EXTRA INNINGS. COACH S NEW YEAR S BLOVIATION MARSHALL J. COOK, EDITOR-IN-COACH Big Brother

Dave Brubeck died the other day. That same morning, the Red Sox announced that they had signed free agent Mike Napoli, a slugging catcher/first baseman, to a three-year contract. I immediately wanted to email my big brother with the news and get his take on it.

It may take me a long time to realize that I can’t do that any more.

If you went to Google Image and typed in “1950s nerd,” my big brother’s picture might pop up.

I’m not saying he was ugly. We looked too much alike for me to say that. I’m just saying-- picket fence crew cut, black horn-rimmed glasses, pocket protector for his pens (which meant that he actually wore a shirt with a pocket to school!), slide rule dangling from his belt. (Those of you who don’t know what a pocket protector or a slide rule is can Google that, too.)

And he didn’t just have acne. Acne had him! It overran his face.

And yet-- and here’s the glorious contradiction that was Dale Cameron Cook, four years my senior and my only sibling (I used to say Mom and Dad got it right on the second try and didn’t have to make any more kids): even looking like the anti-Fonz (see Google), he always, always had a really good-looking girl friend.

Needless to say, I was in awe of him.

Four years is a huge span to bridge when you’re, say, 12 and eight, and we had all different interests. He was an engineer like our father, built radios from kits, took cars apart and put them together, was an amateur radio operator, collected stamps and coins, played chess, read sci-fi. No computers yet, of course, but he’d help to develop them when he got older.

He and dad even constructed a 60-foot-tall radio tower in the back yard, in the middle of the rhubarb patch, near where a turtle we named

“Jacko” took up residence under the house.

We were, of course, extremely competitive, at least when I got big enough to pose a challenge.

Canasta, Monopoly, miniature golf (a family passion), fighting out in the back yard (Dad finally bought us boxing gloves), we were fierce.

Ping pong matches could and did go on all afternoon and into the night.

He is woven into my history, as I am woven into his, and he is responsible for some of the milestones of my early life.

This man gave me my first car, a 1951 two-tone green Chevy two-door Mom and Dad had given him when they got a new car-- a very rare occurrence in my family-- and which he

immediately painted jet black and into which he installed a bermuda bell, a wolf whistle, and a brody knob. (See also “suicide knob.”)

Way cool.

He taught me how to drive with that car, driving us up the mountain to the start of the Mt.

Wilson toll road, parking on what in memory was at least a 45 degree angle, switching places with me and challenging me to start the car, get it into first gear, and make it move up the hill.

If you learned to drive on a stick-shift, you know that this is impossible, that you coast backwards down the hill, panicking all the way, and that you continue to do this for days, weeks, months (it seemed like that, anyway)-- until one day, magically, you’ve learned how to feather the clutch, and you’re ready to move on to step two:

shifting into second gear.

Keep going; there’s more--

EXTRA

INNINGS

In which we celebrate writers, their enablers,

and The Rose Bowl, the Granddaddy of them all!

#39 Madison, Wisconsin January, 2013

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Big Brother

He graduated to a 1957 Chevy Bel Air-- yes, that car, with the Corvette and the T-Bird, the most iconic car of the era, which he also painted jet black and which he also passed down to me when he got a little foreign number called a Simca-- and promptly took it apart on our garage and put it back together again.

We still lived mostly in two different worlds, but when he went off to college, I felt a big hole in my life.

The night I made Eagle Scout, I was standing on the stage in the auditorium of the Luther Burbank Elementary

School, waiting for my dad, the Assistant Scout Master, to confer the award on me, when my big brother strolled in the back door, big as life, having driven straight from college in Northern California to be there for my big moment, surprising us all.

As adults, we were still pretty distant.

When we started our families, he lived first in Arizona, then in

Massachusetts, while I lived in Northern California and

then Wisconsin. We wrote letters sporadically, and neither one of us liked telephones.

Email brought us together. Being a writer, I think with my fingers, and brother Dale was comfortable with all things computer. In later years, we were emailing back and forth three and four times a day. We devised a word game, based (very) loosely on Wheel of Fortune, but without Vanna, alas, and were fiercely competitive at that, too. One of us would get 10,000 even 20,000 points ahead, but invariably the other caught up.

When he died, after years of struggle with diabetes and polyneuropathy that had reduced his world at the end to a recliner chair and a

wheelchair, we were both in the 1,600,000 point range; I’m pretty sure he was ahead by maybe 100 points.

I love him, I treasure the memories only the two of us shared and which are now mine alone, and I hope to see him again in heaven.

Yes, about my brother and the notion of heaven-- He was what I’d describe as an

evangelical atheist, and he could be a tad derisive about my beliefs (although in recent years we had some really wonderful email exchanges on that and many other topics).

I think of the Rowan Atkinson skit where the Devil is greeting a bunch of new recruits in hell. “Atheists! Atheists? Over here please,” he calls out. “You must be feeling a right bunch of charlies.”

I don’t think my brother is in any hell, mind you. He lived by a strong moral code, had our father’s sense of integrity, and was uncompromising in his beliefs. (And yes, faith in the scientific method is a belief system.) But I do so hope he’s getting a HUGE surprise up in heaven, even if he feels like a complete charlie for awhile before he starts turning cartwheels. (No more wheelchair!)

One of my students sent me a lovely message of consolation, opining that my brother might at that very moment be thinking, “Damn! My little brother was right again!” I emailed back, telling her that I hoped and prayed he was thinking I was

“right,” but that he would never admit to “again.”

Do they have ping pong in heaven, brother? I live in joyful hope we’ll play again one day.

Dale Cameron Cook

July 30, 1940 - December 1, 2012

YOU KNOW YOU ARE LIVING IN 2013 when...

1. You accidentally enter your PIN on the microwave.

2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.

4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e- mail addresses.

6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.

7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen

8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't even have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.

10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.

11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )

12 You're reading this and nodding and laughing.

13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to copy and email this message.

14. You’re too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.

15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.

I never caught his name. But I had watched “Sad John” each winter make his home over that rusty hot air vent next to the Hotel Jermyn in downtown Scranton. I worked in a parking garage directly across the street. It was my first job, and I worked as many hours as I could to support my young family. So around midnight this particular New Year's Eve in 1965, I found myself in the parking garage’s small heated cashier’s booth, staring across the street at Sad John. It was like we were the only two humans on the planet.

A heavy late night snowstorm had blanketed the downtown streets and turned the city into a wintry white wonderland. I knew I would have little business that nigh,t so I settled back to take a nap.

A few minutes later, I heard a faint tap on my window and turned to see Sad John’s lethargic eyes staring at me. The old man’s white hair was crusted with ice, and his woeful face was covered with a stubby beard. He had on an old overcoat that had seen better days. Beneath the coat was a newspaper he apparently used for

insulation against the winter weather. He looked frozen, and slightly embarrassed.

He wasn’t like the other outcasts of society who frequented downtown Scranton back then. Never once did I, or anyone for that matter, ever see Sad John smile. I guess that’s how he got his name.

And he never asked anybody for help or a

handout. He appeared to have an inner dignity his peers did not possess.

The story around town was that he had been accused of some petty theft years before when he worked in a local bank. Others speculated booze and a faithless woman led to his downfall.

Nobody really knew for sure. Few cared, and Sad John never talked about it. He just stood over that iron grate, hour after hour, and pretended to read his tattered newspaper as blasts of warm air fluttered up the legs of his baggy pants. The thin gloves on his hands had no finger coverings. So he was able to turn pages and give the illusion he was actually reading.

As I said, Sad John never asked anyone for anything. So it startled me when he knocked on the glass of my booth that New Year's Eve and asked for money for a cup of coffee. Up the street there was an all-night diner. He jerked his head in that direction. His voice was soft and polite. Only his eyes displayed his utter hopelessness.

Somehow I sensed his despair and shame, so, without too much thought, I withdrew a bill from my wallet and handed it to him.

He looked at the money and appeared perplexed.

I quickly realized I had handed him a twenty, nearly half my weekly salary.

Except for one remaining dollar, that was all the money I’d have for another five days. I reached for my wallet to exchange the twenty for the one, but then stopped.

Instead, I said, “Get me one too, okay?”

I said it like someone would say to a trusted friend.

Sad John studied my face and then nodded, and left without saying a word.

At that moment, I was certain I had seen the last of my money. But I tried not to think about it.

I wanted to keep the holiday spirit in my heart. I told myself the booze Sad John would surely purchase with my money would keep him from freezing to death that bitterly cold night. But as the minutes ticked by and the silence of the lonely city settled over me, I became despondent and angry with myself.

“What a stupid thing to do!” I said, but there was not a living soul around to comfort me.

Then five minutes later, off in the distance, I saw a figure, head bowed, fighting to stay erect against the freezing gusts of wind and swirling snow. It was Sad John, battling his way down the middle of the snow-covered street. With his tattered overcoat flapping over his knees, he trudged forward, nearly stumbling at one point, but then found his balance and continued on until he reached my enclosed booth.

Breathing heavily, and without uttering one word, he handed me the brown paper bag he had

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One freezing cold New Year’s Eve

in his left hand. It contained two containers of hot coffee. Then he opened the stiff fingers of his right hand and gave me my change. Not a dime was missing. I thought of giving him a big tip, but something in his eyes told me he would have been insulted.

We exchanged glances. I really didn’t know what to say to him. I only hoped my initial gesture warmed his heart in some small way. At the stroke of midnight, sounds of laughter and cheers

escaped from the hotel across the street. It lasted briefly, and then the city was silent once more.

I withdrew the two containers of coffee and handed one to Sad John.

“Happy New Year, friend,” I said to him.

The old man studied my face for a long time.

Then, with tears in his eyes, he turned and trudged back to his position over the iron grate. From across the street, he kept looking at me, his frail body shivering. Then, slowly, he raised his container of coffee, and finally returned my toast.

And that was when I received a very special New Year's gift.

For the first time, I saw Sad John smile.

THE EVOLUTION OF A WRITER Craig W. Steele

First, you scribble drivel alone,

secretly,

maybe only in your room.

You read your words aloud,

quietly,

like humming an off-key tune to yourself so no one else will hear.

You struggle to keep writing, even after everyone you know

has been published. Then, one day, YOU

are published somewhere.

The next day, somewhere else.

Eventually, hesitantly,

you begin to call yourself a writer.

Eventually you realize you always were.

Extra

Innings ^#39

Madison, Wisconsin January 1, 2013 This month’s All-Star lineup:

Madonna Dries Christensen, Rex Owens, Esther M. Leiper-Estabrooks, Ned Burke , Monette Bebow-Reinhard

Film buff: Jake McLaughlin Book Reviewer: John Swift Web Weaver: Kyle Henderson

Internetters: Steve Born, Larry Tobin The Writer’s Poet: Craig W. Steele The Masked Man: Clayton Moore Editor-in-Coach: Marshall J. Cook World’s cutest baby: Liliana Lenore Cook I publish Extra Innings monthly and distribute it free to an open enrollment mailing list. To get on the list, email the Coach at:

mcook@dcs.wisc.edu

Extra Innings comes to you through the good graces of the writing program at continuing studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, led by Christine DeSmet. Find out about workshops, courses, conferences, and critiques services at:

www.dcs.wisc.edu/lsa/writing

Extra

Innings

is a proud booster of Write by the Lake The Writers Institute

The School of the Arts at Rhinelander Weekend with your Novel

and the Odyssey Project Back issues of E.I. available at:

www.dcs.wisc.edu/lsa/writing/extrainnings

Deadline for next issue:

Wednesday, January 23rd

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A man's home is his castle, in a manor of speaking

Dijon vu - The same old mustard.

Practice safe eating - Always use condiments.

Shotgun wedding - A case of wife or death.

A hangover is the wrath of grapes.

Dancing cheek-to-cheek is really a form of floor play.

When two egotists meet, it's an I for an I.

What's the definition of a will? (It's a dead give-away.)

In democracy your vote counts. In feudalism your count votes.

A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion . If you don't pay your exorcist, you get repossessed.

With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.

You feel stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.

Every calendar's days are numbered.

A lot of money is tainted - Taint yours and taint mine.

A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.

He had a photographic memory that was never developed.

A midget fortune-teller who escapes from prison is a small medium at large.

Once you've seen one shopping centre, you've seen a mall.

Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis.

Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.

Acupuncture is a jab well done.

Because my husband grew up in South Dakota and I lived there for a few years, we subscribe to South Dakota Magazine. The content, the writing, and the photography are incomparable. My favorite part of each issue blends advertising with memoir.

The ad for De Smet Farm Mutual Insurance Company garners space within the first few pages. The business name and address are strung across the bottom. At the top it reads: Another Great Memory From De Smet Farm Mutual.

Below that is a vintage black and white photo or drawing to illustrate the story. The voice is that of a man lovingly recalling boyhood in a farming community during a time

when people neighbored.

A time when a creek was a crick and boys had egg throwing contests and named cows after neighbor ladies. Through listening, watching, and participating the boy learned about all aspects of life-- the good and the bad.

He gleaned

information while lying on his bedroom floor

with his ear to the heat register. There, he learned that whenever Mom wanted to tell Dad they were expecting another baby, she made his favorite meat loaf for supper and then sent the kids upstairs.

The parents were tenant farmers who moved often because Dad found a nicer house, a better barn, or apple trees. Eventually, he found a place that suited him and they settled down. Mom never got the garage she wanted; the car was parked in a shed.

Perhaps the narrator got his idea for the unobtrusive magazine ads from Dad, who

whittled the art of subtlety to a science. One story goes that on a frigid winter night he invited a slow-talking, friendly bachelor over for dessert.

“And bring your accordion,” he added.

Narrator recalls, “His music brought joy to our farm island, and the memories warm my heart to this day.”

In another story, the boy accompanies Dad on his annual rounds collecting funds for the church and its pastor. At a shack outside of town, home to an elderly man with a hunch back and wobbly knees, the men talk about the weather and then Dad explains his mission. The man pulls out his wallet and withdraws the only bill—a ten or twenty—and offers it. Dad tells him that’s too much, that most folks give a dollar or two. He hands the man a wad of bills in change, and they resume talking about the weather.

Dad loved cows. One winter for several

Saturdays in a row, the boy and his brothers and Dad toted 50 pound bags of medicine for sick cows to a farm whose driveway was so filled with snow that no one had a tractor with enough power to clear it.

Each week, the farmer in striped overalls showed his gratitude by inviting them into the kitchen, where he had prepared hot chocolate on his wood stove.

Weak hot chocolate, but it warmed body and soul.

In a yarn reminiscent of a scene from To Kill A Mockingbird, when Scout and Jem watch Atticus shoot a mad dog and realize their father is a sharpshooter, the boy in this story is surprised to learn at a church picnic softball game that Dad is quite the athlete. When he steps up to the plate and wields the bat, someone from the opposing team yells, “Back up; he can hit.”

Currently, the hype has begun about Super Bowl commercials, 60 second spots that cost millions of dollars. They don’t hold a candle to the simplicity of De Smet Farm Mutual ads. I hope they don’t change their formula. It wouldn’t be neighborly.

[www.SouthDakotaMagazine.com ]

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On being neighborly, South Dakota style

M

forwarded by Norma Sundberg

Why do croutons come in airtight packages?

Aren't they just stale bread to begin with?

If 4 out of 5 people SUFFER from diarrhea...does that mean that one out of five enjoys it?

If people from Poland are called Poles, then why aren't people from Holland called Holes?

If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?

Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist, but a person who drives a race car is not called a racist?

If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, then doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked, and dry cleaners depressed?

If Fed Ex and UPS were to merge, would they call it Fed UP?

I thought about how mothers feed their babies with tiny little spoons and forks, so

I wondered if Chinese mothers use toothpicks.

Shakespeare wrote sonnets and perhaps that’s all you know about this time-honored, fourteen line form. Or perhaps you think of pretentious stuff, top-lofty and boring, crammed in by a zealous English teacher. Yet current sonnets can feature any subject, serious or not. A piece may look like an inert block but hold treasure inside.

Are fourteen lines too brief to say much? No, not if every word counts toward a compelling idea. Consider this satiric Shakespearean sonnet by Gideon O. Burton.

SPAM

Third cousin to a pig and twice removed, It oozes, gooey, from its squarish tin.

Thick film conceals the lard with which it’s grooved;

Intestines pureed mottle its pink skin, Would ancient man have glorified the spam;

In pictographs preserved its conquest sure?

` Or would they shrug at its smooth texture, bland No boxy graphic to make spam endure?

In industry the spam is thrift itself:

No bones or organs spill aside as scrap.

Once salted, lies for decades on a shelf.

Discerning palettes know its kind from crap.

Maligned, despised, yet all the while consumed If spam’s eternal, Earth itself is doomed.

Spam is trademarked, which requires starting it with a capital letter, though Burton does not. He pokes fun, yet satire can have a serious side, and I learned from a Web comment that ‘auxesis;--a term new to me—means biologic growth or hyperbole—i.e., exaggeration.

Hormel introduced Spam (short for spiced ham) in 1937, and 70 years later sold its seven billionth container. As for my Petrarchan (also called Italian) sonnet which follows, for 23 years Peter and I owned a convenience store with self- serve gas. The incident, rough draft jotted on a paper plate, happened just as I tell it, and the poem was subsequently published in WRITERS’

Journal.

SELF SERVICE ISLAND

“You come and pump this friggin’ gas,” she said.

“It don’t flow right. It only starts and stops.”

--That was the skinny broad. By flaps and flops Her fat friend hauled the hose whose nozzle head Hung down like an old snake gone limp and dead.

(They’d parked too far away.) With bird-like hops The first re-grips the trigger and then slops Cold liquid on my shoes—they reeked No-Lead!

A third gal stuck her hand from the back seat To wave a greenback. “Five bucks, Not no more.”

Her voice was rough and hard, a football cleat Upon my ear, and as I bent toward the chore To pump for them, could hear the first repeat

“Jeez, what a bunch of crap!” then slammed her door.

If the sonnet’s rough, so was the situation!

In his text SONNET VARIATIONS, poet Robert Shelford describes Amigo DeWitt’s French Sonnet form, whose tetrameter lines rhyme AA BAB CDCD EXE FF. Shelford wrote this example. (Note four beats per line instead of the usual iambic five.)

GATED COMMUNITIES

Where are the dreams of yesterday?

Did they, like soldiers, fade away?

They were not stolen, lost, or trashed, Embalmed and buried deep in clay, Redeemed like bonds for extra cash, Yet they dissolved like sun-scorched mist;

Forgotten dreams so few recall, That simple goodness could exist And fellowship would guide us all.

Today prosperity divides.

We hunker down in selfish cells, Ignoring needs of those outside.

When poor, we thought of others’ need.

Now, well-to-do, we worship greed.

Don’t let sonnets scare you. They can flex to fit many moods and ideas. Try variations; I’ve collected patterns for three dozen or more.

Experiment to see what works for you, recalling that Dante Gabriel Rossetti described the form as

“a moment’s monument.”

It’s true, most examples won’t last, but the best will continue to inspire us, seeming impervious to time, as if endowed with graceful permanence like marble. Who among you will create such a masterpiece? Write on, and nurture grand dreams!

Recall too, as a perk, paper is way less expensive than marble, and if you make a mistake, a pen stroke or mouse click corrects it

For the Love of Words

Esther M. Leiper–Estabrooks

Expanding the sonnet

As is the case every year, many new words and phrases entered the English language, however fleetingly, in 2012. Here are a few. If you have favorites you don’t see on the list, send them along: mcook@dcs.wisc.edu

The 47 Percent:

That portion of the population which, according to Mitt Romney, doesn’t pay taxes, depends on the government, feels that the world owes them a living, and would never vote for Mitt Romney.

Binders Full of Women:

Another Romney coinage, referring to potential candidates for government jobs when Romeny was Governor of Massachusetts.

Doga:

Yoga with one’s dog.

Eastwooding

Debating an empty chair or stool.

Fiscal Cliff

I’m too sick of this one to type a definition. You know what it means, and by the time you read this, we may have all fallen over it.

Frankenstorm:

The name given to the freak of nature that hit the East Coast in October, a few days before

Halloween.

See “Snor’eastercane.” See also “Superstorm.”

Gangnam Style:

Another one with which I’m thoroughly disgusted. Google it if you really want to.

Hugs Bison:

aka The God Particle: An atomic particle, long posited by scientists to try to make physics work, the existence of which was apparently confirmed at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva in July.

Nomophobia:

Fear of losing or forgetting one’s mobile phone.

Obamaloney:

The Romeny campaign’s name for some of President’s Obama’s pronouncements. See

“Romnesia.”

Pet shaming:

Posting a picture of one’s pet to a social media along with a sign that reveals some naughtiness committed by the animal.

Romnesia:

The Obama campaign’s name for the malady allegedly causing Governor Romeny to keep switching positions on key issues.

Snor’eastercane:

A triple portmanteau word comprised of “snow,”

“nor’easter,” and “hurricane.” See

“Frankenstorm.” See also “Superstorm.”

Superstorm:

See “Frankenstorm” and “Snow’eastercane.”

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Wearing our opinions on our chests

Pop culture has been making itself known on T-shirts for years. Think "Mom likes ME best" or "At what age am I old enough to know better?"

Text on fabric moved closer to the literary when someone came up with "Careful, or you'll end up in my novel."

And then, the Word Whisperer was heartened to see in a catalog a T-shirt that read "I am the Grammarian about whom your mother warned you."

It gives one hope that the Hokey Pokey is not what it’s all about.

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2012 in review: words and phrases

Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (the last dictionary I purchased many years ago) defines “patient” as: bearing pains or trials calmly or without complaint. I have never been accused of having patience in any measure.

My publisher, Mischievous Muse Press, (MMP) is a micro press. At the time I signed a contract with them in April, 2011, there were four employees, and now they’ve blossomed to nine. I was e-mailed a contract on 2/18/11, and I

responded with a few a questions and the contract wasn’t signed until 4/15/11 – 60 days.

My first assignment was to edit the format of my manuscript so that it could be made into a galley. I sent the formatted manuscript to MMP in late April, 2011. I waited until mid-March, 2012 to learn that the owner and editor-in-chief was reviewing my manuscript – 11 months.

In early-April, 2012 I was sent editorial notes and an electronic copy of the galley and given the assignment to begin editing. Without warning I received an e-mail from my editor to stop revising the galley; she decided to compare the manuscript with the galley and to inform me that publication had slipped from spring/summer to fall/winter.

I was on assignment from The Writer

date for my article. The MMP editor

responded that my book would be published by November 30 and that she would work diligently to make that target.

In mid-May I received an e-mail that reversed her earlier decision to compare the manuscript and galley, and instead my galley was assigned to some other editors, and they had no idea when they would complete the review of my galley.

The electronic version of the galley I would edit arrived on June 29^th. I was assured they were on target for November publication. I promised to review all the suggestions and return the revised galley by Aug. 1. I met that goal.

After submitting the revised galley I asked for the contact information for my new editor so that we could collaborate through the editing process.

MMP refused my request. Their rationale for not sharing contact information was that they wanted

their editors to act independently, and the galley would still need to be reviewed and approved by the owner.

I waited.

On November 14, 2012 I received an e- mail that my book would not be published in 2012 – I have no idea why or who even has the galley.

I was told that “While we were hoping for a 2012 release, it looks like it will be an early 2013 release.” Another 16 weeks slipped by without any further communication. What happened to the November 30 promise I quoted in my September 2012 Breakthrough Article in The Writer

Magazine? It’s a mystery.

I don’t know what others’ experiences have been with a traditional publisher. Maybe my experience is the norm, maybe not. It’s likely that it will be two years or more from contract signing to publication. As Kurt Vonnegut wrote, “So it goes.”

In fairness, the publisher designed a stunning cover, created a Facebook page for my book, and assisted me with creating my author’s webpage, but until a reader can have book in hand, well . . . I am very interested in learning from Extra Innings readers what your experience has been in being published-- especially the journey after you’ve signed the contract.

If I leave you with the impression I’m ranting and raving, I apologize. Writing helps release the demons, I’m sure you’ll understand.

Postscript: On December 18th I received an e- mail from Mischievous Muse Press which said, in part: “MMP closes from Friday Dec. 21 through Monday, Jan. 14 ( a 3 week vacation) If you are receiving this email, then you are one of our authors that we hoped to publish in 2012. Because your book was not published in 2012, it will receive priority attention in 2013."

Have you ever heard of a publisher closing for three weeks? By the way, I sent my editor an e- mail on November 28th and have never received a response; looks like I won't get a response until next year - if ever.

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& P

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Patience is overrated ... or

still waiting to be published . . .

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines

What happens if you get scared half to death twice?

My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder."

Why do psychics have to ask you for your name.

If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.

Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.

The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.

The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.

The colder the x-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.

Everyone has a photographic memory; some just don't have film.

If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

And the all-time favorite --

If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights

still work?

There’s been a lot of discussion in various writing boards and blogs about the demise of traditional publishing, and many writers use this to justify self-publishing their work.

I believe any writer who self-publishes without first going through a rigorous editing and

submissions process to traditional publishers is making the writing profession look bad.

Traditional publishing is changing, there’s no doubt about that. But let’s be clear-- a traditional publisher makes choices about what to publish.

They have a selection process, and they don’t take on every project that is queried to them.

Now we have a plethora of small publishers, micro publishers, or people who self-publish and then decide to turn that into a publishing house-- but this one simple definition is still the same:

they do not charge a writer to publish their work, and they keep a percentage of every sale.

They have a standard to uphold for their business, so they are selective. They send out rejections. They like a piece of work enough to invest time and effort into making it good enough that they, too, can make money on it.

It doesn’t matter if it’s just ebook, or ebook/

POD, or print only in hard cover that gets a major release and is featured in the few bookstores that are left in the country. If they do not accept everyone, do not ask you to pay anything, edit your work, and support and market you, they are traditional.

I have nothing against a writer who has gathered a ton of rejections, who has edited the piece until it’s pristine, and who has gotten readers to give their opinions, and then decides that maybe what they’ve written is a little too off the wall and decides, finally, to self-publish. I’ll bet you a couple of my books that those who make it BIG in self-publishing had first paid their dues in this respect.

The problem with self-publishing, to put it clearly, is writers who don’t do all that, but just want to be able to call themselves authors and would rather keep all the sales money to

themselves. So they write it, edit it maybe once, maybe even hire an editor because they’re lousy at grammar, and put it out there and wait for the

money to come rolling in. Then they realize they have to do the marketing, too. Too much work, so they move on to something else.

So many authors today talk about publishing with Amazon’s KDP. It’s true you don’t pay to publish, but you don’t get any editing or

marketing support, either, and you lose a portion of the sales to Amazon. You don’t pay them up front but you’re still paying them to publish an ebook. Actually you’re paying for the right to be on Amazon. It's still self-publishing.

Writers who make that their first step I would never call authors. Writing is a way of life-- a calling that requires hard work, not just writing, and patience.

So many writers I’ve met insist that if they don’t get an agent, they have to self-publish. That is not in the least bit true, but they fall for it time and again. I wish I knew who was giving out this advice. I’d throw a book at them. So many publishers do not need an agent. I have three books currently being considered for publication;

not one needed an agent, and not one is a self- publisher.

But writers can be romanced into self-

publishing because they don’t have to wait. They think riches are right around the corner. Sorry to say, they aren’t.

In my writing group, The Green Bay Writers Guild, some seem to be looking simply for advice or reassurance but aren’t willing to do the work.

They’re looking for the easy path. It’s not the reason I formed the group. My group is designed to encourage writers to become authors, not self- publishers-- to take the chance and put their work up for rejection, and to continue to work on it until it’s good enough for someone else to take a chance on. Only if you get accepted can you feel you’ve finally written something that is worthy of others to read.

And that is worth working toward.

Don’t become an author just to say you’re an author. Become one by having something to say and finding the right way to say it. The world needs more authors, not more self-publishers.

© 2012 Monette Bebow-Reinhard

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The core value of Green Bay Writers Guild

2012 S.A.* Answer Award Winners

Honorable Mention

It was meal time during an airline flight. 'Would you like dinner?' the flight attendant asked John, seated in front.

'What are my choices?' John asked.

'Yes or no,' she replied.

Honorable mention

A lady was picking through the frozen turkeys at the grocery store but couldn't find one big enough for her family. She asked a stock boy, 'Do these turkeys get any bigger?' The stock boy replied, 'No ma'am, they're dead.'

Third Place

The police officer got out of his car as the kid who was stopped for speeding rolled down his window.

'I've been waiting for you all day,' the officer said. The kid replied, Yeah, well, I got here as fast as I could.'

When the cop finally stopped laughing, he sent the kid on his way without a ticket.

Second place

A truck driver is driving along on the freeway and notices a sign that read: Low Bridge Ahead. Before he knows it, the bridge is right in front of him and his truck gets wedged under it. Cars are backed up for miles. Finally a police car comes up. The cop gets out of his car and walks to the truck driver, puts his hands on his hips, and says, 'Got stuck, huh?'

The truck driver says, 'No, I was delivering this bridge, and I ran out of gas.' And the grand price award winning S.A. answer of the year

A woman is standing nude looking in the bedroom mirror. She is not happy with what she sees and says to her husband, 'I feel horrible; I look old, fat and ugly. I really need you to pay me a compliment.' The husband replies, 'Your eyesight's damn near perfect.’

Unfortunately, the man who uttered the award-winning answer has since died and cannot accept his award.

*The first word in “S.A.” is “smart.” Knowing my readers to be intelligent and intuitive, I’ll assume you can figure out what the “A” stands for.

10.The Dark Knight Rises-

After seeing this film a few more times, it fell lower in my top ten of the year. It’s still a strong finale to Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, but it does have its flaws. Matthew Modine and Ben Mendelsohn’s characters are pretty much useless and annoying, and the film loses its momentum and impact after multiple viewings.

While The Dark Knight was the masterpiece of the comic book film genre, this film feels like a step down. But was there really anyway it could top it? I don’t think so. Luckily it’s still a well done film, and I plan to watch it anytime I decide to watch all three films in a row.

9.Lincoln-

Steven Spielberg’s best film since Catch Me If You Can. Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln-- the pitch of his voice, his height, his makeup-- all make you believe you are watching our 16th president in motion. The rest of the cast is fantastic as well, especially Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln and Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens. I definitely expect this film to win some acting awards come Oscar season.

8.The Cinema Snob Movie-

Springfield, Illinois native Brad Jones plays a pretentious film snob who reviews exploitation films in a satirical web series. The movie is probably the best starting point for someone who has never seen the web series. The film is about two friends who are trying to get their

exploitation movie made, but the head of the local film committee won’t allow it. So Craig, played by Jones, decides to disguise himself as a film snob, so he can blend into the committee and get his movie made, and the Cinema Snob is born.

This is one of the funniest films of the year, filled with great performances and references to some great and not so great films.

7.Seven Psychopaths-

If you didn’t enjoy Martin McDonagh’s debut film, In Bruges, you probably won’t enjoy Seven Psychopaths. But if you did, then you are in for a great time. Like In Bruges, it’s hilarious,

unpredictable, and insane. You have no idea who’s going to make it to the end alive. Colin Farrell gives one of his better performances in

years. Woody Harrelson plays one of the most fun villains onscreen this year. The two actors who steal the film, though, are Sam Rockwell and Christopher Walken. Both are clearly having a great time in their roles. Tom Waits is also a lot of fun in the smaller screen time he’s given.

6.Moonrise Kingdom-

This film features the best comedy ensemble of the year. Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman and Harvey Keitel are all wonderful to watch. The two that stick out, though, are newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward as the two young lovers who run off into the wilderness to be together. It’s an adorable story and director Wes Anderson’s best film yet.

All of the characters are likable. The locations in the film are gorgeous, especially when the kids camp out at a lovely beach.

5.Argo-

Ben Affleck is becoming a great director. I enjoyed The Town, and Argo is his best film yet.

Part thriller, part love letter to movies, this is one of those films that grabs you right from the opening scene. Affleck gives a good performance as well. Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin and John Goodman are all great. Expect Arkin to get some nods during awards season as well as the film itself. Even if you know the outcome of the story that the film is based on, it’s still a thrilling ride.

4.Looper-

I haven’t been this impressed with a sci fi film since Inception. Originality is pretty scarce in films now, but this is certainly something different. If you have seen the trailer, what it shows is just the basic setup of the film, but there is so much more to it. Joseph Gordon-Levitt gives his best performance to date as a character who does bad things, but you can’t help but like him.

Bruce Willis gives his best performance in decades. When the two share a scene together, they play off of each other magnificently. The film demands multiple viewings, because the deeper you get into it, the more things unravel into this great ride of a film.

Keep reading for the top three films--

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Jake’s picks for the 10 best movies of 2012

3.Skyfall-

Daniel Craig is my all time favorite James Bond.

His Bond is realistic, vulnerable, dark and cold, and that’s what makes him the best Bond to me.

Casino Royale is my favorite Bond film, but Skyfall comes in a close second. It’s not just a great Bond film but also a great standalone movie.

Judi Dench is great as always as M in her final film. Ralph Fiennes is a great newcomer to the series, as is Ben Whishaw as the new Q. Javier Bardem plays the best Bond villain in a very long time. He is genuinely terrifying. The locations are beautiful, especially when Bond and M end up in Scotland. Director Sam Mendes brings us a fitting 50th anniversary Bond film. Here’s to the next 50 years of the world’s coolest spy.

2.The Avengers-

This is one of the riskiest films ever made in the comic book film world. Waiting four years for this movie had fans nervous and excited at the same time. Luckily, Joss Whedon and the fantastic cast pulled it off. The performances, the action, the dialogue, the humor, are all fantastic. I can still watch it after so many times and feel just as giddy and excited as I did the first time I saw it, whether it’s Loki’s arrival on Earth, the Hulk punching the giant leviathan, or seeing the entire team assemble in New York. It’s a great film, and I couldn’t be happier with it.

And the Number One film of 2012:

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey-

After nine years of waiting since the end credits started to roll for Yhe Return of the King, I am so happy with the way this film turned out. The Hobbit is my favorite book, and so far this an excellent onscreen adaptation. Clearly Peter Jackson still knows what he is doing. These films are made with the fans in mind.

The characters, the sets, the locations,

everything was perfect, including Martin Freeman as Bilbo. Ian McKellan is still a treat as Gandalf, and Richard Armitage is excellent as the leader of the dwarves, Thorin Oakenshield. Even though it’s just maybe 10 minutes of screen time, Andy Serkis’ return as Gollum is magnificent.

I cannot wait for the Desolation of Smaug. The return to Middle-earth was worth the wait.

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Monette, Madonna like Ned’s dog

Lovely story about the dog. [“Jimmy was no saint,” E.P. Ned Burke, last issue.] I have a cat that's aging and wonder how he'll go. Never lost one to age before.

Monette Bebow-Reinhard

I hadn't read Ned's Jimmy story for a couple of years so I giggled through it again.

Liliana's the star of the show. Congratulations on another year of EI.

Madonna Dries Christensen

Craig solves

personal cryptogram

Hello, Marsh,

Thank you for publishing “Writer’s Block” in the recent issue. I’m pleased it found a home with Extra Innings.

I also thank Janice Kaat (and you) for the singular honor of having my very own cryptogram! I wasn’t sure I’d read the piece correctly the first time; it was unexpected, to say the least. And I admit I blushed, because I realized others would see it, too. However, I really enjoyed solving it. Just so Janice knows her kindness is appreciated, here’s the solution:

SOMEWHERE IN THE PAST A BOY WAS BORN. HE PLAYED WITH WORDS, AND WHEN HE GREW OLDER HE FELL IN LOVE WITH WORDS. HE BECAME A POET. HIS NAME IS NONE OTHER THAN CRAIG STEELE. CONGRATULATIONS CRAIG FOR SOLVING MY LAST CRYPTOGRAM.

I’m looking forward to Issue #39.

Best regards,

Craig W. Steele

Caption contest anyone?

Great pics of Lily in the EI! That middle one in the ladybug costume is priceless. You should run a caption contest.

Lisa Krenz

The pleasure is all ours

Thank you, Coach, for an extra special Extra Innings. It is some of the best stuff in my door.

Pernetta Deemer

The Heart Broke In, by James Meek

Flannery O’Connor reportedly said that great fiction could be interpreted on several levels, from the superficial to the deep, with the deepest always reconciling God’s ways to man, the characters reflecting their brush with divine grace.

On that count, The Heart Broke In, by James Meek, is a great piece of fiction.

The problem with the novel starts with an ensemble plot. Let this serve as a warning. Do not…take an ensemble of atheists, weakly

scattered about the branches of a large family tree, or perhaps a forest mainly in the current day greater London area, mix in a branch of cardboard cutouts of what we’ll call fundamental Christian weirdos (who have literal belief in every word of the Bible and whose basic teaching technique is to damn everyone else to hell), all bound together by a search for the fountain of youth. (Flannery O’Connor fans- -think the promise of eternal life from accepting God’s grace.)

As a prop of dramatic unity, so difficult to maintain in an ensemble plot, the search for the fountain of youth may seem to offer a unifying theme, but as you think ahead to the denouement, it’s almost certain to prove to be unsatisfactory. I mean suspension of disbelief is one thing, but eternal life for all…give me a break.

An ensemble plot is not expected to provide a neat solution for all of the sub-plots, but the underlying theme should bring at least a few of them into some logical conclusion-- but this is one of the weakest parts of this otherwise

laudatory achievement. Meek’s Deus ex Machina is too simple minded by half.

So, I didn’t like the inexplicable ending, but what about the rest of the book?

Now that I liked.

Father, while an officer in the British armed forces, gets kidnapped, tortured and murdered by a Northern Ireland terrorist for refusing to betray an informer. That is where honor started and stopped in this family. The son (Ritchie), then in

his teens, now in his forties, a mediocre but wealthy pop singer, with a wife and two children, is a serial adulterer preying on teenaged girls who are involved in a fake reality TV show he is producing, which purports to be a legitimate talent search but actually serves as his private hunting/mating preserve while he decides who wins and who loses.

The daughter (Bec) is engaged to and lives in sin with a sleazy tabloid editor (Val) when in town, but works as a parasitologist in various third world locales, trying to stamp out malaria.

She’s about fifty percent of the way there, and, as an experiment, has introduced the key parasite into her own blood stream, a parasite she has named after her dead father.

But she has her standards. In one scene she uses a biography of Zelda Fitzgerald to swat down the amorous advances of a married scientist, who in his wife’s absence decides to make a naked visit to Bec’s tent.

One well-aimed swing with Zelda not only dissuaded him from that idea but disabled him in the bargain.

Then Bec abruptly decides she doesn’t want to be married to the tabloid editor and gives him back his dead wife’s ring, so he takes a swipe or two at her for sleeping around and her lack of morals, and she’s able to give as good as she gets He leaves with the idea to set up a moral foundation, to decide for Britain what is morally right and wrong. And you might be able to imagine whom he decides to expose-- particularly when Bec decides to start a family without a husband or a lover. Targets of his Moral Foundation can buy their way out of exposure only by betraying someone else further up the food chain.

There are quite a few other branches in the forest, but they tend to look pretty much the same.

This book shows how culture has changed in Europe now that so few people there think much about God anymore. What is important in Europe now, in the view of this novel, has everything to do with self and very little to do with morals.

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Meek, you’re no Dostoevsky

Perhaps to say that the culture of the Seventies placed a high value on honor overstates the clarity of our rear-view mirror, but relatively speaking, that contrast seems right.

Setting up the cardboard Christians provides a view as to how religion is contemptuously dismissed today. Maintain a cheerful countenance but contemplate all manner of cruelty and fantasy in your heart–the real you. As Dostoevsky said,

“Without God, all things are permissible.” But Meek is no Dostoevsky. It would, however, be an interesting exercise to compare and contrast the decisions of Bec, etal, with those of The Brothers Karamozov and come to your own decision.

I’m afraid I’ve made this sound like something even I would not be interested in reading. That’s unfortunate because Meek does a nice job within the constraints of his plot technique in introducing and maintaining tension. Character arcs, the use of dialogue, the craft of writing-- all in

scintillating display here (except for the poor fundamental Christian branch). This book is shortlisted for what used to be called the Whitbread prize, along with Hilary Mantel’s blockbuster, Bring Up the Bodies, to show the company Mr. Meek now keeps.

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Is it a western? A romance?

Whatever it is, God’s Thunderbolt is very, very good

God’s Thunderbolt: The Vigilantes of Montana, by Carol Buchanan

You say you don’t like westerns? That’s okay. You might love God’s Thunderbolt anyway, even though it’s set in the old west, out in Montana even before it became a territory, in the time of vigilante justice by six-gun and hangman’s noose.

Shane is “just” a west, after all, and it’s as compelling a story of good versus evil as you’ll find-- and also a fine romance.

Don’t like romance either, you say? Well, fine, neither do I. Not if it’s contrived, manipulative, and formulaic. God’s Thunderbolt is none of those. It’s a love story, and if you don’t yearn for Dan and Martha to get together at the end, despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles, you just haven’t got a heart.

Is it historical fiction? Yep, of the very first order, written by a true student of Montana history and a descendant from Montana pioneers and homesteaders. Carol is past president of the Authors of the Flathead, a vibrant group of

“Writers helping writers.”

I’m pleased to announce that God’s

Thunderbolt is the first of a Vigilante Quartet.

Carol’s most recent novel, A Pinch of Dust, is just out. For details on these and all of Carol’s fine work, go to www.swanrange.com.

Just received and eagerly anticipated...

Pavel of Poland, by Pernetta Deener Etched, by James Herod

for future review

And finally...

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The official six-month portrait