . . 'cuz he liked a girl. Why is the other evil? He liked the same girl, and she spurned him. The hero kid is your typical teen. There's nothing to set him apart--although I guess he's good with engineering and tech. There's just nothing to grab hold of, character-wise. Every effort to make the characters round ends up being just another stereotype.

Contrast this with Disney's original Sorcerer's Apprentice bit--one that has gone on to be a classic. What does it have going for it? There's no back story, very little in the way of setting and magic system development, and hardly any denouement to speak of. And yet everyone knows it and recognizes it right away. Why is that? I would argue it's because in that short amount of time, Mickey's established as a likable character people relate to. He's got problems they understand, and he deals with them in understandable ways. He gets himself into trouble, and he's childlike enough that we don't mind when he's rescued from that trouble by someone else.

In the new version, the same scene happens. And yet in this one, the character is a stereotypical teenage boy. He's old enough to know better. He should be able to get himself out of the jam--and he never should have gotten into the jam in the first place. It's like by providing all the back story to the Disney cartoon, the director broke what was working.

That said, I find myself wondering. There are plenty of movies and books out there that you could describe in stereotypical language, but they work. We like the characters. We connect with them. I can't think of a way to adequately describe the difference, except to say that real characters come alive. They surprise us. Stereotypes do what we think they'd do. It's the difference between a sculpture of a cat, and a living breathing cat that might reach out and claw you whenever it feels like it.

Is this making any sense? Have any of you out there seen the movie and care to comment? I'd love some more input here.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Ice Fish

Amusing Bryce anecdote ahead, detailing one of the many ways I am occasionally (or frequently) stupid.

So let me set the stage for you first. I was planning on going out ice fishing yesterday morning with TRC, despite the sub-zero temperatures. I'd had fun the first day, and I wanted to do it again, dagnabbit. So I got out everything I needed the night before. Hats, gloves, snow pants, scarves, mittens--you name it. Everything was set. I got up early in the morning, did my writing for the day, and then packed everything up.

I'm a punctual person. I like to be where I'm supposed to be when I'm supposed to be there. I was ecstatic when I was heading out the door with two minutes to spare. I was going to be right on time, and I'd gotten TRC ready to come with me as well (with lots of help from Denisa, of course). Everything was set. On the way out the door, Denisa asked, "Do you have your license?"

I called back that of course I did. What sort of a ninny goes driving without their license?

Two miles down the road, I realized that she was talking about my fishing license. My fishing license which was on the kitchen hutch. So I flipped a U-turn and went back to the house, disappointed that I'd be a tad late, but still feeling pretty on top of things.

Problem: the license wasn't where I'd left it. Ensue frantic 15 minute search through the house, blazing through piles of paper and every nook and cranny known to man. I'm getting increasingly upset, since I'm now both very late and think I'm losing my mind. There was a group of people waiting for me to go, and I couldn't get in touch with them. I tried to print my license again, but the computer decided to crash.

It wasn't a good 15 minutes.

At last I call the wife of one of the guys I'm going with and get directions to the pond. I reboot the machine, fix it and print off the license. In the end, I made it to the pond before the people I was going with did--they'd waited for me, which had put them back some, and my house was closer to the pond than the place they were waiting.

It all worked out, but I still wondered where in the world I'd put my license.

When I was getting change last night, I found the license.

In my jeans pocket, where it had been all along.

I also discovered that in my rush to get out to the pond, I'd ended up leaving my wallet behind.

What sort of a ninny goes driving without their license?

Me. I am that ninny.

So in the end, I'd turned around to go home and leave my driver's license there (the very thing I'd thought Denisa had been warning me against), just so I could get a second copy of my fishing license. I should have just not turned around and gone straight, arriving punctually as planned.

And people wonder why one of my goals this year is to cut down on clutter and be more organized . . .

Book Review: The Passage

The Passage by Justin Cronin

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


A vampire book that isn't your typical vampire book. A more realistic take on the genre, with viruses and genetics and rational explanations and plagues and guns and danger and everything else you can stuff into a thick book. Should be great, right? That's what I thought, at least. And it certainly was intriguing. The first act of the book was really good--I was reading at a fast clip, and it was getting more and more engrossing. Then act II hits, and I stopped.

Not a brick wall sort of a stop. More slowed down in molasses. The book was still good, but I wasn't reading it very quickly anymore. I had to sort of force myself to keep going. I don't want to say exactly why, because I don't want to spoil the book for anyone who might be thinking about it, but suffice it to say that I think you need to be very careful about alienating your readers by the way you treat your characters as an author. Readers build up a relationship with characters, and there's a fine line between being predictable and going too far.

I'm not saying Cronin passed that line. After all, I still finished the book, and I enjoyed it, more or less (although it did commit the heinous sin of deciding to be book 1 of a series without alerting me of the fact). Even so, Cronin definitely looked over the edge of the line on numerous occasions, and that's all I'll say about that for now.

What was good? It was certainly of epic proportions, and you couldn't accuse it of being predictable. There were character pieces in it that were very moving and hard to read. What was not so good? Sometimes there's such a thing as too much of a good thing. Lots of characters in this one--lots and lots. It's hard at times to feel really invested in any one or two, because as a reader you're scared Cronin is going to make those story lines irrelevant. And he arguably does. Be warned.

That said, the book was good. Not great for me, but good. It's done all right for itself, so clearly it's great for some people. Just not me. I'd love to hear from someone who's read it--am I off base? What did you think? Do share . . .



View all my reviews

Movie Review: Kelly's Heroes--Clint Eastwood + War Movie + Heist Film = Awesome

I had a half day yesterday due to the blizzard we weren't supposed to get (2 inches of forecast snow turned into a good ten or more inches, plus gusts up to 40mph--the weather people responded by saying, "Oops."). So Denisa and I took advantage of a slow Wednesday to watch Kelly's Heroes. I had to do some cajoling to get her to go along for the ride, a process which had been made more difficult by her failure to be impressed with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (a movie I absolutely adored--four stars and perfect in every way, if you're me. If you're Denisa, it's a lame mishmash of video game references and special effects. But come on--how can you not love a movie that was thought up as a musical, but instead of the characters breaking into song and dance numbers, they break into fights. Awesome!). Then again, she had gotten us to watch Young Sherlock Holmes, which was kind of lame (more like 1.5 to 2 stars), so in the end, Kelly's Heroes won out.

Very glad it did. Take The Dirty Dozen, add in some Ocean's 11 and a dash of The Italian Job, and then let it stew with A Bridge Too Far for a while, and you end up with Kelly's Heroes. It's a war heist movie, where Clint Eastwood leads a rag tag team of US soldiers to go steal 16 million in Nazi gold from a French bank behind German lines. Donald Sutherland, Eastwood, and Telly Savalas do a great job mixing action and comedy, and it's 2.5 hours of good zany fun. Denisa thoroughly enjoyed herself, too.

If you haven't seen this one, stream it on Netflix tonight. It's even in HD, so it looks great. Not to be missed. Anyone else out there with me on this one? Speak up!

Family Newsletter, Snow Day, and Mailing the Contract

Care to sample this year's Christmas newsletter that we made? It's kind of a beast to make print copies, so we didn't send one to a whole lot of people. Also, the print version has a special "Buttersby Saves Christmas" short story that I don't really fancy having kicking around the internet, so it's been removed from this copy. But other than that, it's all there in its original glory.

Enjoy.

Now if you don't mind me, they've called a half day at work due to the snow, so I'm going to pack up, go home and celebrate the fact that I'm sending back my contract to Vodnik on the way home. Signed it on the auspicious 1/11/11 date, so at least it'll always be easy to remember when I signed my first contract. :-) Editorial letter should arrive here soon, at which point I'll go back into revision mode. For now, I'm almost 20,000 words into Tarnhelm, which is what I decided to write while I was waiting. I'm about 10,000 words farther than I thought I'd get. Actually thoroughly enjoying it. The protagonist is hugely different than any I've written before, and it's been fun to have a change up. Often I choose to write about main characters that are fairly clueless. This one (Harvey) actually knows what he's doing, more or less. Nice.

Photographic Evidence of Fishing Fun

And here are the promised pictures from the fishing expedition. Once again, different from Facebook.

It's a little known fact that camp chairs are allowed in all Olympic events

Getting jiggy with it.

I once caught a fish /------this------\ big

Fish. The other other white meat.

TRC and DC Pictures from Christmas and New Years (Different from FB Pics)

Because I realize some of you who read this blog aren't friends of mine on Facebook (not for any lack of me trying to get you to be), here's a picture post of my kids from the last holiday break. And because you Facebook friends already saw some uploads by me this morning, I chose different pictures this time. Aren't I nice?

There was a cheetah attack right in the middle of a nativity reenactment. Thankfully, the cheetah was friendly, and no one was mauled.

Our little angel. She only tried to eat the necklace two or three times that night.

Princess Cinderella

Celebrating the New Year in Style

Things Learned During My First Ice Fishing Expedition

If you follow my Twitter feed, you no doubt are aware that I went ice fishing for the first time this weekend. Despite what many people say up here (namely that "ice fishing" is code for "ice drinking") no alcohol was involved. I do have photographic evidence of my trip, but I don't have the cable to hook up my camera at work here, so you'll have to wait for that. In the meantime, here's a rundown of the experience.

• We went to Lukfin Pond up past Philips, Maine. It's not particularly big, but it's not exactly pull up with your car, get out, step on the lake and start fishing. It's more drive for a while until you get lost (thank goodness for guides!), park, walk through the woods for a ways, find the pond, and then trek across it. Still, lots of exercise--always a good thing. And I wasn't there to just sit around doing nothing. I wanted the whole experience to see if I liked it or not.
• Still have to get a fishing license, even to do it in the snow. $27 in Maine for the year. Not bad at all.
• Bring ice skates. TRC, DC and Denisa had a lot of fun skating all over the place. I was very impressed with how much skating TRC has picked up and retained from last year. He fell down quite a bit, but as he explained it to me, "Falling down is all part of the fun." Wise words. DC isn't really skating yet, but she had a fun time being dragged.
• Taking a 2 year old girl to the bathroom when it's 15 out and she's bundled in snow clothes--not so easy, and not so much fun.
• Drilling through the ice by hand is even harder than you'd think it would be--especially  if you have librarian/author arms. The ice was about 10 inches thick right now--I'm told it gets much thicker later on in the season. That should be . . . interesting, although I was also told most people use machines to drill.
• You can either use traps (baited lines that have a little flag that goes up when a fish bites) or jig (use a short pole with a lure at the end that you bounce up and down to make it look like a live fish). We used both. I caught my 19.5 inch, 3.75 pound smallmouth bass using a jig, and I caught it about 5 minutes after I got to the pond. Beginner's luck in action. We caught a total of 4 smallmouth. Mine was the biggest, but only barely. We had four jigging holes and 10 trap holes out, and we only caught fish at one of the jigging holes. Nothing else anywhere. I'm told that was a slow day.
• It's cold, but as long as you dress warmly, it's not bad. If you get too cold, you can always drill another hole. :-)  Some people have huts out on the ice, or tents. Seems to me if you're going outside to ice fish, you might as well be outside and not in a little hut.
• Lake/pond ice can get really slick, especially in windy spots. Blows snow just grinds away all the ripples, and it's like a sheet of glass, except there are bubbles in it. Pretty cool.
• Every now and then, you'll hear a huge booming sound that you might think was thunder, a gun shot, or a bass drum somewhere in the woods. It's actually the ice expanding. You see all these fault lines criss crossing the ice, as the water beneath freezes, expands, and pushes the ice farther out.
• Hot chocolate is a plus. So are home baked cookies.
• Filleting a smallmouth is much different than cleaning a rainbow trout. And (although I'm still not that in to fish) I prefer smallmouth to rainbow trout. Fried. Not too bad.

To conclude, ice fishing is much more fun than you might expect. I had a blast, and I hope to get out again next weekend. It's an excellent excuse to go outside, do something different, talk some, and it doesn't require too many gadgets to be able to do. Highly recommended.

Book Review: Boneshaker

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


If you haven't read much steam punk (and I haven't), this seems like a good intro to the genre. It takes place in Seattle. Not the Seattle we know today, but the Seattle of an alternate post-Civil War era, where a huge tunnel digging contraption (the Boneshaker) drilled through the main part of the city, opening up a seemingly endless pocket of toxic gas that turns people into zombies.

So, zombies and steam punk. A match made in heaven.

The story concerns a young man whose father was the pilot of that disastrous Boneshaker. He's out to prove his father's innocence. His mother is out to keep him from killing himself. A good premise, and the book sustains the action well throughout. There are airships, triple barreled shotguns, and everything else you could want from a steam punk book. The characters aren't perhaps as rounded as I'd like, and it all feels a bit off from perfect, which makes me wonder if I were more familiar with the steam punk genre, if I'd still be giving this 4/5 stars.

But I'm not familiar with it, so oh well. Any of you out there read it? Am I off base? What are some better steam punk books to start with? Do share, please . . .



View all my reviews

A Controversial Post on Government

One of my loyal Facebook followers brought to my attention this morning that I hadn't posted anything controversial in the past while. She's right. What's the point in having a blog if you can't annoy people every so often? So enough with the movie reviews (even though there are some really good ones I'd like to post about) and updates on my writing philosophy.

Let's talk about govment. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (picked for a quote because of the recent idiotic decision to release a bowdlerized version of it--see my comment on that post for my thoughts on that matter), Pap has this to say about govment: "Here's what the law does: The law takes a man worth six thousand dollars and up'ards, and jams him into an old trap of a cabin like this, and lets him go round in clothes that ain't fitten for a hog. They call that govment! A man can't get his rights in a govment like this. Sometimes I've a mighty notion to just leave the country for good and all."

We've got change a'brewin in government these days. Lots of people are up in arms, either talking about how the country is doomed or salvation has arrived. Up here in Maine, a Republican took the governor's office for the first time in 16 years. I've heard plenty of both sides in local politics recently, that's for sure. I haven't really gotten into it one way or the other, although I'll admit I've allowed whoever was talking at the moment to assume I agreed with them. I just don't have the energy to regularly try to explain my feelings on the subject.

Case in point. Governor LePage, our new Grand High Poohbah, just signed an executive order removing the "sanctuary state" status of Maine--in an effort (according to him) to make sure that Maine tax dollars go to Maine residents, not illegal immigrants. Being married to an immigrant myself, I have a thing or two to say about immigration. I've also posted in the past my feelings on welfare.

Remember--I'm now officially a Bryceocrat. I endorse neither party. I see both sides to this. Both sides have good arguments. On the one hand, you have the desire to help out people in need of assistance. On the other, you have the desire that people shoulder their share of the burden. It seems to me that these days, much of the political realm is a lot like the temperature in my office. It gets freezing, so someone turns the heat to full blast. In not too long, it's sweltering, so someone turns it to full Ice Cube. Wouldn't it make sense to just leave it in the middle somewhere?

Yes, it would. But that's not how you get elected these days. More's the pity.

As a non-Mainer, I have no doubt my views will be dismissed by many life-long residents. But I still have them, and as long as I pay taxes to this state, then by golly, my views are just as valid. I think Maine is far too much of a welfare state. I think too many people rely on the government for too long. If I ran my family the way the state (and country) has run its government, I would be bankrupt and in jail. If you don't have the money for something, you can't buy it. That's rule number one of budgeting. Even if what you want is fantastic--even if it would cure all sorts of troubles in the world. You need to cut something else out so that you can afford the new thing. If all of your budget is sacrosanct, then that new thing can't be bought, no matter how "necessary" it is. (See my post on When Does Compassion End for further thoughts on this.)

You want my opinion of LePage? I think he's foul mouthed, often ill-tempered, overly blunt and sometimes shows very little in the way of tact. He's done and said some bone-headed things, and his way of handling the press needs some serious work. That said, he won the election. And there are things I like about him. What do I like? I like the plan to iron out the budget mess--even though I work for the state of Maine and that ironing out may well affect my job. I like the plan to cut back on welfare and put time limits on it. People were up in arms that he refused to have poetry readings and choral numbers at his inauguration. I'm okay with that, even though I'm a writer and lover of the arts. If LePage manages to institute some sort of fiscal responsibility and wrangles the Maine welfare program into submission, then job well done, in my book. He earns himself a "swear at the press all you want" card, signed by yours truly.

If, on the other hand, he fails to live up to those promises, then give him the boot. Fine.

I quoted Pap at the beginning of this post because I think he exemplifies many people's attitudes toward government right now. They want it just how they want it, and who cares about everyone else. Well, we live in this thing called a democracy. If the majority vote for a guy or a platform, and that guy wins, then let's at least give him the benefit of at least a week or two in office. If you don't like what he's doing, use the system to change it. Vote him out. Write letters.

Just don't gripe to me.

And as long as I'm on my soap box, allow me to say that immigration to this country is a real pain in the rear to do the right way. I am 100% against illegal immigration. Anyone who got here illegally and who wants to now become a citizen can go to the end of the line and wait like everybody else. I'm sorry if there are people coming to Maine or the US hoping to get help from the state. I'm sorry there's pain and hunger and war in the world. But if we don't have enough money to adequately serve the needs of people here legally, then how can we justify serving people who shouldn't be here at all? I read over the new rules LePage reinforced, and I'm not worried about my wife suddenly getting picked up and thrown out of the state. She's got a US passport. Before that, she had a green card. We paid $2000 at a time when we were starving college students so that she could be legal.

For every person who points out that we're a country of immigrants, I say back "legal immigrants." People came to America at a time when all were welcome. We're a bit full up right now with troubles of our own, if you haven't noticed, so Uncle Sam lit up the "No Vacancy" sign--or at least "Limited Vacancy." Do I wish immigration laws were simpler? Without a doubt. But them's the rules right now. If you want them changed, change them.

To quote the great Phil Connors, "You make choices, and you live with them."

Anyway--I'm out of lunch break. Not sure how entertaining this post was, and who knows if it was inflammatory enough to quell the clamor for controversy, but it's all I've got in me right now. It's Friday, folks. Enjoy your weekend, and stop worrying so much. Life goes on.

And now, in case I haven't entertained you enough, and as a reward for making it this far in this rambling post, here's a cool YouTube video that splices together all sorts of movies from the past year. Enjoy!

Writing Under Pressure

So the new novel continues to go well (another 1,000 words under my belt this AM), but I wanted to post about a feeling I'd had when I started writing again over the winter break. Since I'd found out about my book deal, I'd been busy with many different things, but none of them was new material. I'd done revisions, plotting, looking at old stuff I'd written, more plotting--all writing-related, but nothing new. There's a big difference in new stuff and everything else, at least to me. It's sort of like the difference between blazing a new trail through the wilderness and driving down the road to visit another town. The first is full of adventure and who knows what. It's kind of dangerous and thrilling. You don't know what you might find next. That's the good part. The bad part is that you don't know what you might find next. Maybe you're making great progress, only to suddenly find an enormous ravine between you and where you want to go. You try going down it, but it proves too steep, and you end up having to do some serious backtracking before the journey resumes. Sometimes it's traumatic, often you want to pull out your hair in frustration, but it's always an adventure.

Revision--driving down the road to another town--is a different beast. The path is much smoother. Sometimes you take a wrong turn and have to reroute yourself, but there are rarely huge obstacles that pop up in your path. You're basically trying to find the best way to get to that town. The drive that's the fastest, the prettiest, the most pleasant and enjoyable. You're smoothing the road. It's work, but of a different sort.

So anyway, with Vodnik on its way toward publication, I now had the chance to stop doing the driving and start doing the rugged exploration again. The thing was, I discovered that doing that exploration had become a lot more difficult.

I was afraid.

(I'm now letting the exploration metaphor die a quiet death.) I'd first been afraid back in my beginning writing class in college (a class that was taught by Dave Wolverton and had Brandon Sanderson and Dan Wells in it, by the way.) I was so worried that what I was writing wasn't going to be any good, that I had to force myself to write at all. Over the years, I got over that fear. Now, it was different. Vodnik had done well enough to get the interest of an editor and agent. But by that point in my writing, I had started to say to myself that what I was doing was for me and me alone. If I didn't sell a book, it didn't matter--it was the act of writing that I enjoyed. That's the excuse I could give myself, at least. But writing, knowing that what I was writing would go to my agent when I was finished, and then potentially go to an editor and on to publication . . . there was suddenly more stress involved.

The closest thing I can compare it to was when I was in district orchestra in high school. I'd had to try out to get in (note to kids--if you play the bassoon, it doesn't really matter how bad you play in your audition. They need the instrument in the orchestra, and if there are only two who audition and they need two bassoons . . . you do the math). Anyway, my audition had been terrible. I was so worried about doing poorly, that I messed up. A lot. But once I was in the orchestra, practicing was fine. No nerves at all. It was fun.

Then I had to perform for the concert.

The nerves came back with a vengeance. The first chair bassoon (Brittnay Lineberry, my music teacher's daughter) told me something that's stuck with me since: it's okay to be nervous during the audition. What you do can affect you then. The nerves are bad, but they're understandable. Once you're performing, though, it's your time to set nerves behind you and show what you can do. You proved you could get where you were--now do what you can do best. (Note to Brittnay: when the only reason someone got into the orchestra in the first place was because there was no other competition, this advice doesn't quite work as well, which might be why I played a wrong random note--loudly--in the middle of that flute solo.)

Anyway--I'm not letting the pressure get to me. My experience in writing is that when you think things are going bad, just keep writing. You get through it, no matter what. It's been the case before, it was the case this time, and it'll be the case again. I just thought it was interesting that once things were going really well for my writing, I found out I still could get pretty darn nervous about writing new material.

Anyone else have that happen to them?

*Note--the book is a cookbook I got Denisa for Christmas to go along with her new pressure cooker. I'll have to do a post on the wonders of pressure cookers sometime soon. Happy happy happy with it. Think slow cooker on steroids. Illegal steroids. Anyway--very good cookbook, should you be looking for pressure cooker recipes.

The Stone of Destiny

Denisa and I have been working on trying to get to bed a bit earlier, now that I'm shooting for a 5:45 wake up each morning (I've done 1,000+ words each day so far--going great!). So our solution thus far has been to watch shorter movies at night. :-)

Some of the types of movies I enjoy reviewing most are ones I'd never heard of before I watched them. I love the feeling of discovery--of finding something that is lots of fun all on my own. Of course, now that I have Netflix, that discovery process isn't quite so hard, and I can't take a whole lot of credit for what I find, but at the same time, someone has to branch out--watch the movies outside the mainstream sequels Hollywood's churning out these days. Why not have that someone be me?

So the movie of the night last night was Stone of Destiny, the story of a group of Scottish college students who decide to steal the Stone of Scone, the Scottish coronation stone that had been taken by the English centuries before. It's based on a true story--events that happened in 1950. One of those movies that defies classification. It's a comedy heist drama coming of age movie, and it was a lot of fun. Life changing? No. Quality entertainment? Certainly. I'd rather watch a three star movie that I didn't see coming than a three star movie that I thought would be four--make sense?

The movie starts out a bit slow, but it's only an hour and a half long, so there's not much time to bog down before it takes off. The college students don't really know what they're doing, and it's fun to watch them try and figure things out. The best part for me was that you really have no idea all along whether they'll succeed or not. It could go either way, and I won't tell you how it ends.

Anyway--it's on Netflix streaming, so you could start watching it now, if you felt so inclined. I really recommend it. Three stars, and worth every one.

Borrowing eBooks and the Future of Publishing

Wrote a post for my library blog that seems like it would carry over well here on this blog, too. Instead of just linking to it, I think I'll provide the whole thing for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!

Big developments in the world of ebooks over the last week. Well, one big development at any rate. Amazon has announced it has decided to start allowing the sharing of Kindle books. There are strict boundaries to what they'll allow right now--each person may share a book one time (and one time only) for up to two weeks. During that two week period, the book can't be read by the sharer--only the sharee. So this is quite similar to what you can do right now with regular books: you can loan it to a friend for a few weeks so the friend can read it. The friend returns it, and then you can read it again.

I personally think more of this needs to happen--without the silly "one time only" clause--for ebooks to really flourish and take off. Everyone's talking about the death of the printed book like it's a bad thing, as if it signals the death of the book publishing industry as a whole. I find this idea silly. I mean, look at the music and film industry. We've had many years now when you can get those songs and films without the need of buying a physical copy. People can record their own songs or make their own movies and share them using the same channels that music or film companies use. However, you don't suddenly see the collapse of the music industry or the film industry. What's changed is the method of delivering the material, not the demand for quality material itself.

Yes, everyone can now write his/her own book and publish it online. So what? The fact is that most of the stuff people write and publish on their own is (more or less) garbage. I'm sure it's very interesting to that person and his five closest friends, but that's about as many people who are going to read it, in the end. Publishing companies--editors and their buddies--will still need to exist. They act both as a wonderful filter for all the rest of the garbage, and as a refiner for the end product itself. When everyone can and does publish an ebook, you need to be able to go to a place where you know you can find quality material.

So this brings us to the question of why there's such reluctance to enable borrowing in the digital era. I mean, it's not like people can't obtain copies of whatever they want to watch, listen to, or read for free. There's this thing called the internet, and it excels at connecting people to pirated material. So why not turn on borrowing privileges on ebooks, with no limit? After all, people have been lending friends their books for years, and that hasn't done in the publishing industry--it just promotes more reading and spreads the word on good authors. If someone really likes the book, then they can go and get an e-copy of their own.

I know I for one would be more inclined to buy an ebook if I knew I could then turn around and lend it to others. That way, I'd feel like I was getting more bang for the buck. I suppose the biggest concern would be people would start setting up online communities where one person would loan out their book a hundred or a thousand times to different people. Of course, that's sort of the exact model libraries have been using for a long long time, and again--the publishing industry seems fine to me. Changing, but surviving and even flourishing in some areas. Book stores, on the other hand, are having a difficult time. Selling the physical copy of things will get more and more difficult, which is why having a solid ebook format and delivery method in place is so important. Who knows--maybe publishing houses take over the selling of their books. Maybe agents do it for their authors (my agent has already started doing this for some hard-to-find, out of print books by his clients). Maybe authors do it themselves. I imagine it will ultimately be a mixture of all of these, but who knows?

Anyway.

I know I'm oversimplifying some of this, and that there are greater issues at hand, but in the end, I think that the more owners of content try to control that content with an iron fist, the less likely those owners will be to succeed. Those who are more loosey goosey with things have a great chance at financial success.

What do you think?

Goal Setting for Fun and Profit

Because what's more interesting? A simple New Year's Resolution, or a way to convince yourself you've earned that extra month of World of Warcraft? That's right, folks. I don't just set yearly goals--I break those goals down into monthly or daily sized pieces, and then I attach monetary figures to those pieces. It works for me, whether from OCD tendencies or just pure unabashed greed. But if it gets me to floss daily, how is it a bad thing? Allow me to go over my goals for this year.

• Write at least one book, preferably two. This is in addition to revising Vodnik for publication (which I'm still hoping to start doing any day now--more info on that when available.) How will I do this? I'm going to write not just 500 words a day, but 1000. I used to do 1000 when I was in grad school, but once I moved to Maine and got a full time job, it seemed like too much. I was trying to figure out how to own a house and take care of it, how to juggle my work duties, how to be a father to two children and still be a successful husband--something had to slim down, and since my writing wasn't paying any bills, that was that. However, now that my writing IS paying some bills, I'd like for it to start paying more of them, thank you very much. So I'm back to 1000 words a day. (This is actual writing words--I don't count Facebook, blogs, Twitter, or any other random writing. Fiction or bust.) Remembering my pace back in the day, I think this will get me to two books finished fairly easily. I do it six days a week, so that's 312,000 words a day. Figuring that my books typically clock in around 85,000-100,000 words, that leaves me with time to revise some, plot some--all that good stuff. I haven't finished a brand new book in a while. I want to fix that this year. (Currently working on a new YA, and I just crossed the 11,000 word mark this morning. Going at a pretty good clip, and feeling great.) My reward for this goal? I get five whole dollars at the end of each month where I completely accomplish it. 5 bucks, baby. Sweet! Oh yeah--you might wonder how I'll find time to reach this goal. Easy--sleep less. That's right. I'm just waking up earlier. The key will be going to bed earlier. Who knows if that will work.
• Lose weight--That's right. Sad as I am to admit it, my dieting days didn't last like I wanted them to. It turns out that when faced with an almost limitless supply of egg nog and fudge, I gain weight. So now it's time to lose that weight. I'm looking at 180 as a goal this time, which would mean I have to lose approximately 33.2 pounds (you do the math). My goal was 190 last time, which was a loss of 38 pounds. I'll do this by exercising some (I'd say "more," but that would imply I'd been exercising at all to begin with. When I say "some," I mean play Wii Fit and thus feel like I've exercised. Maybe take a walk now and then, too. Hey--it's better than nothing.) Hopefully when I hit 180, the bounce back up will take me to 190, at which point I'll settle in and begin part 2 of my master plan (Part 2: Don't Eat so Much Fudge and Egg Nog). If I exercise some each day and count my calories like a miser, I get to earn four dollars.
• Teach piano to Denisa and TRC. They both want to learn how to play. We debated paying for actual lessons for TRC, but that would clock in at around $50/month. I'm too cheap to spring for that when I (perhaps foolishly) think I could just teach him myself. In an effort to actually give this a good shot at succeeding, I'm devoting up to $50/month to reaching this goal. (My theory is that I'd rather have the $50 be spent on fun activities than have it go to a piano teacher.) So 15 minutes/day, five days/week. I can earn $15 doing this. (My biggest incentive yet--but this is a goal that's proven really hard for me to stick to. Harder even than weight loss. Go figure.)
• Read something churchy for 15 minutes each day--As a Mormon, I'm supposed to read the scriptures some each day. That's the goal. I do a terrible job at this. I read, but not daily. This goal will hopefully fix this. I can get 2 bucks for doing this each month.
• Write a journal entry each day--I still keep a journal. When I take a minute to think about it, I'm not entirely sure why I do. I mean, my journal entries are pretty short: "Went to church. Watched ______. Played _______. TRC did ______. Rinse and repeat. But sometimes I have thoughts I don't feel like sharing with the world at large, so I keep the daily journal going to make sure I write them down when I do have them. (If I don't write daily, then I don't end up writing on the days when I really wish I had--make sense?) I get a dollar for doing this.
• Floss and rinse every day--Without tracking this goal, my flossing goes the way of the dodo faster than you can say "extinct." With tracking it, my flossing is flawless. Since my dentist assures me flossing will lead to me losing fewer teeth, and since I don't want to lose teeth, this is a no-brainer goal. It also earns me a whole dollar.

So there you have it. My goals. I'll reassess at the end of each month to see how things are going. I also have family goals (like eating vegetables each day, decluttering my house every day (which is where I took the picture for this post--it's my favorite decluttering How-To book ever--highly recommended if you want to slim down all the junk you've got lying around your house), work on the house an hour a day (as a family, on average, total time) and read a bit from the Book of Mormon each day as a family. There are money rewards for those, too.

I have all of this (and goals for Denisa and TRC) stuck on my fridge in grid format, with boxes for each goal for each day of the month. Yes, I am strange. But like I said--this works for me. For a grand total of $28/month, I bribe myself to lose weight, do my writing, floss, read scriptures, teach my family the piano, and write a journal. I pay $45/month for internet alone.

In my opinion, $28/month is a steal.

How about you--what goals do you have? How do you motivate yourself to reach them? Do share . . . 

(For goal posts from years past, check out here, here and here--take a walk down memory lane with me. Surprising to see how some things just don't change . . .  The good news is that looking at those goals, I reached almost all of them. The Bryce Goal Setting Method for Fun and Profit works!)