Madame Guillotine

A young lady by the name of Melanie began a Marie Antoinette discussion group at yahoo at about the same time that Elna began the Louis XIV discussion group. I have been a member of both since the first but Melanie up and left hers to go to LiveJournal. She seemed to prefer LiveJournal to yahoo. This Madame Guillotine who has written a blog and is now discussing her literary efforts in a class given in England does not appear to be the same Melanie who was with Elena, but when I mentioned her to Axel, he seemed to think that she was the same. It is because Melanie and Elena had had their pictures on the group that I knew what they looked like, and Melanie of the first MA had told me about her boyfriend then as well. So I am a bit perplexed about this since this later Melanie has a husband name of Dave.

They both sport red hair, but they look totally different. In the world of authors as in the world of soap operas, often people can be quickly substituted with someone else. Judith Light did that once to a character on an ABC soap opera, taking over the character from a much smaller woman who suddenly vanished from the scenes.

I am beginning to wonder if this cannot also happen to authors.

That is one of the reasons that I am very careful about my input at the internet, so that my work remains my work. I have always suspected that the original author of the Cat books has been replaced as well by some ghost writer. The style change is what tipped me off, especially the details about the two Siamese cats. Lillian Jackson Brown is the author to whom I am referring.

I rewrote some of my piece about Alcibiades and Alexander as I had actually gone so far to drag out the book from which I had read that story about Alexander's supposed cruelty to the poor man. Hah! The man probably deserved worse, for if horses starve and men die due to his negligence, Alexander had every right to have him executed.

Nicholas Evans once wrote a book called The Horse Whisperer in which a man dies in the final scenes in the same manner, with the horses hooves beating him to death. He is actually committing suicide that way...I have never forgotten that book, so that when I learned of this story about Alexander I wonder if Evans had not read it as well, and maybe it was the inspiration for his own book.

Robert Redford made the film, but he did change the ending...the man dies in the book at the hands of the very animals he befriends. A bit like the short story A Passion in the Desert, one of my all time favorites.

In truth, there is nothing new under the sun...some stories written years ago top everything that is being written today...believe it.

But stories, magazines, novels, movies, t.v., etc. all need a constant flow of new energy and materials so that new authors can pop up anytime and anywhere and make a name for themselves. France recognized that songwriters could make a living easily by simply cutting a record once a year...It is an industry, and there are many customers waiting for a good read...go to it if you have talent, or as Melanie says, an agent...her remarks about an agent amused me...it is true...though, an actor does not get hired unless he has an agent, a jockey cannot get hired without an agent. So good writers must find an agent to market their works...