I’ve got the look, as I sit here in my mickey mouse boxers and gray t-shirt, unshaven, hair untamed. I almost forgot to put on my pants when I took the dogs for a walk. All I need is some scotch to sip.
The Writer Look
16
Category Archives: Writing
The Monster Within – Feedback
I decided to put it over there for a few reasons. First, comments can be much longer over there, so you can go into much more detail. Second, the threading is much better so if you want to comment on someone else’s comment it’s easier to keep things straight. Third, I can control access if necessary. Finally, I can set up better polling to build a questionnaire.
The downside is that things will work best only if you go through the short sign-up process. In the end, though, I think if the discussion grows at all it will just plain be more fun over there.
Once again, here’s the link. To add your own review, click “New Topic”. You’ll get the hang of it.
If you would rather send your feedback another way, that’s fine too. Jesse did a major markup on a previous version and I can’t tell you how helpful it was. Please, though, be careful of spoilers if you comment here. Even if you saw through the surprises long before they happened (and I hope you tell me if you did), I don’t want to ruin it for people who aren’t as bright as you.
Finally, if you missed the boat last time around and would like to read the latest (somewhat improved) version, drop me a line and I’ll send it to you.
Oh, and thanks! I’m really looking forward to hearing both the good and the bad.
Aargh!
I’ve been working on The Monster Within and the section I was going over yesterday was just plain sloppy. I think you’ll know when you get to it. I don’t know how many times I’ve gone over that area, but it simply lacked polish. Lots of misspellings, awkward dialog, references to a character who doesn’t exist anymore, stuff like that. I also think there are a still a couple of chapters that are either redundant or distracting.
Overall, though, I’m glad I bucked up and sent copies to some of you guys. I wasn’t at all nervous about it until after I sent out the first few copies. Then I got more and more jittery as I realized how many people were reading it and now when I find a mistake or a problem I know you’ve seen it too. I don’t know how many times I’ve said to myself “How did I ever miss that?”
It’s an important step for me, though, to get comfortable sharing my work with others. (I think strangers will be easier, but less constructive.) I’m considering making a questionnaire that covers some of my concerns for the story and to help you provide feedback. The questionnaire would contain spoilers, so I certainly don’t want you guys to look at it while you’re reading. If you would rather provide feedback another way (or not at all—I have this awkward image of a friend feeling the urge to lie and say they liked it when they didn’t, which doesn’t help either of us) that’s fine, too. Remember, I want both the bad and the good. It probably goes without saying, but if you post commentary about the novel on this site, please be courteous to other readers and avoid posting any spoilers.
Late breaking news: The Epilogue makes no sense whatsoever now. Please disregard. Also, I have recovered from the really stupid idea that just like in real life, people you meet in books could have the same name. I had wanted to create a parallel, but let’s face it, that’s just confusing.
Secrets of the Past and Future
So you may already have read that last night Amy and I stayed up way too late (for her) while she questioned herself and her relationship with the man who will forever be known to me as “Cute Boy”. Cute Boy is older than Amy and, well, really makes her socks go up and down. They were at the beach Saturday and he had passed on a kiss, then he didn’t return her call.
I don’t have a label for our relationship anymore. It seemed like a big brother kind of thing until the details got uncomfortably intimate. (Are there girls that talk about that stuff to their big brothers? I’ve never had a little sister, and she’s never had a big brother, so maybe we’re just doing it wrong.) I’m clearly not her big sister; I’m not that far gone. Maybe big eunuch. I heard details about her sex life, enough to make me wish I had a sex life, and to be honest the subject filled me with a tingling down under, the expression of which would have completely destroyed the feeling of the night, and undermined the trust she has in me.
And there’s the wacky thing. Amy trusts me. It’s pretty sick, I know, but there it is. She trusted me enough to blow the dust off poetry she wrote years ago. The last thing in the world I want to do is betray that trust. It’s a treasure to me that I will never allow a tingly feeling to undermine.
Here’s something I can tell you, though. I don’t know if it applies to all women, but I bet even if it doesn’t translate exactly there are similar rules with most women. Amy has a date count. She has rules that she (usually) follows to determine how far things are going to go on a particular date. Cute Boy got his date counter reset last night; now he has to climb the mountain again. Too bad for you, Cute Boy!
All that is an aside, and here is an aside to the aside. Pardon me while I step up onto this soap box… *ahem* Testing, testing, one two… Well, then: Being in a relationship is hard work. If you’re not ready to work, stay away from relationships. Don’t fool yourself. Don’t tell yourself that this person will change you. Only you can change you. That’s a two-way street—people who try to change their partners generally end up unhappy also. I’ll say it again: If you’re not ready to work, don’t waste some good person’s time pretending that you’re interested in spending the rest of your life with them. It’s just not fair to anyone. Personally, I’m not up for working that hard.
Right, then. Back to the intended subject. Everyone can write, but not everyone does. It was a scene right out of some heartwarming movie, Amy and I sharing poetry and deep thoughts. Amy has written some really good stuff, although perhaps too much of it has been squeezed into Rock ‘n’ Roll Lyric format (RnRLF). There was good imagery and great honesty in what I heard. One poem in particular stood out; it was the poem she had originally wanted to read for me and rightly so. The rest were discovered (to her great delight) as she searched for the one. The one stood out. It was really good; showing a facility with language, an ear and a voice.
She has another friend, a confidant and advisor, who will be here for her long after I’m gone. But honestly I don’t think he sees Amy for what she is, and certainly not for what she could be. Perhaps I’m jealous of his most exalted big eunuchness that will live past my own; perhaps I’m being overprotective of a woman who can certainly take care of herself. There is no doubt that she’ll be fine without me. But last night, staying up late and talking, she told me she was glad I was there. I think that’s because I believe in her no matter what. Whatever the reason, it meant a lot to me when she said that.
Amy has a series of journals with her writing in them. She changes books not when they are full but when she is starting a new chapter in her life. She hasn’t written anything in years. Today I bought her an empty book (agonizing over the correct choice). In the front, on the page the book naturally opens to, I wrote:
the beginning an end
the end unwrit
I hope she thinks about that before she turns the page. I want her to think that this is the beginning of something for her, so she will feel the freedom to express herself. I want her to leave her doubts and regrets behind. Overleaf I wrote:
Here’s a place
to put your shit.
Can’t get too sappy.
The Monster Within
While the poll is at a dead tie I can release the story and not tell you whether I’ve fixed the glaring errors or not. That way you can decide. Leave a comment here if you want me to email you a copy. Don’t put your email address in the body of the message unless you want the killer spam robots to see it. If you have a mac, tell me if you would prefer RTF or Jer’s Novel Writer format (with JNW, you will see my margin notes and stuff, which might taint your judgement, but you might find interesting anyway.)
Disclaimers:
- Although I have deleted big problem chunks, some problems still remain. I will be working on them even as you read this draft.
- I expect criticism from anyone who reads this draft.
- The second part of the story (Part 3 if you count the prolog) just went through a major rewrite, and still doesn’t flow as well as the rest of the story.
- There are likely to be continuity problems after my big delete-o-rama. It is difficult for me now to catch all of them, because I know what happens, even if I deleted that part. It will be particularly helpful if you point out the places where you said “huh?” as you read.
- While I have started to correct spelling and stray commas, there are probably quite a few places that still need help. Feel free to point them out.
And finally, to give the horse one final whack, the whole reason I am asking for readers is to get criticism. Criticism is what will turn a draft into a manuscript. Feel free, though, if you run across a part you particularly like, to mention that as well.
So step right up, folks! Be the first on your block to come to grips with The Monster Within.
All I want to do is write
I’m sitting at the library right now. I came in here hoping there would be wireless Internet access, but there isn’t any at this branch. Down in the Pacific Beach branch they do have it, apparently.
I spent a little while deleting some of the pictures I took on the trip; I’m trying to winnow them down so an online album won’t be too tedious.
What I should be doing is taking care of insurance, repacking my crap, dealing with taxes, and a host of other details. What I will be doing is writing. I did a lot of writing yesterday, and while I suspect that what I did toward the end of the day is iffy at best, it still was a good day. I holed up in a hotel room last night–I wasn’t feeling too social–I just wanted to be alone and write some more. I imagined that there in my little hotel room, writing and presiding over my media empire was a lot like my life in Prague will be. That was an encouraging thought, and should motivate me to get off my ass so I can get moving again, but so far it has just made me want to write more.
Anybody want to take care of a bunch of crap for me?
Indigent Wealthy
Not a Gilligan day, not really, since there was no sailing, although life revolved around the boat. Ah, the boat. skip ahead with me to twilight with the warm pacific sun making its stately way over to burn the crap out of japan, leaving us be for a few hours. (I laugh as it trails away; it has not hurt me this day. I’m on to its little games.)
To the west palm trees stand in silhouette against a turquoise sky. I am alone on the boat; all the others have left to handle some emergency or another. That they are all immersed in emergencies makes my position of peace all the more seductive. I am writing in my head, writing this in fact, and I am reflecting on what the man at the yacht club bar said.
I was pounding away on The Monster Within, filling in one of the holes in the story with a pretty heavy dose of feel-good (I think we all deserve it by then). The Byrnes had given up on me being good company by then and had gone about their boat business. Things were working.
Most of the time when someone interrupts me while I’m writing in a bar it’s “Hey! Hey! Yo! Dude! How do you concentrate in here!?” This time it was different. I was pondering the meaning of life and the effect that life had on everything else when a grey-haired guy in a cap asked me very politely, “What’s driving you?” That’s the kind of question I should be ready for–its the kind of question I ask myself all the time.
Yeah, right. Obviously when I ask myself the question I’m not taking myself seriously, because I still don’t know the answer. My answer to him was “I’m writing a novel.” That wasn’t the answer to his question. That’s like answering the question “What kind of gas are you burning?” with “I drive a convertible.” Nevertheless, he forgave my evasion with enthusiasm. “That’s great! That’s great!”
Some time in the course of the conversation, I told him in the barest terms about the homeless tour, with an emphasis on the freeloading aspcet (for indeed without the freeloading the tour would not be possible) and he pointed at me and said “Faulkner!” Thus it was not for any perceived literary ability that the comparison with a great author was made–no, it was the cheapness of the endeavor that earned me that flattering appellation.
We talked for a few more minutes, he questioning me about my familiarity with existentialism (woefully small) and me talking about the American Road Myth. He was so damn happy to meet someone of “my generation” who was, in his word, “thoughtful”. (He meant thoughtful as in ‘full of thought’, not ‘thinking always of others’. Just ask any of my ex’s about the difference.) He made a comment that the correct word for writing was actually ‘thinking’, and I told him that my best writing was done when I wasn’t writing at all. It was when I was driving across the desert having my head baked by the sun. For him, writing is thinking; for me, thinking is writing. He was a good guy. He gave me his card.
Jer’s Novel Writer Milestone
I actually learned this a while back, but hadn’t bothered telling you guys. Derek Gilbert used my software to write his novel, The God Conspiracy. When it comes out, I expect you all to flood Amazon with orders and post reviews like, “Wow! He must have used one hell of a word processor to write a story like that!”
You can find more info here. In my limited correspondence with the author he strikes me as an articulate and thoughtful guy, so I have high hopes for his work. It appears Derek’s wife has quite a few books out already.
I can’t be certain, but I believe every novel ever written using Jer’s Novel Writer that has been submitted to a publisher has been accepted. What other word processor can say that?
Writing in Bozeman
Been getting a lot done here in Bozeman, mostly fixing bugs in Jer’s Novel Writer and going over The Monster Within. The thing’s going to come out to about 600 pages, I think.
I’ve spent a lot if time in this chair, with my laptop in my lap of all places, and my ass getting sweaty. It’s a well-designed chair, comfy and all, but it’s leather and after a few hours things get damp down there. I need to be going to bars more, sitting on wood, drinking beer pulled from taps, and chatting up waitresses. Instead I have been content most of the time to sit here with a sweaty ass.
Speaking of bars, I haven’t done any writing there, but I have certainly spent plenty of time at the Aleworks. John is a bit more than simply a regular there. On the day I came into town he waited for me and after I had hung out for a while it was time to go for a beer and a bite to eat. We got down there and the girl at the door said, “John! We were worried about you.” OK, I think he qualifies as a fly. We’ve been back almost every day since. I would guess that John has more than half his meals there.
That’s all for today. The novel needs more work, and the TV ate my brain.
The Flavors of Solitude
Solitude is not simply the state of being alone, it implies active insulation from the rest of humanity. Solitude has many flavors, characterized by what is avoided and what is missed.
The taste of solitude changes dramatically depending on whether one is stationary or in motion, isolated or ostracized. When you are stationary you can form a connection to a place, even if it’s just a rock in a meadow, and even if it’s just for a short time. You are somewhere, and it is a place that is yours. Sitting alone at your spot in a bar or in your comfy chair, solitude at rest is peaceful, a shelter.
Solitude in motion has a different flavor. No connectedness, no restfulness. There is a drive behind the motion, something disquieting that prevents rest, either a quest for something unattainable or a flight from something. The mind is at work, gnawing at itself, yearning for the unattainable. The only thing harder than moving on is staying put, for motion becomes the mechanism that enforces solitude. By never staying too long in one place, no attachments can form.
I heard an interview of a guy who spent five years riding freight cars, not knowing how he was going to eat that night when he woke up in the morning. He found a way to express his thoughts as he drifted, and published a book of poetry that made quite a bit of money. In the interview he said something like “I’ve been settled down for a few months now, but I’m going back out there soon. I feel the need growing in me.” Unasked, unanswered, unanswerable, is where the need comes from. Is life in mainstream society smothering him, threatening him, or just disappointing him?
Solitude is the state that allows the mind to turn inward. Free from the obligations that come with all human interaction, you can simply think. This is the essence and the allure of solitude, and also its curse. Free to think, there is no avoiding thought. ‘Curling up with a book’ is not solitude, even though you’re not with other people. You’re with a book. Solitude is the state when thoughts are free and unfettered, and consciously you have very little control over them. It is the state of complete personal honesty, when the thoughts happen that you will never tell anyone else. It is the time we dance with madness.
Artists are the ones with the courage to tell us what they saw there.
Kilgore Trout
Tonight I had a really good idea for a techno-thriller. A really sweet idea. A tantalizing idea. It would make a good movie as well; the idea could be treated at varying depths. The idea itself is not important right now though, the problem is it’s crowding my other work out of my head. You know how when a toddler sees something they want they forget they’re even holding something else? Whatever had been in their hand falls to the floor unnoticed. My idea is like the new toy, shiny and exciting, and I can’t stop playing with it.
Maybe that’s what I’ll write in November. I was going to write My Life: An Autobiography (revised edition) but this new idea is better. I really, really need to get a good solid draft of what I’m working on now done before November, no matter what I write about then. If history is any guide, my November novel becomes my next year’s project.
The Fish was supposed to be a vehicle for me to pack up a bunch of the story fragments flying around in my head and scribbled on bar napkins. At first each chapter was going to have one of these little story snippets, either as a song lyric, a report on the radio, or as an argument at a bus stop. The it was most chapters, then the occasional chapter. It’s just not working as well as I thought it would. The main story is starting to outgrow all those little ideas, turning them into distractions from the flow of the narrative. I need Kilgore Trout.
Kilgore Trout is perhaps the most prolific fictitious writer ever. For every novel Vonnegut wrote, Trout wrote piles. (I use the past tense perhaps prematurely, but if you read Timequake, it comes off a lot like a retirement speech.) Trout allowed Vonnegut to make use of the dozens of ideas he had that he simply did not have time to develop fully. Vonnegut could say “Trout had written a story about a race of beings…” and his little distracting idea could rest in peace. I need someone like that. Someone who can let my fragments be fragments.
American Road Myth, part 2
I’ve touched on this already – that solitude is a big part of the American Road Myth, so forgive me if this repeats some of what has been said before by me and by you. In part one, I described the road as a path to personal wholeness, or the myth of wholeness, at least. Implicitly, those on the road will never know that wholeness. The road is a place for the unwhole. They just keep moving. They are the drifters.
The road myth is all about the drifters; they are the frame that the myth is hung upon. People with no place. They go everywhere and belong nowhere. The heroes of American legend are drifters. The road has shaped our heroes and our old heroes did much to build the road myth itself.
It’s the classic story – a stranger comes to a troubled town. He knows no one, owes nothing to anyone, and has nothing to lose. He understands evil, though. He knows how it works and he knows what to do about it. His separateness from the rest of the people gives him a power they don’t have, a mythical energy that comes from strength of character and moral certainty. At least, that’s what the townsfolk see. We know that any American hero has demons as well, ghosts that drive him mad even as they give him strength. It is the evil he fights within himself that gives him power over the evil he meets. The road looks like the path to escape the demons, bit it isn’t. The road is where the demons live.
At the end of every story, the hero is presented with a choice – stay in town, put the demons to rest, settle down with the prettiest girl, or return to the road. Return to a life of haunted solitude. The choice is always the same. (Although there is the occasional story where they have to shoot the girl to get him back on the road). Big trouble in Little China did it best: “Aren’t you even going to kiss her?” “Nah.”
Many countries have adopted our loner-hero character, and the Australians may have improved upon it, but it is still a peculiarly American myth. A hero in a story is only allowed to have a social life if an equally prominent character demonstrably does not. Bad guys are surrounded by people, Good guys go home to empty apartments with chinese takeout cartons overflowing the trash can. They have no furniture but a lazy-boy and a small TV on a milk crate with a coathanger for an antenna. They like it that way. Jackie Chan has a family to nag him, Nick Nolte probably never even had a mother.
I have certainly embraced the idea of the hero as a loner in my writing. The main character in The Monster Within is about the most solitary person I’ve even seen written down at the start of the story. The Fish, while still in its infancy, is a story directly about the search for solitude. By disconnecting from the world, the narrator is able to see the nature of ordinary things through many different layers, and hear the stories going on around us all the time.
Which brings me back to the drifter. When he finds a new place, he sees the things that everyone who lives there has learned not to see. He sees the truth. His power is to show the truth to others. He may be the best with a gun, or perhaps Kung Fu, but his real weapon is truth. It is why the town appreciates him so much, and why they don’t try too hard to make him stay. Too much truth, all the time, would be scary. It’s better for everyone if he just… vanishes. As if he never was.
He shows them the truth and makes them free, but he never shares the truth about himself. That is for the drifter and his demons alone.
Jer’s Novel Writer 0.3.1.0 released
Well, most of the changes are under the hood, a big code cleanup in preparation for beta. That means that in the last two weeks I’ve broken almost every facet of JNW at least once.
Jer’s Software Hut still needs some work, but now that I have the EULA in the product, it is no longer a password-protected download. If you have a mac, take a look!
Warranty
Most software you get comes with a carefully worded non-warranty. For instance, every time I launch my debugger, it comes up with the message “There is no warranty. Type ‘warranty’ for details.”
I’m not as keen on this one, as I intend to stand behind my work, but I can’t afford to be held responsible if someone does something stupid and loses their life’s work. Also note that I tweaked the EULA a bit (see previous post).
Oh, yeah, one more thing. Everyone’s doing it and I guess there must be a reason for that. THERE IS NO WARRANTY! Jer’s Novel Writer (JNW) is sold as-is and once YOU make the decision to put it on your computer you accept responsibility for whatever happens. Anything I might say or might have said that sounded like a warranty is not one. Sure, you could take me out and get me all liquored up and I’ll probably say whatever you want to hear (and you’re welcome to try), but sorry, Chumley, that won’t count. Anyone claiming to represent Jer’s Software Hut who says there’s a warranty is a big, fat liar.
Furthermore, if I say something like, “Hm, I think Jer’s Novel Writer is just what you need!” don’t go getting cheesed if you later discover that JNW was in fact not just what you needed. (I’ll bet you won’t be cheesed, though.)
I’d like to, but I just can’t promise that you’ll never lose work. No one can make a promise like that. Stuff happens. If through some bizarre set of circumstances your computer is damaged, you will have my sympathy but that’s all. This software was created for writing novels, not running space shuttles or guiding smart bombs or anything else where someone could get hurt. It says something about our society that I even have to point that out, but there you go.
I know it’s going to happen. I’m going to get a call from someone who’s been working on a project for months or years, and lightning will strike while he’s saving and his file will be lost. He’ll contact me and I’ll ask him “When was the last time you backed up your work?” and he’ll say “Never” and I’ll say “Oh. Well, you’re screwed.”
You are your own best warranty. Back up your work often. I’ll put some tips on how to do that at JersSoftwareHut.com.
Enough of all this technical jargon and legal jibber-jabber! Click “Accept” and let’s get started!
———
Again, not the final wording. I like the “sorry, Chumley” part the best. As I have now also indicated in the EULA entry, I am appealing for reasonableness rather than air-tight legal protection. I also think that by making it fun and relatively short that I greatly increase the chances that people will read it, and accept the software in the spirit in which it is offered.
Bits and pieces
I finally hoisted up the printout of Jesse’s criticisms of The Monster Within. Got through part one tonight – the easy part, the part Jesse had gone over before. Part two is still undergoing a major rewrite. Man, it’s great to have friends who can tell you when you suck. That just makes the compliments mean something. John, I know you’re looking forward to the chance to tell me I suck, too. Just remember that it’ll mean all that much more later.
A pause for a joke before I get on to business:
A friend is the person who will come out in the middle of the night to get you out of jail. A REAL friend is the guy sitting next to you in the cell saying, “That was fucking awesome.”
Speaking of fucking awesome, Mom asked me for the URL for the blog yesterday. I don’t want to hold out, but to be honest I’ve already been censoring myself, and I’m not too happy about that. I’m no Hunter S. Thompson, but there have been times I’ve kind of pulled the punches. For the most part it has been as a recognition of the fact that most of my exploits are simply not that interesting. Any thoughts I have at those times that are perhaps even remotely interesting I am sure to share.
A few things I have done that don’t deserve their own entries:
Went to the DC United vs. San Jose Earthquakes MLS game. It was the first game in which Freddy Adu started. Kid could play. I was there. Got too much sun. (Why. oh why have I not learned? This time I put sunscreen on parts of my body, but I decided that my arms didn’t need anything. ???!!?. That’s like saying, “Oh, my stomach already has cancer, so I’ll go ahead and eat some plutonium.” What possible rational reason is there to not put SFP 1,000,006 upon your entire body?) I like hockey better than football from any continent.
The night before, I went to a dance club with a couple of Buggy’s hungarian friends. Buggy was there, too. The music was horrible. I know I’m just being an old man complaining about the so-called music the kids are listening to these days, but there was a point when I thought things were improving when the bass played a second note. Sorry, kids, Some guy shouting – givin’ it to ya – telin’ ya’ll uh huh hu huh – Givin’ ya’ tha’ sto-ry – tellin’ of the glo-ry – Step back kick stand frappuccino blow dry! is not my kind of tunes. Watching well-dressed Palo-Altites shamble aimlessly to the angry Hip-Hop was almost worth it.
But not quite.
I have of late compared paying Microsoft for anything to paying a tax. Only I get more value from my other taxes. Yesterday I paid Microsoft again. I got a virus. Yes, I admit I was a little careless; I thought I was behind a firewall and I wasn’t. Today I had the firewall on and I was infected AGAIN. It’s a new virus that exploits no less than six Windows vulnerabilities. OK, maybe five. Still, what are we paying these guys for?
Nothing personal to Buggy, who challenges me intellectually more than anyone else I know, but I have to get the hell out of here. He has been a great host and a most valuable technical support guru, and all he has to show for it is a broken microwave and a depleted wine cellar. There is a pool here and I could get comfortable.
Tomorrow morning I’m gone, gone, gone.