In Celebration of Critical Thought, An Apocryphal Rabbinical Tale for Rosh Hashanah

Ahead of the Jewish New Year, I wanted to pass along the following legend, as recounted by Abba Eban, notable Hebrew scholar, politician, and diplomat:

“The Rabbis, who often taught by telling stories, expressed their faith in the principles of democracy through a wonderful tale in which two students of Johanan ben Zakkai—Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus and Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah—are the central characters.

Rabbi Eliezer, the story says, was arguing a point of law, but no matter how many arguments he made, he could not convince the other Rabbis.  Finally, in exasperation, he pointed to a tree and said, ‘If I am right, may that tree move 100 yards.’ The tree promptly moved 100 yards, but the Rabbis were unimpressed.  ‘What has a tree to do with a point of law?’ Rabbi Eliezer called upon a canal to flow backward as a proof of his position, and, though the water turned about, the Rabbis were not one bit more convinced.  ‘May the walls of this House of Study prove my point,’ cried Rabbi Eliezer, and the walls bent inward as if they would fall.  Rabbi Joshua stood up and scolded the walls: ‘If the learned argue over a point of law, what has that to do with you?’ So to honor Rabbi Joshua, the walls did not fall—though out of respect to Rabbi Eliezer they did not become quite straight either!

Finally, in desperation, Rabbi Eliezer cried out, ‘If I am right, let the heavens prove it.’ Then a heavenly voice said, ‘What have you against Rabbi Eliezer?  His interpretation of the Law is always right.’ Again Rabbi Joshua rose: ‘We pay no attention to a heavenly voice.  God gave his Torah to mankind, and decreed that we would interpret it for ourselves.  The majority decides.’

And, the legend concludes, God laughed with delight.”

-Abba Eban, My People, Volume I, Berhrman House, Inc., 1978; p.67

Happy 5780! Here’s hoping “The majority decides."

How-To Guide: Writing About Your White Characters During A National Reckoning on Race

It’s been awhile since my last post, and a lot has happened: a pandemic, protests like I haven’t seen in my lifetime, and a presidential election like nothing the U.S. has seen for 160 years.

Being a white indie satirist and fiction author, I have to admit to struggling to find my voice during this national moment, and I’ll bet a lot of other caucasian indie authors are facing the same dilemma: we want to participate in, and lift up the national dialogue, but won’t our affluent, white characters and their white people problems land as offensive and tone deaf?

That’s why I have come up with a simple, easy-to-follow 20-step plan for overcoming what I like to call White Writer’s Block. Here goes.

20 Tips on Writing Your Novel About White Suburban 10-Percenters During a National Reckoning on Race

1. First, change your characters to people of color, but leave everything else in your novel, including their biographies, alone. There, see how easy that was?

2. Now walk it back; that was a terrible f—ing idea.

3. Stop writing altogether; you have no right to a personal aesthetic in the middle of this national moment.

4. Start writing about your white characters again. You're not going to cave in to that bullsh-t! 

5. Ask for your boyfriend’s/girlfriend’s/spouse’s/bestie's opinion.

6. They're right: shelve it.

7. Purchase a copy of Ibram X. Kendi's How to be an Antiracist, and start developing a new story with all Black characters.

8. Stop!  What the hell do you know about the African American experience? Shelve it.

9. Start work on a non-fiction rebuttal to Kendi's book, because f—k him!

10. Read the first draft.  Oh my God, you wrote this?  You sound like a Klansman!  What the hell?

11. Show it to your significant other, just to be sure.

12. Yep, you sound like a Klansman alright.  Shelve it.

13. Get a Black Lives Matter lawn sign.

14. Take the FOP booster sticker off your rear windshield. 

15. But don't throw it out, because you're not looking to de-fund; you just want to be consistent in your messaging.

16. Drive four blocks.

17. Now reapply your FOP booster sticker to your rear windshield.  You can support both your local police and Black Lives Matter; you're not going to be put into some socio-political box!

18. Unshelve your white character drama, your Black character drama, and your rebuttal to How to Be an Antiracist. Work feverishly through the night to incorporate all three into a brand new story that feels like the movie Grand Canyon.

19. Burn the outline. Burn it. Use Zero-pass deletion to sanitize your hard drive. Your significant other must never know you’re capable of writing something like this.

20. Turn all your energy to creating all-new social media content about your previous books. Plan to post nothing about what you're working on for the next 18 months.  Phew!

Drip: A Gothic Bromance reviews

The Midwest Book Review write up for Drip

“A deftly crafted novel of wit and originality, “Drip: A Gothic Bromance” by Andrew Montlack is a clever and inherently fascinating read by an author with a genuine flair for narrative driven fiction. While highly recommended, especially for community library Contemporary General Fiction collections. It should be noted for personal reading lists that “Drip: A Gothic Bromance” is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $3.99).”
— The Midwest Book Review

5th Annual Writer's Digest Self-Published ebook Awards Review for Drip

“In Drip: A Gothic Bromance, a genre novel by Andrew Montlack, we are presented with a humorous take on the corporate world, our national obsession with coffee and the things we do to, and for, the people we call friends. The title for the novel seems to this reader to be clipped and potentially humorous, an intriguing way to initiate a sense of the tone and theme of the work to come. The characters here are fully realized, vivid and alive, and often do surprising things – or do / say things that are very human, which can be rare. I especially like George, who comes across as understated and revelatory, with subtlety and nuance. The dialogue here is particularly solid, sounding realistic and still readable, aiding the characterization and adding layers of nuance to the proceedings. The overall design of the book is professional. It features an interior layout that is clean and clear with text design on each page that is readable and crisp. Also, the cover image for the book is compelling and well designed, with a dash of humor among the artfulness. The dialogue here is particularly solid, sounding realistic and still readable, aiding the characterization and adding layers of nuance to the proceedings. The narrative is tightly woven and compelling, moving at a fast pace while still allowing the reader to experience a true depth of characterization as they develop a full appreciation of the events as they take place.”
— Judge, 5th Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published eBook Awards.

Drip Giveaway on Goodreads August 18-27!

Goodreads and Yours Truly will be giving away one paperback copy of Drip: A Gothic Bromance.  See link below for details!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Drip by Andrew Montlack

Drip

by Andrew Montlack

Giveaway ends August 27, 2017.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Synchronicity

In the days and weeks leading up to (and through) Drip's publication, I have found myself within that cause-effect singularity that happens in life whenever we try to accomplish some big project or make some significant personal change: the universe hurls at us every damned thing it can.  In the course of this spring, four people I am close to have been hit with major, debilitating illnesses, two family members have been lost (one uncle, one pug), I've been getting asked--seemingly out of the blue--to dive into several major projects that run into conflict with my book promotion work, and that's just in addition to being the proud stay-at-home dad of an 11-month-old girl and trying to stay abreast of/refute the current presidential assault on reason.

Things could certainly be worse, and to be sure the friends and family referenced above have suffered a lot more than I have, but nonetheless I think this confluence of stressful events can be fairly characterized as Some Serious Bullshit.

 Whether this is a trick of individual point-of-view or an objective phenomenon I can't say, though I do find Carl Jung's words comforting.  He grappled with something similar to what I'm describing, which he called synchronicity.  As a scientist, he couldn't violate the principle of causation in explaining meaningful coincidences; to say such coincidences happen because of some invisible force we don't know about would imply "action at a distance," which is code for "magical thinking quackery"; instead, Jung moved synchronicity into the psychological realm and explained it not in terms of cause and effect but, rather, meaning.  The basic jist was: these things happen; we don't know how; their importance is in the mind of the observer.

The implication is that when we experience a meaningful coincidence, we would do well to take a good look in the mirror and try to discern what our unconscious mind is trying to tell us.  Personally, I feel like my life is telling me to prepare to transition into a new, more outward phase--that's absolutely not a prediction as to how Drip will be received (or that it will be received), but it is an acknowledgement that I have metaphorically undressed in public and advertised, "This is who I am as a fiction writer." I've already done this as a filmmaker of course, but the written word feels to me a little more imposing, a little more permanent--a little harder to hide behind.

Trailer Illustrations by Peter Wonsowski Part-III

How Peter's drawings came to be part of my book trailer (continued)...

I didn't want to shelve the art, and I figured perhaps I could create a graphic novel or storybook into which to incorporate the drawings.  I set pen to paper and began adapting the screenplay, but what quickly became clear to me was that the story was so tight plot-wise that there wasn't much that could be truncated or omitted; if anything, an adaptation called for expanding on the characters and settings.  Over the course of three years, as time allowed, Drip the screenplay became Drip: A Gothic Bromance.  The novel format did not really suitably accomodate Peter's art, and for a second time I faced the disappointment of not being able to show it around.

 Self publication, as I quickly learned, involves a lot more than uploading a book to Nook or Amazon.  "Self marketing" is probably a more accurate word for what the role entails, and one such promotional requirement is to create a book trailer.  I had the hardware and editorial skill set to put one together but needed to figure out what to do for raw content.  After about five seconds of my puzzling over this, the light-bulb went on.

 It felt really great to have Peter's blessing for the trailer, and now it feels great to see his illustrations for Drip getting out to the world.

Trailer Illustrations by Peter Wonsowski - Part II

How Peter's drawings came to be part of my book trailer (continued)...

At around this time, I attended the wedding of one of my best friends from high school; at the reception I found Kate and myself sitting next to a very upbeat, clean-cut guy.  I figured he was in finance or professional sports newscasting, but no: he was an illustrator.  I told Peter what I was working on, and he got very excited.  I took his card, thinking, he's just being polite, and odds are we won't make a good fit.

A few days later, I took a look at Peter's site (http://www.peterwonsowski.com); I was blown away: his watercolor and acrylic work was tonally broad: there was lighthearted, cute content, but also darker stuff (think Dark Knight Returns graphic novel).  Drip is tonally on the darker side, and I could see that it wouldn't put Peter off.  I got in touch with him, and was amazed to find that his enthusiasm was genuine and consistent.  We spent several months working long distance, with me giving Peter the background on the characters, Peter sending me sketches, me giving input, and Peter honing in.  It was a great time!

 The resulting illustrations were made into poster-boards for pitch meetings, and I started putting out inquiries.  No one bit--which even now is painful to write when I think about all the work that went into the story and the presentation.  Such is the nature of taking an artistic risk.

Trailer Illustrations by Peter Wonsowski - Part I

Those of you who've seen the book trailer have seen the sketches and illustrations of Peter Wonsowski, an awesome artist and lovely human being.  To understand how Peter's work came to be part of my trailer, you need a bit of background on Drip's development.

Drip: A Gothic Bromance actually started life as an original screenplay, written and developed by yours truly.  I had hoped to direct it as a follow up to my feature mockumentary, The Devil's Filmmaker: BOHICA.  However, 2008 changed my thinking; the bright filmmaking future of the digital revolution had darkened, with professionalism vanishing from low-budget, indie filmmaking--both in terms of culture and the income.  All the film editing listings my business partner and I saw were looking more and more like low-ball want ads for web-design/computer-programming/graphic-design experts--not what I signed up for.  Then, when the financial collapse hit, my wife and I, who had just gotten engaged, were forced to rethink living in New York City (if you count Astoria, Queens as New York).

In 2010, we relocated to Cleveland, Ohio, where we could afford to start a family.  Soon after, my wife got hired as registrar at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA Cleveland), and I began consulting work in property management.  Still, I hoped to drum up interest in getting Drip made.  I thought about producing some concept art and pitching it to some of the local film programs.

To be continued...

Drip, Drip, Drip...

Ok, so first thing's first: I've got a genre-bending novel coming out at the end of this month.  It's called Drip: A Gothic Bromance, and I've started this blog because, apparently, I have to.  Hopefully my musings will entertain and provoke, and sell copies. 

Cute comments aside, I did not write Drip for money--at least not today-money, tomorrow-money, or any serious next-year or year-after-that money.  The way I figure, a really good outcome would be a lot of people dig the book so much, we all want to read more of my mishugas (yiddish; roughly translated: busy-ness), and then maybe I get an opportunity to write another novel, novella, or short story.  What I've wanted most for Drip was to tell a great, quirky coming-of-age story about the middle-class heartbreak that graduating college and entering "the real world," has become.

Most of my adult life has been in filmmaking; a lot has been said about great films challenging us, but I also feel like a lot of my favorite movies gave me a kind of social comfort--particularly at a dark time (like now, if you follow the national press)--a sort of countercultural wink--a sense of "thank God: someone else sees how messed up things look--I'm not the only one who thinks this way."  What movies am I talking about?  Donnie Darko, Chinatown, Harold and Maude, Midnight Cowboy, The Graduate, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, RoboCop, Punch Drunk Love, You're a Big Boy Now, some of the best of 1970's cinema, along with a precious few contemporary torchbearers.  Anyway, that's the sort of feeling I wanted to evoke with Drip.