Ed Lynskey's Blog: Cracked Rearview Mirror - Posts Tagged "characters"

Did you read where Gabrielle Giffords is going to write a memoir, and Mark Kelly is retiring from NASA? (The Yahoo! News piece is here: http://t.co/6WhHcib). I couldn't create my fictional characters as interesting and lovely as they are. In fact, they inspire us.

You just want to root for them, wishing them a long, happy life together. I'm not getting into what happened to them. That terrible story has been already covered.

What I'm getting at is they win your sympathy and make you want to like them both. That's the fiction writer's ultimate aim: to capture your heart and soul with well-drawn characters that step off the printed page and speak to you.

By Ed Lynskey
Twitter: @edlynskey
Author of Lake Charles
"Satisfying."
The Rap Sheet/Kirkus Reviews

A couple weeks ago, I ran a blog on my science fiction novel, THE QUETZAL MOTEL. I just got back the copy edits and will be going over them. THE QUETZAL MOTEL is my first science fiction novel, although I've written and published quite a few short stories and poems in the genre. I had a lot of fun writing THE QUETZAL MOTEL, and telling a different story than my usual crime fiction output. I also like the turquoise in the snazzy cover art. Anyway, I'll post again as THE QUETZAL MOTEL moves closer to publication. Thank you for your interest in THE QUETZAL MOTEL, and all of my novels, too.

One part of late summer I like is to hear is the cicadas chirring (I love that verb) away in the treetops. We also call them locusts or jarflies. At any rate, aren't they cute, little critters (the photo is linked from the Wikipedia article)?

With those red eyes and cellophane wings, they look almost surreal, like a weird creature plucked from a science fiction film. As far as I know, they don't bite. I've never had one attack or buzz me. On the other hand, we're not exactly pals either.

Every so many summers, the cicadas hit in multitudinous numbers, and you find them everywhere. Flying in the air, they end up tangled in your hair, or splattered on your windshield. I haven't seen them in plague-like numbers, although I suppose in the time of global warming, that could well happen. Any time I hear the cicadas singing away, I remember growing up in rural Virginia. Those are good, powerful memories, too.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Recently, I caught the Metro subway and trained downtown in Washington, D.C. to the National Gallery of Art. I wanted to see the George Bellows (1882-1925) painting exhibit. Here's the link: http://is.gd/mj8DYE.

Bellows is best known for his paintings of sports subjects like boxing (such as this famous one titled "Stag at Sharkey's"), polo, and football. He did some landscapes and portraits, as well.

Since I write a lot (but not entirely) hardboiled and noirish crime novels as well as like sports, he's right up my alley. I had a pretty good outing. The security personnel kept fussing at folks not to take photos with their cell phone cameras. This puzzled me since the warning signs are posted everywhere.

I've got to say Bellows' World War I paintings are gory, stark, and disturbing. He caught some flak for creating the paintings from secondary sources, not actually being there at the war scenes. He probably didn't need to see them. His imagination is vivid enough. Bellows died at the premature age 45 from peritonitis due to a ruptured appendix.

(Photo credit: Echostains Blog)

It seems to me that we writers should also take out a pause on Labor Day. It's a great time to be thankful we can tell our stories to entertain and intrigue our readers.

Have a relaxing, safe Labor Day.

We watched LINCOLN at the theater. Steven Spielberg directed it, and Daniel Day-Lewis stars as Abraham Lincoln. Sall Field plays Mary Todd Lincoln. The movie starts in January 1865, four months before Lincoln's assassination. For the most part, I enjoyed LINCOLN. The first forty minutes is slow, setting up the plot to follow. But the pace picks up, and the drama of the big vote in the House of Representatives for the 13th Constitutional Amendment is played out well. I liked Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens and James Spader playing a political operative. Lincoln tells some bawdy jokes worth a few laughs. All in all, I liked LINCOLN both for its historical content and entertainment value.

Goodreads offers its authors a feature called a "fan" that readers can click on for any author. I've seen it on my author page and wondered just what it is and what it does. My reading the Goodreads FAQ page explains that becoming a fan allows you to follow that author's reviews, blog posts, etc. by reading them in your Goodreads feed. I write a lot of content on Goodreads including this blog and frequent reviews of all the books I read.

The difference between a fan and a friend is the author doesn't have to approve a friend. The other thing I discovered is the fan feature was introduced later into Goodreads, so the big name authors may have lower than expected numbers of fans.

If you want to fan me, I think you just click on the "FAN" button at this link.

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

I'd hoped to publish my short story collection SMOKING ON MOUNT RUSHMORE before Christmas, but I've decided to wait until the new year begins. SMOKING is ready to roll as an ebook, but I'm going to spend the rest of December doing the edits on my work-in-progress (WIP). That way, I can have my WIP ready for a release in 2013, as well.

The front cover art for SMOKING ON MOUNT RUSHMORE has been posted on my twitter page at this link: https://twitter.com/edlynskey It's in the upper right-hand corner. As I've blogged previously, SMOKING is a large collection of 16 short stories, running about 55,000 words. All of the stories have been previously published in first rate ezines except for the two long bonus stories. I'm excited to get SMOKING, well, smoking on the streets.

So, after the holidays when everything has died down to a dull roar, I'll see to get it out fairly quickly for your entertainment. I'll keep you posted through my blog here at Cracked Rearview Mirror.

Thanks for your interest!