Melissa's on vacation which means you once again are going to get a taste of WEtern writing this week.
Our WEbooker of the WEek, Levimont, first caught my attention with an offer of assistance. He approached Melissa (as much as one can approach someone via email) and offered both his editorial and writing skills for help around the site. She shared this with us WEbook interns, and I immediately messaged him. I have to admit, I was curious as to how useful he could be. He impressed me when he kindly corrected two mistakes I had made in my communications with him, proving his worth with the ease of an unpretentious understanding of what works in writing.
I was further impressed after reading his project The Dinosaur and the Dragon Lady and his submission The First Rule of Drafting in his project Seeking Excellence. It is a unique, blunt expression of a man’s life from the ultimately mundane to the unexpectedly important—all told beautifully with a craft that’s difficult to match. I’m torn between wanting to rave on about it and letting you read for yourself. Ultimately, I think there is greater value in letting you, dear reader, decide what you do and do not like.
Before you run off to read Levimont’s projects, take a moment to find out a little about him and get a taste of his writing right here.
When I asked him to provide a short bio, this was his response:
“There's something missing when you write on a computer. There's no sensory input except from your eyes. Your nose can't tell you about the smell of the ribbon. The wonderful clack clack clack clack clack ding chnk ggggggg clack clack clack, interspersed with the occasional chff-clack of a capital letter is replaced with a whispered tickytackytickytacky. That long droning room full of typewriters is one of the best places I ever went. Words on paper. My words, down there on the paper for everyone to see. Arthur C. Clarke, Ngiao Marsh, Robert Heinlein, Agatha Christie, that's all they did, is put words on paper, and look at the worlds they built that way! If they could do that, so could I. To this day, the smell of ink, the sound of an old Underwood, a tall, lean woman with a grey, chalky voice, can take me back there to the place where I discovered I, too, could put words on paper.
Many years and many miles have gone under the bridge since then. I've had sixty-six jobs. I have way too many children and just the right wife. I've loved and hated and fought and surrendered and lived, since then. And I've written two novels, six short novels, and a host of short stories. But to build worlds for myself, all I had to do was lie in bed at night, all those long years ago, and think them up. Words on paper, worlds on paper, are words and worlds for other people. In search of readers, I turned to the internet.”
Ever the one to push things a bit further, I had to ask him some questions.
A) My Melitta coffee cone. If you took this away, first my writing would dry up and wither away, and then I'd begin to whine and whimper and plead, and then I'd just tip over dead.
Q) What
brought you to WEbook? What do you think about your time as a WEbooker so far?
A) Actually, it was a pay-per-click ad that first pointed me to WEbook, but I'm not going to admit it, because I don't want to encourage the creatures! I had been on and off of a dozen or so other "online writer's communities," and I'd found that they all seemed to drift away from the goal of perfecting one's craft, and slide down toward some breed of feudalism or anarchy. I thought, and I still believe, that WEbook is a place that's all about writers writing. I've found some new friends, and I've read some good writing, and I've learned things. What's not to like?
A) I'd be the most perfect wordstorm of angry criticism that ever touched down, and I'd strike deep in the heart of the educational systems that are failing so miserably at releasing the beauty and the power and the strength that lies within each of us.
Q) Describe
your childhood in a single, brief memory.
A) Everything you need to know about me is wrapped up in one image. Look over there - that's me, that scrawny boy stepping from the cool, air-conditioned library into the oven blast of the sidewalk, walking slowly the three blocks home with the five-book limit stacked against my chest, book one opened on the top. My feet slide slowly on the gritty walk so that I can feel the curbs. My eyes are squinted down hard against the sun bouncing back so loudly from the pages. The cars hum by like big insects, like something not really connected to me at all, living their own bookless lives. Kip and Peewee and Wormface are much more real to me than the cars are. Reaching home, I don't even go in. I sit down on the front steps, and in the dusty shade of the garage, I read until I've finished the fourth book. Then I walk back to the library, book five balanced on the wobbly stack.
Now that you’ve had a chance to get to know Levimont just a bit better…The Dinosaur and the Dragon Lady is up for publication in the voting cycle, so be sure to get on the site and vote!
