Cutting -- Not Just For Silencing The Voices

I grabbed a mass-market paperback at the airport on my way to New York from Los Angeles. This is where I get most of my fiction -- those cookie-cutter displays in blond wood lined up like piano keys along the concourses, all of them featuring the same 30 or 40 books, plus gum, water, and dramamine tablets.

I can't remember the name of the book.  And I can't go look at it, because I left it on the plane.  It was -- well, I want to say it was awful, but it wasn't.  It could have been interesting.  It was a horror novel in the Michael Crichton mold, featuring the discovery of an island overrun with creatures so isolated they'd evolved for a billion years in a different direction from all the critters we're familiar with.  An interesting premise.

The author's debut novel also hit all the correct notes in the Crichton formula: throw in real-life examples of weird evolutionary tangents to underline how plausible the premise is, regardless of how improbable.  Put human hubris up against the implacability of nature.  Pit scientists against their own near-sighted assumptions.  Throw in a lot of people getting bitten in half.  How can you lose?

The author lost.  He spends time introducing characters, some interesting and others not; then he kills the interesting ones.  Cut to a fifty-page diversion with entire academic lectures delivered in full.  Cut to the lab.  Cut to the television producers.  Cut back to the island, by which time I've forgotten what's happening.  I got through maybe 150 of the 400 pages, skimming through increasingly long passages, and gave up.

Could the book be salvaged?  Easily.  There was an exciting science-horror thriller in there.  But it was 200 pages too long.  I think -- and this is guessing, but it's an educated guess -- the author insisted he needed all those long scientific passages that take place in Massachusetts.  He had to have all the subplots and long, detailed descriptions of every single critter on the island, including vivisections.  He was world-building, which can be interesting (see Isaac Asimov's Foundation series or Tolkein or the Harry Potter books) as long as the narrative is front and center.

In this book the narrative cut in and out like a longwave radio transmission from Mali. 

Which leads me to my brief but strenuous point: you can write all you want.  Write six thousand pages.  But writing is about editing.  Once you've written your masterpiece, cut as much of it out as you can possibly stand.  Cut some more.  Then cut.  I did that with Rise Again, cutting until all the good parts had been removed.  And you know what was left after all that cutting?  The story.

The book I couldn't finish was one the author didn't finish, either.  It was a good book with another, not-so-good book overlaid on it.  It just needed to be edited down, and instead it was published as-is.

People may put my book down because it's violent, grim, disgusting, ruthless, cruel, ugly, and depressing.  But they won't put it down because I failed to cut it as short as possible.

Then again, I'd give the toes of my left foot to show up in those airport book displays.

Earthquakes in Manhattan

A Canadian earthquake was felt in Manhattan today.  Apparently it's raining oil in Louisiana.  The apocalypse is here. 
I'm also here (in Manhattan) attending a book launch party for this excellent young adult title, Rules To Rock By -- Josh Farrar, the gent who wrote it, is also a musician, and created a CD of songs to go with the book!
In addition, I'm meeting the in-house publicist at my publisher to discuss promotional strategery for Rise Again.

What with all these signs of the apocalypse, the timing of a book about the End of the Goddamn World ought to do some brisk business.  If we're still alive in October.  Meanwhile, let us commence to rock, courtesy Josh Farrar.

Good Dense Prose

Every once in a while I come across a piece of writing so concise, so heavy with information and meaning, it jumps out at me as something to look at closely.  I want to figure out how this works.

... I'm coming to believe that this must be a function of the time in which we live and a serious systemic dysfunction, rather than any particular issue. The bizarre resemblance to the Iraq war debate in which varying parties in the decision making process offered a variety of unconvincing reasons, some aghast close observers shouted shrilly into the void and the majority of the people got confused and ended up throwing in their lot with whatever group with which they instinctively identified is just too much to chalk up to coincidence. Nobody ever knew the "real" motivations ---it all just seemed to happen because certain Very Important and certain Very Serious people decided for varying reasons that it should.

I think the War on the Unemployed (aka the War on the Deficit) is very much like the invasion of Iraq --- a senseless, self-destructive, incomprehensible trainwreck that nobody truly understands, but which seems to have a life of its own. It's tempting to find conspiracies to explain it or seek out some secret motivation behind it all. But I suspect it's more like a virus that just mutates as necessary as it goes about attacking its host.

That's from the blog Hullabaloo, by Digby.  It's a left-wing political analysis blog.  But regardless of your politics, look at how much meat there is in those grafs.  Even without the surrounding context, it opens by describing the terrain, then introduces characters and action and establishes a mystery.  The second answer the first with a hypothesis, then a couple of punchy metaphors, of violence and disease.

Another example, and a vast one so dense it's like coal, is Molly Bloom's soliloquy at the end of James Joyce's Ulysses.  Here's a small extract:

Val Dillon that big heathen I first noticed him at dessert when I was cracking the nuts with my teeth I wished I could have picked every morsel of that chicken out of my fingers it was so tasty and browned and as tender as anything only for I didnt want to eat everything on my plate those forks and fishslicers were hallmarked silver too I wish I had some I could easily have slipped a couple into my muff when I was playing with them then always hanging out of them for money in a restaurant for the bit you put down your throat we have to be thankful for our mangy cup of tea itself as a great compliment to be noticed the way the world is divided in any case if its going to go on I want at least two other good chemises for one thing and but I dont know what kind of drawers he likes none at all I think didnt he say yes and half the girls in Gibraltar never wore them either naked as God made them that Andalusian singing her Manola she didnt make much secret of what she hadnt yes and the second pair of silkette stockings is laddered after one days wear I could have brought them back to Lewers this morning and kicked up a row and made that one change them only not to upset myself and run the risk of walking into him and ruining the whole thing and one of those kidfitting corsets Id want advertised cheap in the Gentlewoman with elastic gores on the hips he saved the one I have but thats no good what did they say they give a delightful figure line 11/6 obviating that unsightly broad appearance across the lower back to reduce flesh my belly is a bit too big Ill have to knock off the stout at dinner or am I getting too fond of it the last they sent from ORourkes was as flat as a pancake he makes his money easy Larry they call him the old mangy parcel he sent at Xmas a cottage cake and a bottle of hogwash he tried to palm off as claret that he couldnt get anyone to drink God spare his spit for fear hed die of the drouth or I must do a few breathing exercises I wonder is that antifat any good might overdo it the thin ones are not so much the fashion now garters that much I have the violet pair I wore today thats all he bought me out of the cheque he got on the first

There are so many layers here, of remembrance in the present, and the past events remembered, and also the story itself.  The taste and texture of food, the squeeze of corsets.  Various characters, details -- and all that with a train of present thought, too.

I don't have a point, except to say that good dense prose is a pleasure to read sometimes.

From The 3x5 Cards

These are all scraps of actual conversation I've written down on my note cards.  

I don't know why I transcribed some of these lines; others are obvious.

"Congratulations, it's a fucking ice age."

"I'll never ski again, because I suck at it.  She should never speak again."

"That magnifies your knees."


"The co-pay was five hundred dollars, so I used the card."


"You know what will happen then?  The same thing."


"He's like plywood, smooth outside, but inside he's made of splinters."


"She's a lawyer.  She's gay.  I don't know if those are identifying characteristics."


"If that was mine, I'd shit on it."

Results!

That essay I mentioned in the previous post?  It's live at the Huffington Post.  See?  Dreams can come true, as long as you keep them around 800 words.

Keeping The Quill Inky

I've got a crisis deadline at work and we're moving -- although we don't know where -- so there hasn't been any work on novel #3 in weeks.  I'm not worried; I have enough written to pick up the threads later on.

But I need to write.  It's in the blood.

So tonight I wrote an op/ed piece of the type I used to write weekly: some kind of serio-comic harangue on political economic, or social matters.  This one was about the near impossibility of buying a house when the banks are terrified to make loans.  I'll post it here once it makes the round of editorial staffs.  Hoping to get it on the Huffington Post, because why not.

I haven't written an essay (outside the blog-posting realm) for three years.  Was aiming at about 800 words, composed the structure in my head and went for it.  795 words, baby.  I don't care if it's not brilliant writing: what matters is that I wrote something and finished it.  Always a good feeling.

Another good feeling is this: my editor informed me today that the execs like one of my jacket designs -- not the one I'd settled on, but an earlier one I'd forgotten all about.

So I'll be sending the Photoshop files for that soon.  Only one hitch: I have to replace the photo in the comp with a photo to which I own the rights.  So I'll be shooting that this weekend.  Rather pleased to be making progress, anyway.

My Last Correction

I emailed my editor yesterday, inquiring if I could change three words in the book.  He regretted to inform me it was too late -- the book is already being typeset.  I can make the corrections on the galleys.

That's rather good news.  He also asked where he should send the 50 copies of the galleys I'm getting.  Because we have no idea where we're going to be living in a week, I told him to send it to my work office.

I'll have a proposal from the PR firm by the end of the week, and meanwhile I've been generating a list of people and places to which I want to send copies of the bound galleys.  Word continues to trickle in from my team of crack personal readers (some might call them friends), and so far, the response is face-reddeningly positive.

Whether I publish another 50 books (as planned), or this is the only one, the process of seeing this novel get out there into the world will stay with me.  More than inspiring -- which it has been -- more than exciting -- which it has also been -- the creation of this book has been interesting. 

For me, interesting is the second-highest virtue, right after trustworthy.*







* My seventy-third-most prized virtue is having an artificial limb.

Write Your Hangups

Off-topic, but check this blog out if you're into Japanese food.
http://www.japanfoodaddict.com/
It's almost obscene, and every dish is easy to make.  Helps if you live near a 99 Ranch Market.

Let's put that behind us, however.  I wish to point out writing as a coping mechanism.  Seeing as for all of the writers I know except my wife, writing is a coping mechanism.

One of my oldest and dearest friends is Harry Segal.  He's not a writer.  He is a graphic designer.  In fact, he's one of the best graphic designers in Manhattan.  He works his issues out by thinking about them, discussing them with a therapist, and examining how he can change his way of living to reduce the impact of these 'hangups' -- so that his life is happier and more fulfilling.

If I could do that, I probably wouldn't be able to write.

What happens to me is this: I come up with stories, and for one reason and another, one story resonates more than the others.  I write that story.  And later on, when I read it (probably mistaking the thing for a letter to the IRS), I get a glimpse of the things that worried me at the time I wrote it.  Ten years ago, it was all questions of identity, self-invention, and relevance; these days the things I'm coping with are the end of the world, mortality, and money, in reverse order.

Everything you write comes from the standpoint of yourself.  I mean everything.  A shopping list reflects you.  A novel reflects you.  Look at the phone numbers jotted on the post-it notes next to the phone: even those.  When it comes to something long, like a screenplay or novel, the writing is all that much more revealing, because there are more little spaces to caulk with the self.

When I'm worried about something, I need to be writing or I lose my mind.  Someone (you know who you are) was acting all amazed that in the middle of trying to buy a house, move, keep my day job, and every other crisis man is heir to, I was still working on my third novel.  I replied, "if I wasn't working on a book, I'd have an aneurysm and die."

I think most writers are this way.  The queen of all issues is self-worth, of course; I think at least 80% of writers observe the practice simply to counteract the futility of being themselves.  I'm probably that way myself.  But there are always other things.  Some works could only have been written in the situations that were occurring at the time -- several of Shakespeare's plays are like that.  Henry V was composed during one of the worst winters the Bard ever endured, in every regard from personal to professional.  And the plague was going around.  That's probably why it's got that worldly humor, the subtle but profound weariness, and of course that battle speech.

My apocalyptic zombie novel is filled with the concerns of our time.  I started it when the economy hadn't collapsed yet, and the first draft reads like a warning.  Then everything went to hell again, and that was the third draft, which was far messier and angrier.  The latest (and final) draft is more observant, more aware somehow.  Each version reflects the conditions in which it was written.  Had the timing of the situation in the world around me been different, the book itself would be different.

I recommend to anyone writing: have a look at what you would call your 'issues.'  You can name them: fear of gatherings, health problems, crooked relationships, and all the lost years, all those blank pages.  Whatever they are.  And they can be anything.

You're gay and you haven't told anybody.  You hate Italian food.  You want to know what it's like to kill a human being.  You've always wanted to learn how to fly, and you never will.  You're sexually attracted to children.  You are terrified of other drivers.  You forgot to call your mother.  You don't like your teeth.  You are losing your fucking mind.  You never learned how to smoke, but you claim to be an ex-smoker.  You like getting hurt.  You can't cook.  You are afraid of the dark.  You eat the contents of your nose.  Everything you've ever done is a failure.  You drink more than you say.  You never told your father that important thing.  You've lived longer than you expected, and don't know what to do next.  You hate Korean people.  You're a shitty writer and a fraud. 

 Got it?  I have an exercise associated with this, naturally.  Write a personal ad based on a good-sized issue you're coping with.  When I say "write a personal ad," I mean really do so, and post it on Craigslist or the newspaper agony column or wherever the personal ads in your world are.  Then -- respond to it.

Lonelyhearts afraid of people seeks companion to insinuate self into my life in such a way that I don't know it's deliberate.  I'm a brunette, cute, 34, hate my feet, can't deal with my father's second wife, stole my friend's bike when I was 12.

@lonelyhearts: remember the guy who came to fix the toilet and he was kind of cute and while he was fishing around in six gallons of your pee water you made a pass at him?  That was me.  When I run into you next time it will be a funny coincidence, and we'll get to talking.

 That's not one of my issues, you understand.  Just making an example, there.  But you see it: there could be a real answer in the reply, or there could be a story in it, too,  Heck, I think I smell romantic comedy on this one.  To be called Up To Her Ears In It.

Our real problems tend to be invisible to ourselves.  My friend Harry is exceptionally good at seeing his troubles for what they are and addressing them.  I'm not.  But when I write something down -- when I write anything down -- there is my subconscious, waving the issue out an upstairs window like a white flag.  Once it's written, I can go across the street, read the thing, and see what my problems are.

And that, after all, is theme.  The things that preoccupy our lives are the things we found our writing on.  Why are so many songs about love?  Because the only thing that could compel most people to learn the frigging guitar is attracting members of the opposite sex.  Love is what got them to the microphone.  I don't know why people learn the bagpipes.  What compels somebody to write short stories, novels, plays, or movies?  Poetry, for that matter?  Every writer has something.  It's their issue, their hangup, their kink, their preoccupation.  If ambition is what pulls us forward, the things we're coping with are what push us from behind.

Write that personal ad -- and heck, while you're at it, see if anybody besides yourself replies.

A Half-Formed Pun

It just occurred to me that Seneca fiddled plays while Rome burned.

I'm not sure if this merits posting, but there you go.  Call it a Nero miss.

Yesterday, A Memoir

It was a day of things, yesterday.  Conference call with a public relations firm about promoting Rise Again; I'm contemplating retaining this firm to enhance the in-house efforts at Simon & Schuster, because promotional budgets for first novels aren't usually extensive.

Then a call to my editor about various things -- publicity, the cover design, the cover copy, the acknowledgment page, and of course that stuff in the middle, the story.

One more page of notes exchanged, along the lines of "Page 287, bottom of second paragraph, 'geysers of blood spurted in undead mouths' should be 'geysers of blood spurted into undead mouths,'" a last squint at some text breaks and chapter headings, and then... more or less, that's that.

Here forward things accelerate.  Bound galleys with a plain cover will be coming along next.  They're the fetal form of the finished book.  We might be promoting it at the San Diego ComicCon, which is one of the things that makes horror novels awesome -- they get invited to the best conventions.  Last time I was at that show, I met George Romero.

Yes.

Sorry, turned into a fanboy for a second there.  In other words, to return to today's topic, yesterday was a busy day in the world of the book.  It remains to get a quote for services from the PR firm, review my responses to my editor's suggestions with said editor, and rattle Simon & Schuster's cages for cover mockups from the art department.  I'll soon be seeing their designer's setup for the interior of the book, choice of font, and so on.  Galleys will come toddling along soon.

George Romero, man.  He's a nice guy.

Altered States

So today I had a tooth prepared for a crown, which means the dentist gently ground it down to a stub, the fat, throbbing nerve visible deep in the tooth through a wafer-thin crust of dentin.  Hoping the crown takes and doesn't turn into an emergency root canal.

Which leads me to drugs and alcohol.


Right now I'm feeling no pain.  Let's leave it at that.  The thing about getting wasted high (however one does so) is it leaves one as close to thinking like somebody else as it is possible to do without being an actual schizophrenic.  It's not so much that one is no longer oneself, as one no longer responds like oneself.

I'm browsing Sartorialist, one of my favorite websites (call me a dandy, I don't care).  Instead of looking the clothes and envying thin guys (but without any conviction), I'm looking at the negative space around the subjects of the pictures.  I'm studying their faces.  The roll of collars.  The outlines of the women's shoes and how they interact with their shadows.  That's being in an altered state.  I'm seeing things without the baggage of me.

When you're a writer, you should be prepared to do your homework when you're high.  Write down the interesting ideas you have, the flights of fancy that get as far as your conscious mind.

3-way relationship -- like a widow loving 2 husbands, but both at the same time

That's a note scribbled on one of my ever-present 3x5 cards.  Corinne and I were discussing this: what are the real dynamics of a 3-way relationship in which all parties are not only aware of each other, but openly cooperate?  The quote above is the drug-fueled essence of our analysis.  What we meant to say was this:

If a woman can love 2 men equally in her lifetime, how much of a stretch is it if she loves both men simultaneously?

...But I wrote down what we said, and the idea was sufficiently expressed so I can now clarify it.

We went on from there to the subject of how odd monogamy is.  How it would make more sense to have multiple partners on the periphery, and a central partner who is "the one."  Less sexual tension, less resentment, less jealousy, less need for one person to become an expert on the other.  Different lovers could specialize.

Of course I tucked this away for a science fiction/ fantasy novel I've been toying with.  I was also kind of hoping to get a threesome together.  God only knows what Corinne will do with these ideas.

The point, of course, is that interesting notions come to one when one is not entirely right in the head.  We'd never have bothered discussing something like this otherwise.  Yet it's an incredibly rich and largely unexplored vein of material.  There are many such ideas floating around, waiting until your guard is down.  I don't recommend drinking or doing drugs, or autoerotic asphyxiation.  But if you find yourself in some kind of a "state," be prepared to write down what comes to you.

It might be a good idea.