IF YOU WERE TO WRITE A BOOK ON FAMOUS PERSON WHO WOULD IT BE

9/8/2009


Hie Everyone...

If you were to write a book on someone famous
who would it be and why ? I'll go first..


1. Abraham Lincoln.... He always fascinated me, in
his photos he always looked sad. I've always felt
he was a great man with great ideas.

2. Marilyn Monroe.... I guess because I grew up with
her and I remember the first time I saw her on the
screen I was blown away by her vision, it was almost
as if you could touch her soul. I have read recently
there have been 600 books written on her..

Now who's you choice ?


Cheers...Joe...

Since I have already written a book on a famous person, I guess I should just try to explain why. Audie Murphy was my first movie star crush. I was 10 years old. I hadn't seen to Hell and Back, and didn't know he had been a soldier, much less a highly decorated one.

It was many years later that I caught the Biography Channel's story of his life. At the time, I was studying Joseph Campbell and was using his Hero Cycle in my classroom, It seemed to me that Murphy's life fit that pattern. I started looking into it more deeply, and decided that his was a story that needed telling.

Murphy did not want to be a famous person. He was embarrassed over being singled out. He had lost all his friends in the war. As far as he was concerned, they were the heroes, they and all the other G.I.'s: "...men like Brandon and Novak and Swope and Kerrigan; and all the men who stood up against the enemy, taking their beatings without whimpering and their triumphs without boasting," he wrote in To Hell and Back, "...they bitch, they cuss; they foul up, but when the chips are down, they fight like men"

He returned home with a lot of medals - and a severe case of Post traumatic Stress Disorder, which he never overcame.

Campbell's Hero Cycle does not end when the dragon is slain and the community restored. It continues to tell the rest of the hero's life, exposing his humanity and flaws, and his eventual fall from grace.

We do not generally treat our heroes kindly, in the long run.

I do not think I would want to become famous.

Ann

Sarah Palin-- I like to write about wierdos.

Ann, you could not have made a better choice.

I would choose a writer, Dashiell Hammett. Several books have been written about his adventurous, up-and-down life but I would enjoy doing the research for another.

Ho Chi Minh. Completely fascinating individual.

9/8/2009


Hi Everyone...

All fantastic choices , I wonder who Shelga
will come up with ? I have two think of two
new ones.

Cheers..Joe..

I can think of several, Joe: Mahatma Ghandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Golda Meir.

9/8/2009


Shelagh...

Very good ! Sorry about mis-spelling your
name this morning, I was up early for a body scan at the
hospital......Now my brain is back to normal.. Another one
I would choose is : Edgar Allen Poe ...I loved reading his
poetry and stories....

Cheers...Joe..

All the really famous people have already been written about. It would have to be someone who changed the world and no one really gave another thought or even knew what they did.

I think I would write about the pigeons.

Love,
Betty

Dick Stodghill--remember I love weirdos!

(He is not weird--just trying to get his head down to size so there will be room for Jackie and Maisie in his abode.)

He is weird.



Me, a coward? Yep.

He is weird.

Just had a brave moment.

Hope it is not your last--want to see you in May!

Writing a book on a famous person would be hard for me.
You see I'm particular about where my screen and keyboard lay.
The person I write on needs to stay still on all fours.
Frankly I dont see any celeb being that willing to stay in that position while I write.

You could try writing flat out.

Like Ann, I'm interested in the hero path as first suggested by Joseph Campbell in the 1940s. I've used the schema in two novels, "The Sun Singer" (2004) and "Garden of Heaven" (not yet published) and if I were to write about a famous person, I would pick somebody whose life fits that cycle.

Trouble is, the people that come to mind have already been written about. In addition to Ann's book, there's Patton; also T.E. Lawrence.

Perhaps, then, the author Michael Shaara, somebody who wrote about battle rather than making his mark as a soldier.

Malcolm

Malcolm,
as you mentioned, the people I would write about have already been written, i.e., T.E. Lawrence.
Ann's book on Audie Murphy is excellent. She gave it a view that others miss. I think more promotion of this novel is needed.

As for someone I would write about, they are still living. To make mention of a name could start a political battle.

Malcolm - not Patton. Please not Patton.

Okay, Dick, I know that you are George weren't exactly drinking buddies. So, I'll stick with Lawrence of Arabia. (You didn't serve with him, too, did you?)

Malcolm

Joe,

I already did that. I wrote a book about myself then discovered I was not as famous as I'd †hought.

I wrote a book too, Alice, and discovered just how famous I wasn't!

I wouldn't really write a book on a person. I think all people are alike, and all are totally insignificant in the grand scheme of the cosmos.

I wrote what some have described as an "autobiographical" short story called The Sombrero Spiral galaxy.

In reality, for those who know me properly, that story was about the Sombrero Spiral galaxy. But since people don't generally attach themselves to celestial objects like galaxies and constellations twinkling in the heavens on lovely spring nights... I attached myself to the story to give it a human feel.

Oh, but the story wasn't really about me at all. It was about the sheer magnificence of that celestial wonder that astronomers have come to know as 'The Sombrero Spiral Galaxy'...

http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=sombrero+spiral&gbv=2&aq=f&oq=