Cousin Dashiell Hammett

Samuel Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) was a writer of hardboiled mysteries and produced works such as The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, The Dain Curse, The Glass Key, The Continental Op, and Red Harvest.

 

Dash, as he was known by his lover and friend Lillian Hellman, influenced writers such as Raymond Chandler and Erle Stanley Gardner, creator of the Perry Mason series. The modern detective genre wouldn’t exist without Dashiell Hammett.

 

He had a short, clipped prose style that would influence the spare sentence structure of Ernest Hemingway.

 

After digging through archives, I discovered he was my second cousin. And that’s pretty cool.

Index of Articles

Lovingkindness: The Most Beautiful Word in the English Language

This is a really short post because the word says it all.

The word is lyrical, beautiful, soothing, and rolls off the tongue.

It’s technical definition? The word naturally connotes a combination of love and kindness, but there is a synergy between the two concepts when they’re joined into “lovingkindness.” It represents a totality of compassion, mercy, kindness, love, forgiveness, and understanding.

 

To me, it’s almost mystical in meaning. Suffice it to say that if the world practiced lovingkindness, we would all be living in paradise by tomorrow.

 

It’s the only mantra anyone ever needs.

~William Hammett

Index of Articles

The Buddha's Tour Dates Have Been Canceled

Here's a bit of flash fiction, also called micro-fiction, that is 750 words or less. Or you can call it a short short story.

The Buddha's tour dates were cancelled, and ticket-holders have been refunded their money.  Sometimes the Buddha doesn't have much to say.  Often, he plays life close to the vest, sitting serenely like a potato trying to figure out its tuberous karma.  The Katmandu Gazette reports that he hasn't opened his eyes in several days.

His roadies have dismantled the Bodhi tree and the pagoda.  The tour hasn't been rescheduled, and some say that the cancellation is because the Buddha is consulting a gastroenterologist in Buffalo.  This is only speculation, and sources close to the Buddha have emphatically denied that his chakras are blocked.  Rolling Stone has written that the Buddha recently suffered a nervous breakdown after learning he'd fathered a love child.  The truth remains elusive, which is what you'd expect in such a situation.

Personally, I don't have a dog in the fight.  If truth is subjective, the tour was over a long time ago.  We can stare at kumquats.

~William Hammett

Index of Articles

Lucid Dreaming: The Pathway to Creativity

Paul Simon dreamed his latest album, titled Seven Psalms, into existence. It’s a great piece of music.

He had a dream during the pandemic in which a voice told him that his next project would be called Seven Psalms. He got up every night for ten months and wrote down words and music that came to him between 3:30 a.m. and 5 a.m. Simon’s dreams were normal, not lucid, but lucid dreams are even more exciting.

 

Robert Louis Stevenson usually got his ideas from dream incubation. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the best-known example.

 

Lucid dreaming is the next step in learning from dreams.

 

Lucid dreaming happens when you become aware you’re dreaming, and that’s when the dreamscape becomes as real as waking reality. It’s an altered state that is within everyone’s grasp.

 

If you want to know what you should be writing or harvest characters or ideas from your subconscious, use lucid dreaming. In lucid dreams, you can interact with situations and people and have perfect control over the dream.

 

Try out a plot, ask what the next chapter should be, or allow the dream to show you possibilities you hadn’t thought of.

 

Explore. You are, after all, a writer. It’s what we do.

~William Hammett

Index of Articles

The Relationship Between Music and Writing

 Listening to music is one the ways that I tune my brain into the creative centers of my cerebral cortex. I especially like to listen to classical music—symphonies, string quartets, and trios are the most helpful—since there are so many things going on at once. (This why so few people listen to classical music. It’s demanding and calls for attention unless one turns it on as background music.) The main melody interacts with several other melodies at any given time, and both give way to the melodies of the next movement.

There is also a complex interplay between the various instruments. In a string quartet, for example, there are two violins, a viola, and a cello. They sometimes work with each, while at other times they “play off of each other”—supporting each other, if you will—and yet they all end up in the same place in the end. From diversity comes harmony and a unified theme.

 

When writing a novel, an author must juggle subplots and orchestrate (pardon the pun) the interactions of the many characters. And then there are the issues of foreshadowing, flashbacks, planting red herrings, description, narrative style. Everything must support the novel as a whole and come together in just the right fashion.

 

Music and art of any kind go hand in hand. That certainly holds true for music and writing. To write a novel is to compose a score.

 

Of course, I can get inspired by listening to the Beatles simply because their music makes me happy.

 

~William Hammett

Index of Articles

The Memory of You, 1976

It is from an earlier chapter
written decades ago, a page
penned before Jimmy Carter and Nixon’s ghost
briefly took the stage.

It was all real, not an idle diversion
or sabbatical from the courses I’d run.
No, young nymph, you were my dear,
and I trust you knew my love

was palm to palm and always near
wherever we took our sport:
the Quarter, the lake, some dark tavern
or theater in which our fingers were laced and lapped,

if you catch my drift.
You always knew my inner gears,
the turning of unspoken words,
some fleeting thought not yet formed by lips

otherwise engaged in moist red dances
or afternoon gin and tonic sips.
And I knew your eddies and currents as well.
Not everyone can cast such a synchronistic spell.

We could have talked in pidgin for hours
and always known the warp and woof,
known what was yours and mine,
but mostly ours.

I wrote a much longer poem,
a message in a bottle
with all the whys and wherefores
on a parchment in palimpsest,

a metaphysical conceit
that unlocked all locked doors,
but what purpose would be served?
Since you could not wait for time and tide forever,

it is fitting that all righteousness be observed.
I occasionally sit in an abbey nave,
quite alone, counting saints.
St. Peter says my eye to you should not now roam.

St. Jude whispers that you, with grace,
have found a shining hearth and home.
I am glad, and tell him so,
for I could wish no less

than spinning wheels and looms
for one whose tapestry was so rich
and held the promise of gold
in each and every stitch.

My lost horizon will always have a bookmark
to hold the page, the months that passed that year,
but your couplet deserved a fitting rhyme
when my meter stumbled and lost its cadence for a time.

Just know this, my ever-cherished love and friend:
you were indeed a rainbow coming around the bend
in my once upon a time. No less.
No less.

How to Hire a Ghostwriter

Download a free copy of my book HOW TO HIRE A GHOSTWRITER from my website at William Hammett -- Independent Ghostwriter. This book is a "must read" for anyone looking for a professional ghostwriter since the profession has no oversight or regulation. Don't trust your book to amateurs, moonlighters, or the inexperienced ghosts on the marketplaces where people post brief resumes filled with grammatical errors.

Also beware of ghostwriting companies, which subcontract their work to inexperienced writers across the country (contrary to their claims that their writers are on-staff or work in-house). I personally know most of the writers working for companies, and they're not centrally located or employees of these corporate entities.

You should also be aware that most ghostwriting companies recruit writers and categorize them as "student or apprentice" ghostwriters. Some companies are even establishing ghostwriting schools and academies in order to get more subcontractors to do their work. These rookies have no writing credits and have never written a full-length book or engaged in ghostwriting for money.

Companies show glowing testimonials for bestselling authors, but this is a case of bait and switch. A few  clients who can pay $75K to $150K may get a top writer, but the other 95% of their customers get a writer with few if any credits and no publications under his or her own name. Also, companies now advertise that they are known and respected by agents, editors, and publishers, but this simply isn't the case.

In HOW TO HIRE A GHOSTWRITER, you'll learn who the ghostwriters and companies really are--the ones advertising online. You'll learn the marketing strategies of ghostwriters and companies, their business models, and their POD and promotional package deals that are ineffective and designed to take your money while capitalizing on your ignorance of ghostwriting and publishing.

You'll also learn about my own background, how to more intelligently target your ghost, write a query email, how the ghostwriting process works, what you need to know before emailing prospective ghostwriters, and learn what your publishing options are. Do your due diligence. Don't spend thousands of dollars on a bad writer. Educate yourself and learn how to select a writer who is the right fit for your book. You'll only get one chance, so learn how to hire a ghostwriter.

I've been one of the country's leading ghostwriters for the past twenty years, and I know the profession from the inside. Thanks for stopping by.

~William Hammett