I’ve got a piece this week over at Piker Press. When I started writing it, I had a much different idea about where it was going to end up; but this ending presented itself, and, like a parking place in Prague, you just don’t pass that up. The first part of the story appeared here, I believe, as a Chapter One a while back. It’s the cover story – I’m not sure they gave fuego the photo credit, but that’s his work photographing the pizza.
One thing about walking a couple of miles each day is it gives me some good thinking time. Tonight I was walking along and I thought of a great way to start a novel. It’s fantastic. Tantalizing and human. Its about a tortured soul that doesn’t even know it’s tortured. It works.
So I fired up the ol’ novel writer and opened a new document. I looked at the blank page, “Book Title Here” written at the top, and thought about what it meant. Another project. The Test is not shrinking down enough to fit between two covers, I’ve been neglecting selling The Monster Within, and my real passion, the novel with the road in it, is languishing. Then there’s the big update to Jer’s Novel Writer I’m working on right now, and I’m tweaking the first release of the slick little flashcard program I’ve been writing when I should be studying my czech. How can I possibly start another project?
I once worked at a largish company, and while in the end I didn’t like the CEO much, he did say something that has stuck with me. To paraphrase: anyone can start something, but almost no one finishes anything. The whole reason I am here, the whole thing I am trying to prove, is that I am one of the people who finishes things. I’m not some dilettante wanna-be dabbler flitting like a butterfly from thought to thought, easily distracted by the pretty colors of the Next Big Idea. I have discipline. I can do it. If I say that often enough maybe it’ll be true.
So I have to be careful when a new idea blossoms. I have to do something or it will eat away at me while I worry that I’ll forget it. I’ve been putting effort into short fiction recently, and that’s been a fun way to pay attention to new ideas without disrupting my flow too badly, but this new idea won’t fit in such a small space. I guess it’s time for another chapter one.
I’ve spent the last few days neglecting my czech studies to work on editing The Test, to at least get it into some semblance of a first draft. That’s left me short on words for other purposes, another reason the ‘ol blog here hasn’t grown much lately. Yesterday, finally, I went down to the Cheap Beer Place and tossed off the Feeding the Eels episode below. Still no Internet here at home, which is how I’ve managed to be so productive with the writing.
There are parts of this story I really like, and some that are, well, not as good. Most of them I am just deleting, as the book is already very big. I have accepted that it is the first part of a (most likely) trilogy, but I insist that each volume has a beginning, middle, and end so they can be read individually. Nothing cheeses me more than picking up a book to read that, unbeknownst to me, has no end.
This book is definitely for grown-ups. The industrial revolution is not pretty when you’re at the bottom.
While I’m thinking about it, any feedback on The Monster Within?
My head’s in a really neat writing place right now, but I can’t keep it on any one narrative. I spent some time honing a couple of shorts, I pondered another one but didn’t get past the title, and I screwed around with all three novels in play right now. Everything I wrote I liked, but I doubt it totalled a thousand words.
But I’m just whining. Everybody has a work day where things don’t move well. It’s just that I’m so close right now. I feel it there, tickling the back of my brain. Calliope, maybe, or one of the other muses, is going nuts right now. Can’t you hear me, jerkwad? Do you not appreciate the gift I’m offering right now? She’s shaking her head, wondering why she bothers.
I, also, am wondering why she bothers. Someone is breathing a deeper truth into my ear, but in a language I don’t understand. Something about Detroit Iron and Swiss Miss.
Note that this page will look extra-cool look if you install the font “Maszyna“. I’m looking into embedding the font in the page, but that might be tricky.
If things look wacky it means either the style sheet is cached and didn’t update (usually reloading the page will fix this) or it means you’re using Internet Explorer.
Just a quick note to let you guys know that I have another bit as the cover story on this week’s Piker Press. Unfortunately the press had some computer difficulties last week at the same time I decided to make some minor changes to the story, and those changes are not in the version they published. I’m still pretty happy with it, though. Take a look!
Yep, I wrapped it up just tonight. More than 13 months of writing, rewriting, trimming, expanding, head pounding and proofreading have led to this one moment. I hit save, and looked at what I had wrought. The beast weighs in at around 152,000 words, and will fill 560 pages in a paperback book (possibly more). It’s a fairly big novel, larger than publishers like to see from first-time authors, but in this case there isn’t much left I would consider fat.
Finished.
“Done” is a slippery thing when working on something like this. I’m sure there are sentences that could be cleaner, minor inconsistencies, and perhaps still the occasional anachronism. As I develop the synopsis and begin my marketing campaign I’m sure I’ll tweak a few things. But at this moment I am ready to start that process. I have reached the milestone where the beast is of high enough quality to start shopping around, and I can move on to the next project.
Done.
I feel like this milestone should be met with more floral prose on my part, and maybe if I let this episode stew for a while I’ll come up with something, but prosadasically I’m dried up right now.
Complete.
Many of you helped me get to this point as well, either materially by reading and providing feedback or through moral support. I really couldn’t have done it without all your help, and you have a right to share in the joy and pride of this moment. Thanks to all of you.
Perhaps this is the word I’m looking for: WAAAAAAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOO!
Dang…
Addendum: I should mention that anyone who would like to read the final version can just let me know and I’ll slide you a copy. In fact, since I’m going to be sending it out soonish, now would be a great time to catch those little (and not-so-little) mistakes that have slipped past me.
I was sitting, staring at the work I should have been editing, and I was humming “Anesthesia” by Brenda Kahn. Why hum it when I can play it? I fired up Epiphany in Brooklyn and until it’s done I won’t be getting anything creative done. In the pauses between songs a thought or an idea might sneak in, but as soon as the words start I’m there in the scenes she paints with her words, an impressionistic sketch of a lonely landscape filled with lost people. In only a few words she builds whole people. Of course, all the detail comes from my own imagination, which is what makes it so powerful.
The same thing happened a couple of days ago with Tom Waits. I rationalize indulging in these pleasures when I should be working by telling myself that it’s emotional food I’m eating, that I can digest and turn into… uh, I think I’ll leave the metaphor there.
Often, you can tell if I’m being productive at the moment by looking at the the “Now Playing” section over somewhere to the right. The better the songwriter, the less productive I am at that moment. (Of course, just because I’m playing music doesn’t mean I’m writing at all, and if I’ve gone to a bar to write that section won’t update at all.) I’ve turned to Internet Radio lately to enhance my productivity; there are stations that play forgettable ambient electronica 24 hours a day. It’s nice, but it doesn’t get into the verbal part of my head. I’ll be switching over to that – after I play through this album a second time.
While all you across the big pond yet entertain cavorting sugar plums, here in Old Europe the day is under way (I hear my two Japanese readers scoff). I woke earlyish this morning, and actually felt a little of the season creeping into my curmudgeonly old soul. On a whim I pulled out a CD that I’ve been dragging around with me, wondering why the whole time. It’s called Tierra Santa. Tierra Santa is a suburb of San Diego, and this is a collection of original Christmas music by San Diego musicians. Many of those singer/songwriters have gone on to vanish into obscurity, but a few of them are plugging away ten years later. I haven’t listened to this CD in years, but for some reason it was in my CD case when I hit the road, and here it is. This morning it’s justifying itself.
Most years Christmas is just like any other day for me, but not this year. Last night Marek (an aspiring photographer and bartender at Roma) gave me a really nice card featuring one of his prints. It’s beautiful. And later today, I will be published.
Now, before you get too excited, this is a fairly small deal. It’s a little online publication, but it has actual Editors and standards and stuff, so it is a little bit of a big deal. Most of you that read this will already be familiar with The Cowboy God. Today readers of The Piker Press (www.pikerpress.com/) will see a slightly edited version.
No white Christmas here in Prague, but that’s OK. It’s snowing somewhere. And my sincere thanks go out to all of you who have wished me well. I hope the season finds you happy and prosperous, and closer to your dreams. And when I say I’m a writer and people ask, “Have you published anything?” I can answer “yes”. I guess it is a big deal.
The days after I crossed the 50K words mark, and thus became a winner of NaNoWriMo once again, it was very hard for me to motivate myself to write anything—or do anything else, for that matter. I puttered around the flat, thinking of all the useful things I could be doing, and not doing them. I could be practicing czech. I could be doing laundry. I could be going out and walking around my new city. I could be taking pictures. Most of all, I could be writing. I did manage, on the last day, to crank out a fast-forward version of the second half of the story, and I’m glad I did. Not so much for the illusion of “closure” that people find so important these days, but just because I proved I could overcome inertia and shift my lazy ass to keep working on a lame-duck novel. To do it just for the doing of it.
It’s an odd sort of melancholy I have, triggered, ironically, by success. Having devoted so much of my brain to such a prodigious output, especially considering that this year the first week was pretty much a write-off because of travel, and having parts of the result that actually didn’t suck, I am overall pleased with the work that will now vanish forever in the “to be finished” bin.
Every year I feel a letdown as the feverish energy leaves me, only this year the fever left early. Maybe that means the post-nano period will end early as well.
Now comes the time for me to prove my theorem that I have what it takes to be an independent writer/programmer (in that order) here in Prague. I have set goals for myself, just as real as the November ones, but without thousands of other people shooting for the same goal with a great forum for sharing victories, woes, and whatever else is on their mind. November is the Boston marathon; the other eleven months are a solo run around the world. Maybe not solo—slowly I’m finding other people who are doing the same dumb thing, and I’m trying to learn to let them help me and help them in return. I’m so accustomed to doing this thing alone, though, that’s it’s a slow adjustment.
I have a tradition now that on December 1st I read a book as a way to get away from any sort of creative activity after the full-court-press that is November. This year it was A Million Open Doors, by John Barnes. Bill loaned me the book, and it’s pretty good. Interesting characters, interesting culture clash, and people who can change and grow. Overall, a good read.
Now I have to get back to The Monster Within. One sure way to beat the blues: finish something.
I’ve just reread the ending I rewrote for The Monster Within and I’m going to have to rewrite it again. This version sucks less than the previous, which is encouraging, but it still has a way to go. The fact that I already knew I was going to be rewriting it again didn’t help. I put it aside for a few days just so I could see the flaws more clearly.
I am looking at a long uphill slope, and the boulder just keeps getting heavier.
“This is the challenge I’ve taken up,” I remind myself. “If I’m going to make a career of this, I have to get through the tough parts.” Lots of people start projects, many get through the middle stages, but finishing is what sets the successful apart from the… uh… not successful. I’m going to finish this bad boy. Still, I look at the only-incrementally-better ending on my story now and I know there’s a lot of throwing away in my near future.
Well, I’d better get to it.
Addendum: before I even post the above I have new news. Sitting over the ending all afternoon, writing without typing, I have discovered not one, but two things that were missing to bring emotional resonance to the end of the story. Damn! It’s gonna be good! I wrote some of it tonight and it just plain feels right. Still a long difficult way to go, every sentence a challenge, but finally I feel good about the end.
Pants, let me know when you’re getting to the end so I can ship you a new one. Hot sweaty dang.
NaNoWriMo season begins again today at 3 p.m. Pacific Time. Whether a grizzled veteran or a writing wannabee I recommend this dazzling adventure. I first did it four years ago and it changed my life. I mean, heck, just look where I am now, an umemployed ex-geek drifting aimlessly across the country with little to show for it except an abused liver. This could be you!
All seriousness aside, If you have ever thought you would like to write a novel one day, this is your chance. Surely you can rearrange your life for one little month. After 30 days of toil you’ll have a really crappy first draft, an amazing sense of accomplishment, and a bunch of new friends who are just as crazy as you are.
I’ve been working very hard on the next update for The Monster Within which is the main reason I haven’t been getting much up here lately. There’s only so many barin cells left, and when I burn them all up on the novel I end up saying “maybe tomorrow” when I fire up the blog.
I don’t know how many of you want a shot at the next draft, but there are certainly some changes. I wrote the missing chapter – the one that demonstrates how bad one of the guys really is – and that led to a rework of another part, giving it much more BAM! Now I’m making my way through the last third of the book, because you can’t go BAM! without causing an echo. The end is also dramatically reworked, and the epilogue no longer mentions people you’ve never heard of before.
I’ve also found a few places where people seemed to have oddly forgotten something they already knew. *sigh* Once I get the continuity issues worked out, fix the search feature in my word processor so I can get all the names right, rewrite all the new bits a couple more times, and do the hokey pokey and shake it all about it’ll be ready for further review.
Let me know if you’re interested in the next draft. Don’t worry, my feelings won’t be hurt if you’re not interested in reading an unfinished novel for a second or third time. But if you missed it the last time or you’re really a glutton for punishment drop me a line and v 0.5 of The Monster Within is yours!
I put the punch line in the title, but it’s a phrase I really like and want to remember.
I was in the car with my family heading down to White Rock via the truck route (Pajarito Road is closed to keep us all safe) and I noticed at the tops of the cliffs on both sides of the road many, many precariously balanced rocks. I was filled with my boyhood urge to watch those rocks crash with great energy and dust into the canyon below. Just look at them. They’re about to let go. It’s only a matter of time.
There used to be rocks like that hovering over the cliffs behind my house and the houses of all my friends. No longer. By the time I was ten, tipping big rocks off the edge was a hobby. Some required muscle, some required leverage, some even required cleverness. Eventually, with a rumble and a boom, the rock would fall. The rock would have fallen sooner or later; entropy demands it. We were entropy’s little helpers.
All I can figure is that the Anasazi weren’t such big fans of crashing rocks, or they wouldn’t have left any for us. Makes them seem… inhuman.
Yes, the novel is undergoing changes, reaching maturity at a frightening pace (some days frighteningly slow), and is beginning to turn from potential into reality.
As the fuzz on it’s electronic chin starts to look more like the goofy and pretentious little beard that Lit majors inevitably sport at one time or another, the story’s purposes and goals seem clearer. Still, there are the bad days, when it despairs as it looks in the mirror and sees zits everywhere, and it’s voice seems to crack and change with every sentence. On those days it wails in despair: How am I ever going to meet a nice Chick Lit looking like this? It hangs its head as each word of the lament is in a different octave.
But the novel has friends, many of whom will likely read this, and the book knows that with their guidance and faith it will reach a noble and fine maturity, one that will make us all proud.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a bunch of zits to squeeze.
