So Where Have I Been?

Things have been a little disorganized around here.

Short answer: everywhere.

I've been up, I've been down. I've had highs, I've had lows, and I've had to readjust to "the new normal," but things are beginning to stabilize and get back to whatever passes for normal around here.

When last I left you, Gentle Reader, I had been trying to get back into the habit of creative writing by attempting to revive my interest in some of my old, unfinished superhero writing projects: one I called the Celtic League of Superheroes, and the other I called the Liberty Legion. However, try as I might, I just couldn't seem to get revved up about either of these projects. I created them some eight years ago and laid them aside, and it was difficult to pick them back up again I just couldn't seem to get my mind and my imagination back into that same "mental space," if you will, that I was in all those years ago. My life and my circumstances had changed, and somehow I knew I needed to begin a project that reflected that.

Last November, in observance of National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo for short), I posted a link on Facebook to a Shadow/Superman fan fiction piece that I wrote several years ago. One of my Facebook friends told me that he read it and enjoyed it very much and encouraged me to create something similar with my own characters. I thought I might be able to do this with my pre-existing projects, but they seemed to be going nowhere. Around the end of April, however, I got a sudden flash of inspiration. I had a mental image of a character very much like The Shadow, yet not The Shadow, for obvious legal and copyright reasons. He would be a character swathed in darkness and mystery, nearly invisible except for his burning, penetrating, unearthly blue eyes. I used the HeroMachine website to create an image of this character, and once I did, the details of his backstory, his mythology, and the outlines of his first adventure came to me almost instantly.

I dubbed this character Blacklight and set to work writing his first adventure. I tried to explain his origins without dwelling excessively on them as I had done with my previous characters, but instead dove right into the action. I worked on this story almost constantly, a little bit every day, from the end of April to the beginning of July, when I felt it was finally finished.

It was then that disaster struck. On the evening of July 5, as I was trying to move from the bed to my wheelchair, I slipped and fell and suffered a "tibial plateau fracture," a break in a small bone in my left knee. The injury didn't require a cast or surgery, thank goodness, but it did require wrapping the knee up thoroughly in an Ace bandage and taking time to heal. It's still healing, as a matter of fact. Ironically, the day after the celebration of America's independence, I was reminded how dependent I am on other people. I had to spend the first three or four days after the accident in bed, and for several weeks after that I couldn't get into or out of bed without help .

With the help of a couple of dedicated physical therapists from the home nursing service that I work with, however, I was able to master a new way of getting in and out of bed using a hospital bed and an overhead trapeze bar. When getting into bed, I park the wheelchair by the bed, place a special homemade pillow (nicknamed Floyd) into the gap between the wheelchair and the bed, grab the trapeze bar, and slide and flop over into the bed, using the guard rail on the far side of the bed to finish pulling myself over. The reverse process of getting out of bed is  similar.Using the hospital bed, I can raise myself to almost a sitting position, grab the trapeze bar, and slide over into the wheelchair, again using Floyd to bridge the gap between the chair and the bed. When I get out of bed in the morning, Floyd is already in position because he's right where I left him the night before.  I owe my personal care attendant a very special thanks for creating Floyd. This is "the new normal" for me, and it looks like it will be for the foreseeable future.

Once I was able to get in and out of bed and sit in the wheelchair for extended periods again, I was able to get back to the final edits of my story. I sent copies of the story out via email to a small group of beta readers, who not only were enthusiastic in their praise, but also straightforward in their criticism, pointing out grammar and spelling mistakes, awkwardly constructed sentences, unclear transitions, and the like. Using their suggestions, I revised and edited the story into a final form that I'm happy with. What's most exciting to me about the story is that it leaves the door open for future stories about this character. The villain is vanquished, the day is saved, and the damsel in distress is rescued, but there is still a master villain lurking in the shadows, and complications ahead for our hero. Stay tuned! I'll have more to say about Blacklight in a future blog entry.

So that, Gentle Reader, is a rather long-winded explanation of where I have been the past several months. I do have ideas for more blog entries in mind, and I will do my very best to be a more regular and faithful blogger.

The Sinister Shadow Reviewed

Doc Savage: The Sinister Shadow
by Will Murray and Lester Dent, writing as Kenneth Robeson.
copyright 2015, Altus Press

For the last several weeks, I've been reading the e-book version of Doc Savage: The Sinister Shadow, a new pulp novel by Will Murray, in which The Shadow and Doc Savage each battle a mysterious new villain calling himself The Funeral Director, eventually joining forces to defeat him. An afterword to the book explains that early in his career as a pulp writer, Lester Dent, Doc Savage's creator, was asked by editors at Street and Smith, publishers of The Shadow Magazine, to submit some sample chapters and an outline for a Shadow story. Dent's first effort was rejected, but later, the editors asked him to write the very first Doc Savage novel, The Man of Bronze, using the pseudonym Kenneth Robeson. With the permission of the estate of Lester Dent and of Advance Magazine Publishers, Inc., who now own the copyrights to The Shadow, Murray wrote this new novel using portions of Dent's sample chapters and fleshing out and rewriting the outline.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I'm delighted to see The Shadow back in print with a new adventure. I've been a fan of The Shadow ever since my first introduction to old-time radio in the 1970s and finding reprints of Walter B. Gibson's Shadow novels at my local library at about the same time. On the other hand, I've never been a particularly big fan of Doc Savage, finding him a bit too much of a stuffed shirt and a goody-goody for my taste, but I'm willing to put up with him if it means I get to see The Shadow back in action.

This new novel opens in the 1930s as wealthy men throughout New York City are mysteriously dying of heart attacks. Both Doc Savage and The Shadow, however, suspect that these heart attacks are not natural occurrences and are being caused by some outside agent. It is revealed that many of these men had criminal connections that they wished to keep secret, and were being blackmailed by someone calling himself The Funeral Director.

One of the men being blackmailed, however, is Lamont Cranston, millionaire and sometime alias of The Shadow. Unlike the radio version of Lamont Cranston, who actually was The Shadow, in this novel and in Walter B. Gibson's original pulps, Lamont Cranston was merely one of many aliases and assumed identities used by The Shadow. The real Lamont Cranston goes to see Theodore Marley "Ham" Brooks, a prominent attorney and one of Doc Savage's closest associates, one of his hand-picked "Fabulous Five" personal assistants. Cranston believes that the mysterious personage calling himself The Shadow and making weekly radio broadcasts may actually be The Funeral Director. Brooks suggests that they go to see Doc Savage and present the problem to him, but before they can reach Doc's headquarters, they are kidnapped by minions of The Funeral Director.

This sends both The Shadow and Doc Savage into action--at first on a collision course. Doc suspects that The Shadow and The Funeral Director are one and the same, but the real Shadow has to clear his name and prove to Doc that he is not the villain. Doc also disapproves of The Shadow because The Shadow is willing to use violence, including gunplay, to get the information he wants, while Doc and his associates prefer to use Doc's special "mercy bullets" that contain a nonlethal anesthetic. The Shadow is not above killing criminals, while Doc prefers to rehabilitate them using surgery and a stint at his special "criminal college," a hidden facility in upstate New York.

The Shadow races to find Lamont Cranston, while Doc and his friends Andrew Blodgett "Monk" Mayfair, a brilliant chemist, and Thomas "Long Tom" Roberts, a genius electrical engineer, likewise scramble to locate Ham Brooks. We are told that Doc's other companions, William Harper "Johnny" Littlejohn and John "Renny" Renwick, are out of the country pursuing their own adventures. There are many twists and turns, red herrings, and dead ends, but eventually we learn that The Funeral Director is an old foe of The Shadow, and his aim is to hold Cranston for ransom, thereby drawing The Shadow into a final confrontation. When Cranston's niece Weltha is unable to raise the funds to pay the ransom, The Funeral Director releases Cranston and kidnaps Weltha instead. Eventually, Doc and The Shadow realize they have a common enemy and join forces to defeat the villain. Doc and The Shadow, despite disagreeing over each other's methods, each recognize that the other is ultimately on the side of justice and declare an uneasy truce, if not an alliance.

Author Will Murray displays a thorough knowledge of the mythology and details surrounding both heroes, and the book is loaded with inside references that will make fans of both characters smile and nod in recognition. Three of The Shadow's most famous agents, Cliff Marsland, Harry Vincent, and Clyde Burke all make guest appearances and contribute to the plot at key moments.The author also introduces the eerie and memorable device of having The Funeral Director communicate with both his underlings and intended victims by means of tiny recording machines shaped like coffins.

My one real criticism of the book has to do with its prose style. It's impossible to tell how much was written by Lester Dent himself so long ago, and how much was written by Will Murray a good bit later, but I found the book rife with stilted dialogue, clumsy awkwardly constructed sentences, sentence fragments, and outright grammatical errors that called attention to themselves, slowed down the pace of the story, and took away from my enjoyment. In a pulp style action adventure story, the action should move at breakneck speed, or at least a brisk clip. I don't read a novel with an editor's blue pencil in hand, but gross mistakes in style, usage, and grammar jarred me as a reader and took me out of the story just as huge potholes in the highway can distract you from enjoying a Sunday drive. Will Murray may be a fine storyteller, but he needs a better editor. He's written several new Doc Savage titles for a series called "The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage," but I'd like to see what he can do with a straight Shadow story. Will he write one? Only The Shadow knows!

The Return of the Writin' Fool!

From Left to Right: Omar, The Escapist, Big Al, and Miss Plum Blossom.

Hooray, Huzzah, and Hallelujah! For the first time in ages, I managed to complete a work of fiction. This weekend I put the finishing touches on "Curse of the Golden Dragon," a piece of fanfiction featuring Michael Chabon's The Escapist. I also used Dragon Naturally Speaking software to dictate it, so the story is significant for another reason: it's my first piece of fiction created almost entirely by dictation. I haven't yet decided if I'll put it up on a blog or a website somewhere so that all and sundry can admire my handiwork. Some time ago, I conceived the idea of creating a separate blog and website for my fanfiction and original fiction that would be somewhat similar to an old time pulp magazine, but this second website suffered from shameful neglect. It hasn't been updated in over a year. Even this blog, as you can see, gentle reader, has languished from inattention. No matter. The blog begins again today.

In many ways, this story was a return to my roots. Over 10 years ago, on the recommendation of a friend, I read Michael Chabon's remarkable, Pulitzer prize-winning novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, a loving tribute to the Golden Age of comics, pulp fiction, and old-time radio. The novel itself is the story of how two down-and-out Jewish kids in New York City in the late 1930s create the comic book character called The Escapist, who becomes the lost hero of comics' Golden Age. The character combines the strength and virtue of Superman with the escape artist abilities of Harry Houdini. The novel touches on many broader and deeper themes including portraits of Prague and New York City from the 1930s to the 1950s; the beginnings of the comic book industry; the "high art" of literature versus the "low art" of a comic book; and the mysteries of the creative process, especially how events in the "real" lives of the novel's characters get translated into the adventures of their fictional creation. There is also a strong pro-gay rights and gay marriage subtext, as one of the central characters, Sammy Clay, discovers that he is gay and must carefully suppress his sexual identity in an environment that is very hostile to same-sex relationships. As a supporter of traditional marriage, I found this last element to be the most problematic thing about the book, but it's hard not to feel sympathy for Sammy in those circumstances.

I was so moved by this story that I was inspired to write a piece of Escapist fanfic as a get well card for my friend when she became seriously ill. It launched me on a journey of exploration into the world of comic book superheroes that I've been on ever since. Since then, I've had ideas for other Escapist stories, including the one I just finished. I had this story more or less completely mapped out in my mind, but it lay unfinished on my hard drive. I finally decided to complete it when another favorite superhero series I really enjoy, "The Red Panda Adventures" podcast, aired what sounded like its final episode. I felt almost as if someone had to take up the torch and continue telling superhero stories. The world still needs heroes, perhaps now more than ever, and I believe that comic book superhero stories, at their best, inspire us to think that even ordinary people like ourselves, in moments of crisis, can rise to the occasion and become heroes. Comic book superheroes, for all their melodrama and ridiculous costumes, show us images of the people we wish we could be, of the people we want to be. I want to be a hero, but if I can't be a hero, at least I want to be someone who creates heroes for the rest of us.

Here There Be Dragons!

I'm dictating this blog post using Dragon Naturally Speaking dictation software. As promised, my brother Bill came to Charlotte this weekend and installed the software and I've started playing around with it. It's really quite remarkable. The bundle he bought also includes the Dragon Naturally Speaking For Dummies book. According to the book, right out of the box the software is about 99% accurate. I found this to be largely true. I can update my Facebook status, and I'm learning how to use Dragon Naturally Speaking to dictate text, and eventually, I hope, to resume work on my fiction writing without even touching the keyboard and mouse; or at least touching them as little as possible. The ultimate goal is to be able to dictate stuff while I'm tilted back in my wheelchair. I'm getting there! It's exciting. I still can't order the computer to produce a cup of Earl Grey tea (Ha! The software even automatically capitalized Earl Grey! Captain Picard would be delighted); but with the next generation of Dragon software, who knows?

More Adventures in Dictation

A few days ago I tried an interesting little experiment. Just for fun I tried dictating a snippet of a fiction project I'm working on using the ListNote dictation app and my Android smartphone which uses Google's voice recognition technology. It's surprisingly accurate, but there are some limitations. You do have to speak slowly and carefully and pause frequently to see if the software correctly interpreted what you said. As you speak, the words you say (or more accurately, the words Google thinks you said) slowly appear in a tiny text window in the app. The app *DID* distinguish between "Wales" and "whales" (the word I wanted was "Wales"), but not between "wore" and "war." (The word I wanted was "wore"). The app and Google working together do recognize many proper names (such as for characters and specific places) and and will automatically capitalize them. Google also has a certain ability to learn specific, unusual words you use frequently and learns to reproduce them correctly. You also have the ability to type in corrections manually using the phone's virtual keyboard. All that said, however, dictating a lengthy document such as an entire short story or chapter of a novel might be a lengthy and perhaps tedious process, but with time and practice it might become easier.

When using the ListNote app and Google's voice recognition capabilities, you do have to pronounce commonly used punctuation marks: period, question mark, exclamation point, comma, and colon, for example. In most cases, you simply say the word and you get the punctuation mark you want. The spoken commands "new line" or "new paragraph" will insert the equivalent of a line break or paragraph break into your document. However, for some unknown reason, the command "quotation mark" works less than 50% of the time. Sometimes, particularly near the beginning of a document, when you say "quotation mark," you will get the desired punctuation, but more often you will get the words "quotation mark" fully spelled out. I have no idea why this might be. Obviously, this poses a problem if you are writing fiction and using dialogue between characters. It's possible that the developers of this app imagined that it would be used mostly for nonfiction expository writing, such as business and professional purposes, so indicating, creating, or reproducing dialogue would not be an issue. I can only hope that future versions of the software will correct the problem. Another thing that puzzles me about the app is the seeming inability to automatically capitalize the first word after a period. Sometimes, if you pause for several seconds between the end of one sentence and the beginning of another, the software will capitalize the first word of the new sentence, but not always. Capitalization for the first word of a sentence is a basic rule of English grammar, and I don't understand why that rule isn't written into the software somewhere. Back to the drawing board, software developers!

Test post

This is another test post of Blogger's  dictation feature. The first post seems to have frozen up on me and I can't delete it or publish it. It seems to be stuck in some sort of electronic limbo. Let's see if this post is more successful.

Restart, Reboot, Reset, Re . . .

Niall rolls up to his blog, blows away the dust, sweeps away the cobwebs, taps it gently, and says:

"Hello? Is this thing on?"

Well, after what could be one of the most epic blog fades in history, I've decided to restart this crazy blog thing. I really have no explanation for my absence (except possibly a serious addiction to Facebook). My previous blog post was in August. Late Summer faded into Fall, Fall faded into Winter, and now Winter has faded into Spring. April showers and all that, dontcha know.

Usually after Christmas I go into a kind of blue funk that lasts through January and February, but usually in March and April I feel myself coming back to life. I wouldn't exactly call it Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) but sometimes it sure feels like it. I feel as though I really don't have very much to say that's interesting, either about myself or about the Catholic faith and the Catholic Church or any of my other passions or interests. What has been said about the Catholic Church has usually been said better and in a more timely fashion by writers far better than I. I've thought about shutting the blog down or at least moving to another blogging platform for a new look and a fresh start. For now though, I've decided to keep the blog where it is and keep going.

Now that Spring is here, however, I feel the itch to do some writing, and I thought perhaps it would be best to start small with some new blog posts. I have been working a tiny bit on some unfinished fiction projects that have lain dormant for a long time, and perhaps I'll have more to say about that later. My renewed interest in writing isn't helped by the fact that I'm frequently hampered by pain in my lower back, legs, and feet that seems to be getting steadily worse. About the only things that really help are prescription pain relievers and sitting with my wheelchair seat tilted back at an angle. Unfortunately with the wheelchair seat tilted back, it's impossible to use the keyboard and mouse. However, I'm thinking about possible solutions including using a lap tray and wireless keyboard or even dictating my stories to at least get them out of my head.

It also didn't help that in the last few days I discovered my computer was infested with malware, spyware, and for all I know, under-ware, that made it nearly impossible to use the internet without millions of annoying ads and pop-ups appearing. Desperate for a solution, I had to call HP, renew the warranty on my now aging desktop machine, and get a couple of technicians to take over the computer  remotely and purge it of all the offending unwanted software. A whole afternoon and at least $50 later, the computer is now malware free, at least for the moment. The whole experience has made me skittish about using, and especially downloading, anything from the internet, at least for the time being. It made me nostalgic for the days of manual typewriters or the pre-internet days of the late '80s and early '90s where each computer was a standalone machine and one could use it without fear of being infected by something evil.

So that, Dear Reader (if I have any regular readers left), in a few brief paragraphs, is a summary of where the blog is today. I will do my utmost to be a more regular and faithful correspondent. Until next time, friends.

Your humble and obedient servant,
Niall Mor

So Where Have I Been?

My Precioussss!

Nowhere much, but the blog has suffered, unfortunately. In May I received an Amazon Kindle Fire from my brother Bill, something I'd been hoping for and hinting at for quite some time whenever possible birthday and Christmas presents were mentioned. I am ready to proclaim this thing the coolest gadget in the history of gadgets. Being able to take a library of e-books, apps, and podcasts, with me anywhere I go on one little easily portable device has been enormously liberating for me. On these lazy summer days, I can read, chat on Facebook, play a game, or surf the web from anywhere in the house, including my nice comfy bed if I so choose. Interestingly, I find myself downloading a slew of superhero-themed e-books and comics, returning to an old interest of mine. The Kindle revolutionizes  the experience of reading, so I'm dusting off some old, unfinished superhero writing projects of my own and daydreaming about the time when they just might appear on an e-book reader near you. We shall see.

Surely Not, Sherlock!

Well, I wasted two hours of my life last night.

No, not watching the snooze-fest that was Seattle's absolute trouncing of Denver in Superbowl XLVIII, although that might have been preferable. No, I watched the third season finale of Sherlock, the BBC's postmodern update and reboot of the Sherlock Holmes stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, with Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Dr. John Watson. I watched the first season of this show when it premiered on PBS in the United States a couple of years ago, wasn't especially impressed, and skipped the second and third seasons. I decided to give the show another look, however, when some recent late night pain and insomnia kept me up, and I needed something diverting to watch while waiting for the pain medications to kick in. Before I knew it, I was hooked—not on the pain medicine, but on Sherlock. With each "season" being only three episodes long, it was a fairly simple matter to get caught up. I plowed through seasons 1 and 2, and the two previous episodes of season 3 in order to prepare for the big finale last night. What a letdown!

For those who haven't seen the show, perhaps a few words of explanation are in order, but here there be spoilers. You have been warned. In this contemporary update of the Holmes universe, some elements and vestiges of the original stories remain, although often transmuted and transmogrified.  Holmes is still a brilliant but asocial, eccentric oddball, a violinist, and a sometime nicotine addict, residing at 221B Baker Street, London, and attempting to make a living as the world's only "consulting detective." In his day job, he's a pathologist at London's St. Bartholomew's Hospital, but he's forever running his own bizarre experiments on the cadavers to test equally bizarre theories that his coworkers find incomprehensible. His coworkers, however, are just as incomprehensible to Sherlock as he is to them. One of his colleagues, the timid, mousy Molly Hooper (brilliantly played by Louise Brealey) has a massive crush on him, but he's oblivious to her attentions. When Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade of Scotland Yard (Rupert Graves) calls Holmes a psychopath, Holmes snaps back, "High functioning sociopath. Do your research."

While Conan Doyle's original Holmes was definitely an asocial eccentric, he could, if need be, muster a modicum of social skills, and, on occasion, a kind of gallantry, particularly, if a woman was in danger. He could rally to the defense of a damsel in distress. For much of this new series, Holmes, as played by Cumberbatch, isn't that classy. He's simply arrogant and condescending to anyone he considers his intellectual inferior, which is to say most people. To put it bluntly, he's a jerk. For much of the series, Holmes insists he isn't really interested in questions of right and wrong, good and evil, and the needs of the people who come to him for help. People are merely ciphers, minor factors in a complex intellectual problem. However, as the series progresses, we see that despite his protestations to the contrary, he really does have a sense of right and wrong and a desire to help people achieve justice. In a way, the series is as much about Sherlock's coming out of his shell and learning to form normal social relationships as it is about solving mysteries. Sherlock matures as the series progresses, especially through his relationship with Watson, but with each season being only three episodes long, we don't get to see that relationship develop as much as we might like.

Sherlock's brother Mycroft, on the other hand, remains largely the same throughout the series. Brilliantly played by series co-creator Mark Gatiss, Mycroft "is the British government," a sinister and calculating spook and spymaster, holding a shadowy but powerful position in the British intelligence services. Mycroft does have a more human side, but we don't get to see it until the very end of the series. The long-suffering Mrs. Hudson (Una Stubbs), Holmes's housemaid in the original stories, is now his landlady, who owes Sherlock a favor: he saw to it that her drug-dealing, abusive ex-husband was sent to prison.

Watson, for his part, is a veteran of the current war in Afghanistan, who has been advised by his therapist to keep a blog as a means of treating his post-traumatic stress disorder. Holmes and Watson, both in need of a roommate, are introduced through a mutual acquaintance, and a legendary partnership is born. Watson blogs about Holmes's adventures, the website attracts new clients, and the two detectives battle an assortment of serial killers, art thieves, terrorists, assassins, and blackmailers, most of whom, it seems, are under the control of the psychotic master criminal Jim Moriarty (chillingly played by Irish actor Andrew Scott). Throughout the series there are all sorts of clever, winks, nods, and references to the original stories, from episode titles and names of characters to plot points and little passing observations Holmes makes. Often the writers will combine and update elements from two or more different Conan Doyle stories and give them a contemporary spin. Most of these references and updates are clever and well done, but not all: I wasn't a big fan of making Irene Adler, the opera singer who actually manages to outwit Holmes in the original Conan Doyle story "A Scandal in Bohemia" into a high class prostitute and dominatrix in the updated version, but I was willing to overlook it because the series up to that point had been pretty good.

I suspected the show was headed for real trouble, however, as season 2 ended and season 3 began. At the end of season 2, in an episode loaded with references to the Conan Doyle story, "The Final Problem," Holmes and Moriarty have an epic confrontation, Moriarty apparently succeeds in destroying Holmes's reputation, Moriarty apparently commits suicide, and Holmes likewise apparently leaps from the roof of St. Bartholomew's Hospital to a bloody, suicidal death right in front of a helpless Doctor Watson. As season 3 opens, however, we find that Holmes never really died and his apparent death was all a piece of remarkably clever stagecraft managed by British Intelligence. By this time, Watson has moved on and proposed to Mary Morstan, the love of his life (who originally appears in the Conan Doyle novel, The Sign of the Four), and is furious to find that Holmes deceived him. Since we don't get to see the relationship between Holmes and Watson develop in depth over time, and because Holmes is such a jerk for so much of the time we do see, Watson's emotional collapse at Holmes's apparent death and outrage at Holmes's fraud and deception, don't ring entirely true. The second episode of season 3, which takes place on Watson's wedding day, is little more than a clip show and a comic relief episode in which Holmes struggles valiantly to give a best man speech, recount some "humorous" cases, and solve a mystery that's taking place at the wedding reception itself.

The real deal-breaker for me, however came with last night's season finale. Holmes and Watson, having forged an uneasy truce after Holmes's deception, go up against a particularly loathsome blackmailer, tabloid magnate Charles Augustus Magnusson ("Charles Augustus Milverton" in Conan Doyle's original story). Mary Morstan Watson, John Watson's wife, is also going after Magnusson, because he knows that she—get ready for this—is actually a foreign intelligence agent and international assassin posing as Mary Morstan. Sherlock deduces the truth about Mary and tricks her into confessing to him and to John. John is again outraged, but somewhat incredibly, decides to forgive both Mary and Sherlock. Sherlock and John return to confront Magnusson, but discover that all the incriminating information Magnusson has about Mary is in his head, and only in his head—there are no paper documents or files on computer hard drives. When Sherlock points out that Magnusson thus has no proof of Mary's real identity, Magnusson coolly replies, "I don't need proof. I'm in newspapers."

Knowing that Magnusson will be a threat to John and Mary as long as he's alive, Sherlock calmly shoots Magnusson in cold blood. In order to save Sherlock from a long prison sentence, Mycroft proposes a deal: Sherlock can go to Eastern Europe and perform some high level espionage for the British government, or he can go to jail. Sherlock agrees to do the spy work, leading to what looks to a final parting between himself and John Watson. Just minutes into Sherlock's exile, however, Mycroft calls him back to England; it seems none other than Moriarty is alive and up to his old tricks. End episode, roll credits.

Will there be a fourth season? I don't know. Will I be watching it? After that turkey of an episode, I really don't know. I don't mind the secret agent stuff so much if it's done in moderation. From my reading of the original stories, I know that at times, largely because of Mycroft, Holmes is called upon to be as much a secret agent as a detective, performing certain highly confidential services for Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria and the other crowned heads of Europe, so there is that precedent in the source material. This reboot, however, really overdoes that whole aspect, transforming Holmes from a nerdy science geek who solves crimes into some kind of badass James Bond-style superspy. I like James Bond and superspy stories too, but when I tune in expecting one kind of genre and get something else, it really bugs me.

It would have been perfectly plausible to imagine what might happen if Magnusson knew something incriminating about Mary Morstan. It would have also been perfectly plausible to imagine what might have happened if she had confronted him about it; but that incriminating something should have been something believable. Maybe, years before, she had embezzled from her employer, or had an affair with an important married man. She should have been what she had been portrayed as up to that point, a middle-aged woman happy to find love at last, and desperate to keep an incriminating secret; not a spy or an assassin, or some ridiculous baloney like that! Come on! And the whole "Sherlock and Mycroft at home with their parents for Christmas" subplot? Please! Honestly, sometimes I think even I could write something better than that. Why don't I?

Writing with Drive

My fiendish plan worked! As I said in my previous post, I've been thinking lately about doing some writing, both dusting off some old unfinished projects, and starting on some new stuff. Both of these projects would require some library research, so I got the bright idea to upload what I had written to Google Drive (Google's online word processing app) so that whether I was at home or at the library, I would have access to all my files without the aid of a laptop, tablet, smartphone, or other portable device that I can't afford right now. This morning on a visit to the nearest branch of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Library, I logged into Google Drive, found one of my unfinished stories, and made a small addition. When I got home and checked my computer, there was the addition, ready and waiting. I've spent the last few minutes rereading what I've written so far and tinkering with it. It's a strange feeling; it's been years since I worked on this story, but in another sense, it feels as if I've never been away. Can I keep this going? I hope so.

2014: Looking Ahead

In my previous post, I looked back over the major events of my life in 2013. Now I'd like to look ahead a bit and think about what I'd like to accomplish in the New Year 2014. It's been frequently noted (indeed, I'm sure most of us can see it in our own lives) that most "New Year's Resolutions" fail miserably. As my Facebook friend and fellow blogger William "Billy" Newton observes, based on statistical evidence, human beings tend to make grand, noble-sounding plans to "lose weight," "get in shape," "get organized," or "be a better person," but usually give up in a short time because our goals aren't specific and measurable enough. If your goal isn't specific enough to be measured, how will you know when you've reached it? If you don't know when you've reached your goal, what will motivate you to keep pressing on until you've achieved it?

I myself am notorious for making grand plans, announcing a course of action, and then failing to follow through, usually when I realize it's going to take more work than I figured to reach my goal. Yet at the same time I've been thinking about how the New Year does gives us an opportunity to take stock, start over again with a clean slate, and maybe, just maybe, do things a little differently, and a little better than we did in the past. I'm especially conscious of this, having recently relocated to a new city and a new and better living situation than I've had for many years. I'd like to set out some goals (I hesitate to call them "resolutions" because somehow that seems more formal, grand, and ominous) that I'd like to achieve in the new year. In setting them down here, I realize I'm committing myself to something. I may look back on this post in a year and realize I've failed miserably and embarrassed myself, but on the other hand, writing these goals down and posting them in public may just shame me into keeping them. Here goes.

I have three broad areas of interest in my life right now: broadening and deepening my Catholic faith and my relationship with Jesus Christ; resuming and continuing my genealogical and family history research; and resuming and continuing my creative writing. I have specific goals I'd like to achieve in each of these areas.

As far as my Catholic faith is concerned, I would like to continue attending the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite (the Traditional Latin Mass) and learn more about the spirituality behind it until I am as comfortable and familiar with the Traditional or Extraordinary Form as I am with the vernacular or Ordinary Form. I would like to go through the entire calendar year (from this past June when I started to going to EF Masses until next June) and through the entire liturgical year (from Advent to Advent) with the Extraordinary Form. I've said on Facebook that somebody needs to write The Extraordinary Form for Dummies or something like it, and lately, I've even begun to entertain the preposterous idea that I could be that somebody. I would know when the book would reach its intended audience of dummies because I would be the Chief Dummy. I'm not a theologian, liturgist, priest, or religious; I'm just a poor, dumb schmuck in the pews, trying to get to heaven like everybody else. If the book made sense and was helpful to me, maybe it would make sense and be helpful to other people. I've begun making notes and doing preliminary research. I will aim to have a first draft ready by this time next year.

I would also like to learn to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, but this may be too ambitious if I am also writing and doing research. I purchased a breviary and The Divine Office for Dodos by Madeline Pecora Nugent, a guide for learning the Divine Office, by several years ago, but found both the learning process and the guidebook more difficult than expected. Nugent tries so hard to make her writing style cheerful and encouraging that it actually backfires and comes across as annoyingly chirpy and a bit condescending, cheering the reader on as if he is a slightly dimwitted child. Daria Sockey's book, The Everyday Catholic's Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours, has been recommended to me, and I'd like to try it. I will purchase the book this week and see how far I can get with praying the Hours by this time next year.

As far as my genealogical research is concerned, my research has been stalled for over a year and I'd really like to change that. I've been able to establish that my great-great grandfather James E. Leslie (1823-1875) was born in Iredell County, NC,  moved to Lowndes County, AL some time before 1850, set up a blacksmith business, and served in a Confederate cavalry regiment as a blacksmith during the Civil War. However, I don't know where in Iredell County he was born, who his parents were, and when or why he moved to Alabama. I sent e-mail and made a phone call to the Genealogical Society of Iredell County but received no reply whatsoever. I will make contact with the GSIC by the end of this month, and if that fails, I will see what I can find through other channels including the Iredell County Courthouse and the North Carolina Office of Archives and History.

Finally, as far as my creative writing goes, I have no fewer than three unfinished superhero origin stories (which sometimes feel like three versions of the same story) on my hard drive waiting to be completed. My interest in the superhero concept has waxed and waned periodically over the years since I first discovered the HeroMachine website and software, but I'm still intrigued by these characters I've created with it, and it's always bothered me that I haven't yet been able to finish their stories. Maybe this is the year. I will have a completed draft of at least one origin story ready by this time next year.

Pournelle, Orwell, and Heinlein on Writing and More

As readers of this blog may be aware, from time to time I dabble in the craft of fiction writing. I owe my blogging colleague KT Cat a hat tip for pointing me to this short article by science fiction author Jerry Pournelle on what it takes to become a writer. Because the original article was written in 1996, Dr. Pournelle spends a good bit of it discussing software tools to help beginning writers that are now obsolete and unavailable, or that have been incorporated into other more recent products. His general advice on the craft of writing still holds, however. For me, these are the money paragraphs:

The secret of becoming a writer is that you have to write. You have to write a lot. You also have to finish what you write, even though no one wants it yet. If you don't learn to finish your work, no one will ever want to see it. The biggest mistake new writers make is carrying around copies of unfinished work to inflict on their friends.

I am sure it has been done with less, but you should be prepared to write and throw away a million words of finished material. By finished, I mean completed, done, ready to submit, and written as well as you know how at the time you wrote it. You may be ashamed of it later, but that's another story.

I usually begin a project in a great transport of enthusiasm but become bored or disenchanted with it once I see that it will take more work and more words than I anticipated to tell the story properly and bring it to a conclusion. As a result, I have a large number of unfinished fiction projects lounging around my hard drive in various states of completion. I'm great at conceiving ideas for stories and not so great at executing and following through on them. I must finish, finish, finish!

Dr. Pournelle's article includes this link to some admirably concise writing advice from George Orwell. Here are six questions every writer should ask, and six general rules to follow:

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 

1. What am I trying to say?
2. What words will express it?
3. What image or idiom will make it clearer?
4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

And he will probably ask himself two more:

1. Could I put it more shortly?
2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

One can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.  

Finally, a reader commenting on Pournelle's original article includes this link to a speech by science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein at the U. S. Naval Academy in 1973. In his address, Heinlein, a Naval Academy graduate, offers his thoughts on writing in general, science fiction writing in particular, and, appropriate to his audience, reflections on the values of courage, honor, devotion to duty, and patriotism. His remarks were later published as a guest editorial in Analog magazine. I found Heinlein's remarks on the patriotic virtues particularly appropriate, given that we have just finished celebrating Memorial Day.

Like Pournelle and Orwell, Heinlein offers a few simple rules for effective and profitable writing:

First: You must write.

Second: You must finish what you write.

Third: You must refrain from rewriting except to editorial order.

Fourth: You must place it on the market.

Fifth: You must keep it on the market until sold.

In explaining his third point, Heinlein makes a crucial distinction between ordinary, common sense editing and a wholesale, top-to-bottom rewriting that fundamentally changes the story:

The efficient way to write, as with any other work, is to do it right the first time!

I don't mean that a manuscript should not be corrected and cut. Few writers are perfect in typing, spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Most of us have to go back and correct such things, and — above all — strike out surplusage and fancy talk. The manuscript then needs to be retyped—for neatness; retyping is not rewriting. Rewriting means a new approach, a basic change in form.

Don't do it!

Two other interesting points from Heinlein's remarks jumped out at me. First was his estimate that at any given time, approximately half the literate adult population thinks about writing something for publication. A much smaller percentage, however, actually takes the time and trouble to write. A still smaller fraction dares to actually submit work for publication, and an even tinier minority tries to make a living by writing. In other words, writing is something that many of us dream of doing, but few of us have the courage and gumption to actively pursue.

Second (and this was interesting to me as a person with a disability) was Heinlein's frank admission that he became a writer only because a chronic illness (pulmonary tuberculosis) ended his naval career in 1934, the depths of the Great Depression, when few jobs were available. He pointed out that he was only one of a long string of authors who had become writers only because illness or disability prevented them from pursuing more strenuous and physically demanding occupations. There has always been room for those with disabilities in the world of writing.

Life Imitates Art?

I once had plans for a fiction project that I ultimately dismissed as too silly. Something involving the discovery of priceless artifacts with mystical powers, evil druids on the loose in Ireland and America, and, oh yeah . . . costumed crime fighters. Sort of a superhero/urban fantasy mashup. Justice League with a Celtic accent. Ridiculous, right? Then along came this item from Irish blogger Deiseach that sounds like something straight out of the story I was planning to write:

It seems that in April of this year, the Irish police were investigating a burglary at a drugstore in County Roscommon and recovered not only the loot from the robbery but also priceless Irish artifacts dating from approximately 2000 B. C. that the original owner of the shop kept in his safe. His daughter, who took over the business after he died, had seen the artifacts but had no idea how old or how valuable they were. The artifacts, a gold necklace and two gold discs, will be turned over to Ireland's national history museum for study and safekeeping. Here's a link to the story in the Irish Independent newspaper and a link to the story as reported by RTÉ, Ireland's national TV network.

Something about this story just strikes me as so weird. Did the guy know what he had? Did he have the artifacts appraised, or did he at least take them on "Irish Antiques Roadshow" or something? Did the thieves know what they were stealing, or were they just looking for cash and drugs? Why did the guy just keep the stuff in his safe and not tell anybody, least of all his family? We'll probably never know. Weird. Just weird.

On Reading "On Fairy-Stories"

My long-awaited copy of J. R. R. Tolkien's collection of essays, The Monsters and the Critics, arrived today (I didn't realize my copy had come all the way from Merrie Olde England), but it was worth the wait. I ordered the book because it contains one essay I particularly wanted to read, "On Fairy-Stories," that provides a particularly illuminating glimpse into Tolkien's thought and a rousing defense of speculative and fantastic fiction, especially from a Christian perspective.

Originally delivered as a lecture at St. Andrews University in Scotland in 1939, "On Fairy-Stories" is a long and somewhat rambling essay that covers a lot of intellectual territory. Tolkien displays a near-encyclopedic grasp of ancient and medieval European literature to support his points. What I used to say about one of my own graduate school professors applies even more so to Tolkien: "He probably forgot more about medieval literature than I'll ever know."

Tolkien begins by trying to define fairy stories, freely admitting that he knows more about what fairy stories are not than about what they are. They are not mere juvenile stories about tiny beings with wings [e. g., Tinkerbell]; they are not merely stories about travels to exotic lands and faraway places on earth; and they are not simple falsehoods. What they are, Tolkien spends the rest of the essay elaborating. After briefly discussing the possible origins of fairy stories, Tolkien begins to warm to his topic when he describes how the mind works to create fairy stories in the first place:

 The human mind endowed with the powers of generalization and abstraction, sees not only green-grass, discriminating it from other things (and finding it fair to look upon), but sees that it is green as well as being grass. But how powerful, how stimulating to the very faculty that produced it, was the invention of the adjective: no spell or incantation in Faërie is more potent. . . .

 The mind that thought of light, heavy, grey, yellow, still, swift also conceived of magic that would make heavy things light and able to fly, turn grey lead into yellow gold, and the still rock into swift water. If it could do one, it could do the other; it inevitably did both. When we can take green from grass, blue from heaven, and red from blood, we have already an enchanter's power—upon one plane; and the desire to wield that power in the world external to our mind awakes. . . . But in such 'fantasy,' as it is called, new form is made; Faërie begins; Man becomes a sub-creator.

  Tolkien takes particular exception to the belief that fairy stories are fit only for children, as if children are somehow more simple-minded than adults, more eager to believe the fantastic, and more willing to suspend disbelief than adults are:

Is there any essential connection between children and fairy-stories? Is there any call for comment, if an adult reads them for himself? Reads them as tales, that is, not studies them as curios. Adults are allowed to collect and study anything, even old theater-programs or paper bags. . . . Fairy-stories in the modern lettered world have been relegated to the 'nursery,' as shabby or old-fashioned furniture is relegated to the playroom, primarily because the adults do not want it and do not mind if it is misused.

(As an aside, I would say that thanks in large part to the phenomenal popularity of Tolkien's own works, including The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, their many imitations and derivatives published since, and contemporary works of fantasy such as the Harry Potter books, "fairy stories" are more widely accepted among adults than ever before. Tolkien's next major point about the "willing suspension of disbelief" still holds):

Children are capable, of course, of literary belief, when the story-maker's art is good enough to produce it. That state of mind has been called 'willing suspension of disbelief.' But this does not seem to me a good description of what happens. What really happens is that the story-maker proves a successful 'sub-creator.' He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is 'true' : it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed.

Having considered what fairy stories are (or are not) and how they are constructed, Tolkien next considers the purpose and value of fairy stories. "Fairy stories were plainly not concerned with possibility, but with desirability. If they awakened desire, satisfying it while often whetting it unbearably, they succeeded," he writes. Based on memories of his own boyhood, Tolkien argues the most fundamental desire a successful fairy story can arouse is the desire to see those places, creatures, and things that are totally strange, totally Other, totally alien to one's everyday experience, even if that Other is somehow dangerous:

The dragon had the trade-mark Of Faërie written plain upon him. In whatever world he had his being, it was an Other-world. Fantasy, the making or glimpsing of Other-worlds, was the heart of the desire of Faërie. I desired dragons with a profound desire. Of course I in my timid body did not wish to have them in my neighborhood . . . But the world that contained even the imagination of Fáfnir [a dragon from Germanic mythology] was richer and more beautiful at whatever cost of peril.

The dark and perilous aspects of some fairy stories, far from being harmful to children, can actually be beneficial to them, Tolkien argues:

Children are meant to grow up and not to become Peter Pans. Not to lose innocence and wonder; but to proceed on the appointed journey: that journey upon which it is certainly not better to travel hopefully than to arrive, though we must travel hopefully if we are to arrive. But it is one of the lessons of fairy stories . . . that on callow, lumpish, and selfish youth peril, sorrow, and the shadow of death can bestow dignity, and even sometimes wisdom.

One of the greatest purposes of a fairy-story, Tolkien seems to imply here, is to impart a great truth about life in our "Primary World," even as it moves and delights us by relating the adventures of characters in a totally imaginary "Secondary World." Far from being a waste of the human being's creative or imaginative abilities, the making of a genuine fairy story is the highest achievement of narrative art:

Anyone inheriting the fantastic device of human language can say the green sun. . . . [but to] make a Secondary World inside which the green sun will be credible, commanding Secondary Belief, will probably require labor and thought, and will certainly demand a special skill, a kind of elvish craft. Few will attempt such difficult tasks. But when they are attempted and in any degree accomplished then we have a rare achievement of Art: indeed, narrative art, story-making in its primary and most potent mode.

 Indeed, Tolkien insists, the human ability to create Secondary Worlds in fiction and to create tales of the beings who populate those worlds is not just an idle amusement, but a fundamental defining characteristic of human beings, a right given to them by God, who is Himself a creator of worlds and beings:

Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.

The ability to create secondary fictional worlds in which strange and fantastical things happen should give us the ability to look at our Primary World with fresh and appreciative eyes:

We should look at green again and be startled anew (but not blinded) by blue and yellow and red. We should meet the centaur and the dragon, and then suddenly behold, like the ancient shepherds, sheep, and dogs, and horses—and wolves. This recovery, fairy-stories help us to make. In that sense only a taste for them may make us, or keep us, childish.

Tolkien concludes his essay by discussing what he believes to be the most important characteristic of fairy-stories: what is sometimes called the happy ending, but more than that, the dramatic unexpected turn of events that heals and restores the characters and brings about real profound joy that was also totally unexpected. Tolkien calls this moment the complete opposite of tragedy or catastrophe and coins the term eucatastrophe to describe it:

In its fairy-tale—or otherworld—setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatatrophe , of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will), universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.

 Evangelium, of course, is the Latin word for the gospel, the "good news" of the Birth, Death, and Resurrection of Christ. By the Birth, Death, and Resurrection of Christ, "God redeemed the corrupt making-creatures, men, in a way fitting to this [story-making] aspect, as to others, of their strange nature." Tolkien suggests here that just as human nature may be redeemed by the death and resurrection of Christ, human fairy-stories and the human ability to make them, may be redeemed as well. The gospel, Tolkien suggests, is the ultimate fairy-story—not in the sense that it is false or imaginary—but in the sense that it contains marvels worthy of the best fairy stories and the greatest eucatastrophe imaginable. The Death and Resurrection of Christ, which looked at first like the greatest defeat in all of history achieved the salvation of the world. The most mind-boggling reality about the gospel, however, is that it is true:

But this story has entered History  and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation.

Does this mean, then, that once the greatest fairy-story has been told, there are no other fairy stories to tell? No, says Tolkien. On the contrary, if human nature has been redeemed by the Death and Resurrection of Christ, human fairy-stories and the human ability to make them may be redeemed as well. A well-made fairy story, with its evangelium and eucatastrophe, a message of incredible good news about a totally unexpected turn of events that brings incredible, unexpected joy, may awaken readers' imagination to the greatest and truest evangelium and eucatastrophe of all: the Death and Resurrection of Christ:

. . . in God's kingdom, the presence of the greatest does not depress the small. Redeemed Man is still man. Story, fantasy, still go on and should go on. The Evangelium has not abrogated legends; it has hallowed them, especially the 'happy ending.' The Christian has still to work, with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope, and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed. So great is the bounty with which he has been treated that he may now, perhaps, fairly dare to guess that in Fantasy he may now assist in the effoliation and multiple enrichment of creation. All tales may yet come true; and yet, at the last, redeemed, they may be as like and as unlike the forms that we give them as Man, fully redeemed, will be like and unlike the fallen that we know.

Readin' and 'Ritin' (But No 'Rithmetic)

Hello There! Yes, I know there's been some serious blog fade around here lately, but I am still alive and kicking, Thanks Be To God! I believe I'm finally over the consarned, goshdarned, !@#$%^&* medical problems that (sometimes literally) cramped my style for much of the summer. Now that I'm feeling more or less normal (whatever that is), I'm beginning to think again about serious questions, such as what I can do to support myself. I'm receiving disability payments and have some savings, but I'd like to be generating income as well as spending it.

Before I got sick, I was thinking about doing some fiction writing, resuming work on a project I had laid aside awhile back. I am slowly getting back into that. I'm a great one for thinking about writing, but not so hot on actually doing it. I have a pretty fierce inner critic who tells me that writing fiction is a waste of time and a way of avoiding reality (I think he's related to my Scottish Calvinist ancestors). However, when I can get him to shut up, I read and listen to other people's fiction. I've listened to two podcast versions of Treasure Island in honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day, and am currently reading Michael Flynn's excellent medieval Catholic science fiction novel Eifelheim and Phil and Kaja Foglio's "gaslamp fantasy comic" Girl Genius.

As if that weren't enough, I'm also listening to a  series of podcasts on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. In his introductory episode, the host of these podcasts, a professor of medieval literature, cites an essay of Tolkien's, "On Fairy Stories," that I just can't wait to read for myself. In it Tolkien argues that the urge to create imaginary worlds in fiction is a natural human desire since humans are made in the image and likeness of a God who is Himself a creator of worlds. Furthermore, the desire to create magical or fantastic worlds in which extraordinary things happen is not an escape from reality or a denial of reality but a reminder to humans that our world contains spiritual realities that go beyond what we can see or prove in ordinary day to day sense experience.

A Christian justification for writing speculative or fantastic fiction could be hugely liberating and could open up a whole new world of creativity for me. I have to ask myself, "Why shouldn't I try to create my own fictional worlds, worlds that could be every bit as exciting as the worlds I am currently visiting as a reader? Why shouldn't I find out if readers will enjoy visiting these worlds as much as I enjoyed creating them?

I am not suggesting that I will drop everything and try to become the next J. R. R. Tolkien, or the next J. K. Rowling, or even the next Stan Lee. I know that trying to make a living writing fiction is a long shot even under the best of circumstances. Most manuscripts are never published, most published books are never reviewed, and most reviewed books never sell millions of copies. Every author I've ever read who has written about the craft of writing, however, explains that real authors never write solely for the money. They write because there are stories that authors would like to tell, want to tell, and need to tell.

What I am suggesting is that I am going to see what stories I can tell, and see who else might like to read them. I'll probably never make a dime, but I might possibly make a few bucks and might even make millions, although I consider this last possibility highly unlikely. I just hope the journey will be fun. When I think about the situation in this light, the question becomes not so much, "What am I going to do to support myself?" as, "What can I do to keep the lights on and groceries in the fridge while I write?" The second is a far more interesting question than the first.

More Shameless Self-Promotion

In the hopes that I might get more reader feedback in response to my Shadow/Superman fan fiction story Shadows of Steel, I posted it on the FanFiction.net archive site. To go directly to my story, you can click this link, or you can go to the FanFiction.net main page, click on the "Movies" link, scroll through the list of movies until you find "Shadow," and click on it. Since my story is the most recent Shadow story posted, it will be at the top of the list. You can also find the story on my personal website.Hope you enjoy it!

"Shadows of Steel" Now Available!

Fans of Old-Time Radio
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Ladies and Gentlemen . . .

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Shadows of Steel: A Shadow/Superman Adventure

This is an all-new adventure in the classic style featuring two of the greatest heroes from The Golden Age of comics, pulp fiction, and old-time radio: Superman and The Shadow:

It is 1938. Lamont Cranston, The Shadow, has been kidnapped. Margo Lane appeals to her sister Lois Lane for help in finding Lamont, unaware that the old flame who has re-entered her life is at the center of the kidnap plot! Only the Man of Steel can save the Master of Darkness, and only the two heroes together can save a nation on the brink of war! Don't miss all the action in Shadows of Steel!

I had the basic idea for this story years ago when I realized the simple, blindingly obvious fact that Superman's girlfriend, Lois Lane, and The Shadow's girlfriend, Margo Lane, had the same last name. What if Lois and Margo Lane were related? Would that bring the two men, the two superheroes in their lives together? Of course it would! This story was the result. I've been working on it over a year now, and it's finally here! Do go read it and tell me what you think. Tell your friends, your relations, and complete strangers if necessary, about this story if you think they would like it. Since it involves two copyrighted and licensed characters, I can't possibly publish it via conventional means without being sued down to my last nickel for copyright infringement. So, like millions of other fan fiction or "fanfic" writers, I'm putting it up on the Web absolutely free for you good people to read and, I hope, to enjoy. Please send me feedback at: "niallmor at earthlink dot net," only replace the dot and the at as appropriate. (You know the drill). Cheerio!