The Creature in the Recycling Bin

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The Creature in the Recycling Bin

          I threw some aluminum cans into an empty black plastic recycling bin in my back yard.  Before I dropped the bag of cans into the bin I noticed that the bottom of the can was filled with a few inches of water.  After dropping the bag into the bin, I turned away to walk a few feet when I heard what sounded like a muffled explosion and a whoosh.   I turned and saw that the recycle bin was gone.

           I knew immediately what had happened since this had happened on a few previous occasions.  I went into the house to the upstairs master bedroom to look out upon the front yard.  I saw the recycle can lid among the shrubs and knew that the can was somewhere in the yard.   I went downstairs to look for the can.

          As I walked about the yard I wondered what it was that had been causing this to happen.  With a shudder I concluded that the most logical explanation was that there was some sort of creature in the bin, that angered or startled by my actions of discarding the refuse, reacted in such a way as to cause the can to fly over the house and into the front yard.  I briefly thought about how someone could have been seriously injured if they had been hit by the bin.

         I reflected upon all of the previous times that this had happened.   I noticed that my mother's 1992 Lincoln Town Car was parked at an angle near where the trashcans are normally placed on trash pick up day.  I knew that the car had died in that spot and apparently George had not yet been able to move it or get it running.  I then realized that I was in the front yard of my mother's house in Tennessee, whereas I had previously been inside the house where I live and in the back yard of my house in California.  It all seemed perfectly normal to me.

        It was all a dream--part of a few seconds or milliseconds of sleep in the moments before waking.  And yet I had a memory of a complete history of previous events as though I had actually lived through them all.   Had these memories come from a protracted dream that had been occurring all through the night?   Were they layers of dream memories from dreams that were occurring in rapid succession and perhaps even simultaneously?  Was the dream experience related to what we call deja vu?

        Do you ever have dreams that include dream memory and an awareness of a complex history?--  Things that you instinctively know to be fact and true within the context of the dream but are illogical and even nonsensical in real life?   Where do you think dream memory comes from?


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GHOST WRITER

         Today my special guest is Larry Cavanaugh who has two blogs:  DiscConnected, which is about music and recordings, and Back in the USSR, which is a blog about politics.   They both have much to offer and are well worth your time, so make sure you stop by to read some of what Larry has to say and follow if you aren't doing so already.  Today Larry poses an interesting question for you.

Ghost Writer

          I did not want to feature this post on my blog, DiscConnected, which is all about music, but thought that the review of this book and the topic of posthumous ghost writers might generate some discussion among regular readers of Tossing It Out due to the writing topic. Thanks to Arlee Bird for giving me the microphone. Or the spotlight. Or the keyboard. You know what I mean.

          Now I suppose technically, this is not a ghost writing situation, as the publisher does not try to conceal the fact that the author who created the characters is dead and that someone else wrote the book.

         I have mixed feelings about the practice of having relatively unknown authors write novels continuing the serialization of a deceased popular author's character.  But since the books of Robert B. Parker were always a guilty pleasure for me, the simple existence of a new Jesse Stone novel piqued my curiosity.   Michael Brandman, who collaborated with Parker on the Jesse Stone TV-Movies, was given the nod to produce the first posthumous novel featuring a Parker character.

         Killing The Blues feels like one of those "tv tie-in" books, since Brandman has made adjustments to settings and characters to make the books more closely resemble the movies. The novel tells an entertaining story of obsession and redemption, touching on all the themes Parker always made resonate so well while weaving a few compelling plot-lines together pretty seamlessly.

        Stone attempts to solve a wave of car thefts that appears to make Paradise a new source for chop-shops, and the Paradise Board of Selectmen do not want the crimes to impact the summer tourism trade, creating opportunities for Jesse to display his aversion to authority.

        In another plot thread, Jesse hears that a man from his past has been released from prison, and word has drifted that Jesse will be his target. The cat-and-mouse between Jesse and the ex-convict form the core of the book's narration. The other threads of Brandman's story weave around it, and provide nice balance.

       Parker wrote dialogue better than almost anyone. The best Brandman could hope for is to suffer by comparison, and he seems to write the dialogue for Tom Selleck, who stars in the films. There were many lines that seemed like they may have been lifted from films that had already aired. While this did not necessarily detract from my enjoyment of the book, dialogue was one of the joys of reading a Parker novel that was somewhat lacking here.

      Brandman also seems to marginalize the supporting characters, where under Parker's hand, while they were often not deeply developed, they were necessary foils to the main character to provide an insight into his behavior. Parker always seemed to have something on his mind, and used his characters to flesh out those thoughts.

       In literature, characters sometimes outlive their creators.   Parker wrote a Philip Marlowe by himself (Perchance To Dream), after finishing Chandler's Poodle Springs, and Jeffrey Deaver just published a James Bond novel. Next spring, Ace Atkins will pick up the Spenser series. The trick is to stay true to what made the characters worth continuing in the first place.

        All that said, how do you feel about characters continuing on after their creator's death? Do you have any favorite series that received this treatment? If so, how did you like the posthumous books?



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From Halloween to Hmmm?

          First of all-- Happy Birthday to my daughter Ada!

Yes, Ada can juggle as can all of my kids.

From Halloween to Hmmm?


      In my last post I revealed that my blog Tossing It Out started out as a Halloween blog.  If anyone is interested in reading more about the history of this blog you can read my three part post from last year that can be found here, here, and here.   The short story version is that I started a blog to make money from AdSense because I kept hearing how you could make big money blogging.


         I never got the AdSense approval in the time frame I had expected and I began to not particularly care.  From what I was starting to hear from other bloggers AdSense income was minimal in most cases.  And I had begun to focus on writing.


        Shortly into my blogging career I realized that I did not want to always write Halloween related topics throughout the year.   Besides, my blog title Tossing It Out did not seem especially related to Halloween.  I began writing a variety of essays.  A mutual attraction developed between me and other writing related blogs.  I began thinking of my site as a writing blog.


         But is Tossing It Out a writing blog?   I don't think of my site as a niche blog because I write about many topics.  Some days this is a book blog, other days it's a travel blog, often it's an entertainment blog, and it has at times even been a religious and a political blog.   Much of the time I just toss out ideas to see what readers catch onto and toss back to me.  Maybe a good term for my blog is a potpourri blog.


           Many blog experts seem to think that the truly successful blog needs to have focus--it must specialize in something specific.  I have a difficult time sticking with one topic and I don't consider myself such an expert in any one thing that I could--or would want to--write about it all of the time.  I think that I am establishing a platform as a writer and not an expert in a specific field.


          I somewhat suspect that I am closer to where I want to be as a blogger.  But is it where I need to be?  And is it how you the reader perceive me to be?   Is Tossing It Out a writer's blog?   I don't mean a blog that is necessarily about writing, although I do talk about writing sometimes.  What I mean is that this blog is a place where writing occurs, not so much for the sake of imparting any specialized information, but for the act (or would I be pretentious to say art?) of writing, be it for the sake of entertainment or satisfying some unspecified curiosity in my audience.


          Forgive my ramblings, but I'm thinking out loud.  Perhaps this is sounding like an early entry to Alex J. Cavanaugh's Insecure Writer's Support Group which occurs on the first Wednesday of every month (click here to join).  But I don't think I'm alone in this.   I think many of us wonder, "Why do I blog?".   


          And that's where I am today:  Tossing It Out--formerly the Halloween Blog turned eclectic potpourri blog and occasional "Home of the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge Blog"--now thinks of itself as a writer's blog with an identity crisis.  Tossing It Out--the shape shifting blog, the cyber-wormhole between one blog and the next blog.


           What's more, Tossing It Out is now a monetized blog.  Nearly two years after I applied for AdSense my blog became accepted.  Ads appeared on my blog page.   In my Labor Day post when I asked if anyone noticed any of the changes that had occurred on my blog, a few of you mentioned the ads.  Other big changes have occurred on the page and more changes in my blogging activities are still to come.  I will be discussing these and looking for some of your feedback in the weeks to come.

          On Wednesday (9/28) I will have a guest post by my friend Larry Cavanaugh of the blogs DiscConnected and Back in the USSR.   His post will be "The Ghost Writer".  I hope you will join us then.

         Why do you blog?  What kind of blog do you think Tossing It Out is?   What kind of blog do you think yours is?  Has your blog changed much from when you first started it and if so, how?   Do you have advertising on your blog?  Do you or do you know anyone who makes a living off of their blog advertising?


           


            


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