Category Archives: Uncategorized

February 19, 2015

The Charons

This is a true story, although it’s not mine. It is a story of betrayal, malice, and harassment. It’s a story of family poison and co-worker acid.

It is the story of the experiences of blogger and author Sharmishtha Basu, who has just released this book entitled the Charons. I asked her a few questions about the book and how she works as a writer.

David: Is this a true story?

Sharmishtha: It is more of a journal than a story. Everything that is written has happened, but in a lot more horrible way. I just don’t have the mental strength to bare my soul to everyone.

D: When did you first decide to write this story?

S: In 2001, after returning from hell. I decided I would share my experience to warn others in crystal clear words. In the next ten years my tormentors made that decision a resolution.

D: What was the hardest part about writing this book?

S: The pain. Reliving the memories of those ghoulish tortures and betrayals, memories of monstrosity that dwells inside human beings, it was such a shock for me, someone who believed in humanity so very much.

D: Do you have a set place and time when you write?

S: No. I sometimes discipline my muse but she breaks free.

D: Do you have any insights or words of inspirations for other writers?

S: If you believe you want to share your works, don’t let anyone stop you. Createspace and kindle are absolutely free sites, all you will need is friends who will give you the well needed publicity or you can go for paid services. If a publisher refuses your work, that does not makes it bad. Listen to your heart and friends.

The Charons is on sale now at Amazon.com or Createspace.

23 Comments | tags: book, interview, Kindle, Sharmishtha Basu, The Charons, writing | posted in Uncategorized

February 17, 2015

Do You Want a Guest?

By David Stewart

Have you ever had a dinosaur bite your leg off? I haven’t, but I can tell you what it was like. Even show you the scar.

Do you know a good recipe for kryptonite soup? Not me, but I can write a recipe that will keep Superman looking at you askance whenever you pick up your spoon.

I’m not saying I’m a professional liar, but I am a writer, so yeah, maybe I am. You know what I mean.

What kind of stories do you tell? Would you like me to tell a story for you? Look back in my archives: I’ve got all kinds to share.

If you’re a blogger and would like to take a night off sometime, I’d love to guest blog for you. Send me an email at greenwalledtower(at)gmail(dot)com and we can talk about it. I won’t bring the whole Green-Walled Tower with me, but maybe I’ll give you a strand of ivy from the walls.

4 Comments | tags: blogging, guest blogger | posted in Uncategorized

February 10, 2015

New York Mayor Grants Health Insurance for Cats

By David Stewart

Do cats work hard? They sure don’t act like it. After all, they’re rated the 9th laziest animal by pawnation.com, who should know a thing or two about all things pawed.

Of course, we know that cats do work hard, just in their own way. They kill enough mice and rats to keep us from swimming in vermin and that’s no small thing. I don’t think the title of this post will be seen in the New York Times anytime soon, but that’s not saying it shouldn’t be. Maybe they could pay taxes in rat tails or something.

Let me tell you about one cat who worked hard. Her name was Maya. She was more than a cat though: she was a lady. She had a job but had to keep out of sight because of health inspectors. She had an infuriating owner, a high-classed friend named Puccini, and a rakish tomcat brother named Gloves. She was also a writer, who tapped out her memoirs, one paw stroke at a time. These memoirs are collected in a small book called Notes from a Working Cat, by Susannah Bianchi. I recently interviewed her about the book.

David: First of all, let me say I enjoyed this book a lot. Where did you get the inspiration for it?

Susannah: Maya was an actual cat on the Avenue where I live. I first met her sleeping in the window after hours. She was the prettiest kitty amid the apples and oranges.

D: Who is your favorite character in this story and why?

S: Maya, of course, with Puccini as a close second for her glamor . . . pearls instead of a collar. If I come back as a cat, I’d want to be Puccini, the Liz Taylor of Pusses.

D: What was the hardest part about writing this book?

S: Not making a full-fledged book, thinking less would be more.

D: Do you have a set place and time you write?

S: I like writing at first light, when all is quiet and I have the world to myself.

D: Finally, do you have any insights or words of inspiration for other writers?

S: Just forget about fame and fortune. All that will come doing what you love.

Notes from a Working Cat is on sale now at Amazon.com. Go check it out.

4 Comments | tags: Amazon, book, cat, interview, New York, Susannah Bianchi | posted in Uncategorized

February 3, 2015

Witnessing the Insane – guest blogger Susannah Bianchi

By David Stewart

I am happy to introduce my first guest blogger ever: model, writer, and New Yorker, Susannah Bianchi. She is also the genius behind athingirl.com, a blog where she shares her experiences and adventures of living in the Big Apple, all with sparkling wit and a deep heart.

She also has a great book out: Notes From a Working Cat, the memoir of a sophisticated little feline named Maya. I would definitely recommend it.

Witnessing the Insane

It’s not uncommon to be on the New York subway in the company of a crazy person. It’s free advertising after all, for their insanity.

Some ask for money, some just babble and I’ll admit, from years of bearing witness, I’m more than a little removed.

You often wonder, is this legit…another well-honed act, because despite how many times you are assaulted by the unexpected pounce, you just don’t know.

There’s the man who lost everything in a fire who asks for alms in English and Spanish, but Spanish so fluent you wonder why he can’t get a job at the embassy.

We have another fellow on the 6 Train who’s been needing 18 dollars to get back home since 1993. He could have been around the world 18 times by now.

I’m a regular rider, so I see them all the time, but a tourist or visitor gets clobbered, wallets out, bills expected.

Source.

But every once in a while, a poor, legitimate soul will even get to me.

Last night on the train, coming home, a kid maybe 16 got on. He was all shriveled, like a vegetable left in the fridge too long. His right hand had that stricken fist suggesting a stroke, or some kind of permanent paralysis. His legs were puny, the right half the size of the left. What really spoke to me was his facial expression that looked as if he had been punched so hard, his face couldn’t get back to normal.

It was pain, false or otherwise, making me take an extreme pause.

He was screaming for help at the top of his lungs, his bent legs dragging him down the car. I never saw so many people so clearly affected.

He was young, like a hurt cub, and in my heart, I knew, this was not feigned.

Dollars came out like pennies from heaven shoving them in his one good hand. He said nothing as he held them, not even putting them in a safe place, as though he wasn’t even conscious of the response.

I sat there praying for him.

Suddenly my 14-hour workday felt like a grace as opposed to a grind. I remembered how I walked 30 blocks in the morning to get some exercise in…could this kid do that, let alone have a regular workday lasting that long?

My humility came and sat beside me whispering…Susannah, how blessed and blessed and blessed you are.

I got off at the 86th Street stop to take the crosstown bus, still hearing him screech in the distance.

– Susannah Bianchi

3 Comments | tags: athingirl, beggar, blogging, daily life, guest blogger, insane, New York, subway, Susannah Bianchi | posted in Uncategorized

January 20, 2015

Confession: I’m a Serial Hater

By David Stewart

How’s that for a glib, yet cryptic title? Let me explain a little more.

I walk into a used bookstore, which like most bibliophiles, is similar to walking into an opium den. Oh sure, you tell the people waiting in the car that you’re just running in for a moment, but they know better and wander off for some coffee, or a tour in the Peace Corps. Meanwhile, I wander through the dim shelves, looking for a stack of yellowing, dog-earred volumes to trade some hard-earned lucre for. I go to fantasy/sci-fi and start pulling books out. Hmm, this one looks interesting. Interesting title, nice cover art. I glance down at the bottom of the cover. Book 1 of—

That’s it. Deal-breaker.

I’m not going to say it’s a hard and fast rule, but I must confess that I am deeply biased against novel series. I’ll call it a prejudice since then I don’t have to justify it. Of course, in the above scenario of the used bookstore, the much more frustrating situation is finding Book 4 of– with no sight of Book 3, 2, or 1 anywhere. That’s not the writer’s fault, but here are some other grievances I have with book series.

Most of our books. I’m sure some of them are series.

1. The series never finishes.

This doesn’t happen much, but every now and then, the volumes keep coming and coming, introducing more and more plots and characters and not wrapping up enough of the old ones. This was my complaint with Wheel of Time. Hopefully, this won’t be the case with the Game of Thrones books but that is also one reason I will probably never read them.

2. The first book really isn’t that good.

Let me clarify for a moment. I don’t have any problem with book series that all take place in the same world, but are separate stories, even if they are loosely related to each other. That’s fine. Books like the Discworld novels and the Chronicles of Narnia are series but they are also standalone novels, for the most part. My problem is with series that are all one single story. If the first book isn’t that good, I feel torn between giving up and never finding out the ending, and shelling out more money just to know what happened. It’s like selling me the first quarter of a novel, and unlike Jimmy Norman, the master behind Dysfunctional Literacy, I finish books. It’s a compulsion with me, even if I don’t like them (even this compulsion is more of an ideal; there are plenty of books I never finish).

3. You get the feeling the writer is only continuing the series for money.

I don’t have any specific examples of this, but I’m sure you’ve read them. There are still things that happen, conflicts occur, characters do things, but the books start to lose some of the driving force of the first one. It’s not necessarily bad writing, but you get the feeling that it’s also not really necessary.

4. The series is an artificial construct.

This is a publishing trick more than a writing one. Korea is especially bad at it, for some reason. I have the Lord of the Rings in four languages and the Korean one was by far the most expensive. That’s because while the other languages sell it in three books, the Korean version has seven volumes, meaning it’s 7/3’s more expensive. It is technically 6 books in one (plus the appendices) but there’s no point in selling it that way, except for money.

When I was young, I bought a middle grade fantasy series called Winds of Light. It had six volumes, even though each was only 130 pages or so. That was fine, except about six months after I bought the whole series, they came out with a single volume edition for about a third of the price of all six volumes. Maybe that was when my series hatred started. Maybe I should go see a literary psychologist.

(Note: just to preemptively point out my hypocrisy, I am planning to write a novel series in about ten years or so. I only mention it now since everything online is eternal and I just know someone will dig up this post in 15 years when my serial novels are on the bestseller list. I just like to be prepared.)

Okay, I’ve ranted enough. How do you feel about serial novels? Let me know in the comments. (If, by the way, you write serial novels for a living, feel free to curse me out or send me a free sample of your books to try to sway my mind on the matter.)

13 Comments | tags: Dysfunctional Literacy, hate, list, novel, series, writing | posted in Uncategorized

January 6, 2015

Big Writing versus Small Writing

By David Stewart

This idea came to me a few days ago as a way of thinking of different aspects of writing. I was thinking of H.P. Lovecraft as a matter of fact and considering whether he was a good writer or not. He is considered one of the masters of early cosmic horror, continuing on from Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce and William Hope Hodgson and one of the inspirations for modern horror. He was clearly hugely influential and was a master of huge, sweeping themes. On the other hand, his writing is filled with long, baroque descriptions and almost no dialogue. So, was he a good writer?

I concluded that he was good at big writing but not as good as small writing. Here was my thinking.

Big writing relates to the story, themes, action, and the characters. All the things you would say if you were asked what the story was about, and other Wh- questions.

Small writing has to do with the actual words the writer uses. It’s the description, the dialogue, the word choice. This is what comes out when you quote something from a story.

Of course, to be successful, you need to be good at both. No one wants to read a sweeping epic that reads like Dick and Jane, nor rich, velvety prose, sumptuous and sensuous as a triple layer chocolate cake if there’s no story to it. However, some writers seem to excel at one or the other.

Some notable “big writing” greats:

J.R.R. Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings has some great dialogue and description, but it’s the epic feel of it that leaves an impression.
J. K. Rowling. Not that her small writing is bad, but wow, it’s the world and big story that has made her a star.
Michael Crichton. I really love his books and while he’s not a bad writer, it’s the stories and action that really pulls you in.

Some great “small writing” authors:

William Shakespeare. This one is debatable, since he is great all around, but I would argue that his stories are fairly conventional and it is his rapier-sharp dialogue and turns of phrase that have made him a legend.
Barbara Kingsolver. I thought of her because I’ve been reading the Poisonwood Bible lately. Just a few sentences and you feel like you are right there with the family in the Congo, breathing in the same air and all.
Edgar Allan Poe. It is a joy to me to read his words, like some sort of lexical opiate.

These are a few examples that I thought of off the top of my head. Which writers do you think really excel at “big writing” or “small writing”? Let me know.

7 Comments | tags: authors, Bierce, big writing, Crichton, Hodgson, Kingsolver, lovecraft, Poe, Rowling, small writing, Tolkien, writing | posted in Uncategorized

December 31, 2014

2015: The Year of the Green-Walled Tower

By David Stewart

So, it’s not quite New Year’s here yet, but we’re counting down the last few hours and although 2014 has been a pretty good year, I have a really good feeling about 2015. I feel like this is going to be a big year for me and this blog, not because of random fortune, but because I am committed to doing a lot of work.

I don’t usually make resolutions for two reasons: 1) I don’t usually have anything I specifically want to do that I think I can accomplish with a resolution and 2) resolutions are treated very cynically these days. Resolutions seem to have come to mean “well-meaning but naive life changes that will be in effect from January 1-15”. I don’t want that.

However, this year, I have made some resolutions which I am 100% committed to keeping. I’m sure everyone says that so I am making them a matter of public record so I can compare this post with another one a year from now. Keep me honest, people.

And finally, the most important and most ambitious.

Thank you to all you who read my blog. Expect good things in the year to come. Happy New Year!

11 Comments | tags: 2015, belfry, blogging, mascot, New Year's, novel, resolution, story, writing | posted in Uncategorized

November 18, 2014

Music to Write by

By David Stewart

Last week, my class was working on posters for International Education Week and I put on some music while they were working. I tried to find songs on Youtube that everyone might like or at least things that I liked. After a few songs, I put on Lana del Ray’s Summertime Sadness, which I really love. One of the students, a 20-year-old Venezuelan guy gave me a look, as in “Really? You like this?” I defended myself by teaching them the word eclectic as in “Shut up, I have eclectic tastes in music” and then changed songs.

The fact is, I do love a very wide range of songs that produce some sort of emotional response in me. After all, as a writer I’m trying to evoke an emotional response in the reader, so call it research.

Source

I listen to music when I write since it fuels the creativity pumps deep inside my spirit. Here is a sampling of songs that I really love and that help me in my writing. I can’t guarantee you’ll like all of them and actually, I can pretty much guarantee you won’t like all of them, since what would the odds be of that? (I also like Nightcore-style music, so some of these songs are the Nightcore remix version).

Et Huomaa – Irina

L’autre – Mireille Mathieu

Fear of the Dark – Iron Maiden

Dust in the Wind – Kansas

Popcorn – Hot Butter

Blessed be Your Name – Matt Redman

Courtesy Call – Thousand Foot Krutch

Anima Libera – Emi

Back to Black – Amy Winehouse

Brother Louie – Modern Talking

Jai Ho – Slumdog Millionaire OST

Lady – Styx

Classical Gas – Vanessa Mae

Vampire Kiss (Nightcore version)

Helele – Velile & Safri Duo

Kernkraft 400 – Zombie Nation

Radioactive – Imagine Dragons

And for my friend Miles, who also loves this song:

Kyrie – Mr. Mister

Do you listen to music when you write? What kinds of music helps you write the most?

Source

12 Comments | tags: blogging, music, outside the tower, writing | posted in Uncategorized

November 16, 2014

First interview of David Stewart- an amazing author!

By David Stewart

My dear friend, Sharmishtha Basu, did an interview with me for her blog BOOKS (UN)LIMITED. Go check it out.

4 Comments | posted in Uncategorized

October 9, 2014

5 Ways to Increase Your Blog Readership

By David Stewart

This is my 500th post here on the Green-Walled Tower so hopefully I’ve learned a thing or two about blogging.

If I had a euro for every post I’ve made here…

Like any blogger, I’m always trying to grow my readership and I’ve been analyzing how to do that. Here is what I’ve concluded, based on my own stats.

5. Do collaborate.

The best thing about blogging is that there is likely a market for whatever you writing: readers with blogs of their own. If you can join a group (as in my case, Friday Fictioneers or Sunday Photo Fiction) and participate actively, it gives you a built-in audience of like-minded individuals.

[*]

4. Do give useful information.

My fifth-highest post, in terms of hits, is called How to Eat a Triangle Kimbap, and is about just that. In fact, a lot of my posts about Korea got consistently more hits than others, since it’s something that people can use in their lives. Granted, I don’t do this much, since I usually can’t resist making up fake information for laughs, like my Rejected Apple Devices article. But useful information is a good idea, is what I’m saying.

3. Do write about things that at least sound naughty.

My third most viewed post is called Getting Naked With Strangers (in Korea). It is all about the experience of going to a Korean sauna. I posted it just like any other informative article about Korea but then noticed in the following weeks and months that it was getting a lot of hits through search results like naked korea, and korean men naked. It’s even had one today, from the search terms naked korean men. This tip is a little sneaky, since it will get you page hits, but probably not readers. I guarantee that at least 95% of the people who have clicked on that blog post did not go away satisfied because my article was quite G-rated. But it looks good on your blog stats.

Censored? Hmm, now I’m curious…

2. Don’t write serial stories.

This one pains me a little, since I like to longer stories. Longer stories let you explore themes and characters and the only way to avoid posting a 5,000-word post that will be TL;DR’d by everyone who comes across it is to break it into segments.

Now it is possible to write a really great serial story that goes on for a long time and only gets better. Dysfunctional Literacy’s The Literary Girlfriend is an excellent example of this. However, in my experience with serial stories, hits decline sharply as the series goes on. New readers don’t have time to go back and read the previous installments and if they miss a week, it’s hard to catch up.

From what I have found, if you are going to write serial stories, make sure that each installment can stand on its own as an independent story. This is very hard to do, especially once a series gets going. I have also found that when I do post a story with several parts, it’s best to post them only a few days apart, so that people don’t forget what is happening in the story.

1. Don’t write fiction.

This one really kills me, since I run a fiction blog. Out of my 500 posts, 389 have been stories (fiction) but out of my top ten most viewed posts, only 2 of them are fiction and only 10 of my top 25 are fiction. Obviously, I’m not saying not to write fiction or that I’m going to give it up, but if you want a lot more readers, fiction is a difficult way to do it. There are a couple possible reasons for this: people don’t search for fiction online like they search for information and news; fiction is harder to skim when you don’t have much time, etc.

Pictured: fiction [*]

In conclusion, there are lots of ways to get more readers but the best way is to produce high quality, creative content. As my sister once told me, “whatever you write, make it really, really good.” This may seem obvious but it’s easy to let things slip after hundreds of posts and just post for the sake of posting. But I’m going to keep trying to think of new, fresh ideas for stories and posts for another 500 posts and beyond. That’s the plan, at least.