Words into infinity

"Although they are only breath, words which I command are immortal." -- Sappho


Most of Sappho's words have disappeared, while those we have may yet be lost in translation from her original song or chant in Aeolian Greek. So I try to grok the sense of what she intended and perhaps in doing so I contribute a few moments to her words' immortality.

When I read about the ancient authors we know, I'm intrigued by those we don't, the loosely mentioned names of contemporaries long lost to us. Even now, some out of print books from the last 20 or 30 years appear to have evaporated into the void. In "Shadow of the Wind" and "Angel's Game," Carlos Ruiz Zafon writes of a mysterious archive called "The Cemetery of Forgotten Books" hidden away in Barcelona. I like the concept and wish I had a key to the front door so I could rescue a favorite and become responsible for its everlasting life.

I would like to wander the aisles and find all of Sappho's works that were purportedly lost at the Library of Alexandria. Perhaps my uncle's lost novel awaits a reader on a dark shelf. Maybe that stack of comic books my mother through away are still pristine and humorous in the laughter room. Most books, the publishing experts tell us, will be gone from bookstore shelves within a month. Others never get there. Maybe those not shredded end up in Zafon's Barcelona catacombs of words.

A friend of mine at a computer company told me that when a word processing file disappears and can't be found or restored, the material in the file ends up in "alphabet heaven." Perhaps all the words of all the writers are there, too, awaiting us in another dimension where they truly are immortal.

Writers are considered vain, of course, in this day and time if they suggest they're writing more than a momentary amusement or a quick beach read, much less anything that might make the cut in the next century's literary canon. The immortality of words, other than in some transcendent sense, is seldom discussed when it comes to most of our "once upon a times."

Looking ahead to literary history as it might be written a thousand years from now, it would indeed be an honor to be called a contemporary of Cormac McCarthy or Carlos Ruiz Zafon or J. K. Rowling whose work, unlike the masters of that long ago day, are no longer extant. To survive within a footnote might be immortality enough.

We seldom know where our words go, who sees them, and where or when. Perhaps a few paragraphs will still exist ten years down the road. And after that, a line or two may be half-way lost in translation when English is for future readers as obscure as Aeolian Greek is for today's readers.

No word is ever lost, the spiritual masters often tell us. I hope that's true. Perhaps some day we'll have the technology and the proper state of mind to find our own immorality on the printed page or pixeled screen.

-

Copyright (c) 2009 by Malcolm R. Campbell, author of the still-extant "The Sun Singer" and "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire."

Vanilla Heart Publishing Mystery/Thriller Sampler

You can now read the first two chapters of "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire" in the Vanilla Heart Publishing sampler. The sampler is available free at Smashwords in multiple formats including PDF.

Authors and books included in the sampler:

Deadly Demented by Jeffrey Martin

978-1-935407-01-0


Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire by Malcolm R. Campbell

978-1-935407-14-0


Final Sin by Chelle Cordero

978-1-935407-13-3

Three Weeks Last Spring by Victoria Howard

978-1-935407-04-1


Yearly Harvest by Ryan Callaway

978-0-0984739-1-8


Conquering Venus by Collin Kelley

978-1-935407-29-4


Lucifer’s Calling by Jeffrey Martin

978-0-9821150-3-9


Forces of Nature by Marilyn Celeste Morris

978-0-9821150-1-5


Finding Kylie by Kimberly McKay

978-0-9821150-0-8


Ten Times Guilty by Brenda Hill

978-1-935407-55-3

Books with Heart - Blog Talk Radio - Aug 27

I'll be chatting with Kimberlee Williams, managing editor of Vanilla Heart Publishing, this coming Thursday at 7 p.m. eastern on Blog Talk Radio about Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire. I invite you to stop by and listen live or come by later and hear the archived interview when time permits. There's a chat room and a call-in number for questions (646-478-375.)

The novel went live on Amazon yesterday, with the Kindle edition being available the day before. Ms. Williams has been the moving force behind bringing this book to market, and even though she knows I'm likely to say just about anything, she's still willing to talk to me on her show for an hour. We have a few excerpts in mind along with the usual Jock Stewart hi-jinks.

Our first attempt to do this show on Sunday, August 22 reached the half-way point before storms knocked Blog Talk Radio's servers and phones "off the air."

The day when the new books arrive

A friend of mine started reading the Kindle edition of "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire" early this week while those of us stuck with the old fashioned trade paperbacks were still waiting for our copies to arrive.

When UPS delivered the books about 1:00 p.m. today, I didn't open the box for an hour. I was in the middle of a Morning Satirical News blog post and didn't want to stop writing and lose my momentum. Plus, I'm in full agreement with my daughter in such matters. She's a documentary editor on the Santayana Edition ("The Essential Santayana") and cringes when books arrive from the printer. In spite of all the hard work, what if the cover or back cover is totally fouled up? What if the half title page has a 36-point Times Roman typo?

I'm relieved to say that the books look great. Whew. It's nice to see them here, to see what a great job managing editor Kimberlee Williams and the rest of the editorial team at Vanilla Heart Publishing have done. It's a womderful way to send the work week.

Malcolm

Books With Heart Radio Program August 22, 4pm edt

I'll be chatting with Kimberlee Williams, managing editor of Vanilla Heart Publishing, this coming Saturday on Blog Talk Radio about Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire. I invite you to stop by and listen live or come by later and hear the archived interview when time permits. The call-in number for questions is (646) 478-3750.

The novel went live on Amazon yesterday, with the Kindle edition being available the day before. Ms. Williams has been the moving force behind bringing this book to market, and even though she knows I'm likely to say just about anything, she's still willing to talk to me on her show for an hour. We have a few excerpts in mind along with the usual Jock Stewart hi-jinks.

--Malcolm

What I know about horse racing

A racehorse is an animal that can take several thousand people for a ride at the same time. — Anonymous

What I know about horse racing will fit in a thimble.

When I lived in the Chicago area many years ago, I knew some people who were into horse racing. We all went to the track many times. In my ignorance, I lost about as much money as they did–and they had been going to the track for so long, they knew all the vendors.

With this background, I felt perfectly well-suited for writing a comedy thriller about a missing race horse named Sea of Fire. Had I known what I was doing, it wouldn’t have been funny. My protagonist Jock Stewart doesn’t know anything about race horses either. He’s an old fashioned newspaper reporter who learns what he needs for a story by asking questions.

For example, when somebody mentions a product called “Race Ready,” Stewart naturally assumes it’s a Viagra knockoff. But he checks his facts before he writes his story. If you own horses, you probably know “Race Ready” is a brand of feed.

Fortunately, Sea of Fire is stolen early in the story. I did that on purpose (a) for a bunch of complex plotting considerations, and (b) because had he been in the story, I would have needed to write scenes about him which would be real easy to screw up.

Tack is also easy to screw up both in real life and in writing about horses. It’s really best if your protagonist doesn’t know what tack is or why you need it because then when he says the wrong thing, it’s pretty much expected of him. Problem solved: no research needed.

This is my way of saying that a writer doesn’t always have to write what he knows, especially in the world of humor and satire.

As for Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire, the Kindle edition went live on Amazon today. Since I don’t own a Kindle, I’m happy to say that the trade paperback ought to be in stock on Amazon in a day or two.

If you’re a jockey, a bettor, or a member of a limited partnership with a stable full of Thoroughbreds, don’t expect to find horse racing facts or secrets in the novel. I dumbed down the subject for the author.

--Malcolm

Novel's release date slips seven days

Delays at the printer are postponing the release of Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire from August 12 to August 19. I was hoping the novel would come out on my birthday, but with the 19th, it's still a Leo! Many thanks to those of you who have already pre-ordered the book on B&N and Amazon; hopefully, the printer will get the book out the door soon.

I posted a teaser-length snippet from the novel on my Eye Blink Fiction blog.

On my Round Table blog, you'll find a brief post contemplating the life of a book in a library. When libraries had paper cards in book pockets in the backs of books, you could see the names of everyone else who ever checked the books. It used to be kind of fun seeing who had read what I was reading.

Pondering Fictional Characters


In his article "On the Advantages of Fiction" in the latest issue of Pen America Umberto Eco says that he knows Stephen Dedalus better than he knew his father. James Joyce has, for all of us, displayed the hopes and dreams and flaws and secrets of his widely known protagonist that far exceed what we may ever know about our family as friends.

"A far as my father was concerned," writes Eco, "who knows how many episodes of his life I ignored, how many secret thoughts he never disclosed, how many times he concealed his sorrows, his quandaries, his weaknesses. Now, after his death, I shall never recover these secret and perhaps fundamental aspects of his personality."

We see here that while we might try to know our family and friends better than we do, they seldom give up the kind of information about themselves that novelists--from their God-like perspective--tell us about major and minor characters as a matter of course. While fictional characters are often larger than life, the essential truths about them are defined and limited by the short stories or novels in which they appear.

Living, breathing people evolve over the years, often blurring images of them in our mind's eye. The novelist understands this and withholds a verbatim transcript of his protagonists and antagonists in favor of highly focused moments and descriptions and conversations that show only what the omniscient author wants us to see, and then it becomes engraved in stone and has the power of appearing more real and more true than life itself.

-

Malcolm

Dog Days of August

If you lived in ancient Rome, you believed that the rising Dog Star added its heat to the sun, giving us the hottest days (dog days, or caniculares dies) of the year. While we've had more heat than we need, I must--as a Leo--protest the phrase "Dog Days of August." Those of you who come from other realms of the Zodiac are discounting the Lion in all his glory by perpetuating this usage.

Anyhow, according to the four cats in the house, I'm a cat person. They take exception to any phrase with the word "dog" in it, including dirty dog, dog's life, dog in the manger, dog eat dog, letting sleeping dogs lie, and the now-archaic dog-goned.

In this house hold, everything good is the cat's pajamas and a rest is a cat nap. We remind each other that a cat can look at a king and, should we need threats, a cat on a hot tin roof. Seeing how the cat jumps is a daily occurrence which--from the cats' perspective--is always our fault even if we're not there when it happens. We're not allowed to use the term "cat house" unless the cats are asleep, and then only with great caution.

Need I tell you that a catamount is a flea, a catacomb is a brushing device and a caterpillar is a kitty holding up a sagging front porch?

In this house, we do not speak of the Dog Days of August. We do, however, acknowledge the Tabby Bad Litter Box Days as needed. When it (the litter box or the day) is really hot, it smells like something the dog brought in.

--Malcolm


Other Posts:


On Eye Blink Fiction, a brief excerpt from my upcoming novel "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire"

On Writer's Notebook, Fiction Engraves in Stone What Life Does Not

Waiting for Jock Stewart

The publisher tells me Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire is now at the printer. So, the August 12th release date still appears to be realistic. It's nice to see the novel listed on Amazon and Barnes & Noble for pre-order already.

The days leading up to a book release are exciting, the way Christmas was exciting when I was a kid. The anticipation is off the scale and I find myself at loose ends waiting to hold a physical copy of the book in my hands. My daughter, who's a documentary editor, reminds me, though, that on the day the books arrive, one looks through them cautiously hoping not to find errors. Yep, I'll feel that way, too, when Jock Stewart arrives.

Meanwhile, I'm getting some reading done, most recently Final Sin, a high-pitched thriller/romance by Chelle Cordero and a gentle young adult/adult novel by Linda Kay Silva called Across Time. Now, I'm reading the classic Stoner, a 1965 novel by John Williams.

Meanwhile, my wife Lesa continues working many hours a week on the restoration of the Crawford W. Long Museum, "the birthplace of anesthesia." Hopefully, the restoration and the new exhibits will be ready for a re-opening of the Jefferson, Georgia museum this fall.

She and I both have exciting projects we can't wait to see come to fruition. Sometimes we're both too tired to think of THE DAY, but I know that when it arrives for both my novel and the museum, it will feel like Christmas.