So You Want to be a Novelist. . .

So you want to be a novelist; allow me to strike a match for you.

Before igniting the fire that must burn within you for a year, there are components of the process you should take into consideration. They are, not necessary in order of importance: protagonist (s), antagonist (s), genre, research, plot, theme, conflict, viewpoint, outline, starting point, setting, exposition, description and rewrite. Here is a brief description of the components.
PROTAGONIST (S): hero/heroine, main character, the person who moves the story from beginning to end or has the story move him/her from beginning to end. You should know him/her as well as you do yourself.
ANTAGONIST (S): the villain, the force opposing your hero, threatens, hinders or attacks the protagonist; not always, but usually a human being; it could be a storm, fierce animal, a mental condition, past memory, etc. You should know the antagonist as well as the protagonist.
VIEWPOINT: your choice (1) of viewing the story through the main character’s eyes only; (2) through main character’s eyes with narration; (3) omniscient in that you know what all characters think and why they do what they do.
GENRE: helpful for you to know where your story fits, e.g., mystery, romance, science fiction, etc., as there are certain precedents to be observed or ignored.
PLOT: the story, the reason the reader turns the pages. Girl meets boy; man climbs mountain; woman finds independence; choose any one of countless possibilities.
THEME: usually intertwined with the plot, e.g., love story set within an AIDS (theme) epidemic.
STARTING POINT: a very important choice; the closer to the story’s pivotal point the better.
OUTLINE: I recommend a loose one where character discovery rings true and motivation flows freely.
MOTIVATION: why a character does what he/she does; initiating the action or opposing it. The protagonist/antagonist’s primary motivation seldom changes, but will take a backseat to the many obstacles a good story with throw at him/her.
CONFLICT: rarely does a plot work without conflict; the bigger the better, the more the faster the reader turns the pages.
SETTING: the place (s) where the action and exposition take place.
EXPOSITION: what you would like to divulge or feel the reader should know about characters and events. Use this sparingly.
DESCRIPTION: characters, settings, etc.; have it fixed in your mind’s eye as you write; use it sparingly and never jam it in.
RESEARCH: if knowledge is an ocean, suck it dry and use it only where the story dictates.
REWRITE: along with research, the most important phase of writing a compelling novel. Teach yourself to enjoy it, for there are never enough rewrites.
IMPUT: walk gingerly here as friends and family are not always objective when reading a manuscript; if you can afford it ignore them and buy a line and/or copy editing.
Now that the novel is completed, you want to see it in print.
It is only natural for a novelist to want a mainstream publisher; you will rarely reach one without an agent. Getting an agent to peddle your manuscript is tough if you are an unknown with little credentials. But we all must try, so try. A contest winner/runner up gets attention; unfortunately contest entries can be expensive for a scant one chapter entry; careful of scammers that are more interested in revenue than literature. Know your genre and study the agents who consistently sell in that market. Write an original and gripping query letter, selling yourself and the novel. Because of supply and demand, the agents, who hold the key to the temple door, i.e., the publisher, can be real arrogant, condescending asses when viewing your months of creative toil. Hopefully, they won’t beat you down, before one agrees to take you on. Even then, you will face another mountain, that of working with the agent.
In the interim, and it can be a long one, I recommend print-on-demand publishing. Many free and reliable POD publishers exist on the internet, as do many not so reliable and not so free. Most will have a site where you can market your novel. You can send customers there and buy your book in any quantity for resale.
Since your POD will be competing with the big boys, established authors, for sales, I recommend, if you can afford it, a strong editing (spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc.).
Lastly, there are many respectable small house publishers (easy to find on the internet) you can query without an agent who might give your novel an enthusiastic push.
Please feel free to contact me via email if I can help you get started and stay focused.
Good luck,
Chuck Fair
chuck@chuckfair.com

Medical Zingers

Medical Zinger One
What makes socialized medicine so terrible?
It is terrible for the insurance companies who deny applicants access and reap huge profits in the doing.
It is terrible for the HMOs who keep profits high by denying treatment to members.
It is terrible for the drug companies who charge outrageous prices for their pills.
It is terrible for doctors and hospitals who would see their profits reduced from disgustingly wealthy to merely wealthy.
It is especially terrible for politicians who would no longer rake in big medical bucks for their reelection campaigns.
For the participants—us—nothing about socialized medicine is terrible.

Medical Zinger Two

Hillary Clinton’s Health Plan is flawed.
No national health plan, or socialized medicine as detractors like to call it, will work as long as businesses functioning with the free market mentality—dog eat dog—control it.
Their---the insurance companies, the HMOs, drug companies—goal is not helping humanity, but satisfying their greed.
Why would anyone who has dealt with these profit mongers want the same people who in the past have denied insurance coverage for fear of a medical care payment; who searched for ways to deny needed treatment to a sick patient, rather than to search for a way to offer it; who currently make outrageous profits off the Medicare Drug Program while lobbying congress to make it illegal for the needy to buy cheaper drugs in Canada?
The answer is we do not need these people who have systematically bled us for decades.
Close down the medical insurance operations; send the marauders to the auto, home and disaster divisions; incorporate the HMOs, the drug companies and the medical professionals into a government controlled system.

Medical Zinger Three

The medical care providers keep driving up their costs year after year; currently it rises three times more per year than inflation. The total yearly cost of medical care in the U.S. may be close to one trillion dollars. It is time to tear down their temple and melt the golden calf. Why? Because, in this temple there is only one god, and the medical profession and their acolytes hold the key. Even our government with its alleged incompetence could operate with less than a trillion dollars by controlling medical providers and their fellow sharks with a nationalized health care system.

Mooing of a Judas Cow

Recently, Michael Moore’s free wheeling “Sickko” lit up movie theater screens across the nation, and John Edwards raised a few eyebrows when he campaigned on health care reform during the YouToo forum. Both men, championing the needy, originated from working class families: Moore from the Midwest rustbelt; Edwards from a southern family that struggled to make ends meet.
Both men are despised by big and small businesses alike: Moore, their chubby gadfly, for holding their feet to a celluloid fire; Edwards, a crusading lawyer, for holding them accountable in the only way possible in our capitalist system—big legal settlements.
Opponents of government run health care, those who have excellent health insurance, those with the wherewithal to find care anywhere, those who bought into the Judas Cow mooing that a government run health care system will reduce the quality of treatment and create waiting lines without end, vehemently oppose Moore and Edwards. They try to dismiss Michael Moore as a fat loony, exaggerating the dire consequence of the present overweight system. These detractors fail to mention that the current system is almost dead last among industrialized countries in caring for its citizens, close to the top in infant mortality and shorter life expectancy, because no prenatual or preventive care exists for the uninsured. The current system, totted as the best in the world, is at the top in money spent per citizen, even after throwing 46 million uninsured citizens into the pot, and at the bottom in accessibility.
Unlike Moore, with John Edwards, an ex U.S. Senator and Vice-presidential candidate, detractors run into difficulty trying to dismiss him as a bleeding heart, big spending liberal air head, so try to paint him as hypocrite, a man enjoying wealth while condemning the rich. John Edwards would make a fine president, if he can overcome the political slurs that big businesses’ contributions will put on the airwaves.
Both Moore and Edwards cried for a national health care plan, citing the European or Canadian model, lambasting health care insurance companies, HMOs, drug manufacturers, and indirectly hospitals and doctors, for their greedy, underhanded methods. Of course, the aforementioned opportunists--TICKS better describes them--are reaping disgusting profits, while denying medical coverage and pricing health insurance out of the reach of one-fifth of the population. A self serving label gets murky when applied to hospital executives and doctors who seemingly make no effort to keep medical costs down, whose benevolent output often does not justify their extravagant incomes.
Currently, no well meaning celebrity or crusading politician can dislodge these blood sucking ticks from the American public, in order to put in a single payer medical system; our only hope is that the ticks will get their fill and fall away. Unfortunately, for you and I, that is not going to happen. We might as well wish for politicians at all levels, in a comradely gesture, to give up the substantial health care coverage they enjoy while paying none of our back breaking cost. We might as well wish the drug companies would cease to fight like the two headed Dogs of Hell when Americans want to fill their prescriptions at a lower cost like they did until our government shut down the Canadian pipeline. An optimist, high on altruism, could wish that insurance companies and HMOs would stop bribing Congress to keep the status quo. While we are wishing into the wind, let us hope the federal authorities will stop harassing the medical marijuana providers.
Check out my new titles, "White, Red, Black & Blue" and "Hellpath 1859," www.chuckfair.com

Giving Up My Subaru Will Be Like Giving Up Lassie

I live where it snows, and I drive a Subaru that averages 25 mpg. I use to think that was pretty good for a 4 cylinder, all-wheel drive vehicle, but now I am having second thoughts.

This is my thinking: escalating gas and diesel fuel prices fluctuate between $3 to 3.50 a gallon in my state; I, along with many others, am getting poor, while the exploiters—the oil executives—are getting richer. So what else is new?

Smog, a health-damaging air pollution, is getting worse, not only in the major cities, but also in small suburban towns where I live. The ozone layer above us is getting clobbered; we are starting to feel like bugs on a skillet as the earth gets hot and hotter. All this is not so new either.

Here comes the new part, the only thing in 6 ½ years GWB has got right. We are at war—that is his part. This is mine: we are arming the very same people who have sworn to destroy us, by paying such high prices for oil, AND—it’s a big ‘AND’!—continuing to drive oversized trucks, personal and commercial ones, like gigantic Peterbilts and one ton sumptuous trucks, continuing to drive oversized SUVs, such as Suburbans, Expositions and the self-indulgent Hummer, continuing to drive big luxury cars that suck down the octane when there are so many smaller, comfortable autos for sale that get better mileage and pollute less.

The results are in: the Saudis, the Iranians and the Venezuelans are buried in petro dollars--ours. The beneficiaries, the Saudi princes, of whom there are too many to count, currently fund al Qaeda and probably radical Sunnis in Iraq and definitely the Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan/Pakistan. The religious and fanatical Iranian government loves to bite our—the Great Satan’s Tail; they do this by funding, arming and training the militant Shiites in Iraq. Chavez in Venezuela, his treasury gobbling up big U.S. bucks, much smarter than our current president, is waging a one man anti-American campaign in Latin American and winning mucho followers.

So. . . if GWB could actually be right, and we are at war with an enemy who prays five times a day, why aren’t we Americans making sacrifices like we did in WWII—gasoline, fuel and food staples were rationed then. Everyone, even Baby Snookims, made sacrifices. For those of you who cannot remember WWII, the U.S. population became united against two vicious, underhanded powers, much like the current bearded boys hiding in the shifting sands.

Here comes the punch line: we must create a new awareness among ourselves. The awareness is that big chromed cars, big, often-unfilled, four-door trucks, big SUVs are as bad for us as cigarettes and secondary smoke are. If you drive one, get rid of it. If your neighbor drives a big SUV and does not have six kids, let her know she is capitulating with the enemy. If you see dozens of empty ¾ and 1 ton trucks middle aged men love to drive parked in a shopping center lot, put a loving note of awareness on their windshield; always do this with a watchful eye, because some of these guys, not appreciating an outlook adjustment, can be unreasonable. Nice elderly couples driving a big Cadillac, Lexus or Mercedes twenty-five miles an hour in front of you, with an American flag pasted on their bumper, cannot be let off the hook. Pull up beside the gas-eater, indicate that they should lower their window, and shout, “only traitors fund the enemy.”
Check out my new titles, "White, Red, Black & Blue" and "Hellpath 1859," www.chuckfair.com

Walking a Tightrope

Given the New Jersey incident, we can no longer ignore that militant Muslims reside in the United States, so how do we detect them from non-militant ones?
The thwarted attack by Muslim youths on Fort Dix where young army recruits train, when they hoped to kill as many American soldiers as possible before getting themselves killed, should serve as a warning shot across America’s bow. Although the result was not deadly like 9/11, the incident points to the dilemma Americans must now face: neutralize militant Muslims, citizens or non-citizens, while protecting the rights of not-militant ones. Respecting an individual’s rights is as much a part of our psyche diet as food is to our body, but protecting ones self is paramount to living. There lies a dilemma.
These six Muslim youths, three illegal immigrants, were unconnected to any militant organization such as al Qaeda. One youth was a pizza employee making frequent deliveries to the Fort Dix soldiers. He and other Muslims planned to infiltrate the base delivering pizzas. What could be more American than youths and pizzas, non threatening to the unsuspecting eye?
These Muslims fed their hatred of the United States and their dream of eternal glory in a jihadists’ heaven with internet replays of the murder of U.S. Marines in Lebanon, U.S. soldiers in Saudi Arabia and sailors on the U.S. Cole; pumping themselves up watching images of black hooded jihadists stabbing the air above their heads with Ak-47s, shouting, “Allahu Akbar.”
Developing from a rudimentary conspiracy, the thwarted attack was a grass roots one, which should bristle the hairs on the back of our necks, because if there is one grass roots cell with a religious mandate to murder, then we can bet our last dollar there are more such cells, illegal or legal residents, intent upon killing us, be they rudimentary or well organized, funded ones. Suicide bombers on a public bus, in the grandstands at a sporting event, a car bomb driven into a schoolyard at recess--the means and methods to get a grass roots or organized plot off the ground are readily available.
Given that all the mass bloodshed--American, English, Spanish--spilled by Arabs who are Muslim, Timothy McVey the exception, it is not illogical to believe that future blood shedding will be by Arabs who are Muslims.. So, what is a body to do if he/she does not want to be surrounded by dead bodies or worst yet, be one?
Should we round up all Arab Muslims and sequester them in an interment camp such as with the Japanese during WWII; send them back to their native soil like we did the Chinese Coolies when they seemed too troublesome; massacre them like the Seventh Calvary slaughter of Sioux at Wounded Knee Creek? Of course not, we have come too far as a people to do that.
Would the plotting to murder us cease if we stopped giving carte blanche to Israeli apartheid in Palestine and become a fair broker in the Middle East, stop sending billions of dollars to the Israeli government until they pull back to the pre 1967 Palestinian borders; pull our troops out of Iraq and Saudi Arabia. As wise and humanitarian as those moves might be, they are not going to happen with our current outlook. I simply don’t know or have not heard how we respect others creed and color while weeding out the plotting Muslim murderers, Arab or otherwise, from those Muslims who wish us no harm.
Where is the magic mirror, whose image will show us a way? The answer could be reflected in Islam itself. Islam controls militant Muslims’ every waking hour, controls their dreams, their goals. The life blood of this control flows in the mosques across this country. There, connections are made to plotters, paths to a jihadists’ heaven laid out, not in every mosque or madrassas, but in enough to be alarming. Hopefully, the FBI has these hotbeds under surveillance. A way, for lack of better way, a glimpse to neutralizing militant Muslims, may be with the less radical Muslims and their mosques.
Some of us were raised as Christians, so we are linked by origin to Christian fundamentalists intent on militancy, feeling a touch of understanding for them, enough not to cry foul when they badger single pregnant mothers, torment gays and impose their beliefs upon school children; some of us are of the Jewish faith who, because of common ground, tolerate the ultra orthodox militants who kill Palestinians while living on their land; understanding militant Muslims seems to be more common in mainstream Islam throughout the world. In Islam, there exists an across-the-board feeling that grievous injustices have been and are being inflicted upon Muslims by us, causing followers to look the other way when militants plot to massacre us.
With freedom of religion in this country there must be an implied responsibility to keep one’s faith non-militant. Just as it should be within the Christian and Jewish faiths, this responsibility falls on non-militant Muslims to not only speak out, but act against their religion’s wrongdoers, the plotters and murderers. Public awareness, not threats, along with government awareness should be directed toward the Muslim community and their leaders, especially toward their mosques and imams to daily speak out against the murderous plots being planned at this minute. A Muslim grass roots voice against militancy might not stop all plots, but it could neutralize grass roots plots like Fort Dix if they take the responsibility.
Check out my new titles, "White, Red, Black & Blue" and "Hellpath 1859," www.chuckfair.com