Character Chart

Here's the completed -- well, chicken-scratched -- character chart for "Considering How to Run." It's a lot more complicated than I thought, and it's just here in simple form.

What is this, you may ask?

Well, it's a list of every named character in my book (two don't have names, but their significance is noted anyway, since they're central to the story). I wrote this up first of all to remind myself of the names I used, and secondly to see if I was using them consistently, which I am not. It's part of the editing process also that helps me visualize where and when I'm featuring the characters I've created. The difference in ink color is merely coincidental, it just shows where I lost my red pen and reverted to black. The ink pattern did break, however, at the point that my characters shift from one location to another, so it's interesting to see how many characters I created in both places.

Eet Ees Done

Well, folks, though I had my doubts about a week and a half ago that I'd be able to complete this task, I have the pleasure to report that it is done.

What did I learn from the experience? Well, I have a lot to learn about writing a novel. My biggest weakness: Keeping track of characters' names. I've got one character who changes names no fewer than three times in the 80,000 words of "Considering How to Run," and to me that seems a bit much.

So my plan for the future is this: Keep a running list of characters' names, basic characteristics and such on hand so I can refer to it as I refer back to my characters in further novels. I'm sure this is an elementary step in planning a novel, but I'm also certain it is something I had to learn on my own rather than reading it in a writers' checklist or other some such writers aid.

And when I say done -- if I can now revert to the first paragraph of this post -- I mean the editing is done. The re-write is yet to begin. But I've got a good road map, once I finish writing an outline of everything I need to do continuity-wise to make the book better. Thankfully, it's a shorter list than a longer list, but I've still got my work cut out for me.

I'm not scared of the work. I'm actually looking forward to it. So here's the next goal:

Novel re-written by March 31. That'll give me three months to get it done. I think that's as doable as getting the thing edited by the end of the calendar year.

I'll couple the re-write with two other major tasks:

• Researching agents so I can find a dozen at least to whom I can send the completed manuscript.
• Writing the next book.

The latter seems most essential.

Editing Continues Apace

One of my hopes for Christmas vacation, as you may recall, is that I'd be able to do a thorough edit of "Considering How to Run." I'm now three-fourths of the way through the manuscript, and I recognize more and more that as much as I like the story, I've got a lot of work to do before I've got a draft that's ready to send to an editor.

But, as I am prone to saying, that's okay.

Found some interesting flaws today, most brought on by the method I used to write the thing: Since I wrote it in bits and tried to sew them together into a whole, sometimes I've popped a seam or left out part of the overall pattern. The name of the protagonist's youngest, most favorite sister, has changed from one part of the manuscript to another, changing to a name that I used for a different character altogether about two-thirds of the way into the book. So that's a major error that this first run-through has caught.

Then there are the constellation of other errors, where I state one thing will happen, for example, and then it really doesn't happen, or at least happens too subtly that it's not evident that it's happening. I know some subtlety is a good thing in a novel, so I've either got to bump up the occurrences or get rid of the more blatant hints. And I can't make a blanket pronouncement on either getting rid of one or the other, either, because in some places one method works, while the other method stinks.

And I also noticed that at the point I decided to end the first novel and start the second, but then reconsidered and added the rest of the stuff I'd written to the first book that there's some re-exposition that I need to re-examine in order to decide if it adds to the story or if it makes the pace suddenly slow down. Not that the pace is break-neck, but still I have to ask myself: Does it need to be there?

What's important, though, is that I still like the story, and that's happened after it's been set side for three or four months before I began reading it and editing it. I can tell, however, that it's got flaws in language.

So what's the next step from here?

• Finish the edit.
• Begin rewriting. Sofar, most of my edits have been to point out where the book needs fixing, and I have only done some preliminary patching as of yet.
• Read it aloud. Once it's rewritten, I'll read it aloud to see how it sounds. If it sounds klunky in parts -- which I'm sure it will -- I'll have to fix it. But reading it aloud is critical because as I read books in my head, I can tell if the writer got too writerly in writing. If a book sounds written, in my opinion, you're in trouble. I call it the "Human Tooth Yellow" problem, a title I take from an old radio interview in which the reviewer obsessed about the writer obsessing about finding the exact yellowish color to describe something. Who cares, I have to say. My readers won't. So I can't include those writerly tells.

The character graph I started has been invaluable, too, as it's helped me note the changing name of the youngest sister, and to see what names I've used for what characters in what situations so I can track them for future inclusion. And as I mark the characters in this way, I can tell that I need to work to make them more human, less cardboard. Some will remain as cardboard characters, of course, but those to whom the story is central, they've got to have character in their characters. Then again, i think part of my voice as a writer is not to reveal too much about characters, and not to concentrate too much on the relationships between characters (though I know I've got one relationship I've got to seriously re-investigate in order to increase the tension the two characters feel between themselves as the story progresses).

Hm. All this writerly talk is beginning to upset my stomachs. Centurions! Come to attention!

I'm also wondering about the shadowy enemy. It's a cliche, of course, to have a shadowy enemy, but in part I'm using the shadowy enemy as a red herring, so maybe that's okay. But I still need to keep an eye on the Weird Shit-O-Meter to make sure I'm not going overboard with the real enemy of sorts.

So in other words, I'm still having fun as a writer. I love that part.

Halfway Done

Well, with about a week or so to go before the end of the year, I’m halfway through editing the text to my first complete novel, “Considering How to Run.”

I’ve seen both good and bad. Good story, I think, with some good characters. But I’ve seen a lot that needs improvement. A lot I can see that led from my gonzo style of writing this novel – no outline to begin with at all – to some plot holes and chameleon characters that are going to have to be fixed and reconciled before I can call this novel complete. But, oh, the joy of editing a complete thing of my own creation! To know that I’m not reading this for someone else, but reading it in order to make something I made that much better. That pleases me a great deal.

I know it’s not perfect. I’ve got some major things to fix. But at least I’ve got a something, not just a vague notion, down on paper, in one complete form. The first draft. That’s a huge milestone. Editing it has been and will continue to be a pleasure because, despite its faults, I can see that I’m trying. I’m not just going through the motions, not at best simply sewing together forty or so blog posts into something that’s supposed to be whole. Oh, I’ve got some spots where the seams show, where the cloth is threadbare, but I’ve got it all here, ready and waiting to be fixed.

And I can do this.

As for the other part of the goal – the query letter: I know that’s not going to happen before the year ends. I’ve got to find potential agents, research them, then and only then craft that letter, based on advice issued by Nathan Bransford, a former literary agent himself, on his blog. That blog’s a treasure-trove for wannabee writers like me.

So, how am I approaching the editing? Here’s a breakdown:

• A higher level of edit. While I am catching the occasional typo, what I’m focusing on mainly is a more than mechanical level of edit. I’m looking for the way things flow, the way things work together, and the ways they don’t. I’m asking myself a lot of questions in the margin, asking myself “What do I mean by that,” “This is contradictory to something you wrote earlier, right?” “This character seems uncharacteristically mean. Where are the hints of kindness?” Just lots of things to get me thinking.
• A character map. I’m also writing out a bar graph to show who my main and ancillary characters are, how they relate to one another and different parts of the story, and who they are. I’m doing this to make sure I’m using the characters as I intended, and not at cross purposes.
• Repeats. I noticed today that in this book, I use a situation that I repeat in the second book. I’ll have to study why I put it in the first because it works better in the second, or if I can repeat the situation for better effect in the second book, echoing the first, just to show the interrelation of the characters and situations. I’m sure other authors do this, but until you’re actually writing your own, you don’t realize how important it is to get everything just exactly right.

I’ve got to say that having put this novel away for a few months, I can come back to it with fresh eyes and while I’m seeing its warts, I’m also seeing still the potential that initially got me started down this road nearly a year ago.

Ah-ah. Found it. Started this book, or at least put up its first post, on Feb. 19, 2010. So I feel plenty good that I’m now editing an 80,000-word first draft that came from this initial 885-word post. Though it does seem weird to think that the first post contains just over one percent of the completed first draft.

So, How's the Goal Going?

Here I sit on the 12th of December, giving me 19 days in which to finish editing the first draft of my novel, "Considering How to Run," as well as having a query letter ready to go to potential agents. So how am I doing?

Not well.

Digging the manuscript out of the pile of detritus on my desk reveals that, thusfar, I've managed to lightly edit 24 of the novel's 180 pages. The query letter is a distant bit of fiction. My only consolation is that I've written nearly 7,000 words -- that sounds like a lot until you realize it's not -- of the second book in the series.

I've got a lot of ground to cover in the next nineteen days.

So, how am I going to make it up?

Well, I'll bring the manuscript with me to work. I've got an hour and a half on the bus each way each day, so I ought to be able to do some editing then. I'll be realistic, though: Probably not going to happen on the way out. I get on the bus shortly after 5 am, and am usually asleep before we hit the next stop. And on the way home I'll have to compete with "The Two Towers" and "The Return of the King," movies I've just uploaded onto my iPod Touch. Then there's that query letter.

I think I can still do it, however. Nineteen days doesn't sound like a lot, but it sounds like a whole lot better if I get my mojo going now rather than waiting another week or so.

Editing this thing is also going to be an essential part of writing more on the story -- it'll remind me of characters and situations and such that maybe need fleshing out or further explanation. I keep reminding myself of that as I try to put the editing off in favor of other activities.

OK, Now 'Considering How to Run' is Done

When people ask me what was the most difficult portion of "Considering How to Run" was to write, I'll point them to this passage:

Chemistry does not lead to obfuscation. Chemistry is straightforward. Mix a bit of sodium borate solution with a bit of glue and cornstarch and you turn some liquids and powders into a ball for bouncing. Get the proportions right and the ball is sound every time. But when the classes turn to philosophy, double talk becomes quadruple talk and my mind wanders. But wandering minds are punished.

If it appears simple, that's because it is. But though it took only thirty seconds to write, it was, up until this morning, the last bit of the novel that hadn't left the first draft stage. Now it has.

Why did it take so long? Well, in the manuscript I wrote "(Find a simple chemistry experiment to include here.") and then I promptly forgot about it. Went on writing the book. Finished the book. Started on the sequel. All the time I knew there were things I needed to do on the first novel as part of the edit to make sure things were right. One of them was to search for little parentheticals like this. I finally did it, and found this one. Now it's fixed.

So what else is there to be done: As I continue editing the thing, I'm also going to start a list of names, particularly people. I don't name a lot of places in this story, but I do name some people and I want to keep track of who I've named and who they are so I may re-use them in the future and so that I don't re-use someone who's dead or incapacitated or annoying or something like that.

And, as a bonus, I got to get rid of the six sheets of paper that experiment was on from the top of my desk. Oh, I love convoluted sentences!

Get off Those Tenterhooks

Grandpa Spiers. I like the hat. He'll be a character in the next book.

I'm sure there are many out there in Blogland waiting on tenterhooks to find out if I've decided what the name of my next novel will be. There's probably a larger group out there in Blogland wondering if I'll ever finish editing the first novel and getting it out to agents for possible publication.

I'm here to answer both of those questions.

First, I'll take on the second question. Yes, I'm still editing away. It is my goal, remember, to have the novel edited and a ready-to-go query letter, uh, ready to go by the end of the calendar year. Finding an agent is not going to be fun, but I'm going to do it. Pity that the agent I was going to test my query letter on is now no longer in the agenting business, but, perhaps since he's no longer in the business, he won't be as inundated with queries and could possibly maybe want to help a budding novelist put his thing down.

As for the first question, yes, I have decided on the title for my next novel, which will continue the story of Seth and Altus and the rest as they try to figure out this whole Messiah business and, who, technically became a Messiah at the end of the first novel.

Drumroll, please.

The title will be "Their Hearts Run Cold," (following up "Considering How to Run," and will focus, again on mainly Seth's struggles to come to grips with his learning and power and the defection of Altus to the dark side of the Scwartz.

No, I don't really understand it that much, either. I'm exploring the characters and premise along with you.

So to keep my mojo working, I'm going to do a two-fold project. I'm going to start writing the second book in the series. At the same time, I'll edit and polish the first.

From what I understand about agenting and writing, this is a good practice. Firstly, for the writer, it keeps us in that creative groove, thinking and putting the Bradbury Postulation to the test. The postulation, of course, is that most of the stuff a writer produces is crap, but it has to be removed from the system in order for the good stuff to come out. If I can get the bad stuff out and invite the good stuff along, well then, I'm that much more ahead of the game.

And I'll edit the first along as well, reminding me of little plot things that I hinted at that can be addressed in further novels. This is good all the way around.

And since basically the entire state of Idaho is closed by a blizzard today, I'll have plenty of time to work on things. As long as the kids don't realize I'm home.

Watching the Hooptedoodle

Illustration used on the Fair Use principle, as is the quoted material below.

I spent about an hour this morning editing my novel, "Considering How to Run," realising that indeed as perfect as I thought it was when I finished the first draft this summer, it's got enough holes in it to make it look like a slab of Swiss cheese And that's okay; re-reading it is helping me see the holes and giving me ideas on how to fill them in, as well as showing me the places where I need to add stuff, and the places where stuff needs to be edited out.

All the while as I worked this morning, however, the word "hooptedoodle" kept going through my mind.

Hooptedoodle comes from a prologue John Steinbeck wrote for his novel "Sweet Thursday." The prologue, barely a page in length, remains the best bit of writing advice I've ever come across. It reads:

One night Mack lay back on his bed in the Palace Flophouse and he said, "I ain't never been satisfied with that book Cannery Row. I would of went about it different.

And after a while he rolled over and raised his head on his hand and he said, "I guess I'm just a critic. But if I ever come across the guy that wrote that book I could tell him a few things."

"Like what?" said Whitey No. 1.

"Well," said Mack, "like this here. Suppose there's chapter one, chapter two, chapter three. That's all right as far as it goes, but I'd like to have a couple of words at the top so it tells me what the chapter's going to be about. Sometimes maybe I want to go back, and chapter five don't mean nothing to me. If there was just a couple of words I'd know that was the chapter I wanted to go back to."

"Go on," said Whitey No. 1.

"Well, I like a lot of talk in a book, and I don't like to have nobody tell me what the guy that's talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks. And another thing -- I kind of like to figure out what the guy's thinking by what he says. I like some description, too," he went on. "I like to know what color a thing is, how it smells and maybe how it looks, and maybe how a guy feels about it -- but not too much of that."

"You sure are a critic," said Whitey No. 2. "Mack, I never give you credit before. Is that all?"

"No," said Mack. "Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. The guy's writing it, give him a chance to do a little hooptedoodle. Spin up some pretty words maybe, or sing a little song with the language. That's nice. But I wish it was set aside so I don't have to read it. I don't want hooptedoodle to get mixed up in the story. So if the guy that's writing it wants hooptedoodle, he ought to put it right at first. Then I can skip it if I want to, or maybe go back to it after I know how the story came out."

Eddie said, "Mack, if the guy that wrote Cannery Row comes in, you going to tell him all that?"

Whitey No. 2 said, "Hell, Mack can tell anybody anything. Why Mack could tell a ghost how to haunt a house."

"You're damn right I could," said Mack, "and there wouldn't be no table-rapping or chains. There hasn't been no improvement in house-haunting in years. You're damn right I could, Whitey!" And he lay back and stared up at the canopy over his head.

"I can see it now," said Mack.

"Ghosts?" Eddie asked.

"Hell, no," said Mack, "chapters . . . "

Steinbeck's little lesson here gets repeated a lot in writing instructions offered by writers both famous and not-so-famous, notably as in Elmore Leonard's well-known advice to writers, seen here.

Steinbeck offers good advice, some of which I'm taking as I edit this book of my own. But hearing Mack and Eddie and the Whiteys talk about house-haunting, part of me wonders if Steinbeck at the same time he's offering writerly advice is poking fun at people who offer writers advice, especially since they seem willing to offer any kind of advice to anybody in any situation. After all, one of the main reasons writers learn the rules is so they can figure out how to break them.

Still, the chapter idea has merit. As I re-read my own work, I see that now, thought having only the barest of divisions at the time seemed to work. That certainly works for Terry Pratchett and other authors.

Steinbeck himself breaks his own rules -- notably with "Travels with Charly," in which he dons the hat of a journalist, rather than the hat of a hooptedoodle writer. Still, they're good rules to live by, until you're ready to break them.

Painting Frescoes

 This photo is in the public domain.

In between other books – I’ve always got three or four going, not because I’m a genius but because my attention span isn’t all that long – I’ve been reading Andre Gide’s “Lafcadio’s Adventures.”

Two of Gide’s characters have the following exchange about the tedium of editing:

“Do you know what I dislike about writing? All the scratchings out and touchings up that are necessary.”

“Do you thing there are no corrections in life too?” asked Julius, beginning to prick up his ears.

“You misunderstand me. In life one corrects oneself – one improves oneself – so people say; but one can’t correct what one does. It’s the power of revising that makes writing such a colorless affair – such a . . . “ (He left his sentence unfinished.) “Yes! That’s what seems to me so fine about life. It’s like fresco-painting – erasures aren’t allowed.”

Now, aside from that twaddle on not being able to correct what one does – we do that all the time, Mr. Gide, even if we have to correct what we do by apology, by renunciation, by repentance – what these characters say is interesting about editing, or at least about the writing process.

When I wrote my first novel (and I love saying that now, though I know the process isn’t finished by a long shot) I took that fresco-painting approach: Full speed ahead, no corrections, no fussing, just write things down and move on. The fresco is a good metaphor, as traditional frescoes are done with paint applied to wet plaster, so the paint’s colors seep into the plaster. (Yeah, I know this is only the buon fresco method, that’s the metaphor that’s so apt.) The artist, once the plaster is applied, has to work fast because if the plaster dries out, the colors don’t seep in as they should.

The same with writing , at least from my point of view. Getting something down on paper is much more important the first time around than ensuring that what gets put down on paper is perfect. Then through the editing process – unlike with frescoes – we have the right to wet the plaster again and change the colors. We do get to redo what we do, but unless we’ve got the first draft of the fresco on the wall, there’s nothing to re-do, and all the fussing in the world with the little patch of fresco we’ve got won’t do us any good. We’ve got to finish the whole painting, then work on fixing the flaws.

I Did It!

First of all, check this out. Original BD photography from when I was in my black and white phase because I'd inadvertently loaded a roll of black and white film into the camera when we went on a camping trip. But seeing that early morning mist rising off Horseshoe Lake, contrasting with the black of the trees on the shore, makes me appreciate that perhaps I ought to try black and white photography more often. Thank heaven that's possible with digital filtering in Photoshop these days.

But that's not the I Did It! I'm bragging about here. What I'm bragging about is that I caved in today and finally started editing that famous unpublished novel of mine.

Writers will understand this: I had to let some time pass in order to give myself enough distance from the writing that I would be more open to seeing its flaws and failures. It's obvious, looking at even this cursory look-through that I started tonight, that there are plenty of flaws and failures to find. But that's good news -- that means I have waited long enough for the romance of the words and the story to fall away.

I'm seeing lots of weird little tics in my writing. For instance, for some reason I almost always start novels out in the past tense and then migrate to the present tense as I go along. Granted, this is the first novel I've completed so I can see the pattern, but as I edit I recognize the pattern in even the unfinished stuff I've got.

Also, I experiment oddly with first person. That's working for this novel, but for some reason in the second part of the book I switched the point of view from two characters to two new characters, and it doesn't work at all. I started heavily editing that section until the hippo of memory lumbered out of the deep to remind me what I'd done in that section. So it's going to take a lot of re-working before it's up to snuff. But that's okay. It's me finding this stuff out. It's me doing the polishing before I send this out on spec for people to maybe want to publish. I'm making it better.

And then there's that whole time thing. I compress some things too much, drag out other stuff way too long. It's an endless cycle of tinkering, and I'm okay with that. It's keeping me in line with my goal to have this edited by Christmas. Then I farm it out. But I am on the way, and that pleases me.

Want to read the drivel I've written? Just click on the "Considering How to Run" link just below the blog banner on the left, and you'll be reading.

Angry Birds

This is, apparently, all it takes.

Write an addictive smartphone game. Say, Angry Birds. Sell that baby for, say a cheap 99 cents. Then watch your publisher get snapped up by gaming giant Electronic Arts for a rumored $20 million, while you retain the copyrights to your game and begin exploring things such as television shows, a movie, and other associated and ancillary media.

Profit.

And, if you’re lucky, repeat.

That has come to pass.

I play the game. The free version. I have not added a red cent to revenue earned by RovioMobile, the Finnish company that wrote the game, or Chillingo, the American company that published it and was bought by Electronic Arts. Not that it matters. It seems they can afford to give me a free version in the hopes that, once addicted, I’ll buy the 99 cent version – as I said earlier, cheap; cheaper than a terrapin, Mr. Bean. More importantly, I’d pass on that addiction.

Bravo to them. Just another example of making the pie higher: Producing a good a lot of people want, not charging much for it, but then beating the spread when it becomes popular.

Of course, thousands try to replicate this success, and thousands fail. Thus is the nature of any kind of ‘ism you’d care to bring up. People buy what they want. They don’t buy what they don’t want. Finding what they want, that’s the key.

The key for anything, really. Is the novel – you knew that was going to come up – that I’ve written something people want? I don’t know. Nobody seems to be reading it. That’s my fault; I’m not marketing it well enough.

Should I sell it for 99 cents a pop in the hopes that it’ll become a sensation? I don’t know. I can’t seem to give it away at the moment. And forget appealing to the gods of Google for help on ebook publishing. Just entering that search term into Google brought 38.2 million hits from a buncha different companies, each shadier than the last. And marketing is a full-time job. I’m not up to that.

I wonder, when the printing press was developed, followed by the folio, were there scam artists there just waiting for some naïve author to come along and ask the question: I’ve got a book. Who wants to publish it? I’m sure there were as many as there were questionable bits of movable type stolen from the more legitimate publishing houses.

So what to do, what to do, while waiting for my Angry Birds moment? I can make the book better, for one. And continue writing, for another. And find an agent, who knows this business better than I.

PS: Story behind the story. RoxioMobile had to go into a flurry of Twittering because a lot of folks thought they'd been bought out by EA, and not their publisher. This is probably due to journalistic shorthand, which goes like this: Obscure Company A has been bought by Prominent Company B. Nobody knows A, not even as publisher of Company C's Product X, but since Company C's Product X is very hot at the moment, the quickest way to provide context is to say that the publishers of  Product X. The public, in reading the story, aren't into the nuances of publisher versus owner, so they automatically assume that Company C has been bought out, since they're the ones with the hot product and they've never heard of Company B. Easy for the journalist, harder for the public and for Company C.

Gabbling on Genre

They tell you – these experts, not Bernie Horowitz – that as you craft (that’s a word that’s all Bernie) your query letter when you’re searching for an agent for your novel that you’re better off knowing that the agents you’re querying handle the genre you’re writing in.

That brings up an even more fundamental question for Ur-writers such as myself:

What’s my genre?

Sadly, though the story’s first draft is done and I’m percolating on ideas for the second draft, what’s more important in getting this thing published is not that I’ve got a second draft, but that I know what precise pigeonhole to jam it into.

Not that the fissionability of the generic fantasy genre makes it any easier.

Honestly, and only in the most general sense, I don’t really fuss about the genre of the books I read. I read them because they’re by a familiar author. I read them because they’ve got a fascinating tale to tell. Or I avoid them because they’re Terry Brooks.

There are inherent dangers here; if fantasy genres were cartographized as things were in the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, everywhere you look on the map you’d see the epigram “Here Be Monsters.”

Pick the wrong genre and send it to the agents who specialize in that genre, you’ve wasted effort. Pick too narrow a genre and you may never get your book published at all. Is what I’ve written Ergodic literature? Do I market it to agents as religious fiction? Or am I brilliant enough to classify this as a novel of ideas? But pick too generic a genre and you may not stand out much.

Here be monsters.

So worry about the story, I say. I know I’ve got plenty to worry about in that department. My story isn’t the best, though it’s got possibilities. Going to concentrate on the writing. But at the same time, I can’t leave the genre and query questions in the dust. So many things to think about . . .

Spontaneity

If I've learned one thing as a writer, it's that perfection is overrated. Because no matter how many times you tweak or fix or re-read something, you can always find something that needs to be improved or fixed or whatever verb you choose to use.

That's not to say I like things sloppy. With misnamed characters, plot holes and awkward writing. I hate that. But I do believe writers get to a point where their constant re-reading and editing actually makes their writing worse, not better. I'm a big believer in writing, revising once or at the most twice, and then submitting the thing. Maybe a few times that's bitten me in the butt. But more often than not, I find it works to preserve the ideas without making them too pat, too bland, too obvious.

I like to preserve that spontaneity.

That does mean I'm thinking about my novel again. Still. The manuscript, all 187 pages, is sitting here in a little green folder on my desk. I need to re-read it. That would be my first once-over. Ideally, I'd like to do it in a day so that I can get the whole effect, everything at once, so I can know for myself that I've not started one character out with one name and then assigned him another later on. I'm prone to that. And I know a lot of my characters sound alike. I can tweak their dialogue, but I don't want to do the typical tricks of dialects -- especially since one character already has a dialect -- or other such writerly nonsense.

A Harmonica in Carnegie Hall

Never think that things are too simple.

Never think that the things you do aren't impressive.

Never think that the only way to do something is the only way it's ever been done. Sometimes, somewhere, someone out there figures out a way to use a traditional tool in an unconventional way and helps a lot of paradigms shift.

Or maybe just a few paradigms to shift. But just enough to see there is unexplored territory in something one thought was well-traveled.

That's what inspires me to write. Sure, there are a lot of writers out there. Sure, finding something completely original is nigh on impossible. But that doesn't mean that what I write can't be of interest, of merit, and of worth. Maybe I can approach something in an unconventional way, or take a subject or a concept and twist it just enough to make it fresh. I have my doubts I'll ever create something with the shifting ability of a harmonica in Carnegie Hall, but at least I can try.

My Old Flame

I have plans, as all writers do.

One of those plans involves learning how to eef. Another involves learning to do a good impression of Peter Lorre, as in the second half of this wonderful old Spike Jones song.

Another of my plans is to write a novel in which the protagonist has experienced so much music in his life he has a nervous breakdown and becomes unable to hear music. This song, one of my favorites from good ol' Mr. Jones, would be the one that breaks the camel's back. I don't know why. It just sounds like a good idea. Either that, or the breakdown will either occur or be cured at the Bar J Wranglers. I don't know why on that, either.

Speaking of plans, I've been mulling over the novel -- Considering How to Run. I have not re-read it. I've purposely not re-read it because, when I re-read a passage a few nights ago, I thought "Wow! This is good." It may sound odd to have a writer say that's a bad sign, but it is. It means I'm still too close to it, too in love with the rhetoric and language. So I've got to stay away from it for a while longer.

That doesn't mean I'm not thinking about it. I realized that as I tried to sew two stretches of writing together into one novel, there are elements that I developed in the latter half that I'm going to have to allude to in the first half, so they don't come as a complete surprise to my readers. Not that I'm giving things away. Just character-building exposition that developed in the second half that also has to be rounded out in the first half.

What fun writing is. I might be tempted to say this song brings to mind a planet with fifty moons. But that would be too Dr. Ronald Chevalier of me.

This week, I've been reading Niel Hancock's Squaring the Circle, the last in his Circle of Light series of books. They're old fantasy. I can see in him some of the quirks and hiccups I've got in my own writing. That's a good thing. It tells me that maybe, just maybe now, I might have the writing chops to get published, if I can find an agent and a publisher. So there's hope.

That Little Experiment

Here's that little experiment I blogged about earlier today. Hope something can come of this. You never know until you try.

Feeling the Distance

I have thought a lot about Considering How to Run for the past 72 hours and, without even re-reading a single word, I recognize it needs work.

No real surprise there; what I’ve got is only a first draft, and a quite haphazardly written first drat as well. My writing style for this novel was, well, start out with a premise and then each day shakily wobble forward, aiming only for enough words to substantiate a good blog posting, then stop. Kind of a gonzo way to go about writing a book, but it worked for me in that I’ve got a first draft to play around with.

So now I’ve got to review it for continuity. Plot holes. Cliches and instances where I can use the language better. Insert more original stuff. Have faith. Be spiritual. And ring that doorbell. And do a lot more to make the story more interesting, the characters more appealing and plant more motivation in the book so the readers understand why the characters are doing what they’re doing. Maybe it means I’ll have to go over the draft a few times, working at it and working at it to make things better, taking longer than if I’d planned things out from the beginning rather than just, every session, pointing myself towards the end of the page and letting go.

Yes I’m going to obsess about this a lot. That’s my schtick. And it’ll help me in planning out the next book I write, once I get the system down.

Considering How to Run: Two Milestones

Hello folks. Kinda sound like Droopy, don’t I?

Two things to discuss tonight:

First, another psychological milestone in the hunt for a novel: Considering How to Run has hit 30,000 words.

What does that mean? Well, technically it means Considering How to Run has hit 80,000 words, seeing as I have decided to combine these words with the previous 50,000 under the umbrella of one book, with the newer title, to avoid any Agatha Christie entanglements, as I blogged earlier.

Second, do I stop now? By stop, I mean do I declare that the first installment of this story, clocking in at the aforementioned 80,000 words, is complete? I’m leaning towards yes, and not just because by any page count calculator I can find, this novel is now at just under 320 pages in length, printed and bound. I have arrived at yet another perfectly natural stopping point, as I did 30,000 words ago.

Of course, we see how well that worked out. I may well keep writing in order to avoid the trauma of actually having to sit down and edit this beast. But that’s the next natural step, isn’t it? That’s what all the agents on the web say to do, isn’t it? And it’s what I know I need to do, simply just to read it for inconsistencies. I’m sure I’ve changed a few names going from one idea to the next. That won’t work. And I’ve still got that gaping hole with the chemistry experiment to figure out. And I’m sure as I edit this thing, I can find other holes that may need filling. All that editing could easily net me another 10,000, 20,000 words, pushing me towards the magic number of 100,000 in word length.

But is it any good? I can cut out slabs of the dictionary that contain 100,000 words, but that doesn’t mean it’d be readable. So, slowly I turned . . .

Doubt

As I wrote today's installment, Dorothy Parker's delightful poem kept popping into me little head:

Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles and doubt.

And I'm almost glad I didn't find anyone doing a rendition of Parker's poem on YouTube -- because poets tend to use The Voice that shows how intelligent they are and how dumb we are and how the word need tone and inflection and deserve more than the common, tawdry, ignominious pronunciations we mere mortals give them.

Oh So Smart, or Oh So Pleasant

Saw Jimmy Stewart in "Harvey" for the first time a few weeks ago, and fell in love with the film. I've always been a Jimmy Stewart fan, but this film particularly hit me. Elwood Doud is such an everyman -- not necessarily the brightest guy, nor the flashiest. But he listens. He gets to know people. He sincerely enjoys people. And because he's so open and loving and innocent, everyone confides in him.

Still, I wonder if that line from the film fits my book. I've been quoting scriptures and such. Now "Harvey." I've been trying to avoid references to American culture. Now "Harvey." I think I'm going to stick with it:

My mother said you can be oh so smart or oh so pleasant. I spent the greater part of my life being smart. I recommend pleasant. And you can quote me.

This is the fun, the experimentation in writing. Stick with what works.