maybe i'm not a plotter after all

I'm beginning to think that this book is unwrite-able, at least by me.

I spent a couple of weeks in February crafting an after-the-fact Narrative Summary, before plunging into rewrite #4, but for some reason I just do not understand, I can't stick to it. The characters have developed completely illogical minds of their own, which you would find highly surprising if you could see how one-dimensional they all are. I've made it to 27,247 words this time before getting hopelessly entangled in this fucking spider web of a plot. I believe that I have well and truly breached Step 10.

Seriously, though -- how the hell do you do it, you godlike creatures out there who have actually finished writing novels? I'm honestly afraid, today, that I won't make it.

in which i quote myself

I read a number of other writers' blaughs, and I am amazed at how much work some of these other writers (reportedly) produce. In addition to publishing a novel every year or so, some of them also blaugh FOR A LIVING, write articles for online magazines, publish short stories and poetry, or otherwise spend every waking moment writing. How in the hell is this possible? I write around 1200 words a day, on average, and it's freaking exhausting. It makes me worry that I don't really 'qualify.' But then I remember that 'qualifying' is bullshit.

micro rant

Man, I have got to get a paper route or something. This Real Job shit is kicking my ass.

accidentally discovered fact of the day

Benadryl leaves your system after 6-8 hours, but it sedates you for much, much longer.

guess what I did yesterday?

I sent Fenway off to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. I know the odds are that I'll get a rejection back, but it's fun to play like I'm a real writer. If it comes back, I'll just work my way down the ranks of magazines until I get to one who'll publish it, then I'll be able to say I'm a published writer. Thanks to I. J. Parker for her help on this.

Now I just need to find a magazine / anthology / whatever that will publish my poetry. Any suggestions?

what would Hemingway do?

Something weird happened between the last re-write and this one -- I don't remember making a conscious decision about it, but for some reason I'm now writing Nine Days in present tense. This concerns me for a couple of reasons.

1. I don't usually like reading books in present tense. It always seems gimmicky to me.

2. I've heard on the grapevine that publishers don't like present-tense novels.

3. It's making some things easier and some things harder. I'm able to say things in my character's voice that I couldn't figure out a way to say in the last draft, but I'm losing a certain objectivity that might be crucial to the telling of the story.

My fear is that the only way to know for sure if the present tense is going to work for the book is to write it that way. I guess if I have to go back and change it to past tense, it won't be the end of the world, but it's a lot of work.

The other thing that occurs to me is that at some point in the book the tense could shift, with attendant symbolism; but, man, I don't know if I'm good enough to pull that off. Also, there could be parts of the book that are written in past tense and part in present tense, but -- again -- that involves some high-wire literary chops that I'm not sure I've got.

What say you, Universe? Referrals to good present-tense mystery or crime novels gratefully accepted...

10 aspirations

Ever since Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing came out, writers everywhere are making up their own lists. I'll dogpile on, though in my case, they're more like 10 Aspirations for my Own Self:

1. Write a book you'd want to read. I know that sounds obvious, but I've caught myself more times that I can count trying to write about shit I'm not remotely interested in, in a style I hate.

2. Fraternize with cats. They make the best writing partners.

3. Take a walk everyday. Don't get hit by cars.

4. Do not feign affection. Especially with other writers.

5. This is a weird one, but I have a superstition that the environment I write in is the environment I'm doomed to be read in, therefore I don't write in front of the TV or in coffeehouses. Actually, I've tried writing both of those places (and more), and I honestly can't understand how people do it. It must take a different kind of brain than mine.

6. Get enough sleep. Get extra, even.

7. It's OK to think you're great, just don't write like you think you're great. Unbridled literary hubris makes for ugly reading.

8. Don't make writing your Life's Work. Actually, I think that's true of anything you really love -- it's kind of like sending your children to the workhouse. Nothing that is essential for your survival should be made to shoulder the burden of earning your living. Always have a day job.

9. (or 8a) Marry (or suck up to) somebody with a steady income.

10. Kill your cell phone.

it's come to this

I've been wearing the same clothes (asleep and awake, if you're wondering) for three days, but the storyline of Nine Days is now hitting on all cylinders. Turns out that the secret is not putting more stuff in, it's taking stuff out. Which, when y'all read the book, you'll boggle at, considering the sheer volume of stuff that's still there.

Unfortunately, the completion of my 129-page Narrative Summary is only the opening salvo in the slaughterfest that will be rewrite number 4/5. It's a good thing I enjoy doing this shit.

Speaking of slaughterfests, did everybody see the Olympic biathlon last night? Where the hell were the Finns?

now you know

voice

Tough night last night -- felt like quitting for no apparent reason. I've been going gangbusters on the thing for the last week or so, and probably need a break. I've got a bunch of paying work to do for the Real Job (TM), so that's a good excuse.

A thought came to mind about the voice in the book, and I'm not sure what to make of it. I admire Elmore Leonard's writing style, especially the way he is able to make his characters sound like real people, and I had this thought of writing Nine Days in Julia's real voice -- having her relate the story in the way that a person would actually tell it, sitting down with you, face to face, like this:

So I'm looking at the driver, the side of his face from the back seat, and I'm just thinking he kind of reminds me of Kang, when he folds up the Post and goes, "That's gotta be her."

I look over, and there's this big broad going through the plate glass doors into the bus station where the other fed -- Buford? Bradford? -- is waiting. She's wearing a gray button-down shirt and navy twills pressed to within an inch of their lives; black tactical boots, dark hair pulled back tight -- she might as well be wearing a sign that says 'cop,' for Christ's sake. 

She and Buford impress each other with their identification, then he nods at us through the window. Like he can see us. It's pitch black out here. 

Kang pops the trunk and we get out of the car, me dragging my overstuffed duffel bag off the back seat with me. The air outside is surprisingly warm for November. It smells funny, too; kind of grassy and gasoline-y.

Kang gets my suitcase from the trunk and we go in. The woman's bigger than I thought at first, close to six feet and maybe 250. Not that you'd know what that looks like. Nobody knows what anybody really weighs anymore. Back in San Francisco, I noticed even the cops are starting to give descriptions like, 'medium build,' instead of 'one-eighty.' Me, I'm around 200, but nobody believes it. Their 170-pound girlfriends have been claiming 130 for so long that they figure 200 is Orca the Whale territory or something.

Anyway, it looks good on her. She's got a sort of regal thing going on with the height, nice golden-brown eyes and a lot of shape. She sticks out a surprisingly delicate hand as we come over, saying, "Teresa Hallstedt. I've heard a lot about you."

It's pretty witty, right? Kang can't take it, he gives a guffaw and swats the Post into my midsection. He's the better of the two -- hasn't been driving me nuts since Knoxville with his incessant yammering, like Buford -- so I take it away from him without breaking any of his fingers.

I shake the Amazon's hand, and the feds do their farewell shtick -- "Good luck," and all that crap -- and get lost. She grabs my suitcase and heads for the door.

Ma used to go on and on about the Texas sky, and I kind of get it now, heading out of the bus station. The horizon's too low -- I can see it as a darker strip where the stars stop -- and it makes you feel sort of light on your feet, like the sky's sucking you upwards. There's nothing between you and what looks like the edge of the world. A stiff wind could come along and blow you straight to Canada if you're not paying attention. It's an interesting sensation.

We get into the maroon four-door Pontiac sitting alone in the parking lot, and the first thing I notice, it's got one of those old two-way radios clinging to the underside of the dashboard.

"You guys haven't gone digital?" I ask the Amazon.

"Digital takes money," she says, buckling herself in. "I'm lucky to have a damned car."

Witty again. I've never met a cop I liked, but maybe I can get along with this one. Six months. I ought to be able to do it standing on my head.

We pull out onto the two-lane road. There's nothing out here, aside from the fluorescent bus station; no lights in the distance or anything. 

After we've gone a couple of miles, she asks me, "You want the air?"

She's looking at my sweater. It was fifty degrees when we left Langley, two days ago, and they gave me like half an hour. So of course I packed for the weather. The weather in Virginia.

"I'm fine," I say. 

Is it too weird? What do you think?

...which means there are at least six stages left

I'm at either 4 or 9 in the Stages of Writing a Novel. My eyes, they are hurting.

napping is good for you

I was looking for something else in PubMed and came across this study. I should live to be about a hundred and eighty.

which one are you?

In case you missed it, there's a great discussion going on over at Timothy Hallinan's Blog Cabin on outlining (plotting) vs. not outlining (pantsing, as in 'by the seat of your'). It's timely for me, because I've recently discovered that I'm a plotter, which I never would have thought true of myself, given how little I plan anything else in my life.

I'm just getting to the end of my outline for Nine Days, and am (figuratively) slapping myself. See, I already wrote the book a couple of times -- I estimate I've probably written at least 100K words, some of it usable, some of it garbage -- but I did all of that in a Pantsing manner, and just could not get it to come together. I started draft three some months ago, got all the way through it, read it back, and realized AGAIN that the story line wasn't cohering. Out of sheer fatigue, I started a new draft in abbreviated form, in a hurry to get to the messy parts. I realized about a week into it that plot holes and missed opportunities were jumping out at me. So I've kept going in that vein, developing my abbreviated draft into a Narrative Summary -- a kind of 'cliff notes' version of the book. In other words, an outline.

As draft number...four? five? looms, I admit to being a little scared. If this pass doesn't result in a grokable story line, I'm afraid I'll go jump off a cliff. Not really -- I'll probably just bitch and moan some more, and start again, but I would really like to have at least one finished, readable manuscript in hand before I croak. Why? I don't know. It's just one of those things that seems to have grabbed me by the DNA and won't let go.

i'm back

I was over at WordPress for a while, but I've moved back to Blogger, and here's why:

WordPress doesn't allow you to customize your blaugh with their free service; you have to pay for it. Which I wouldn't mind so greatly if the customization there was as easy as it is here. I know only enough about CSS to be dangerous. I don't want to have to spend forty-seven hours making my blaugh look the way I want it to look, and then have to learn another fucking programming language just to manage the damned thing.

WordPress has a shitload of bells and whistles. Too many. Stuff I just don't want or need. All I need is a simple place to write stuff down where my vast sea of fans can read it. When I want to add something to my blaugh, I don't want to have to download, reprogram, learn how to write code, etc. I just want to be able to go to the 'customize' page and stick it on there. Because I'm blaughing, not programming. I admire WordPress's open-source roots, but that alone isn't worth the headaches, for me.

it's a thin line

It's been a long time since I read a book I couldn't put down. Just finished Freaky Deaky by Elmore Leonard, a writer I didn't think I liked, after trying to read Out of Sight last year. I was wrong: I don't like him. I hate him.

the horns of a dilemma

I'm at something of a crossroads with The Book. Not to let the Vast Unwashed make my authorial decisions for me or anything, but I would appreciate y'all's opinions on the following:

[polldaddy poll=2591869]

Here's the problem: I know a great deal more about one of these situations than the other, and feel I can write about it more convincingly. However, the other situation appeals more to my sense of adventure. If you happen to be a writer, I'd appreciate your thoughts on the pros and cons of these two scenarios, from a writing standpoint.

early signs of the apocalypse

'The republican senator from Massachusetts.' It just sounds wrong, doesn't it?

I fear The Media may have a coronary from trying to explain to us all WHAT THIS MEANS (cue dramatic music). Please. Spare me. What it means is that the republicans in Massachusetts (again, who knew there were republicans in Massachusetts?) got their guy elected. Practically, it gives them the ability to push back against the democrat majority in congress. That's what it means, and, really, that's ALL it means.

Personally, if Scott Brown helps sink the current health care bill, I won't weep bitter tears. Without the public option, I think the bill is worse than nothing. I mean, think about it: some ghastly number of Americans is without health care. Is it because they're evil? Is it because they're communists? No. It's because they're POOR. It's because health care has become so fucking expensive that anyone earning less than a Wall Street CEO can't afford it.

What's the solution to that problem? Oh, I know! Let's make a LAW requiring that these poor people BUY SOMETHING. Ooh, and even better, let's FINE THEM if they don't! Yes, yes, I know -- there's federal credits to make it all 'affordable,' blah, blah -- but when the choice is between feeding your kids and buying even the cheapest health insurance available, it's pretty much a no-brainer where the money's gonna go. And, ya know, good luck getting that fine out of somebody who doesn't even have a bank account.


Whoever made up the equation Health Care Reform = Health Insurance needs to be taken out and shot. Insurance is a for-profit industry that makes money by denying care. It is NOT the solution to the health care problem. PROVIDING HEALTH CARE is the solution.

Where I live, there are several private entities that run low-cost health care clinics that charge people on a sliding scale based on their income. Why can't we do something like this at a national level? It doesn't have to push the insurance bloodsuckers off the map (which would, so The Media assure us, bring about the end of western civilization) -- in fact, it might improve their bottom line by getting the less wealthy off their books. Then, when Joe Richguy wants his private hospital room and luxury bypass surgery, he can use his Cadillac Insurance to pay for it, but Joe Poorguy can still get his basic life-saving bypass without having to worry about whether or not his wife and kids will survive to see him in recovery.

Not only that, the sliding-scale clinic has GOT to be cheaper to run than the bloated, idiotic system employed by every health insurance company I've ever dealt with. OK, maybe the doctors aren't getting rich, but perhaps that's where the government dollars could be spent -- in paying the doctors, the actual people who save lives, instead of the corporate criminals that got us into this mess in the first place.

it's just a step to the left

OK. So I've figured out that if I spend a lot of words talking ABOUT writing, I do less writing. Which means that this here Blaugh will now be taking a (left) turn, becoming more of a personal rant zone than a 'writing blog.'

Brace yourselves. This could get ugly.

my godmother

Terry Gross did an interview with Patti Smith yesterday, which got me thinking about ol' Patti and why I love her.


The thing that's always been remarkable (to me) about her is that she's completely unique, but in a non-pretentious way. She's a straight white woman who won't wear a dress or makeup (but isn't trying to Make A Statement by not doing so); she's strange yet oddly normal (Catholic Jersey factory girl who dated Robert Mappelthorpe); she looks like a heroin addict but is also strangely beautiful -- and even more so (I think) the older she gets. I'm not enough of a music geek to speak to the question of whether or not people have tried to imitate her, but I've never heard anything quite like her voice / lyrics / ideas. She seems able to stand apart from the culture while still participating, in a way that I really admire.

heartwarming doggie link

I need to post, but all my word energy is going into the book right now. While you're waiting, check out the new puppies.

words to live by

for the record, I love my surgeon general

Just in case anybody is still dreaming about how 'post-feminist' we are, have a gander at what's STILL making the news about Dr. Regina Benjamin, the first non-caucasian female surgeon general. That's right! She's fat!

Where were all these voices of concern when the fat white guys were holding down (NO PUN INTENDED, HAR!) the job? Give me a fucking break.

post number 762

A recent comment here on The Blaugh gave me an idea, which I'm following up on. I don't want to say too much about it, for fear I'll jinx it, but work is moving ahead on Nine Days at a satisfying pace.

I wonder if I'm the only writer on earth who suspects that talking too much about what I'm working on can suck the life energy out of it? I'm sure I've heard a well-known writer or other creative person talk about this. Anybody know who it might have been?

Scary

I'm feeling a bit afraid lately, because I haven't really done much on The Book (Nine Days) since I last posted. I keep wondering, 'is this it?' Is this where I quit? Have I finally Hit The Wall? Will I give up, or will I go on?

I've always said that I'll keep writing as long as it entertains me, but I should explain that I'm often entertained by my own angst, so running into problems like this is just part of the show. I'm curious to see what I will do. I'm also afraid of what I might find out about myself; about my level of talent, commitment, and/or intestinal fortitude. Will I be a slacker? Or will I pull it off?


In the meantime, I find my thoughts returning to an idea I had some six months ago, of a story set in a different time period. I think that I would like to write it in first person, using the vernacular of the time, because that's more interesting to me than doing it in third person in 'modern' voice, which is how I started it. Perhaps while I'm waiting to see what I do on Nine Days, I'll do a little exploratory writing on this other thing. Or maybe I'll just lie on the sofa and moan.

paging dr. koenig

Major surgical operations underway; The Book is all in pieces. It's a bloody mess, but an interesting endeavor. I'm feeling quite fragmentary myself these days...

2010

The other day, I advised a friend to ease up on himself for being who he is. I think I'm going to take my own advice, where The Book is concerned. I'm the writer that I am -- I can't be any other writer, even if I think I should.

writer's quote of the day

"No one ever gets farmer's block." -- J. A. Konrath

today's gnash

God damn it, I suck. The Book sucks. I could re-write the fucking thing forty-seven million times and it would still stink with the stink of the rotting carcass of the hubris that told me I could write it.

The worst part is that I can't leave it alone. It's like a festering wound. I know I should put it down and work on something else; I know I should demonstrate my professional writers chops by 'knowing when to let go,' but I CAN'T. It's like a bad case of OCD.