NEWS - April, 2011 - Film Work:
Working alongside my better half, we recently completed the translation of a short documentary film set for debut in 2011, (translating Turkish into English subtitles). Right now we're waiting for a copy to see the results as pieced together by the director, so I'll update my portfolio in a short while once we see how things shake down.
Seeking Agents & Editors:
With a supply of creative writing moving steadily off the press, the services of a dedicated literary agent and those of a professional editor would be appreciated. Detailed information and sample work is now available for the completed text, Mean Man & Star Juice.
NOVELS:
Mean Man & Star Juice - Champions of Space, Time, and Universal Virtue
Now complete, this full-length novel incorporates a
bizarre plot of global crime set within a fictitious society that has almost completely given over the use of math to computers. In the
lazy climate that persists, a stoic Peace Department agent named James Lawyer must negotiate the madness alongside some new friends he never
imagined could be so helpful.
The Kahverengi Diary
A foray into mystery, this project features another
fantastical world of dynamic hue. The buroughs we know as metropolitan New York will become the Queen's lost land, decidedly separate
from Britain, but constructed as if the development of the New World were to have taken a strangely different path.
Shelved Work: Around 2003 I completed my first novel with a working title of Waterfall, but removed it from my list of active works. Among other reasons, this first novel is over-written, and it talks of people and places whose fictional reality needs better research and more careful fidelity to fact. I may return to it in the future for a total re-write, but at present I'm much more interested in new ideas.
ESSAYS:
The Illumination and Resolution of Abortion, A Lincolnian Approach
This apolitical proposal for
addressing the hot-button topic of abortion started with an un-
conventional idea—that abortion itself is a symptom rather than the root malignancy—and
evolved with respect to a similar position scripted by George McKenna, who finds the careful practice of Abraham Lincoln well fit to handle the controversy.
Civil Rights vrs. Social Responsibility
In most any case, these concepts are presented as
complimentary rather than adversarial. But the reality of American society is that right and responsibility often brush
each other disagreeably, causing quarrels that scar and shape our understanding of those who have opposing viewpoints; it's an acute bur in the heel of democracy,
and oft overlooked.
LANGUAGE:
Semantic Dilemmas: Three Interesting Quips of Language Theory
Every now and again, some academic will
point out that language doesn't work like math; it isn't absolute, but flexible. This academic sort will proceed to explain why such-and-such a point of
grammar is, in fact, wrong. I'll only conclude that the way we use English in these odd instances is not wrong, per se, but certainly curious according to the rules of
logic.
Word Games: An Original Series of Language-Based Challenges
Just for fun, I
concocted a plan of monthly word games and ran an impromptu challenge among friends. That is to say all of these word games were tested by a live audience. The key
to writing these linguistic tricks is giving them a staid level of difficulty. In other words, Google will only help you so much—they really turn on the information
embedded within.
Literary Types: The Danger and The Myth
Most writers have a lot to say about the craft of writing, much
of which is insignificant. How writing happens is far less important that what it is. In this respect, what I have to say on the subject addresses this very sort
of self-awareness and, while we're at it, argues against one of the most commonly espoused pieces of bad advice: write about what you know.