The deadliest trap is the one you set for yourself, copy editor.

I've been on a Raymond Chandler kick recently, and the hard-boiled, hard-living, hard-to-like alkie might just have become my favorite writer of all time. Anyway, here's a glimpse of the personality behind some of the greatest American noir--and fiction--writing of all time. In this angry missive, Chandler is calling out some pesky editor who wants to unsplit some of his infinitives and expurgate some of his more colorful language. Enjoy.

Interview With Local Author Donna Galanti

I had the pleasure of meeting author Donna Galanti a little more than a year ago. We first crossed paths at the Writers Coffeehouse, a monthly meeting for writers, aspiring writers, and other artists run by The Liars Club, and then were classmates in Jonathan Maberry and Marie Lamba's YA in 9 Months fiction workshop. Donna's a great writer, and I'm stoked to report that her novel, A Human Element is now available! Donna's book has been getting a ton of positive buzz on the interwebs, and she was kind enough to "sit down" for an interview with yours truly.

Without further ado, and now that I've gotten my obnoxious name-dropping out of the way in the first paragraph, here's the Q&A:

Q: A reviewer in the blogosphere read A Human Element and compared you to Dean Koontz. Do you see the similarities between this story and some of his stories? Are you a fan of Koontz's work?

Donna: I am thrilled that readers are comparing me to Dean Koontz. I can only aspire to write like such a master. I am a huge fan of Koontz, especially of his earlier work. My book has a mix of elements in it as his novels do. It can’t be put in a box. I write with a similar mix to Koontz as well: sci-fi, horror, paranormal, and suspense. I don’t focus on what genre my book is when I write it though. I just write the story that comes naturally to me.

Q: How did the idea for A Human Element come to you?

Donna: I always want to say some deep insightful thing to say here ... but the story just came to me in a flash one day as I was driving. I wrote the entire synopsis down, the first two chapters, and then shelved it for more than a decade.

Q: I read that the heroine of the novel, Laura Armstrong, is adopted, like you were. How much did your personal experiences inform the character?

Donna: Being adopted did tie into Laura and the other characters. When you’re adopted you can feel like you don’t have blood roots. You can roam around trying to find where you belong. I did this throughout my life. Some of my characters do the same thing. I connect with the nomad, the outsider, the alone one. Feeling abandoned is also an issue adopted children can have and it can be hard for them to commit to a relationship and fully trust. Three characters are abandoned in the novel and deal with it in extremely different ways. It colors their lives – good and bad.

Q: Is this book a standalone or can we expect a sequel?

Donna: I am in the middle of the sequel right now called A Hidden Element. There will be another fun villain in it that shatters the life of one family. When a son is taken, the family discovers it’s by the same unearthly evil that brutalized them fifteen years ago. In a race to stop a mad man, they unravel his frightening mission that binds them all together. But the killer’s desire to destroy them leads to a survival showdown that puts their son’s future to the test. They must sacrifice all again to defeat a new terrifying enemy – an enemy that wants to rule the world, with their son as his heir.

Q: You signed a deal with Echelon Press for A Human Element. Could you explain how that relationship developed?

Donna: I met my publisher, Karen Syed with Echelon Press, at the first writer’s conference I went to in March, 2011. It was wonderful how A Human Element released in March, 2012, a year later, while I was at the same conference. There is a full circle satisfaction in that for me. Karen worked with me on developmental edits before I even signed so I knew she was invested. I signed a contract with Echelon in September, 2011.

Q: Where can readers purchase a copy of A Human Element?

Donna: Right now it’s available online in paperback on Amazon and ebook at most outlets. It’s also in my local bookstore, The Doylestown Bookshop.

Paperback:
Createspace
Amazon

Ebook:
Smashwords
Omnilit
Barnes and Noble
Amazon

Q: What other proverbial irons do you have in the fire? I've heard something about this kick-ass YA novel ...

Donna: Brian, love your description there! LOL. Yes, I am finalizing a YA book I wrote in our Write a YA Novel in 9 Months Class. I wrote it for my son and fell in love with it along the way. It’s called Joshua and The Lightning Road, and has the potential for a series. Watch for this in the next year or so! Here’s a summary of it.

Lightning never strikes by chance. Twelve-year-old Joshua Cooper learns this the hard way when a bolt strikes his house, grabs his friend, and whisks him away—possibly forever. To get him back, Joshua must travel the Lightning Road to a dark world that steals children. New friends come to Joshua's aid. While battling monsters and fending off the child collector, Joshua discovers powers he never knew he possessed and that his earthly family is linked to this world. Reeling from the implication he may be the half-breed foretold to save this realm, Joshua’s mission becomes more than a search for his friend – it becomes the battle of his life.


Q: Any advice for aspiring writers?

Donna: Being a writer is constant learning and improving your craft. You may write a good book but you still need other elements like professional editing skills, a good cover, marketing savvy, and involved with social media. That being said, at times you need to turn off the Internet and just write. Also, writers cannot go it alone. You may write alone but you can’t learn alone, improve alone, or become known alone. Join a writer’s organization, go to workshops and conferences, network with other writers. There is a wonderful camaraderie amongst writers. We want to help each other and we have wisdom and advice to share collectively. Most importantly, when getting a first draft down do not go back and edit. The first draft is brain spew. Get it down and then go back and polish, otherwise you’ll never finish. This is the obstacle I overcame to write my first book.

Q: How do you feel about the e-book revolution?

Donna: I love it! Most of my sales are ebooks. It truly makes books accessible, and affordable, for people across demographics. I do admit I prefer to hold a print book in my hand, but having my Kindle allows me to purchase and read a book of choice anywhere.

Thanks for having me on Brian!

About A HUMAN ELEMENT:
One by one, Laura Armstrong’s friends and adoptive family members are being murdered, and despite her unique healing powers, she can do nothing to stop it. The savage killer haunts her dreams, tormenting her with the promise that she is next.

Determined to find the killer, she follows her visions to the site of a crashed meteorite–her hometown. There, she meets Ben Fieldstone, who seeks answers about his parents’ death the night the meteorite struck. In a race to stop a mad man, they unravel a frightening secret that binds them together. But the killer’s desire to destroy Laura face-to-face leads to a showdown that puts Laura and Ben’s emotional relationship and Laura’s pure spirit to the test.

With the killer closing in, Laura discovers her destiny is linked to his and she has two choices–redeem him or kill him.

Readers who devour paranormal books with a smidge of sci-fi and steam will enjoy A HUMAN ELEMENT, the new novel about loss, redemption, and love.

Reviewers are saying…
“A HUMAN ELEMENT is an elegant and haunting first novel. Unrelenting, devious but full of heart. Highly recommended.” –Jonathan Maberry, New York Times best-selling author of ASSASSIN’S CODE and DEAD OF NIGHT

“A HUMAN ELEMENT is a haunting look at what it means to be human. It’s a suspenseful ride through life and love…and death, with a killer so evil you can’t help but be afraid. An excellent read.” –Janice Gable Bashman, author of WANTED UNDEAD OR ALIVE, nominated for a Bram Stoker Award.

BIO:
Donna Galanti is the author of the dark novel A Human Element (Echelon Press). Donna has a B.A. in English and a background in marketing. She is a member of International Thriller Writers, The Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group, and Pennwriters. She lives with her family in an old farmhouse in PA with lots of nooks, fireplaces, and stinkbugs. Visit her at: www.donnagalanti.com

LIKE Donna’s Author Facebook page for news and updates!

Connect with Donna here:
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Donna Galanti

Happy St. Patty's

Title says it all. Now everybody go have a pint of the black stuff.

Why Can't There Be A Fifth Wiggle?

Earlier this year, Yellow Wiggle Sam Moran got sacked because the original Yellow Wiggle, Greg Page, had recovered from his condition enough to work and tour with the commercial powerhouse children's group again.

Of course, the corporate spin began immediately following the press release about the termination. It wasn't about money, or personality, they said; it was about getting the original team back together.

The kiddies might not be old enough to cut through the corporate BS yet (it's an important skill they should master, though!), but the press did pretty quickly.

Sam did a wonderful job as the Yellow Wiggle and was, more than the others, the front man of the band.

The Wiggles hauled in a cool $28.5 mill last year, so there's more than enough money to go around. And, even though Sam was the de facto front man, his pay was an incredibly depressing 1% of the group's total revenue. So his axing is clearly not about money.

So my question is this: Why can't there be five Wiggles? Sam is every bit as good a performer as the others (maybe more so), and I don't see why the kids would object to having a Green Wiggle or a Brown Wiggle or a Fuschia Wiggle.

Unfortunately, the only answer can be there was a major personality conflict among Sam and somebody in the band. There's just no other rational explanation for the move.

This post is an exercise in futility of course. The Wiggles have made their decision and Sam probably doesn't want to go back now that he's been treated so shabbily. So the least I can say is, Good luck, Sam, and thank you for entertaining my daughter so much!

All I Can Say Is: Oui!

No, seriously. That's about as much French as I can speak anymore.

Brendan Gleeson For Your Consideration

It seems like the favorite to take home the Academy Award for Best Actor this year is Gary Oldman for his turn in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I'm a big fan of Oldman's work in general, and his take on George Smiley, the soft-in-the-middle, morose, cerebral, anti-James Bond spy is great. He was fantastic in State of Grace as a low-level, scene-stealing thug, he's been great as Gordon in Nolan's Batman series, and he was just plain wicked in Leon. Oldman's long overdue for an Oscar nomination, let alone an Oscar, and in any other year I'd say, "Yeah, let the chap have it."

But there's just one problem: Brendan Gleeson turned in the performance of his career in The Guard, written and directed by John Michael McDonagh.

(MINOR SPOILERS ALERT)

Gleeson's cop is sardonic, funny, curmudgeonly, brazen, and a bit racist. He returns lost weapons to the IRA rather than impound them. He hires call girls to entertain him on his day off. He wants everyone to think he's just another roob from the country, but this just might be a clever Columbo-like ruse to mask his intelligence. He uses drugs. He manages to stop a shipment of $500,000,000 (street value) worth of cocaine. And, to top it all off, he just might have been an Olympic swimmer.

I don't think The Guard will receive any nominations this year, and that's a shame. Not too many people saw it, and nobody's talking about it right now during the crucial time around awards season. It's a fast, fun movie with intelligent humor and smart dialogue, and the characters are all interesting. Don Cheadle's FBI agent is a little underwritten, but that's okay because it's really Gleeson's show here.

***

John Michael McDonagh is the brother of Martin McDonagh, who wrote and directed another awesome crime film, In Bruges. The Brothers McDonagh have a great ear for dialogue and create cliche-challenging characters, but they don't rely on these devices as crutches when telling a story. They both care just as much about plot, resulting in lean, but layered, stories.

World's Greatest Golfer Dies

Rest in peace, Kim Jong-il. I'm pretty certain your incredible record eleven holes in one during one round of golf will never be surpassed. Not even Tiger Woods has set out to surpass you, opting instead to set his sights much lower, like breaking Jack Nicklaus's total major victory record.

My 5 Favorite Christmas Movies of All Time

You asked for it (no, you didn't), so here it is. Brian O'Rourke's five favorite Christmas movies of all time:

5) Lethal Weapon. Richard Donner, Shane Black, Danny Glover, and Mel Gibson make buddy-cop movie history in this tightly-plotted actioner that combines all the cliches in the book and rises above the trappings of the genre. And, uh, it's set around Christmas.

4) Trading Places. Old school Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd, er, trade places in this comedy set in Philly during the holiday season. Murphy's a homeless grifter/self-proclaimed "karate man," while Aykroyd's a yuppie stock guru who's next in line to run the big firm and marry the buttoned-up, but not exactly prudish, blue-blood. Aykroyd's bosses orchestrate a switch for both men, elevating Murphy out of the slum and tossing Aykroyd into the gutter, and hilarity ensues.

3)Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. It's no coincidence that Shane Black shows up on this list more than once, given his penchant for setting action flicks around Christmas. This one's part deconstruction, part glorious homage, to action movies and private eye stories of old. Eat your heart out Raymond Chandler. My favorite line from the film is delivered by Val Kilmer, who plays a gay PI named, uh, Gay Perry: "Merry Christmas. Sorry I f--ked you."

2) Ernest Saves Christmas. The inexplicable juggernaut that was Jim Varney reached its cinematic peak with this film. Okay, that's not saying much, but still I fell in love with this movie growing up and tuned in faithfully each week to Ernest's Saturday morning show. Sometimes nostalgia trumps quality, and this is one of them times.

1) Die Hard. A total anomaly: an action movie set during Christmas not penned by Shane Black. And a total triumph. The 80s were all about heavily-muscled supermen, like Arnie and Sly, who were able to mow down hundreds of faceless enemy soldiers (not that there's anything wrong with that) and take a few bullets while hardly breaking a sweat, till Bruce Willis showed up on the scene. Officer John McClane is very real, very in over his head, and very much a resourceful, everyman wise-ass who just might save the day. Directed by John McTiernan, this flick went on to become the quintessential action movie, much imitated and never matched. Alan Rickman nearly steals the show as one of the greatest villains of all time. And always remember, it's Gary Cooper that rides off into the sunset with Grace Kelly.

Honorable Mention: Scrooged, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation,

Brian O'Rourke as Harold Bloom on The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland

My feelings about the Sesame Street film, The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, are a matter of public record but after some further discussion with my wife and another three hundred or so viewings with my daughter, I don't think I gave this film the analysis it truly deserves.

If Follow That Bird is the Old Testament of the Sesame Street movies, then the Elmo movie certainly represents the New Testament. Oscar the Grouch is clearly the god-like figure in both texts, as he's his grumpy, fickle self in FTB while revealing a kindler, some would say out of left field, gentler side in TAOEIG. Don't believe me?

Big Bird suffers like Job, losing his home, his family and finally his freedom after being forced into servitude by a couple small-time crooked carvinal goons, and yet Oscar can barely be bothered to lift a furry, matted finger to help our feathered friend, who has shown him nothing but kindness and love despite Oscar's constant rebuffing. Compare that crusty attitude to The Grouch's subsequent behavior when he decides to stir the citizens of Grouchland into action so he can help his friend Elmo ... wait for it ... wait for it ... reclaim his stolen blanket. Big Bird can lose everything and be pressed into avian slavery, but Elmo can't lose his precious wubbie.

Something just doesn't add up here. They say that all writing is a product of its time, and perhaps that's true, but something greater has to be at work.

Or as Harold Bloom might say, the screenwriters of the Sesame Street films could not escape the anxiety of influence ....

You're probably thinking Brian has finally lost it. And I have if I'm speaking in the third person. But all you planning to become parents should take heed. You will watch the same shows and movies so many times that you'll start to see deeper messages buried within the most trivial things. I watch the Wiggles everyday and I'm almost convinced they're part of some Masonic conspiracy.

SPARTACUS FUISTI

Andy Whitfield, you will be missed.

Awful news about Andy passing away. At 39 years of age, just when he gets his big break, this happens.

REQUIESCAT IN PACE

Do The Amish Play Golf?

For all my life, this question has plagued me. But after spending a few days in Lancaster County with the family, I now know that yes, they do. They don't use clubs; they use "bats."

Not only do they play golf, but apparently they have no qualms with using a golf cart either. I was told this is permissible because technically they do not own the cart; renting or borrowing or leasing such a contraption is perfectly acceptable under the rules.

Bear in mind I've done zero research on this. I'm just repeating what I was told by a fellow non-Amish guy who's lived in Lancaster County for several years after we spotted an Amish foursome on the course.

Baby, We Were Born to Run

Just finished Christopher McDougall's wonderful book, Born to Run. Part travelogue, part lesson in human evolution, part runner's spiritual guide, and part inspirational tale, it's a fast-paced read filled with some of the most interesting characters ever committed to page.

McDougall's personal quest to become a better runner serves as the everyman's intro into the fascinating--and insane--world of ultrarunning. The narrative is a journey that takes us from Leadville, Colorado, back in time to the dangerous savannas of pre-historic Africa, and to Copper Canyon in Northern Mexico, where the reclusive Tarahumara (Raramuri) people live, entirely cut off from the modern world.

The athletes that populate McDougall's tale are runners in the most extreme sense. Several of the characters competed in the Leadville 100 (that's 100 miles), and the book is capped off with what McDougall refers to in the subtitle as the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, a mere 50-miler through the sweltering heat, up and down the tricky passes of Chihuahua, Mexico.

My favorite thread of the book deals with man's evolution into a long-distance runner and persistence hunting. I first encountered this theory way back in college and wasn't quite sold. But McDougall, and the scientists he introduces us to, make a strong case for it in this book. The idea is this: before man was intelligent enough to create throwing weapons, he chased his quadruped prey over long distances, till said prey was too crapped out to run any farther. Without going into the specifics of why this might have been so, I will say it's an intriguing theory--that man evolved not to run fast, but to run far. It sounds crazy till you hear about those long-distance races pitting human beings against horses, with man typically emerging the victor.

Another interesting thread in the book is the barefoot running trend. I won't bore you with the specifics, but I got the itch to give it a try. The immediate change in my mechanics while running barefoot was scary, and scarily instinctual. Almost like I was meant to run that way...

Inspiration drips off every page of the book as the characters push themselves beyond all reasonable limits. If, by the end, you don't feel like going for a run, then you just ain't human.

Something in the Water in Northern Ireland?

How is it with a population of 1.68 mill (according to wiki) does a country the size of Connecticut produce three different major champions in golf in the span of thirteen months?

First Graeme McDowell took the US Open last year, then his buddy Rory McIlroy won it last month, and now their forerunner of Northern Irish golf, Darren Clarke, got to hoist the Claret Jug today after winning the Open Championship at age 42.

I've always been a fan of Darren Clarke, and his win today comes as something of a surprise. It was widely thought his best years were behind him, but somehow he managed to put four great rounds of golf together at just the right time for his first major championship. Clarke's a good guy who lost his wife to breast cancer a few years ago. Since then, his form's been understandably off but he never gave up the dream of winning the Open Championship. And obviously that romantic stubbornness has finally paid off.

So what is it about Northern Ireland and its golfers?

I'd like to say it has to do with perseverance. The Northern Irish have had to endure a lot in the past century and it has undoubtedly hardened them. You need to be able to weather the storm of bad luck and bad bounces inherent in the game, especially so in the two Open championships, in order to claim victory. The Northern Irish, to me at least, seem to have a wonderful appreciation for irony and an ability to laugh off the bad breaks. They're also gutsy. It's these qualities that go a long way in the game of golf.

The Hangover Meets Hitchcock

I checked out the new flick Horrible Bosses this weekend. It boasts a solid cast, including Kevin Spacey, Jason Bateman, Jennifer Aniston, and Colin Farrell, who nearly steals the movie with criminally-limited screen time. But I didn't go to see it for those actors, I went to see it for Charlie Day, who's part of the awesome yet still relatively unknown ensemble cast of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. (For all you It's Always Sunny fans out there, Charlie's great in this movie.)

Boiling down the premise to its essentials, Horrible Bosses is The Hangover meets Strangers on a Train. In fact, you can almost see the screenwriter pitching the idea to the studio in just those terms: R-rated raunchy comedy about three guys planning to murder the bosses who've made their 9 to 5 lives a living hell. And the film even has one of those meta-moments, where the characters pause for breath long enough to realize their plan is lifted straight out of a Hitchcock story.

The three career-frustrated characters are little more than archetypes, and the comedy leans heavily on vulgarity and pop culture references. Hearing that you might think it's a bad movie, but it's not. In fact, I enjoyed the hell out of this movie. Seth Gordon, the director who brought us the brilliant documentary The King of Kong, pulls off the difficult task of making murder funny. The plot zooms along--and it has to or else the sheer absurdity of the story would come crashing down on the audience--and the three leads make the material work. (I'm no Saturday Night Live guy, so I'm new to Jason Sudeikis but thought he was great in this.) There was also a lot of overlapping jokes and asides from the three leads, giving the story a lot of comedic energy, so I'll bet this one's got some replay value, which will bode well for its theatrical run and DVD sales. It's dark, but not too too dark. Some critics have complained about that, but for me, I prefer dark humor when it's in a drama as opposed to a comedy. I want my comedies light, fast, and fun.

What's Next for NASA?

Earlier today, Atlantis lifted off in what is NASA's final shuttle flight of its thirty year program. The general scientific consensus seems to be a begrudging admission that the shuttle program achieved mixed results overall. I'm no scientist, so I can't chime in one way or the other intelligibly, but the idea of humans journeying into space was always cool and admirable to me, regardless of the mission.

I wonder where NASA goes from here? It seems like the wise money will be spent on unmanned probes and satellites and on things like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which looks like it's going to replace The Hubble.

I'd like to see the government spend more on research into interstellar space flight. I know that we theoretically can't travel faster than light, but it'd be good to be able to reach some of these potentially habitable exoplanets in a reasonable, and practical, amount of time. Call it manifest destiny if you want, but I think it's imperative the human race colonize other, already habitable worlds. Because the odds are long we'll be able to effectively terraform any of the other bodies in our solar system, and as a species we don't want to keep all our eggs in one basket. If you've read The Road, you know exactly what I'm talking about.