David Thayer

Borough of Wellington Leg. After a raucous meeting of the Council a majority voted to ban the works of The Earl as a health risk. The final vote was 10 to 7 with 3 abstentions, 1 indecipherable remark, a paper airplane with RAF markings, and a reference to “The Giraffe” which everyone agreed was inappropriate. “Giraffes are not native to Wellington Leg and pose no danger to the community at large,” concluded Privy Counselor Texas Bill. “Instead of banning giraffes, we’re banning books.”

Science Advisor, Mrs. Dalloway, informed the Council that “The Earl’s novels, when opened by the unaware, produce an invisible cloud or miasma, the very substance which caused the Great Plague.” The shocking revelation galvanized The Council, according to eye witness Gus of Goth. “They were sound asleep during the giraffe debate,” Gus reported. “I mean, giraffes are dangerous, aren’t they?”

Yes, Gus, giraffes are dangerous in an urban setting, but so is bad literature. The tie breaking vote came when Food Critic Ildephonse Macaroni read aloud from Voltaire’s Miasma ( Gripping! The Post-Intelligencer). Mr. Macaroni fainted during the reading, leading Council members to conclude the book must be banned.

The paper aircraft buzzed the Council several times during the proceedings. It was a “Mosquito” fighter-interceptor according to graphic novel inventor Marge. “Someone could poke an eye out,” she added.

Windows in the Great Hall remain open. “We think the miasma has dissipated,” said a spokesperson. A giraffe grazing nearby appears unaffected. “They can’t read,” Marge said. “Thank goodness.”

Dateline: Madison Wisconsin. Bouchercon, the largest of all mystery cons, is underway in Madison Wisconsin. The Druidical & Literary notes that Edward Champion is attending the conference along with notables such as Sarah Weinman and Tribe. This weekend the coveted Anthony Award will be given in several crime fiction categories. Nominees include Laura Lippman, Michael Connelly, Jan Burke, Thomas H. Cook, and William Kent Krueger in the best mystery novel category. The winner will be invited to Wellington Leg for a virtual ticker tape parade.

The in the PBO category we find PJ Parrish, Reed Farrell Coleman, Allan Guthrie, Susan McBride, and Charlie Huston. Good luck to all. Sarah Weinman is nominated for an award in the Special Service category for her blog Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind.

Prudentia Chalfont-Smythe ( not nominated) will host a Bouchercon Tea at the Hotel Faz Saturday at four pm. She will read her noir epic poem Goner in its entirety this year. “With the earl behind bars we’re counting on peace and quiet for a change,” she said. Last year’s reading came acropper when the Earl’s hogs entered the hotel’s remodeled lobby en masse. “They like poetry,” mused Professor Moriarity. Management of the Faz devised a sign reading Hogs Unwelcome. “That should do the trick,” said DCI Borchardt.

Linda Richards wrote to say that my review of Jason Starr’s LIGHTS OUT is posted at January Magazine. This is my second review for January and the link is on the right. I would’ve liked to have attended the session on book reviewing last night in Manhattan at the Housing Works Used Books Cafe. Frank Wilson, Maud Newton, Lizzie Skurnick, John Freeman of the National Book Critics Circle and Laurie Muchnick of Newsday formed the panel in which the role of bloggers as book reviews was examined. Bud Parr and James Marcus were in the audience so perhaps they will blog and enlighten.

What’s it like to review a book for January Magazine? With two in the can I’m working on a third novel, Thomas Lakeman’s THE SHADOW CATCHERS. It’s getting a little easier although your reporter finds these essay length reviews challenging. Part of the problem is my brain, like that of the mouse, can only absorb so much information at a time. I have to go into literary seclusion to spew forth a horrible first draft, rework it, and then email it to a living breathing editor. When that person responds my vision clouds with the struggle to understand what I said, he said, we said, and who wrote this thing in the first place? Unlike a terrible karaoke experience the review appears in print for other people to read. But the people at January make it better. Thank God.

Dateline: Wellington Leg. The editorial board of One More Bite of the Apple approved the addition of a new link to the revised KILLER YEAR WEBSITE. KILLER YEAR is a group of crime fiction writers whose work will appear in 2007. Our own Comte Gervais of Longueduc, regarded as a noir expert because noir is a French word and Comte Gervais is two French words, had this to say: “For too long I have toiled in obscurity, blah, blah, blah.”

Killer Year authors include Patry Francis, JT Ellison, Sandra Ruttan, Bill Cameron, Marcus Sakey, Jason Pinter, Toni McGee Causey, Dave White, Robert Gregory Brown, Gregg Olsen, Brett Battles.

The Earl, contacted in his cell at HRH J Mansfield Prison, said he enjoyed the new website and wished everyone involved good luck. He looks forward to reading next year unless, of course, he’s beheaded. “The Earl’s Beheading” is being pitched to TV execs by ueberagent Comte Gervais de Longueduc. “I see reality,” said the Comte. “I see television. They must be smooshed together.”

One of the problems with the serial nature of blogging is introducing new readers into the world of this blog. This was brought home to me in a recent telephone conversation with sister Kate. The only segment she understood was the article about Terri. This is the Star Wars Effect wherein the text explaining all the parts about a galaxy far far away scroll into oblivion while you’re in the lobby negotiating for Junior Mints. New readers may be lost, confused, dazed, even gobsmacked by references that have scrolled into the archives. I’ve compiled an FAQ. If you feel I haven’t addressed a question, leave one in the comments unless you’re peddling Xanax.

FAQ: Isn’t this a literary blog? Barely. The whole idea is that The Earl is trying to jumpstart his literary career, promoting his book Voltaire’s Miasma. Complications arise, resulting in gripping melodrama. The Earl lives in Wellington Leg which is besieged by Roman troops and a harsh literary climate.

Isn’t His Advice to Writers Useless? Absolutely. However, if one does the opposite of what The Earl suggests, literary fame and fortune will follow.

Is Wellington Leg a real place? No. That’s why it can be under Roman seige and enjoy proximity to COSTCO.

Why is turnip throwing illegal? By decree of the Dowager Princess. She was struck by a turnip ( ye gods! passive voice!) She remains wary.

When will The Earl be beheaded? There’s no point to reality television without corporate sponsors. And we need a time slot.

I hope that clarifies things.

I don’t think historians will label this the Era of Subtlety. Flash back to 1989: carefully, of course, because we all know that flashbacks are to be used sparingly. In 1989, though, no one knew that. Everybody was flashing back pretty much all the time, but now it’s kind of a lost art. Like the dream sequence, the flash back adds insult to injury and both are piling up at an alarming rate. Technology may be to blame for all of this in your face immediacy. I’m tired of all that. Let’s have flashbacks and dream sequences and characters in novels telling other characters things they both know but the reader doesn’t. We had that in the 80s. The Go-go 80s. Empires were built this way. Empires.

So, let’s resuscitate the info dump flashback, modernized for today’s harrowing technology. Jim is an insurance salesman, Dawn is a newspaper in Pakistan, no Dawn is Jim’s wife. Well, Dawn is a newspaper in Pakistan which is neither here nor there in this context but the set-up for Dawn’s flashback in real time leans on the mythology of vengeance wherein Dawn, a dental assistant, smokes Osama bin Laden at the mall in a kind of flash forward info dump thing. Why is the mall security guy wearing a Dick Cheney mask? Why can’t Jim get a promotion?

Now we flash back even though we’re lodged in the pluperfect future to find Dawn has become a rapper in South Central while Jim has moved to rural Georgia. How these worlds collide is touching, hilarious, at times Newtonian because Jim likes to drop objects from great heights. He’s a writer for a local newspaper, Dawn, and has editorial license to explore alternative theories in physics. Someday Jim will have a flashback of his own, but for now, time is of the essence, and his late model Yugo is on its way to Brazil to be parted out by a gang of rappers from South Central.

Okay that was a dream sequence.

I read the snippet of information about Evanovich last week. Stuff like that resonates with writers because while her success is obvious the struggle to launch her career occurred off stage. When her day arrived she was ready for it as a glance at the bestseller list confirms. A decade of struggle is going to weed some people out of the process, but there is no uniform experience in this business, no reliable template for the newcomer to follow. The here and now offers a deluge of information from bloggers such as Miss Snark although I have reservations about the value of devoting too much time on her site. The valid experience is the one that occurs in private between the writer and the agent or editor with work to read. Everything else is entertainment.

I don’t see how to avoid two things on the road to publication: reading what is published and writing your own stuff. That’s the part I can control, so that’s what I try to focus on. I try to write new stuff through to the end and put it away while I hack through another thicket of prose in another WIP. If this going to take me a decade, I’ll need more than the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I packed for the trip.

I opened up a novel I wrote a few years ago. It’s a crime novel called AN AZTEC IN CENTRAL PARK. There are two points of view, one from a criminal trying to protect his daughter, the other from a cop trying to protect an old friend, a priest bent on revenge. I’ve decided to bring the story up by revealing more plot in the beginning. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Dateline Wellington Leg: As tensions with neighboring Goth escalate, residents of the Leg are turning to books, says Prudentia Chalfont-Smythe. “After utilizing their Smythe Ovens citizens admiring the autumnal splendor in Mad Hatter Park.” City crews have been spray painting the leaves in the hopes of drawing tourists. “I’ve never seen turquoise leaves,” observed Gladys de Mornay of Henley Hornbrook. “If only I had my disposable camera.” Since the launch of a spy satelite disposable cameras have been difficult to come by. Gladys is reading Olen Steinhauer’s LIBERATION MOVEMENTS. “It’s very good,” she said.

Gus of Goth is reading THE INTERPRETATION OF MURDER by Jed Rubenfeld. “Sigmund Freud? I love that guy,” Gus said. Meanwhile Simon Kernick’s A GOOD DAY TO DIE is selling briskly at Eddie’s Book Nook. Eddie was struck by a falling leaf near the Historic Rotunda late yesterday afternoon. “I was reading Kate Atkinson’s ONE GOOD TURN,” he said.

With the weather changing it’s believed that the Decima Claudia legion is withdrawing to winter quarters. That will make the drive to COSTCO easier for residents on the westside. “They drive oxcarts and never signal,” complained one man. The 405 will close for resurfacing warned DCI Borchardt. With the spy satellite whizzing overhead the Flying Squad is warning taller people to duck.

Using the Free Launch style The Borough of Wellington Leg has launched a satelite to spy on the neighboring community of Goth. Engineers at the Outer Space Institute, next door to the MySpace Institute on Bollywood Drive utilized a spandex launcher to hurl the satellite into orbit. Aided by a stiff southerly breeze and freshening gusts the launch was described as a “compleat success” by Medievalist Jerome of Byzantium who supervised the effort. “We rounded up a bunch of big strong guys who pulled on the launcher in unison.” The Free Launch Method allows the satellite a period of reflection before entering geosynchronus orbit. “That’s the crucial bit,” Jerome explained.

The satellite is very small but is bristling with disposable cameras acquired en masse at Rite Aid. “We got a good deal on the cameras,” Jerome said. “And we picked up some razor blades.”

For weeks The Borough of Wellington Leg has complained about the concentrations of Roman troops near Goth. “They thumbed their nose(s) at us,” Hizzoner said. “Now we’ll see who will be thumbing what at whom.”

The satellite will whiz over Goth every ninety seconds. Already some citizens are complaining: “I can’t get reception,” said Gus of Goth. “I had the Baywatch on, the one where they’re all mean to the new girl…and then boom, it’s Judge Frist’s Dance Party.” Gus did admit to dancing with the Judge. “I voted “guilty” in the earl’s trial,” Gus added. “Now it’s like I’m afraid to turn on the TV.”

Hello, Prudentia here, blogging from the Warhol Room of the Hotel Faz. I’ve assembled a small collection of query letters, some my own creation, for display here at the recently renovated Faz. You may have read the earl’s poem Trouble at the Hotel Faz published some years ago by a defunct periodical. ( The italics are mine.) One does wonder how anyone could publish the earl’s mad ravings while ignoring the charm of my own. In any case the subject is query letters in alternative media: I hope you’re as enthralled as I with the concept.

The Carved Tablet Query: I used a solid slab of limestone to create this query and a Dewalt hand held drill ( I hope that’s not considered “product placement.” You know my feelings on that score.)  Caution: return postage may be prohibitive! Be sure to use a tracking number when mailing stone tablets. It lends the query a certain gravitas.

Adaptation of The Scream: With all the recent interest in Munch, I thought this was a natural for securing an agent’s attention. My handsome calligraphy is confined to the edges of the original painting…great fun!

Antiquing Your Query: go ahead and write your query in the usual manner. Sprinkle the letter with concrete dust before applying a sledgehammer; don’t be afraid to whack away! One of my neighbors telephoned the police while observing me, so be sure you have plenty of outdoor space before attempting this. A tip for novices: a sign that reads “I’m querying” may assuage the fears of Nosey Parkers.

The Earl is constructing a query out of Silly Putty. It’s yet another example of why I should be in charge of this blog. TTFN!