Will iconic images recorded in the grooves of an ancient vase unite the Holy Land or rip it further apart?

THE VASE

A novel by Mark M. DeRobertis

Muhsin Muhabi is a Palestinian potter, descended from a long line of potters. His business is run from the same shop owned by his ancestors since the day his forebears moved to Nazareth. The region's conflict saw the death of his oldest son, and rogue terrorists are in the process of recruiting his youngest in their plot to assassinate the Pope and Israeli prime minister.

Professor Hiram Weiss is an art historian at Nazareth’s Bethel University. He is also a Shin Bet operative on special assignment. With the help of fellow agent, Captain Benny Mathias, he plans to destroy the gang responsible for the death of his wife and only child. He puts a bomb in the ancient vase he takes on loan from Muhsin’s Pottery Shop.

Mary Levin, the charming assistant to the director of Shin Bet, has lost a husband and most of her extended family to recurring wars and never-ending terrorism. She dedicates her life to the preservation of Israel, but to whom will she dedicate her heart? The brilliant professor from Bethel University? Or the gallant captain who now leads Kidon?

Harvey Holmes, the Sherlock of Haunted Houses, is a Hollywood TV host whose reality show just flopped. When a Lebanese restaurant owner requests his ghost-hunting services, he believes the opportunity will resurrect his career. All he has to do is exorcise the ghosts that are haunting the restaurant. It happens to be located right across the street from Muhsin’s Pottery Shop.




Thursday, March 17, 2011

Don't Be Sensitive

If you are a writer, you better know not to be sensitive to any editorial advice. And you better be open to it every time it comes in. It’s really just an extenuation of the revision process.

I have found myself looking forward to all of the edits when they come in. And I dive into the process the moment they do. But I don’t go with all of the suggested edits in THE VASE. Keep in mind that I am implementing the majority of them. I would say about 75% of them so far. But not always in the way my editor suggested. I mulled them over and over, and found what I believed to be the best prose possible. And there’s always the chance I’ll improve it again the next time I revise.

And the 25% that I left alone, it’s because I truly wanted it written the way I wrote it. Maybe it’s not grammatically correct, or worded in a conventional way, but I did it for a reason. Is that called literary license? At any rate, it’s my own take on how I want it to read. I guess it can be called a personal choice. But will those “personal choices” survive the senior editing stage? We’ll see.

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