Tag: Books

Nefarious

~ Christine Goodnough ~ Leave a comment

The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is NEFARIOUS.

Nefarious, flagrantly wicked or evil, has its origins in the Latin nefas, meaning crime, from ne (without) and fas (right, or divine law). Synonyms being wicked, iniquitous, evil, wrong, villainous, and vicious.

Years ago the heroes were the good guys, standing for the right. Editors went for good role models. Villains were nefarious. Driven by greed or on a power trip, these vicious types wanted to dodge the law in order to control, steal, kill, destroy. Times have changed: today’s “flawed heroes” may dodge the law, thwart justice, control, steal, and kill. Think Philip Marlowe. They may be liars, drunks and brawlers; still, we should root for them because they have some ultimate good in mind. But forget the role model angle.

Now for a haiku that has nothing to do with literature, but all to do with a villain. Dedicated to those in my family who lost the battle to smoking-related cancers.

lung cancer
nefarious villain
the ashtray overflows

I Donate A Book

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 4 Comments

I see five days have past since I last posted. Lost interest in Bloganuary, for one thing: so much self-analysis. And I’m not ill – in fact I’ve been been feeling well enough. I’m rather spending time editing a book I wrote eight years ago. I’d like to get this done just in case the day comes when I feel too blah. I’m not expecting that, but you never know.

When my oldest grandson was in school and enthused about Hardy Boy mysteries, I offered to write one for him. At least along those lines: teens facing a challenge from criminals. However, I’ve chosen to make these young men Christians, which means a different response than chasing after bad guys and a lot of biff-sock-pow. I did one edit in 2018; now I need to polish it.

How times have changed since this series first saw the light! Both Hardy Boys got equal billing, one time you’d hear Joe’s surmising about a suspect, then Frank would be puzzled over a clue. Descriptions were limited and rarely did the writer pen more than a sentence or two about their feelings. Rather a lot of action and dialogue. I used that style; now those critiquing my story are complaining there should be only one main viewpoint/character and half as much dialogue–needs more scenic description. Sigh.

A few days back I read a post from Brian called The Power of a Children’s Book. Take a minute to read this interesting article. It brought to mind my childish effort to get other children to read what I thought was a great book.

Back when I was in Grade One I got THE UGLY DUCKLING as a present and I liked it so much. Today we’d say, “It resonated with me.” I loved how the rejected ugly duckling morphed into a beautiful swan! I wanted every child to be able to read this story, so I told my mom, “I want to give my book to the library where others can read it.”

She probably hid a chuckle and I remember her asking, “Are you sure you want to?” But I was determined, so she took me to the library and I handed my precious book over to the librarian. The lady accepted it graciously–though, come to think of it, she probably had two or three other copies of the same. If she thought I was a queer little girl, she never let on but accepted the book in the spirit with which it was given and did whatever with it to make it a library book.

I went on to make good use of the other picture books in her library–and many other libraries through the years.

Today we were at a used book store in the city and I picked up a Hardy Boys book to refresh my mind on the style. I’ve read this one before, so will donate it to the local library–if they need a copy. Or to my friend who has a Little Library set up in her front yard. Good stories are for sharing, right?

Image: MabelAmber — Pixabay

Mumbling Main Characters

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 12 Comments

Cookie Thief!

Mrs MacTavish walked into her kitchen after a short nap and surveyed her cooling racks. “Oh no,” she screeched. Someone was here while I was napping and stole half a dozen cookies!” She wrung her hands together. “Who could have done such a thing?”

Mrs Mac had been up early this morning. At least for her it was early, though some people wouldn’t think so. She’d baked three dozen gingerbread cookies to serve to her friends who were coming to tea this afternoon. Most of the cookies had come out delightfully round and plump, but a few of them looked a little too eccentric to serve to her friends. She’d set them aside on a separate cooling rack, thinking to offer them to Mr Mac when he came in for lunch.

She might not have begrudged the loss of the odd ones, but the thief had stolen six of the best. The ones she planned to serve with pride this afternoon, especially to show Jenny Lyons that she could bake cookies that looked just as nice as Jenny’s always did.

Furious, Mrs Mac looked around for some clue. Ah! There in the flour she’d dusted on the floor by accident. She hadn’t got around to sweeping it up because she’d misplaced her dustpan yesterday while she was cleaning house. I’m misplacing things so often these days, she thought. I hope this doesn’t mean I’m getting dementia!

Now, right there in that floury spot she saw one clear footprint. She bent down and examined the tread pattern carefully. The upper part was an interesting chevron pattern, something like her husband’s work boot. But this was smaller, so it couldn’t have been him. She was glad for that. He was a hard man to reprove, her Mac.

The missing cookies bothered her but it bothered her even more that someone had entered her kitchen and taken them without her hearing the door. Her hearing was getting worse, she knew. Maybe I should buy a hearing aid, one of those fancy contraptions like Mary Fraser just got herself? Nope. I’m saving my money for a trip to London in the fall. My cousin Nancy went last year and had a grand old time – or so she said. Of course Nancy would, even if she hadn’t. She’s that sort of person.

If my story is A Day in the Life of Mrs Mac, this would work. If my story is The Missing Cookie Caper, this excerpt gives you way too much unnecessary info to digest – pardon the pun.

Mumbling Protagonists

I downloaded an e-book a week ago anticipating a cozy mystery. However, the age 60-plus main character does so much ramble-thinking it may as well be a memoir. She’s constantly comparing this-that-and-the-other or considering her family and her / their situation, or rehashing a dream she had. To me it feels like she’s mumbling to herself straight time. The mysterious deaths are lost in the fog. She sounds like an air-head because her mind wanders everywhere.

Doing a critique for a new writer yesterday, reading his Chapter One, I got the same feeling. Some nice metaphors. Just way too many.

Charles Dickens was a lover of metaphors, similes, personification and such – and he used them well.
The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.

People then had no media but the local raconteur and the printed page. Folks had time to read and obviously loved vivid descriptions. Today’s editors want Tight and Terse; readers don’t want a lot of metaphoric rambles, however colorful they be.

One Quality of a Leader

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 13 Comments

I hope you can bear to hear a few more scintillating words from the pen of Dr Watson?

Sherlock Holmes describes his nemesis, Professor Moriarty, as:
“A man …so immune from criticism…so admirable in his management and self-effacement, that for those very words that you have uttered he could hale you to a court and emerge with your year’s pension as a solatium for his wounded character.“

A solatium being, according to Lexico:
–something given in compensation for inconvenience, loss, injury, or the like; recompense
–damages awarded to a plaintiff as compensation for personal suffering or grief arising from an injury
Today we’d call this a settlement. Holmes was reminding Watson that, though Moriarty was secretly involved in shady deals, he had very cleverly erased himself from the scenes. He’d kept his hands so clean that to call him a criminal would be considered slander.

Self-Effacement:
This is an antique concept, something almost anathema to our modern world. In our day self-promotion is the only way to go. From young on, children are encouraged to be the BEST, to be the STAR. When they get into later teens and discover they are AVERAGE, this can be hard to take.

Children should be encouraged to do their best and to pursue their dreams, but there are only so many super-stars you can have in a scene before they start shoving each other off-stage. One man watched a teen take dozens of selfies in an hour, probably to send to friends who’ve got dozens of selfies of themselves to send back. And yet teens may question if they have any real friends.

A friend told me about taking her daughter to visit her mom one evening. In the course of the visit Grandma pulled out her photos.
Here’s a picture of me shopping.
Here’s a picture of me in the coat I tried on.
Here’s a picture of me going here.
Here’s a picture of me on my birthday.
Here’s a picture of me with my friend Jane.
Here’s a picture of me…”

After they left, the granddaughter said to her mom, “Grandma’s really into herself.”
Sadly, this is true. Predictably, Grandma’s puzzled because her children and grands aren’t all into her, too. “I’m their mother. They should be calling me!”
But they don’t feel the heart-strings pulling. What goes around comes around.

A few days ago my husband and I were discussing leadership qualities. There are bold, self-confident, self-promoting types, but we agreed that leaders who get the most respect and help are the ones willing to ask for help, to give credit where credit is due, to squash the “I” and let their group get the praise. To say, “Everybody pitched in and our team accomplished this.”

Professor Moriarty may have sinister reasons for stepping back and letting others get the credit–or blame?–but self-effacement can be one of the tools of a good leader, don’t you think?

The Bookseller

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 10 Comments

Here’s my response to Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt. According to Lexico, a bibliopole is a bookesller, a dealer in rare or used books, and we did have one a few towns away. If you’re interested, read the Fact at the end.

Still there

BIBLIOPOLE

Still there, they say. Rows of shelves full floor to ceiling; more books stacked in the aisles of his store. Next of kin don’t want them. Bibliopole Ralph Crawford has passed on – but he couldn’t take them with him.

Fact:
A rather eccentric older man with poor eyesight and thick-lens glasses, Ralph Crawford was a seller of old and rare books. He moved to a small town in this area from the Maritimes and became a local “character.” He bought an old bank building in Perdue, SK, to be his bookstore, with offices upstairs where he could live, then brought his stock in several semi-trailer loads, set up shelves, and established his store.
Ralph’s store smelled musty and looked somewhat like the illustration above, but he knew his stock and could find subjects and authors for you. He did a lot of mail-order business, I’m told. He lived here maybe fifteen years? I heard Ralph passed away a couple of years ago. His relatives all live on the East coast — so now what does the town do with all those musty old books? Last I heard the question remains unanswered and the books are still there, waiting for someone to air them out and read them.

The Secret Story

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 20 Comments

It’s been awhile since I dabbled in fiction, but today I feel I must write some kind of story. So I’ll try the Six Sentence Story Prompt, where the given word is PLAY.

THE SECRET STORY

Are you going to play around with that thing all day or are you going to get ready to go,” Janaya snapped as she pulled on her tennis shoes.

“Give me a minute more; I want to get this motion sensor camera set up and working right before we go,” her brother responded, “because I’m sure someone’s been sneaking into the house while we’re away.”

Timothy clicked the box shut and placed it carefully on the shelf, partly concealed by a vase of artificial flowers, arranging it to point directly at the front door.

A few days later Timothy took the camera down and took out the SIM card so he could view the data collected. Janaya and her mother came running when they heard him shout, “Aha! I just knew it.”

Which is how they finally discovered their Uncle Kelvin had been sneaking in to use their computer when they weren’t home because he was too embarrassed to let anyone know he was trying to become the next Stephen King.