All posts by Brad Whittington

Blog

Who gets to call himself a writer?

2 Comments

A recent post at the Kill Zone blog prompted this post.In my view, all you have to do to be a writer is to write.Writer at Dictionary.comI’ve noticed that many of those who object to that view express their disagreement in terms of how it makes them feel, and particularly in terms of what they perceive in the unworthy claimants to be lack of sufficient motivation, seriousness, or dues paid. They typically draw some subjective finish line that in their mind demonstrates a person has the requisite motivation, seriousness, or pain. A line that they themselves have already crossed, of course.My view is that writers should take words more seriously. We shouldn’t create arbitrary definitions based on perceived threats to our self-image any more than a lawyer should re-frame a precedent to avoid looking bad during closing arguments.Do we allow only Jack Nicklaus, Bobby Jones, Arnold Palmer and their ilk to call themselves golfers, or does the guy who plays an occasional 9 and a full 18 on the weekends get to call himself a golfer?Do we allow only Andres Segovia, Julian Bream, Joe Satriani and their ilk to claim to be guitarists, or does the guy who plays songs in his home for his own enjoyment and to entertain his kids get to call himself a guitarist?In my humble, but accurate, opinion, anyone who expresses thoughts in the written word is a writer. As writers do, we can affix adjectives to qualify that appellation, such as casual, serious, deluded, professional, regrettable, accomplished, award-winning, best-selling, published, unpublished, or even the admittedly annoying, pre-published.But we should respect the language, the process and the end result more than to stoop to redefining words based on self interest.

Blog

Quote from Mike Mason

From The Mystery of Children by Mike Mason:Children and stories are inseperable because children live stories. Adults live in their heads, relentlessly analyzing. But children experience life directly. To children life is a story in which they are the main character.Adults, not content simply to be characters, want to be the author of their story. Being part of the story means surrendering control, but we like to think we can control our world, or at least a good chunk of it. At the very least we’d like to control our children!Children know (or at least better than adults) that they have little control. They know they’re not in control of their story, that they are not the author. To a greater or lesser extent, life simply unfolds for them. Only gradually do they enter into the state of self-realization wherein their actions become more conscious and deliberate.To be a little child is to believe implicitly in good and evil, in heroes and villains, in the invisible, in miracles and mystery, in princess and dragons, in true love and in happy endings. To be a child is to be caught up in pure story, embracing the events of one’s life uncritically because one trusts the Author.

Blog

Two firsts on 1/1/11

Remember that post about the guy writing a novel on Twitter? Turns out sections of it were quoted in the press release for the novel. That’s one first – never been quoted in a press release before. But the other first is being called a humorist. Wow, I’ve graduated!Here’s the relevant excerpt:

Novelist and humorist Brad Whittington admits to a fascination with Palmer’s
concept. But he’s not sure it will work.“In my humble (but completely accurate and independently verified) opinion,
Adam is stark-raving mad,” Whittington said.“For me, the thought of putting my first draft out there for public
consumption is mind-numbingly, soul-crushingly, spirit-suckingly horrific,” he
said. “I’d rather pose nekkid for Field & Stream.”

Full release here.

Blog

2010 Reading List

  1. *** Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino & Roger Avary
  2. ** Adventureland, Greg Mattola, August 5, 2007
  3. ** Morality for Beautiful Girls, Alexander McCall Smith, 2002
  4. *** Wodehouse: A Life, Robert McCrum, 2004
  5. *** Two O’Clock Eastern Wartime, John Dunning, 2001
  6. ** In Dubious Battle, John Steinbeck, 1936
  7. *** Good Night, Mr. Holmes, Carole Nelson Douglas, 1990
  8. *** Florence of Arabia, Christopher Buckley, 2004
  9. *** Songwriters on Songwriting, Paul Zollo, 2003
  10. *** Thank You For Smoking, Christopher Buckley, 1994
  11. *** Food, Ogden Nash, 1989
  12. *** Supreme Courtship, Christopher Buckely, 2008
  13. *** Zoo, Ogden Nash, 1987
  14. *** The Overlook, Michael Connelly, 2007
  15. *** Selling Your Story in 60 Seconds, Michael Hauge, 2006
  16. ** Walker Percy: A Life, Patrick Samway, 1997
  17. *** The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, Lauren R. King, 1994
  18. *** Velocity, Dean Koontz, 2005
  19. *** Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, … With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory, Roy Blount, Jr, 2008
  20. *** The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, 2007
  21. **** Mere Churchianity, Michael Spencer, 2010
  22. *** Wry Martinis, Christopher Buckley, 1997
  23. ** To A God Unknown, John Steinbeck, 1933
  24. ** Passage, Connie Willis, 2001
  25. *** Out Stealing Horses, Per Petterson, 2003
  26. *** Revision & Self-Editing, James Scott Bell, 2008
  27. *** Sh*t My Dad Says, Justin Halpern, 2010
  28. *** The Red Pyramid, Rick Riordan, 2010
  29. *** Rebel Island, Rick Riordan, 2007
  30. *** The Cure, Athol Dickson, 2007
  31. The Blue Umbrella, Mike Mason, 2009
  32. *** Tribes, Seth Godin, 2008
  33. *** Goodbye Hollywood Nobody, Lisa Samson, 2008
  34. *** Mucho Mojo, Joe R Lonsdale, 1994
  35. ** The Furniture of Heaven, Mike Mason, 1989
  36. ** Wonder o’ the Wind, Phillip Keller, 1982
  37. *** Mowhawk, Richard Russo, 1986
  38. *** The Scene of the Crime: a writer’s guide to crime-scene investigations, Anne Windgate, Ph.D, 1992
  39. ** Freezer Burn, Joe R Lansdale, 1999
  40. * The Island of the Day Before, Umberto Eco, 1994
  41. *** Plot & Structure, James Scott Bell, 2004
  42. *** Don’t Point That Thing At Me, Kyril Bonfiglioli, 1972
  43. ** Levi’s Will, W. Dale Cramer, 2005
  44. *** Bridge of Sighs, Richard Russo, 2007
  45. ** After You With The Pistol, Kyril Bonfiglioli, 1974
  46. *** The Black Echo, Michael Connelly, 1992
  47. ** Something Nasty in the Woodshed, Kyril Bonfiglioli, 1979
  48. *** The Black Ice, Michael Connelly, 1993
  49. **** The Help, Kathryn Stockett, 2009
  50. *** The Concrete Blond4, Michael Connelly, 1994
  51. *** Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883
  52. *** The Last Coyote, Michael Connelly, 1995
  53. ** Levi’s Will, W. Dale Cramer, 2005
  54. *** The Poet, Michael Connelly, 1996
  55. *** Inbound Marketing, Halligan and Shah, 2009
  56. ** The Road, Cormac McCarthy, 2006
  57. *** Trunk Music, Michael Connelly, 1997
  58. *** Robertson Davies: Man of Myth, Judith Skelton Grant, 1994
  59. *** Champagne for the Soul, Mike Mason, 2003
  60. *** Blood Work, Michael Connelly, 198
  61. *** The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga, 2008
  62. ** The Sign of the Book, John Dunning, 2005
  63. *** The Lost Hero, Rick Riordan, 2010
Blog

Publishing your first draft

Yo, writers out there, would you publish the first draft of your novel?That’s what multi-published author Adam Palmer is doing, via Twitter, during 2011. I assumed he would write something first and then publish it in tweet-sized bites. Nope. He’s composing in Twitter. It will be compiled (and edited) for a more conventional book in 2012. He posted his self-imposed rules for the project here.In my humble (but completely accurate and independently verified) opinion, Adam is stark-raving mad. [You say that like it’s a bad thing.]For me, the thought of putting my first draft out there for public consumption is mind-numbingly, soul-crushingly, spirit-suckingly, gonad-witheringly horrific. I’d rather pose nekkid for Field & Stream.And yes, I’m already following on @AdamAuthor.Zany things from Marcher Lord Press, who are not averse to batshit crazy stuff, evidently.

Blog

Writing dialog

Here’s an overheard conversation between brothers, 4 and 5, in bed in the dark. I wish I could write dialog like this.

J: Remember when we were driving back from Papa and Grandma’s after opening presents?
C: Yeah
J: You fell asleep and I saw Santa. He was going back to Papa and Grandma’s house. But they don’t have a chimney! And no one can unlock the chimney, not even Santa.
C: But God can unlock the chimney, cause he’s special.
.
C: I wish it was gonna be day in 3 minutes.
J: Me, too.
C: I wish it was always daytime.
J: When we go to heaven, it will always be daytime.
C: And we can’t even bring our house up to heaven. Not even our furniture.
J: And not even our guns. There won’t be anyone to fight in heaven.
.
C: Yeah…but we can hit Daddy.
.
J: I can jump off the roof of our house.