Today's quote comes James Banford's The Puzzle Palace, A Report On NSA, America's Most Secret Agency. It's hard to imagine how someone might write a book--and a very big, long book at that--about something so secret, but this book, which came out in 1982 (or, actually, the softcover which has a slightly different title: The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency, America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization) is still in print more than 25 years after the original publication. I don't know how much of it I will be able to slog through, considering the sheer number of acronyms and names of various people will need tracking, but I am going to give it a shot.
Here's the first paragraph:
At 12:01 on the morning of November 4, 1952, a new federal agency was born. Unlike other such bureaucratic births, however, this one arrived in silence. No news coverage, no congressional debate, no press announcement, not even the whisper of a rumor. Nor could any mention of the new organization be found in the Government Organization Manual or the Federal Register or the Congressional Record. Equally invisible were the new agency's director, its numerous buildings, and its ten thousand employees.
And a few words about my current WIP. It's the story of a woman who comes home after a bad day at school as a teenager and finds her mother murdered. Scared for her own life, she grabs her younger brother and flees. Years later, having become a true crime writer, she goes home to see what she can find out about the case. The chapter headings for this book all come from the draft of the book she is planning to write about her mother's murder. So this, which is from my WIP, is actually from the WIP inside my WIP. If that makes sense.
Momma used to tell me, “better safe than sorry.” She also warned me never to trust a man. Like so many people, however, she was better at giving advice than at taking it.
So what about you? What are you reading? What are you writing? Anything fun? Anything grim? Let us know where to find you and we'll update this post with links to your writing, or you can just post directly in the comments!
- David Cranmer has a couple of wild, wild sentences from a western short.
- Leah J. Utas has a great giggle on her blog.
- Scott Parker has a marathon-running gorilla on his blog. (Ignore that teaser, I dare ya!)
And don't forget to look in the comments for more great sentences!
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12 comments:
Ooo, I like your book's premise!
The NSA probably just started a file on one Laura K. Curtis! Interesting, I have a short story in mothballs that starts with the line: Momma used to tell me. We are simpatico!
My two are posted on my blog.
Your new book idea sounds very promising. I'm also writing about a teenager this time around.
Gail
The WIP and the WIP in it sound intriguing.
I have a contribution to twofers over at my blog.
Ironically (or not), November 4, 1952 was Election Day that year. Ike/Nixon won.
As for your WIP, I like that premise. I enjoy books that have layers and layers of mystery and truths. It's right up my alley.
My twofers + are on my blog.
Laura - It makes you wonder what other secrets don't we know about.
Your WIP sounds intriguing, a story I'd love to read. Best wishes with your project!
My submission today does double duty; it’s something I read, and something I incorporated into my WIP, A PERFECT NIGHT FOR MURDER.
I obtained the quotes from a transcription of an Oral History project (Tracks Through Time) at the Northport Public Library, when in 1998, they interviewed a woman who lived in East Northport for over 60 years (and although it’s never brought up in the interview, she’s the employer of the victim in my story, and along with her husband, found the victim’s body). I interviewed her in 2002. She passed in 2004.
Here, she’s talking about the Western Union telegrams she used to deliver during World War II when she ran the taxi business, and how she would deliver the ones about injuries, but refused the messages of death:
The interviewer asked Martha, “So you were able to do that, to tell them you didn’t want to deliver those?”
Martha replied: “So I just didn’t deliver them, I let somebody else deliver them; but in the meantime, the others with the Happy, Merry Christmas, and the Happy Birthdays and your furniture is coming or your rugs are being laid or all that sort of thing because there was very heavy building at that time.”
Scott -
Yep,according to Bamford, they planned to begin the NSA on that day so that if the news did leak out it would be swallowed up in the story of the election.
I too like stories within stories, good premise.
Interesting history, Laura. Wonder how you'll use it...hmmmm...but Leah's got mirrors this week and you've got the meta WIP within a WIP. Actually, Kathy's working a version of that, too!
Makes me wish I had a more layered submish, but I'm reading the very well done THE HISTORIAN by Elizabeth Kostova, and I agree it makes the vampire tale new and facinating again by bringing it back down to earth and rediscovering the real terror of such strangeness among the mundane.
"These letters are my insurance against your solitude. In the worst case, you will inherit my house, my money, my furniture and books, but I can easily believe you will treasure these documents in your hand more than any of the other items, because they will contain your own story, your history."
From my at last, near-the-end WIP short that has whipped me:
Her anger at being pimped out was cut with marvel. Even Ma would’ve been impressed with that trick, or thought of it herself eventually.
I love your ms within an ms...and the premise is fascinating. As is the NSA disclosure. I don't suppose there's an audio book?!
I'm interested in last lines these days, and I just finished Tropic of Night (Michael Gruber) and it ends thus: "Last look; he couldn't quite read the expression on her face, whether it was joy or something else. In any case, she blew him a kiss, and he watched Jane Doe escape by water."
I'm in the middle of what may be a short story (be forewarned, these are run-on sentences!): "She knows that her day will be more of the same, tapping at keys while the life drains through her fingers and onto a page that no one will read, and all the living is going on in her head. When she sees that she has squandered one day--one beautiful, green and yellow day, and then another, and then another, and a blue day also--she knows that she has made a choice to let the calendar pages turn and turn, the lines in her face deepen like craters, without touching anything at all."
Lois, I hope you loved Tropic of Night like I loved your sentences. Very, very nice.
Stories within stories keep the reader interested and focused. Good lines.
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