Bluto's Bouncing Brain

I don't behave like Bluto Blutarsky,
though some say there is a physical resemblance.

By Dixon Hill

My brain ran away with a book I was using for research, the other day, and I haven't seen it since then.

In a way, I'm glad.  Because I needed this.

REALLY needed it.  The way Bluto Blutarsky needed a good toga party.

My latest novel manuscript had come back from another agent.  I had been stuck in the doldrums for several weeks, not able to turn out very much that pleased me.  And, I had this nagging feeling that there was a problem in that novel manuscript, staring me in the face, which I couldn't fix because I couldn't see it.

As I often do, in such cases, I read a book I'd enjoyed years ago.  And, to my joy, it unlocked an idea in my brain.  Almost at once, I felt I'd identified the problem in my manuscript.  And, within a short time, I was fixing things.  Once I had them straightened out, I sent the thing off to a new agent, but have yet to hear back.

Meanwhile, a book I'd been looking for, to conduct research for another novel idea, arrived in my mail box.  That's the book my brain ran away with.  Because that book -- though others may not find it as wonderful as I do -- just reached inside my chest, scooped up my heart and soul, and took flight with them.

Naturally, my brain followed suit.

So now, my brain is off gallivanting, just where I wanted it to go, flying around the late-1930's Pacific Ocean in what was then nearly a state-of-the-art aircraft.  My fingers, consequently, have been dancing joyfully (but professionally, I assure you) over the keyboard.  And, a work I've long been dying to write has begun to take shape.  To grow and develop a personality all its own -- a key indicator that my ghostly little writing train is roaring down the right track.

Some of you, reading this, know already what I'm talking about.  Because you helped me get my hands on the book in question.  I owe you a large debt of gratitude, and I don't want you to think I'm going to ignore that.  Or you.  But . . . I haven't had time, or the requisite brain (Remember: it's off with the book, in Fiction Land, and it's not answering my calls or letters at the moment.) to properly compile the NON-fiction story of how this came to fruition.  That post will come, but I can't write it now.  I simply don't have the faculties.

Instead, I'm blogging, today, about a conundrum I face whenever I work on a longer manuscript: The Question of Sales.

It's always hard to convince myself that I'm not wasting my time when I work on a novel-length piece, because I know it will be that much harder to sell.  And I don't see myself as being very good at selling longer manuscripts.

I'm not quite sure why.  I mean:

I'm good at selling cigars.
                       So, why can't I seem to sell a novel?

I sell short stories fairly well.
                       So, why can't I sell a novel?

I'm undaunted at having landed a part-time job, in which I'm supposed to sell windshield repairs and windshield wipers.
                       So, why do I feel so "daunted," when it comes to selling a novel?

There are some obvious physical reasons, I suppose.  After all, I don't need an agent to sell cigars, short stories or windshields.  But, an agent certainly seems to help when it comes to novel sales.

Unfortunately, I don't seem to be selling anything to any agents.  At least, not yet . . . though the theory of the sale seems as if it should be similar.  I mean: when I sell cigars, I don't really sell "cigars."  I sell the "love of cigars" to people.  I tell them a story, and let them fall in love with the thing I love: a good cigar.

Selling a short story, I do my best to get my cover letter out of the way fast -- and let my love for the story sell itself to the acquisitions editor, when s/he reads the story.  I always figure the best way to sell a short story is just to let it sell itself.  It doesn't really need me muddying up the waters, if I've raised it right.

And yet . . .

And yet, I haven't landed an agent.  I've begun to think that maybe what's missing is some personal touch.  I don't mean something stupid: like writing letters on purple paper, or sending flowers to an agent.

Instead, I've been sitting in a class for much of the last week, that focused on selling those windshields and wipers.  And that has me realizing just how much my tonal inflections are involved, when I start selling.  I've never been a big believer in writer's conferences, where writers pitch manuscripts at agents or editors.  But, this has me wondering if that might not be such a bad idea.

And, I'd like your advice on this, dear reader.  Because many of you are much-published novelists.  Do you think a pitch conference makes sense?  Or is it really just a big waste of money?

Anybody can give me their take on it, too.  Don't have to have gotten a novel published, to give me your two cents on this thing.  I'm just interested in what folks think.  I'll be tied up for much of the day, but my brain has promised that it will fly in for comments in the Arizona afternoon.

See you in two weeks!
--Dixon

The Warped Relativity of Reading and Writing

By Dixon Hill

I'm always amazed by how long it takes me to write something, even if I know where it's going.
Something that only takes thirty minutes to read might take me a day or more to write.  And, that's just the first draft; I'm not including all the revisions here.

I don't know how many writers our there have this same problem.  Maybe most of you do.  On the other hand, some of you, reading this, might be asking, "What's this idiot talking about?  It only takes twenty minutes to write thirty minutes worth of material!"

As for myself, I can't help recalling something said by an English teacher during my Freshman year in high school.  We were reading Romeo and Juliet -- which I recall primarily because the entire Freshman class got to walk over to a nearby theater and watch a film version that we excitedly learned contained "a brief nude scene."  (This actually meant the film contained a split-second glimpse of "Romeo's" rear end, which greatly disappointed teen-aged me, as I had been salivating for a good long look at Juliet.)

What my teacher said, as she handed out the books, was: "Read this tonight, and we'll begin discussing it tomorrow.  Most productions of this play last less than two hours, and that's with an intermission added in.  So, you should be able to read this in two hours with no problem."

Right.  An English class of thirty run-of-the-mill chowderheaded teens.  And we're supposed to read Shakespeare's version of English, written in Iambic Pentameter no less -- and understand it! -- all within two hours.  Not like I had to worry about Algebra or Biology homework that night, either, eh?

Still . . . what she said, got under my skin.

I wasn't able to read the entire play that night.  I don't know how long it took me, but it took me more than just one night.  And that bothered me.  A LOT!  Because, I also knew she was right: most versions of the play probably didn't run even two hours.  So, why did it take me so long to read it? I'm no Einstein, but could a teen-aged Einstein have read it inside of two hours?  I began to wonder.

And, speaking of Einstein: That brings up another problem with time, the one we call "relativity," in which we start speaking of time relative to other things, such as space, location, velocity -- or in this case: writing vs. reading.

According to the theory of relativity, I don't believe we're able to move faster than the speed of light. This concept always rankles me, as I keep asking, "Really?  Like there's some cosmic speed limit out there imposed by physics?  What happens if we speed, do we get locked into another dimension?"


This provides great fodder for Science Fiction, of course, in which super-light travel is possible in another dimension, or can be equated by folding or (as they say in Star Trek) "warping" space-time" so that a ship can penetrate one layer of the fold and emerge on the other side without traveling over the entire length of the fold.

The pic on the left was created by Brandon Keys and posted on the IndegoSociety.org forum.  I thought that it, along with the pic below (from Wikipedia) showing a "worm-hole," did a good job of illustrating the concept.

While we're on the subject of warping space-time, let's also look at what happens when a reader gets immersed in a fascinating book, only to discover that the ten minutes s/he thought s/he'd been reading, has telescoped into several hours.  How did that happen?  Did the book warp space/time? Or, did the reading take "relatively" longer outside the world of the book, than it seemed to take while the reader was immersed within the book's world?

I have no idea.  Did Einstein know?  Does Stephen Hawking know now?

I've never met either one of them, and thus have no idea.

Nor do I know why it takes me so long to write something it takes so little time to read.  It doesn't usually FEEL like it's taking so long to write such a passage.  In that essence, perhaps writing -- like reading -- can warp space/time, or cause some sort of "relativity occurrence" to take place.  Maybe, for instance, time in the world I visit while writing passes differently than time in "normal space."

The only thing I can figure is that it might have something to do with the speed my fingers move over the keyboard, relative to the speed at which the computer can print on the screen.  I have noticed, in the past, that my fingers can sometimes strike the keys -- when I'm "in the groove" and my writing is coming hot and heavy -- faster than my computer seems to be able to print.  Occasionally I even have to stop and let the computer catch up to me.

The speed at which things take place inside a computer -- an electronic item -- surely must be close to the speed of light, since that's the speed at which electrons are supposed to move.  Thus, if my fingers are moving faster than my computer can work, my
fleshy digits must be moving at super-light speed.

NO WONDER what I write seems to take less time to read than to create!

The solution -- obviously! -- is that people (or at least their fingertips) can move faster than the speed of light, but the punishment is not imprisonment in another dimension.  It's the hell of working for two days, then learning it takes only thirty minutes to read what it took all that time to write!

Theory of Relativity Solved!

See you in two weeks.
--Dixon

Frankenstein and Guildenstern Are Dead: Some post-Halloween musings that may prove humorous

By Dixon Hill

Well, Halloween has come and gone, which means the heat has broken here in the Valley of the Sun. The snow birds are flocking in to crowd the restaurants and jam the roads; lawns burned brown by the summer are now greening up nicely; and my apartment balcony/patio has become much more habitable during daylight hours.

This means I can drag my laptop computer outside and write much more often, without worrying that the heat might fry its innards.  True, I'll shortly need to begin wearing a sweatshirt -- and, not much later, a hat and coat -- in order to join my laptop outside.

But I can handle that better than my laptop can handle the summer heat here in the desert.  And, as I write this, shorts, flip-flops and a thin cotton shirt are fine.

So is my cigar.

With Halloween behind, Thanksgiving looming up fast, and Christmas just around the December corner, this is a time I often find myself asking deep, introspective questions such as:

What's the best way to fit everybody into our new apartment (much smaller than our house) for Thanksgiving, and how shall I address turkey and or ham burning . . . er, uh . . . COOKING, in this slightly smaller, yet hotter oven?

Where are we going to put the Christmas tree?  (Thankfully, my wife's degree is in Interior Design, so that's her department -- which doesn't keep me from wondering.)

Should I splurge on 50%-off items at the local Spirit Halloween store, before they close, so we'll have plenty of liquid latex lying around when my son changes his mind and decides to enter the CosPlay contest at next year's Comicon?

And:  How and why, DEAR GOD!, do we have four cats?  My daughter recently moved out: why didn't she take one?  At least one!

I suspect I'm not the only one with important and lingering questions, this time of year.  Here's a question my wife asked me while I was driving her to work, this morning:

Why did Tattoo always have to tell Mr. Roarke, "Ze plane, boss!  Ze plane!" on the TV show Fantasy Island?  Couldn't Mr. Roarke see the plane?  I mean, did being short give Tattoo a better vantage point for seeing a plane up in the sky?  What -- was Mr. Roarke like: "Sorry, I'm so tall, I had my head in the clouds and they obscured my vision of the aircraft.  Thank you, Tattoo,"?

How could I answer her?  I had no idea.  For all I know, the FAA recruits no one taller than 4-foot-7 as Air Traffic Controllers because shorter people see planes sooner than taller folks.  And, with this blog being posted on the internet, undoubtedly we'll soon see a television news program reporting my suggestion as factual data -- in a 15-second human interest story, used to segue into upcoming advertisements.

My wife also said I should tell you more about Heli-casting, in which folks jump out the back of perfectly good helicopters flying about 20 feet above the water and moving forward at up to 20 or 25 knots air speed.

This is a pretty good picture of a heli-casting op, but I have no idea why that fellow is wearing a helmet. We never wore helmets when heli-casting; just kept boonie hats in our pockets (jumping bareheaded because otherwise the wind and water would have knocked our hats off and we would have lost them.

In this person's right hand, s/he is holding his/her rucksack (which looks a bit too small to be useful, frankly), while that collection of elements in his/her left hand are fins and mask (and possibly snorkel).  Which leads me to another important question:   Where is this person going to put that helmet, once s/he has that mask on?

The rucksack in the heli-caster's right hand should be attached to the jumper with a tow line about 20 to 25 feet long, and made of lightweight rope or 1-inch nylon tubing with snap links at either end, so it can be snapped on and off of the ruck and the caster's equipment harness.  As s/he jumps, s/he should throw the ruck to his/her right, while trying to throw his/her body left.  This, hopefully, keeps the heli-caster from landing on the ruck, which might be painful.

Meanwhile, those folks in the water who seem either to be waving, or to be in the final throes of drowning, are actually doing neither.  They are signalling the helicopter's loadmaster that they have arrived in the water without killing themselves in the fall, and are well enough to be left behind to continue the mission.

And, speaking of Fantasy Island (honest, I really did mention it before; if you don't believe me just scroll up several lines), I remember reading what may be an apocryphal tale, about the show's origins.
Supposedly, Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg were trying to sell some TV series ideas to an ABC executive, who shot down every suggestion they made.  Finally, in frustration, Spelling blurted out: "What the heck do you want?  An island that people can go to, to have all their sexual fantasies realized?"  (or words to that effect)  The executive (I know you'll be shocked by this -- SHOCKED!) loved the idea and gave them the green light to develop the project.  (And we thought we had it rough, as writers...)

And now, having been awake working all night prior to writing this, I'll post it and go to bed.  So that I might arise refreshed and head back to the salt mines.

Ricardo Montalban:

"I seldom dance.  But, when I do dance: I dance ballet . . . in cowboy musicals."

This false quote posted in tribute to anon's comment.

See you in two weeks!
--Dixon

Requiem for a Fedora

By Dixon Hill

A good friend of mine made what will probably be its final passing from my life last week.

It was brown, beaten, dented and scuffed, frayed and holed.  It used to have a small spray of feathers sticking up from the bow round it's band, at the base of its crown.

But, now it lies in state atop a bookshelf, with our two hallowed flags, never to be worn again.

The Presidio of Monterey.

I've owned several hats in my lifetime, but only two fedoras.  One was black with a wide brim, but cheaply made.  The other was brown.

I bought the black one while in high school, and took it with me when I joined the army, wearing it all around Monterey, CA while stationed at the Presidio studying Arabic, then around Texas and Massachusetts while studying for my job in Military Intelligence, and finally around Clarksville TN, the gate town outside Fort Campbell, KY, where I met my wife when we were both part of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

As some of you know, when I left Ft. Campbell, I had only a couple of days to clear post in order to reach the SF Qualification Course on time. I had to take a plane, in Class A uniform, from Campbell to Ft. Bragg, so my black fedora made the trip to Smoke Bomb Hill crushed in the top of my duffel bag.   And there it stayed, until I finished Phase One out at Camp McKall four weeks later.

To celebrate passing Phase I, I checked into a hotel for the weekend, and bought an expensive fedora at the only shopping mall in Fayetteville, Ft. Bragg's gate town.

That was the brown one.  I liked that hat, but always felt the brim was just a touch too narrow.  However, it was of much higher quality than my cheap black one and better constructed,  It had a silk liner, a leather headband around the interior, a stitched edge around the rim of the brim, and its felt body was thicker and better formed, less brittle-feeling.  Its ribbon was thicker, too, taller that is, than the thin ribbon around the crown of my wide-brimmed black fedora.

I wore both those fedoras for many years.  Nearly every time I donned civilian clothes, while in the army.  They accompanied me on deployments to foreign countries (crushed, once more, into my duffel or ruck), and sometimes on field problems if I thought I could get away with wearing them in place of my patrol cap or boonie hat.

You could get away with a lot if you were in Special Forces back then.  And, if you had developed the requisite SF set of "eyes in the back of your head" when it came to gauging when the brass was about to come visiting.  My buddies were used to seeing me run the demolitions range while wearing a leather jacket under my BDU uniform smock, my fedora perched on my head, on cold nights.

These days, from what I've seen and heard, Special Operations Command has pretty much programmed that sort of "unmilitary behavior" right out of SF soldiers.  Which is a real shame for us all, in my opinion. Pulling off the successful Unconventional Warfare mission usually seems to require not only tactical and technical proficiency, but also more than just a modicum of brazen insanity, tempered by a surprising touch of optimism and whimsy.  If asked why this is so, I'd be at a loss to give you scientific reason, but would probably say, "It's like adding that 'Little Dab'll Do Ya' when working with explosives.  You calculate how many pounds of explosive you need, and where to place your charges, but then you always add that 'Little Dab'll Do Ya' or that bridge you're trying to blow will probably still be staring you in the eye after your charges go off.  Add that little dab, however, and down she comes.  I have no idea why this works; I only know that this is why working with explosives in an ART, not a SCIENCE."  And it's the same with UW operations.

But, enough of that diatribe.  We're here to remember a hat.  A fedora to be exact.  A good hat, if not a great one.  But, hey! who here is perfect?  That hat kept my head warm on cold nights, and shaded on hot days, in more geographic locations than I can properly remember.  My brown and black fedoras went everywhere I did, along with my leather jacket, for as long as I served.

After I popped smoke on the army, they came back home to Arizona with me, down to the blazing desert.  There, I wore them a bit less, but still they served me well.

The black fedora was too cheap to last long in the desert air, literally coming unglued while my oldest son played Indiana Jones one day.  But, the brown one stood the test of time.  In fact, I wore it quite a bit around the conference at Left Coast Crime in Phoenix earlier this year.

It served me as clothing and decor, as well as acting as costume and plaything for all three of my kids (a fedora makes a pretty mean Frisbee when needed).  Thus, I heard a catch in my daughter's voice, last week, when she called, "Patta!" from the laundry room adjoining the patio on our new house.

I found her standing there, before the washing machine, holding what looked like a soggy, thick paper towel spindle in both her petite hands.

It was my brown fedora, crushed into a tube shape. Soaking.  Crumpled.  Shrunken.

Somehow, it had gotten mixed in with the dirty clothes, and my wife had accidentally tossed it into the wash.

I'd seen the hat in bad shape before, so I punched the crown back up, pulled the hat back into shape, and pushed an approximation of the right dent into the top.

But, when I parked it on my head ... felt like I was wearing a yarmulke!

My hat had shrunk beyond recoverability.

And, thus, this post: Requiem for a Fedora.  (Or, drink a beer and call it a wake!)

See you in two weeks!
--Dixon

My Trip to the Left Coast

by Dixon Hill

If you read my last post, you know I attended Left Coast Crime 2016, held two weeks ago here in Phoenix, and that I promised to tell you of my experiences there.

So, here goes:

First of all, you have to understand that I don't do well in large groups of unknown people, if I don't know what's expected of me.  I don't find it difficult to stand up and speak before a large audience, or to run a battalion sized operation, nor do I mind being a spear-carrier, because I understand where I fit in.  I understand what's expected of me, and I do it.

But, I had never been to a writer's conference before.  I had no idea what I was really supposed to be doing there, or how that little piece called "me" was supposed to fit into the overall scheme of maneuver among 700-odd strangers.

 To complicate things a bit, I live on the Tempe/Scottsdale border (see map on right), so downtown Phoenix is not "right next door."  My car has developed asthma in her later years.  She wheezes, coughs and threatens to pack-it-in if I get her above 50 mph. So, I stay off the freeways these days.

Thankfully, I could drive almost straight to the Hyatt, where the conference convened, simply by jumping onto Washington Ave. and heading west. I had already registered online.

But, what was I supposed to do when I got there?  "What do people do at writer's conferences?" I asked myself.

I mean, even when the army dropped me into a jungle loaded with not-very-friendly folks, I always got a Mission Statement first.  So, even though I might not know all the details of what I'd need to wind up doing, I still knew what I was trying to accomplish there.

But, what does one try to accomplish at a writer's conference?

I knew this was a place where writers met other writers, for instance.  But, why?  Did they meet each other for friendship and camaraderie?  To gain advice, share writing war-stories, or what?  I mean, writing's one of those things you sort of have to do by yourself, it seems to me, so I really didn't get this one.

There were also myriad panels to attend.  But, what was I supposed to get out of them?

I finally decided there was one mission I could initially focus on: Meeting any fellow SleuthSayers in attendance.  If I focused on this mission, I told myself, the other pieces of my mission might resolve into greater clarity over time and acclimation.

Okay, so I've got a mission statement -- at least for an initial mission; I'm hoping I can come up with some successful follow-on missions to round out my time at the conference -- so I'm ready for INFIL.  I jump in my car, drive over the buttes, and head down Washington toward the Hyatt.

There, I discovered that attendance meant a satchel full of great books!  Just for starters.

Shortly after I attended my first panel, I sat down to figure out what I was going to do next, and discovered I was sitting across from a woman who knew R.T. Lawton, with whom I used to alternate Fridays here on SleuthSayers.  She asked me what I expected to get out of the convention. "I'm not sure," I told her.  We spoke for a while, and I began to consider my mission in terms of what I wanted to accomplish there.

I decided I'd like to get ideas that would help me refine my writing, and what I was trying to say or do with it.  I didn't expect to land an agent, but I figured I'd keep my eyes and ears open for anything that might help me land one in the future.  A few minutes later, I ran into Melissa Yi.

It was great to finally get a chance to meet fellow SS'rs Melissa Yi and Melodie Campbell. Unfortunately, familial duties kept me away from the conference when I might easily have shaken hands with Brian Thornton, and for that I shall long be sorry.

I eventually found myself attending many of the same panels as another fellow, for some reason, and we started talking.  We somehow even wound up at the same table for the final dinner.  There, our host, Matthew Quirk, provided each table member with his latest novel Cold Barrel Zero, and a set of lock picking equipment.  He also brought a few locks along to practice on -- some of the most fun I've had in a long time.

I found many of the panels useful in ways I didn't really expect.  I even wound up meeting a couple of guys with backgrounds similar to mine, who had published books with story lines that sounded like they ran down the same highways mine did.  One of these guys mentioned his agent (I didn't tell him I was looking for an agent; nor did I ask; he just told me.), and suggested I might send a query there.  I thought that was awfully nice, and am doing so.

Wandering around in the "book room" I discovered a trove of old "Toff" mysteries.  I'd stripped all the Toff books out of the local bookstores in my area several years ago, and never expected to find more.  I couldn't help myself! -- I bought two.  It was also nice to get my hands on copies of works by panel members who had said something intriguing about their writing technique.  I hope to learn even more by reading them.

But, I think the thing I walked away with -- more than anything else -- was the feeling that I'd been among people who did what I did on a daily basis.  Many evidently faced the same problems I do.  And all were very supportive.

That's not something you get very often in this writing game -- the support of your peers.  As I wrote earlier: writing tends to be something you do by yourself.  Getting a chance to immerse myself, for a long weekend, in a 700-strong sea of like-minded and supportive people ... that's what I decided the real objective was.

Guess it just kinda' snuck up on me.

And I had a great time!

See you in two weeks,
Dixon

Afghan Police Women

By Dixon Hill


A recent article in the New York Times, about problems faced by Afghan police women, has me considering some problems I ran into when I worked in the army.

Since the problems mentioned in the news story are faced by women police officers, I felt the story fit into our framework here on SleuthSayers.

And, since I've dealt a bit with somewhat similar cross-cultural training problems -- trying to change the way that certain foreign troops viewed women -- I feel a deep sympathy with the women in the NY Times story, and for those striving valiantly to change cultural norms that can be quite harmful to women or even to men or children.  And I feel great concern about the difficulties encountered by the women in question.

Spec-4 Collar Rank Insignia

101st Shoulder Patch
The "Screaming Eagle"

The first time I ran into the dilemma of attempting to aid foreign males to change their views of females, I was a Spec-4 (Short for Specialist 4th Grade: the pay-grade equivalent of a corporal, but without any real leadership authority -- sort of a de facto Private 1st Class-'Plus') working for the 311th Military Intelligence Battalion, subordinate to the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault).

Two Middle-Eastern officers came out to our field site, one day, to see how we conducted collection and analysis under field conditions.  Our Company Executive Officer (XO), a First Lieutenant, led them to the tent where the analysis element was working.  The XO had the female analyst come out and explain the procedure to the visiting officers.

Crest of the 311th MI BN

I was along on this exercise, not really as an analyst, but rather as a truck driver and 'chogi boy'. However, because I was an Arabic Linguist, and had studied Arabic culture to an extent -- also learning much first-hand from listening to what my native-Arabic instructors said and by watching how they behaved -- I was not surprised when a quick look of frustrated anger flashed across both men's faces. Nor was I shocked, when their eyes almost immediately glazed over and they clearly quit paying attention to the female Spec-4 who was briefing them.

After the two foreign officers departed, our furious XO returned and fumed aloud about the rude behavior of the two foreign officers.

Finally, the Sergeant First Class who ran the "beans and bullets" of the unit on this exercise (and was also an Arabic linguist) blurted: "Sir, with all due respect: What did you expect?  You insulted them!  In their minds, your actions made it very clear that they were so unimportant, and such an unwelcome interruption, that you chose a 'non-person'  tell them what they wanted to know."  (Please note that such outbursts don't happen in most military units, but I've noticed that they are strangely common, and relatively well-tolerated, in some military intelligence units.)

Now please don't misunderstand why I chose to post this particular story.

I'm not saying that what happened between that Spec-4 and those two officers was right.  And, frankly, I wasn't happy about it either.  On the other hand, I think the XO (who was actually quite intelligent, and a good officer -- not a comment I've ever made lightly!) probably did get caught-out by a mistake in cross-cultural communications.

I say probably, because it depends on the objective he had in mind.  As I said: he was pretty bright.  So he might have done it on purpose.

Certainly, if his goal was to help those two officers get a good look at the technical aspects of how we did our work, then yes the XO made a mistake.  Because they didn't pay attention to the female specialist, so they didn't gain that knowledge.

But, if you think about it: probably one of the most important things those two foreign officers could learn about U.S. Army operations -- which their army could benefit from -- would be the manner in which we incorporate females into our operations.

What happened that day probably didn't change their minds about the role of females in society, but I think you'll agree that they did get a pretty big shock when that lieutenant brought out that female Spec-4 to brief them.

And they had a US Army captain tagging along with them, looking after them.  My hope is that they complained to him about what happened, and that he explained the way our army looked at females and their capabilities.  The way I figure it, if stuff like that kept happening to these two officers -- and the captain kept explaining -- they might have begun to get the message.  They might not have welcomed that message.  And it still might not have made much difference in their personal lives, because their outlook was undoubtedly deeply held and part of the culture they grew up in.  But at least it would be a start.  Maybe those guys got the shock of their lives, that day.  But, maybe it was the first step on their mental trip to learning a new way of thinking.

Working to change cultural norms is like that, in my opinion.  It's not something that can be accomplished overnight.  Sometimes not within a decade or more.  (Look at the changes in societal norms that our own nation has undergone since the 1960's, and compare this to the work that still needs to be done before certain members of our society will rest secure in unquestioned complete equality, for example.)  And, sometimes folks require a little "shock" to help them wake up and smell the coffee.

I used such a shock technique several years later, after I'd gotten into Special Forces.  That, however, is a story for another time, or this post will wind up so long that I'll have to get an agent in order to post it.

Suffice it to say, I have good idea of the frustrations those working to promote the concept and implementation of women police officers working standard shifts in Afghanistan are dealing with.  And, I worry that programs such as these can fall through the cracks, and are thus sometimes not at the forefront of peoples' minds when considering the pros and cons of US troop deployment and redeployment.  The New York Times is covering the story quite well, and you can see the first article about the situation if you CLICK HERE

See you in two weeks!
--Dixon

Keep the faith, Buddy!

By Dixon Hill

In the last phase of the Special Forces Qualification Course I ran into an instructor who clearly didn't
like me because he was intimidated by my previous experience in Military Intelligence.  In fact, the first words he ever said to me, after having met me about ten seconds before, were: "So you worked for Military Intelligence, huh?  You probably think you're really smart.  Don't you?  Well, we'll see how far 'book smarts' get you through, where you're going.  I think you're gonna be pretty surprised!"
I hadn't said a word to him before he said that to me; clearly he'd been reading my personnel folder.

After he walked away, the other members of my training A-Team asked me, "What did you do to tick that guy off?"

I shook my head.  "Never saw him before in my life."

Roughly a month later, I was one of the 11 men he'd flunked out of Phase 3 (that's 11 out of the 13 guys on my training A-Team).  With the exception of one sergeant, who quit in disgust, all of us went back through Phase 3, starting a few weeks later -- all over again -- and we all passed.

Because we had a very good company commander, Captain Juan O'Rama, all 11 of us were signed out on leave within 24 hours.  When I returned, to start Phase 3 again, I found a brass Zippo lighter on my bunk, left there with a note from my buddy, Sergeant Ed Antonavich.  The note explained that he had "kidnapped" my pillow (for very sensible reasons that will remain a mystery on this blog). The lighter was inscribed: Keep the faith, buddy!

What has this got to do with writing?

My life as a writer sometimes seems to come at me as a sort of wave-like experience.  My success crests, washes over, and then I find myself in a trough, working to mount the next wave.

When it comes to the writing itself, I suppose this wave behavior works its way into a surfer's analogy: I paddle my board into the middle of a story trying to catch that big curling wave and ride it for as long as I can.

It strikes me that this is similar to a previous analogy I've posted here, one in which I pick an interesting freight train, with various and intriguing boxcars coupled to it, and hitch a ride, hoping that after I push-start the locomotive it will begin running along on its own steam, whisking me down the line with it.

I suppose the surfer analogy is the friendlier of the two, because changing course doesn't require tearing up the track and laying it back down in a different configuration.


Problem is: changing course in a story sometimes DOES require such drastic measures, so maybe the train analogy holds truer.

The wave theory of a writer's life, however -- MY writer's life, at least -- pertains to more than just the mechanics of writing.  It also applies to successes and failures, as well as those times that are simply spent working, during which neither monetary nor critical success or failure are achieved; a writer is just busily working.

When this happens, a writer has to have a considerable amount of faith that the project in question is worthwhile, because s/he is usually getting no feedback from the publishing world, and sometimes not even from a critique group.

At such times I am strangely reminded of trials I went through in the army, trials which required an enormous expenditure of physical strength and endurance, often coupled with mental agility and determination if one were to succeed.  Whether these trials were part of training, or simply a necessary component for mission accomplishment, the end result was usually the same: sagging head and shoulders, ragged breathing, tongue hanging out, and -- when salvation arrived! -- that blessed sense of a lightened load when we clambered aboard a chopper, or some other vehicle, and could slip the ruck straps from our shoulders.

For the writer, of course, there is no chopper to whisk one away to the land of security.  The closest we come to that is the moment we receive a request for more pages, an acceptance, or a check in the mail.

There are other times, however, when a writer might receive a much-needed shot in the arm.  That manuscript submitted nine or ten months ago, and forgotten about, suddenly catches an email nibble or bite.  Or, as happened for me a few months ago, you open the mailbox to discover an unexpected check for royalties on work you did some time ago.  The effect on a writer's psyche is not on par with being choppered home to relax, but it certainly helps when you're on the march with no relief in sight.

So, if you're currently in a long trough, working away at something, and the doubts are threatening to set-in, take heart and Keep the faith, Buddy! -- a shot in the arm, or literary chopper-equivalent is undoubtedly on the way.

A couple years after reaching my first A-Team, when I went through Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE) school our instructors  constantly exhorted us, if ever captured, to: Always look for the little victory each day brings!  

POW's who survived long incarceration evidently shared this common trait: they always looked for the little occurrences that gave them a chance to laugh at, or at least think mocking thoughts of, their captors.  Many made a field-expedient calendar and marked off each day, thinking: "One day closer to freedom and home," each morning or evening.  Others took heart from managing to do small things that bucked-up the sagging spirits of a fellow prisoner(s).  On rare occasion, a few even managed to sabotage enemy vehicles or equipment.

All these things are little victories.  Personal victories.  They didn't win any military war, but they did help POW's to survive long periods of hardship, doubt and fear.

The same holds true for writing.  The little victories are there all around a writer: completing X hours that day, finishing a certain chapter -- any and all of the little signs that you're making progress, no matter how much you DON'T hear about it.  If nothing else, a writer can always say, "One more day of writing down, one day closer to completion!"

So, my thoughts to those in the long trough:
Keep the Faith, Buddy!
Look for the little victories each day brings.  

See you in two weeks,
--Dixon

P.S. How do I feel about having to repeat Phase 3 of the SFQC?  Well . . . as I mentioned earlier, all of us who went back through it again, passed with flying colors.  Additionally, the sergeant who flunked us wound up being put out of the army on grounds of mental instability, so I don't hold much of a grudge.

P.P.S. Please don't think I know anything about surfing.  If I tried it, I'd probably end up looking like this guy!

Another Black Eye for Arizona

 By Dixon Hill






I love Arizona... 

I love the wide-open spaces (We've still got ‘em, though they grow fewer and farther between every day!), the dusty desert terrain dotted by Saguaro (“Su – whar – ro”), Prickly Pear and Cholla (Cho – ya) cactus, the scrub plants you encounter as you work your way north, the rough rocky face of the Mogollon (“Moo - gee – on” and that middle syllable is pronounced with a hard “g” sound) Rim, even the high country with its Ponderosa and Kaibab Pines. Not to mention all the prairie dogs, squirrels and coyotes.

 The warp and woof of Arizona life is filled with Mexican, American Indian and Spanish influences. They mold our architecture, our language, even the way we get our water and eat our meals.

 When I was a kid, we found an old wagon wheel out in the middle of nowhere, while on a picnic. Stuff like that dotted the empty desert back then, including rare rotting wagons, or long-abandoned and unmapped Indian ruins that I ran across at times. Somebody had probably lost that wagon wheel while crossing the desert back in the 18-who-knows-when, heading for a better life in who-knows-where. We loaded it in the trunk and my mom had my dad lean it against a tree in our backyard. When our pool was put in, that wagon wheel got cemented—center stage—into the planter that jutted abruptly from the pool’s back wall.
 Today, only the rusted rim remains.

Soutwestern Black Eye 

These days, Arizona gets a bad rap from a lot of folks. Sometimes because it’s deserved. Other times, because of misunderstandings or imbalanced reporting. 

This past July I learned that two guys in Paradise Valley have evidently come up with a way to give Arizona another black eye. It looks like they’re scamming money off people across the nation, using information they find in official law enforcement sex offender data lists.

 For those who don’t know, Paradise Valley is a suburb of the Phoenix Metro area. PV as it’s commonly known, was planned as a bedroom community for upper-income families. Community planners stipulated, for instance, that a built-in swimming pool had to sit at least twenty-one feet from the property line. They did this to encourage the construction of expensive houses on large lots. And, it worked. They also made it illegal to set up a business—even a gas station—except in very limited areas.

 This doesn't seem to have kept two guys from running an internet business out their house, however. According to an Arizona Republic article by Robert Anglen:

 A network of Arizona-based Internet companies is mining data from sex-offender sites maintained by law-enforcement agencies and using it to demand money and harass those who complain or refuse to pay.

The websites in question are evidently run by two men who have both been convicted on fraud charges in the past. They obtain their information from sex offender data lists published by law enforcement agencies, however their site is not associated with any state or federal agency or law enforcement branch.

 Now, I can hear some of you thinking, “They’re convicted sex offenders; they probably deserve it!” But, the people being scammed aren’t necessarily sex offenders at all. According to the article:

 Among the hundreds of thousands of names that appear, the websites include names and addresses of people who never have been arrested or convicted of a sex crime.

The Internet-savvy operators … have prominently profiled specific individuals, published their home and e-mail addresses, posted photographs of their relatives and copied their Facebook friends onto the offender websites.

“Enjoy the exposure you have created for yourself,” operators said in an e-mail to an offender last year. “Unfortunately you took (your) family with you.” …

In Virginia, a man last year stumbled onto (the) profile of his recently deceased brother-in-law. He said he contacted the website in an effort to spare his sister and her two young daughters from learning about the 18-year-old conviction. But when he said he balked at paying, the websites posted his name and e-mail. They also posted his sister’s address, her name and the names of her children, in-laws and other relatives.

 Not enough to convince you? How about this one: A Louisiana schoolteacher, whose only “crime” was buying a house once owned by a sex offender (whose name had been removed from all official registries before she bought the house), found herself caught up in the websites’ snare. “Even after being notified that the offender no longer lived in the house and being paid to remove the profile,” the Republic article states, “(the websites) continued publishing the woman’s address as if the sex offender still resided there.”

That’s right: she’s a teacher. She had no connection to the sex offender in question, except that she happened to buy a house he once lived in. Fearing the website might convince people she was associated with a convicted sex offender—something that could ruin her career—she paid them to remove her address from the website. But, they kept it up anyway. And, the people running these websites are charging people between $79 and $499 to have their names removed.

 Is This Legal? 

The Arizona Department of Public Safety runs an official state registry at azsexoffender.org. Their site states: “misuse of this information may result in criminal prosecution.” Surely this is the case with other agency’s registries, also. 

Yet, though people claim to have complained to attorneys general not only in Arizona, but also in Washington, Virginia, Montana and Louisiana, no law enforcement agencies seem to have taken any action.

Hasn't Anybody Called the Cops? 

That’s what I wondered, and according to the Republic article:

Complaints about … the … websites have been filed with local, state and federal law-enforcement agencies for almost a year. Offenders, their relatives and others who say they have been targeted by the websites say officials won’t act. They say agencies take reports, then decline to open investigations or refer cases elsewhere.

Complaints have been submitted with the FBI, the Federal Trade Commission and the Internet Crime Complaint Center, which works with the FBI to refer Internet criminal cases to various agencies.

One offender said federal prosecutors in Virginia told him they would not open a case.

Neither the FBI nor the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Virginia would comment. FBI officials in Arizona also declined comment.

Complaints have also been submitted with attorneys general in at least five states, including Arizona.

 One convicted sex offender was quoted as saying: “They don’t take action because of who we are: sex offenders. But we deserve equal protection under the law.”

 Maybe that statement doesn't resonate with you. But, no matter how little pity you feel for sex offenders (and, frankly, I find it hard to pity them), surely their families and friends—or people who buy houses from them!—deserve to be protected from these websites.

See you in two weeks,
--Dixon

Calling the Shots

By Dixon Hill

I had planned to write a blog post about a Phoenix crime locale, today.  Something, however, intervened.

On this past Wednesday morning, alerted that one of her tenants had not been spotted outside in several days, and that morning newspapers were beginning to pile up in front of his door, the manager of a Tucson, Arizona apartment complex used her key to access that tenant's apartment.

She found the elderly man lying on the floor near his bed.  When she tried to communicate with the man, she found him unresponsive.  Moving quickly, she called 911.  Emergency medical personnel arrived, and transported their patient to a hospital only a few miles away.

As soon as the ambulance left, the manager called the tenant's daughter, informing her of what had happened.  The daughter and her immediate family lived roughly two hours away in another town, but the manager had worked with her before concerning the tenant.

When the daughter got the phone call, during her Wednesday morning work, she immediately contacted the hospital and, after talking her way past three members of the administrative staff, finally managed to reach the doctor taking care of her elderly father.

The daughter had asked the admin workers if her father was still alive.  They did not know.

She hoped the doctor would tell her, as she held her father's medical power of attorney.

This daughter, however, was NOT quietly praying that her father's life might be saved.

Instead, knowing that her father had signed a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) order more than ten years before, she was actually calling to ensure the hospital kept her father's wishes at the forefront of any medical decision-making. Her father had made it clear that he was tired of the constant pain he suffered from lung, heart and cancer problems.  As he put it to his family members: "I've made peace with my Maker, and peace with my fellow man.  I'm just waiting for the good Lord to call me home so I don't have to suffer anymore.  Whenever he calls, I'll go."

Her father had discussed this with his doctor, who expressed his understanding, if not his approval, but this same doctor also acknowledged that his patient was not simply suffering from some form of depression; The man had grown tired of a life of debility and pain.

Now, this man's daughter was keenly worried that the hospital staff might -- as their nature tends to lead -- pull out all the stops to keep her father alive, unaware that, in his opinion, they would instead be preventing him from passing away in a peaceful manner.

After a few moments on the phone, the doctor inquired, "Are you the medical power of attorney?"

"I am."

"And you say he has a DNR order?"

She swallowed back a tear, cleared her throat and stated: "That's correct.  He has a DNR, and his doctor is aware of it.  My father doesn't want you to use any special life-saving measures.  I want you to act according to his wishes."

"Then," came the reply, "we will not use any special life-saving measures.  Rest assured: we will keep him as comfortable as we can, and interfere as little as is legally permissible.  Please get here as soon as possible, so we may confer with you in person."

"Thank you," she breathed.

As soon as she hung up with the doctor, the daughter called her husband.

And, in an instant, my plans for the day changed drastically.  That call came from my wife, explaining that she was on her way home and we needed to get to that Tucson hospital as fast as possible.

My youngest son, and daughter were able to join us.  So we all jumped in our car and I drove hell-for-leather to give us a chance to be by the dying man's side.

We made it with time to spare.  Enough time for my wife to confirm, in person, that she was "The medical power of attorney."   (They never asked me if I HAD his power of attorney," she told me later.  "Everybody who asked, asked 'ARE YOU the medical power of attorney?' as if I was some Super Hero called The Medical Power of Attorney.  It was surreal.")

It was also enough time to call my father-in-law's extended family, alerting them to his condition, so his sons could make flight arrangements from points east.   a

And, thankfully, time to get him admitted and transported to an in-patient Hospice care facility, where his wishes could be more closely adhered to.

The last time I saw my wife, last night, it was just after 7:00 pm and she was preparing to ride beside her father in the back of the vehicle that would take them to the Hospice location.  I then drove my kids the hour or two back home, and set my alarm for 5:00 am in order to wake for work, planning to head back to Tucson when I got off at 11:30 am.

At 4:00 am, it seemed that my phone alarm went off.  And, I was surprised to discover that my phone alarm was evidently causing my cell phone to display my wife's picture for some reason.  Finally, my sleep-addled brain cleared enough for me to swipe the TALK button and hear my wife say, "Dad's gone.  He went just a few minutes ago."

I took a shower to wake up, then called-off work and drove down to join my wife.

My father-in-law had previously decided to donate his body to science, specifically: The Willed Body Program at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine.  The college has to act fast, after the death of a donor, to ensure the body is gathered while still in proper condition for the program, so the body of James Click, my wife's dad, had been removed long before I managed to reach her.  The college had permitted Hospice to wash and dress the body before they arrived.

Unfortunately, this means that three of my wife's brothers arrived to see their father too late.  Two flew into Phoenix at 9:30 in the morning, while the third will arrive tomorrow.  We drove home to greet the two arriving that morning, letting them know the steps we'd need to take if they wanted to view the body.

My wife is now home and resting.  She slept fewer than three hours last night, and ate next to nothing all that day.  Her brothers have gone down to begin assessing and clearing out my father-in-law's apartment, and we'll join them tomorrow.

For now, however, my wife rests.  Like me, she is tired and sad, but happy.

Our happiness stems from this:

Her father -- through his early, constant and crystal clear instructions, leading all of the family to realize his wishes, as well as his written instructions and legal preparations -- made it possible for my wife to act as his physical representative "as" The Medical Power of Attorney and ensure that, at a time when he could communicate only in single syllables, hand signs and grunts, he still got to call all the shots concerning how he went "into that good night."

See you in two weeks,
--Dixon

November Twenty Second

    Sometimes I have to think long and hard to come up with a theme for Tuesdays.  Not so today.  Today is November 22nd.  That alone should be enough, but this year Stephen King has weighed in to make the task even easier.

    I would hazard a guess that anyone much over 50 – and some quite a bit younger – brood their way through this day each year.   We remember where we were when we heard.  We ruminate over “what if” scenarios.  Today is a day haunted by the memories of grainy black and white photos, horrors on the front pages of newspapers.  It’s a day to puzzle over how things could have gone that terribly wrong.

     Certainly, if you are of an age, it’s a day when you remember where you were back in 1963, what you were doing when Walter Cronkite, in shirt sleeves, announced to a stunned nation what had happened in Dallas.  There are other days like this – 9/11 is one – when a watershed was crossed, when the world tilted a little on its axis and then never again spun quite the same.  Those days, thankfully, are few.  But that is one of the reasons that we brood each year when they roll around.

     On the rock of our obsession with this date Stephen King has built his new novel, 11/22/63.  A very different writer, Laura Ingalls Wilder, once wrote that there is never a great loss without a little gain, and that is true here.  Out of this day, which shall always be dark, we have gained a fine novel from Stephen King, a novel that explores the “what ifs” that have haunted us for the past 48 years.

    Let’s take a deep breath and, at least for a while, step back from today’s date and focus for a while more generally on the amazing Mr. King.  By my count, since breaking into the publishing world in 1974 with Carrie, Stephen King has published 61 books – mostly novels, but also short story collections and nonfiction volumes. 

     The first Stephen King book for me was The Shining.  I bought it back in 1978 after hearing the paperback edition advertised on the radio.  I read about 100 pages the first night, and then found myself completely unable to concentrate at  work the next day because all I could think about was the story.  That night I stayed up until the small hours of the morning and finished the book.  I had to do this in order to get my life back – that is how intense the story was for me. 

    Since that day in 1978 I have read everything that Stephen King has written.  Yep, every one of those 61 books.  But while I am a stalwart Stephen King fan I am also an inveterate critic.  Like many readers, and probably like most teachers, I tend to grade books as I read them.  To my mind King has offered up some solid “A’s”, including The Shining, The Stand (particularly the longer uncut version published in 1990), It and the Gunslinger series.  My entirely subjective grading system also awards some “A-‘s,” including, among others, Firestarter, Pet Sematary, Carrie, and Salem’s Lot.  But recent works by King, aside from the later Gunslinger volumes, I generally relegate to no better than the “B” range, and there are some that for me fall below that line.  Tommyknockers, gets a C-, as does Insomnia and Cell. 

The Colorado Kid (sorry about that, Stephen) is lucky to get a D.   I mean, really – a “fair play” mystery plot where the crime is never solved?  In an afterword to The Colorado Kid, King wrote that people will either love the ending or hate it. "I think for many people, there'll be no middle ground on this one . . . .”  Well, that’s right – there wasn’t one for me!

    Others may compile the grade list differently, but from my perspective (since, after all, it is my list) one of the obvious conclusions is that, with the exception of the later Gunslinger volumes, King’s best books, at least my personal favorites, are generally found among his earlier works.  I am not the only one who has speculated that in recent years King may have been just a bit burned out. Ttake a look, for example, at the parody of King that was on Family Guy a few years back.   Perhaps this is because King used his best ideas, the ones that really grabbed him, early on, and then just ran out of really great ones.  When this happens to many of us who are, or who aspire to be, writers we experience writers’ block.  We produce nothing.  Not so, with King, however.  By all observation the man is the energizer bunny of authors.  He keeps going, and going, and going.  When his publisher ordered him to slow down, telling him that he could not continue to write at the pace of more than one book per year, King famously invented Richard Bachman and used that alter ego to drop another seven books into the book stores.  But while the work ethic is admirable, the process has, as discussed above, produced some lesser gems.

    The purpose of the foregoing digression?  Well, I guess it's two-fold.  First, not every Stephen King book is great.  And second, I hand out "A's" pretty sparingly.  12/22/63, however, gets a solid "A."

     So now lets return to today, November 22, and to King’s latest novel.  I have not finished 11/22/63 as of this writing.  This is because I am savoring it, parceling it out in measured doses, like Christmas candies.  All criticism is subjective, but to my mind 11/22/63 is the kind of King novel that we have not seen in years.  There is nothing "phoned in" here, nor is the story a forced effort by King to write "a Stephen King book."   In fact, there is very little that is supernatural about this story.  11/22/63 reads almost like it wrote itself, its premise is a stampede, and King, like the rest of us, is bouncing along trying to do whatever he can to control those horses.   Such mad rides are the best rides.

    And why is this?  Why does this book work so well?  I suspect that it is because once King came up with the premise of 11/22/63 it was a story that he had to tell.  What a difference it makes when the force driving the narrative is one that has completely grabbed the author's imagination.  When that happens writing will not be forced, it will flow on its own.  King's premise of a protagonist presented with an opportunity to go back in time, to live from 1958 through 1963 and to then attempt to right the horrific wrong of November 22 obviously resonated for the author in a way that other story ideas just did not.  King works hard in  his novels to make the characters live and breathe, but the result can  sometimes come  across as a bit forced.  Not so with those who populate 11/22/63.  They invariably ring true, and I suspect that this is so simply because, the story itself must have become so  real to King as he wrote it that character development flowed naturally.  I suspect Stephen King was as carried away writing this book as his readers will be reading it. 

The back cover of 11/22/63

    In his column last Friday my colleague Dixon Hill wrote an incisive and poignant article on happy endings.  And as Dixon concluded, happy endings generally are not Stephen King’s forte.  I have already noted that I have yet to finish  11/22/63, so I do not know how happy or unhappy the ending ultimately will prove to be.  And, of course, even if I did know the nature of that ending I would not share it here – no spoilers from me!

     But it is not a spoiler to reproduce the back cover of the novel.  And from that back cover one must conclude that, at least as to November 22, 1963, Stephen King, like the rest of us, has spent a good deal of time thinking about the possibility of a happier ending.

     The possibility of putting a better end to November 22,  a day that left us all older though not necessarily wiser, was in any event the apparent spark that inspired a great read from Mr. King. Hearkening back to Laura Ingalls Wilder's advice, we might as well be thankful for that small gain, even though it has sprung from our greater loss.

Regrets in Wonderland?

by Dixon Hill 

     An article to be published in the quarterly lifestyle magazine Wonderland, today, generated so much buzz beforehand, that I was struck by a question that hadn’t occurred to me before: At what point should an author “just let go” of a long-published work?

     This question was prompted when I heard of recent remarks attributed to J.K. Rowling, concerning her Harry Potter series.

     For those who have somehow managed to avoid reading the books or seeing the movie, I should explain that Harry Potter, the main character in the series, has two best friends at school: Ron Weasley, and Hermione (“Her-my-oh-nee”) Granger. I doubt I’m giving anything away by telling you that, at series end, it is perfectly clear Harry has married Ron’s sister, Ginny, while Ron has married Hermione.

     Supposedly, however, J.K. Rowling feels she made a mistake by pairing her characters off like that. UK-based The Sunday Times quotes Rowling as telling Wonderland magazine:

“I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment. That’s how it was conceived, really. For reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it, Hermione ended up with Ron.

“I know, I’m sorry. I can hear the rage and fury it might cause some fans, but if I’m absolutely honest, distance has given me perspective on that. It was a choice I made for very personal reasons, not for reasons of credibility. Am I breaking people’s hearts by saying this? I hope not.

"I think there are fans out there who know that too, and who wonder whether Ron would have really been able to make her happy.”*

     Rowling would not be alone in feeling a desire to alter previously published work, of course. I’m sure we’ve all suffered from that sudden late-night realization that we missed a great opportunity to do a better job on a story that’s been out for some time. Sometimes—and it just rots my socks when this happens!—inspiration seems to strike only after the iron has grown stone-cold. 

     Pointing this out does not denigrate the work of J.K. Rowling. Many great authors have revised their works between publications. Certain Russian writers were rather infamous for continually “correcting” their works. A version of Stephen King’s The Stand was released with a load of stuff that had been cut from the original. (I thoroughly enjoyed both versions!) And, Dean Koontz has conducted major rewrites of books released under his own name, which had originally been published under pseudonyms.

     But, the interconnecting action, here—it seems to me—is that these writers edited the work so it could be published in a newer version. And, I get the idea this isn’t Rowling’s aim (though, I’d remind the reader, I’m hardly infallible in the “famous-authors-I’ve-never-met interpretation department”).

     One possibility is that Rowling and the Harry Potter franchise were hoping to remind people that the books are out there, as well as drumming up extra notoriety for a new project. Rowling is currently penning the screenplays for a new film series set in the witch and wizard world of New York, 70 years prior to Harry Potter’s fictional birth.

     As for the book series: It’s been long enough, since their initial release, that there are probably quite a few kids who haven’t yet read them. My youngest son, until recently, being one of those kids.

     I began reading the Harry Potter series to my first two children after hearing about it on National Public Radio. By that time, the first two or three books were out. After we finished those, we had to wait about a year for the next one. And thus began our annual Harry Potter count down. We never stood in line for a midnight release, but I don’t think we ever waited longer than a week afterward to obtain the newest book either.

     Those two kids are now young adults of 18 and 24. But, until a few months ago, my eleven-year-old son had only seen the movies. At his insistence, however, we’ve been buying a new set of the books one-at-a-time, just for him, and I’ve been reading them to him. Why am I reading aloud to an eleven-year-old?

     Well, for one thing, I enjoy it. And, also … because he’d heard the stories, all his life, about the way I read the books to his older siblings. They liked the way I did the characters’ voices, and told him about it. My 24-year-old son still holds a grudge against the movies, because he claims I did a much better job of portraying Mad-eye Moody’s character than the actor in the film. (I interpreted Moody as a cross between a drill sergeant and a crazy major I once knew. The major was crazy in a good way—militarily speaking, at least.)

     So, it’s possible Rowling’s remarks were a sort of publicity stunt intended to bolster book sales or interest in upcoming films. But, I think it might have had a kinder aim.

     I suspect Rowling was trying to give a nice hand-up to Emma Watson, who played Hermione Granger in the movies. Rowling has indicated, in the past, that she identifies with the character of Hermione, as she wrote her. And, there can be no doubt Miss Watson has done a lot for the franchise.

     Thus, when Rowling learned that Watson was guest-editing this edition of Wonderland, I think it only seems natural that the famous author might provide a good, provocative sound-bite quote, which could be expected to boost magazine sales for that issue.

     Revisiting the question I used to kick-off this post: “At what point should an author “just let go” of a long-published work?” I find it easier to answer the reverse question, “When does it make sense for an author to discuss the shortcomings of a previously published work?”

     After examining potential reasons why J.K. Rowling seems to have chosen to do this, I think we’re left with two primary times when it makes sense:

1. It makes sense if an author wants to boost interest in previous work, or a new project that’s linked to that work. Then s/he can raise a contentious question concerning a certain plot element, hoping his/her remarks will find their way to multiple media outlets. 
2. It makes sense if an author wants to help out a friend in the media. By providing a quote that becomes “the talk of the town” s/he might help temporarily increase interest in his/her friend’s work. 

     The kicker here, of course, is that the author has to be famous enough that millions of people will be interested in s/he says about the work. Otherwise, national media probably won’t carry the story.

     What does all this mean to me and my own cold-iron inspirations? Not a lot I suppose. I may still start awake, some night, realizing how the addition of a few sentences here and a paragraph there might have added a world of depth to a piece—a depth I almost struck, but missed. But, as things stand, I suppose I might as well just roll over and get back to sleep … after sneaking into my office and jotting the notes into my computer.

     After all, who knows what the future may hold in store?

     See you in two weeks,
     --Dixon

* The majority of my sources attributed this last quote to J.K. Rowling, though a few others attributed it to Actress Emma Watson. The Wonderland article containing these quotes had not hit the newsstands prior to my writing this blog, so I had no way of being certain. Thus, I attributed the quote to J.K Rowling while adding this note for clarification.