Be careful what you wish for....

‘Why are there only bad things on the news? I wish these people would report happy stories for a change.’

I’d bet my 42” LCD that anyone who has a television has said something similar to this at one time or another. Well never again for me thank you very much. I’ve said it for the last time because today I finally got my wish. I sat down to eat my sandwich in front of the lunchtime news just in time to see the tail end of some black and white footage of Mount Everest, a tall bloke and a small Asian fella, both stood grinning in big coats.

‘Looks like Sir Edmund Hilary dead or dying. Shame that.’ I said, took another bite and waited for the next story.

Some woman in Ireland had found her dog. This feature is on for over two minutes; a woman finding her dog. And I think I know why it ran away too. The owner wouldn’t stop rubbing it. You could see the dog straining to get away from her pampering, see the discomfort in its eyes, eyes that also resolved to hide better next time or die tryin’. Next there’s a picture of the Liver Building in Liverpool. I know what’s coming; the European city of culture starts today so I’m happy to go and slap some more ham on my bread knowing that I’m not going to miss anything. I return four minutes later to a picture of a monkey. It’s been found too. Now I know that we humans sometimes make the mistake of personifying these little furry people but I swear that as the monkey squealed and pointed off camera, it was blaming the dog. Guess we’ll never know. The monkey feature closed and the ‘news’ wrapped up with some entertainment ‘news’ about the premiere of Depp’s musical mistake, Sweeny Todd. The link girl smiles, promises that she’ll be back later to keep me up to date with everything and the program finishes leaving me wondering what the hell it was all about. I felt like I’d just watched an episode of Blue Peter; absolutely no adult content whatsoever.

It turns out that ‘good news’ is in fact ‘bad news’ after all. No news would have been better.

Recycling Jimmy

The unreasonable weight of bad words

I almost had a great day yesterday. Things had been pretty slow after the holidays and I was pretty much resigned to yet another session of watching ducks through the window when Kirk called. He’s an Aussie, a pal of mine from work and on the spur of the moment he decided to drop in to visit me and my girlfriend on his way back to Algeria. Naturally, most of the entertainment took place in the pub where it didn’t take long for a whole host of friends who I hadn’t seen since Christmas to join us. Like I say, all the ingredients were there to make a day great (unexpected friends packed full of stories and huge laughs) that culminated in a guitar thrashing session back at the lodge. Cool, and a fantastic time was almost in the bag when, lying in bed just before the stroke of midnight I unaccountably blurted two words to my girlfriend, snoozing on the pillow next to me. Now I won’t say what those words were (why or what isn’t important here) but the argument and tension that followed was black enough to turn the whole day sour. My own fault and I’ll hold my hands up, but what struck me during that dark, silent hour between fight and sleep was how powerful those words had been. Five bad syllables that had somehow managed to pollute the thousands of good ones that had previously been spoken that day. Bad words have this ability. They can ruin moments, days, lives and they can break things that an eternity of good words will never fix. This isn’t rocket science but it does also explain why as a writer I sometimes find myself staring at a blinking cursor for hours on end looking for the right word. In reality though, it isn’t my search for the right word that delays; it’s my fear of the bad one, the one with the power to turn the last three pages in to toilet paper.
Recycling Jimmy

Medium premiere - "And Then"...snooze time!

Last night I sat down to watch the highly anticipated season premiere of Medium, one of my favorite shows. My first reaction to the episode titled "And Then", was: "Good God, what did they do with the writers?" I am not sure if this was the product of the writers' strike or if it was taped earlier, but the episode was flat, predictable and...in one word, BORING. Sorry, NBC.

Spoiler alert!

In the premiere, we are given a recap of what happened last season and left with a depressed cast who should all go on some meds.

Allison (Patricia Arquette) was depressed because no one would take her calls or listen to her dreams and she was having money problems.

Her usually witty husband Joe (Jake Weber) was depressed because he was out of work and his mother wouldn't lend him money.

Their teenage daughter Ariel (Sofia Vassilieva) was depressed because she realized that another girl sang better than her (and maybe she was depressed because the writers made her do something nice instead of act like the spoiled brat that we have all come to want to smack).

Detective Lee Scanlon (David Cubitt) was depressed because he has been demoted to playing with puppets instead of being an active crime investigator.

His girlfriend (what's her name) was also equally depressed (and depressing) as she waded through her few lines as if reading off a cereal box. Though maybe her depression is justified--NBC doesn't even see fit to acknowledge her role in the cast, even though she's been in many episodes.

Allison's former boss D.A. Devalos (Miguel Sandoval) was depressed because someone else has his job and now he'll have to go back to being just a...sigh...lawyer.

Then there's Academy Award-winning Anjelica Huston who plays Cynthia Keener, an investigator for "Ameritips". I'm sure that she was depressed because her role was so minute. I hope they develop her character better in future episodes.

Let's see...who else was depressed? Oh yes, let's not forget the millions of viewers who watched, predicted every step and tried to keep from dozing off. Pass the Valium!

As for plot, it was equally as depressing: a kidnapped boy, a pointless side-story about Ariel auditioning for a school musical, a dream of the kidnapper's feet (he likes to dance) and another dream of mice, a scene where Scanlon finds the dead boy packaged up in a doll box and mice running around.

At this point I thought, the killer is a young man who likes to dance and he's an exterminator. And lo and behold, it seems that maybe I should take over for Allison Dubois. What's disappointing is that there's no real investigation. The killer just conveniently shows up, let's himself into the scene of the crime (dancing to music, of course)...

"And Then"?

The show is over. (Thank God!) Talk about anti-climactic. A visit to your dentist for a root canal would be more suspenseful and less painful.

So please, NBC...get some good writers! I loved this show! I love the cast! But hey, there are other new shows on now, so give us some credit here and write for the intelligent viewer. We deserve better.

By the way, my paranormal suspense novel Divine Intervention is often compared to Medium (and CSI and Ghost Whisperer) and will definitely appeal to fans of the show. And I can promise you there are no flat characters and the story line is anything but predictable or boring. So while you're waiting for Medium to get back on track, feel free to pick up a copy of Divine Intervention at Amazon.

Best Seller List

The Sunday New York Times turned up missing at the end of my driveway this past weekend. The front page, metro section and Sunday styles remain absent from this writer’s life. How to survive with no arts & leisure?


During the week my news source is radio and computer. On the weekend things are different. I page through the Week in Review to learn what has happened in the world from the often times skewed viewpoint of my favorite newspaper. Delivery is both Saturday and Sunday morning giving me the opportunity to burrow in for twenty-four hours with editorials, essays, obituaries, travel, society news, the state I live in and the usual suspects at work in government. Amongst the density of paper and magazine is the Book Review, the real reason I pay four dollars and twenty cents a week for hand delivery. The reason I dash outside in rain or sleet, the reason I leave a warm bed on a snowy day. The Book Review is about thumbs up or down, it is all about what is being read and critiqued. The Book Review is biblical. My fantasy being, as I skim the current A-list, is to see my name and novel listed there.


Someday I tell myself, someday.


Thankfully I had Saturday’s supplements and my precious book review. There was a blurb on page twenty-two next to the best seller list with a cameo photo of Michael Choban, it read: 2007 was not a bad year for literary fiction on the best-seller lists. The number one novel of the year that remained a best seller is “For One More Day” a mini-hard cover by Mitch Albom. It is currently in the number five position. Following Mitch Albom’s book was “Cross” by James Patterson. His latest in that series “Double Cross” is currently number one on the hard cover list, while the mass-market version of “Cross” is number four.


I find this kind of minutiae intriguing. Books come and go by the hundreds on this coveted list but the one that plucks a chord and remains a constant relates to a life lesson. Mr. Albom has cornered the market on words of wisdom.
In the end it seems immaterial that the book is thin paged, that the writing is less than scholarly and that the plot is almost corny. None of that amounts to a pack of gum because the message Mr. Albom has sent to his readers is what sells books.
Is there a formula here? Or is the answer so simple that it can only be seen when we crunch the numbers at the end of the year.


Writers take heed.

The Final Lonely Push

Writer and former publisher of ByLine Magazine, Marcia Preston, once wrote a wonderful editorial (actually she wrote a lot of terrific editorials) about the feeling that comes when writers finish a manuscript. She talked about hearing from a former writing student who'd published a book, and how he'd spent the summer working on the "un-fun" part of writing -- completing the final edit. But here's the thing. He also confessed how much he actually loved what he called "the final lonely push".

I know what he was talking about. After years of writing and rewriting, and having just received feedback from my editor (who's worked on the book twice) I'm about to start the last and final edit before publication of Fatal Encryption. I have mixed feelings about this. One is excitement. It's been twelve years since I last published a book, and I'd forgotten about the adrenalin rush, the sleepless nights, and the anxiety. How will it be received? Is every comma in the right place? Have I left a tiny, crucial detail out? But I also feel relief and a sense of closure. Family responsiblities, jobs, and other things made writing this novel a nine-year ordeal and it's time to move on. I don't plan to continue this series because I've written two books in another series which an agent's interested in. Still, letting go of Alex, Tristan, and Jillian will be tough.

As I begin this final, lonely push, I'll think of all the other writers who are going through the same thing, and I'll salute you. We've got the bug. There are no others options but to push forward and create, send it out there, and see what the world sends back.

A Prayer For Writers

Acclaimed novelist Christopher Isherwood (pictured here on the left with W. H. Auden/1939) once wrote the following prayer for writers that is as relevant for 2008 as it was when he penned it in 1940:

“Oh source of my inspiration, teach me to extend toward all living that fascinated, unsentimental, loving and all-pardoning interest which I feel for the characters I create. May I become identified with all humanity, as I identify myself with these imaginary persons. May my life become my art and my art my life.”

Happy New Year to one and all.

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Karen Harrington
Author, JANEOLOGY, a debut work of fiction centering on one man’s quest to understand his wife’s sudden descent into madness. Spring 2008