Category Archives: Uncategorized

Anyone Can Write a Book

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So this quote came across my Facebook wall a week or so ago:

“After I had written this book I told several friends. Their response was polite and mild. Later I was able to tell them the book was going to be published. Almost to a man they used the words ‘I am proud of you.’ They were proud of the result but not of the action.” – Hugh Prather

Attached to that post was some additional commentary from the person who posted the quote. He was proud of all his friends for their actions, not the end results. In that moment, I felt very fortunate to know this person and I felt even more fortunate that he was just one of many people in my life who echoed that sentiment. 

You see I have written a short story that was published in an anthology. When I got the email saying that I had made it into the book my wife came up to me and said, “Congratulations, you’re a published author!” On the surface would appear that this was praise attached to the result. That would be true as becoming published is a big deal, however, if we go back not a month earlier I participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).

NaNo, as it is affectionately known, is a challenge to write a novel in 30 days (a novel being defined as at least 50,000 words). I tried in 2011 and failed miserably, barely squeaking out 21,000 words. In 2012 I also squeaked out a number – 50,000 in 29 days (I took the last day off to celebrate AND grew a moustache for Movember the whole time). As soon as I crossed the 50,000 word plateau I paused and took a moment to soak it all in. My wife wrapped her arms around my neck, kissed me on the cheek and said, “Congratulations, you’re a novelist!” 

The support and the support of those around me as I muddle my way through this whole book writing thing is absolutely outstanding. To them, and certainly to me, the journey toward becoming a novelist is an accomplishment to be proud of.

Fast forward to one of the first comments on that Facebook post I started this article with. It read: 

“Anyone can write a book. The trick is writing something good enough to convince a publisher that enough people will find it interesting enough to buy.”

Sitting on my couch reading that comment over and over I went right properly ballistic.

After settling down a bit I re-read it and I guess there’s a certain amount of truth to the statement. In one month, technically, I wrote a book, but his over simplification of the task and his assertion that for your book to be “good” you need to “convince a publisher that enough people will find it interesting enough to buy”, are well… *cough cough* bullshit *cough cough* 

First of all, I suspect that there’s only so much convincing that you (or your agent) can do. At the end of the day content is king. It does need to be interesting, but the idea that if you can’t convince a publisher it will sell that you have nothing to be proud of, or that your book isn’t good,  is completely absurd. Quite frankly, those sound like the words of someone who is never going to write a book.

The first thought that went through my head was actually, Sure anyone can write a book. In the same way that anyone can become an astronaut. This was echoed by my writer friend Gareth Young when I mentioned this Facebook post to him and he replied:

“It’s a little like saying you just have to study and train hard, be a genius level polymath and Olympic level athlete to be an astronaut. Sounds pretty straightforward when you put it like that. Although now anyone can be an astronaut too. All you need is plenty of money and the Russians will strap you into one of their rockets and shoot you into space.”

If we take it a step further, these days anyone can get a book published too. Self publishing is a rapidly growing business and many writers are having a pretty good go with it. So, Mr. Facebook Guy, does this mean that if you self-publish you have nothing to be proud of? Is your book not “good enough”?

Now, because (surprisingly) not everyone has read everything I have ever written on this blog you may not know that back on February 9th I wrote this:

“Good ideas are even harder to come by. Those are like the crystal clear double rainbow you see after a short summer rain where you can imagine giant pots of gold at each end and a bevy of leprechauns dancing a jig around them. Oh, and let’s not forget that all this has to be interesting enough for people to read. That’s like trying to describe your rainbow scene in such a way that someone would rather read about it from you than see the photograph of it taken by someone else.“

My excerpt was in the context of being a writer – as in, anyone can write but not everyone can write something readable. On the surface you’d think my comment and the Facebook Guy’s were just variations of each other, but there’s a solid distinction to be made. Gareth (this guy is good with words – I mean really good) also had this to say:

“Anyone can write a book but not everyone can be a writer. Writers are a whole different animal from people who just write books.”

Indeed. Anyone can blather 50,000 words onto a page and say “I wrote a book”. I did it, and I’m a giant lazy turd with a day job and a family and more procrastination techniques than anyone I’ve ever met. But that’s not all there is to writing a book – at least not if you want to be a writer. Blathering gibberish onto a page is making a book, not writing a book.

Properly writing a book means a whole lot of research, hard work, patience, and dedication. When you’re done and you’ve got your fifty, sixty, seventy, or a hundred thousand words down on the page; with all your characters developed, your plot points covered, your beginning, middle, and end all tucked away between the title page at the front and the final punctuation mark at the end you take a break, and then you edit it. You edit the living hell out of it. Then you edit it again, and possibly again. Then, you let someone else read it. Maybe it’s some beta readers, maybe it’s a professional editor, maybe it’s your husband, your wife, your best friend, or your mom. You take this thing that you’ve just invested countless hours on, put your heart and soul into, devoted those precious few free waking moments to, and you hand it to someone – and you wait. You wait and you wait and you wait. You wait for them to tell you… that it’s not good enough.

Then, you suppress your anger, you hide your tears and bite your lip, and you take the comments, one by one, and you learn from them. You make changes and you re-write and you re-work and you polish. You push through the pain and the heartache, and you keep writing. You just keep writing.

Just keep writing.

After you have spent more time editing and re-writing (and crying) than you did writing it in the first place, you finish. Done. You write your acknowledgements and you celebrate, for you have accomplished something great.

It is said that a first novel can take someone years to write. If you still think anyone can do it I dare you to try – just once – give it a try. I’ll check back with you in 2015 and see how you’re making out.

~ Andrew

For Dad

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Not surprisingly, a good number of the memories I have that involve my father also involve sports. Whether it was sitting on the porch listening to the Toronto Blue Jays on the radio; me with a lemonade, Dad with a can of Schlitz, or him taking me downtown on the subway to sit in General Admission at Exhibition Stadium and watch them play live. I can still hear the chants of “Er-nie! Er-nie!” echoing through the ball field and out onto the cool waters of Lake Ontario.

If I was really lucky we’d sit in Right Field – Reserved Bench!

I have a family of my own now and my wife’s father enjoys heading down to the ballpark as well, so every so often for Father’s Day she and I will buy tickets for our dads and we’ll all go down to the ballpark and catch a Jays game (preferably against the Yankees). Where do you think Dad likes to sit? Yup, out in left field above the Jays bullpen – not too far from the old General Admission days at Exhibition Stadium.

By the age of 5 I had watched more games on Hockey Night in Canada than I could count. In 1979-1980 my dad, as the principal of a school, would bring home boxes of confiscated hockey cards (no shootsies allowed in the hallways!) and I would catalogue each and every one, diligently using the checklists to see which ones I was missing. Dad would sometimes get hockey tickets from a parent and take me down to see the game and if he was really itching to go to and didn’t have seats he’d hop on the subway and get some off scalpers. The most memorable moment would have to be the 1987 playoffs against St. Louis. Toronto won the series in 6 games on the same ice that I scored a goal on a little more than 2 years earlier. Dad and I were in standing room “seats” and I thought the building was going to collapse! After the game Mom said she saw us on the news; Dad carrying me on his shoulders as fans paraded up the street. Even if I didn’t know what it meant at the time that night was probably the first truly surreal experience of my life.

1984 Thornhill Rebels crammed into a broom closet in the bowels
of Maple Leaf Gardens. I was 10 years old. 

All grown up, able to afford my own tickets (and a knack for being able to actually get some), I would make a point of taking my old man to a game every year. The last Toronto Maple Leafs playoff game we saw was in 2001 at the new home of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Air Canada Centre. Wouldn’t you know it, the Leafs would win in overtime and we were fittingly situated in standing room (it was the game Sergei Berezin actually passed the puck!) Dad didn’t put me on his shoulders but an usher did have to instruct him to get down off the railing and stop banging on the bottom of the press box.

Now, as any good hockey fan knows, when you’re not out on the ice you should be out on the course. When it came to golf Mom had more patience (and a hole in one!) but played a lot less than Dad. Not that Dad played a whole lot, but both his parents were avid golfers and he definitely liked to get out on the course and hack it around. Dad would let me borrow his clubs and I’d go out to the Unionville Par 3 course with a friend and just make a total mess of things. I’m pretty sure the only reason every club came back in one piece was the uncertainty of what would happen if even one of them came back broken.

Since Dad retired he’s played a lot more golf, and since I’ve grown up I have as well. Now, once or twice a year we go out on the course and shoot a round, usually 9 holes so it doesn’t take as long. I couldn’t tell you how many times we’ve played, but I can definitely tell you how many times I’ve beaten him: once. That’s right, I’ve only beaten him one time. I’ve never been able to hit his curve ball, and apparently when he’s around I can’t hit a fairway either. I bought him a round at the course by my house for Father’s Day this year and I have this sneaky suspicion that he’ll eek out the victory just like he’s done all all those times before.

Pretend score card from the one time I beat Dad (as if I shot a 44)

If it’s possible to be influenced into enjoying a certain type of book I was definitely influenced by my father. He’s read all the classics of course, and as an English major from Waterloo Lutheran University and public educator for 34 years he has read his fair share of novels. The man loves to read, and one of his go-to genres is the one I head to first when I’m looking to buy a new book: suspense / thriller. I have borrowed many a book off of his shelf written by Dan Brown, Steve Berry, or Robert Ludlum and have certainly purchased many of their works or taken them out from the library as well.

Is it any surprise then that my novel, just a few thousand words shy of a completed first draft, happens to be a conspiracy suspense thriller? I’m 39 years old and still trying to get in my dad’s good books.

One thing I am looking forward to is writing on the inside cover of his copy and handing it to him sometime this year; heart in my throat, terrified he’ll think it sucks. I have another feeling though, that he will think it’s a perfectly readable book, and even if he doesn’t, one thing I know is he’ll put me up on his shoulders one more time and place my novel proudly on his bookshelf right beside Ludlum, Brown, and Berry – and every time I visit it will be surreal.

  

~ Andrew

One Hundred

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For my 100th published post here on Potato Chip Math I thought I would delve into the history of my little corner of the blogosphere and speak to why I think it has seen so much success over the past six months.

I had blogged before, way back in the blogging heyday of 2005, but after a few years away I was getting the urge to start putting words out in the universe again. I was finally starting that screenplay I had been meaning to write for the last half decade and life was slipping into a nice little routine. Then, on March 24, 2010 I made a trip to the grocery store to pick up some snacks and uncovered a bit of math involving potato chips that got me thinking, I could blog about this. So I did.

Thanks to Tatiana Hedley
for the perfect pic

Then, a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. What started as a random collection of posts, rants, and quirky facts about me started to evolve. In November 2011 I had a revelation after seeing Kevin Smith perform in Kitchener and a few months after that Kevin re-tweeted a link to something I had done. Within  half an hour my blog had more hits on a single day than my total for the previous year. Interesting.

Kev mentions me on Twitter and all hell breaks loose
on my blog (for about half an hour)

I managed to sustain a decent level of interest over the next while by putting a few things out there related to social media, specifically Twitter. Then, in July of 2011 I suffered a concussion. In an effort to work my way through this I started a little thing called 1000 Word Picture and thanks to a few writer friends and a link someone posted to Reddit I was reaching record highs.

Posting a couple times a month on a variety of topics my readership stayed fairly steady and predictable over the next 18 months. I was getting some spikes in traffic when I would comment on other people’s blogs or if I posted something that struck a chord with a lot of people. Then, something happened that would change my outlook and the focus of this blog forever (or at least for the foreseeable future): I won NaNoWriMo.

50,000 words in 30 days
(it’s a lot harder than it sounds)

This was such an amazing experience, not just for my writing, but also in terms of my interactions and relationships with other writers, that I decided I would use this blog for something a little more productive. I would maintain a consistent schedule of posts (something which I had difficulty with in the past) and focus my topics on my experiences and observations as an up-and-coming writer.

Then another funny thing happened on the way to the forum. My blog traffic almost doubled. Pardon? What could I have done to deserve this? Short of over analyzing this I think I can sum it up with one word:

Consistency.

We are barely into June and I’ve already posted more than all of last year. Hell, if I extend that into November of last year we have the fact that in the last six months I have posted 27 times. In the six months prior to that I only posted 11 times and during the same period a year ago only 10 times. That means that in the last six months I’ve posted more than the previous twelve months combined.

Bar Graph!

Probably the most startling statistic is that my monthly readership has increased dramatically. Now, I have been more active in reading other blogs and commenting – which goes a long way towards driving traffic to this site, but the fact remains that once I started delivering a more consistent message on a consistent schedule I started to engage with more readers. Monthly readership of Potato Chip Math has increased 40% over the last six months and more than 50% over the same time period a year ago!

Line Graph!

So there you have it. A look back at the last 99 posts and how a little blog that started about some stupid potato chips became a little bit more. If I am in any position to offer advice I will leave you with the following. Greater blog success can be achieved many ways. Content is key, but so is consistency.

  • Consistent messaging
  • Consistent theme
  • Consistent timing
  • Consistent phrasing

And if you talk to my editor for the Orange Karen short story I wrote, the most important…

  • Consistent verb tenses!

As always, thank you for being here and having read this 😉

~ Andrew

Boats Against The Current

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Back on April 28 I published a post on the hype surrounding the recent theatrical release of The Great Gatsby. I surmised that the prevailing thought of the general public would be that the movie, even with all of its Leonardo DiCaprio-ness, would not be as good as the book. Now, to be fair, in that case I had not actually read the book so I was pulling from general opinions on the subject and personal history with other works of fiction. I did end with the statement that I would probably read the book and I would definitely see the movie, with any amount of luck in that order.

Well, I haven’t read the book yet, but last night my wife and I got a sitter and went out to see the movie. Here’s how things were set up heading into my first Gatsby experience:

  • I had a vague idea of the plot 
  • I knew previous versions of the movie were not remarkably well reviewed
  • I made a point of avoiding reviews, but did overhear a stranger say the movie was “not very good”
  • I am not a big Leonardo DiCaprio fan
  • For some reason, the movie was also being shown in 3D
  • For some reason Carey Mulligan reminds me of Michelle Williams
Carey Mulligan
Michelle Williams

So there you have it. I am about as clueless as you can be on the subject, with only a slight bias clouding my judgement (there’s the Leo thing, but I paid my 10 bucks so I was willing to give him a shot, and there’s the whole post I did about people thinking the book would be better. Other than those things I’m completely neutral).

When it finished, this older lady sitting next to me asked me what I thought and I had to be honest with her. I said, “Sadly, I have not read the book so I can’t make the comparison, but I liked the movie.” On my way out, my wife and I were discussing it and I summarized my thoughts more succinctly:

A good story is a good story.

And that’s exactly what The Great Gatsby is. It’s a good story. If the latest film stayed even remotely true to the novel I can see what all the hullabaloo was about. That F. Scott Fitzgerald guy was on to something, I’m sure of it. I can also see why some people would put the story into the category of “Classics”. It had murder, intrigue, fantasy, love, sex, conflict, alcohol, and lavish parties – all set in a suburb of New York City. Hell, if all of those things aren’t the ingredients for a good story, then I don’t know what would be.

So it happened that a funny thing occurred after I went to see a movie… For all the right reasons I left the theatre desperately wanting to go read a book.

~ Andrew

Media Feeding Frenzy

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I have a Twitter account. You can see the feed just to the left of this post. It’s 100% public and anyone with access to the internet can see every Tweet I’ve sent (all 7,300+ of ’em). You won’t see anything terribly salacious though as I have implemented some strict rules over the last couple years; the two biggest being: no f-bombs and nothing derogatory/defamatory toward an individual. In other words, try as often as possible to use my nice words and don’t make it personal. In spite of this, you have no reason to believe that anything I post is even remotely true and because of that I do my best not to give you any reason to doubt me.

When I see tweets out of context that (in my opinion) cross some lines I mostly just ignore them. I certainly can’t be the defender of everybody on the Internet, nor do I want to be, but when one or more of my friends is involved I tend to take notice. This happened recently and until I was able to gain access to the appropriate context things looked pretty crazy, like something out of a fake news magazine. However, I got the appropriate context and have since chosen to stay the heck out of it and let the system and people directly involved do what they do. I just wish that proper context had been made available along with all the other tweets that were being tossed around.

I’ve written about being careful about what you tweet before and in today’s world of instantly mass distributed information it’s more important than ever for people to be cautious about what they publish. Sadly, most do not. Instead, they just get angry, type, and press send. You may have noticed that news outlets tend to lag when it comes to the release of information. This is because they are supposed to have a little something called journalistic integrity. They are supposed to fact check and double, sometimes triple verify before publishing. Supposedly, they require proof, but we all know that not every news outlet has the same definition and not every one goes about obtaining it the same way (or at all in some cases). As a friend pointed out to me recently, “your credibility and integrity are directly tied to the media organization who signs your checks.” I had made a reference to The Toronto Star in comparison to FOX News and we were speaking of course on the recent scandal that has rocked the mayor’s office in Toronto.

There used to be a clear difference between an organization operating completely above board and one of lesser integrity. It used to be really easy to differentiate between The Toronto Star and FOX News. After what I’ve seen over the past 10 days I’m sad to report that it’s not so easy any more. As far as I can tell, once the Rob Ford story broke every media outlet in Canada (and some in the U.S.) started behaving like someone on Twitter with no followers, tweets with links to questionable websites, and an egg for a profile picture.

If I was able to draw, there’d be a picture of Rob Ford in the ocean with a bunch of shark fins circling him, each one with the name of a media outlet tattooed on it (the largest fin being the Toronto Star). There’d be a dude in a life raft looking all shipwrecked and scraggly and holding binoculars. On the side of his boat would be “S.S. Gawker”. Until I can take some art lessons, this will have to do:

There’s a certain irony to me utilizing an image stolen from FOX in this post

Listen, I’m not a Rob Ford fan. I’ve shamefully made a comment or two at his expense this week. A good many people, however, have done a lot more than just crack a joke, and with less evidence than there was to support the existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

At least I will give Mr. Ford the benefit of the doubt:

No proof = didn’t happen.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m also not a fan of any jerk who abuses power and uses money and influence to do nefarious, morally reprehensible, or illegal things. But is this what it has come to? Has the rest of the world given up on demanding proof? Has the age of instant information whet our appetite to such a degree that we have finally shifted the burden of proof from the accuser to the accused?

I certainly hope not, but more and more it’s looking like that’s the direction it’s headed.

Welcome to the Court of Twitter:
Trial by Internet with traditional media judge presiding over a jury of your social media peers; thumbs hovering over the send button and salivating at the thought of hanging the accused in 140 characters or less.

~ Andrew

The Overlook Hotel

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Sorry that this week’s post is a day late. Spending most of the weekend up at the cottage has messed up my routine. Plus, there was a pretty good hockey game on last night (Go Sens Go!) Anyhow, on with the post…

I have a Facebook friend who sends out a note every now and then asking if anyone has a secluded cabin in the woods that he can rent so he can do some writing. I have often thought that this would be my optimal writing locale. It’s quiet with lots of beautiful nature to reflect on life and generate wonderful ideas, and I am unlikely to have access to the internet – at least not on anything but my cell phone (which is easy enough to ignore because it’s slow and such a small screen).

As it turns out, I am not in a position to just take off for a couple months and write a book. My day-to-day existence requires me to wear a few hats: father, husband, project manager, friend, son, brother, cousin… writer. As a result, most of my writing happens on my couch in my living room, which works well enough but is far from what I would consider ideal. If I really want to buckle down I’ll go sit in the big chair in the bedroom. I suppose I could go to a local coffee shop or a park if the weather is nice – or anywhere that has a bench to sit on for that matter. Ultimately, those all seem like a lot of a hassle for only a little gain. 

Of all of my realistic options the only one that seems to guarantee a good spurt of words is the chair in the bedroom with some white noise blaring through some headphones and my wifi turned off. This is what leads me to believe that a secluded cabin might just be my ideal writing spot. Of course everyone is different and there are many other options that could work. Are any of these on your list?

  • Beach house surrounded by gulls and waves and a light breeze
  • Leather chair surrounded by mahogany and walls of books
  • Bean bag chair, tattered note pad, and that old pen that should have run out of ink years ago

Wherever it is, whatever you prefer, is there a specific place or setting that gets the words flowing better than any other?

On the other side of that coin are the things that take a productive writing session and throw it right in the crapper. For me, this is a list that’s probably a wee bit too long. In no particular order (and sadly, nowhere close to exhaustive):

  • An Stanley Cup playoff hockey game
  • A golf tournament where Tiger Woods in in contention
  • Someone mentioning me on Twitter
  • The Internet
  • Shiny objects
You can see now why I think a cabin in the woods is my ideal writing spot. Realistically it could be any place where I am as far away as possible from anything on that list. That being said, regardless of your circumstance and location one thing is certain: all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. 

~ Andrew

For Mom

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I normally associate reading with my father. Not that my mother doesn’t read, but she doesn’t read the types of books that I do, and she’s more than likely to be found with a crossword in her hand (or a stack of them!) or a watering can or a gardening glove or something to refinish old furniture – or a glass of red wine. Every time I’m at my parent’s cottage and mom is there I will be asked to help out with one or more of these chores (especially the red wine), and when she is not there at the same time we are there is a  really nice note asking for one of these items to be done (along with a plea for me to not kill all her flowers – a particular skill that I have that I must have inherited from my father).

Now, while I associate my (more formal school principal) father with books, I associate my (less formal gym and substitute teacher) mother with words, specifically which words to use in any given situation and most importantly how to make them my own. If anyone were to ask me how I developed my writing style my response would most definitely be – from my mother.

You are not my mother! You are a SNORT!

Growing up, I spent more time talking with my mother. She’s just a wee bit more in tune with her emotions than my father and we share a similar sense of humour (I have to be careful which emails of hers I open at work). I am very passionate and always looking to bring levity to a tense situation and my mom encouraged this throughout my childhood (yes, I embody the cliché that my mom thinks I’m funny). As such, I’ve often looked to my mother to provide guidance on how to phrase various written phrases documents.

One particular time I was on the phone with mum, talking about my upcoming career change and how my current employer wanted to do an exit interview. I had no experience with this before as it was my first job after graduating university so I sought out advice from her on my official departure letter. Well, it’s a darn good thing I did because she certainly helped me avoid my first ever ‘bridge burning’. While I enjoyed my job and most of my coworkers and had a lot of respect for my boss, I had some very honest opinions about the organization as a whole. My mom talked me through the finer points of communicating such opinions and the result was an exit letter that expressed my thoughts honestly and tactfully.

Later that year I received this book for Christmas:

My mom’s not-so-subtle advice

Suffice it to say, this is a well worn book that has travelled with me throughout my career. I keep it at my desk and co-workers who happen by often inquire as to its contents, and if I have found it useful. I simply reply, “Have I offended you with an email recently?” when they reply, “No”, I point to the book and say, “That’s probably the reason why.”

More than just that, and back to the part about my mom insisting that I leverage my sense of humour as often as possible, I have taken it upon myself to ensure that when I have to send out one of those “I’m Going to be Out of the Office” or “Where’s Andrew?” messages to my co-workers that I make it funny, or at the very least entertaining. With my mother’s voice echoing in my head as I type, these are more often than not quite tasteful and completely appropriate for the office.

I bring this particular style, casual with a dry wit, into a lot of the things I write and if you read a few of my blog posts you will see what I mean. It is definitely a style I can call my own, and I owe a lot of that to my mother. Heck, she can take credit for even more than that. In Grade 9 she even sat me down at the kitchen table with an electric typewriter and forced me to practice typing until I was up to a respectable 45 words a minute (okay, it’s not that respectable, but it was good enough for a passing grade. Just so you know, I’m up around 70 now). Where would I be now if I was just hunting and pecking with two fingers across the keyboard? Certainly not cranking out a blog post every Sunday, that’s for sure.

My only wish now is that I was paying more attention when she was imparting advice on how to pick a tense and stick with it. I wonder if she’ll give me a deal on editing when I’m finished the first draft of my novel…

~ Andrew

Hey Mikey, I Think He Likes It

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So my wife and I took the kids to see The Croods today. If you’re not sure what this is it’s an animated movie featuring a caveman family who, to this point in the story, has survived by spending as much time as possible huddled in a cave. The father’s favourite saying is “Never Not Be Afraid” and he makes a point of showing them over and over (and over) again that anything new is to be feared. Now, I won’t spoil the movie for you, but suffice it to say that this notion is to be challenged and the family may or may not experience something new and may or may not live happily ever after.

Fast forward a couple hundred thousand years and here we are. We have evolved quite remarkably in that span of time and yet there are still so many traits, mannerisms, or instincts that we possess that hearken back to those cave dwelling days. Fight or flight immediately springs to mind. The overwhelming need for the male of the species to impress the female is another one. Sadly, men did not evolve in a similar fashion to their feathered friends and become adorned with colourful plumage.

Stolen from Wikipedia
If you’re anything like myself you’ve also hung on to a little bit of the Crood father as well. Things that are the same are safe and things that are different are not. Change is bad. Now, I’m no Luddite by any stretch, but I am most comfortable in my routine and have a healthy appreciation for the way things are. So when it was time to discuss the possibility of an e-reader I was far from comfortable. 
I’ve tried reading on my iPhone and on my laptop and I’m not a fan. An e-reader is different I am told. An e-reader is just like reading on a book, but better! My father, who probably hasn’t been on the Internet for a decade (since I showed him how to use Google to look at boobs find sports scores), switched over to an e-reader more than a year ago and he loves it. He has no idea how to get books onto it (the neighbour does it for him), but he loves it. 
My daughter reads a book about every three or four days. It may take her a week if she has a few of them on the go at once. She’s getting an e-reader for her birthday whether she likes it or not. I will soon run out of storage space for all her books and will probably wear out a path to the library as well. My wife figured that a good way to test out this gift would be to get one for me and then I could put it through the paces and we could let our daughter try it out. I did the research and decided that I wanted a more “traditional” e-reader. I would not enjoy reading on something with a shiny screen that also played HD video. I needed something that most resembled an actual book. I settled on the Kobo Glo, and lo and behold my wife gave me one for my birthday.
I loaded up some books I’ve been meaning to read and picked up a “book maintenance” program that allows me to keep a consolidated library of all my ebooks in all their formats (and convert them to Kobo format too, if I want). I loaded a couple new books for the future on there as well and I started reading Caramel and Magnolias by my friend Tess Thompson. I read in daylight, at night, low light, lots of light, direct sunlight, morning, afternoon, and evening for a week. I used all the features I could think of on the device and I gave it a solid test drive. 
The verdict? It’s just like reading a book, but better! 

So there you have it. It is possible for me to embrace and accept something new. Believe me, I am just as surprised as you are. Now, I wonder what’s next?

The Book Was Better

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Stolen from http://themovieblog.com 

There is a lot of anticipation surrounding the movie The Great Gatsby, which is due to hit the silver screen for the fourth time on May 10th, and within hours of its first viewing we are certain to hear a chorus of reviews.

Like this:

  • “What a great movie!” 
    – People Who Think Leonardo DiCaprio is Cute

Or maybe this:

  • “It wasn’t as good as the TV movie in 2000 with Mira Sorvino and Paul Rudd.”
    – People Who Like to Watch TV Movies

Or possibly this:

  • “It wasn’t as good as the movie in 1974 with Mia Farrow and Robert Redford.”
    – People Older Than 50 / People Who Don’t Like Leonardo DiCaprio

Probably not this, but you never know:

  • “It wasn’t as good as the movie in 1949 /1926.”
    – People Who Like Old Movies

I am going out on a limb here and predicting that the most common review you’re going to hear is this:

I have to (shamefully) admit that I have not read the classic novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, but in general terms I’m okay with the assessment that movie versions of books aren’t as good as the books themselves. I also don’t think it’s a fair comparison to make because movies are working with a handicap.

A handicap you say? How do you figure? With all the money and star power and marketing and technology at their disposal, how is it possible that they could be at a disadvantage? It’s actually quite simple: for all the things movies have going for them, when you get right down to it the advantages are finite. There’s only so much money, so many special effects, and only a couple hours to work with to tell the story…

Movies have limitations, imagination does not. 

At the end of the day, the reader constructs their own set of images and all the subtleties and nuances that make the characters and their environment real are (for the most part) in control of the reader. This holds especially true for books where the writer does a particularly good job of showing the reader what’s happening without forcing them what to see.

I have never considered myself to be an avid reader (hell, I haven’t read The Great Gatsby), but before I traded Homer and Shakespeare for Newton and Einstein I enjoyed it quite a lot. I was, however, absolutely fascinated with movies. I worked in a movie store for several years, took a film class in high school, and at last count (two decades ago) had watched over 5,000 full-length feature films. After all that film watching there is one that, for me, shows that behind every great movie is a great writer. That movie is Pulp Fiction.

Stolen from http://wallsave.com 

The screenplay for Pulp Fiction is an absolute pleasure to read and I’m certain that had it been a book it would have been a great one. Maybe not an all time classic but a spectacular work of writing nonetheless. Even still, I can’t help but think that Pulp Fiction is at its absolute best as a movie. It’s one example I can think of that showed me the limitations of my imagination.

As it turns out, Pulp Fiction was up for Best Picture with two movies that the Huffington Post lists as being better than their literary originals: Shawshank Redemption and Forrest Gump (the latter getting the Oscar nod). So while it seems possible for a film to rise to the occasion, I would assert that it’s an uphill climb that gets even steeper for books that history has deemed “great”. Would you put Shawshank Redemption or Forrest Gump in this category? I can’t say for sure because I haven’t read those books either(!) – but Modern Library doesn’t – and neither do the readers they polled. This according to their 100 Best Novels list.

It’s worth noting that those readers have 7 of their top 10 books written by either Ayn Rand (4) or L. Ron Hubbard (3), and neither of those two names appear in Modern Library’s Top 100, so clearly there’s a difference between what the “experts” think and the general public thinks. One thing these two groups can agree on is that The Great Gatsby is a really good book (ML’s board ranking it at #2 and their readers ranking it at #13). So, will the latest edition of the movie hold up?

I doubt it.

What I do know is that I should read the book and I’m definitely going to see the movie – and I’ll probably enjoy both to a certain degree – but for very different reasons.

~ Andrew

Recipe for Disaster

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It starts with the idea that anyone with an internet connection can go and find instructions on how to make a bomb with a common kitchen appliance. Sadly, this idea isn’t new. The information has existed for decades, but the technological age in which we live makes this information all too easy to obtain. You would be right to think that there must be violent motivations behind the desire to create such a device and put it to use, but that’s not always the case. 

 There’s a company in the U.S. currently publishing blueprints that you can simply plug into a 3D printer and then print yourself restricted parts for firearms, like the lower receiver for an AR-15 assault rifle. When asked about what his thoughts were on the fact that this was one step closer to anyone being able to manufacture a gun that could pass freely thought a metal detector the co-owner of the company, Cody Wilson, replied:

 “I think there’s nothing wrong with what we’re doing in a moral sense. We’re pursuing what we think is a step toward liberty…”

 The first time I was exposed to the question of social responsibility when it came to published material was in high school. There was a rumour floating around that someone in the school had acquired a copy of The Anarchist Cookbook and people were freaking out! Well the adults were, but the students, they just wanted to see something blow up. Several years after publication the author of the book had a change of heart and wrote the publisher requesting it be taken out of print. Due to the manner in which the copyright was assigned (to the publisher, not the author) the author was told that that wasn’t going to happen. William Powell, says of his infamous book:

 “The central idea to the book was that violence is an acceptable means to bring about political change. I no longer agree with this.”

While I applaud William Powell’s change of heart, the content is still readily available and it continues to promote violence. You can’t un-ring a bell. But this isn’t a post about gun control or anti-terrorism (though I happen to feel that both of those things are generally a good idea). All of the above are examples of content that’s driven by an agenda (terrorism, civil liberties, political protest). But what about when the agenda is simply to entertain? What happens when a work of fiction becomes the Anarchist Cookbook for the sociopath living next door? 

This is a question that recently popped into my head when I was driving to work and listening to Metallica’s Nothing else Matters. For whatever reason, a spectacularly disturbing scene popped in my head as the song played. I imagined it as a soundtrack playing over the events as they unfolded, the main character singing along as he committed heinous acts of evil and atrocity. If I think about it, there’s nothing unique about what I envisioned – I’m sure several movies, televisions shows, or books have captured the essence of this scene several hundred times over – but when the song ended I paused my music and drove the rest of the way in silence thinking to myself, What is this crazy serial killer’s motivation? What would drive this individual to commit such unspeakable acts of violence?

 Before long, I had established a back story for my antagonist, the motivations behind his actions, and a suitable ending that, depending on which way I want the story to go, could either please readers or make them scream in frustration (i.e. getting caught or getting away with it). Once I had these ideas in place, and after a day’s worth of work of thinking about something else, I was left to ponder, What if any of this were to be used by someone in real life? 

 Part of me thinks it’s ridiculous to worry that a work of fiction would end up driving someone to act on it, but it happens all the time. It’s not in the same as distributing bomb making instructions or blueprints for restricted gun parts but is the fact that the book is labelled as fiction enough? I would like to think so, but at the same time I still feel somewhat responsible of making sure that it’s crystal clear I’m talking bullshit for your enjoyment and that it’s not a how-to manual or some demented personal wish list. I suspect a lot of artists struggle with this, but I’m not really sure.

Anyway, at the end of the day I can always get Bono to step in and make things right.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUZf-_adUTo?rel=0]

~ Andrew