My Journey in Writing, Ranting, and Woodworking

Henry came home from his first day, exhausted.  He had a strange look on his little face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said with a heavy sigh.

I looked at him. “You did a very nice job today.”

He grunted.

“Come on, you can tell me, what is bothering you?”

“I don’t know, I just thought it would be different.”

“Different how?”

He shrugged.  I set him on the shelf, with the other books, and said, “Let me tell you how it went. You sold 34 Kindle versions, 5 Nook downloads, and there are already 14 print copies.  That is excellent.”  I looked at Henry and he didn’t seem convinced.  “Here, check this out.”  I pointed to the computer monitor and held him up to read it.  “Our publisher sent this today; it is from Professor David Weiner.”

“Really?”  He read it out loud.

After a chapter or two I’m thinking, Well, this is fun enough to read. Artfully-unsophisticated, terse, old-fashioned style: like Dashiell Hammett, or Elmore Leonard. Fun enough characters — down-to-earth good guys and bad guys, broads you want to lay your coat across a puddle for. With some twilight zone thrown in just for fun. All a zany collection of cliches and stereotypes that kind of works, but will surely become boring in a couple more chapters. Except that it doesn’t, and I can’t put it down, and the characters emerge with dimension and depth, not so much through clever description, as without it. Through contexts skillfully constructed, and words avoided, allowing me to discover who they are rather than to be told. And so I find myself completely sucked in by a fine work of mellow jazz, full of powerful blue notes and silences. Can’t wait for the next one.

-Professor David Weiner

Henry smiled.  “I feel better.  Thanks.”