BOOK CLUBS – What goes on in a book club stays in a book club
August 29, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as The Book Group UncensoredThere are faux book clubs. The members tend to read Oprah books, non-
fiction, and actually work the workbooks for discussion. The call
themselves book clubs and books are involved — but they aren’t the
real thing.
You also have sort-of book clubs that are more Branson than Vegas.
Members come and go. Anyone is welcome. Often there is a leader that
coordinates everything into a nice pleasant experience.
But the other book clubs, the ones that experience camaraderie that
goes beyond secret handshakes, beyond age, race, religion, or
economics…those book clubs are real book clubs. The activities they
engage in are never discussed with casual acquaintances, against the
rules in most work places, and isn’t even shared with spouses.
What do they do? The members experience a deeply private intimacy
that normally only a faceless author is privy to. In the context of
reading books together members share the fantasies that get them
through the lousy bosses, troubled teen-agers, no money, and even
death. What turns them on, what turns them off. What is beautiful,
uplifting or depressing. “This book has reached inside of me and I’m
going to tell you how.”
Intimacy and safety in a world where we don’t even know our
neighbor’s name — My Book Club.
THE READER
WHAT’S WHAT?
August 28, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Keeper Shelf
WHAT’S WHAT has been donated for the Research Book Sale at OCC’s chapter meeting on Saturday, September 8.
Whether you are writing historical or contemporary, this book has detailed pictures with labels for every part and gadget. Buildings, plants, subway car, police car, ships, boats, clothing, furniture. It’s perfect for those brain-fade moments when you are struggling to remember what that thingy at the bottom of a window is called. Reviews at online bookstores say that every writer must have this book. Now is your chance!
WHAT’S WHAT and many more will be on sale at the Ways & Means table. Be sure to come over and take a look! If you have any research books of your own that you haven’t opened in quite a while, please consider donating them to the sale to help the chapter.
OCC workshops this month will be “Using Music: Pied Piping the Muse” with “noir fantasy-mystery” author and contemporary romance writer Chrystal Green in the morning. In the afternoon, the topic is “The Sidewalk of Success” with New York Times bestselling author of paranormal, historical and suspense and of Christina Dodd.
MARK YOUR CALENDARS! Saturday, Sept 8th. Brea Community Center, 695 E. Madison Way, Brea, CA. 92821. For a map and directions, click here.
The Wisdom of Zombies
August 27, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Pop Cultureby Sara Black
“What’s that on the wall?” I say.
“I have no idea.” Says my younger brother, sitting next to me on the couch.
“Should we go near it?”
“No, let’s go in that door instead.”
We back our character away from the red, pulsing fleshy thing on the wall. It’s the middle of the afternoon and the doors to my apartment are open to allow the sunlight and the sounds from outside in, but we’re nervous anyway. Even after hours of playing we’re still freaked out by the monsters leaping out of the corners, blood smeared walls and corpses discarded in hallways.
When contemplating writing about video games someone suggested Grand Theft Auto to me. I didn’t want to, not because of all the controversy, but because of the plot. GTA is an amalgam of stereotypes from gangster movies strung together to create interesting game play, but not an interesting story.
The plots of Silent Hill II, III and IV are creepy quagmires, with Silent Hill II being the best. In Silent Hill II the main character goes back to the city of Silent Hill to try and find his dead wife after getting a letter from her. Instead he wanders through the fog obscured city and finds a bizarre cast of characters perpetrating unspeakable acts against one another. Things appear to happen for no better reason than to horrify the player, yet a deeper narrative exists.
The thing is, I don’t like horror films. I’ve seen a few, but rarely do I seek them out. I don’t normally enjoy being deliberately scared. Even my foray into another horror style game, Resident Evil 4, didn’t bring the same excitement. Just shooting zombies wasn’t nearly as fun as imagining they unlocked some hidden facets of the main characters psyche.
“I wonder why the telephone doesn’t work.” The main character of Silent Hill III thinks out loud.
“She’s not so smart.” My brother says.
“No, that’s exactly what I’d be wondering if I stood in the middle of a blood drenched hell dimension.” I say.
And despite being a one person game, I find it more fun to play with friends.
Sara Black has a degree in Cinema/Television from USC. She watches far too much television, eats way too much sushi and is always writing a romance novel. This is the fifth in a series of posts on Pop Culture.
She will probably spend this weekend playing more Silent Hill IV with her brother and boyfriend.
A Life Well Lived
August 25, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as What Inspires Youby Lori Pyne
I sat in the room listening to mourners recounting memories of the life just lost. The picture that grew from the stories exchanged was that of a life well lived. I couldn’t help but wonder how I would be remembered.
Would I also have friends, family and business associates competing to share the best story of my many acts of kindness?
Will my children, both biological and those from my heart, remember my unwavering love? Whatever the challenges faced, will my parental devotion shine through the solutions explored?
Will my business associates compare the many examples of my honesty, my determination, my generosity, my ethics and my morals?
Will my friends, those from birth to those newly made, gather to discuss my giving spirit, my always open door, my ever ready support, my never say die attitude, my big heart?
When I am remembered, will it be for the things I did and the people I touched? Will the world be just a little better because I passed through?
Will those I leave behind remember a life well lived?
How would you want to be remembered?
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Lori Pyne is a member of OCC, and a multi-tasking volunteer. She is currently serving as one of our Online Class Moderators, Guest Reception Coordinator and Coordinator for the Book Buyers’ Best Contest for published authors. She is married with one son, and works full time for an entertainment law firm.
RULES FOR WRITING by Mark Twain
August 24, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Keeper Shelf
1. A tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere.
2. The episodes of a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help develop it.
3. The people in a tale shall be alive, except in the cases of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.
4. The people in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there.
5. When the people of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk and be such talk as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject at hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say.
6. When the author describes the character of a person in his tale, the conduct and conversation of that person shall justify said description.
7. When a person talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar friendship’s offering in the beginning of the paragraph, he shall not talke like a backwater minstrel in the end of it.
8. Crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader by either the author or the people in the tale.
9. The people of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable.
10. The author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the people of his tale and their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones.
11. The characters in a tale should be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in an emergency.
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Reprinted from the March 1992 issue of the Orange County Chapter Newsletter, edited by Janet Cornelow who writes as Janet Quinn. Original can be found in MARK MY WORDS by Mark Twain
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