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
