Like authors where was bi-sexual? Author who fled from the office when anyone visited? Even hatred on the set of Mary Poppins!

E. B. White didn’t want to go to the office.

E. B. White was content with sending manuscripts to The New Yorker, but the magazine wanted him on the staff. It took the magazine’s editors months to persuade him to pay them a visit. Then it took a few more weeks to talk him into working for them. When at last he agreed, he made it known that he didn’t want to go to the office. But in the end the editors won—White agreed to go to the office once a week.

This arrangement defined White’s entire association with The New Yorker. He wrote his articles, showed up every Thursday, and fled for the fire escape every time a stranger appeared at the office. In between writing for magazines he wrote stories for children. Stuart Little—his first book for children—appeared in 1945.

Roald Dahl was a spy and a World War II flying ace.

He may not have looked the part, but Roald Dahl was actually a first-rate, real-life action hero. The fun-loving author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory once fought six enemy planes while flying solo. In another battle, he helped reduce twenty-two German planes into useless hunks of smoking metal. He was a Wing Commander and a verified flying ace by the time he was invalided out of the Royal Air Force.

His military career didn’t end there, though. He was sent to the US, along with a crack team of operatives, to combat isolationism among distinguished, influential Americans. Britain wanted the US in the war, and Dahl and his compatriots made sure those who thought otherwise got the message. In other words, forget Pearl Harbor: the Americans entered the war because the creator of the Oompa Loompas made them.

P. L. Travers and Walt Disney were not exactly the best of friends.

P. L. Travers didn’t like a lot of things in Disney’s adaptation of her book Mary Poppins. She didn’t like the music and she hated the film’s weak depiction of the main character. Finally, she didn’t see the point of using animated sequences in the film. She was very vocal about her objections but no one listened.

Travers wasn’t invited to the film’s premiere, either. She had to beg Walt Disney to let her in. After watching the movie she proceeded to give Disney a piece of her mind. Disney just walked out on her, reminding her that the time for any change had passed. Travers never allowed Disney to use any of her work again, which—given Disney’s knack for ruining everything it touches and corrupting children—was probably wise.

C. S. Lewis had a thing going on with his dead friend’s mother.

It all started with a pact: Lewis and his buddy, Paddy Moore, vowed to take care of the other’s families if anything happened to them. World War I was underway, and both men were preparing for the worst. The worst did happen. Paddy died in combat, and Lewis stuck to their agreement.

There was much speculation that Lewis did more than the pact asked of him. He was particularly close to Paddy’s mother, Jane King Moore. Moore was twenty-six years older than Lewis. But that didn’t discourage Lewis from cozying up to her. While the two never admitted to anything, those who knew them saw something else altogether.

Hans Christian Andersen swung both ways.

The lusty but otherwise luckless Andersen never shot it straight. He loved women with a passion, but he also worshipped men with surprising ardor. He may be renowned for his straightforward fairy tales, but in real life he actually played the part of both the knight and the damsel-in-distress. It is believed that his Little Mermaid—horribly butchered by Disney—was actually a gay love letter.

The list of women he loved is long. The list of men he loved is no shorter. Andersen, however, did not see much love come his way. His gangling, awkward ways didn’t endear him to women. The men, on the other hand, were simply unable to respond to his advances. He may have had an intimate relationship with a young, handsome dancer—whom he met when he was in his fifties—but whatever their relationship, it did not last long. Andersen loved many, but remained loveless, for much of his life.

He took to his grave an old letter from a girl whom he had loved in his youth. Sadly this man who gave us so many happy endings never had one of his own.

You’re not going to look at children’s stories the same way again.

So did I. And so did Kim Parker writing in the Atlantic.

Authors change their names for many reasons, but historically, one of the strongest reasons to use a pen name was to hide your gender. Back in the day, women writers were forced to use male pseudonyms. Despite much more equality between the sexes in present day, the tradition remains in the use of initials instead of first names, which immediately alert the male reader to “cooties”—something boys avoid at all costs.

But gender isn’t the only reason to pick a pen name. Here are some famous authors who did – and why.

After he threw a raging party, breaking Dartmouth and federal law during Prohibition, Dr. Seuss, born Theodor Geisel, was fired from his job as editor-in-chief of the college’s Jack-O-Lantern magazine. However, Theodor, that rapscallion, kept writing for the humor mag by signing his work under his middle name—Seuss. Years later, when his first book was published, Seuss added the “Dr.” as a joke at the expense of his father, who always wanted him to pursue a medical career.

Stephen King, the epitome of prolific (sorry, James Franco), created the nom de plume “Richard Bachmann” to publish more frequently than a single name would allow. After the connection was made public, in 1985, way before being self-aware was hip, King declared Bachmann dead of “cancer of the pseudonym, a rare form of schizonomia.”

Jonathan Swift used the pseudonym “Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.” to essentially punk John Partridge, who was a then-famous astrologist and almanac-maker. Swift loved April Fool’s Day, so “Bickerstaff” published “Predictions for the Year 1708,” prophesying the astrologist’s death by “raging fever.” Two months later, Swift used a different pen name to proclaim that Partridge did, in fact, die—an event so many people believed that it pestered Partridge until his actual death. His mourning followers cried outside his window at night, disrupting his sleep. After an undertaker arrived, an elegy was published, and a gravestone was inscribed, Partridge finally published a statement declaring himself alive.

When Charles Dickens started writing, he used the pen name of Boz, one word, which simultaneously reminds us of the Muppets and Madonna. He once explained, writing that ‘Boz’ was “the nickname of a pet child, a younger brother, whom I had dubbed Moses, in honour of Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield, which, being pronounced Bozes, got shortened into Boz.” Fair enough. His early writing was so popular that Sketches by Boz was actually published in 1836.

William Sydney Porter may have immortalized an Ohio State Penitentiary guard with his famous nom de plume, O. Henry. While in jail for embezzlement, Porter published his first story under that pseudonym, though why he’d want to celebrate his guard, we don’t know. The guard’s name was reportedly Orrin Henry.

As far as myself, I had a reader tell me that he liked the idea of using F.F. Fiore as my nom de plume. And I will for MURRAN because it’s my first foray into serious mainstream fiction.

Finished my last pass through of my book of SciFy short stories called THE ORACLE and my story polisher sent me his final of MURRAN.

Now it’s time to put my wife to work. She will do the final look over for me for MURRAN first, then THE ORACLE. Once she is done with MURRAN, I will send it out to my beta readers. Once she’s done THE ORACLE, I’ll put it up for sale on the e-readers.

I hope to encourage my wife to finish her read through of MURRAN this weekend if nothing gets in the way so I can send it out to the beta readers next week.

Keeping fingers crossed.

Once THE ORACLE is on sale, look for special promotions of it and the Chronicles over the next few months. I’ll ask for reviews of THE ORACLE from those who purchased it and in return, give away FREE copies of the Chronicles of Jeremy Nash Box Set.

Once all this is completed, I should be able to get back to researching my fifth novel. Be sure to follow that process on my blog posts under ‘How To Write A Novel’.

A metaphoric element, literary or cinematic device used within a film to weave an underlying message or theme throughout the story.

It’s something I use to hang my story’s wire frame on. The thread is normally short paragraph of so but shows the essential elements of the story from beginning to end. Here’ what I’ll be using and then to flesh out in the story’s wire frame.

A young American boy is raised by Japanese family before WWII. He sees the discrimination against the Japanese family during that time and is drawn more and more into being Japanese. Because of this and discriminatory laws passed during 1930s, he had little love for the American establishment. He goes to Japan thinking he would be welcomed there but he is ostracized by the Japanese and is called a freak. He eventually is accepted after joining an ultra-nationalist secret society and follows their principals – leading to him to join the kamikaze to finally prove himself worth of being a true Japanese. Later, that same society goes after his adopted family for his father and mother and daughter’s liberal and democratic views of the militarists leading Japan into war. In the end, he sees that the nationalist establishment is just as discriminatory as the American establishment he left. He eventually learns from a Shinto priest the true meaning of what is means to be a Japanese.

More to follow.  You can see the thread of these blog posts by reading the ‘Who to Write a Novel’ category.

After all my time in my local libraries and even help from the Library of Congress, it turned out that my first pass on finding the information I need to start my marinating is coming from books I purchased online.

Perhaps it was my fault.  The traditional approach to finding what I needed to start my exploration did not or could not use the process of throwing a wide net.  Perhaps I was too specific in my requests and when little came from the libraries I realized the best approach was one I’ve used in the past.

I should have focused my requests on personal experience in general of people before and during WWII Japan.  With that in, mind I was able to find several books that that will act as springboards in my marinating in the information I need to construct the wire frame of the story – characters, plot, and environment. Some of the books I purchased – about $250.00 worth – do show personal experiences of westerners in Japan, some of everyday Japanese and some diaries of those who had a grander view of the history.

A part of the character/plot shaping up now revolves around the Japanese father who is on Admiral Yamamoto’s staff and hold Yamamoto’s views of working against going to war with America and believes Japan cannot win. Here I can bring in a threat to the family that I can use later in the plot. The threat comes from the criminal gangs that were used in assassinations of politicians and others who resisted the militarizing of Japan.

Some of the family is starting to shape up, too.  There is a little known movie staring Jimmy Stewart about an American exchange student living with a German family and watches how they become entranced with Hitler and become Nazis. Good stuff here to use as a parallel with the Japanese family.

The kamikaze element is also beginning to shape up. How that’s handled will point to the final message in the book and the development of the American boy.

I’ll await the remaining books to arrive then begin the marinating – unless MURRAN and THE ORACLE comes back from the story polishers and I have to put the final touches on those first.

More to follow.

I was wrong. There was very little there. Lot’s about Japanese-American internment but not what I’m looking for. All I could do was buy some books on Amazon that looked promising as to material.

So….to the public libraries!

BUZZ! WRONG!

Very little there, too. I did find a few sections of books that were helpful in historical background of the times and one Japanese reporter’s diary, but little else. There was one book that hit the mark as for personal experiences of Westerners in World War II Japan that seems to be unavailable now but I did find it on inter-library loan. Waiting to see if I get it.

So I turned to the Library of Congress. Chatted with a librarian there and she will do some research for me. Keeping fingers crossed.

This is the part of writing my novels that I call marinating in the information. Using intuition and submerging myself in the material to see which information leads to others and keeping a wide-open mind.

I do this to help me develop the wireframe I need to start my detailed research.

I’ll post more as the process develops.

Found this little known fact at a blog called – wheat else – The Blog.

What all-time-great novel didn’t even sell out its first printing of about 3,000 copies? Believe it or not, “Moby-Dick” (1851). The downward spiral continued for Herman Melville with “Pierre” (1852), which was lambasted by critics for being allegedly crazy, sick, perverted, etc. That odd novel focuses on a seemingly incestuous relationship, and also features the title character writing a badly received book — reflecting Melville’s bitterness at the response to “Moby-Dick.” But I think “Pierre” is a masterpiece in its way. The post-”Pierre” Melville (1819-1891) lapsed into obscurity, writing poetry that didn’t sell much and working as a customs inspector in New York City.

So I was not the only one who had to suffer through Moby ‘THICK’ in high school.

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

 - Douglas Adams

I’m writing a book. I’ve got the page numbers done.

 - Stephen Wright

A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it to be God.

- Sidney Sheldon

All the words I use in my stories can be found in the dictionary – it’s just a matter of arranging them into the right sentences.

 - Somerset Maugham

Copy from one, it’s plagiarism; copy from two, it’s research.

 -Wilson Mizner

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.

 - Christopher Hampton

A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. This is too much of a temptation to the editor.

-Ring Lardner

A young musician plays scales in his room and only bores his family. A beginning writer, on the other hand, sometimes has the misfortune of getting into print.

-Marguerite Yourcenar

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.

- Robert Benchley

Being a writer is like having homework every night for the rest of your life.

-Lawrence Kasdan

Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them.

-Flannery O’Connor

It’s a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.

-Andrew Jackson

There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

 -Somerset Maugham

Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.”

 -Samuel Johnson

Hope this brightened your day.

Soon, once my 5^th novel MURRAN has been put to bed and the marketing of it is on it’s way and THE ORACLE, my book of short stories is complete, I will begin in earnest writing my 6^th novel. Like MURRAN, my next novel deals with the coming of age of a young boy in a different culture than his own.  In this case, an American teenager growing up in Japan during World War Two.

Like Trey in MURRAN, he has to find himself and a life with meaning.

I came up with the idea for the story watching young inexperienced Japanese Kamikaze pilots climb into their planes and set out to crash themselves into American warships. The thought hit me – ‘What if it was an American teenager climbing into that plane and going on a Kamikaze suicide mission?’

I had to first come up with a name for the story that reflected the American teenager as an outsider – since he would be. The name I came up with many years ago when I was contemplating this story was ‘Shudo’. I thought, at the time, it conveyed the meaning different and the idea I was after. I soon discovered after picking up my file on the story, that I was a little sloppy with my research. It seems the word Shudo could mean homosexual. That was not the image I wanted to convey of the title character as a true outsider since there most certainty had been gays in Japan at the time.

So I had to look for a more suitable name and I found two.

One was a simple translation of ‘outsider’ or ‘alien’ – Gaigin – a derogatory word, and Burako meaning a class in Japanese society that were considered unclean. I don’t know which I will choose for the title of the story and thus the name the Japanese calls the American teenager.  The word ‘burako’ had nice coronations since they were an actual class of people and that may come in handy later in the story.

Now that I have a choice of names, I need to start creating a ‘wire frame’ that I can ‘hang’ or develop the story on. I knew I had several elements in the story that I wanted to use in some manner.

One was pre-war Japan since the American teenager will arrive there a year or so before the war. Then I need to research Westerners living in Japan at both times to make the story as close to reality as possible.

I also needed a character that would describe to the teenager the Japan he was living in and how it evolved from a peaceful democracy to a militaristic society that the teenager is drawn into to prove he is not an outsider. I also need characters that make up the Japanese family he is living with. The boys go to the war when it breaks out – one as a naval pilot on an aircraft carrier, one as an army solider on mainland Asia, and one as a marine in the Pacific atolls.  The youngest son, younger than the American teenager, loves American culture and is later persecuted for it. The sister and mother will be forced to leave their positions in society and work for the war effort eventually growing food in the fields with the peasants. The father will work in some capacity in the government or war department and through his eyes and his sons’ we see the war develop.

The teenager finds his way into the Japanese family first in California or Hawaii. His father abandons him and his mother, his abused mother dies and the Japanese sons protect him until he joins by the Japanese family. This way he learns how to speak Japanese.

He later meets his father in a POW camp.

Another character is a geisha that represents the dying traditional Japan that he experiences.

Finally, I need a character to play the wise man that counsels the teenager away from the militaristic version of Shintoism. I’m thinking a ‘Sohei’ – warrior monk. – or ‘Yambushi’ that has a warrior tradition but can practice Shintoism.

There will most probably be other minor characters needed to move the story forward at certain points.

As far as historical events in the story, the teenager will experience an earthquake and tsunami, the fire bombing of Tokyo, and finally, Hiroshima enters the story in some fashion. Perhaps that’s where the family lives.

So there it is so far. Like MURRAN, I will have to do a lot of research in the libraries. Google, in the case of this story will take me only so far.

As the project progresses, I’ll add to this thread. I hope after all my research I have an interesting story to tell.

Verne tried to imitate the popular fiction of the day similar to Victor Hugo and Dumas’ works. It was under their influence that, at the age of seventeen, he wrote a number of tragedies and comedies, not to mention novels – and was not very good at it.

One day Dumas gave Verne some excellent advice. Basically, he told Verne to find his own genre and not try and imitate others’.

As a college student in Paris, he studied law at the request of his father. When his father found out that, instead of attending classes, Verne was working part-time at the local opera house and writing librettos, he withdrew his financial support. Verne could barely afford food, much less heat. The library offered a warm retreat.

Verne lived at the height of the Industrial Revolution and was fascinated by the combined by the machinery, geographic and scientific discoveries of his time. He would sit in the Paris library for hours each day, reading newspapers, scientific journals and encyclopedias, taking copious notes.

Soon, his knowledge of the latest scientific and technological advances he read of percolated in his mind and gave him the ideas for his groundbreaking start in science fiction.

New struggling authors should take a queue from Verne’s life and not try to imitate current popular fiction like ’50 Shades of Grey’, vampire and romantic werewolves stories.

Don’t write what’s popular. Write what you enjoy.