Right now I am reading all 3 of Lex's books to get me geared up for starting. I am currently on Moving Day and plan to read them in order. I have to admit that I wanted to start reading Perfectly Frank first, but will read in the order that they were written.

To give you an idea of how I handle this sort of thing, here's a snip from the next book.

A girl named Lyndsey has discovered a new color, which no one else can see. She takes the piece of newspaper with the new color on it to school with her, shows it around, hoping someone else will be able to see it....the newspaper has four colored blotches, spilled paints, on it -- one orange, one gray, one blue, and the new color, which everyone else only sees as white....

**********

Finally, she goes to the art teacher, a rotund, snowmanlike fellow named Mr. Chastain. (He is often drawn, by his students, with a carrot for a nose, and an old stovepipe hat.)

Mr. Chastain looks approvingly at the newspaper, holds it up in front of himself at different angles, making “mmmmmm” noises as he does so.

“Modern art,” he finally says, favoring Lyndsey with a brief grin. “It is made of nothing and everything, yet people tend to pooh-pooh it whenever they see it. Warhol could have told you that, he understood. A Brillo box. It is art, too, because it represents an aesthetic – a failed aesthetic, perhaps, but then a successful aesthetic generally ceases to be any kind of aesthetic at all.”

Lyndsey has no idea what the man is talking about. She suspects that, perhaps, he doesn’t either.

“A successful aesthetic – do you know what that becomes, Lyndsey? A trend, a tradition, a timeless and tedious inertia. It’s why we have two political parties, really. If you think about it. The common man has no stomach for subtlety, let alone choice, in any real sense of the word. The shame – the real and true crying shame – is that no one cares anymore. Art is art is art, no? No. It’s product, it’s a sellout. Self-sellout, really, because art is art is art is money now. Take out some of the extraneous arts, and art is money. Why? Because it represents the people who create it, and those people are all obsessed with money.”

She wants to interrupt him, but she is stumped as to how or when to make the attempt.

“Creativity has been put into a box, and then the box has been nailed shut. And buried. At sea, or maybe in space. Our creativity nowadays is like a gun with no bullets. You can hold it in your hand and threaten people, but it has no bite. There’s no ammo. All that’s left is a hand holding a gun, and a few memories of loud bangs.”

“Mr. Chastain, I wanted to ask you a question about this newspaper.”

“Hmmmmmm? Oh, yes, of course. I notice you have placed some colors onto a few small areas of the page. It strikes me as an indictment of the world at large. News is product no less than art is product. You combine the two, in a minimalist setting – small dots of color intruding on small bits of news. Reductio ad absurdum. At what point does the relevance, the meaning, the clarity, the direction, disappear altogether? Is this an extra credit project? I’ll tell you what, it shows an interesting perspective on art. The contrast, the colored spots on the black and white newsprint, this is a dichotomy. I like it. It’s good. It’s not MOMA good, but it’s good. I’ll give you a B+. How’s that?”

Lyndsey brushes her hair out of her eyes. “That’s great, Mr. Chastain, I could really use the extra credit, but I also wanted to ask you a question about the colors.”

The teacher peers at the paper again, turns it, shifts it, holds it above his head.

“I like the gray the best, to be honest. It has a sort of solid nobility to it. I could see wearing a suit that color, if I wanted to blend in somewhere and not be noticed. It’s a soothing color. The blue is a bit infantile for my tastes, and the orange is a bit too gaudy. I would say tone it down, add some yellow, make it less metallic.”

“And those are the only colors you see?”

Chastain looks again; and, for just a fraction of a second, Lyndsey is convinced that he sees something there, something different and unusual...

But no.

“Newsprint, a few grainy photos, and a bad drawing of the sun up in the corner with the weather forecast. Oh, and there seems to be an empty white spot for some reason. But I don’t see any more colors.”

He offers the newspaper page back to her. She takes it, and sighs. “OK, thanks, Mr. Chastain. I will think about what you said....”

....until I understand it, which will probably take another 4000 years....

**********

I haven't started writing my book, but know exactly what it will be and the characters involved. I have dialogue in my head and all the twists and turns that will take place. I'm still not sure about the ending though. Life always seems to get in the way. I would love it right about now if I would get laid off from my job and devote all my time to writing.

I have poems and short stories that I will probably convert to a small book not looking to have it published. Just something for friends and family to remember about me.

Right now I am reading all 3 of Lex's books to get me geared up for starting. I am currently on Moving Day and plan to read them in order. I have to admit that I wanted to start reading Perfectly Frank first, but will read in the order that they were written.

WOW....WOW....WOW!

That is awesome! What a VISUAL!

Now...I want to read your books

That just "came" to you just like that?

Very Inspirational...hope I can measure up to being as good as you are

I will certainly give it my BEST SHOT

I can only afford you one tip, which is to either

a) consider only what your characters are experiencing or
b) consider only what the story teller is experiencing.

It's the grey area that ****s it all up.

LEX...Writing in the present tense is very, very difficult. But I see that you have mastered it to an ART!

I tried that, and then some...all it did was frustrate me

Guess I should just relax and go with the flow

WOW! Pam....I had no idea you liked writing!

I have probably posted enough on here for a poetry book, I haven't been writing as much lately.

It sounds like you have a great plan...why not GO FOR IT and have it published?

I know that I was surprised to see that you wrote the first book in the first person. That is how I tend to write most of my stories, although everyone says you shouldn't. I think it works and I like your sense of dry humor throughout what I've read so far.

It's been compared a lot to Douglas Adams' writing, which is an enormous compliment, although I don't think he ever used the first person format.....!

I really don't think there's anything inherently WRONG with using first person, although I rarely do it.

I prefer the third person, but not the omniscient. I like the reader to find out things right along WITH the characters.

Larry, the narrator in "Moving Day," pretty much IS me, in many ways. The stuff he talks about re: his marriage, divorce, the nasty episode with the mother-in-law, all of that is actually true.

Of course, I never had a house that moved. There has to be a LITTLE bit of fiction, otherwise it just ends up sounding like a bad episode of "Divorce Court"....!

I do remember about the Rabbit series. I read them all. I used to have a professor say I wrote like Raymond Carver, but I have never read him. I guess I didn't want to chance that I would try to copy him.

It isn't any wonder you never want to get married again if the mother-in-law part was true. I am assuming that Gemini was in the Teresa character. I am at the part in the book about the dog named Duke. I have made it a running joke to not date a guy who chooses to be called a dogs name. Yes, the name of my ex-boyfriend is Duke.

Anyone attempting to write their first book, and if so, will you publish it anytime soon?

I'm writing my first book e-book..it's hard work