Am I Not A Man? The Dred Scott Story

Recently, I received an email from my friend Tristi Pinkston, Senior Editor of the new Valor Publishing Group, asking if I would read and review Am I Not A Man? The Dred Scott Story as part of its virtual book tour. The book was written by Utah Attorney General Mark L. Shurtleff, and is the first title to be published by Valor.

I jumped at the chance to read and review this book, as I have heard a lot about it, and the story it tells marks a pivotal moment in the history of this great nation. Plus, I'm always happy to let someone send me a free book.

The complete description of this book can be found below, but in a nutshell, Dred Scott was a slave who took his fight for freedom all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court. The Court's decision in the case of Scott vs. Sanford galvanized both sides in the slavery debate, and was referenced heavily in the successful presidential campaign of Abraham Lincoln.

Am I Not A Man? The Dred Scott Story is a very powerful book. It is a novelization of true events, and as such, some liberties were taken in inventing dialog and details, but the story itself comes straight out of history. Many of the facts surrounding slavery in the United States are unpleasant at best, and often downright brutal. Because of this, Am I Not A Man? can be difficult to read in places. This is no light-weight beach book.

However, the story of courage and determination -- from Dred Scott, his family, and his white benefactors -- is truly inspiring. While not strictly chronological, the book covers the whole of Dred's life, from his birth on the Blow plantation during a visit by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, to his death a few short years before the start of the Civil War.

Mr. Shurtleff does an excellent job of presenting the story of Dred Scott, both his trials and his triumphs. I must admit at first to being put off by some of the historical asides that pepper the narrative, but as the story progressed I found myself grateful for the context and background these asides provide.

Am I Not A Man: The Dred Scott Story arrived in bookstores on November 3rd, and will make a worthy addition to your reading list.

An illiterate slave, Dred Scott trusted in an all-white, slave-owning jury to declare him free. But after briefly experiencing the glory of freedom and manhood, a new state Supreme Court ordered the cold steel of the shackles to be closed again around his wrists and ankles. Falling to his knees, Dred cried, "Ain't I a man?" Dred answered his own question by rising and taking his fight to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Dred ultimately lost his epic battle when the Chief Justice declared that a black man was so inferior that he had "no rights a white man was bound to respect."

Dred died not knowing that his undying courage led directly to the election of President Abraham Lincoln and the emancipation proclamation.

Dred Scott's inspiring and compelling true story of adventure, courage, love, hatred, and friendship parallels the history of this nation from the long night of slavery to the narrow crack in the door that would ultimately lead to freedom and equality for all men.

Simmer Down, Guys

Remember that argument I was having trouble with last week? Well, my critique group quickly honed in on the problem: I had the conflict escalating WAY too quickly. As in, they thought my guy should be moving out of his mother's house in chapter 9, but I need him to stay home until chapter 50.

With the conflict already that high by chapter 9, there was no place for the conflict in chapter 20 to go.

So I rewrote chapter 9. Again and again. I haven't struggled over the nuances of a scene so much since the last time I repeatedly reworked the first chapter. But I think I have established a relationship - and a level of conflict escalation - that I can sustain over the whole book.

With things going at a more gradual pace, the offending argument fell right into place, and I'm back on track. Whew! Editing page 130 today. Hopefully I'll be able to steal a few minutes tonight while waiting for my daughter at Young Womens.

How's everything going with your WIP?

Sunrise at La'ie Point

Many years ago, before the Megabit Fairies delivered the news straight to your desktop, I had a paper route. Actually, it was my sisters' route, but given the sheer mass of the Sunday edition, coupled with the oh-dark-thirty delivery time, I was pressed into regular service once a week.

We loaded up the heavy canvas bags that hung down our fronts and backs, mounted our bikes and pedaled along a route that went from our home on Puuahi St. to the older part of town, up Moana St., across Lanihuli St., and down Naniloa Loop. The last deliveries were to houses along Naupaka St, up on La'ie Point.

La'ie Point is a large finger of rock that juts out into the Pacific Ocean, pointing almost due east. Ancient legend holds that The Point is the body of Laniloa, a monstrous lizard, or mo'o, slain by the hero, Kana. The five nearby islands are bits of Laniloa's severed head. Note the eye socket in this one:

Most Sunday mornings, the relief of delivering the last heavy paper up on The Point mingled with an explosion of gold, pink and blue in some of the most amazing sunrises I've ever seen.

With those wonderful displays of nature in mind, I set both the first and last scene of my book in the early morning hours up on La'ie Point, with brilliant sunrises captivating the attention of my characters.

Then I went to a writers conference, and learned that one of the most basic rules of exciting first chapters is: "Don't start with the hero contemplating a sunset." Thank goodness I wrote a sunrise, I thought. But it soon became clear that my opening chapter on The Point would have to be cut, along with 100 other pages of needless background story.

I really liked that first chapter (you can read it here if you would like) and cutting it was a hard thing to do. However, letting it go made the story much, much better.

Fortunately, the other sunrise scene - the one at the very end of the book - is still alive and well. While a sunrise can be boring at the start of a book, I think it makes for the perfect ending.

Labor Missionaries in La'ie

The Mormon Times had a great article this week about Labor Missionaries who came to La'ie in the late 50s and early 60s to build the Church College of Hawaii - now known as BYU-Hawaii - and the Polynesian Cultural Center. These men came from throughout the Pacific to build - literally - the Church in Hawaii.

Having grown up in La'ie, this is a story I'm very familiar with, and I personally know most of the men mentioned in the article. They were my scout leaders, neighbors, Stake Presidents, and the parents of my friends.

The work these faithful brothers did has touched the lives of millions upon millions of people. It's exciting to see them and their work getting a little bit of well-deserved recognition.

Hawaiian Word of the Day: Manini

Manini: vs. Stingy. eg. The Writing Fates were very manini this week, allowing me to edit only 31 pages.

It's been a week, boys and girls. Lots and lots going on, the least of which was, in fact, writing.

Saturday was a complete bust, as the girls and I took a trip to Sea World down in San Antonio. Since this round-trip involved 7 hours in the park and 9+ hours in the car (with me as the only driver), writing didn't happen.

Tuesday also went the way of excuses, with doctor visits and sectional pickups and other time sucks.

Monday I hit a bit of writer's block, trying desperately to script a powerful, convincing argument that actually moves the story along and is more than a rehash of the previous argument. Sadly, arguments are not my strong point.

Today, I copped out and polished my writing group submission rather than take up the argument again. Maybe tomorrow.

However, all is not lost. Doing a word count, I find that during this latest revision I've added around 7,500 words, bringing me to 86,500.

I just might hit 90,000 words after all.

Giveaway Winner

And the winner - based on the Super Random Number Generator at Random.org is:

Dan M.

Congratulations, Dan! I'll hunt down a box and get that mailed right away.

Me and My Computers

Computers and I go way back. Not quite to the punch card era - but close.

Back in the mid-70s, not very many kids got to play on computers. I was lucky in that my dad taught high school math, and since computers used numbers, they were given to the math teachers to teach.

Here my sisters and I are playing super-fun text-based games, like Star Trek and Oregon Trail. All of these terminals are connected to a single computer the size of a large closet and nowhere near as powerful as a basic cell phone.

Each high school in the school district had a terminal or two as well, and they all connected to and shared this one single computer.

The 80's brought about the Personal Computer revolution.

Apparently the Computer Desk revolution was still on its way. Geeky glasses were absolutely required for computing during this time period.

The very first computer I could truly call my own was a BYU-Hawaii surplus Fat Mac, with no hard drive and a grand total of 512k of memory. To put that into perspective, the smallest iPod currently available has 2,048 times that much. But it was great for writing papers.

For serious computer work, I went to the BYU-Hawaii computer lab, where I could use a Mac SE, with it's beefy 4 Mb of RAM. And just check out that printer! You haven't lived until you've baby-sat a 35-page term paper printing one line at a time, made sure the paper doesn't jam, and then separated the pages and ripped off the track-feed edges.

I enjoyed computers so much, I decided to make a career out of them. This is me during my Tech Support days at Apple Computer. I won't bore you with the details on those machines, but at least they gave me two. It would have been a great job if not for all the people calling my phone.

Years ago, knowing about and working with computers was a cool, rare thing. Nowadays, everyone and their dog has a computer. Or two. There are a total of 10 computers in our house alone, and four of them are used on a daily basis.

The novelty is gone. Perhaps that's just as well.

As I look back on the tremendous growth of computing in the last few decades, both in terms of power and popularity, I can only imagine what the future will hold for us. I, for one, am excited to see it.