The Writer's Life 10/5 - Mortal Sin

Here's an amusing item from the Weird But True column in today's NY Post, in my own words: NYC rats are showing genetic signs of diabetes and obesity attributed to a diet of fast food and other unhealthy delights discarded by residents. Researchers at CUNY and Fordham are on the case.

So far I've amended 100 pages of Present and Past, the novel I plan to self publish in January. I'm not spotting many errors. Most involved spacing. What are its possible drawbacks? It may be too talky for some readers. I'd guess it's 75% dialogue. I've added about a third of the notes I'd taken since March. Most of the narrative is episodic. I'm reminded of a term I learned in a college lit class - "picaresque," which is defined by Wiki as "a genre of prose fiction that depicts the adventures of a roguish hero/heroine of low social class who lives by his or her wits in a corrupt society." The two protagonist are of the lower middle class. There is a lot of sex, but it's not too explicit. Since I've decided not to do a memoir, I'm injecting parts of my life that are meaningful to me, and hope they'll be interesting to readers. For instance, Helena Leavy, a Catholic school classmate, spoke with a lovely Irish brogue. We, the boys mostly, were charmed by her pronunciation of "mortal sin" and tried vainly to imitate it. Her name popped up on classmates.com a couple of years ago. I sent her a note saying how fond I was of that memory, but she didn't respond. Perhaps she didn't remember me or was suspicious of my intent. Or maybe she recalled what a terrible student I was, particularly in the seventh grade. Whatever. For the rest of my life I'll feel a glow whenever I recall her pronunciation. I changed the character's name to the more common Leary. She was the only Leavy I'd ever heard of.

My thanks to the elderly woman who bought three books in Russian, and to the middle age one who purchased a paperback romance. I received another donation, only three books, two in Russian. The one in English is a massive medical dictionary weighing five pounds. One of the others seems a physiology textbook, parts of it underlined. I left those two in the lobby of our co-op. Another woman told me the third is about politics. Since it's a light-weight paperback, I put it among the inventory, although I'll be surprised if it sells.

Vic's Sixth novel: http://tinyurl.com/zpuhucj 

Vic's Short Works: http://tinyurl.com/jy55pzc

Vic's 5th Novel: http://tinyurl.com/okxkwh5Vic's 4th novel: tinyurl.com/bszwlxh

Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3

Vic's Short Story Collection:http:// tinyurl.com/lh2tepa 
Vic's 2nd Novel Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/kx3d3uf
Vic's 1st Novel: http://tinyurl.com/l84h63j

Website: http://vicfortezzaauthor.my-free.website/

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