Author Archives: Morgan Mussell

Ebooks at the New Year

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A funny thing happened to ebooks last year – they became legit.

Last January, right after I got my kindle, I started noticing stories about Amanda Hocking and a few other ebook superstars in places like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.   The articles had a semi-surprised, “look at this,” tone.  No longer.  Now an ebook author doing well raises no more eyebrows than John Grisham writing another best seller.

Even though I was paying attention, I don’t quite know when the shift in attitude happened.  It was a done-deal by October.  That’s when a local member of the California Writer’s Club asked advice from the group:  his manuscript was ready.  Should he submit it through traditional channels or go the ebook route?  Everyone in the room, with no exceptions, recommended the ebook option.

As recently as twelve months ago, people still talked of ebooks as “self-publishing,” a phrase that carries a touch of “vanity press” stigma.  That has changed.  Now we speak of “traditionally published” in contrast to “independently published” authors.  Listen to the words:  traditional vs. independent.   Which one has more panache?

Not long ago, approval by traditional agents and editors signified quality.  I think the rapid loss of brick and mortar stores was a factor in changing that.  When Borders folded, half the gates that gatekeepers kept disappeared.  As the industry scrambles to find new ways to stay afloat, literary quality may not be so big a factor in the mix.  Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords put it like this:  “The cachet of traditional publishing is fading fast. Authors with finished manuscripts will grow impatient and resentful as they wait to be discovered by big publishers otherwise preoccupied with publishing celebrity drivel from Snooki, Justin Bieber and the Kardashians. 

When you consider more serious fiction, odds seem to favor established names more than ever these days, in stores both large and small.  I stopped at an independent bookstore last fall in a small town.  It has been around for a while and continues to thrive.  There were lots of attractive craft and gift items – pens, handmade notebooks, and things like that.  The books were shelved by genre, and carefully chosen to reflect popular titles and series.  It was easy to find something good to read, but almost all the choices were books by established authors.  I’d do the same if I was the owner and wanted to stay in business, but that’s bad news for authors just starting out.

This is where time enters the equation for everyone, especially for older writers.  The man who asked the ebook question at CWC was about my age and put it like this:  “I don’t have forever.”  Mid-list titles, which authors used to be able to sell while learning their craft are an endangered species.  “Their demise has been predicted for years,” said agent Donald Maass.  “This time it’s true.”  As all these trends converge, the attraction of the ebook publishing has exploded.

One thing I notice consistently in the ebooks I have enjoyed is a certain playfulness or quirkiness,  a willingness to step off the path of genre convention.  I’m reminded of fantasy fiction in the ’80’s, when getting published wasn’t such a nail biting affair.  The stories were full of surprises.  Writers took more chances than those I see today at Barnes&Noble.

Recently, a well-meaning writer friend warned me that, “Editors don’t like colons.”  That’s the second time someone has said that, and I’ve heard exclamation points are out of favor too!  The only kind of writer who’s going to remember tidbits like that is one who is contentious, dedicated to learning her craft, and interested in giving her peers a leg up.  And yet…isn’t that kind of “wisdom” going to backfire?  Where is my imagination when I’m trying to remember which punctuation marks are okay to use?  I’m not going to be fully engaged in telling the best story I can, especially if runs afoul of news of “what editors are looking for now.”

Everyone has to come to their own conclusions about what to read, what to write, and what to do with their writing.  I find myself ever more grateful for ebooks and independently published authors.  I plan to champion more of them this year.

“Be a Lamp Unto Yourself”

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Happy New Year!!!!  

I thought I would begin the 2012 blogging year with words that have long been an inspiration to me.  They come from advice the Buddha gave his disciple, Ananda:

“Therefore, Ananda, be a lamp unto yourself, be a refuge to yourself. Take yourself to no external refuge. Hold fast to the Truth as a lamp; hold fast to the Truth as a refuge.”  – Mahaparinibbana Sutta

Part of the problem, then as now, was knowing the truth when you found it.  The Buddha’s India of 2600 years ago was similar to ours in this respect – it was awash in competing and often conflicting philosophies, teachers, and religions, each claiming special access to the truth.

Gandhara Buddha (4th-5th c.)

Once, as the Buddha passed through a village called Keshaputta, the inhabitants, members of a clan called the Kalamas, approached him for advice.  The Kalamas were seekers of truth.  They were happy to welcome traveling yogis, holy men, and teachers of all sorts, but by the time Buddha arrived, they were thoroughly confused by contradictory teachings from too many “experts.”

In response, the Buddha gave the teaching known as the Kalama Sutta, a fuller version of the advice he later gave Ananda.  In his discourse, the Buddha listed ten ways of knowing that are not sufficient to indicate the truth:  oral history, tradition, scripture, news, ordinary reasoning, dogmatism, common sense, one’s own opinions, expert opinions, opinions of authorities.  Instead, the Buddha asserts our need to test such sources experientially, and trust our own conclusions:

“O Kalamas, do not be satisfied with hearsay or tradition, or any teachings, however they may come to you.  Only when you know in yourself when things are wholesome, blameless, commended by the wise, and when adopted and practiced lead to welfare and happiness, should you practice them.  When they lead to virtue, honesty, loving-kindness, clarity, and freedom, then you must follow these.” (as quoted in A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield)

A teaching like this can be difficult with its demand for our own freedom and responsibility.  The teaching seems to throw us back on our own moment by moment awareness.  If we lose our way in the maze of conceptual thought, our own direct experience is one of the few things left to trust.

Most traditions and most of the world’s folklore suggest that we each have a deep way of knowing within us.  It goes by many names:  Higher Power, Buddha Nature, Christ Consciousness, Holy Spirit, Inner Guru.  How and when do we contact this wisdom?

This seems like a very good question to ask at the start of a brand new year.

Concerning Sleight of Hand and Blogging Goals for 2012

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Sleight of hand is the name most often used to describe the methods of stage magic.  Sleight of hand is composed of seven basic skills according to Penn and Teller (quoted on Wikipedia):

      1. Palm – To hold an object in an apparently empty hand.
      2. Ditch – To secretly dispose of an unneeded object.
      3. Steal – To secretly obtain a needed object.
      4. Load – To secretly move an object to where it is needed.
      5. Simulation – To give the impression that something has happened that has not.
      6. Misdirection – To lead attention away from a secret move.
      7. Switch – To secretly exchange one object for another.

Of all the illusionist’s tricks, “misdirection” may be the most important:   “The magician choreographs his actions so that all spectators are likely to look where he or she wants them to. More importantly, they do not look where the performer does not wish them to look.”  (Wikipedia)

I started thinking of stage magic after seeing Hugo, (http://wp.me/pYql4-1xT).   Research confirmed the movie’s account of pioneer filmmaker, George Melies, who was as stage magician before he turned to cinema.

But this post is not about good magic, since misdirection is such an apt metaphor for the way our institutions play us these days.  In this sense,  misdirection often means getting us to ask the wrong questions.

Over the last few days, I’ve found myself humming the title song of Bruce Springsteen’s album, Magic (2007), which he says concerns “the Orwellian times we live in,” and is “not about magic, but tricks – and their consequences:”

Trust none of what you hear,
Less of what you see,
This is what will be.
This is what will be.

***

I don’t think we can resist misdirection unless we are engaged in finding our own truths.  It is also very hard to go it alone.  In a famous psychology experiment, test subjects would disown their own perceptions and agree to a lie if everyone else in the room did, but if even one other person stood up for the truth, so would most of the volunteers.

In addition to the kindred spirits we find where we live, we have our online communities.  We also have the searchers of past generations who travelled this road and left their discoveries in books.

I hope I did my part on this blog to write of things and people that matter.  To try to discern and point to the truth.  I’m still too close to 2011 to say.  I did the best I could at the time, and I hope to do better in 2012 because we are really going to need it.  On the eve of an election year, I sometimes think the end of the world on 12/21/12 would be the easy way out!

***

Still, to end the year on an upbeat note, here is a neat clip of Penn and Teller demonstrating the core elements of sleight of hand.  Not only does it evoke the fun of a magic set I had as a kid, but it’s filled with metaphorical possibilities!

Happy New Year to all of you!

The Year in Rearview and Words of Hope From Gary Snyder

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Now is when writers compose their summaries of the outgoing year, and I wanted to weigh in too.  Problem was, I kept discarding drafts as my inner parental voices chimed in with, “Quit whining.”  Eliminate whining, and it’s hard to come up with things to say about 2011.

Fortunately, I found a spot-on analysis by another blogger, badlandsbradley, who wrote:  “2011 sucked. It was a big stupid year full of big stupid things. All around, it was just stupid.”  http://badlandsbadley.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/2012-a-look-ahead/

Now that we have that out of the way, what’s left?  I sometimes compose gratitude lists at turning points in the year, and I find it a worthwhile practice, but I think people have to do this for themselves.  I started one list by writing, “We survived,”  which brought to mind several good people who didn’t.  Sometimes the things we are grateful for are weighty, things to “ponder in our hearts,” as the Christmas story puts it.

In the middle of these reflections, a phrase I hadn’t thought of for years came to mind:  “Drown their butts, crush their butts.”  This stanza comes from Gary Snyder’s marvelous, Smokey the Bear Sutra. When found it online, I stopped to appreciate these words at the end of the poem:

(may be reproduced free forever).

Those five simple words of generosity opened a real wellspring of gratitude for me, so now I want to share this poem, one of my favorite by this Pulitzer Prize winning poet.  May reproducing it here benefit beings everywhere.

*****

Gary Snyder

Smokey the Bear Sutra

Once in the Jurassic about 150 million years ago,
the Great Sun Buddha in this corner of the Infinite
Void gave a Discourse to all the assembled elements
and energies: to the standing beings, the walking beings,
the flying beings, and the sitting beings — even grasses,
to the number of thirteen billion, each one born from a
seed, assembled there: a Discourse concerning
Enlightenment on the planet Earth.

“In some future time, there will be a continent called
America. It will have great centers of power called
such as Pyramid Lake, Walden Pond, Mt. Rainier, Big Sur,
Everglades, and so forth; and powerful nerves and channels
such as Columbia River, Mississippi River, and Grand Canyon
The human race in that era will get into troubles all over
its head, and practically wreck everything in spite of
its own strong intelligent Buddha-nature.”

“The twisting strata of the great mountains and the pulsings
of volcanoes are my love burning deep in the earth.
My obstinate compassion is schist and basalt and
granite, to be mountains, to bring down the rain. In that
future American Era I shall enter a new form; to cure
the world of loveless knowledge that seeks with blind hunger:
and mindless rage eating food that will not fill it.”

And he showed himself in his true form of

SMOKEY THE BEAR

  • A handsome smokey-colored brown bear standing on his hind legs, showing that he is aroused and
    watchful.

  • Bearing in his right paw the Shovel that digs to the truth beneath appearances; cuts the roots of useless
    attachments, and flings damp sand on the fires of greed and war;

  • His left paw in the Mudra of Comradely Display — indicating that all creatures have the full right to live to their limits and that deer, rabbits, chipmunks, snakes, dandelions, and lizards all grow in the realm of the Dharma;

  • Wearing the blue work overalls symbolic of slaves and laborers, the countless men oppressed by a
    civilization that claims to save but often destroys;

  • Wearing the broad-brimmed hat of the West, symbolic of the forces that guard the Wilderness, which is the Natural State of the Dharma and the True Path of man on earth: all true paths lead through mountains —

  • With a halo of smoke and flame behind, the forest fires of the kali-yuga, fires caused by the stupidity of
    those who think things can be gained and lost whereas in truth all is contained vast and free in the Blue Sky and Green Earth of One Mind;

  • Round-bellied to show his kind nature and that the great earth has food enough for everyone who loves her and trusts her;

  • Trampling underfoot wasteful freeways and needless suburbs; smashing the worms of capitalism and
    totalitarianism;

  • Indicating the Task: his followers, becoming free of cars, houses, canned foods, universities, and shoes;
    master the Three Mysteries of their own Body, Speech, and Mind; and fearlessly chop down the rotten
    trees and prune out the sick limbs of this country America and then burn the leftover trash.

Wrathful but Calm. Austere but Comic. Smokey the Bear will
Illuminate those who would help him; but for those who would hinder or
slander him,

HE WILL PUT THEM OUT.

Thus his great Mantra:

Namah samanta vajranam chanda maharoshana
Sphataya hum traka ham nam

“I DEDICATE MYSELF TO THE UNIVERSAL DIAMOND
BE THIS RAGING FURY DESTROYED”

And he will protect those who love woods and rivers,
Gods and animals, hobos and madmen, prisoners and sick
people, musicians, playful women, and hopeful children:

And if anyone is threatened by advertising, air pollution, television,
or the police, they should chant SMOKEY THE BEAR’S WAR SPELL:

DROWN THEIR BUTTS
CRUSH THEIR BUTTS
DROWN THEIR BUTTS
CRUSH THEIR BUTTS

And SMOKEY THE BEAR will surely appear to put the enemy out
with his vajra-shovel.

  • Now those who recite this Sutra and then try to put it in practice will accumulate merit as countless as the sands of Arizona and Nevada.

  • Will help save the planet Earth from total oil slick.

  • Will enter the age of harmony of man and nature.

  • Will win the tender love and caresses of men, women, and beasts.

  • Will always have ripe blackberries to eat and a sunny spot under a pine tree to sit at.

  • AND IN THE END WILL WIN HIGHEST PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT.

    thus have we heard.

    (may be reproduced free forever)

Wikipedia Fund Raiser

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If you’ve visited Wikipedia recently, you’ve seen the header asking for small donations from users to keep the service free.  As an earlier donor, I received a notice today and request to pass it on.  They are close to their Dec. 31 goal but not there yet.

Disclaimer:  I am a donor and I have no connection to Wikipedia other than as a frequent user.  Please have a look at their fundraising site:

https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/L11_1227_EMR_JW/en/US?uselang=en&utm_campaign=20111228EM2.en.US&utm_medium=email&utm_source=email2.USD.10

Hugo: A Movie Review

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I had wanted to see Hugo ever since it came out in November, but things kept coming up, as they will during the holidays.  Now the movie is at the end of its run, disappearing from theaters, but if you haven’t yet seen it, I urge you to look in the discount cinemas or catch it on DVD. Let me put it like this:  I have been working on a year end, “Best of / worst of” blog post and having trouble coming up with “best” things in 2011.  Hugo is one of them.  This movie is a first on several counts for Martin Scorcsese:  his first family film, his first fantasy, and his first venture into 3D.  It is his love song to movies as a theater of dreams.

In 1931 Paris, Hugo lives with his father, a master clockmaker.  The two are working to restore a broken automaton, a mechanical figure who writes with a pen.  Hugo’s father also takes him to see movies, and speaks of his love for pioneer filmmaker, Georges Melies.  When Hugo’s father dies in a fire, his drunken uncle takes him to live inside the walls of a railway station where he learns to maintain the clocks.  The uncle disappears, but Hugo keeps the clocks running, steals food in the station to live, and does his best to restore the automaton, which he believes hides a message from his father.

When a toymaker in the station catches Hugo trying to steal a mechanical mouse for its parts, he takes the notebook Hugo’s father left him, filled with drawings depicting the workings of the automaton.  Hugo follows the toymaker home, begging for the notebook, and meets the man’s goddaughter, Isabelle.  They become friends, and the mystery deepens when they discover that Isabelle has the heart-shaped key that can bring the automaton to life.  When they turn it on, the mechanical figure draws a famous scene from one of Melies’ movies – the one Hugo’s father always talked about.

Ben Kingsley (the toymaker) and Asa Butterfield (Hugo)

By then, we have plenty of story questions, several engaging subplots, and adversaries in the form of the toymaker and a station guard with a doberman, determined to  capture Hugo the thief.  But the magic in this movie is far greater than the sum of these parts.

Recently one of the bloggers I follow talked about one of his “all time favorite” books, and I started thinking of what makes a book or movie truly memorable.  It’s more than simply the elements of craft – structure, plot, character, tension, and so on.  These are necessary supports and can create a page turner, or a movie that has you gripping your seat without really touching your heart.  When I read The DaVinci Code, for example, I couldn’t put it down, but now I have to google to remember the professor’s name.  I don’t have to google to remember the name of the hobbit who carried the ring. What special elements make a book or movie unforgettable? It’s one of those things you can’t quite define but you know when you see it.

Chloe Grace Moretz (Isabelle), Asa Butterfied (Hugo), and director, Martin Scorcese

The books and movies I really love seem to have a few things in common:

Characters I want to hang out with are first on the list.   Regardless of what they are doing, they become more close and real than many people I interact with in the daylight world.  I didn’t read all the Harry Potter books to see what Voldemort was going do to next.  I wanted to spend time with Harry, Ron, and Hermione.  And Snape, Dumbledore, Luna, and all the rest.  Imaginary friends in the best sense of the word.

Compelling worlds are next on my list, worlds you want to visit even if dangers lurk in the shadows.  Since reading the Narnia books, I’ve never been able to open a wardrobe without a secret thrill.  An actual pilgrimage to 221B Baker Street caused only a slight adjustment to the 19th century inner London where I travel with Sherlock Holmes.

And finally, it almost goes without saying that these are books and movies I can and want to enjoy more than once.  If I bought them in paperback, my favorite books have scotch tape on their covers.  I have several old VHS tapes I need to replace with DVD’s.

Will Hugo find its place among my all time favorite movies?  I can’t really say with the experience this fresh.  The characters are compelling, their mysterious world shines with a golden light, and the movie is a celebration of the imagination in all of us – all in all, a pretty good bet to become a film I will remember, value, and probably enjoy again.

Peace

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It almost seems like the world pauses around the time of the solstice, the way an out-breath stops for a moment before the next in-breath begins.  To catch the stillness, we may have to make an effort to step outside the noise of the season, but it can be done.

People finally get to slow down on Christmas Eve.  Maybe they go to church and look at the stars afterwards,or just step out for a breath of air when the family gathering gets too loud.  Or take the dogs for a walk in the late afternoon, hands in pockets, and notice how quiet the park is, almost as if it is waiting for something.  The soccer players and kids on the swings will be back soon, but now they’re gone.

This can be a hard season.  Individually and collectively, many are wondering when the next blow is going to fall.  And by this time of year, everyone is weary of trying to be as happy as people in Hallmark movies.  Yet I believe that by some mystery, stillness surrounds and pervades our busy-ness, and silence permeates the noise.  There is a well of renewal we can touch at this time of year.  By whatever name you call it, may it be yours.

Of Greensleeves and Christmas Carol Karma

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Regular readers will recall that at the start of the  season, I posted a wee diatribe on how much I hate what passes for Christmas music in most of the stores. http://wp.me/pYql4-1tv

Here’s where karma part comes in:  Mary is organizing a Christmas dinner for a large number of people at a local church.  I already volunteered to help with food prep, but the other day she gave me a further assignment.   “I need you to make a three hour playlist of Christmas music, and it has to be respectful.”

That actually is not a problem.  I love Christmas music – if I didn’t, the stuff in the stores wouldn’t bother me.  As I started to rummage through what I have on iTunes, I got caught up in listening to various versions of “Greensleeves,” and wondering – even though I love the song – what it has to do with Christmas.  Tracking its origins was not unlike researching a folktale.  I also found that everyone from Homer Simpson to John Coltrane has covered it, so I invite you to have a listen as I share a bit of what I learned about this haunting song.  Let’s begin with Homer (relax – his clip is only 14 seconds long).

Greensleeves is a traditional English folksong, of the sort known as a “romanesca.”  A broadside ballad of this name was registered at the London Stationer’s Company in Sept., 1580, as “A New Northern Dittye of the Lady Greene Sleeves”.  A broadside was a ballad or poem, printed on one side of a cheap sheet of paper and common between the 15th and 19th centuries.  Here is a traditional version, sung by Méav Ní Mhaolchatha’s on the Celtic Woman tour:

There’s a persistant rumor that Henry VIII wrote the song while courting Anne Boleyn, since at first she apparently “cast [him] off discourteously,” but music experts dismiss the legend.  Greensleeves is an Elizabethan song, composed in an Italianate style that did not reach England until after Henry’s death.

Another common interpretation is that the song refers to a promiscuous woman or a prostitute.  At the time, the color green had sexual connotations.  One translator of Chaucer notes that in the Canterbury Tales, green “was the colour of lightness in love.”  I tend to agree with this interpretation based on what I know of pre-Christian nature religion in the British isles, and the Pan-like “Green Man,” whose face still peeks out at worshipers in many British churches and cathedrals:

Green Man at Dore Abbey, Herefordshire

A reference to Greensleeves in The Merry Wives of Windsor, 1602, suggests both the popularity of the song, and coming from Falstaff, a bawdy interpretation.  The popularity of the song has continued unbroken to the present day.  Here my favorite modern interpretation, by Jethro Tull:

In 1865, William Chatterton Dix wrote “What Child is This,” to the tune of Greensleeves, which made both songs popular during the Christmas season.  Here is the version I’m going to use for the Christmas dinner project.  Josh Groban knows how to stir the soul, and that is something we really need this year.  Elizabethan renditions of Greensleeves have historical interest but tend to be slow and even lugubrious.  Much as I love ballads of trials and woe, this year we need all the hope we can get and the kind of music that can awaken it.

***

I wish each and every one of you a joyous holiday in whatever way you celebrate it.  I’m going to take a blogging break for a week or so, to walk, to read, to meditate, to catch some of the great year end movies, and in general, to simply kick back for R&R.  I will be back right around the new year.

Peace to all of you!