The Love of Gwendolyn Dahl

compilation volume by Jonnie Comet

from the ongoing series A Tale Of Two Paradises

media release by Richard Christopher, for Surf City Source
for general distribution
March 2016

Edmund Burke has it that a certain sublimity exists even in frightening circumstances. In fiction, this can account for the macabre fascination readers have with the most lurid particulars, no matter how immoral it may seem to face and to appreciate them. As a part of the ongoing Two Paradises fantasy series, the short stories contained within Jonnie Comet’s The Hope of Gwendolyn Dahl (Surf City Source Media Group) amply fulfil Burke’s definition of the sublime. Ostensibly a romance, Hope does not quail from lush sensuality nor blunt, unflattering detail. This open-eyed appeal to both the frank and the fanciful is vital to the series’ charm and literary merit.

The Hope of Gwendolyn Dahl opens with the episode ‘Serendipity’, relating two young people’s long, meandering trek over the picturesque interior of tropical Eden Island. Cast off by her abusive brothers, Gwendolyn encounters Jonathan, who gallantly escorts her towards safety, comfort and, ultimately, romance. Over the course of the afternoon and evening the two, in spite of being too far apart in age and having revealed some startling personal secrets, forge an attachment that will conduct them through their shared and individual destinies.

If too young to be a conventional romantic heroine, Gwendolyn is clever and cautious whilst lacking nothing of what makes her authentic as a precocious pubescent girl. She speaks in a stilted style (using few contractions), an affectation from her affinity for Romantic literature but not uncommon in the exotic but formal British Paradise Islands. An accomplished gymnast and ballerina, she is as courageous facing emotional trials as she is facing physical ones. Long belittled by her family, she suffers from an inferiority complex, heightened by her youth and pixyish proportions, till Jonathan, in ‘Creamsicle’, assures her, ‘No mind and spirit like yours could ever be termed “little”.’

Jonathan, son of the territorial earl and heir to a fortune, revels in the role of protector and provider, even whilst succumbing to Gwendolyn’s misplaced, put-on promiscuity. In ‘Day On The Strand’ he introduces her to some of his own acquaintance, impressing her with his eagerness to acknowledge a girlfriend so much younger. Recognised by her father in ‘Sunday Dinner’, Jonathan insists on downplaying his own status in order to be taken only as a respectable young man with a sincere interest in a charming young lady. In private he is as captivated by her heart and mind as she is with his, each of them excited and relieved to discover the embodiment of long-held romantic ideals. But, owing to family commitments, Jonathan will not commit too much too soon, forcing the crisis at the end of ‘Caesura’... and necessitating the next instalment.

Like much of this author’s work, Hope wades deeply into the risqué. The foreword attempts to prepare the reader for the standards of this incarnation of Paradise, a fantastic world strikingly liberal in its freedoms for teenagers. Brief attire, alcohol consumption, and early, casual sexual involvement are all commonplace here. Hope centres round the thematic concept of the prodigal maiden, one that has appeared in other Comet works. The premise of a young girl too soon facing mature situations provides a heroine who is vulnerable, here emotionally, and plenty of opportunities for suspense and worry for her sake.

Gwendolyn, to her credit, is a born warrior, determining that ‘rising to the challenge of being the regular girlfriend of Lord Jonathan of Paradise was no more difficult than mastering a two-and-a-half back salto off the uneven bars.’ She constitutes the best of what heroines should be, astute, eager and unafraid, even in facing the myriad of challenges that accompany falling in love.


* * *


Individual episodes from The Hope of Gwendolyn Dahl are available in Kindle- e-text editions.  The compilation volume, containing six of them plus various addenda by the author and editor, is due out in paperback during March 2016.

More about the Gwendolyn Dahl story arc can be found here (contains spoilers).

On Biblicalism, school of literary criticism

A preliminary overview

Jonnie Comet
26 October 2015


Biblicalism is the school of criticism devoted to the study of a work of literature as viewed through its deliberate or incidental relationship to a monotheistic belief system.

The criticism neither advocates nor condemns any particular religion or denomination but seeks to explicate a given literary work from a Bible-based perspective, evaluating examples, both explicit and implied, within the work and drawing conclusions about the effectiveness of the author’s presentation of Biblical themes through the work.

Many public-school and university instructors in literature neglect to consider such a viewpoint even though its relevance-- indeed, often, its primacy-- to the work is obvious. A prime example may be the novel Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, herself the daughter of an Anglican priest. The novel is, by design and in effect, a parable about the power of conscious, Christian virtue in overcoming temptation and in redeeming others. All of Jane’s decisions throughout the book are grounded in her own native faith; the reasons for her sufferings are grounded in the failure of others to observe such precepts as each of them have been taught by his or her own faith-- thus, she can be seen as a Christian martyr. The first-person narrator consistently uses Biblical references both to illustrate and to defend the principal concepts.

It can be contended that, neglecting an examination of conspicuous and vital Biblical principles, especially by instructors unprepared intellectually, prejudiced philosophically, or restricted by a comprehensive school’s repressive, secular agenda, no comprehension of the work as a whole can be fully realised. Further, Biblicalism is an appropriate alternative approach in the study of ostensibly secular works such as those of romanticism, naturalism, postmodernism and the gothic, especially as a means to uncover counter-concepts typically left unexplored in most literature courses as taught at comprehensive secondary schools and at state universities.

Examples

Good examples of English-language literature to which the criticism may be applied include:

• Agnes Grey (Anne Brontë)
• Pamela; or: Virtue Rewarded (Samuel Richardson)
• Pamela; or; Virtue Reclaimed (Jonnie Comet)
• Gulliver’s Travels (Jonathan Swift)
• Oroonoko; or The Royal Slave (Aphra Behn)
• Tess of the D’Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy)
• Maggie; Girl of the Streets (Stephen Crane)
• ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ (Edgar Allan Poe)
• The Italian (Anne Radcliffe)
• Romeo and Juliet (William Shakespeare)
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (JK Rowling)
• The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (CS Lewis)
• The Lord of The Ring, series (JRR Tolkien)

For further reading, see

The Absolutist, online here

* * *

The Initiation of Janine

After a long wait (both by me and by some readers), this series is properly launched.  The novella The Initiaion of Janine is, if not the first ever, the first of the ‘A Tale of Two Paradises’ tales to be offered in both e-book and printed-book form.  It’s set in the fanciful world of the British Paradise Islands, a ‘long-forgotten arm of the British Empire’, somewhere in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean (west of the Galapagos, north of Easter Island, east of Tahiti, south of Hawaii.  You figure it out).

Janine is a sweet little girl, indubitably cute and rather ordinary except for a few standout attributes which she will tell you about in her narration.  She is young– only second form, at the start– but is appreciably intellectual and tends to be a little more mature than most of her friends, who really are the embodiment of ‘normal’ girls in the BPI at this time.  They giggle and tease each other, play on swings (though they are ‘too big’), visit the beach, shop, and look at or dream about boys.  They are also sweetly affectionate with each other, and– at least to (too) many Western minds– extraordinarily ladylike, even prudish.

Janine’s story is about how, by degrees, she gradually comes to balance her own native prudishness with the desires and needs of the mature young lady she is, perhaps too rapidly, becoming.  It’s worth noting that part of the magic of the Paradise Islands is that the standards for maturity are younger and more comprehensive than they are in England or in the ’States.  As it says in the Foreword:

As a vestige of the formerly indigenous Polynesian culture, the age of majority for most milestones is young; at fifteen a Paradisian citizen may marry, enter into labour or tenant contracts, leave school, or engage in consensual sexual relations.  Though precocious, this right of young people to initiate and conduct their natural lives on their own is inextricably conjoined to the unwavering sense of propriety as established and regulated by the British– for example, education and job training are comprehensive, there is little public-assistance for the able-bodied, and judicial penalties for abuse of decency statutes tend to be harsh and an adequate deterrent to transgression.  Therefore it is vital to not judge too quickly on appearances; or, if one does, he had best assume all is much saner, safer, more modest and more dignified than it seems at first glance.

For those who have read more of my work, the theme of the eager ingenue embarking, not entirely by choice, on a course of social enlightenment will seem familiar.  It’s a favourite because it reminds us of the sad inevitability that all innocence is fleeting; that, once lost, some degree of innocence is lost forever; that it is true that you can’t un-ring a bell so we'd better appreciate what we were like before we knew what it sounded like.  But there is also a great opportunity, even for the one undergoing such profound and irrevocable change, to consciously retain the most important elements of virtue.  Growing older does not mean losing all goodness; it merely means one must develop an independent sense of what’s wrong and what’s right and to conduct oneself with a responsibility to one’s self and to those who matter.  Janine’s story is the story of one who, having realised she may have flung herself ahead rather earlier than she may have liked, regains her self-control and self-respect and learns to conduct her own behaviour on her own (eminently respectable) terms.

I wrote in The Absolutist: ‘Absence of commission or experience is not equal to virtue, which is the responsible and deliberate exercise and restraint of free will. ’  (http://jonniecometsabsolutist.blogspot.com/p/the-tenets-precepts-belonging-to-neo.html)

I always seem to come back to virtue as a principal theme in all my work.

For the curious, a preview is available.  This excerpt represents the first chapter of a ten-chapter work, somewhere about 11% of the total.  This should be sufficient to give an idea of the novel’s pacing, plot and character development, style and substance, as well as to introduce the unique story setting.  The paperback version of the book contains an addenda, edited by Colin and me, including footnotes for local ‘lingo’ and specific terms that won’t be familiar to people who don’t live in the BPI (which, if you think about it, is everyone in the real world!).

This is from someone else's book but it's funny.

A preview is available here– https://www.createspace.com/Preview/1175206

The paperback will be available shortly (mid-August-?).  The novella edition contains the glossed terms and the manga-styled artwork.

A ‘deluxe compilation’ is coming out as well; this contains The Initiation of Janine and also the next three episodes in Janine’s story, with addenda including glossed terms, maps, other documents and the artwork.  This shall be the model for further stories within the JOP and other ‘T2P’ story arcs: about 250-270 pages, amounting to four, five, maybe six separate but sequential episodes, with interesting add-ons such as maps, diagrams, lingo terms and cool (almost-saucy) artwork.

The Kindle e-text is available now–  http://www.amazon.com/Initiation-Janine-Paradise-Form-20010107-ebook/dp/B002JCT1NE/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8  This contains endnotes (not glossed in the body of the text; you have to scroll back and forth, the only way Kindle allows one to publish it) but no maps and no artwork.

  

As ever I appreciate all relevant and considerate comments and look forward to seeing this get popular.  Now it’s all up to you! 

* * *

On Hemingway, whom I cannot stand

from Yahoo! Answers:

Is Ernest Hemingway for children?

Or does he write for both?  :)

...



Jonnie Comet:

Emotionally, Hemingway was very immature; so I'm not surprised someone might ask this question. He was an emo coward who feared losing his own ideal of manliness. For example, he shot himself in the mouth because he hated how he felt that he needed, emotionally, the love of his ex-wife and sons, who had all grown distant from him (probably from feeling emotionally neglected by him all those years of the past).

I find most of his work, even that which people like to claim is his 'deepest', intellectually immature. 'Francis Macomber' is a good example. It's typically read in years 7-8-9 because the themes resonate best with adolescent, or pubescent, males. Big macho lion hunter falls for good-looking girl whose husband is a wimp. Big macho lion hunter is even more of a 'real man' because he can satisfy a woman whose husband isn't macho at all. All women want big macho lion-hunter guys. Women are frustrated if they marry white-collar city men. They need a good fast tumble in a tent to show them what a real man is. They can even get city women to shoot their wimpy husbands in the back 'accidentally' just so they can live their fantasy of having big macho lion-hunter guys.

This is a typical theme for Hemingway. Couple this with his absolutely awful moral messages (Islands in the Stream, Old Man and The Sea) and-- and I do not mean this as an insult to anyone-- it really takes an immature mind, such as that of a 13-year-old boy, to 'get' him. I've sat with (and learnt from) intellects, scholars and lecturers who claim I'm not getting it, that there's more to him than that. But after seeing Message in a Bottle, the film based on Nicholas Sparks' book, I realised all over again that I'd been right about EH after all. You see, Sparks is the new Hemingway, with the same sort of immature, tearjerking, and thoroughly pointless ending, showing not a drop of usable morality, that EH pioneered for him. Maybe if you admire shallow losers, you get it. I'm sorry; but I don't.

The fact that 'most' people admire Hemingway, just as they rave over Nicholas Sparks stories, may be saying something about the modern book/film audience that I don't want to put too fine a point on here.

* * *

On writing cross-gender narrative

from Yahoo! Answers Canada:

Open Question

 

Help with a short story question..?

I read 'The Groom Service' by Michael Dorris but there is one question that I'm stumped on.  It asks: 

'What impact does a male author have on the content of the story?'

The short story is basically about a Native boy in a society where woman rule and ultimately in order to marry his prospective wife he needs to do things like hunt in order to see that he is worthy.

The author of this short story is male but I'm not sure how he would have any impact on this woman-dominated society. Any ideas?

First answer (still-open question)

Jonnie Comet

I think it is vital for any author to develop a sense of himself, or herself, OUTSIDE that of the characters he or she writes. In other words, the author must not automatically identify himself or herself with characters, even the principal ones-- and especially when it comes to gender.
 
I have always written fiction, since I was 15. This is a very long time now. For the first 20 years I tended to write in the first person, when telling a story with a male protagonist, and in the third-person omniscient when it came to stories about other principal characters. The male narrators were easy-- they were like myself. I now view this as essentially immature for a writer; but in those days I was immature as a writer and it was all I knew. In writing with female main characters, I was essentially an outsider, an observer of female points of view but not an actor of them. (I mean, how could I have been otherwise? I am male-- always have been.) Even when I got married, my wife was still a separate person from me.
 
Then two things happened-- I got America OnLine in the 1990s, and I raised two daughters (no sons). I learned female points of view by observing them much more closely, and I developed a few online novels in which I posted the mentality of a female character and allowed readers to interact with it (in today's terms we would call this a 'blog'). I learned how other men, other than myself, treat women, almost as though I were in the place of the women, and was able to incorporate that into my work. The prime result was my epistolary (first-person, in journals or letters) novel Pamela; or Virtue Reclaimed. 
 
Virtue Reclaimed was modelled on the 1740 epistolary novel Pamela; or Virtue Rewarded, an epistolary novel by then-53-year-old Samuel Richardson who drew on his experience as a teen reading novels to girls in sewing circles (and hearing all their chatter and gossip) and his later experience in writing etiquette guides. From reading his Virtue Rewarded I learned not only that a male writer can depict a female POV credibly (the book was a best-seller in the 1740s and the first novel printed in America) but that it just may appeal to female writers all the more. Everyone who read bits of my Virtue Reclaimed has adored it-- their most common question being, 'However did you get that young girl's POV so perfectly?' 
 
Currently I am promoting Deirdre, the Wanderer, a series about a teenaged runaway who hitchhikes the world on a shoestring. All the reviews have praised the accuracy of details and the believability of the character herself. Deirdre is as real an ordinary teenaged girl as ever there was in literature-- 'modest, lovably imperfect Deirdre, who may well be one of modern literature's most engaging protagonists' (from the publisher's press release for the second instalment of the series).
 
It all comes down to the writer's skill, not only with words and writing but in his or her empathy for the human condition. For example, in my series, Deirdre isn't described in terms of her hair colour, height, lips texture or bra size, like many physically-minded men might have done. In fact that stuff is never even mentioned at all. That's too subjective and irrelevant anywhere. If I called her blonde and shapely, slender brunettes might not want to relate. The more important point is that Deirdre is any girl, anywhere, suffering the same stuff as any girl would in the same situations-- and you fill in the details about what she looks like with your own impressions.
 
If I have to say so myself (which I don't), I am apparently pretty good at this. I lay it down to my inherent and intuitive respect for all girls and women everywhere. And I believe it's this kind of consideration that can make any writer ascend to some higher level in being an observer of human interaction-- as Jane Austen always claimed one must be.
 
'If you can do it, do it.' --from Love Me Do, by Jonnie Comet (that's me!).


* * *

What makes a good story ending?

from Yahoo! Answers--

What makes a good ending?

When watching some films or reading some books, I find that while the beginning and middle parts can be amazing, the ending can sometimes disappoint. Are there essential parts to every ending that make it a good one? If so, what would you say they are?

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

Jonnie Comet

The mode of ending you choose has mostly to do with the story you wrote. For a comedy, the ending must satisfy the readers' common sensibility (the word comedy being based not on humour but in the word common, such as in communion, community, etc.). Give the people what they expect-- the bad guys go to prison, the lovers get married.

For a tragedy, the one we have come to like most must die or suffer, from some fault of his own but one which we would prefer to forgive. Jack Sparrow at the end of the 2nd 'Pirates' movie is sort of like this. Shakespeare's tragic heroes, such as Lear, are like this. After all his growth of character, Lear still dies. This makes us sad.

In gothics, the main message is amoral or naturalistic (naturalism being an offshoot of the gothic). Fate, chance, luck, or circumstances beyond control determine the outcome.  Lord Of The Flies is like this. See Nicholas Sparks' Message In A Bottle for a really egregious example of a pointless ending-- not anything that can be expected, only random. (Really any Nicholas Sparks ending is like this, very Hemingwayesque. --ick.) This tends to frustrate readers and audiences (like me) who want some sense of order or righteousness at the end.

Chief amongst the appeal of an ending should be some element of surprise. In a comedy, for which the ending is a foregone conclusion throughout the whole story, you can still provide something interesting, such as two secondary characters getting married as well (A Midsummer Night's Dream), or the couple coming into a fortune simply for being just such good people, when they would have been satisfied just to have each other (Our Mutual Friend). In a tragedy, you can provide some glimmer of hope in that the Horatio who will take over the kingdom gets a lovely bride or an added accolade into the bargain.

In a gothic, there isn't much hope for surprise-- the ending itself is a surprise, typically unfulfilling-- the hero doesn't win by his own devices but is saved by a random passing ship or because the rope holding the villain breaks or because an animal comes and eats his enemies. It means nothing-- there is no 'message'. These are the ones you probably hate the most.

I do not mention cliffhangers between instalments of a series because they're not really endings. There is a whole set of other rules for a good cliffhanger.

* * *

How long does it take to become a good writer?

from Yahoo! Answers--

How long does it take to become a good writer?

My writing skills suck, and that's putting it nicely. I was wondering how long it takes to become a good writer and how to become a really good writer?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

Jonnie Comet

It takes decades.

Start by reading.  Read all the literature you can.  Enjoy and understand the stories; but pay attention to the authors' craft-- how they use the language, how they describe things, how they set up the plot and provide suspense, and so on.  There is nothing wrong with sort of copying another author's style, at least when you are getting started.  Many people have begun this way.  I wrote Love Me Do as a modern (1970s) take on The Great Gatsby.  My style is/was very different from Fitzgerald's; but even when I teach Gatsby in the classroom today I am sort of amazed at myself for having understood (and sort of copied) his book so well... when I was 17.  And Love Me Do is not at all a bad book.

The second thing, as you begin to read a lot, is to try to discern good writing from bad.  Avoid Nicholas Sparks and Stephanie Meyer.  They tell great stories but their craft is not worth emulating.  They write after their audience-- 8th-year girls.  Move on from that. Read Vonnegut, Rand, Delterfield, Trollope. Explore stuff you never thought you would like. Again, study craft. 

Sting, the bass player for The Police, once said, 'Whenever I run out of song ideas I go back to my craft.'  He sits and plays the bass for hours on end, for days on end. And we thought this guy was good; and still he practises.  Why? --because there is truth in the adage that one learns well by doing.   So, do.  Write everything and anything that comes into your mind.   Read, think of something, write that down.  Critique films, TV, the books you read-- decide what is bad and good about each.  Criticise your own writing from days/months/years ago.   Improve it.  This is not playing for an audience; it is practice.  But it's the only way you can grow.  To avoid attempts, even when they (will) end in failure, is to choose to not improve.  You can't pitch a ball till you try to do it.   So, try.  Fail.  Learn.  Try again.  Fail again.   Learn more.  And repeat. 

As you write, go back to the books you liked, read alternate passages, and compare them.  Is your grammar/mechanics/spelling/usage equivalent to that guy's?  If not, why not?   Evaluate and improve.  This is called editing.   It's been said that there are no great writers; there are only diligent editors.  All writers are editors before they are 'famous published authors'. Get out of your head the idea that the first endeavour is the purest, the sweetest, the most valuable because it's so pure and sweet and original.  That's Romantic; and whatever they write, no good writers are purely Romantic.   They believe in hard work-- and that lies in editing, revising, critiquing, really looking judiciously at what they have written. There is nothing accidental or innocent or 'pure' about it.  All art, including literature, must be deliberate.  It's what makes it 'art' (artifice: that which Man creates).

During the editing process, I take my work in a 3-ring binder to the beach.  (It's where I live.)   I sit there reading like it's someone else's work, like it's from a student or someone, with a blue pen in hand, and truly beat up the whole text.  'Stop repeating,' I write.   'Delete this,' I write.  'What idiot wrote this?' I write.  I put myself into the mindset of the reader.  Then I fix it so 'he' will like it (even when it's just me). It's all about the reader.   If you don't serve the reader, why are you writing?  You write to be read-- that is the definition of an author.  So think of how it reads when you read it.  If it rots, fix it.   That's your job.

I'm sorry for preaching at you but there is really no easy way to do this without just doing it.  There is no app for your iPhone that you can buy and install and *become* a good writer.  You have to just start doing it, like riding a skateboard.   And you will fall on your bottom and become injured-- in this case, in your ego-- and you deserve to get slapped about a bit by it and then you will learn.  And you will go at it again, and again.  And then you will have succeeded, because you will have succeeded.  And no-one can ever take that from you.

There are plenty of easier things to do.  You could sell flowers in a shop.  You could flip burgers at McDonald's.  You could deliver newspapers (does anyone still do that?).  But you want to write.  So what are you reading this drivel for?  Start writing. 

* * * 

Asker's Rating:

Asker's Comment:

I thank you for giving your time to help me and help me realize that it's not going to be an easy process, more like a difficult one. This was a good answer, thank you.

This question about "How long does it tak… " was originally asked on Yahoo! Answers United Kingdom

  

Which Hurqhada? --on 'period' research.

I have been doing a edit of Deirdre, the Adventurer, essentially a content edit on a text that was ‘more or less’ done in 2008 (I had got involved with SCS by then and devoted effort to ‘new’ paperback editions of Wanderer, Vol. 1, and Oyster’s Pearl, Vol 2).  It needs a bit of fleshing-out as well as some clarification (and elimination!) of details and so I have been revisiting some of the particulars of the story, especially as it progresses through Greece, Egypt and India.

At this point of Vol. 3, Deirdre hitchhikes south along the Suez road and winds up in Hurqhada on the Red Sea shore.  This episode takes place in October-November 2000.  But what I have found was that there is no real information available on the Internet about Hurqhada during that time period.

Unfortunately this is typical of the Internet these days-- everything is so focussed on the newest and latest that history itself is becoming irrelevant (witness Facebook’s ‘Timeline’, in which nothing before a member’s joining FB is mentioned).  I am put in mind of how ubiquitous the Atlantis resort at Nassau’s ‘Paradise Island’ is (just Google ‘Nassau’ and see how many of the first ten images are of this monstrosity).  Note that nothing is ever mentioned any more that, as late as the 1980s, Atlantis was just a sand-dune island covered in beachgrass where pigs were herded-- and it was called Hog Island.  (Enjoy your stay at Hog Island, friends.)

This is not a war zone-- this is construction.  The whole town looks like this.

In doing this sort of research I have identified two major issues (problems) with researching a ‘period’ piece of fiction:

1. Most information available through modern means (i.e., the Internet) is only current.  This is a problem when you need information from 10 or 12 years ago about entities that were there then but are not now (the Straw Market in Nassau, which burned down in about 2003) or must avoid entities that are there now but were not then (the big outlet mall at the end of Nassau’s East Bay Street, itself recently rehabilitated, that was built in 2005).

2. Most-- nearly ALL-- information about exotic places is meant for the tourist, not the researcher.  This is a problem if you need to know which day the rubbish is collected, or how much two-bedroom flats cost, or what the high-school term schedule is like, in, say, St John’s, Antigua.   All you get are airfares, hotel rates, and leisure activities.  You get nothing about the very real people who live, work, learn and pay taxes there.

Originally I had bought a really good road map of the region (at Borders!) and later looked up the place on Google Earth, where I was gratified to see that Hurqhada was represented by a satellite image from about 2003.  This was sufficient for Deirdre’s time period (she is there in October-November 2000).  Since that time development has increased exponentially, to where Hurqhada is now the prime Disney World-like resort of the whole Middle East.

When I first have Deirdre land in Hurqhada, she remarks that the place looks like a war zone.  This was evident to me from Google Earth; I later discovered that it was evidence of massive development going on all over the region.  Streets are being made or torn up, construction supplies are everywhere-- and yet the photos, aerial and otherwise, show no details about the people doing the work, their vehicles, their work schedules, and especially not where they live.  The reality behind the promise of new resort space is kept hidden, the unattractive underbelly of a region in transition from a sleepy fishing village to a first-class, world-renowned resort.

In part due to my own frustration I made sure to have Deirdre make comments about this; in her idealistic, youthful pseudo-liberalism she wonders what changes will be imposed on the locals whom she admires and cares little for the paying guests who invade Egypt and who have no care at all for the locals’ ways (which she respects and studies at length).

This recent aerial view of Hurqhada shows the developed waterfront busily entertaining tourists whilst 300 metres west, a new resort will rise upon the huge clearing of sand.  Imagine the dust, concrete powder, noise and ugly earthmovers disturbing your (expensive) holiday in the sun.

So we novelists are left with a dilemma: how to depict a location during a time period of the past without being able to ensure we’ve got it accurately.  Now I know there is a simple solution to this: we write fiction; therefore we just make it up.  Fortunately, in the case of Hurqhada, no-one will be able to tell.  Since the information about what the place was like in 1999-2001 is not available to me, it’s probably not available to anyone else either.  The only people who could debate with authority would be those who were there on holiday in that time period; and that’s just about no-one, since no-one had holidays there back then.  And of course I don’t have to be so particular as to state something that couldn’t be considered credible given even the least bit of latitude.  That's only the novelist's job, after all: to depict a reality that isn't real, yet 'feels' real, without confusing it for the reality that really is.

I just prefer to have it right, when I ever can, that’s all.  But… oh, well.

* * *

Jonnie Comet on writing & novels

from a PR flyer, 12 September 2011--

Who, or what, is a Jonnie Comet?

One of my professors once asked me this, seeing it on some piece of text, and even some of my students have been stumped by it, which I suppose was part of the intention. Actually the name was a suggestion by my brother Rino for the name of a new band in 1978 or 1979. I thought it sounded too 1950s and rejected it out of hand.

Sometime after that I altered the spelling to appear androgynous and created an on-stage persona, some cross between Luke Skywalker and Robin Hood, a naïve though effective futuristic do-gooder featured in the songs of the Archer In The Wood and Shoot For The Stars LP projects.  By the end of the 1980s I had gone to work for corporate America and made something of a name for myself in a very specific industry; and so, when it came time to hawk Love Me Do to publishers, I chose to retain my old band’s name as a nom de plume to keep the two career paths from converging.   In each discrete circle, in order to maintain the separation, I do not mention the other name except, if it comes up, as a third-person entity.

When did you first become interested in writing?

As a child I read copiously, early and well-- in kindergarten the teacher used to have me bring in books, sit me on a table and have me read to the class since no-one else could read at kindergarten in those days. I was two or three reading levels ahead by the time I started 7th year. In critical-writing assignments I was an original voice that most teachers didn’t know what to do with. If they were mere pedants they would nitpick my grammar and spelling; if they had any sort of vision as educators they got used to just giving me an A if it had my name on top of it.

The earliest original story I can remember writing was in 5th year when a friend suckered me into doing a standup comedy routine for the class (not for an assignment, but just because) and gave me the job of writing copy for a mock news report (like a 5th-year version of SNL’s ‘Weekend Update’!). By the time I was 15 I was into the habit of writing down really cool dreams I had; one of them actually became the core of Love Me Do.

What did you do before writing novels?

I have written fiction with the aim of developing novels since I was about 15. But throughout my adult life I really have worked as a draughtsman, a liquor salesman, a boatbuilder, a delivery skipper, a private tutor, a warehouseman, a janitor, a carpenter, a skateboard assembler, a surfboard shaper, a purchasing agent, a designer of yacht hardware, a bookshop clerk, a teacher of secondary English, and of course as a working songwriter, producer and musician with a variety of outfits before and after The Jonnie Comet Band in the early 1980s.

What experiences have you had that you believe contribute to your voice as a writer?

At the age of 19 I found myself dispensing advice to younger friends (who were mostly girls, essentially groupies of the band) in Surf City. I cannot say that I had any more knowledge than they did about their personal social-life matters; but they trusted me enough to consult me with them and I did my best to rely on common sense, moral propriety and good will in helping them through them. The experience taught me two things: that I cared about people, especially young and impressionable ones, and that I had some skill as a communicator of concepts and ideals.

This sensitivity for the whole prospect of being a teenager was further nurtured when I began teaching secondary school and discovered I had students who often took me into their confidence with issues they would not mention to their own parents. They trusted in my guidance because they already knew for sure that I was a staunchly moral adult who knew how to listen and truly cared. I have always regarded their faith in me as a sort of sacred trust and a very high honour; and I like to believe I have been of great comfort to them all.

I realised that the reason I wanted to teach school was the same as the reason I wanted to be a rock-and-roll star: because I believed I had a message of honesty, decency and unconditional love to convey to other people. If I did not make much money in this pursuit, I did gain some peace of mind that having followed a course of virtue I may have helped people be happier and healthier along the way.

Aside from my worldly experiences in work and play I think this getting to know myself and what made me tick as a person is the crucial key to the relevance and uniqueness of Jonnie Comet’s voice as a writer.

What do you think is the most important feature of any novel?

All good stories are about characters. The definition of a ‘character’ can be very broad; good books have been written about animals (The Bear), computers (2001), or places (Ringworld). But what we look for is the development of some entity with whom we can feel empathy. Even when stories are inherently plot-driven, such as those Clancy writes, there are still people within them to be affected by, and to affect, the course of the events. When we recognise the humanity within the characters, we put ourselves in their places, feel what they feel, enter their struggles and cheer for their successes. We then realise that it’s been the book that does this to us, that gives us this gift; and that’s a book we consider a success at having entertained, enlightened and enlivened us. It's what I hope people will see in [Deirdre, the Wanderer].

What do you think makes a story worth reading?

Every ‘good’ story has some combination of good characters, good plot, and good style-- including good mechanical use of the language. Details are well-researched and sensibly presented.   There is a balance between narrative and dialogue-- some things are better told through action and some through the characters themselves.  Most of all the story needs a voice.  A first-person narrator should be engaging, inviting and then keeping us in the story. I like to think Deirdre is one of these-- you will read the story because she’s the one telling it. But a third-person ‘voice’ can be just as engaging, a character in itself that keeps our interest.  My favourite ‘voices’ come from 18th-C authors such as Henry Fielding and Ann Radcliffe; but that’s my taste and others will have other preferences.

Ultimately a good ‘story’ needs a good message, some theme to leave us with when it’s come to the end. This is vital, sort of the raison d’etre of the whole book. Absent this, we will wonder what we were supposed to have got out of it; its worth will have seemed purely superficial.

In your opinion what makes a book a work of ‘literature’?

All literature must have at its core this two-part rationale: to educate and to entertain. In no small part the proportion of these two determines the style and genre. For example all good lectures and sermons are literature, because they must do both, perhaps more so to educate than to entertain. Comedy sketches are literature but may be in the reverse proportion. By this definition straight news reporting is not literature; its purpose, though to be interesting, is not to entertain but to inform. Conversely a story with no underlying educative message is only fluff.

The worth of a given book as literature depends on its author’s management of this proportion.  DTW is literature that entertains the reader with a clever story most engagingly told; but beyond that it is a lesson in the necessity of having to face negative circumstances of your own making. The reader is subtly cautioned throughout that an exciting concept such as striking out on your own might finish up being fraught with yet-unforeseen difficulties, which, perhaps due to pride or naïveté, no teenager ever wants to admit could actually exist, let alone befall her personally.

Is it true you live on a boat?

In season my home base is my sailboat. It is not big but it is an extension of both my need for limitless freedom and my need for a cosy cave to curl up in. In the off-season (or when it just gets too cold, rainy, or otherwise awkward) I will crash on friends or family. For some reason they tolerate me. Though by nature I am a ‘free spirit’, I have often found myself tied-down by circumstances and so the writing of Deirdre, the Wanderer has been a catharsis for me, a way of living vicariously through a fictional narrative-- the same impression I hope readers get from the book.

* * *

The White Queen rules.

In the interests of informing prospective buyers of the Rickenbacker 4001 bass guitar, I posted a review of the instrument on the Musician's Friend web pages.

[Note: The current 4001 model offered by Rickenbacker is a 're-issue' of the 'original' 1964 model (URL: http://www.musiciansfriend.com/bass/rickenbacker-4001c64-c-series-electric-bass-guitar), the likes of which has been played by Paul McCartney, among others.]

Features

I wanted one of these all my life-- to the point of making my own bass in 1977 which used two Gibson bass humbucker pickups, running through two channels of my Randall RB-120 bass head, to simulate the Rick sound (see below).

This is the Steverino Sinbird 'Mk 1'.

Played it pretty much the same as I play the Rick-- even same strings.

 
Finally in 1980 I ordered a lefthanded 4001 in custom high-gloss white.  It wasn't a stock Rickenbacker '-glo' colour so I waited 6 months for it.  But I have used the dickens out of it ever since.

I still run it through both channels on the RB-120, one channel at all treble and no bass and the other at all bass and no treble-- and all midrange cranked off.  This simulates the bass-and-treble stereo 'Rick-O-Sound' without the hassle of bi-amping on stage.  In 1980 I met Rick, the bass player in Cats On A Smooth Surface ('70s NJ-Shore band), who had a lefty 4001 and told me he set the neck pickup at '10' and the bridge one at '2' which emphasises the bass-and-treble effect.  The 4001's drawback is that the neck pickup does not adjust very high [closer under the strings], so you've got to compensate by rolling back the bridge one.  Thus my [Fender-style] P-bass, which is pretty stock, sounds much gutsier if I happen to merely switch guitars without altering the amp's channel volumes.

Setting the 4001's knobs at anything means having to approximate it because there are no numerals on them.  Right-handed instruments have controls that turn clockwise to attenuate (increase volume or tone).  I suspect that the Rickenbacker's knobs may be actually reversed (going anticlockwise to attenuate) but in all truth I have never figured it out and usually have to roll them both ways to check.  But I only do this once each gig and leave the volume ones set on '10' and '2' as ever and the tone ones wide-open.

I always used Rickenbacker flat-wound light-gauge strings-- as I play almost exclusively with a pick-- but not long ago switched to Rotosound Swing 66's, which are the classic 1970s sound of Phil Lynott, Sting and McCartney.  I use the 40-95 set [these are very light gauge for bass strings!] and do not recommend anything over the 45-105 set as the 4001's neck is slender and the truss rods will not need much attention unless you insist on heavy strings.

About 95% of the time I use a guitar pick rather than playing with fingers.  Even for the bass I don't use a heavy pick.  Flat-wounds provide a cleaner sound and the light gauge allows for some degree of delicacy.  I hate just slamming the guitar had and fast to make noise (I'm not in The Ramones).  Stage volume is what amps are made for.

Quality

I have not a single complaint about the quality of the instrument.  I have not adjusted the bridge in years but recently sent the guitar in for service and the tech tuned out a minor fret buzz.  Other than that the guitar has been very durable and reliable, having spent plenty of time in salt-air environments (including gigs actually on the beach) with no signs of metal pitting, chrome chipping, paint wearing away, or anything more cosmetic than a subtle UV yellowing towards a kind of milky cream colour over three decades.

I would have liked one with no binding (like Macca's) but forgot to specify that when I ordered it.  The binding sort of rubs my wrist wrong whilst playing with a pick and I dislike the look of the binding [hard-edged white trim round the perimeter of the body].

I would have preferred dots in the fretboard too because the upside-down triangles look just awful.  Rickenbacker do not offer either of these options any more.

As the original bass guitarist for Foreigner, Ed Gagliardi played a lefty 'Fireglo' [Rickenbacker red] 4001 with upside-down triangles in the fretboard before I ordered mine (1977-1980) and I should have remembered how much I hated that when I ordered it.  But, I didn't.

Scott McCarl played a 'Jetglo' [black] 4001 when with The Raspberries.  [Scott also holds a distinction of being one of the (several) inspirations for the character of Jonathan in my novel Love Me Do.  In the sequel, It's Only Love, Jonathan acquires a custom lefty cranberry-red 4001 with fretboard dots and no binding... because that's what I wanted in 1975!]

The fault with the guitar's case is that, rather than just turning the lefthanded guitar over in the foam blocks of the case, the factory turned it end-for-end, so the handle set to one side of the middle latch is now over the lighter neck end! --and it is always heavy to the other end and one has to fight it towards level with the wrist whilst carrying it or else bang the bottom corner on the pavement and coach steps.

Value

It is true that the 4001 series does appreciate in value-- for insurance purposes I had mine appraised and the 'replacement worth' came back at 5-6 times the purchase price of 30 years ago (and considerably more than a new one now, though I won't sadden anyone by saying what I paid for it then!).

Overall 

In all this is an absolutely top-notch instrument, rather like a Jaguar E-Type or a Palmer Johnson Swan sailboat, the very best the industry has to offer, something that gives you a satisfied sensation to use and draws much admiration from audiences of all ages and tastes.

I had a nice conversation with Isaaca from The Bridges who plays a 1981 4001 and asked her how she liked playing a guitar that is older than she is (it was in 2009; she was 18 then).  She said, 'It's really cool.'  Clearly she knew what she was after when she chose it.

Like most excellent designs that must look stunning and perform well, the Rickenbacker 4001 is timelessly elegant and will never be passe or disappointing.  It really is the coolest bass guitar ever; and mine is my one prized possession.

Personal

I have decided to keep this instrument for life and shall will it to my grandchildren.  Real life can seem so devoid of bona-fide bequests of seriously-valuable heirlooms.  Perhaps The White Queen will be one in future... for someone I do not even know yet.