This coming week is Severe Weather Preparedness Week. Here are some useful safety tips from actual experts: https://www.in.gov/dhs/get-prepared/nature-safety/severe-weather-preparedness/


 Some say the best advice you can give when it comes to tornadoes is to keep your insurance paid up and update your will.

I prefer preparation: At the beginning of March, dig a big hole in your back yard, then get into it while wearing a helmet and one of those "Red man" protective suits that a police dog can't penetrate. Then have the hole lined in concrete, and covered with an armored steel plate. The order is very important: Get in the hole before it's sealed off. You might want to bring in water, snacks, a portable toilet, a book to read, and, of course, a bottle of oxygen.

(I would suggest you take along my novel Storm Chaser. 'Cause--theme. Or at least The Wizard of Oz.)

"Say ... has anyone told that lady there's a tornado behind her?"

 

Then, wait until, say, November. Then winter is approaching but hurricane season is past, so you could move to the Gulf Coast. But, because tornado season down there is pretty much year round, you'll have to dig another hole and buy more concrete and steel. Vicious cycle, there.

 So, a quick review of weather terms. A severe thunderstorm watch means you might get severe thunderstorms. A severe thunderstorm warning means the light show has started. I don't get what's hard about that, but it still confuses people.

Similarly, a tornado watch means conditions are right for a tornado to form, and you should, you know, watch. In the novel The Wizard of Oz that's literal: Uncle Henry goes outside, watches, and announces, "There's a cyclone coming, Em ... I'll go look after the stock".

How exactly he plans to protect the stock remains unclear, but if there's one thing the movie Twister taught us, it's to to watch for low flying cows. Meanwhile, in the time it takes for Toto to hide under the bed and thus endanger Dorothy (man's best friend--hah), the cyclone is upon them and the next thing you know ... witch pancake.

Before you think you're safe from tornadoes, remember what one did to this chick.  


 

If Henry only had a radio, TV, alert scanner, or nearby siren, he might have had enough warning to look after the stock and see Em and Dorothy safely to the cellar. The witch would still get smooshed, so--happy ending for all. Except for the Scarecrow on his pole, and the rusted Tin Woodman, and the Winkies being terrorized by the other witch ... okay, bad example.

But hey, it was 1900. The point is, you don't have to literally watch anymore. You don't want to be under that cow when it drops in. Or a house.

Now, a tornado warning means that if you go outside, you will die.

Actually, a tornado or funnel cloud has been spotted in your area, so you may die. Over the years I've managed to take a few pictures of funnel clouds, which puts me firmly in the camp of people who are too dumb to metaphorically (and sometimes literally) come in out of the rain. There are now millions of photos and videos of tornadoes; is it worth having one of your own?

It is not.


Remember this easy rhyme: Red Sky In the Morning: You're Screwed.


 

What should you do if a tornado warning is declared? Go to a windowless interior room on the lowest level of your house. If you're in a building with no basement--what were you thinking? But lower is always better, anyway.

Windows are bad. Tornadoes, hurricanes, meteor strikes--people get cut up by glass during natural disasters. (I'm not kidding about the meteor strikes: just ask the people in Chelyabinsk, Russia.)

Old timers will tell you to crack a window to equalize pressure, or go to a specific corner of a room, but that's proven to be unhelpful. Besides, the tornado will take care of cracking all the windows. You're better off under a piece of sturdy furniture--Toto had the right idea--that you can hold onto. A small center room, such as a closet, or under a stairwell is good, and a bathtub might offer some protection.

Well, that can't be good.

So, let's review: Your safest location is in a bathtub that's in a closet under a stairwell in your basement. My bathroom is the size of a closet, so that's a start.

Actually, your safest location would be in the states of Alaska, Rhode Island, or Vermont, which each average less than one tornado a year. But we're in the Midwest, under the tourism-attracting nickname of "Tornado Alley". Indiana ranks #14 in states for the number of tornadoes. I suspect, if adjusted for square miles, our rank would be higher.

Okay, I just checked. When it comes to tornadoes per 10,000 square miles, Indiana ranks three. When it comes to killer tornadoes we're eight, and when it comes to the total length of a tornado path we're also eight. So there you go. Be afraid. It's only smart. And train your dog to go straight to the storm cellar.

Now, since tornado safety is really a serious subject, here are a couple of links to websites that treat things way more seriously than I do:

http://www.tornadoproject.com/safety/safety.htm

http://www.redcross.org/get-help/how-to-prepare-for-emergencies/types-of-emergencies/tornado#Before


 

Remember: As long as you have a flashlight, reading is weather resistant.




 I'm continually surprised that editors and agents in the publishing industry expect novelists to write short stuff, like query letters, outlines, and synopsis ... synopsis's ... synopsi? Just a sec.

(Huh. It's synopses. Who knew?)

Asking a novelist to write short is like asking a politician to spend less money; asking the Wicked Witch to be less cackle, um, cackle-y; asking me to skip dessert. My novel manuscripts tend to be short, but that doesn't make me freak out any less when I have to reduce it to a 1,000 word synopsis. My latest manuscript is 82,000 words: It's like taking a full size pickup truck and reducing it to Matchbox size with your bare hands.

Hey, I have this one! Wouldn't want to build the real thing from scratch.

Now imagine someone trying to write a synopsis for one of George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire books, which are so big they're registered as lethal weapons. Seriously, even putting it on your Kindle adds two pounds. When I tried to read the newest one on the couch, I broke my hip. And the couch. Of course, no one would ask him to write a synopsis. In fact, he probably has an assistant that does nothing but write synopses ... seses ....

In theory the best way to write a synopsis is to write one paragraph for each chapter, then trim where necessary, as if it isn't going to be necessary. I tried other tactics. For instance, removing every "the"; putting into the synopsis only the third and fifteenth word of every page; and hiring George R.R. Martin's synopsis writer. None worked. (You wouldn't believe what that guy charges.)

So I looked the manuscript over again. While Martin's books are high fantasy, my newest story is apparently low fantasy, and yes, I'm aware of the possible jokes. That means it's set in our real world, but magical elements intrude into it; the best known example would probably by the Harry Potter series.

 

How low can you go? Well, you could have an entire school full of kids who could turn their parents into warthogs, for instance.

 

 

My story, The Source Emerald, is about a young FBI agent on her first assignment, who tries to track down possible gem smugglers in upstate New York. Magic ... intrudes.

All I had to do is boil down her personality, the plot, the stakes, and the major supporting characters into 800-1000 words, or less than two pages. Or shorter, depending on who you ask. Oh, and in your own unique voice ... with plot twists ... and the ending ... I'm going to go lay down, now.

Okay, I'm back. Almost all authors hate writing a synopsis, and those who like it almost always turn out to be heavily addicted to something and/or certifiably insane. I don't have the exact statistics on that. All I know is that on my first whack at it, I spent half a page describing why my main character, Lilly, absolutely doesn't believe the little girl she encounters is Dorothy Gale, made famous in the Oz books. I had to reduce that to, like, four words.

"Dorothy is brunette, and a teenager, and not a princess, and it was all a dream, anyway. Stop pulling my leg--I've seen the movie."

In the final version the whole thing boiled down to: "Lilly doubts Dorothy's story."

It took me three days to come up with that sentence.

In reality I got the whole synopsis done in "just" a few days, not counting my nightmares of being chased by an editor with a sharp red pen. My first version was about 3,500 words, which really wasn't too shabby. My second was around 1,500--I was slashing words like a horror movie villain.

And then--finally--920 beautiful, short, on-point words. That's it. If you want a shorter synopsis from me, I'll just cut from the bottom and you'll never know the ending, pal! (Or lady, since most of the agents and editors I've queried have been female.)

But I did it. I'm relieved, and proud, and surprised, but mostly relieved.

Now I have to write a query letter.

Hm ... or maybe I should tackle a short story. What do you think?

 

 

 
Solve a mystery, fight space battles, talk to ghosts, or even journey to Oz!
 
Sounds a lot more exciting when I put it that way. Another way to put it is that I’m looking for beta readers who would be interested in reading one—or more—of my four so-far unpublished novels. Count ‘em—four.
 
All the details can be found either on the newsletter:
 
https://mailchi.mp/5be1e644a04a/beta-readers-needed
 
Or on the blog:
 
https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/2022/07/beta-readers-needed.html
 
Honestly, I expected more of a response from the blog and newsletter postings. I’m no George R.R. Martin—I don’t have enough middle initials—but I figured more readers would be happy to read a novel completely for free, in exchange for their general opinion. (Now that I think of it, the opinion giving would cost a little time, so it’s not totally free.) But if one of these was a Game of Throne book, they’d have to fork over some dough and, if they got the print version, risk a hernia. I’m offering mine as a Word file, which only weighs me down when I get a rejection letter.
 
So look me up, and I’ll hook you up! As the kids say these days. I assume.


They're like these ... only unpublished.



 This month's newsletter is out and about:

https://mailchi.mp/a19474764019/the-summer-doldrums-and-an-oz-connection

What's the Oz connection, you ask? Well, it has nothing to do with Australia or prison TV shows. Otherwise it's just a little thing, but you have to read it to find out. *insert evil laughter here*

(Yes, I'm aware there are a couple of typos in it--but I can't edit them once it's out. *sigh*)

 

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcToSni1r4cVBpdnyFExh00zByRIpj4OAavsFyHqiB-uD41jWvEM8n31PD9zh8if49kIukg&usqp=CAU

 

 It's our tenth wedding anniversary!

And I'm working. Twelve hour shifts. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

It's a massive case of epic fail, and I can only say I was going to take the weekend off, but things happened (to other people, this time). Our actual celebration is going to be in a couple of weeks, when I did manage to get the weekend off. I have big plans!

I have no plans. Who am I kidding?

Oh, I did a little thinking ahead. I looked up what the traditional gift was for a tenth anniversary, and I found the traditional gift was, traditionally, tin or aluminum.

Huh?

Well, I could buy her an aluminum mobile home, but it would just get sucked up by a tornado sometime in May. But thinking of tornadoes reminded me of someone I know who might have advice on the subject:

That's him. His name is Nick Chopper, but ever since a series of rather horrendous accidents, during which his body was replaced, bit by bit, by metal, he goes by The Tin Woodman. He's had a lot of adventures since then, but now he lives in the Winkie Country of Oz, where he built a castle made completely out of tin.

What I'm saying is, he knows a lot about tin. Aluminum, maybe not.

"Hey, Nick", I said. "Can I ax you a question?"

Nick smiled, kind of, which made his face squeak a little. "I'm afraid my friend the Scarecrow beat you to that joke. Several times."

Just my luck. I outlined my problem: upcoming tenth anniversary, stereotypical helpless male, so on. "Can you give me any advice on gifts?"

"Well, you could have her nickel plated."

"I what?"

We were speaking by Magic Picture (long story), so I could only see his upper half, but I had the feeling he was crossed his legs. Can tin do that? "I had myself nickle plated some time ago. It helps preserve my body, especially the joints. They're made of steel, you know."

"Oh. That explains--"

"The rusting, exactly." Nick leaned forward. "Between you and me, I'm only tin coated. Don't tell."

"Oh, of course. But Emily wouldn't want to be nickel plated, being, as you might say, a meat person."

Beowulf takes exception to the term "meat person". He prefers "mom".

 

"I see your point. Maybe you could make her a tin suit of armor? It wouldn't stand up in a real battle, but it would move people out of her path when she's shopping."

"She wouldn't like the noise."

"How about giving her an extra heart? You probably have all sorts of hearts just laying around, in the outside world."

"Well, there are plenty that don't get used out here. Let me think it over. Meanwhile, remind Dorothy she still owes me ten bucks for that book I sent her ... and $923.50 for shipping."

I'm not too worried about the present, because ten years ago today Emily signed a document promising not to make fun of me and/or cause any permanent harm. In public.

 

Later I talked to some other people from Oz, and the prevailing opinion was that I should get her an emerald studded ball gown. See, they don't use money in Oz, plus they have a lot of emeralds. And they throw a lot of dances. But I think that might be as bit out of my price range.

I did finally find her a gift, something I think she'll appreciate, something that--I'm not going to identify. I'm no dummy.

Well, not usually.

 

 The final draft of The Source Emerald is done!

Wait, let me start over:

The "final draft" of The Source Emerald is done! (Assuming that will continue to be the title.)

There, more accurate. The Source Emerald is about a young FBI agent who is assigned to track down possible gem smugglers, only to discover two of her suspects claim to be foreigners--specifically, from the Land of Oz, which they insist is a real place. And if they don't find the mysterious gems everyone seems to be after, it might be the end of both their worlds.

I suppose it can be considered urban fantasy--I wasn't thinking in terms of genre when I wrote it. You might remember that my word count changed from draft to draft, starting at 67,515, peaking at 70,294 with the second draft, then dropping to 69,028. Now, after polishing and going through the whole thing line by line to check for voice and errors, I'm left with 69,370 words. I added some here and there for clarity, but also cut a lot out of one of the later chapters.

So, from the first word typed on November 1st to the "final" version, it took me just under three months to finish an almost 70,000 word novel. Yay, me! (I did do some outlining and research in October.)

Now Emily gets it.

Emily was holding my granddaughter hostage until I finished my draft!! Hey, I don't make stuff up.
 

My wife/editor/IT department/cover artist doesn't take any crap from me. The manuscript will come back full of red words, with numerous notes in the margins. She'll tell me what does and doesn't make sense, what word choice is wrong, where I'm being long winded, and what food is best for me. Well, that last one isn't directly connected.

Then I'll go through the whole thing all over again, because writing is editing. When it's finally, completely, for sure done, I'll put it in a file and go over to reread We Love Trouble, the book I went through all this with last year. When The Source Emerald has sufficiently cooled, I'll try to read it for entertainment, like a regular reader, and we'll see.

This is the writing process. The process is boring to everyone but the writer, and sometimes even to them. But it's the best way I know to get a good product.



Also, I can't write without the dog keeping a close eye on me. I think he's spying for Emily.

 

So, the first draft of The Source Emerald weighed in at 67,515. The second draft topped out at 70,294. Now I've finished the third draft, and the new word count? 69,028. An increase of 2,779 words, followed by a decrease of 1,266 words.

But not the same words.

My third draft was a seek and destroy mission against certain words that can weaken your writing. Words that can make your writing too passive, such as "was". Adverbs. Words ending with "ing" that can become repetitive. Unnecessary words: For instance, instead of "stood up", why not just "stood"? Take up out, and make it stand down.

The word "suddenly" makes an action less sudden. Don't have too many "has". Don't tell the reader a character "felt" something ... show them feeling it.

Unlike some writers, I don't believe you have to stamp out every single one of these words. Treat them as a spice: Put in too many, and the mix isn't right. Despite what Stephen King says, I do have adverbs in my writing ... just not too many of them.

And now? The fourth draft. Time to work on voice and characterization a little.

 

Don't forget to check out the new short story!
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/EverKnow1183.shtml

 

Remember, books are the best entertainment: You don't have to worry about whether the CGI will be any good.
 

 

 Second draft of the new novel-in-progress: done. New working title: The Source Emerald.

The rough draft weighed in at 67,515 words. Even after cutting some of the final chapter, the second draft finished at 70,294 words. A lot of those extra 2,779 words consisted of me saying, "Huh? What did I mean by that?" and then going in to make it clearer. The whole thing is better now.

I think.

And how does one celebrate the completion of a second draft?

Why, by starting the third draft, of course.

I leave you with a photo of a giant emerald.

This, the Bahia Emerald from Brazil, is believed to be the largest single shard ever found. It weighed about 752 pounds, and has been valued at about $400,000,000.

It was necessary to shrink the emerald in my book down to thirty-two pounds, but it was once much larger, and still resembles this one. And that, Mr. NSA guy, is why I've been researching gems so much lately.

 


 

Where does Santa Claus go on vacation? Why, Oz, of course. Read about it in a new Christmas short story, and don't forget to sign up to get the regular newsletter, which hits about once a month. Merry Christmas!

https://mailchi.mp/3b41b4ddf9da/our-gift-to-you-a-christmas-short-story?e=2b1e842057

 


 


 

It turns out I can not only write 50,000 words in thirty days, I can write them in 20 days!

(Technically 22, because I didn't update my count as fast as I wrote, but what the heck.)

I even did a little editing as I went, because I do that. Participants in National Novel Writing Month are encouraged not to go back for anything: Just write straight through, get that first draft out! Worry about revising later. It's good advice, really. But my habit is, at the beginning of each writing session, to go back over the writing I did the day before. It puts me back in the zone, and I do a little cleanup along the way.

It must work for me, because the entire rough draft of my Oz novel is finished! 67,515 words in 26 days. It's nowhere near a record: I know one writer who hit 80,000 words in the first twenty days. It's possible they write full time, or were on COVID lockdown, or something similar. As for me, I had some time off to take in November, which certainly did help me along.

In the end it's not really about hitting a certain word count: It's to get that novel going, glue yourself to the keyboard and keep at it, although if you glued yourself to the keyboard you'd have to type the same letters over and over, so never mind.

In other words, if you're participating this year and have fallen behind, as many have, never mind. Just go on past November 30. Keep plugging away at it, and get that novel done.

And how am I going to celebrate? Easy:

Revision. Then editing. Then polishing. then submitting. That's how the game goes, and you only lose if you give up.


You want a great book to give this holiday season?

Okay, yeah, my books, but this one isn't about self-promotion. I'm talking about a book Emily got me, one of my favorite gifts: The Annotated Wizard of Oz.

 For those of you who think the whole thing began at MGM in 1939, "centennial edition" means it came out in 2000--exactly one hundred years after "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was originally published. There were actually two other "Wizard of Oz" movies before Judy Garland danced down the Yellow Brick Road.

Naturally the story is by L. Frank Baum, who in his relatively short life wrote 14 novels about Oz, in addition to 41 other novels, 83 short stories, over 200 poems, and at least 42 stage and movie scripts. Most of this was in a period of about twenty years.

But much of the writing in this volume is by Michael Patrick Hearn, who did a deep dive into Baum's  life and works. Hearn has earned his bona fides, and is an expert on both Baum and children's literature in general--he's written other annotations, and I can't imagine how much time it takes to track down so much information.

We know the story, of course, and it's printed here along with the original illustrations, in their original color. Little Dorothy (she doesn't get a last name until a later book) gets swept up in a tornado to the magical Land of Oz, where she gets a little help from her friends in reaching the Emerald City. The Great and Powerful Oz (who for some reason needs a kid to do his job) sends her to Winkie country, where--spoiler alert!--she takes out the witch, returns to the Emerald City, exposes Oz as a humbug, and loses out on her chance to get back to Kansas.

Dorothy and her friends then embark on an entirely different journey, absent from the MGM movie, to reach Glinda the Good and discover she would have saved a lot of walking if those darn silver (!) slippers had only come with an instruction manual.

https://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Wizard-Oz-Centennial/dp/0393049922

Hearn covers a lot about the book, including how it does and doesn't relate to real world happenings, and about Baum himself--both the good and the bad. He also touches on the other Oz books and Baum's entire volume of work, how his childhood led up to Baum's writing career, and his travels with his family. (It turns out "Kansas" was mostly based on a drought-stricken South Dakota.)

Of particular interest is the Baum family relocation to the little, orange-grove dominated village of Hollywood, where Baum became an early leader of the burgeoning film industry. Like most businesses he got involved with, the Oz Film Manufacturing Company had a rocky life.

"The Annotated Wizard of Oz" would be worth the cost just for the illustrations, from both the book itself and other works by Baum and his co-creators. As for me, I'm in the middle of writing a novel in which Lyman Frank Baum has a part, and the background info was not only fascinating, but helped me get inside his head in ways just reading the stories couldn't. If you're a fan of Oz or literature, this book would be of interest. If you're not a fan of Oz, I'm puzzled but I forgive you.

 

 

Update: I'm up to 42,000 words in my new rough draft!

------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

My fire photo book project has been handed over to Emily, who's working on getting all the photos ready and put in their proper place--a job I wouldn't wish on anybody. I mean, she has to go by my notes.

So that leaves me without much to do until she finishes her part, just in time for NaNoWriMo. That's National Novel Writing Month, November, in which authors are challenged to pound out 50,000 words on a novel (or some kind of writing) in just one month. I've won NaNoWriMo twice, coming out with the rough drafts for Summer Jobs are Murder and Fire On Mist Creek. (Both are finished but unpublished at the moment, but that's another story.)

I'm doing something different this year, but also something I've been wanting to do since I was a kid. I'm writing a novel set in a universe created by somebody else, specifically by Lyman Frank Baum, who can't complain because he passed away a hundred years ago.

It could be called fanfiction, which is a generalized term for fiction written using someone else's world and/or characters. That's popular but technically illegal, unless the work has passed into the public domain. In this case it has, which is why you've seen properties such as Wicked and Oz: The Great and Powerful.

By now you've figured out my novel is going to be based on the Oz books, by L. Frank Baum (not the MGM movie, which varies in critical ways from the book--don't get me started on "it was all a dream".)

"Pay no attention to that author behind the curtain!"

 

This is something I've been wanting to do since I was a little kid, reading Baum's 14 Oz books over and over. For the last several years a more specific idea has been germinating, and now I'm going to take the time to finally do it, before it drives me crazy.

There's more than one way to approach doing an Oz adaptation, though:

You can stick slavishly with the original version, making it completely faithful. This can be very difficult, because Baum was writing kid's books, and the later ones reluctantly. He sometimes didn't concern himself all that much over continuity. If you try to stick to the details of all the canon Oz books--forty or so, by different authors--you'll make yourself insane.

Second, you can throw all that away and have something only loosely based on the original, such as the novel Wicked, or the TV show Emerald City. Baum, who was after all writing for children, wouldn't have recognized some of them.

Then there's whether you're going to write a children's book or one for adults. Probably the most difficult thing you could do is to follow the original books, yet make your own work be for older readers.

So that's what I'm doing.

You may be cool, but you'll never be "Ozma of Oz on a chariot being drawn by a lion and a tiger" cool.

 

Naturally I'm not going to give you a lot of details, considering I have not only the rough draft, but weeks of revision and polishing to do before it's even ready to send to publishers (if we don't self-publish). My outline is done, but my outlines tend to change along the way.

What I will say is that the story will be meant for adults and young adults, with the conceit that Baum's Oz books were retellings of events that actually happened: But that the "Royal Historian of Oz", L. Frank Baum, was after all a storyteller first and foremost. In other words, he himself changed details to suit his stories, and to make them more suitable for children.

That explains such things as people dying in the first book, but later books staging that no one in Oz can die, just as an example. Otherwise I'm going for humor, action, magic, and a fun storyline. There will also be a few deeper questions, such as what kind of a personality a ten year old girl will have after living well over a century--and still being ten years old.

So, what do you think? Can I do this? And how badly could I screw it up?

 

 

My new National Novel Writing Month project is very special to me, but I'm not quite ready to announce what it is ... not on purpose.

 

https://youtu.be/B4kxxtrbgKk

 

My new National Novel Writing Month project is very special to me, but I'm not quite ready to announce what it is ... on purpose.

 

 

 

 


 I started out last week in something of a good mood, because I finished the third draft of Smoke Showing and then took the preliminary steps toward writing a novel involving the Land of Oz--a project close to my heart that I've been planning in my head for years.

Then the week turned into one of those Medical Weeks. You know the ones I mean: When for a certain period of time everything that happens seems to be health related, usually in a bad way.

Starting from worst, my uncle and my grandmother both fell and broke their hips, and as I write this both are scheduled for surgery today. For my grandmother it was supposed to be yesterday, but they couldn't transfer her to the hospital where the operation will be done because all their beds were full.

You knew the coronavirus was going to pop up here, somewhere.

So everything after that is pretty minor. In fact, very minor, and begging to be made fun of, although sometimes even I'm not in a fun-making mood. It's just that it all happened at the same time.

I got poked by needles four times, for instance, but that doesn't really count because I get two regular allergy shots, anyway. The third was a routine flu shot, so only the fourth--my annual blood draw--led to anything worse than a little soreness.

Besides, one needle was a withdrawal and three were deposits, so doesn't that count as a net gain?

The first day saw the two allergy shots and the blood draw, which my employer has done so they can shake judgemental fingers at me. I had a feeling about the results, so I downed a half gallon of ice cream between then and the follow up ... I figured it was likely to be my last guilt-free food treat ever.

Two days later, we took our dog Beowulf to the vet to get his ear infection looked at, so that counts as one. He's been walking sideways with one ear drooped over, and no, I don't share booze with him. Last time I walked that way was after two strawberry daquiris. (I'm a lightweight. Well, in that way, I am.)

Left ear, the one under the dump trunk.

He's doing a lot better.  Yesterday he had enough energy to dig his nails into my left big toe, so for awhile I was walking just like him.

Where was I? Oh, yes, the chiropractor. As usual, my vertebrae were trying to pass each other on a curve, but she pounded them back into submission.

Then came the flu shot, which was entirely uneventful as shots go. My wife and I were together for those last two, because it's important to experience pain as a family.

We closed out the week with a follow up at the doctor's office, where I mentioned two strange little bumps on my left hand that didn't really seem worth mentioning. Turns out they might be the beginning of a condition that can lead to the inability to use that hand without surgical intervention and GAH! I've always had a fear of not being able to type. Talk to text just isn't the same, because the whole reason I started typing to begin with is because I can't speak.

 Oh, and also I'm fat.

But you already knew that, and thanks for being polite. The doc didn't actually say so, in so many words. She said my cholesterol was going through the roof, I had a fatty liver, and my PSA levels took a huge jump. Since two out of three of those things mean I'm fat, I took it that way. The third had to do with my prostate, so I guess another visit to Doctor Finger is in my future.

Prostate cancer is one of the cancers that's more common in firefighters, so of course I'm going to have it checked, but I'm not too worried ... and there's nothing I can do about it, anyway. Doctor finger will poke around until he digs out the problem.

Weighing 233 pounds is whatI can do something about.

First I took all the stuff out of my pants pockets, then I cut my hair, and finally I bought a cheaper pair of shoes, so I'm already down to 232.

No. Just--NO.
 
Other than that, it's the same old story: Eat less, exercise more, make better food choices. My goal is to lose around five pounds a month, then maintain it somewhere below 200. The timing couldn't be worse, as I've gained weight during winter all my life, and the holidays don't exactly help. But losing weight might also help my back problems, and I'm starting to think my chiropractor enjoys causing me pain.

Anyway, that was my medical week. If I read back through this I'd probably feel ashamed of myself for whining, and delete most of it. Then I'd have to find something else to blog about, so hang the edits! I'm going back to my story outlining.

Maybe a trip down the Yellow Brick Road will shave off some pounds.

Oh, you'll heard more about my new project later.

 

I started scratching my head recently when I noticed buzz about this being the 80th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz.

Um ... no, it's not. It's the 119th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz, as of this summer. What kind of over the rainbow scheme are they trying to pull off, here?

What the pundits are actually talking about, of course, is the MGM-made movie The Wizard of Oz. Not only does the book precede it by 39 years, but it isn't even the first movie version.

Fun fact: At no time did Toto climb into a giant "O".

 

 

Just for the record, L. Frank Baum wrote fourteen Oz books, and some related short tales. After his death, other authors took over writing "official" Oz books. (Oz fanatics will mention the "Famous Forty", which sadly aren't so famous anymore.) With Baum's original books in the public domain there are now dozens of unofficial Oz books, not including the one I've been plotting out in my mind.

Baum produced a multimedia stage presentation about Oz in 1908, and the first actual film, partially based on a 1902 musical play, came out in 1910. There were several more related movies, including the 1925 movie called ... The Wizard of Oz.

I'm just sayin'.

The original cover. I have what are called the "White cover" books. They're white.

 

 

Ah, but it's the 1939 movie everyone thinks of, these days. When I was a kid you could catch it on TV exactly once a year--no DVR, no reruns, no second chances. I cleared my schedule (which was easy, because I didn't have one) and caught it every year; yes, I love the movie and always will. I have no issue with the MGM movie beyond it leading people to believe Dorothy Gale is a brunette. (She's blonde, dammit! Depending on who you ask.) I love musicals anyway, and it remains a favorite of mine.

But the books are better.

Well, most of them. Baum had to rush his product to feed his family, from time to time.

The Wizard eventually came back to Oz. Um, spoiler alert! Notice Dorothy temporarily traded Toto in for a pink kitten (long story). Also, she traded her hair in for blonde.

 

 

My parents got me the collection of Baum's fourteen books, and as soon as I finished reading the last one, I'd go back and start the first one over again. Although I didn't know dozens of others even existed at the time, the first fourteen were enough to cement my love of reading, which in turn kick-started my love of writing.

Without the Oz books, I maybe would have found a better paying part-time job. But, without the Oz books there would have been no twenty-five years worth of humor columns, no extra credit short stories in English class, no working on the school newspaper, no researching and writing about local history, and no ten published books. No love of reading--who knows what kind of trouble I would have gotten into, without books to keep me busy?

So thank you, Oz ... no matter what the media.

Dorothy as a blonde, Ozma as a brunette. You know ... Ozma? Ruler of Oz? It's in the books--! Oh, never mind.


Shadow of Oz

by Nick Damon

 

We all know Dorothy Gale of Kansas, although you probably imagine her as a teenage Judy Garland, while I picture her as a blonde eleven year old. (There were all these books, you see, and ... oh, never mind.)

In Shadow of Oz Dorothy is all grown up, and now a drone office worker in New York City (apparently in modern times, which would make her something like 125 years old, but never mind again). She's miserable and pretty much a zombie, and not in a fun way, when one day she gets attacked--by a tree. Then by a murder of crows bent on ... well, murder. Then she's rescued by a man of horseback ... who's made out of clay. The man, not the horse.

 

Dorothy Gale of Kansas, as illustrated by John R. Neil. I don't make this crap up.

 

Then things get exciting. It seems Dorothy, despite being an outsider, was once ruler of the land of Oz. In her absence the country has been conquered by an old enemy, and to save it she must find her way back, regain her memory, beat the bad guys, and recover a gem called the Ozma that's the heart of Oz, pretty much literally. She'll meet old friends along the way, but boy, do they have their work cut out for them.

Shadow of Oz benefits from a breakneck pace, Indiana Jones style, although it can also be exhausting. While I would have preferred to see more of the book characters I'm fond of, Damon wisely sticks to supporting characters from Baum's first three Oz books, all familiar to those who've watched the MGM version of The Wizard of Oz and Disney's Return to Oz. Many of the later characters have been forgotten by anyone who isn't familiar with the books, and would confuse the casual reader. But I'm going to put them in my own Oz book, anyway! (Baum's fourteen Oz books are in the public domain.)

It's nicely plotted and has some fantastic twists. (Shadow of Oz, not my Oz book--that's not written yet.) It can also be read as a standalone book, which is important to some readers, although there are sequels. Some of the fight scenes seem a little long, but you aren't likely to get bored. Overall the characterization is good, but a romance develops that's totally unreasonable considering the time factor involved. (Although, hey--these things happen in stressful situations.) There's a substantial amount of PG violence, and some stuff might be disturbing to the kiddies. Damon, I suspect, is trying to write for an adult audience while maintaining the wonder of the originals, but it comes off more gritty than wondrous.

Now, as a writer there are a few things that bothered me more than they're likely to bother the casual reader.  The story is very active, but there's a lot of passive voice--avoiding that has been drilled into me so much that it stood out. There was a bit too much more telling than showing. But there have been bestsellers that I have the same complaint about, so who am I to say? Overall, I think it's worth a read.

https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Oz-Nick-Damon-ebook/dp/B008FVC7PC

         Fans of L. Frank Baum’s Oz books often have mixed reactions to new Oz related projects. We want them to be faithful to the books, at a time when many people think Oz started four decades later with the MGM Judy Garland movie. On the other hand, we’re often happy to have any kind of Ozzie entertainment, even when we’re up in arms about how very un-Oz it can be.
 
So when Wicked comes along, or Oz: The Great and Powerful, or when the characters pop up on “Once Upon a Time” or “Supernatural”, we hold our breath and hope the creators get it right. Usually they don’t. (Dorothy is blonde, darn it!)

Blonde Dorothy. See? I don't make this crap up.
 
If they don’t get it right in our minds, the next question is to they get it right in spirit? (After all, Dorothy wasn’t blonde in the first Oz book.) And failing that, did they at least give us an entertaining project that keeps Oz in people’s minds?
 
Along comes “Emerald City”. The first thing I heard about the project was that it would be a “darker, edgier” look at Oz, at which point I began screaming and tearing my hair out, and believe me, I don’t have hair to waste.

 
But having said that, Baum himself often made Oz a dark place. In the first book Dorothy and the gang kill two witches, two forest beasts that are intent on eating them, and the Scarecrow even murders a murder of crows. In the second book an army invades the Emerald City and takes over, and in the third a princess decides to have Dorothy’s head cut off—to add to her collection. Come to think of it, in the fourth (spoiler alert!) the Wizard burns down an entire country, and cuts another guy in half, with a sword! Okay, the other guy was literally a vegetable, but still.
 
So yeah, maybe not such a leap. “Emerald City” was a pleasant surprise, although that might be partially because I went in with low expectations.
 
There were plenty of shout-outs for the book fans, starting right from the beginning when one of the most important non-Dorothy characters show up—sort of. (Spoilers!) Still, when they said “darker”, they weren’t kidding around.
 
Dorothy starts out in Kansas with her aunt and uncle as in the book, but she’s grown up and working in a hospital—and stealing drugs for her ailing Uncle Henry. But in this version her mother is alive and has returned, living nearby but out of contact with her daughter. When they finally meet again it’s in the midst of both a tornado and a murder; Dorothy dives into a police car for safety from both and finds herself—and the officer’s K-9—lifted through some kind of space warp into a snowy wasteland where she promptly runs someone down. Come on—you know who that someone is.
 
Things just go downhill from there, as Dorothy immediately finds herself in the middle of political intrigue and danger from all sides. At least the dog (In Oz dogs are called “Toto”) likes her, as does the brainless straw-covered Christ-figure she saves from crucifixion. Yeah, you heard that right—he’s even got a wound in his side.
 
Sure enough, Dorothy is on her way down the Yellow Brick Road, although in Mountainous terrain full of death and destruction and people wanting to kill her. Meanwhile the Wizard has taken control of Oz despite the hatred of the only two witches left, there’s a frozen giant poised to destroy the witches’ temple, Dorothy may have signed a death warrant for the little boy she “rescued”, and it’s all very steampunk. It was about as far from the Oz books as you could get, and yet, in a strange way, not.
 
I mean, steampunk? Baum had an entire city that mechanically sank beneath a lake for defense, and a mechanical man who literally had to be wound up to work.
 
Overall, I liked it way more than I thought I would. The writers kept the pace moving, the actors did great, and there was plenty of mystery and intrigue to go around. Although the look was nothing like the Oz I’d imagine, the Spanish scenery was certainly spectacular, as were the effects. Not a big fan of that much darkness, though: I have a feeling we’ll see little or no of Baum’s humor in this version.
 
There were also hints that there are more secrets behind Dorothy than even she knows, and I assume that’s going to come around again. I like that she was more like the book Dorothy: not only caring but imaginative, determined, and not willing to take crap.
 
Still not blonde. But I liked the actress too much to care.

Would you like to know some background stuff about me and my writing history?
 
You wouldn’t? Oh.
 
Well, for the rest of you, here’s a piece on Fiona Mcvie’s author interview blog:
 
 
It’s a bit lengthy—Fiona asks a lot of questions!—but think of it as an interview novella, rather than an interview short story. She pries out of me how I came to be me, author-wise: a six year old fanfic writer, Star Trek theft, how a science fiction writer got published in the romance genre, and why my main influence is still a children’s author, among other things … all the way up to my retirement plans. Oh, and there’s a sample of Hoosier Hysterical, titled “Facts is Facts”.
 
Well, I thought it was interesting to write. Like therapy, only without the insurance bill.
 

My guest post today at Eve Gaal’s blog is all about Oz – the books, not the movie:

 

http://networkedblogs.com/AhyY0

 

My original piece was way too long, so for those of you who are interested, I put the rest of it up on my website: my slightly off (because that’s what I do) description of L. Frank Baum’s 13 other Oz books:

 

http://www.markrhunter.com/2012/07/25/all-about-the-oz-books-at-the-desert-rocks/

http://www.markrhunter.com/2012/06/21/writing-weather-and-l-frank-baum/

 

“I stood in the back yard and watched while everything around me turned a strange, sickly green, which seemed to glow as if coming from inside everything.”

 

 

 

 

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

 

My birthday gift from last year made me ruminate. But I took some antacid, and I’m feeling better now.

The rumination, which improves with ibuprofen and ice packs, started with The Annotated Wizard of Oz. Emily saw me lusting after it at a bookstore, to such an extent that they kicked me out so I wouldn’t slobber on the pages. This addition of L. Frank Baum’s classic children’s book was heavier than the Obamacare bill and almost as wordy, although much easier to understand due to a great deal of, as you might imagine, annotation.

I’m a fan of annotation. Well, I’m a fan of history, of which there’s plenty as the book covers Baum’s life and the times he lived in, not to mention the original story itself.

 

ExpandBut that’s not what caused the rumination, which I’ve just realized is like unwritten annotation. As I leafed through the book, I began to connect the dots. Not literally – nobody’s marking up that book. )

 

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