David Thayer

The Historic Rotunda: Hizzoner emerged from the rabbit hole this afternoon and saw his shadow, indicating six more weeks of winter. He also announced that problems with the Official Calendar will delay New Year’s for at least a week. New Year’s Eve in Goth will be celebrated tonight since the Atomic Clock was kick started by city employees using a Honda generator. “We pushed the big hand over the little hand,” said city manager Scooter. “I’m suffering lower back pain,” he added.

The penguin spotted in Wellington Leg over the weekend proved to be a stuffed animal according to police sources. “Though remarkably life like, the penguin has sat without moving in the employee lounge for three days,” reported DCI Borchardt. “Attempts to agitate the creature proved futile.” Earlier reports that the penguin wished passersby “Happy New Year” were false,” Borchardt added. “His lips or beak is sealed,” Borchardt said.

CSI Caruso removed his designer sunglasses 54 times on Saturday, influencing the space time continuum. That’s why New Year in Wellington Leg won’t occur until after the conclusion of the Fatted Calf Bowl. Since neither team boarded their chartered buses officials admit the outlook is cloudy. The Julian Calendar has 17 months, 9 set aside for the NBA playoffs, 3 optional months, and one month that is thirty seconds long. The NaNoWriMo contest fell in one such month and thus never happened according to Professor Moriarity. “I lifted my pen and it was over,” he said. He went on to say that one of his penguins is missing. “He answers to the name of George on Horseback,” the professor said. “He’s deaf in one ear.”

I read William Kent Krueger’s MERCY FALLS last week. The novel is part of the Cork O’Conner series set in rural Minnesota. It’s an impressive piece of work as Krueger’s fans figured out long before I did. If all politics are local, the same might be said for series detectives. MERCY FALLS shares many of the elements to be found in the work of CJ Box, Archer Mayer, Steve Thayer, Steve Hamilton, and of course, James Lee Burke. These writers create an intimate feeling, not cozy, but detailed regarding the protagonist’s domestic life. Krueger and Burke add poetic prose styles to chart the innocence of the land, a contrast to Cormac McCarthy who uses setting as an untamed evil. In the wrong hands this homage to nature becomes schmaltz or manipulation. Krueger does a great job of avoiding the simplistic notion that nature is good, man is evil.

Linda Fairstein is wildly popular. I’m reading THE KILLS and it works. In this category Michelle Martinez is a better writer, but Fairstein has learned her craft, although she confuses me with her point of view shifts at times. I don’t know who is speaking. Her ADA character works, and this dialogue driven story is interesting. Fairstein is more aloof than Martinez so there are fewer surprises, but also fewer detours.

What’s going on with thrillers? It’s safe to say we have the Renaissance in the rear view mirror. The smoking beast of the techno variety is dormant. Michael Crichton is still trying to frighten us, although a few paragraphs reveal he’s no relation to Tolstoy. Little old ladies parachuting into Afghanistan is petering out. Ian Rankin has cranked out a few but they disappoint. Whither the thriller in 2007?

Special to the Druidical & Literary: The San Francisco Baseball Giants have signed lefthander Barry Zito in a multi-year contract valued at 120,000,000. The news shocked the Leg whose fans were sure he was leaning toward the Wellington Leg Pioneers. “With the earl in center and the Duchess closing, Zito might’ve won 30 games if he’d signed with the Pioneers,” said baseball analyst Anne of Cleves. With $120,000,000 Zito will be able to afford a new house, but not a very big one, and certainly not in a good neighborhood. “He’ll be commuting from Lake County,” predicted Minny the Realtor from her office atop Thump Tower. “His commute would’ve been far better in Wellington Leg.”

Although spring training is weeks away the Duchess has been seen perfecting her cut fastball. “It explodes like Mariano Rivera’s,” said a spokesperson. The earl is recovering from injuries sustained in a Christmas tree mishap. “Zito is a fly ball pitcher. With the earl patroling deep batter after batter would’ve retired in dismay,” Ms. Cleves remarked. Her observation was greeted by laughter from assembled reporters.

A condo in the converted HRH J. Mansfield Prison had Zito’s name all over it, Minnie said. “The prices in San Francisco? Forget about it. A condo here costs 50 Cent.”

The Pioneers need to sign infielder Condi Rice. “Even with the Duchess on the hill, the team is dreadful,” said a literary scout. “The earl, a threat to literature, is a danger to himself on the field.” She may have been alluding to the time the earl tripped over a resin bag and swallowed his chaw. That incident may have created the housing bubble and global warming. Pippi Longstocking reporting.

Thanks to the Roman numeral I can do sequel after sequel of this particular post; this is not a form of recycling, merely a guide to understanding the nature of this blog. At its heart this is about the aspiration shared by novelists and would be novelists to find an audience. Michael Blowhard of 2Blowhards provided a checklist of all the things that have to happen to get a book sold, the several points of sale imbedded in the process. Step one is to write a book. This is not optional although many aspirants seem to stumble here, preferring to float ideas for books to assorted publishing professionals. Wouldn’t it be fun if the business worked that way? Having ideas is relatively painless, often involuntary.

This model works this way: you’re taking a shower and an idea for a book hits you. Not yet dry, you’re on the blower to the William Morris Agency where an Ueberagent takes your call. She listens, rapt, puts you on hold, then sells your idea to Random House for a million dollars. It’s okay to dry your hair now, you’ve hit the jackpot. Nice work, by the way.
Option two is to write a book, read a lot, write another book, read some more, write a third and a fourth. The pitfalls of this approach are legion, of course, because writing books is time consuming. Years will pass. No outcome is assured.

I created Wellington Leg as a means of channeling the vagaries of Option Two into something fun. Everyone in towne is an aspiring author. The Earl sets the tone with his blundering. You may recall his being dragged across a train station platform clinging to Ian Rankin’s pantleg or swinging from a chandelier toward an agent in a ballroom. He can do these things, try out for the Yankees, thwart a Roman invasion, commune with his hogs, battle ravenous gastropods while surfing and still produce a novel as compelling as VOLTAIRE’S MIASMA. These are things aspiring writers do.

No Boxing Day in these United States. I was up at four in the morning for reasons too tedious to plumb. I worked on a new novel in a novel new way: instead of intruding on the main file I worked in a separate file that is labeled notes. Here are some things that happen at the four in the morning when working on a novel in a file called notes.

First the Notes thing: if I work in the main file, I worry about spelling, punctuation, garbage collection, universal health care, and other stuff that defeats the purpose of writing. Plus “Notes” sounds important. Remember after we’re dead, people get all excited about stuff like this. “Notes” might give someone a thrill some day. Another name for this file might be “Idiotic stuff I Can’t Put in the Novel Unless I’m Dead and Then It’s Okay.”

At fifteen after the hour I was thinking that if I had to catch a plane this morning I’d be up anyway. At this point “working on the novel” means staring at the screen. If I turn my head sideways I can  see my reflection: this is good for ten minutes of cheap entertainment.

We had four additional people for dinner last night. That’s a four am sentence for its implied cannibalism. I don’t mean it that way. I was thinking about the duality of man. That’s not true I’m waiting for the coffeemaker to finish making those strange noises, all the more ominous due to the early hour.

Wow, ninety minutes of actual work. The only thing more exciting than writing a novel is watching someone else write a novel even if that person is pretending to be thinking about the duality of man but really craves coffee.

This is why the file is called “Notes.”

Wellington Leg: An attempt to reach the highest star came acropper this morning when the Earl of Watership Down vanished into the decorated branches of a one hundred foot Sitka spruce. “He’s been in there for several hours,” noted Publicist of Gloom Lars Kierkegaard. “It was a vainglorious attempt to adjust the star that graces the very tip of the mighty tree,” Lars continued. “Several maritime creatures had conspired to move the star closer to true north,” he added.

DCI Borchardt, on duty this festive weekend, rushed to the scene of the earl’s mysterious disappearance. “This is a hoax,” he muttered. Three penguins of uncertain origin were observed “falling off the curb” by eye-witness Eugenia Gadfly of GreatBigTreesGoFlying Avenue. “Mrs. Gadfly also reported receiving VOLTAIRE’S MIASMA as a Christmas gift,” Borchardt said. “What fiend would do such a thing?”

Elsewhere in the Leg, Wilfredo Tagesblatt reported that the Guillotine is working again. “I’m making scalloped potatoes,” he added. “This is great.”

At the Tower, Mrs. Anderson-Cooper, QC, wished everyone “Seasons Greetings.” Her phalanx of elderly Walmart doormen pressed through towne “in search of hooligans,” but were flummoxed by the earl’s “vanishment.” The Prosecutrix, who’d seen an owl on her balcony, remained indoors studying film of the Raiders offense.

With Costco closed, police units withdrew from the Overflow Lot where Roman skirmishers were sighted last week. DCI Borchardt suspects these strange doings are related. “The earl vanishes in a tree…penguins jump from the curb, the guillotine is working and I’m using the present tense. It’s beginning to look a lot like…Wellington Leg.”

A cab driver reported “theft of service” by an Orca shortly after midnight. The great beast swallowed the aging Marathon before spitting it out. The cabbie had been reading ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE when the Orca struck. He was breathalyzed and dragged before Judge Hamilcar Frist. “We danced the night away,” the judge remarked. Prinz Pomerol of Regensburg reporting.

Wellington Leg Weekend Edition: Borchardt here. Things are quiet here at headquarters. From where I’m sitting I see that Lucretia Borgia’s House of Nails is doing a thriving trade. One wonders why so many women want to buy nails just a few short days before Christmas.

Towne is peaceful in part because the Earl is preoccupied with his annual Chimney Descent. You may recall last year’s fiasco where he was stuck for 31 days in his chimney. I think of that period as a kind of golden age for Wellington Leg. His blog is supposed to be about crime fiction, but everyone knows what a ridiculous blowhard he is. I’ve read VOLTAIRE’S MIASMA. Great Scott, what a setback for literature!

Carrie Fry at Tingle Alley reported that a great white shark had consumed a man wearing a suit of armor. Perusing a missing person’s report I came to realize that the victim may be our own Sir Lancelot, last seen in these parts several centuries ago. I made a quick call to CSI Caruso, but he has yet to respond.

I’m on duty this weekend. Rest assured that the Wellington Leg Police never sleep. Of course individual members of the force may sleep but certainly not the entire force at the same time. Well, that happened once, but not on my watch. Anon, DCI Borchardt ( Lux et Veritas).

Good books glow. That’s why they are so hard to market. The labels attached in all good faith render books into categories and from categories into niches. Niches were carved from stone by the Greeks and Romans as a place to put your things before entering a public bath. In a sense they are the forerunner of your high school locker. Big Roman guys named Biff snapped towels at the unaware: Biff read Ovid’s Metamorphosis but thought it sucked.

Once a book arrives at its niche, it is pecked at by varous bathers, some of them famous, others simply temperamental enough to remark upon its virtues, vices, strengths, and failings. The relative incandescence is not discussed in critical terms since that quality is rooted in an emotional response that is difficult to describe. Critics will talk about a book escaping its niche or breaking out which evokes images of chasing a dog through a park. At the point where your pet rejects the docile trade-off of food for good behavior it is briefly a dog again. The harrowing chase through meadows and ponds is a form of metamorphosis, albeit an annoying one.

Literature is frustrating. Writing it can be maddening. The entire escapade is frought with dark emotions, fleeting joy, and the need to look out the window. Trapped within, your inner Bukowski rebels while an old Jerry Jeff Walker riff enters your brain: “say goodbye to the landlord for me. Sons of bitches always bored me.”

Wellington Leg, the 21st Ultimo: Powerful winds from Gastropod Alley left the Towne of Wellington Leg without power, heat, and hot water late last week. Here’s a quick rundown of cancelations from the Quad City News Desk:

The Famous Writers School, which teaches the secret techniques of successful writers, is open. DCI Borchardt attended class to learn “headline ripping.” “All I did was shred newspapers,” he said. Borchardt made a rain hat from back issues of the Daily Planet.

Beheadings at the Tower: Wellington Leg’s reality TV series was forced to shut down when supplies of abalone entrails and green tea were exhausted. Wilfredo Tagesblatt, VP of Development, promised that “heads would roll” in an exceptional memo dictated but not read, signed but not sealed.

The Earl’s Driving School: Roman soldiers from the Vicesima Claudia and Mars Victor Legions lifted the Earl’s Mini from the grasp of a fifty foot rhododendron near his ancestral home. Fights broke out among the troops when driving class was canceled. After the squad arrived at a nearby Chevron station, police were summoned. “The Romans tossed the Mini back and forth,” said one patrol officer. “This invasion is creating real problems,” he added.

Eddie’s Book Nook near the historic rotunda will open at noon. Urquhart Depew, embittered dogsbody, will appear this afternoon to read from his potboiler expose about life with the Earl. “The buzz is awesome,” noted Publicist Lars Kierkegaard. Depew claims that he is the rightful heir to Great Puffinghammer, that he and the earl were switched at birth, that his years as an ensign in the Royal Navy resulted in substantial hearing loss. Mrs. Glenda Doherty of Carthago Nova was the first person to camp in front of Eddie’s. “I have my knitting,” she said. Mrs. Doherty produced a Dick Cheney mask to frighten passersby. “It’s fun,” she said.

Hello. I’m writing today from my embittered dogsbody’s battered desk. My own escritoire is in the shop. I can only hope that Lars and his crack team of mechanics can repair it before the next windstorm. Wellington Leg has battened down for another autumn storm; the hogs have fled to the relative safety of Midtown. I will, no doubt, be receiving the usual cries of outrage from shoppers.

The subject of this morning’s essay is the fake fire. During the holidays writers ( and I’m no exception) are drawn indoors for scenes that require the domestic touch. Who can forget the moment in VOLTAIRE’S MIASMA when Jules and Maude, caught in the amber glow of the artifical fire, decide to flee Paris? Throughout my epic there are no fewer than 39 fake fire scenes. Too many? Too few?

One of the problems is Jules and his constant dithering. After fleeing Paris he returns to make certain his apartment door is locked. No sooner does he escape the wrath of angry peasants, a chance encouter with his landlord results in further delay. As he is dragged to the guillotine, Jules remembers to cancel his grocery order, and of course, his subscription to Le Soir ( another fake fire moment.) He’s completely forgotten his promise to Maude, rendered on a note found by the Bailiff.

Well, I think you would agree that moderation is key. As he awaits the falling blade, Jules realizes that he is engaged to the Duchess of Lambert. What was he doing with Maude before the fake fire? Jules vows to write these things down in the future.