Nobody Here

Mad Max over at Book Angst 101 has recently been providing a forum for "rants," which in this sense means, "peeps bitch, and the ones that don't want to bitch get jumped on." There's a whole lot of whining going on. Why won't anyone publish meeee. Why won't anyone pay meeeee more. Who do you think you are being happy with your career when it wouldn't be good enough for meeee.

This whining doesn't characterize every commenter, of course, and some of the complaints about traditional publishing are entirely valid, no doubt. It's a weird, weird game and there's no question a lot of good players never make it.

And it - by "it" I mean the publishing part, which I think peeps need to learn to separate from the writing part - is not an art game. It's a business game. Like Monopoly. The object of this game is to make money. The one with the most money wins. The money is in landing a series of railroads, and building on the right properties. There is no money in writing Marvin Gardens a long, personal, kindly worded letter explaining constructively how it might, with enough practice and a little blue marker, become Park Place one day. And even if Mediterranean Ave is a reallyreally pretty color, it's still the worst money maker on the board.

It's also, in many senses, a random game. Maybe you play well, and follow the rules, and do everything right and smart, and you still pick an unlucky Community Chest card or roll too many doubles in a row, and everything falls apart. Sometimes you don't get your $200 for passing Go. Sometimes the person you view as least deserving lands on Free Parking. Oh well. That's how the game works.

Of course, behind the old shoe and the iron and the thimble are people, so when they're kind and decent to each other, that's a good thing and a nice bonus. The game is more fun when you're laughing and having snacks and high fiving one another over your successes. But these things are not required. They have no relevance to the game itself. That little spectacle guy neither knows nor cares whether you're having a good time.

Why should he? He knows he's not the only game in the rec room. For those who want to be artistes and care nothing for money, there's Spirograph, or maybe Light Bright. For the competetive strategists who find Monopoly too luck-based, there's Chess, and Risk, and Stratego, and Battleship, and all sorts of things. If you want to make up your own rules, you can go play D&D and be the Dungeon Master. There are smaller, independent games. There are self-made games. The possibilities are endless.

But you don't want to play any of those other games, you say. You want to play Monopoly. Fine. The rules are right there, inside the box top. Don't like them? Ok. Maybe one day you'll become a bigwig at Hasbro, and get to change them for everyone. In the meanwhile, in your own house, you can play your own way, bend the rules here and there, make the game suit you better. But only so far. If it's going to be Monopoly, you're still going to need to use these cards, these pieces, this board.

This is the board you are choosing to play on. Roll the dice, and take your turn. And don't be sulky about it. No one wants to play with a poor sport.

*Post title ripped off from the movie Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

UV tagged me with the ten things you've never done meme. I think pretty much everyone on my blogroll who would do this has already been tagged. Maybe not Roy. Roy, did anyone else tag you yet? If not you're, like, it.

I've never...

1. Sold a book that wasn't work-for-hire.
2. Seen a James Bond movie.
3. Been to five of the seven continents.
4. Learned a foreign language well enough to converse comfortably with its native speakers (this not through lack of trying).
5. Realized how stupid I look in my 3/4 length sleeves.
6. Tried a cigarette, or any recreational drug excepting alcohol.
7. Seen what all the fuss is about with regards to caviar.
8. Stopped believing in magic.
9. Read Hamlet in its entirety.
10. Liked my nose.

UV and Roy have some complaints, among them how long it’s been since I’ve updated my blog. I’ve been otherwise engaged and haven’t read or written anything for the last week, so I haven’t got anything to say. Instead, I’m playing UV’s lyrics game. Same rules – title and artist in the comments, and no looking it up. These are all old, but some are older than others. Some are complete gimmes, so if you don't get at least one right, you're like, a loser.

* Edited with answers 5/19

1. like any uncharted territory I must seem greatly intriguing
“Uninvited” by Alanis Morissette

2. he’s a poor boy, empty as a pocket, empty as a pocket with nothing to lose
“Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes” by Paul Simon
Correctly identified first by Looney

3. walk on by, walk on through, walk til you run, and don’t look back, for here I am
“The Unforgettable Fire” by U2

4. there’s a girl in this harbor town, and she works laying whiskey down
“Brandy” by Looking Glass
Correctly identified first by UV

5. they were all in love with dying, they were drinking from a fountain that was pouring like an avalanche, coming down the mountain
“Pepper” by the Butthole Surfers
Correctly identified first by Mark only it doesn’t count because he cheated so the prize goes to Natalie instead

6. take another shot of courage, wonder why the right words never come
“Tequila Sunrise” by the Eagles
Correctly identified first by UV

7. my friend assures me, it’s all or nothing, I am not worried, I am not overly concerned
“Anna Begins” by the Counting Crows

8. you could say I'd lost my belief in our politicians, they all seem like game show hosts to me
“If I Ever Lose my Faith in You” by Sting
Sort-of-correctly identified first by Hip
Trivia - this was my wedding song, even though I eloped

9. there’s egg on your face and mud on your shoes
“Sowing the Seeds of Love” by Tears for Fears

10. things are okay with me these days, got a good job, got a good office
“Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” by Billy Joel
Correctly identified first by Natalie

11. things were getting shaky, I thought I’d have to leave it behind
“Play that Funky Music” by Wild Cherry
Very disappointing that no one got this - you peeps need some more funk in your lives

Brooks Brown is not a writer, and he is a kid. Therein lies the value of No Easy Answers: The Truth Behind Death at Columbine, written in the first person by Brown with third person interludes by journalist Rob Merritt. Brown lacks the writerly sophistication and the psychological maturity to manipulate his readers (or at least when he tries, the attempt is transparent enough to be easily set aside). He’s offering the story as he sees it, and he can't pretend to be doing anything else. Sure, it’s filtered through his interpretation and agenda, but unlike accounts presented by some more savvy organizations, his filter is never subtle. It’s to his credit that he doesn’t even try to pretend it isn’t there.

No Easy Answers isn’t a grisly true-crime book. Very little space is dedicated to the actual Columbine shootings, and many of the details are left out. Instead Brown focuses on his life growing up in Littleton and attending Columbine, his relationship with shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, and his experiences in the aftermath of the killings. It's a view from the inside - inside Littleton, inside Columbine, and inside the head of a self-described outcast. The narrative tends toward the clumsy, is often used as a platform for Brown’s personal grievances, and has way too may plugs for his favorite band. But it’s a compelling and at times chilling read that, while it doesn't fully explore the issues it presents, provokes plenty of thought.

Don’t let its title fool you. Throughout the book there is a suggestion of an easy answer, or at least a simple one. Brown argues, often convincingly, against blaming Rammstein, Doom, the shooters’ parents, trench coats, and many of the other commonly tossed around scapegoats for Columbine. But he stops short of blaming the shooters themselves. Before twenty pages have passed, he cries tabula rasa and declares that Eric and Dylan were entirely and exclusively the product of the lord-of-the-flies world they were forced to endure, a world in which self-absorbed, working parents (though he insists the Klebolds are blameless, Brown seems cool with blaming parents in general) abdicate childrearing responsibilities to teachers, who themselves turn a blind eye to any unpleasantness among their charges, leaving children to govern themselves in the brutal way children will tend to do. That Brown would focus on this while not addressing the countless millions who have the same experience but don’t go on murderous rampages is understandable. The shooters, particularly Klebold, were his friends. He was close to them in many senses of the phrase. The book smacks of his need to believe that his friend Dylan was “driven by society” to do what he did.

In his fervor over nurture Brown largely ignores nature, both that of the killers specifically and of humans in general. There’s a reason his description of life at pre-shooting Columbine doesn’t differ markedly from one I could give of the high school I attended more than fifteen years ago. Anywhere there are more than a handful of teenagers, there will be a drive to separate into us and them. Even one of Brown’s own attempts to make a difference post-Columbine, an online community aimed at allowing outcasts to come together, break out of their isolation and realize they aren’t alone, speaks directly to the adolescent need to organize into packs.

None of which is to say Brown doesn’t have a point, and a good one at that. While it may be improbable that the American teenage caste system can be completely eliminated in every aspect, mitigation is within reach. Would that be enough to prevent another Columbine? Well, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t hurt.

Which is the upshot, for me, of No Easy Answers. The problems it presents, while probably grossly incomplete as causes for the shooting, are still problems. The solutions it suggests, while probably grossly oversimplified, are still solutions. The proper placement of one piece may or may not solve a puzzle, but it will always get you one piece closer.

*Post title ripped off from the movie Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead

Murray is done, and gone. I packed up a little knapsack for him (clean underwear, healthy snacks, no fruit juice) and sent him to New York, where the agent who took on my last book has agreed to have a look at him and see if the kid's got what it takes to make it in the big city. You can use the Murray Watch section at the right to see whether our young hero goes all the way to playing Lancelot on Broadway, or ends up a desperate junkie washing windows at stoplights.

There are a number of factors that determine whether a book sells, some of which don't even involve how good it is. The important thing is, it's the best thing I've written yet, and I'm happy if I can say that about each successive project. Actually, no, scratch that. The important thing is, it's done, and I don't have to look at it again, at least for a while.

*Post title ripped off from Camelot's "C'est Moi"