For Larry D

Larry D runs a blog, Acts of the Apostasy.  He wrote about how he despised Patheos at one point, and now he's writing for them.

Now me, I've loved Patheos ever since I discovered it and now...I'm still here.

But I'm not envious or anything like that, no.  I'm grateful and filled with Catholic joy for my fellow Catholic blogger and his success at becoming part of the big league of Catholic bloggers over there hanging out with The Anchoress, Mark Shea and Simcha Fisher. 

While I'd love to be part of the cool kids who all seem to fit in, I'm here in blogville double A farm team. So in honor of all those who warm the bench of the Catholic blogosphere, I offer this tribute to Larry D.  

  

Want to be a Patheos Catholic blogger,

want to send links to my sister and my brothers...

want to have my smiling face...

in the listings at Catholic Patheos......

as a blogger for Catholic Patheos.......

but again, not jealous. I promise.  

7 Quick Takes Friday

Welcome to 7 Quick Takes Friday, the linked edition...

 

1.  This was a big week for The Book of Helen!  She got two good reviews and I hope she'll receive a third from a friend over at Shelfari known as Nighthawk who runs a reading group called Paging All Bookworms. 

2.  Here's the first link, to a review over at Catholicfiction.net!  It felt nice to get a review, there is a sense in which the book becomes less real the further away from publication date it falls, and so having someone read it and enjoy it, brings me back to that moment when it first launched.   There will be a posted interview at some point in the future, I'll let you know.  

3.  The second review came from an editor over at Eat Sleep Write!  You may remember I did a podcast there last September.  Here's the link to that discussion as here. 

4. This makes me beyond sad. There is a prediction of Barnes and Noble closing. There is something dying in a culture where there are no book stores, and it's not just the economy, it's the culture of reading, it's the culture of browsing to discover, it's a community that we will mourn as a phantom limb of life, long after the stores are exchanged for other places. 

I still look at where the Border's was, and grieve that the Big Lots is there instead. I don't need Big and Lots, I need books, thoughts, words and the quiet joy of discovering something in the pages of another person's mind.  I think it symbolizes what is replacing what we are losing. Boo. 

5.   Larry D of Acts of the Apostasy is back in blogging business again!   Go over and say Welcome back, or if you've never visited, say "Hi!"

6.  I have a few friends I need to pray for, so I'm linking to this Novena site. I invite all of you to participate, because I don't know anyone who doesn't need prayers.  

7.  And the last of the 7 Quick Takes involves plugging a long time friend of this blog, the Ironic Catholic, also know in her alter-ego as writer/professor/theologian extraordinare, Susan Windley-Daoust has written a book:  Theology of the Body Extended: Signs of Birth, Impairment and Dying, and it looks really good!

 

 

A Review and a Preview

 I don't want this blog to become simply a "Hey! I wrote a book! Buy it NOW SHAM WOW!" type of experience.  

However, I must give credit and acknowledgement to those bloggers who take the time to read and review The Book of Helen.  Yesterday, I had company visit, a friend I hadn't seen in 15 years, who spent the summer with her husband and two of her five children, biking across country to raise money for Mercy Housing. I am in awe of her family's faith and the way they are living it out.  It was good to see her and it made Sunday a day of refreshment, as I always find seeing friends to be a source of great strengthening and joy. 

So it wasn't until the evening that I had time to really take in the review by Larry D of Acts of the Apostasy, or Karina Fabian's splash page on Fabian Space.  Larry D gave an honest appraisal of a rookie season book and I agree, I could have delved into the details of the historical period more.   They weren't what interested me but I am willing to be more deliberate in my next book, to make sure I anchor more of the story of the book in the gravel and bronze and wood of the place, and let less of it be monopolized by a single character's point of view.  

Historical fiction must deal with the details, and not merely story, otherwise it is simply period stylized fantasy fiction.   Because the characters I lived with were mythic in origin, I did not in the creation of the world around them, focus too intensively on the sinew of the time, but I never want to pull the reader out of the story.  I want them to feast on the experience, and that means serving up the whole meal of the arc of the tale, so I'm hitting the books harder for the Book of Penelope and hoping Larry D will be a beta reader for the next tale so his eagle eye can catch any momentary time slips in language.   I also love his phrase, Greek chick lit, as well as his exposition about some of the deeper themes touched on in the course of the book.  I hoped The Book of Helen would be about more than Helen stories, and based on his review, I succeeded. 

Karina Fabian is an accomplished prolific writer of fantasy, sci-fi and humor/horror. She is a writing machine with a quick wit and powerful Catholic imagination.  I have read her novella Greater Treasures, and enjoyed it immensely.  Vern the dragon detective caught between two worlds is a very enjoyable creature as the narrator.  She used my profile and synopsis to give a fellow Museitup author a push before publication.  Thank you.  

Both writers have lives outside of the internet (shocking I know), and I am grateful to each for giving of their time and space on the internet, to provide my book a little push in publicity and some thoughtful analysis before its slated publishing date of August 9th.  SHAM WOW SHERRY signing off.