It is generally true that any kind of artist, whether they make portraits, or paintings, or novels, or poems, or photos of landscapes, or photos of cats, is making a self-portrait more than anything else. It is true that no matter what form an artwork takes, you see it from the perspective of the artist. You are shown what they see. You are led to think their thoughts. Characters in books are usually telling at least in part, the author’s life story. That’s why I use so many real people that I once knew to model the people in my stories and drawings upon. You must write about what you know, and your own self is what you know best. This Paffooney of young Milt Morgan is a picture of me. It actually looks like what I once looked like. Milt as a novel character thinks and acts as I once did. Anyone that knew me fifty years ago will tell you how much this looks like me. Of course the number of folks who knew me back then continues to seriously dwindle.
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A Bit of Him, a Bit of Them, Plus a Lot of Me
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Holiday Scenes
Having been a Jehovah’s Witness for a good part of the last twenty years, I am not in the habit of thinking holiday celebration. But they have moved on without me. I am a bah-humbug door-knocker no longer. So, I guess it’s time to recall how much this time of year used to mean to me. I searched my writing. So far the only holiday scene I have written is from Snow Babies. The characters in this scene are all severely snowed in and the electricity is out. They have decided to pass the time by putting up the Christmas tree without lights. The blizzard rages. It is an intense time where survival is not guaranteed. Hence, the need to remember the season.
Excerpt from Snow Babies.
Canto Seventy-Three – A Red, Green, and White Christmas Tree Block
The thing about the artificial Christmas tree, although it was plastic and solid forest green in a very unnatural way, was that it did look pretty good when you put all the right pegs into all the right slots and got it standing up by itself all full and fluffed out and green. It looked like a real tree… maybe… a little bit.
Denny handed a frosted red ball up to Valerie. Because she commanded the heights from the stepstool, she got to place each precious glass or plastic ornament. The Clarkes had a full string of bubble lights, but since the electricity was still out, Val didn’t see any reason to place the thing. The red ball went on the spot near the center front where Valerie had hung it the two years previous. The only difference was… well, the difference was… yes, the difference was… that Tommy Bons, all attitude and dirty blue jacket was standing in the spot where… you know, the spot where… the spot where someone needed to stand to catch Valerie if she overbalanced and fell towards the tree. The place where last year… her father stood.
Pidney was watching with some concern. “Why are there tears in your eyes, Val?” he asked stupidly.
“Well, I… no reason.”
Tommy caught her flitting glance with his steady blue gaze. He looked deeply into her eyes. Then, she saw what she never expected to see. Tears stood in his eyes too. Without saying or hearing a word about it, he understood. He knew. She could see it in his eyes. He knew what it was. He hadn’t just lost his father. Both of them. At once. In a car crash. Like Ponyboy in the Outsiders. Jeez she loved that book.
“You gonna put up the Santa thingy?” Pidney asked.
Mary Philips pulled the Santa thingy out of the box. It was made of Styrofoam balls, red felt, white cotton fluff, and black button eyes. And when she turned it over, on the bottom, it said, “to pretty little Princess, from Daddy Kyle.” The tears came like rain. Valerie crumpled into Tommy’s arms, weeping desperately.
“I… I don’t understand,” said Pidney. “I thought putting up a Christmas tree was a happy thing.”
Valerie had both arms wrapped around Tommy, squeezing the juice out of him, and crying like her heart was breaking. No… not breaking… broken. Shattered into little shards of glass, and scattered like snowflakes on a December morning.
Wordlessly Mary showed Pid what was written in black felt-tip marker on the bottom of the Santa thingy.
“Oh,” said Pid. “He made that himself, didn’t he?”
Valerie couldn’t answer. She sobbed like she could barely breathe.
Dennis limped up to Pidney and stood beside the big dumb oaf. He reached his small hand out to Mary, and she put the Santa thingy in it.
“This is really neat,” he said. “It’s like the ones my grandma made for me with Styrofoam and knitted all the clothes for and stuff. I wish I still had those.”
Valerie slowed the tears for a moment and looked at Dennis. He was a really cute little boy when you looked past the crooked little legs and the thin frame. And he had such a darling and gentle manner about him. He made you want to hug him until all the juice came out of him too. She loosened her death-grip on Tommy.
“He bought a stupid little crafts book,” said Valerie. “He was gonna give it to me along with the cabbage patch doll he bought. Then he decided to make that silly little Santa man from one of the craft patterns in the book. He did it all by himself, and gave it to me as a surprise gift. He did all of it. He did it all by himself.” It was the first time she had told that story to anyone. It was the first time she’d even remembered about something he gave her since… Well, it was a silly thing, but she did love it. “Can I have that?” she asked Denny.
“Sure,” he put it in her hands with a puckish smile.
“I think it goes near the top this year. Not in place of the angel, but right near her, to keep her company.”
Valerie got back up onto the stepstool and placed the Santa thingy near the top at just to the left of center. She looked at it and began to smile.
“Yep,” said Tommy, “the tree looks pretty stupid without lights, but that looks just about right to put it there.”
Valerie laughed at him.
Pidney moved over beside Mary and put an arm around her shoulders. “Sorry,” he whispered. “I’m really not as dumb as that, you know.”
“Yes you are,” whispered Mary, “but we love you anyway.”
Valerie heard that, and laughed all the harder. This Christmas tree thing was going to continue to hurt. And Pid was pretty dumb sometimes. But Mary was right. It had to be said. Valerie loved him anyway.
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The Goal is Set
I have now set a goal for the novel I am writing. I will enter it in the manuscript category of the Dante Rossetti Novel Writing Contest from Chanticleer Book Reviews and Media (http://chantireviews.com/services/#!/Young-Adult-Novels-Writing-Contest/p/21521206/category=5193080). The deadline is April 30th, 2015. I am in the middle of the novel at present, and will have it done by that date. This will be the second time I have entered this contest. Can I do better than being a finalist in 2013 with Snow Babies? I have hopes. I believe my work is good.
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Sentimental Movies
Wow! Such a movie! It is a movie about the movies. A historical fiction about movie history. It tells a bittersweet fable of the 1950’s, when the Un-American Activities Committee was conducting its witch-hunts in Hollywood. And it’s about a postwar town that is still suffering from heavy losses among their young men. And about a case of amnesia and mistaken identity. It is hard to explain, so go watch the dang movie!
I borrowed this image of the movie’s movie theater from a blogger, prasenjitchaudhuri.wordpress.com, whose review will probably make more sense than mine does. But that theater marquee is the one icon from the movie that I first fell in love with.
As I said, this is a movie about the movies and a love of the movies. It weaves in through the story of 50’s communist witch hunts a tale about a somewhat spineless young man who bumps his head, loses his memory, and is adopted by a whole town as a missing war hero come back from the dead. It hits every Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart cliche in the books. Just like It’s a Wonderful Life it makes me laugh so hard I have a wheezing fit, followed a couple of scenes later by something that makes me want to cry so hard that I will drown out all the weeping females in the audience with half-stifled basso sobs. Any movie that I walk out of embarrassed that my face is tear-streaked, is a movie that made me feel so profoundly good about life and love and laughter, that I want to see it again and again. There are so many movie-references in the film that I need to watch it two or three times just for that. For gosh sakes, the idol head from Raiders of the Lost Ark makes a cameo appearance in the movie within the movie, Sand Pirates of the Sahara.
So, basically, I watched this movie for the first time on DVD at home in bed, still recovering from scary new heart condition #2, and had a chance to laugh and cry and enjoy this movie without any fear of being laughed at for how I responded to it. And, so what did I do about it? Why naturally, I got on WordPress and exposed my secret shame to you. That makes about as much sense as everybody in that little town grabbing an amnesiac out of the river and making him into their beloved son. What a great movie! Wow!
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A Bildungsroman von Michael Beyer
Okay, I know it’s in German. Being from a German-American family from Iowa in a mostly Germanic/Scandinavian little Midwestern town, everything I write is in German, even though it’s written in English. So let me explain my square-headed German logic here. Here is a quote from Wikipedia to define it; “In literary criticism, a Bildungsroman (German pronunciation: [ˈbɪldʊŋs.ʁoˌmaːn]; German: “novel of formation/education/culture”), novel of formation, novel of education, or coming-of-age story (though it may also be known as a subset of the coming-of-age story) is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood (coming of age), and in which, therefore, character change is extremely important.” I wrote one of these previously. My episodic tale of a young boy who is the new kid in the small Iowa town and through experience learns to become one of the gang, is called Superchicken. 
It is an example of the coming-of-age tale that closely follows the pattern. Edward Campbell has to learn the hard way that being mature both physically and emotionally is really hard work, and you can fall short of your goal without even meaning to. But his opposition to his parents’ rules and sense of propriety eventually leads to acceptance.
Miss Morgan, however, follows a slightly skewed version of the pattern. In the novel, Francis Morgan is a good teacher and mature woman at the very start. She has convictions about teaching and how to handle students that she is willing to fight for. And society around her seems to want to break her of her habits and convictions. Principals and school boards can bring enormous pressure on a teacher, and they generally don’t want to hear you’ve been teaching magic in the classroom. She is going to learn lessons the hard way, whether she wants to or not. But it is entirely possible that she will not change, not give in to society’s demands. I don’t think, however, that it means that she won’t mature and change in some very important ways.
I am working on this novel, The Magical Miss Morgan, this month. It fills me up and then exhausts me. It uses up most of my hard-won wisdom from my years as a teacher, and I am hoping it will turn out to be the best thing I have ever written.
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Write Until Your Hair Catches on Fire!
I was trying to write a post and my computer had to have a brain fart and blow it to pieces. It began because the mouse pad froze and I had to try to do everything by key commands while trying to save what I wrote. That’s gone, however. In its place is a cryptic question in German that asks if you want to be a swan. How did that happen? More than one wrong key got pressed. As I write this, two people have already liked the computer brain-fart post. Let’s see how this will get fixed.
I intended to write a post on my attempt to finish my novel in November, the novel The Magical Miss Morgan. I was inspired to do that because my niece, Stephanie Bisinger, is currently involved in the NaNoWriMo project to write 50,000 words in November and complete a rough draft of a novel. The contest is really intended for creative young student types, and my niece is doing well. I, however, am probably not going to make the goal. I have increased my daily output, written faster, deeper, and more creatively than I have in a long time. I have my neurons firing so fast and so hard that my brain is heating up, hence the danger that my hair will suddenly burst into flame. Writing is a dangerous business. And yet, on my birthday, November 17th, 2014, I am only at 17,021 words. I am quickly running out of month and I am not even at the halfway point. That’s what happens when you get old. Your writing bones get all creaky and slow. I have sped up the novel, though. I made a major breakthrough. Having decided to use the “Do you want to be a swan?” thing from the computer brain-fart, I now have a major plot point that I didn’t have before. And I promoted a minor character to a place in the major action of the middle of the book. That was an excellent idea, really, because the character is a favorite of mine, made from a real cousin when he was younger mixed with a real former student. In the book, he is convinced that the major fantasy element of the story is not real, but when he is confronted with evidence right before his eyes, he wets his pants and runs away. Perfect… at least for potty humor. 
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Möchten Sie einen Schwan zu werden?=`
-74
“/, mlko0`
Okay, this is bad. My computer had a brain blowout in the middle of writing today’s post and decided to ask everybody in German if they want to become a swan. What is that about? I have even less idea what -74 and “/,mlkoo means. I am going to try to put the exploded post back together, and I will use the German swan nonsense in the novel I am writing. How’s that for a wild unforeseen event?
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Miss Morgan’s Class
I am busily working on my novel, The Magical Miss Morgan. I would very much like to finish in November, but, at less than half way through, I don’t think it is likely. It is a novel about being a teacher. It is about both classroom magic, and dealing with the magical legacy of having a brother who is a wizard. So, this example Canto is telling about sitting at the teacher’s desk after class, talking to a “real” fairy. In the Paffooney, you see Miss Morgan with two students who are also Norwall Pirates, Blueberry Bates and Mike Murphy.
Canto Twenty-Three – After School at Miss Morgan’s Desk
Francis sat in the chair behind her desk and stared into the open planner spread out in front of her. She still had two days to get the following week’s plan accomplished. It was, however quite blank. For the last half hour she had done nothing but stare at it and think horrible thoughts about Six-Three.
“Please, dear teacher and storyteller,” said Donner plaintively, “respond that I may know you are unharmed and not mentally damaged.”
“Oh, hello, Bug. I’m okay, but I have had a very bad day.”
“What’s the matter?” the little insect-man had fluttered down to her desktop from somewhere above.
“Oh, sometimes students and their parents make me question if I’m in the right profession.”
“You are a lore-mistress. What higher calling could there be?”
“I just mean that I hate being in a job where you have to deal with willfully ignorant people.”
“I know what you mean. Dealing with Garriss and his brother Torchy is like that. No matter how many times you show them how to put out a campfire, they just seem too stupid to get it right.”
“No, Bug, my problem is not really like that. Cutie and her mother are not stupid. They are both quite bright. But they have a reason to not understand what I am trying to explain to them about my curriculum and my teaching methods. They want to set me up as a problem to be corrected, and so they refuse to see that my teaching methods are not the problem.”
“I have listened intently to the lore of Bilbo. I don’t know exactly what kind of fey creature a Hobbit truly is, but the world you describe… the world of Bilbo… is very accurate from the viewpoint of the fair folk. Tellosia is just like this Middle Earth you tell the young ones about.”
“Oh, heavens! I hope that doesn’t mean there are dragons flying around Belle City somewhere!”
“No, no. Dragon flies aplenty, but no dragons for at least six hundred years.”
Francis stared at Donner with a look that would’ve stunned any human student. Dragons? Really? Even six hundred years ago? Donner was completely oblivious to her disbelief. But maybe that was a good thing. If there were a dragon, maybe her disbelief could kill it and save the world.
“How did the mission we sent Garriss on turn out?” Donner asked innocently.
“Tim Kellogg took him to Norwall, just as we discussed. He gave your little fire child to a sweet little girl named Blueberry Bates. She is making drawings of him to pass around school and talk about fairies being real.” Francis frowned at the bug. “But tell me, Donner, can Garriss really teach the girl a spell to set someone’s underwear on fire?”
“Oh, yes. That is a simple glammer with pixie dust and the right tinder.”
“Oh, that is not good. I need to head things off again…”
It was almost too much. Her brother’s legacy of magic and the Pirates’ liars’ club made her life unnecessarily complicated. She and Jim needed to sort out how they were going to deal with Krissy, and on top of it all, Mrs. Detlafsen was intent on making a political issue out of Francis’ teaching style.
“If you are worried,” offered Donner sweetly, “I can teach you a spell to make a rain cloud hover over someone’s head. A nice big ten inch cloud… six gallons worth of rainwater… and you can make it rain on whichever person you need to soak. That should put out any fire that Garriss started.”
“Is Garriss hurt by water? Can it extinguish him? Hurt him in any way?”
“Magical water applied in the right way can snuff out a fire wisp, if you do it right. But Garriss is no beginner when it comes to magical fire… or even magical water.”
“That’s good. Tim’s little band of Pirate maniacs probably won’t kill him, then.”
“Believe me,” said Donner, grinning, “If my people haven’t been able to snuff out that fool in the last century, with all the reasons they have for trying, your young pie-rats don’t stand a chance of doing it.”
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A Better Version
Never quite satisfied, I put a head on the horse and re-positioned the focus element of the picture.
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Space Pirates
I enjoy science fiction almost as much as I enjoy humor in both my reading activities and my writing. My goal has been, since reading Douglas Adams’ wonderful trilogy, or quadrilogy, or possibly quintology of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to write such an opus. That is the real reason my first published novel, Aeroquest, exists. Sorry about that. First novels are often a bizarre over-reaching, trying to do too much, shooting in too wide an arc, and getting totally lost in the tangle of plot, character, and purple paisley prose that characterizes a novelist’s obsession with his own inner eye.
Swashbuckling space-pirate teenagers are the students in my teachers-in-outer-space epic, Aeroquest. It gives you an idea about how silly the entire project really is.
My novel is a total mishmash of things from Star Wars, the Marx Brothers movies, Star Trek, Dune by Frank Herbert, old Flash Gordon serials, Indiana Jones, Tarzan, and several things like Nebulons (the little blue alien people) that I made up from my own Saturday-afternoon childhood daydreams. Parts of it are actually funny, I think, like the part about flying out of jungle danger by levitating with an anti-gravity bustier one of the characters wears because of her overly-generous up-front endowment. But parts of it are incomprehensible and sad. And not sad in a good way.
But I am seriously planning to rewrite the awful thing and get it published with a better publisher. I have worked a little bit on doing a graphic novel of the thing. I have my doubts, though, that I have enough drawings left in my arthritic old fingers to accomplish that part of the daydream. The world needs space pirates, especially now when an evil empire of the wealthy elite has taken over our world and threatens to crush us economically under its heel. Pirates rise up to take what they like from forces that outnumber them. They do the Robin Hood thing, taking from the rich and giving to the poor… er, or possibly keeping it for themselves. I mean, if they are the poor, then that’s okay, right? So, I have shared a Paffooney of some of the student pirates from my totally awful first novel, talked up the daydreams and fool’s hopes in my ill-fated novel Aeroquest, and acknowledged that you should never, ever pay the bloated price the cheap-o publisher with no editors on staff charges for the whole mess. Wait til I get it rewritten. It will probably be even more horrible.
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