My blog is now at http://www.dennislittrell.com/
It's new and improved, but I'm still working on exactly what I want to focus on as well as working out the kinks along the blog learning curve.
Dennis
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Monday, January 4, 2010
Blog update
Last month I finished blogging my entire yoga book, entitled "Yoga: Sacred and Profane." There are a couple of appendices that I may or may not add. One is on "Tantra of the Left-Handed Path." If anybody's interested please let me know and I'll post it. The other is on sex in yoga, which I don't think is worth posting.
Additionally I now have ten short stories posted. Here are the titles in order posted:
"Soar Legs"
"Jug Chablis"
"Old Seinfeld"
"Let's Play Overkill"
"A 'D' in French"
"California Dreaming"
"Breathless Prose and the Boogie-Woogie Beat"
"Skankin' at the Whiskey"
"Twin Killings"
"esoterica"
"Soar Legs" and "Twin Killings" are science fiction stories written in the mode of TV's "Twilight Zone," while "Jug Chablis," "California Dreaming" and "Breathless Prose and the Boogie-Woogie Beat" are part of a larger collection of fictional "participatory journalisms" featuring Dana Point, intrepid journalist.
"Old Seinfeld" is a parody of the Seinfeld TV show done like a TV script. "Let's Play Overkill" is a psychological doomsday tale. "Skankin' at the Whiskey" is a fictionalized memoir as is "A 'D' in French." Both stories are largely "true" but like movies "based on actual events" are written to achieve a (more or less) dramatic effect.
"esoterica" is about a harmless obsession seen from the point of view of the obsessed.
The "Rants, Prejudices and Earthly Delights" blog now has 13 entries. The blogs have as their central theme "The world is not as we think it is."
I am looking for the right format to use for a couple of my novels that I feel are of interest. I may just blog them chapter by chapter here on Google.
As far as reviewing goes I am still interested in quality books in science, technology, the cultural wars, Eastern religions, and political science. I may organize my (nearly 1,500) reviews and put them into blogs, at least the good ones. :-)
--Dennis Littrell
Additionally I now have ten short stories posted. Here are the titles in order posted:
"Soar Legs"
"Jug Chablis"
"Old Seinfeld"
"Let's Play Overkill"
"A 'D' in French"
"California Dreaming"
"Breathless Prose and the Boogie-Woogie Beat"
"Skankin' at the Whiskey"
"Twin Killings"
"esoterica"
"Soar Legs" and "Twin Killings" are science fiction stories written in the mode of TV's "Twilight Zone," while "Jug Chablis," "California Dreaming" and "Breathless Prose and the Boogie-Woogie Beat" are part of a larger collection of fictional "participatory journalisms" featuring Dana Point, intrepid journalist.
"Old Seinfeld" is a parody of the Seinfeld TV show done like a TV script. "Let's Play Overkill" is a psychological doomsday tale. "Skankin' at the Whiskey" is a fictionalized memoir as is "A 'D' in French." Both stories are largely "true" but like movies "based on actual events" are written to achieve a (more or less) dramatic effect.
"esoterica" is about a harmless obsession seen from the point of view of the obsessed.
The "Rants, Prejudices and Earthly Delights" blog now has 13 entries. The blogs have as their central theme "The world is not as we think it is."
I am looking for the right format to use for a couple of my novels that I feel are of interest. I may just blog them chapter by chapter here on Google.
As far as reviewing goes I am still interested in quality books in science, technology, the cultural wars, Eastern religions, and political science. I may organize my (nearly 1,500) reviews and put them into blogs, at least the good ones. :-)
--Dennis Littrell
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
The Twilight Zone meets film noir
Posted the ninth story today. It's called “Twin Killings” and like “Soar Legs” there's a pun in the title as well as both stories being variations on classic science fiction themes. In the Hollywood parlance “Twin Killings” would be dubbed something like “The Twilight Zone meets film noir.” I wrote it in the eighties, and looking back I can see that I was influenced by the science fiction of my youth and by Rod Serling's TV show.
“Twin Killings” is about an average Joe who just misses winning a $12-million lottery by one number and stumbles into something otherworldly. It features an O. Henry sort of surprise ending—although for experienced sci fi readers the ending may not be all that surprising. I used to read it once a year to my high school students. They loved it.
I probably have perhaps three more stories to post to make it an even dozen. I've written about thirty, but after the first twelve the quality falls off more than a bit. I have a couple of others I'm working on and maybe there are a couple of the not so good stories that I might revise.
--Dennis Littrell
“Twin Killings” is about an average Joe who just misses winning a $12-million lottery by one number and stumbles into something otherworldly. It features an O. Henry sort of surprise ending—although for experienced sci fi readers the ending may not be all that surprising. I used to read it once a year to my high school students. They loved it.
I probably have perhaps three more stories to post to make it an even dozen. I've written about thirty, but after the first twelve the quality falls off more than a bit. I have a couple of others I'm working on and maybe there are a couple of the not so good stories that I might revise.
--Dennis Littrell
Monday, November 9, 2009
Skankin'
“Skankin' at the Whiskey” is a story in the form of a “journalism” or a memoir. I wrote it in 1995 and 1996 as part of some work I was doing based on my experiences as a teacher. You can find it in my "The Stories of Dennis Littrell" Google blog. It won a “personal experience essay” prize in a literary contest conducted by the Missouri Review some years ago. To appreciate why I call this a story rather than a memoir requires a bit of explanation.
Story and memoir, novel and autobiography can be closely related genres. But as I used to tell my students “all autobiographers lie,” most by a direct misrepresentation or a “misremembering” of the facts, and all by omission of certain facts. A memoir is often an autobiographical piece.
Fiction is a deliberate and open misrepresentation (or "imagining") of the facts; indeed in much fiction the truths are “only” psychological. But sometimes psychological truths are as important or more important than factual ones, which is why I would ask my students, “What could be truer than fiction?”
In “Skankin'...” most of the facts are true, and hopefully most of the psychology.
Incidentally, memoir is now considered a form of essay, or perhaps I should say an essay can be a report of a “personal experience.”
--Dennis Littrell
Story and memoir, novel and autobiography can be closely related genres. But as I used to tell my students “all autobiographers lie,” most by a direct misrepresentation or a “misremembering” of the facts, and all by omission of certain facts. A memoir is often an autobiographical piece.
Fiction is a deliberate and open misrepresentation (or "imagining") of the facts; indeed in much fiction the truths are “only” psychological. But sometimes psychological truths are as important or more important than factual ones, which is why I would ask my students, “What could be truer than fiction?”
In “Skankin'...” most of the facts are true, and hopefully most of the psychology.
Incidentally, memoir is now considered a form of essay, or perhaps I should say an essay can be a report of a “personal experience.”
--Dennis Littrell
Updating the Blogs
My Google blog, “Rants, Prejudices, and Earthly Delights” now has 13 entries. Here are the titles, which may give the reader a feel for what the book is like:
1.Too Cynical Is Never Cynical Enough
2.Three Eternal Truths
3.Expect Nothing
4.Sex and Subsistence
5.The World Is Not as We Think It Is
6.Our Reality Is Inside Our Heads
7.Pleasure, Pain and Drugs
8.The War System
9.Consciousness
10.Free Will
11.Infinities
12.Doubt and the 10,000 Things
13.Nothing Is Real
The idea (so far) is a book entitled “Look Out Kid, They Keep It All Hid” (Bob Dylan) with the theme “The World Is Not as We Think It Is.” It is a cynical look at the human predicament with evidence from science, history and religion.
Meanwhile, my yoga blog Yoga: Sacred and Profane is thirteen chapters and an introduction long. The last two chapters, still concerned with the physical health aspects of yoga, are on asana (finally!). One of the purposes of Yoga: Sacred and Profane is to introduce practitioners of hatha yoga to the spiritual, psychological and historic aspects of yoga. I am still less than halfway through the book.
--Dennis Littrell
1.Too Cynical Is Never Cynical Enough
2.Three Eternal Truths
3.Expect Nothing
4.Sex and Subsistence
5.The World Is Not as We Think It Is
6.Our Reality Is Inside Our Heads
7.Pleasure, Pain and Drugs
8.The War System
9.Consciousness
10.Free Will
11.Infinities
12.Doubt and the 10,000 Things
13.Nothing Is Real
The idea (so far) is a book entitled “Look Out Kid, They Keep It All Hid” (Bob Dylan) with the theme “The World Is Not as We Think It Is.” It is a cynical look at the human predicament with evidence from science, history and religion.
Meanwhile, my yoga blog Yoga: Sacred and Profane is thirteen chapters and an introduction long. The last two chapters, still concerned with the physical health aspects of yoga, are on asana (finally!). One of the purposes of Yoga: Sacred and Profane is to introduce practitioners of hatha yoga to the spiritual, psychological and historic aspects of yoga. I am still less than halfway through the book.
--Dennis Littrell
Sunday, November 8, 2009
More Stories
I posted a few more stories on my Google story blog. Here's the line up so far as of this date (Nov 8 '09):
Soar Legs
Jug Chablis
Old Seinfeld
Let's Play Overkill
A 'D' in French
California Dreaming
Breathless Prose and the Boogie-Woogie Beat
“California Dreaming” is perhaps the best “commercial” story of the bunch. (In the previous blog I wrote that “California Dreaming” was the best story I ever wrote, but let's face it, I got too sentimental.) I wrote it as a frame for a novelized version of the Dana Point stories. That trick didn't work because no matter what I did the stories themselves (the meat of the “novel”) still made the enterprise obviously episodic. Curiously though the artificial frame turned out to be a good short story itself with sharp dialogue somewhat in the manner of Neil Simon.
“Breathless Prose and the Boogie-Woogie Beat” is an example of a very good story with no commercial value. It has artistic value, satirical value, maybe even historical value, but there is no chance that, e.g., The New Yorker is going to pick it up. A little literary magazine might, but by the time I had really polished it, I no longer needed to see my name in print.
“Breathless Prose...” was originally titled “The Failed Writer,” which is a more descriptive title. The strength of the story is in (1) the pitiful yet somehow triumphant character of Raymond, the failed writer himself, and (2) the satirical critique of the publishing industry as seen from a writer's point of view.
--Dennis Littrell
Soar Legs
Jug Chablis
Old Seinfeld
Let's Play Overkill
A 'D' in French
California Dreaming
Breathless Prose and the Boogie-Woogie Beat
“California Dreaming” is perhaps the best “commercial” story of the bunch. (In the previous blog I wrote that “California Dreaming” was the best story I ever wrote, but let's face it, I got too sentimental.) I wrote it as a frame for a novelized version of the Dana Point stories. That trick didn't work because no matter what I did the stories themselves (the meat of the “novel”) still made the enterprise obviously episodic. Curiously though the artificial frame turned out to be a good short story itself with sharp dialogue somewhat in the manner of Neil Simon.
“Breathless Prose and the Boogie-Woogie Beat” is an example of a very good story with no commercial value. It has artistic value, satirical value, maybe even historical value, but there is no chance that, e.g., The New Yorker is going to pick it up. A little literary magazine might, but by the time I had really polished it, I no longer needed to see my name in print.
“Breathless Prose...” was originally titled “The Failed Writer,” which is a more descriptive title. The strength of the story is in (1) the pitiful yet somehow triumphant character of Raymond, the failed writer himself, and (2) the satirical critique of the publishing industry as seen from a writer's point of view.
--Dennis Littrell
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Lindsay
So I'm going through my old stories on disc, deciding which one to post next when I open a file called “Lindsay.” It is the story “California Dreaming” which I wrote as kind of a frame for the novel California Dreaming which I wrote probably in the 1980s or maybe the 1990s. It a rather long short story, nearly seven thousand words which is probably the reason I never tried to market it.
Well, I just read it for the first time in perhaps twenty years and I was amazed at how good it is. It is the best story I ever wrote. It is amazing that I can say that, and maybe it isn't true. Sometimes when I come upon something I wrote and forgot about it, it seems especially good. Anyway I broke out in real tears reading the story. It is so real and so filled with love and so sharply done.
And of course this realization excites the greed and lust in my soul. Why put this story which may be worth some serious bucks on a blog for all the world to read for free?
I'm all alone in my old age with the realization that I really did write a great story among some very good ones (and a lot of bad ones). It kinda gives me a sense of accomplishment similar to way I felt when the novel I wrote in my twenties, A Perfectly Nature Act, won royalty publication from Putnam's in the seventies. God, I felt so on top of the world! I was a serious literary artist back in the day when that meant something, back in the day when such an acceptance event by a major New York publisher might signal the discovery of the next Hemingway or Salinger or Steinbeck.
But I digress, and no doubt flatter myself. I am going to put this in my blog, because I really don't care about the money, and the fame would be a pain in the ass. (I mean, of course, if I am not totally deluded. Which is...well I'll say possible.) It will be the sixth story and it will have the virtue in addition to being what I think is in many respects the best story I ever wrote that of illuminating the Dana Point stories to come.
--Dennis Littrell
Well, I just read it for the first time in perhaps twenty years and I was amazed at how good it is. It is the best story I ever wrote. It is amazing that I can say that, and maybe it isn't true. Sometimes when I come upon something I wrote and forgot about it, it seems especially good. Anyway I broke out in real tears reading the story. It is so real and so filled with love and so sharply done.
And of course this realization excites the greed and lust in my soul. Why put this story which may be worth some serious bucks on a blog for all the world to read for free?
I'm all alone in my old age with the realization that I really did write a great story among some very good ones (and a lot of bad ones). It kinda gives me a sense of accomplishment similar to way I felt when the novel I wrote in my twenties, A Perfectly Nature Act, won royalty publication from Putnam's in the seventies. God, I felt so on top of the world! I was a serious literary artist back in the day when that meant something, back in the day when such an acceptance event by a major New York publisher might signal the discovery of the next Hemingway or Salinger or Steinbeck.
But I digress, and no doubt flatter myself. I am going to put this in my blog, because I really don't care about the money, and the fame would be a pain in the ass. (I mean, of course, if I am not totally deluded. Which is...well I'll say possible.) It will be the sixth story and it will have the virtue in addition to being what I think is in many respects the best story I ever wrote that of illuminating the Dana Point stories to come.
--Dennis Littrell
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