Off the Bookshelf: SAVE THE CAT! STRIKES BACK!

If you haven't heard of the Save the Cat! books or Blake Snyder ... well, either you've been living in a cave or you're not into screenwriting.

The thing is, I'd recommend the Save the Cat! books to any writer of fiction/drama, whether novels, short stories, or screenplays.

Blake Snyder, who died in 2009, shared his insights into deciphering what worked -- or more importantly, DIDN'T -- in screenplays through books and workshops. I wish I could have attended one of his workshops, had a chance to meet him, but alas, I can only read and re-read his books and wait for those flashes of "Ah ha!" that solve a problem in my writing at that point in time -- whether a novel, a short story, or my yearly screenplay.

What can I say? Read the books and quietly mourn the loss of a master who told it like it was -- and still is -- for writers everywhere, in writing and in their career.

What does a cat have to do with screenwriting? Well, duh, read the book and find out!

Jane Bondservant #12

Rewind:

Right after O told me that Dr. Noway joined my church -- and after we waited for our phones to recuperate from the feedback from my primal scream therapy -- he gave me a few details of my assignment:

Befriend Dr. Noway. Watch his every move.

“O,” I exclaimed, with my voice still a little raspy from the scream, “how in the world do you expect me to befriend my archnemesis? That’s not a rhetorical question -- I don’t know the first thing to do. Throw me a bone, would you?”

“I’m glad you asked, 777,” O said after a moment. “If you took your assignment without any further protest, without asking for help, I might have suspected you of planning on fluffing it off, or waiting for the husband-hunting women in your church to drive him away. As a matter of fact, it’ll be part of your assignment to make sure that he doesn’t get frightened away before he can set down some roots.”

“Good luck. Stronger, smarter men have fled in terror, with their hair turning white and their nerves shot. Especially when the hopeful bride-to-be carries a briefcase full of wedding plans and a blank spot to insert the groom.”

“Remind me not to attend your church without taking precautions, 777,” O responds.

“What kind of precautions, sir?”

“Fiance repellent, for one thing.”

“Has S come up with some super-nifty techno-genius toy to do that?” Considering that I had been set up for a few blind dates in the last year, I spoke with a little more personal interest.

“Something as easy as a ring, 777. In my day, young women who wanted to avoid matchmaking called it ‘traveling salesman repellent.’ But back on the subject, 777. Befriend Dr. Noway.  A good start is to generate some honest sympathy for him. He isn’t truly evil, merely a misguided genius.”

I wasn’t too sure about that label for Dr. Noway. The few times I had encountered one of his plans or tactics or deviously brilliant gizmo, I was pretty sure he knew what he was doing, and doing it by choice. But I thought about it as I went back to work and retreated to the safety and solitude of my library. And thought about how Dr. Noway would soon regret joining our church if he joined the Singles group and became the target of husand-hungry women.

"Hey," I murmured, looking up from my cataloging work with minimal papercuts on my fingertips. "I kind of do feel sorry for the guy. I might just do this assignment right after all."

Just the image of Dr. Noway struggling to survive a Singles Group event at my church did the trick -- I felt sorry for him.

But not enough to drive away the oogy shivers at the thought of being nice to someone who still worked for B.L. Zebob Industries -- even if he did say he was trying to find another job.

Off the Bookshelf: HOW SWEET IT IS

Book exchanges are great. Besides creating room on your shelf for new treasures and new authors to discover, you get to share a book that you know you won't read again (not because you don't want to, but because there just isn't enough TIME to go back) with someone who might just fall in love and make it a keeper. Everybody has different tastes.

Thank goodness. That means out there are people who love my books, along with people who like them and others -- may they be few! -- who see my name on a book cover and say, "Meh!"

HOW SWEET IT IS, by Alice Wisler, came to me through a book exchange with my ACFW chapter a year or so ago. Maybe longer. Just shows how BIG my to-be-read pile/bookshelf is. Wish I had read this charming, first person POV journey of recovery from shattered dreams and love and a car wreck and its attendant scars just a little sooner.

Deena, our heroine, is a chef -- until the story starts, working at an upscale restaurant in Atlanta. Then a car wreck and discovering her fiance had someone else in his life and an inheritance from her grandfather send her to the mountains of North Carolina. Maybe she doesn't start out searching for change, but it finds her. She learns from some unique and charming characters along the way and learns something about herself while she struggles to teach cooking to emotionally wounded children and set up her cake business. I wish I had her remote cabin in the mountains... Read the book, and visit there for a while, too. You won't say, "Meh!" to this story. Delicious, soft, and sweet. Like the white velvet cake recipe included.

Jane Bondservant #11

If I were to give a title to this week’s episode/report, it would be:

SEE JANE PANIC

Last time we met, dear reader, I was -- fortunately -- outdoors when my supervisor, O, made contact. My response to learning that my nemesis, Dr. Jose Noway, was my assignment, my “current situation,” was … shall we say … less than professional.

To quote:

Yes, that was my scream that sent all the birds from their perches throughout the entire county, and stopped just short of setting off the fire alarm in the school.

Primal scream therapy is, after all, a great way to clear stress compounds from the bloodstream, increase the level of oxygen in the blood and brain, and clear the sinuses.

Cue the ominous music.

Cue the narrator:

What will Jane do?
How can she let Dr. Noway invade her church? 
Why did Dr. Noway join her church? What can his nefarious plot BE?
Will she have to pay to wash all those cars that were bombed by frightened birds?

I didn’t have time to consider those questions. At least, not right at that moment. I had to go back to work. Which, if you really think about it, was good timing. My scream of anguish and apprehension coincided with the class change bell for sixth period, which was loud enough for the gym classes out on the baseball diamond and soccer field to hear.

So no one really noticed the noise I made.

Right after lunch, my usual job was to go back to the school library to sort through the books that have been returned. When the fiction books were in alphabetical order by author, and the other books were in order by the Dewy Decimal System, then I would go through the computer catalog and mark all the books as returned. An easy job. Almost brainless. A comforting routine. As one of my good friends who edits and publishes electronic novels says, "Easy cheesy peasy."

That left my brain free -- fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view -- to contemplate the horrific news that O gave me just a little while ago.

As if it weren’t bad enough that Dr. Noway would see me at work when he dropped off his nieces for school -- now I had the added risk of seeing him, and him seeing me on Sunday morning. What if he stopped in the fellowship hall to get coffee in between the service and Sunday school time? What if -- horrors! -- Dr. Noway decided to join the Singles group?

Funny -- not funny ha-ha, but funny weirdly sad -- for a moment there, I actually felt some sympathy for Dr. Noway. Like most churches across the country, the single women of my church outnumbered the single men ten to one. Except, of course, for the single men who migrated from one church to another, looking for a wife. Just like guys don't like girls who run around with a shopping list for the "perfect husband," girls don't like it when guys use a shopping list and measuring rod, and usually have their mother or interfering aunt following them around with a magnifying glass to focus on the girls.

Should I warn Dr. Noway? Or should I just sit back and wait for the first Sadie Hawkins event to drive him screaming into the night?

Off the Bookshelf: ORTHODOXY

Whew! It's done! I survived -- at least, I think so. The jury is still out on whether I strained more than the usual number of brain cells.

ORTHODOXY, by G.K. Chesterton -- he of Father Brown mystery stories fame -- was the subject of the spring book discussion group at my church. You want to talk about brain strain? Considering it took me since January to read 155 pages ... You have to go sloooooow with this book, and at the same time, I wonder if the slowness, just a couple pages every day, didn't contribute to the feeling that an awful lot was sliding past me.

This book is over 100 years old and is considered a classic in Christian writing. I don't know if it was the age, the fact the writer was British and there might be some language problems, or what, but I had a hard time absorbing what was being said, learning, and applying. Maybe the most frustrating part was that when I did get one of those instance of insight, of, "Oh, yeah, hey, that makes sense!" it just added to my certainty that I was missing out on a treasure.

Our teacher told us that Philip Yancey reads this book over and over again. Heck, if someone as intelligent and perceptive as Yancey rereads this book, maybe I'm not so bad off, not catching onto much of anything the first time through. I'll have to read it again. I know there's a lot to learn -- a lot of guidance in apologetics, in organizing my thinking, helping me figure out what I believe and why. Just wait until the bruises have faded, okay?

5-Star Review: DIVINE KNIGHT at Long and Short Reviews

Thanks, so much, to Orchid at Long and Short Reviews, for her 5-star review of DIVINE KNIGHT, the 3rd book in the Divine's Emporium/Neighborlee, Ohio series, published by Uncial Press.

"Angela’s world is shaken when two robbers bypass the magical safeguards of the Emporium, something that should not be able to happen. When she confronts them they throw her into a painting which is a doorway to an unfriendly world. Luckily she clings to the frame and Maurice returns home from his one day a year as a normal size in time to rescue her.
"This is another stupendous book about Neighborlee. Maurice is cheeky but learning to think of others, especially librarian Holly who he has fallen in love with. Angela tries to remember her past while struggling to defend Divine’s. Behind these two important characters are the magical beings of Neighborlee. Lanie, the paraplegic newspaper editor with telekinetic abilities; the children of the Hunt who in reality are adults from another world protected by the Hounds.
"A new character to the novels is Ethan, a private investigator who has been hired to find a missing girl. His search leads him to Neighborlee but he brings chaos and evil with him. He and Angela sense there is a link between them but until the threat to Divine’s Emporium is over, neither is willing to take a step into the past.
"I love these books. They always make me feel as if I’m sitting in front of a roaring fire with a mug of hot chocolate, relaxing as I read the book. Ms Levigne has a marvelous way of showing me the world she has created and making me believe all I read. Well written and wonderful. Great book."

Thanks, Orchid, and LASR.

Looking ahead:

We'll be visiting Neighborlee once again, when GATHERING, the 5th and final book in the Hunt series is published by Writers Exchange. It's time for the Hunt to go home, and Neighborlee provides the ... "launching pad" for their effort.

Jane Bondservant #10

These are the continuing adventures of Bondservant. Jane Bondservant.
My mission?

You know, honestly, I'm not sure half the time..........

I learned a long time ago, the key is to keep moving, keep going, keep trying, and that's why I make ... well, slightly better than minimum wage.

But the retirement plan is OUT OF THIS WORLD.

When I last reported on the "situation" with Dr. Noway, my supervisor, O, had just made contact.

Unfortunately, the headmaster came back into the office just about then, so O had to cut communication and wait until my lunch break before he could fill me in on the "situation" that had just come to his attention.

See Jane work.

See Jane keep looking at the clock.

Why does the clock move so very, very slowly, Jane?

Jane does not hate her job.

Jane loves her job -- most of the time. But today Jane has many other things on her mind. What horrific news will O give her, when they are able to talk again?

And why, oh why, did Jane have to pack a bologna and mustard sandwich and a stale granola bar for her lunch? Combining those foods with O's news would be sure to give her indigestion!

While I waited for the minute hand to slowly, excruciatingly climb around the clock to 1:30 (Yeah, I had a late lunch hour, but I kind of liked it. Most of the time. Usually going to lunch late meant my afternoon was really short. Most of the time.), I thought about my recent encounter with Dr. Jose Noway.

He certainly seemed sincere, when he asked for help in finding a new job, so he could quit working for B.L. Zebob Industries. Then again, what if he just wanted access to the job search resources that PHCA provided for families of its students? What if he had decided to downsize his nefarious schemes, and instead of destroying major defensive installations and steal life-altering information ... he just wanted to bomb some Mom-and-Pop stores and small-town businesses? Not that Parma counted as small-town, but it was a starting place.

(Yeah, that sounded a little lame to me, too, as soon as I thought of it.)

Finally my lunch break arrived. I snatched up my squashed, many-times-used paper lunch bag outside to sit on the park bench in the sunshine in front of the school. Another benefit of a late lunch hour -- no fighting over the park bench on nice, sunshiny, warm days. My mama didn't raise no fool!

"Hello, Jane." O appeared on my phone's video screen as soon as I flipped it open to call him. How does he do that? How does he appear on my computer screen the moment I think of him -- or even before I think of him? I supposes that's why O is the boss -- he can do the almost-nearly-impossible.

"What's the situation, O? I don't feel good leaving town while Dr. Noway is lurking around. He's actually sending his nieces to my school! That can't be good."

"Dr. Noway IS your situation, Jane." O paused and looked at me until I felt kind of itchy and fidgety. Mostly because I know the camera isn't that good on my phone. It makes my skin look green.

"My situation?" I was very glad I hadn't eaten my sandwich yet. Maybe once this phone call was over, I should scrounge in the drawers in the office and see if I could find some crackers -- even stale ones -- to settle my stomach.

"Dr. Noway ... brace yourself, Agent 777 ... Dr. Noway has joined your church."

Yes, that was my scream that sent all the birds from their perches throughout the entire county, and stopped just short of setting off the fire alarm in the school.