TK Kenyon's Blog
Posted by TK Kenyon
The Secret Ever Keeps by Art Tirrell, Shadows of Innocence by Ric Wasley, Toonamint of Champions by Todd Sentell, The Game by Derek Armstrong, bang-BANG by Lynn Hoffman, Whale Song by Cheryl Kaye Tardif, RABID by TK Kenyon, and Mothering Mother by Carol O’Dell are the first eight books that should be on your reading list this summer.
The Secret Ever Keeps by Art Tirrell is high-seas adventure and multi-generational saga all rolled into one.
Shadows of Innocence by Ric Wasley is a murder mystery set in the Woodstock-like Newport Music Festival in the 1960s.
Toonamint of Champions by Todd Sentell is Caddyshack set in the South. It’s hysterically funny and perfect to give to any golfing Dad for Father’s Day.
The Game by Derek Armstrong is dark comedy and high-stakes thriller set on a reality TV show that’s like Big Brother meets Fear Factor. Alban Bane will be your new favorite detective.
bang-BANG by Lynn Hoffman takes pot-shots at both sides of the gun debate. Gun-slinging waitress is used by politicians for their own ends, and she takes delicious revenge.
Whale Song by Cheryl Kaye Tardif explores Native American culture and the hardest questions at the end of life.
RABID by TK Kenyon is a medical thriller that takes on the Catholic Church’s culture of pedophilia and sexual repression in a battle between a priest, his lover, her husband, and his mistress.
Mothering Mother by Carol O’Dell is a moving memoir about the latter end of life. Carol’s adoptive mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, and Carol cared for her in her home until the end. Her decisions were agonizing.
Posted by TK Kenyon
As the internet becomes increasingly commercialized, something for nothing becomes increasingly rare. You can, however, find really interesting new stories and even whole novels to read online. Personally, I never posted my forthcoming novel, RABID (available from your local bookseller in two weeks!) on one of these sites, but there are fascinating reads out there that may be the next blockbuster, or they may be too over-the-edge to ever be published by the gun-shy publishing industry.
The Next Big Writer is a professional site dedicated to a dynamic writing community. The fee to participate as a writer is $39.95 per year, but reading and critiquing are free. You can read entire novels, short stories, or poems. They have dynamic rankings that display the most-read and highest-ranked writers and pieces on the site, so you know what might be interesting to read. This place has some interesting writers on it, and quite a few of them are winning publishing contracts. Reading here is like watching the preview cut of a movie as a test audience.
One of the most bizarre websites on the net is Fanfiction.net. These short stories to novel-length works are all sequels, prequels, and add-ons to works created by other authors. If you like particular characters, you can revisit them in other fans’ imaginations. In addition to almost 290,000 works inspired by J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Saga, there are 10 works connected to Flatland, 7691 related to Phantom of the Opera, 202 conspiracies like The Da Vinci Code, 59 F. Scott Fitzgerald imposters, 247 V.C. Andrews fans who are playing in her attic, 27 Miles Vorkosigan adventures, 33 fiery Crucible stories, 212 Sisterhoods of the Traveling Pants, and 586 Janites who have whipped up their best sensible and prideful stories in the Jane Austen persuasion. In addition to books, this website has stories connected to games, cartoons, movies, anime, and TV shows (2601 for Grey’s Anatomy, 376 about the further adventures of Will and Grace, 140 about 21 Jump Street, 496 Heroes, 678 Queer As Folk, 5309 The O.C., 79 Ally McBeal, 2007 Battlestar Galactica stories, 29 I Love Lucy, and 3090 Friends.) It’s interesting.
If you want to try on a book for size before you buy it, some publishers like Kunati allow you to download and read the first chapter or so of their books for free. It’s like test driving a novel. Read the first chapters of eight great books here.
TK Kenyon, Author of RABID: A Novel, Coming in April, 2007
Posted by TK Kenyon
With the advent of the internet, writers have been able to congregate in a way that they never have before. Previously, to learn your craft, you could take a class at a local college or university, if one was close enough, or if they offered them, or you could find a critique group of struggling writers, which might be difficult to find, and the advice could be haphazard, detrimental, abusive, or stupid.
Now, however, you can join online groups and, while the interaction with other writers might not be up-close and in-person, at least you can find a wide range of writers and form alliances with the good ones. Here are some sites.
Massive
Zoetrope. One of the grand-daddies of online writing communities, this site was started by Francis Ford Coppola to foster movie scripts and provide a corral of tame writers for his literary magazine Zoetrope: All-Story. While this appears to have been idealistic, the online writing community is still there are thriving. You can submit short stories, poetry, novellas, and screenplays. The timbre of critiquing is generally good but a bit lavish and undercritical. Forums are interesting. The private rooms, however, is where you meet people. Great for the beginning to intermediate writer, okay for advanced writers if you find good friends. Free.
Edgy
“The Cult,” a site associated with Chuck Palahniuk, the blistering writer who gave us Fight Club, Choke, Haunted, and the forthcoming Rant, has really great forums with active, intellectual discussions. To access the writers’ workshop where one can critique and be critiqued, one must upgrade to a “premium membership,” which costs $40 per year. You can submit short stories or scripts. If you’re a beginning writer, I would advise you to first read Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain, work on your craft a lot, perhaps at Zoetrope, read Chuck’s books, then join The Cult. There are lessons by Chuck Palahniuk that you can follow, do the “homework,” then post your “homework” for feedback from the other writers in the workshop. Palahniuk’s theories of writing that he espouses in his essays aren’t the usual, but they are thought-provoking and worth your while if you’re serious about writing. Doing the lessons won’t make you a Chuck-clone, though there are worse fates, but it will make you more methodical and thoughtful about your writing. There’s also an innovative “speed-writing” section that will surely do something for or to your writing.
Competitive
The Next Big Writer is a professional site dedicated to a dynamic writing community. The fee to participate as a writer is $39.95 per year. Interestingly, they guarantee feedback on your writing. You can also upload entire novels, short stories, or poems. They have dynamic rankings that are sure to get your blood moving if you’re at all competitive and frequent competitions that include prizes like cash and critiques from published authors.
Small but Deadly Serious
Deadly Prose, a cozy critique group dedicated only to commercial fiction novels (mysteries, thrillers, and even literary novels will feel at home,) is the opposite of the above sites. Deadly Prose is small and free, but by admission only. You have to produce a writing sample and a critique sample that will be evaluated by three “DPers,” and you should have a manuscript that is finished or close to it. The current admission rate is well under 25%. Whole novels are critiqued by a circle of three or more writers. Critiques are bought on a “credit” system, meaning you must crit to be critted, so you should plan to critique three full novels before you are critiqued. Many DPers are published authors. The forums have lively conversations about advanced techniques for writing novels. For very advanced writers only, and for novelists only.
More essays on writing fiction can be found here, including technique articles like POV shifts, passive voice, dramatizing, creating characters, etc.
Author of RABID, A Novel, Coming in April, 2007
Posted by TK Kenyon
Stephen W. Hawking is the physics equivalent of The Rolling Stones, though Hawking is in better shape, physically. He’s the guy who burst onto the layman’s radar, flashing one equation and loads of illustrations and strutting around (metaphorically) proselytizing that the grand era of physics was at hand, and we would soon see a Grand Unifying Theory (GUT) that would unite particle physics and relativity theory. So far, we don’t have a perfect GUT, though many physicists endeavor at this. At Hawking’s website, you can listen to or read his lectures on physics.
Read more about A Briefer History of Time here.
If Stephen Hawking is The Rolling Stones, then Michio Kaku is the hardest working band: The Grateful Dead. While still slinging out scientific publications by the handful, Michio Kaku has written four well-received and sprightly books, visits his MySpace page, seems to host a TV documentary every week, and hosts a weekly radio show, among other commitments. I’m such a Kakuhead. Visit his website here for a great introduction to physics and Michio the Man. His books are great.
Kip Thorne from Caltech is the wild man of physics, perhaps even the grunge band guy. When Carl Sagan needed a space ship, he called up Kip Thorne, and Kip gave Sagan the idea for the worm hole spaceship that he used in the novel Contact. Thorne’s research investigates the possible existence of multiply connected black holes and time warps, and his book by the same name is a rollicking good read.
To continue our rock star metaphor for physicists, Brian Greene is the pretty boy newcomer. He’s the one with the movie-star good looks who also, unfathomably, is a physics whiz, knows his chops, and deserves to be in the room with the gritty guys. His research into superstrings threatens to once and for all unite the disparate fields of physics into one GUT, and thus all the genera of physicists into one highly dysfunctional family. Let’s hope that works out for him. He also wrote the book and hosted the PBS special The Elegant Universe.
Author of RABID: A Novel, The Evolution of the Scientific Thriller
Posted by TK Kenyon
Jane Austen is one of the most celebrated writers in English. Though people wrote novels before her, she distilled the form into art, and she defends the novel as an art form in several of her novels, usually with a wicked sense of humor, in a manner that can only be considered more post-modern than Regency or Victorian era writing.
More about Jane Austen and her writing can be found here.
More about current Jane Austen culture, including fan fiction, forums, the Regency era, and Janeite information, can be found here (Austen.com) and here (The Republic of Pemberly).
More about Jane Austen’s experience in the town of Bath can be found here at the town of Bath's official Jane Austen website.
If you like Jane Austen’s characters, try reading this article about how to write unforgettable characters.
An article about Victorian novels can be found here.
Author of RABID: A Novel
Posted by TK Kenyon
Nothing can replace a good dietician and, thanks to HMOs and other insurance restrictions, it practically has. It’s often up to you to learn more about your diagnosis, whether it’s cancer or, in this case, wheat gluten-related diseases.
An autoimmunological reaction to wheat gluten can take one of three major forms or a host of minor ones. If you have the traditional gastrointestinal symptoms, then you have classical celiac disease or “sprue,” which to me sounds like shrubbery, especially since there is an alternate diagnosis of “tropical sprue.” (“Oh! That’s a lovely sprue, madam! Is that a tropical sprue or a blue sprue?” “Why no! It’s a celiac sprue. Very rare, you know.”) Gluten-related ataxia is a neurological form of the disease, where symptoms such as gait disturbances or impaired memory are often present. Dermatitis herpetiformis is a skin condition that looks like a disseminated herpes infection (thus the name,) but is autoimmune in origin and again caused by gluten intolerance. Elimination of gluten (all wheat, rye, barley, and related products) from the diet often improves or eliminates symptoms, sometimes within a week or two.
This article about Gluten-Free Cookbooks can help you decide which one(s) to buy.
Celiac.com
If you’ve been newly diagnosed with celiac disease, gluten ataxia, or dermatitis herpetiformis, your first stop should be Celiac.com. This clearinghouse of all things celiac includes basic information on the major conditions and lots of minor ones, causes and risk factors, screening tests, a FAQ list, lists of related diseases, lists of diseases that celiac can masquerade as, lists of gluten-free (GF) foods that are commercially available, GF specialty food companies that you can order from over the web, lists of forbidden foods, a very large recipe database, the latest research, and forums for emotional support and help. You can even set up one “Gluten-Free Mall” account and order GF products and food from a lot of different internet specialty retailers. This site alone will help you a great deal, and you can spend hours just on the information here. If you read only one website, make it this one.
Government Information Websites
(1) The US government has produced a rudimentary website that simply explains what celiac disease is and some of the major facts about it. If the Celiac.com website seems overwhelming, start with this site and work your way up.
(2) The US government also has a website associated with MedLine that is geared more toward the clinical and research-related aspects of celiac disease. A link on the left side steers you to clinical trials.
The Gluten Intolerance Group
The Gluten Intolerance Group (GIG) is one of the oldest associations dedicated to helping those with celiac or other forms of gluten intolerance. Some of their main functions are to lobby the government to label food as GF or containing gluten and to help restaurants provide GF selections. They also sponsor events such as the upcoming Seattle’s Gluten-Free Food Festival, which will feature some of the elusive GF beers. They also have basic information such as advice on dining in restaurants.
Posted by TK Kenyon
Two months before its release, TK Kenyon’s blockbuster novel RABID has shot to #1 on the Arizona Republic’s Phoenix Hardcover Fiction Bestseller List.
This highly controversial novel is already generating huge sales, glowing and starred reviews from in-the-know magazines, and interest from five movie production companies.
In an interview, TK Kenyon claims that the novel is not anti-religion or anti-Catholic, but some religious groups are already gearing up to combat this bestseller.
In addition, RABID: A Novel has been blasted as being intolerant toward pedophiles, in that it advocates a drastic cure for pedophilia.
Posted by TK Kenyon
In addition to the three short novels I suggested in this article, here’s a list of some more excellent books separated by subject.
A Life With Books:
- Orlando by Virginia Woolf. Read more about it in this article.
- The Reader by Bernhard Sclink
- Try this article about books and literature in general.
Characterization:
- American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. Read more about it in this article. Read more about books with strong POV characters in this article.
- Anything by William Shakespeare. There’s an old joke that every character that Ernest Hemingway wrote was perfectly the quintessence of Hemingway. Shakespeare did everybody else.
- To read more about characterization in general, try this short article.
Jane Austen:
- Pride and Prejudice: Lively, vivacious Lizzy Bennet marries up, way up.
- Persuasion: The anti-P&P. Anne Elliot breaks up with the man she loves because he isn’t rich enough. Luckily, he gets rich and she gets him back. Read more about it in this article.
- Mansfield Park: Fanny, a poor relation, lives with her rich, rather insipid cousins and their lively but debauched friends, but is the best of them. She eventually marries the rich man she loves. Though Fanny is the most passive of Austen’s heroines, it is appropriate that she should be. This book also refutes the shallow premise of P&P. Its thesis is that it is better to be moral and live a good life than to be vivacious.
- This article, about fiction in general, might help you with your paper.
Forthcoming, controversial novels:
- Rabid by TK Kenyon (yep!) April, 2007. The evolution of religion. Science proves it: there is no God.
- The Game by Derek Armstrong. (April, 2007) Fiction book slays reality television.
- bang-BANG by Lynn Hoffman. (April, 2007) Sweet little waitress uses, then takes on guns.
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling. (July 21, 2007) Will Harry die?
Thanks for reading,
Posted by TK Kenyon
While Dwight Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer may be the best book on fiction writing around, here are some other books and website that have helped me while I was writing my forthcoming novel, RABID.
Jane Smiley’s non-fiction book 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel is fantastic for her theory of fiction, her presentation and contrasting of other theories of fiction, and her long discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of 100 novels. Must-Read.
What is Art? by Leo Tolstoy was recently republished by Barnes & Noble Books. It’s a fascinating treatise on the place of art and fiction within society. Tolstoy wrote this near the end of his life, when he was regressing into religion, but his theories are worth reading and responding to, even if you don’t whole-heartedly espouse all of his conclusions. Should-Read.
Web Sites for Writing Advice:
Zoetrope: Huge, international online writers’ community for short fiction, poetry, and screenplays.
Deadly Prose: An online critique group of published and aspiring novelists. Requires and application and invitation.
TK Kenyon’s Website: Monthly essays on the craft and techniques of writing.
- When to Use POV Shifts
- When to Use Passive Voice
- Interior Monologue: Just Think No!
- “As You Know, Bob,” When Exposition Masquerades as Dialogue
- Don’t Show, Dramatize!
If you write fiction, you might like to read about where to get ideas.
More on Creating Unforgettable Characters here.
More about theories of reading and writing here.
Posted by TK Kenyon
Here’s a list of great chocolate desserts, from Chocolate Linzer Torte to Mousse, and where to find them in books and on the web.
Finding chocolate recipes can be as fun as eating them, but sometimes, you just need a good recipe in a hurry. Here’s a list of great recipes that I’ve tried from various cookbooks and websites. Some are easy, like the Mascarpone and Dark Chocolate Cream, and some take some time, like the Triple Chocolate Mousses and the Gateau Diane, but all are wonderful.
Triple Chocolate Mousses: My favorite and signature dessert. Show-stopping silky dark chocolate marquise, milk chocolate mousse, and white chocolate mousse, stacked. Serve in tall crystal glasses or release it free-standing from a springform pan. Easy. Make-ahead. Recipe in Cocolat or Bittersweet, both by Alice Medrich.
Princess Pudding: Chocolate pudding like this has never started with a box. Recipe in Pure Chocolate by Fran Bigelow.
Gateau Diane: If you like a little cake with your frosting, try this rich and sweet confection. Can be made up to two days in advance. Recipe in Bittersweet by Alice Medrich.
Chocolate Linzer Torte: Linzer torte purists may clutch their sternum, but this walnut-rich chocolate creation will make you want to move to Prague. Recipe in Fabulous and Flourless by Mary Wachtel Mauksch.
Mexican Dark Chocolate Torte: the spiced pecans on this truffle-like torte add crunch that’s in addition to the chocolate crust. Recipe at Epicurious.com.
Better Brownie Pie: This “Chocolate Brownie Torte” is really just a better brownie pie, so I called it that. Recipe at Epicurious.com .
Dark Chocolate Mousse: This dark chocolate mousse is tofu-based, which some chocoholics think is anathema, but it does increase the nutritional value by increasing the protein and decreasing saturated fats found in many cream- or egg-based mousses, and there’s no chance of raw-egg salmonella poisoning. At the FoodNetwork.com .
Mascarpone and Dark Chocoate Cream in White Chocolate Cups: I love mascarpone and chocolate together. This is kind of like a chocolate cheesecake, but without the heartache of baking a cheesecake and watching it crack. Recipe at the Food Network.
For a compilation of fantastic chocolate recipes, try these two chocolate cookbooks.
Try these two great South Indian Vegetarian Cookbooks, too.
Posted by TK Kenyon
Creating fascinating characters is thought to be difficult, but it’s not. If you want that je-ne-sais-quoi that some characters have that make you reread them again and again, make them the best at what they do, no matter what that is. Being the best is interesting.
Dr. Hannibal Lecter is the prototype sympathetic serial killer. He’s at least fascinating, even if we don’t (hopefully, for us sane folks) aspire to be like him. One of the reasons for our fascination with him is that he’s the best at what he does. He kills people and then eats them, and he killed a lot of them. In The Silence of the Lambs, he talked fellow inmate Miggs into committing suicide by swallowing his own tongue. He savaged a nurse while he was being tested for a heart attack. That’s evil.
Harry Potter is the most famous wizard in the wizarding world because he’s the only one to have survived the Killing Curse. Even though Voldemort attacked him when he was a baby and he isn’t technically responsible for a counter-curse, he’s still The Boy Who Lived, and the most famous. There are more books like the Harry Potter saga here.
Gabriel Allon is the most dangerous assassin in the Mossad. Even when he tries to get out of the intelligence business, Daniel Silva finds a way to pull him back in.
Joe Leaphorn is the Legendary Lieutenant, the smartest Navaho cop on the rez. Jim Chee, Tony Hillerman’s other recurring character, is the most conflicted Navaho in the world over whether to be a modernist or follow the traditional ways.
Sherlock Holmes is the smartest man ever. We all try to follow his logic. Even Dr. Watson can’t keep up. Even though Moriarty is his match and they both die together, Holmes still was still the smartest.
Robert Langdon is the most famous symbologist in the world. Even Opus Dei, the most evil Catholic organization in the world, can’t outsmart him. He’s as smart as Leonardo Da Vinci, and that’s saying something.
Scarlett O’Hara is the most determined woman in the Civil War-racked South. When she says, “I will survive,” we believe her. She wanted Rhett Butler, and she got him.
George Smiley is the most perfect spymaster. He convinces people to do things that would make Hannibal Lecter blink, like betray their own countries. Yes, though Smiley wasn’t physically attractive, he was fascinating.
In the Inheritance series by Christopher Paolini, Eragon is the last and only dragonrider. He has to save the world, or no one will. No pressure, there.
Even real people are fascinating if they’re the most (which may or may not equal best.) In the world of finance, Jim Cramer is the loudest, craziest ex-hedge fund manager out there. Robert T. Kiyosaki (Rich Dad, Poor Dad series) is the world’s biggest success story (according to him.) Both of those guys are the “mostest.” They preach that you can do it, too, but they did first.
Author of RABID, A Novel, Coming in April, 2007
Posted by TK Kenyon
Tony Hillerman, an award-winning mystery writer, centers most of his novels in the American Southwest and around the lives of two Navaho characters: Joe Leaphorn, a decorated venerable police lieutenant, and Jim Chee, a young policeman who also wants to be a Navaho shaman. The ongoing stories of Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee in Hillerman’s works parallel the histories of Indians in the American Southwest.
Joe Leaphorn was a child during the boarding school days, when Navaho and other Indian children were routinely removed from their homes by the U.S. government and sent to boarding schools to civilize them and integrate them into mainstream American culture. As a result, these displaced children missed significant parts of their culture. For example, in The Shape Shifter, Leaphorn does not know some particular legends because those stories can only be told during the winter, when he was away at boarding school. Leaphorn does, however, know the summer stories. Leaphorn majored in anthropology at Arizona State University for his undergraduate, so he has a logical, intellectualized view of even those legends that he heard in the hogan as a child.
Jim Chee is from the next generation who attended day school on the reservations but was raised by parents who went to boarding schools and grandparents who were traditionalists, thus ensuring these children were in the center of generational and cultural conflict. Chee, like many people of his generation, rebelled against their acclimated parents by becoming more interested in the old ways. Chee is studying to become shaman and conduct sings (ceremonies) to return people to harmony with nature and society. Among these sings is the Enemy Way (also the title of one of Hillerman’s novels,) where a person who has had contact with people who are evil or otherwise not in harmony, such as in war or prison, returns to harmony with the People.
For more books like Tony Hillerman’s books, try reading this article about several other Western novels.
For more novel series, try this article about a series to read while waiting for Harry Potter 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
For more books with fascinating characters, try these books like American Psycho.
For more information on getting ideas for writing your own books, try this blog post or read my blog at Kunati Books.
For more books about the other kind of Indians (or at least their food,) check out this article.
For more highly plotted mystery-thriller books like The Da Vinci Code, try these books.
Thanks for reading,
TK Kenyon, Author of Rabid: A Novel, which is about neither cowboys nor Indians, but will be published by Kunati Books in April, 2007.