For Muse or For Country

Novelist: Hear Thyself!

Hang on to every choice word, my friend. By the time you reach the end of this post, you’ll find yourself dazed and confused. You may even feel delirious from the taste and the dizziness from the slant of the words.

How do you see the world? Through rose-colored glasses? Through a glass darkly? With blinders? Through a microscope or a telescope? A wide angle lens? A fisheye lens? (Forgive me, that was the philosopher/scientist in me, all talking out my 3rd Mojito.)

But don’t scoff at these questions they are important, you’ll see.

I don’t know about you, but I tend to look at the world from the point of view of the infinite Cosmos. God-centered and omniscient. As opposed to looking at things from where I stand. Down here. Where everything seems overwhelming and so impossible every day. (Yes, for those of you who haven’t awakened from your drug-induced comas yet, like I have: the world is getting scarier by the millisecond. Just stick your head out the window.)

Last week I posted a similar essay. “Strong Medicine for Novelists”. When I began this Blogspot, I had alerted readers that my posts are designed to “burst your bubble” to the realities, albeit, absurdities devised by noveliticians, and I’ve held up my end of the bargain. I’ve delivered the goods under the presumption of a self-imposed contract between us. And as you know, just as comedy heightens tragedy, my intended humor leads into the darkness of drama. Everything that’s real and dreadful under the guise of the absurd.

But the reality is simply this: all endeavors in life, i.e., sports, music, painting, writing—the arts at large are all metaphors for life. Because life is indeed a challenge from the moment we’re pushed out or plucked out at birthed until the moment we succumb to the devices of the fatal games we play. It is a constant struggle. A never-ending loop of insanity, wrapped up in a neat little package known as: your so-called wonderful life.

Here it is my friend, in all its glory, in all its divine splendor. Now suck it up and deal with it!

In Spanish, the old saying is “En La Lucha”, loosely translated as: “In The Fight”, more aptly, “In the Struggle”. But what do we struggle against? What is our cause, or our reason’ for’ being? (That’s right I loathe French phrases, and the French for that matter. Can anyone tell me what the fuck they’re good for, other than sniffing Bordeaux’s and cranking out half-ass souse chefs? This is a rhetorical question BTW. Although, the word “Fuck” (which is near and dear to me) and “Penis” and the word “Sex” are of French origins, as so are many other English words. But fuck the French anyway.)

What is our purpose in life? What is our purpose in writing? What do you want to say, but more importantly, why must you say it? Why is it relevant to you and to who else should it matter?

All this sounds way too heady and over-the-top doesn’t it?

Okay, then hang on to dear life, precious ones, because my Aristotelian antics and poetics are about to hit the proverbial fan and disintegrate into tiny little shards of digestible wisdom for your enjoyment and edification. Your goal is to gather all the tiny little pieces of this puzzle, decipher them into intelligible syllables and sentences, arrange them within the realm of your knowledge, and put it all into good practice by forging ahead with an effective, relentless master plan.

In other words: Read, comprehend, and apply with your heart and soul.

Here goes:
Once upon a time, God confounded the languages…wait a minute, that’s going back way too far. Let’s take a gigantic leap through the ole Star Trek time machine and set this narrative inside a much more relevant scenario. A futuristic dystopian landscape perhaps, a la McCarthy’s “The Road”. (Possibly the only book that will survive the end times.) How about the year 2075? Perfect.

And so, now the question becomes: What has happened to literature since the times of Homer? (BTW has anyone figured out his godforsaken last name? Homer is his last name? I’ll take that one up with the Greek gods, those bastards must know something. But I digress, as usual.)

If Homer or Aristotle were to reincarnate and find themselves in the year 2075, (not together, holding hands like gay chums or anything) and picked up any of the popular novels of the time, who would they most likely read? James Joyce, Dos Passos, Jorge Luis Borges, Roberto Bolaño, Hemingway? How about Virginia Woolf, or Fitzgerald. What about contemporaries such as: Anne Rice, Nora Roberts, Alice Walker? (How did they get in here?) Cormac McCarthy, G.G. Marquez (Yes, he’s working on a new novel. No, no, not McCarthy, he’s stuck polishing his “blind man” characters.)

You get the idea folks. This list could go on for light years. Let’s come back down to Earth.

What about you? That’s right. What would you be inclined to pick up from a year 2075 bookstore shelf, take home and read, hopefully cover-to-cover without cheating? Would it be a genre romance, a mystery, a western? (All this provided that the Kindle will not systematically rule the world of publishing by then.) (Hey, maybe the subject of my next blogpost, goshdurnit! Finger snap right here.)

What would have changed with the passage of time? What has changed since the ancient times of Greek Mythology? Everything. But nothing at all. (How profound can I get?)

So here’s my point. You’re going to read what you like. Duh!? What was that George? (BTW, I’m convinced that Pinky, the mouse in Pinky and the Brain was based on Steinbeck’s classic buffoon character, Lenny—“Of Mice & Men”). Thank you.

And based on that highly philosophical observation, you’ll most likely write about the things you like to read. Conversely, you are inclined to read about things you like to write. Huh? Sure makes sense to me. But what if you tried to write like Steinbeck, for instance? Or like Hemingway? Literati try all the time. (Am I preaching to myself again?) Have they succeeded? Unless they’re channeling the defunct writer’s ghost in some way, probably not.

(Besides, identity theft is certainly a big issue these days. Highly frowned upon but rampant in today’s society, just like pirating music or movies is, very, very big in Puerto Rico, Asia, and South America, FYI. Matter of fact, Chavez encourages it.)
You can imitate, steal or plagiarize, but you cannot “become anyone else”. Right. The last time I checked that was still against the law. God’s law, that is. Matter of fact, I think that’s why he bestowed each of us with 12 unique strands of DNA. (Except for me, I’m missing 3, and the rest are super-coiled, like dreads.)

If you’ve been following my posts, you’ve heard this before, and I’ll say it again, at the risk of you flipping a birdie at your screen in my direction. It all boils down to this: Being Yourself. (Good grief.) How else can you float to the top, or sink to the bottom of the gene pool? Take your pick. Either extreme is noteworthy in its own way but for different reasons. And somewhere inside that cosmic muck, lies the polarity of a writer’s life (whatever that means).

Take it or leave it. Like it or lump it. (I had to dig deep for those.) This is the real you. The novelist. The aspiring novelist. The writer on a mystic journey to________fill-in the blank. (That’s where your cause belongs. Ahhh!) Your beliefs, your concepts, your longing desires and your fears. Your daring statement to the world! My mama’s favorite Pilaf recipe? Whatever.

What’s it going to be? Well, that’s entirely up to you. It can be something as deep as an abyss, or even as shallow as a puddle, or anywhere in between. Not only is the choice yours, but more often than not, the choice has been made for you by a higher authority. (How else can we mere mortals explain the writings of Kingsolver or Marquez? BTW, take this one up with Robert Mckee) Right, a higher authority. You know, like your fate, or your destiny. That kind of thing.

And within the realm of your God-ordained destiny, there are decisions to make. That’s right, none of this happens automatically. You must first recognize it deep inside your soul, decide to nurture it through diligent study, and then you must practice it, as if your life depended on it. Because it does. (You can thank the great Guru Master, Tony Robbins for that one.)

But take heart dear ones, here’s a quote you don’t hear every day:

"Although I also know that it's true that a writer's country isn't his language or isn't only his language.... There can be many countries, it occurs to me now, but only one passport, and obviously that passport is the quality of the writing. Which doesn't mean just to write well, because anybody can do that, but to write marvelously well, though not even that, because anybody can do that too. Then what is writing of quality? Well, what it's always been: to know how to thrust your head into the darkness, know how to leap into the void, and to understand that literature is basically a dangerous calling.” Roberto Bolaño. (1953-2003)

Swish that one around your skull folks. It’s like a fine Merlot, sweet but tart. Or is that Chardonnay? (Wine aficionados, the fucking French, sit back down.) The life of a writer is just that: a life. A way of life and not just a way to survive a life. It’s a sacred commitment. It’s about communities of writers coming together--and stealing each other’s ideas.

(Unless you’re James Patterson.)

You can do it for money, or you can do it because you have no other choice. Because nothing else will do. Nothing else will satisfy you. Nothing else will make you as happy. Very big difference.

And so, success is assured to those who rightly persevere, and to those who don’t give up in the face of adversity, or waver behind a myriad of obstacles. There are no excuses, (Ask Napoleon Hill.) only reasons to forge ahead against all odds. Sellouts need not apply. Because the last successful step is nothing more than the very first step to beginning again. And the cycle continues. One-hit wonders beware.

That my friends, is not only a proven fact in life, but it is a proven fact on becoming a published novelist just the same, or anything else your heart desires for that matter. And being an original, or as close to an original as you can be…that’s where you’ll find the answers you’ve been searching for. That’s where the void is, according to Bolaño. Write it down.

(Let’s face it though, nothing since the KJV Bible has been totally original. Just ask Simon & Garfunkle and Hemingway while you’re at it. Then again, does Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” count as totally original? Hmm…good question. She might’ve had a little help from somebody named Truman Capote, and God only knows where he got the idea. Great book, better movie: Robert Duval’s brilliant debut as Boo Radley. Bravo! -- stole the movie right there.)

And in order to tap into that wondrous void that Bolaño mentioned, otherwise known as the gap, (take this up with Deepak Chopra) all you have to do is plug into that cosmic computer, otherwise known as the Universe and reach out into the constellations with all your might and all the determination you can muster, and with as much bravado and inner strength as you can possibly summon from the depths of your mind, grab a random thought…and write something.

ANYTHING FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!

Uhhh…does all this have something to do with my writer’s block?
Which reminds me, does “borrowing” other writer’s ideas and freaking them and bastardizing them into your own ideas count? Like I did with DFB? You know, like John Milius and Francis Ford Coppola did in Apocolypse Now with Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness?

You bet it counts. Who the fuck understands “Heart of Darkness” anyway?
Spontaneous Combustible Rant: If I’d lost my house to Hurricane Hanna, or Ike, or any of those westbound storms from Hell, I’m moving to Galveston armed with the wrath of the Almighty Living God!

Ahhh…breathe. Breathe deeply Alberto, and count to ten. One, two, three…

This has to be the subject of my next fucking post!

You think I’m excited? I just got my Borzoi Newsletter and I swear I’ve never heard such a biased promotion in favor of one book all my life, ever. Hell, forget promotion, they’re so excited about “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, by Stieg Larsson, that it sounds like they’re masturbating and typing the review with one sticky finger.
Hopefully by the time I post this next week, the humps at Borzoi Reader would have gotten over their electric, multiple group orgasms with Ben-wa balls up their butts tone of voice.

They have no shame. No shame whatsoever.

The worst part is that by fawning over, coming on, and humping Larsson’s book in every imaginable position, they’ve managed to dilute all the other author’s book offerings to nothing more than drivel by comparison.

Neutral journalism? Keep it in your pants Borzoi reviewers. Ladies, get both hands back on that keyboard!

It’s pathetic. Stay tuned, I’m blowing the lid off the whole shebang.

Strong Medicine for Novelists: Pinch Nostrils—Open Wide

...And Down The Hatch

Okay folks, for those of you who’ve been wandering around the planet, in a bubble of utter confusion, like the zombies from Night of the Living Dead, trying to figure out what it takes to succeed as a novelist, here’s my one-of-a-kind ProseFreak spin:

Which of these two books would you be inclined to buy?

Joe Pantoliano’s Memoir, or Frank Sinatra’s Unauthorized Bio?

See what I’m getting at? (I know, I know these are not novels; doesn't matter.) But let’s expand this ridiculous comparison even further and have some fun. Shall we?

Hey, unless you had plans to finally isolate that pesky MD Strain in the next 15 minutes or anything remotely similar to that, I’d read on.

Hang on, this is a strange elixir indeed my friends.

Here’s your spoonful:

For starters, who the fuck is Joe Pantoliano? That of course, is a fair question, and here’s the answer: Remember the movie From Here To Eternity? No, not the one Frank Sinatra starred in, the other one. Right, the one with Maggio. Yeah, that one. That’s Joe Pantoliano, otherwise known as Ralph Cifaretto in HBO’s, The Sopranos. Now you know who I’m talking about. Well, it turns out that all three of us: Frank Sinatra, Joe Pantoliano, and yours truly, Alberto Rios, hail from Hoboken NJ. Notice the descending lineup in name recognition. From megastar, to the actor whose name you can never place, to a complete, obscure and unknown that I hesitate to even mention in the same group. (I can take it.)

SO NOW whose memoir would you rather buy? You see that? Is selling millions of books really all about celebrity status though? Uhh…YES! Of course. That’s the way the world works. What else did you expect? Hell, if a good actor like Pantoliano can’t sell his memoir (I checked it out at Barnes & Noble last year. I read the back cover and quickly tossed it back into the pile of bargain books for a buck.) Get the picture? Hey, if you’re not following any of this by now, schedule an emergency session with your shrink and ask him to help you decipher it and suck it up. On second thought, never mind. All he’s going to do is keep looking at his watch anyway.

So the next logical question comes to mind: Is there any hope in God’s green universe of me ever selling my memoir, or my novel, unless I’m someone like Frank Sinatra? Hmm…very good question. I could end this right here, wooosh down a whole bottle of Percocet with some Aquafina and call it a day, or a life, but that would be no fun at all. I haven’t gotten to the best part yet. (I’ll leave the pills for later.)

Uh…where was I? Oh, right, the Frank Sinatra thing. Okay, so if that’s the case, how did first-time novelist Wroblewski (That’s the fucking Edgar Sawtelle guy.) wind up on the bestseller list? Trust me this guy’s no Frank Sinatra. Doesn’t even look like Frankie. Matter of fact, throw a curly wig on him and slap a ruffled collar around his neck and you’ve got a modern-day version of Shakespeare. Come on now, that was a good one folks, and more importantly to Wroblewski, it ties in with his story, so I doubt he’ll be offended by a little humor as long as it helps promote his book. Believe me this guy knows good publicity when he sees it. BTW, I’m going to bestow him with my Medal of Sheer Marketing Genius Award which he so deserves. Shakespeare, dogs, and a murder mystery? Now that’s brilliant. Forget the story, all the marketing is built right in. That’s all you need. I think he started a whole new genre all by hiself. (This typo was due to my cheap-ass Gateway keyboard, and left-in as an ode to Cormac McCarthy, but I digress.)

Okay, so now things are starting to look my way. Maybe there is hope for my novel after all. Marketing huh…positioning in the marketplace, an author’s platform, planting marketable ideas, and themes inside my novel as a way to help promote it. Wow! Why didn’t I think of this before? (Okay calm down, it’s been around since Aristotle’s Poetics.)

Great you say, but doesn’t all that built-in marketing dilute and commercialize my story? Not if you gracefully weave in your relevant themes with a little misdirection. Hey, you want the low-down dirty truth or not? This is a brave new world when it comes publishing. Anything goes. Unless you want to settle for the labyrinth of POD’s out there, masquerading as real publishing houses, I’m sure you want to attract the big guys, like: Harper Collins, Little Brown & Company, Random House and all their imprints. Or maybe you’d be happy with a smaller publisher: A University Press, for instance. Whatever’s your fancy.

So many choices, so little time. And, if you’re like me, and you’re not Frank Sinatra, or even look like him, you’ve got your work cut out my friend.

Unless you work on YOU first, building yourself as a Name Brand and transferring all that wonderful charisma onto the page and into your wonderful tomes, you’ll always be at a loss. Not just in the business of writing and publishing, but in life in general. You need to be recognized. You need to be liked. You need a plan.

NOBODY buys from a NOBODY. (Not in mass quantities anyway. Write this down folks, you don’t hear quotes like this every day. Hell, my own momma probably won’t even want to read my novel. In fact, she’s already told me she won’t. Oh…the trauma—the trauma.)

That’s the lesson folks. I warned you there was going to be some unsavory stuff. But here’s another spoonful. Come on, open wide. All that celebrity stuff is just the tip of the ice cube folks. Lots of tiny ice cubes that make up this gigantic literary iceberg.

THE COLD, HARD-TO-SWALLOW FACTS:

Let’s not forget some of the golden rules of marketing, advertising, and sales that always apply, regardless of who you are: You think your publisher is gonna invest marketing dollars in you? (Belly-ache, side-splitting, roll-over-the-parquet-floor laughter right here.)

SOME MARKETING RULES:

• It helps to be well-known, not as a celebrity, but as someone likable, especially because of controversy, but not always the case.
• Professional and Academic credentials help.
• Champion a social cause or develop a Platform around your subject or expertise.
• Write a good, short, sales pitch for the back cover, a.k.a., a Book Blurb. (Maybe the subject of my next post.)
• Try and promote your book during relevant events.
• Come up with a great title, or maybe steal one from the KJV version of the Bible, just like Hemingway used to do. (Don’t blame me if God never forgives you.)
• Write a great Press Release, and submit it to places like: http://www.pressreleases.com/, or http://www.prnewswire.com/, many others.
  
  SOME ADVERTISING RULES:
  
• Identify your target audience and make sure they find and understand the book you’re offering. Answer their question: What’s in it for me? (with banner, text, or print ads)
• Research your market and experiment with different book covers to see which one gets more attention, responses, interest. Design intriguing covers that stimulate curiosity.
• Make sure you put together an irresistible offer that will encourage prospective readers to buy your book.
  
• For example: Buy now, pay later. (That’s one of the best offers of all time.) Get this book at 25% off until (date here), etc.
• Here’s a statement that will throw you. “People don’t buy products or services. They buy benefits and offers.” That’s a proven fact. I didn’t make it up, ask any advertising rep.
• You can literally sell ice to an Eskimo with this approach. It works every time, although it depends on other factors too. (Hey, what can I say, this supposed to be a short a blog post, but turning into the GB Address)
  
  SOME PROBLEMS WITH SALES:
  
• In your world, there is one seller, YOU, but many potential buyers. That means many kinds of buyers with different levels of desire and motivation to buy a given product at any given time. Hopefully your book, but maybe they have too many obstacles in their way.
• Your page-rank on Google is in the cellar. You need to be on the first page, at least not passed the 3^rd. Fine-tune your META TAGS. Consider Google AdWords.
• The price of your book may seem too high to many buyers.
  
• Buyers don’t trust you. You must convert all prospective buyers into first-time customers with persuasive copy. Then, if they order and you deliver what they consider a good and valuable product, you’ll get repeat business, but only if you repeat the right offers. You must build trust in your sales copy. (Another lesson.
  
• Your website sucks. It looks cheap and unreliable, reflecting the assumed poor quality of your book to the reader. Learn HTML or hire a web designer.
  
• Your shopping cart sucks. It’s confusing and time-consuming and most orders are dropped because people become impatient, flinging their laptops down the stairs.
  
• Your sales copy is pushy and arrogant. Here’s a tip: Don’t sell—Present and display your product with quality graphics, and state the facts in an interesting way with a kick-ass offer. Then shut the Fuck up! (Ahhh…shades of Julianne Moore)
  
• Your ex just wiped out your bank account. (Call the cops.)
• You get the idea folks, everything has to line up with all the planets and the godforsaken moon has to rise under the seventh house. Something like that.
  
• Here’s the tortilla wrap:
  
• Put together a great book that people will want to read from cover to cover, over and over. Nothing else will do.
• Make your book available at the most visited and accessible sources: Scour the www.
  
• Put together a great offer. Everyone loves a bargain.

Any questions?

Good. Now, apply these sacred principles, wait a while, sit back and watch your bank account swell practically overnight into 6 figures. And remember, I also have a beautiful bridge in New York to sell you.


Yeah, the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a bargain. I bought it off a famous New Yorker years ago--for a song.

Yeah...from him, that's the one.

Spontaneous Rant: Now, if only I can get a damn role in the next production of “From Here to Eternity”…

Oh... BTW, I hate those little fucking flowers instead of the plain bullets I wanted, and I hate formating these posts because nothing ever comes out they way I want it to. Blogger, I don't have time for this shit. I do have a lousy life to live gentlemen. If I didn't know a little HTML I'd never get through any of this. This interface sucks!

The Huntress: A Comic Sensation

Every so-often, I come across a book so different and so refreshing, that I’m taken aback by everything it has to offer. And this particular series, The Huntress: Year One, a six-issue comic book miniseries, published by DC Comics, featuring writer, Ivory S. Madison, JD., (law professor, to you and me) is one of those rare literary flavors that we enjoy savoring―right down to the last syllable.

The first issue was released in May 2008, then collected and released as a graphic novel in late 2008 or early 2009. The “Year One” concept, invented by comics legend Frank Miller in Batman: Year One, covers the year a hero first becomes a hero. A brilliant “high concept”--comics as a metaphor for life, taken up a notch. A great take indeed.

And if it’s written by someone with a name like Ivory Sophia Madison, you know it’s got to be good, folks. Ivory Madison is a Nicole Kidman look-a-like, with a touch of Rita Hayworth thrown in for good measure. But beyond being photogenic, this multi-talented “broad” gets around, as Frank Sinatra would say. (Just thought I’d stir the pot a little folks. She is a self-proclaimed feminist: fair enough.)

You got it. There’s not one Super Hero that could’ve kept me from blogging this. Not even Wonder Woman; she still counts. DC Comics, Frank Sinatra, and a girl named Ivory? This is way more than heaven for me; this is like raw sex and a Panama Gold. Never mind that my age, my fetish and my religious beliefs are all showing in one compound sentence, I can barely keep up with anything she’s saying. And believe me she’s got a lot to say. But that’s when you know you’re in the hands of a master, or better yet, in the bizarre world of a brilliant mind.

Hell, the fact that she’s an alluring female is enough to tilt my mind. I tend to go gah-gah for her type. And like most of the freaky thoughts that race through my mind on any given day--it occurred to me:

Before her fiancé slipped a ring on her finger, while she wasn’t looking, I’ll bet she was the type that either clung to a wimpy male friend or had no boybriend at all because most guys were probably too intimidated to approach her. Especially when they found out that she’s a lawyer. And even her lawyer friends probably didn’t dare ask her out because they were too insecure to get with a much smarter woman.

Then I thought: Ivory certainly doesn’t come across as the type of woman that some day might pick a big, scary-looking mongoloid boyfriend to watch her back, just to keep all the losers from coming on to her. She’s much too confident and way too self-assured for that.

I think she’s the type that likes to have a good time, but she really hasn’t found the right guy, after all. One after the other: either they’re too boring, too insecure, not smart enough, or just plain ugly as all hell. Or maybe they think that if they commit and things go southbound, that she’ll sue the life out of ’em, chew ’em up, spit ’em out, and maybe she’ll burn their condos or Painted Ladies down. You know, a fatal attraction syndrome.

Have I gone too far? You know, unless I’m mistaken, she might have a great time with someone like me. And it’s been 50 years, 3 months, and 4 days that I’ve held my breath for someone like her.

Ivory Madison, will you dump Abe for a guy like me?

But all of a sudden it hit me. I came out of my dream, and back to my senses. Come on now, a chick like Ivory Madison would never look my way. Hey, at least I didn’t post one of those fancy glamour shots or anything like that in my profile, it just looks that way. I was just trying to be honest and keep my photo up to date, so I Photoshopped my beard off, give or take a few blemishes. (Truth is: after my ex-wife kicked me out onto the mean streets of Jacksonville, I had scrambled to pack my camera and lost its USB cable. (Right, I absolutely refuse to spend $25 for another one.)

But as I was thinking: I’m way out of my league with someone as successful, and as talented as Ivory Madison. A Hollywood type with a sexy edge. A throw-back to the film-noir gals of yesteryear. Founder and CEO of RedRoom.com, where the writers are, and so much more. What’s not to like? She’s got it all. And yes--it’s all good. A rebel with a cause—very delicious.

Man, back-in-the-day, I was so hooked on DC comics, but this Huntress thing: this is something else.

WHAM! BAM!…blah, blah, blah.

Congratulations Ms. Ivory Madison: you’ve been tagged by ProseFreak.

Visit Red Room here: http://www.redroom.com/

I Was So Bored, I Joined Shelfari

Here's what happened:

I unleashed one of my classic, and extreme *ProseFreaks, just for Shelfari readers, inside my profile, and it goes like this:

The books I enjoy are like music. I'm really selective about what I read because life is way too short to waste time with a book that you're not absolutely crazy about. I do stick with mostly mainstream and popular titles. For me, it's many of the classics: Tom Sawyer, The Catcher in the Rye, and the tried and true; a lot of the books that have been made into films, such as: The Scarlet Letter, The Bridges of Madison County, The Hunt for Red October, Apocalypse Now, Platoon, All The Pretty Horses, to name just a few.

I also love to read screenplays because they’re much faster to get through: Moonstruck, The Fourth of July, JKF, Jackie Brown, Pulp Fiction; you gotta love Oliver Stone and Quentin Tarantino. Too many others to mention: The Godfather Sagas, great dramas, and just about every war movie you can think of. Kubric’s Full Metal Jacket, a favorite. (How can you not love a movie that inspired the song, “Me so Horny”?) A few romantic comedies/comedic movies: Monster in Law, Meet the Parents.

I’ve also authored several screenplays and my first novel, A Death for Beauty. What can I say, it’s inspired by many of the great books that I’ve read and it’s a story that’s very close to my heart and soul--I enjoyed writing it. I love mostly literary fiction, westerns and coming-of-age stories.

Biographies/Anthologies: My favorites so far, Norman Mailer’s, The Spooky Art. And Summer's/Swan, Sinatra.

Yeah, I’m also a big Frank Sinatra fan: He's the subject of one of my screenplays. His daughter, Nancy Sinatra’s, classic oldies hit: These Boots are Made for Walkin’, is cool too. If only she could’ve realized that my story, some day would also become a classic. After all, I did make Nancy the subject of my letter, but I prosefreaked my pitch right into it, near the ending. The moment she opened that letter, and I know that she did, I swear that I felt the tectonic plates of planet Earth, shift and moan, ever-so-slightly in my direction: in the form of a curse.

Yeah, I was brash (and stupid) enough, and tried pitching my Sinatra screenplay to Nancy Sinatra ( I made a big point about how she was mentioned in it, as a baby.) but she still wasn’t interested. Where did I go wrong? Well, I could hardly believe it, but I had dug deep into her website and came up with her home address in Beverly Hills. And I sent her the sweetest letter ever, trust me.

The day after she got my pitch in this gigantic certified envelope, she yanked her address off the website so fast, that I think her Webmaster is still reeling from it. Did she really think that her home address would be safe? She could thank her agent for dodging me for so long.

That was soooo wrong, but I knew it would be fun somewhere along the line. Either that or I might’ve gotten a call. (Sure thing.) Gotta work on my pitch, the screenplay is on the “dinero” folks.

Uh…still planning on selling that Sinatra story. Trust me, it’s a modern cult classic. You heard it here first.

*******************************************************************************
This PF is extreme because I worked my shameless plug into it.
Masterful.
Be proud Shelfari Reader: You’ve just been tagged by ProseFreak!

********************************************************************

The ProseFreak MindBlog Debut

BTW, for those of you just dropping by, I decided to set up a separate ProseFreak Blog, and this is its debut. At least twice a month, I'll be posting one of my famous ProseFreak adventures.

Here's how it works:
Whenever I'm bored out of my mind, which is not that often, I'll scour the internet for high profile Websites or Blogs and leave my TAG. My ProseFreak Tag, that is. Nothing harmful, just trying to have a little fun. The Tag is more of a self-depricating comment. And since making fun of myself is very therapeutic, I love to do it, plus, there's always an ironic twist at the end that supposed to blow your mind: hence, what I've coined, a ProseFreak.

All my writing is somewhat based on this kind of shtick, since I'm such a freak in my own mind. And so I figured, why not crank it up a notch?

Tune in and find out where I'll wind up next. I'm still working on my RedRoom Tag.
Don't miss it, I'll be posting it on Monday.

Sure, you can find a lot more stuff on my DFB Blog, where you'll actually learn something too. But here, my PF's have a different tone. They're even more absurd.

Check out my DFB BlogSpot for some more Literary-style ProseFreaks.

http://booksnap.blogspot.com/



BTW, I'm a proud victim of Shaken Baby Syndrome. Gee, thanks, Mom!