Mickling along. Actually, rewriting along.
My initial unhappiness over the non-greatness of the old prose wasn't entirely justified. Some parts are stilted and ineffective, but other parts are fine. So rewriting is going faster than I initially feared it would.
There's much more to be done than I had realized, though. I wrote the first part of the novel without all of the plot details ironed out. Later, I pinned various things down and made notes. Now I find quite a few places where hints and foreshadowing and suchlike need to be inserted, which can require some fairly major twiddling with scenes I had written before and thought fixed and final.
But it's all fun. It's a good way to spend a vacation. We'll be off to Baton Rouge for a few days -- Wednesday through Sunday -- but I'm taking my laptop along in hopes of continuing this process while there. Maybe I'll do some of it at Coffee Call, a nifty cafe-au-lait and beignet place there. Well, it used to be nifty when it was mostly filled with studying and coffee-guzzling LSU students, but I wonder if it's now swamped because of the large numbers of people from New Orleans who moved to BR, pretty much permanently, because of Katrina. My father-in-law and his wife say that the traffic is far worse than previously.
Anyway, my original deadline for the novel was completely unrealistic, it's now clear to me. I'm not going to set myself a new one. As long as I'm making reasonably steady progress, I'll be happy. That would be a big change from the few years immediately preceding the starting of this blog.
Monday, December 25, 2006
Friday, December 22, 2006
Brilliant! Not.
After I'd spent some time looking over Time and the Soldier, trying to figure out what to cut and where to repaste it, and getting nowhere, I decided go back to the first page and start the tweaking and rewriting process, my hope being that that would refresh my overview of the whole thing and make any necessary restructuring clearer. So that's what I've been doing for the last few days, helped muchly by the fact that the Great Denver Blizzard of Ought Six forced my company to shut down for two days, and also by the company having closed at noon today. (It's now closed till Jan. 2.)
I remembered the first few chapters of the book -- the big chunk that I wrote initially, about 15 years ago, and had left untouched except for two short new sections I added recently -- as being brilliant. On rereading, I discover that, well, um, they're not. That's a disturbing revelation. So now I'm hoping that rewriting will make that chunk brilliant. After all, it has to match the parts I've written recently, which are, as I remember well, brilliant. I hope.
I remembered the first few chapters of the book -- the big chunk that I wrote initially, about 15 years ago, and had left untouched except for two short new sections I added recently -- as being brilliant. On rereading, I discover that, well, um, they're not. That's a disturbing revelation. So now I'm hoping that rewriting will make that chunk brilliant. After all, it has to match the parts I've written recently, which are, as I remember well, brilliant. I hope.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
The Great Denver Blizzard of Ought Six
Why, you young people today. You have no idea what it was like, back in the Great Denver Blizzard of Ought Six. Why, back in those days --
Oh, wait, that's today!
The blizzard really got underway yesterday, Wednesday. We had to go out in the morning. I had a periodontist appointment (my boss joked that that sounded like one of those beasts that died out 65 million years ago), and then later Leonore had her annual physical scheduled. I drove her to that, and then to pick up a couple of prescriptions. We ran a couple of errands, since we were out, and I bought a new humongous bottle of Bulleitt Bourbon, since I was out.
Scary driving. Leonore's Subaru was fine, but I had to dodge some other people who weren't in Subarus and weren't fine. Visibility was not very far beyond the end of the car.
We got back around 1 p.m. I started a pot of tea going, poured myself a bourbon, read an e-mail from my boss saying that the company has shut down for the day, and I felt rather good. 1 p.m. was probably about the latest it would have been feasible to be out and about.
Today, the company, along with the rest of the state, is still shut down. We're still shut in. I'm still sipping tea and bourbon. Yesterday, I did some work remotely, but today the only work on my schedule is shoveling snow, which will surely be work enough.
Now, as long as the power and my broadband connection stay up, life will be okay.
Here are a couple of pictures. First, my car, parked on the street in front of the house:
And here's a view from the back door, looking toward a neighbor's backyard:
Click on the pictures to see bigger versions. In the case of the second photo, it's clearer in the larger version that the dark line across the bottom third is the top of a fence.
Oh, wait, that's today!
The blizzard really got underway yesterday, Wednesday. We had to go out in the morning. I had a periodontist appointment (my boss joked that that sounded like one of those beasts that died out 65 million years ago), and then later Leonore had her annual physical scheduled. I drove her to that, and then to pick up a couple of prescriptions. We ran a couple of errands, since we were out, and I bought a new humongous bottle of Bulleitt Bourbon, since I was out.
Scary driving. Leonore's Subaru was fine, but I had to dodge some other people who weren't in Subarus and weren't fine. Visibility was not very far beyond the end of the car.
We got back around 1 p.m. I started a pot of tea going, poured myself a bourbon, read an e-mail from my boss saying that the company has shut down for the day, and I felt rather good. 1 p.m. was probably about the latest it would have been feasible to be out and about.
Today, the company, along with the rest of the state, is still shut down. We're still shut in. I'm still sipping tea and bourbon. Yesterday, I did some work remotely, but today the only work on my schedule is shoveling snow, which will surely be work enough.
Now, as long as the power and my broadband connection stay up, life will be okay.
Here are a couple of pictures. First, my car, parked on the street in front of the house:
And here's a view from the back door, looking toward a neighbor's backyard:
Click on the pictures to see bigger versions. In the case of the second photo, it's clearer in the larger version that the dark line across the bottom third is the top of a fence.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Well, I've been thinking about writing.
This will sound odd, but this evening I realized why I've been so reluctant to get back to this book. I was looking over the ms., wondering what large blue chunks might still be there, and I realized/admitted to myself that the next big task isn't eliminating blue but reorganizing, restructuring major parts of the book. I knew that, on some level, but I was refusing to admit it.
The story isn't linear. As it is now, it follows the three main characters, or four as it turned out, on their travels through time, focusing on one for a long time, then switching to another, etc. That resulted in overlapping stories and in some scenes being done twice, from different points of view -- something like the Back to the Future movies. I loved those movies and thought them brilliant, but that gimmick turns out to be confusing in places in this ms.
I have to reorder things now. The story still jumps back and forth, but the narrative flow has to have a more linear feel to it. As it is now, it's confusing and can jerk the reader out of the story. I know what's going on (well, at least I hope so), but someone else won't.
Without consciously realizing it, I knew all of that and was reluctant to tackle the problem. As it happens, I had a somewhat similar problem with my last novel, Business Secrets from the Stars. That book doesn't involve time travel, but the original version had two different stories that I had a lot of trouble combining properly. And yet, BizStars ended up, in my opinion, as far and away the best thing I've ever written, so I have to keep reminding myself of that and take heart from that experience.
Coincidentally, I was talking on the phone to my father tonight. He's 97 and knows nothing about computers and generally cares even less, but tonight he asked me to explain what a blog is. Given his lack of background knowledge, that was harder than one might expect, but I think I made it clear enough to him. I began to wonder if there are blogs devoted to recording the bloggers' conversations with their aged parents. Given the number and diversity of blogs, it seems highly likely that there are. I wouldn't want to read them.
This will sound odd, but this evening I realized why I've been so reluctant to get back to this book. I was looking over the ms., wondering what large blue chunks might still be there, and I realized/admitted to myself that the next big task isn't eliminating blue but reorganizing, restructuring major parts of the book. I knew that, on some level, but I was refusing to admit it.
The story isn't linear. As it is now, it follows the three main characters, or four as it turned out, on their travels through time, focusing on one for a long time, then switching to another, etc. That resulted in overlapping stories and in some scenes being done twice, from different points of view -- something like the Back to the Future movies. I loved those movies and thought them brilliant, but that gimmick turns out to be confusing in places in this ms.
I have to reorder things now. The story still jumps back and forth, but the narrative flow has to have a more linear feel to it. As it is now, it's confusing and can jerk the reader out of the story. I know what's going on (well, at least I hope so), but someone else won't.
Without consciously realizing it, I knew all of that and was reluctant to tackle the problem. As it happens, I had a somewhat similar problem with my last novel, Business Secrets from the Stars. That book doesn't involve time travel, but the original version had two different stories that I had a lot of trouble combining properly. And yet, BizStars ended up, in my opinion, as far and away the best thing I've ever written, so I have to keep reminding myself of that and take heart from that experience.
Coincidentally, I was talking on the phone to my father tonight. He's 97 and knows nothing about computers and generally cares even less, but tonight he asked me to explain what a blog is. Given his lack of background knowledge, that was harder than one might expect, but I think I made it clear enough to him. I began to wonder if there are blogs devoted to recording the bloggers' conversations with their aged parents. Given the number and diversity of blogs, it seems highly likely that there are. I wouldn't want to read them.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
What's It All About
Originally, I wasn't going to say anything about the plot or the gimmick of Time and the Soldier. After the last post, there seems no reason not to do so, and I thought that a very brief synopsis might be of interest. "Brief" is the tricky part. The plot is long and complex, and there's no point in going into it very far, especially since there are twists that are supposed to be suprises to the reader. So here's at least the first part of the story.
Near the end of WWII, three people are recruited by Tempus, a mysterious, somewhat sinister organization. Tempus has close links links with the OSS and other Western intelligence agencies. It's rolling in dough and employs some of the top scientists in the world, competing for them with some other big project it knows is underway but hasn't been able to penetrate. Tempus has finally managed to send people forward in time, but only for short distances, and only forward, not back. (The forward-not-back part is explained with appropriate pseudo-science and plays a part in the plot.)
The three recruits - Tommy, Frank, and Ellen - will be sent forward with two goals: acquire futuristic weapons that can be used to end the war quickly and ensure US hegemony, and find a way to travel backward in time to 1945 with those weapons. The assumption is that the scientists of the future will surely have discovered how to go back. Tommy and Frank were both transferred from the US Army, Tommy from the fighting in France and Frank from Italy, and Ellen is a civilian. Tempus has no idea what they'll encounter in the Wonderful World of the Future, so it will hedge its bets by sending them to different points: Tommy fifty years ahead, to 1995, Ellen to 2045, and Frank to 2095.
During their training, a love triangle develops. They know that if they don't back out, they'll very likely never see each other again. They also have reason to believe that Tempus won't let them leave alive, so they have no choice but to jump forward.
Two other characters are important: the head of Tempus, and the driving force behind it, a creepy guy named Hughes; and a brilliant woman named Dolores who is in charge of much of the research at Tempus.
The first part of the book follows the three protagonists to the point where they jump. After that, the story follows each one's adventures in the future. I'm reluctant to say more, because this is where it starts to get really twisty, with interrelated stuff and backward jumps and things getting blowed up real good and some blood and sex (not together! not that kind of book!). Even condensed to the degree the above is, describing much more would make this post absurdly long. Which may be a sign that the plot is overly complex and the book will be too long. All I can do is hope that's not the case.
Maybe, when the thing is in some final form, I'll post some scenes here. I dunno.
Near the end of WWII, three people are recruited by Tempus, a mysterious, somewhat sinister organization. Tempus has close links links with the OSS and other Western intelligence agencies. It's rolling in dough and employs some of the top scientists in the world, competing for them with some other big project it knows is underway but hasn't been able to penetrate. Tempus has finally managed to send people forward in time, but only for short distances, and only forward, not back. (The forward-not-back part is explained with appropriate pseudo-science and plays a part in the plot.)
The three recruits - Tommy, Frank, and Ellen - will be sent forward with two goals: acquire futuristic weapons that can be used to end the war quickly and ensure US hegemony, and find a way to travel backward in time to 1945 with those weapons. The assumption is that the scientists of the future will surely have discovered how to go back. Tommy and Frank were both transferred from the US Army, Tommy from the fighting in France and Frank from Italy, and Ellen is a civilian. Tempus has no idea what they'll encounter in the Wonderful World of the Future, so it will hedge its bets by sending them to different points: Tommy fifty years ahead, to 1995, Ellen to 2045, and Frank to 2095.
During their training, a love triangle develops. They know that if they don't back out, they'll very likely never see each other again. They also have reason to believe that Tempus won't let them leave alive, so they have no choice but to jump forward.
Two other characters are important: the head of Tempus, and the driving force behind it, a creepy guy named Hughes; and a brilliant woman named Dolores who is in charge of much of the research at Tempus.
The first part of the book follows the three protagonists to the point where they jump. After that, the story follows each one's adventures in the future. I'm reluctant to say more, because this is where it starts to get really twisty, with interrelated stuff and backward jumps and things getting blowed up real good and some blood and sex (not together! not that kind of book!). Even condensed to the degree the above is, describing much more would make this post absurdly long. Which may be a sign that the plot is overly complex and the book will be too long. All I can do is hope that's not the case.
Maybe, when the thing is in some final form, I'll post some scenes here. I dunno.
Monday, December 11, 2006
The Utter Evil of Steven Spielberg
I just read on scifi.com that Spielberg is going to write a pilot for Fox TV about a couple of young physicists during WWII who invent time travel and jump forward to 2007 to find something they can take back to end the war with.
So what, you say?
So, that's the gimmick in Time and the Soldier, upon which the rest of the long, complex, dense plot is built. So the book is DOA. That's the way things work in gimmick-driven genres.
I'll press on with it. Having put so much into it, I want to finish it. Also, I know it's going to be a terrific sf novel. But it'll be dead on arrival, anyway.
Of course I can't really blame Spielberg, even if he did read my mind and steal my idea. (Joke!) I had this idea 15 years ago, or so, and I wrote the first part of the book back then, and then I let it lie for many years before finally getting back to it. During those years, I often told myself that I should finish the book because someone else was bound to come up with the same gimmick, and then the book would be dead. But I told myself, "Yeah, yeah, whatever," and wrote other stuff instead. And this is the result.
Damn you, Steven Spielberg! You're evil, I say, evil!
So what, you say?
So, that's the gimmick in Time and the Soldier, upon which the rest of the long, complex, dense plot is built. So the book is DOA. That's the way things work in gimmick-driven genres.
I'll press on with it. Having put so much into it, I want to finish it. Also, I know it's going to be a terrific sf novel. But it'll be dead on arrival, anyway.
Of course I can't really blame Spielberg, even if he did read my mind and steal my idea. (Joke!) I had this idea 15 years ago, or so, and I wrote the first part of the book back then, and then I let it lie for many years before finally getting back to it. During those years, I often told myself that I should finish the book because someone else was bound to come up with the same gimmick, and then the book would be dead. But I told myself, "Yeah, yeah, whatever," and wrote other stuff instead. And this is the result.
Damn you, Steven Spielberg! You're evil, I say, evil!
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Mickling along. Close to 800 words tonight. Clearly, I won't come close to making the optimistic deadline I set a mere two posts ago.
I think that at this point, instead of filling in the holes in the ms., I need to start rereading it from the beginning and mulling over the notes I've made about plot problems and the elements I've haven't yet pinned down. There's more of that than I'm comfortable with.
At the same time, the book now feels to me like a big novel - in scope and in terms of what's at stake for the characters, I mean, rather than number of words. It's looming large. That's rather nice. I like my books to feel big to me.
I think that at this point, instead of filling in the holes in the ms., I need to start rereading it from the beginning and mulling over the notes I've made about plot problems and the elements I've haven't yet pinned down. There's more of that than I'm comfortable with.
At the same time, the book now feels to me like a big novel - in scope and in terms of what's at stake for the characters, I mean, rather than number of words. It's looming large. That's rather nice. I like my books to feel big to me.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Ratcheting the quality knob
Just under 1200 words tonight. This is good, and I hope I'll be able to keep it up, but I know I won't.
In the previous post, I said I wanted to be done by December 18, and I also estimated that the book, now at 120K words, would end up at 150K. In the comments to that post, an anonymous poster* pointed out that I was saying I'd write 30,000 (good, final) words in 23 days.
Hmm. That does seem unlikely. So maybe I won't make that deadline. It would be very convenient if I did, but of course I can't let that take precedence over the quality of the end result. In addition to the new words, I do have a lot of fixing up to do. My file of notes to myself has grown unnervingly large. Taking care of those will take some time and may include some beating of head against wall.
The title of this post refers to something that happened at one of my previous places of employment. It was a (very major) software company, and we were all working madly to get the next version of one of the main products ready to ship by the dumb, arbitrary deadline (pulled out of thin air by the marketing department, as is normally the case in the software biz). One of the high-up managers said in a meeting that we had to make the deadline, and if we thought we couldn't do all the necessary stuff in time, we would just have to "ratchet down the quality knob." Wouldn't customers have loved to know about that!
Well, I ain't gonna ratchet down no quality knob with this book. Or any other.
* The post shows as anonymous now, but I just switched to the new version of Blogger, and I don't know if that caused poster IDs to vanish.
In the previous post, I said I wanted to be done by December 18, and I also estimated that the book, now at 120K words, would end up at 150K. In the comments to that post, an anonymous poster* pointed out that I was saying I'd write 30,000 (good, final) words in 23 days.
Hmm. That does seem unlikely. So maybe I won't make that deadline. It would be very convenient if I did, but of course I can't let that take precedence over the quality of the end result. In addition to the new words, I do have a lot of fixing up to do. My file of notes to myself has grown unnervingly large. Taking care of those will take some time and may include some beating of head against wall.
The title of this post refers to something that happened at one of my previous places of employment. It was a (very major) software company, and we were all working madly to get the next version of one of the main products ready to ship by the dumb, arbitrary deadline (pulled out of thin air by the marketing department, as is normally the case in the software biz). One of the high-up managers said in a meeting that we had to make the deadline, and if we thought we couldn't do all the necessary stuff in time, we would just have to "ratchet down the quality knob." Wouldn't customers have loved to know about that!
Well, I ain't gonna ratchet down no quality knob with this book. Or any other.
* The post shows as anonymous now, but I just switched to the new version of Blogger, and I don't know if that caused poster IDs to vanish.
Friday, November 24, 2006
Talk about yer blister to yer eye!
Three and a half weeks since I last added any words to Time and the Soldier. Sheesh!
A bit over 2700 words today, which is pretty good. That largish number is due to my having had today off. I had yesterday off, as well, but Leonore and I used it to entertain ourselves rather than work at anything. We saw the new James Bond movie (much fun) and then went out to eat. But today, I wrote. Tomorrow and Sunday will be filled with the usual weekend chores, but I hope I can keep some of this momentum going.
After my previous bit of writing, I entered a weird kind of non-writing, lethargic, dull period that I can't explain. Then came the election, which put everything on hold for a few days. Then I got a flu shot at work and reacted badly with what might as well have been the flu. First time that's ever happened to me. I hope it's just due to this year's batch of vaccine and not some new age-related phenomenon.
During this hiatus, I was actually thinking plottishly, coming up with the stuff I spent today writing. So I can claim that, in a sense, I've been writing all along. But it's a sense that didn't result in anything that anyone else could read, until today, when I actually converted it all from potential stuff in my mind to real stuff on pap-- er, magnetic domains.
TimeSold is progressing nicely enough and the blue parts continue to diminish. Rereading chunks of it over the last couple of days, I realized that I'm going to have to move some parts around. I'm jumping around in the story too much. That was intentional, originally, but I've overdone it. In particular, the death of a major character happens much too early. Then, later in the ms., I go back some years in time and rehash parts of her life. It's unsatisfying and lacking in impact. Fixing that during the rewrite will be challenging.
I do have a self-imposed deadline. Leonore's break from her teaching begins on December 18, so that will be a perfect time for her to begin proofreading. (She's great at catching typos and prose infelicities.) Then I can incorporate her suggestions and have the book ready for the agent hunt by the first of the year. That fits with my schedule of having the book on the bestseller lists by the winter of 2008. Well, okay, that last part isn't included in my self-imposed deadline.
Currently, the wordcount, excluding the blue parts, is just over 120,000 words. So the final book could end up at 150,000 words, after all, as I was saying in one of my early posts. That's a bit longish.
A bit over 2700 words today, which is pretty good. That largish number is due to my having had today off. I had yesterday off, as well, but Leonore and I used it to entertain ourselves rather than work at anything. We saw the new James Bond movie (much fun) and then went out to eat. But today, I wrote. Tomorrow and Sunday will be filled with the usual weekend chores, but I hope I can keep some of this momentum going.
After my previous bit of writing, I entered a weird kind of non-writing, lethargic, dull period that I can't explain. Then came the election, which put everything on hold for a few days. Then I got a flu shot at work and reacted badly with what might as well have been the flu. First time that's ever happened to me. I hope it's just due to this year's batch of vaccine and not some new age-related phenomenon.
During this hiatus, I was actually thinking plottishly, coming up with the stuff I spent today writing. So I can claim that, in a sense, I've been writing all along. But it's a sense that didn't result in anything that anyone else could read, until today, when I actually converted it all from potential stuff in my mind to real stuff on pap-- er, magnetic domains.
TimeSold is progressing nicely enough and the blue parts continue to diminish. Rereading chunks of it over the last couple of days, I realized that I'm going to have to move some parts around. I'm jumping around in the story too much. That was intentional, originally, but I've overdone it. In particular, the death of a major character happens much too early. Then, later in the ms., I go back some years in time and rehash parts of her life. It's unsatisfying and lacking in impact. Fixing that during the rewrite will be challenging.
I do have a self-imposed deadline. Leonore's break from her teaching begins on December 18, so that will be a perfect time for her to begin proofreading. (She's great at catching typos and prose infelicities.) Then I can incorporate her suggestions and have the book ready for the agent hunt by the first of the year. That fits with my schedule of having the book on the bestseller lists by the winter of 2008. Well, okay, that last part isn't included in my self-imposed deadline.
Currently, the wordcount, excluding the blue parts, is just over 120,000 words. So the final book could end up at 150,000 words, after all, as I was saying in one of my early posts. That's a bit longish.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
The Perils of Confusing English Words
Leonore and I just came back from a quick Chinese lunch. My fortune cookie said:
The next one! Jeez, I'm so old that I can't remember the last one, or even if there was a last one.
You will be fortunate if you accept the next proposition you hear.
The next one! Jeez, I'm so old that I can't remember the last one, or even if there was a last one.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Okay, so what have I been doing? Not writing, obviously.
Last Tuesday, I spent an hour and a half at the dentist's office, having an old, cracked crown removed. Painless, really, except for the shot, and the new drills and saws and whatever he was using are virtually soundless. Nonetheless, I found myself shaky and depressed afterwards, and I realized it was a mild form of PTSD, resulting from the hours I used to spend in dentists' offices as a kid in South Africa, having my rotten teeth drilled with the old, slow, loud drills - and no effing anesthetic, because it was such a macho culture and they didn't believe in numbing you for anything short of an extraction. Fifty years later, I still remember staggering out onto the pavement, dizzy, disoriented, sick, and trembling. I not only remember, I feel it all over again, even after a dentistry session that should be non-traumatic. I should add that the dentist we have nowadays, Dennis Duvall, in Lakewood, Colorado, is outstandingly good, the best dentist either of us has ever had. Nonetheless, that reaction persists.
So I went home and e-mailed work that I was taking a sick day and sat around surfing the Web and feeling sorry for myself. Also drinking bourbon, one of mankind's greatest inventions, although not so great as beer, tea, and cheese. Then I wrote just over 300 words and felt as though I'd run a marathon.
Since then, I haven't written, but not because of the above dental thing, which I put here just because I wanted to whine about it. Instead, I've been obsessively reading news and political blogs about the upcoming midterm elections, feeling hopeful but fearing to hope. Will the fascist swine steal this election, too? Duh! Of course they will, to the extent they feel safe doing so. They don't dare lose, because a Democratic Congress, or even just a Democratic House, which is more likely, will surely hold hearings into their corruption and evildoing over the last few years. I hope those hearings include investigations of how the bastards stole the last three national elections (2000, 2002, and 2004), although I fear that the Democrats will once again make their old mistake of being gentlemen instead of going for the gonads.
When male wild boars do battle, the winner uses his tusks to castrate the loser. Hah, hah! Won't be seeing you here next mating season, sucker!
That's what I want the Democrats to do.
Metaphorically, of course.
Last Tuesday, I spent an hour and a half at the dentist's office, having an old, cracked crown removed. Painless, really, except for the shot, and the new drills and saws and whatever he was using are virtually soundless. Nonetheless, I found myself shaky and depressed afterwards, and I realized it was a mild form of PTSD, resulting from the hours I used to spend in dentists' offices as a kid in South Africa, having my rotten teeth drilled with the old, slow, loud drills - and no effing anesthetic, because it was such a macho culture and they didn't believe in numbing you for anything short of an extraction. Fifty years later, I still remember staggering out onto the pavement, dizzy, disoriented, sick, and trembling. I not only remember, I feel it all over again, even after a dentistry session that should be non-traumatic. I should add that the dentist we have nowadays, Dennis Duvall, in Lakewood, Colorado, is outstandingly good, the best dentist either of us has ever had. Nonetheless, that reaction persists.
So I went home and e-mailed work that I was taking a sick day and sat around surfing the Web and feeling sorry for myself. Also drinking bourbon, one of mankind's greatest inventions, although not so great as beer, tea, and cheese. Then I wrote just over 300 words and felt as though I'd run a marathon.
Since then, I haven't written, but not because of the above dental thing, which I put here just because I wanted to whine about it. Instead, I've been obsessively reading news and political blogs about the upcoming midterm elections, feeling hopeful but fearing to hope. Will the fascist swine steal this election, too? Duh! Of course they will, to the extent they feel safe doing so. They don't dare lose, because a Democratic Congress, or even just a Democratic House, which is more likely, will surely hold hearings into their corruption and evildoing over the last few years. I hope those hearings include investigations of how the bastards stole the last three national elections (2000, 2002, and 2004), although I fear that the Democrats will once again make their old mistake of being gentlemen instead of going for the gonads.
When male wild boars do battle, the winner uses his tusks to castrate the loser. Hah, hah! Won't be seeing you here next mating season, sucker!
That's what I want the Democrats to do.
Metaphorically, of course.
Friday, October 27, 2006
A Good Excuse
I won't be doing any writing this weekend, because I'll be spending much of it at the local science-fiction convention, MileHiCon. But I will emerge energized and writerized* and raring to go**.
* Meaning feeling like a real writer and filled with writing energy.
** Except for Tuesday, when I have a 1.5-hour dentist appointment scheduled.
* Meaning feeling like a real writer and filled with writing energy.
** Except for Tuesday, when I have a 1.5-hour dentist appointment scheduled.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
700 words yesterday, none the night before that, and none tonight. This evening, I had to spend what would have been my writing time catching up with various kinds of paperwork and paying bills, which is a good thing, I suppose, because this way I'll continue to have electricity to power this computer, thus enabling me to write more tomorrow. Except that tomorrow I plan to work out, assuming my wrist doesn't screech in agony, so I won't be writing then, either. Thursday, then. And I expect to have electricity for the purpose.
Gary, who has posted in the comments, and I were discussing via e-mail the problem of passing the hump in a book, the point at which you really can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I realized that, for me, there are two humps per book. The first is the dreaded mid-book slump, the point at which the project seems endless and hopeless. That's where I was on Time and the Soldier when I started this blog. For me, the second and very important point is what I might call the gelling point. After passing over or through the mid-book hump, I can let myself believe that I really am going to end up with a book-like object. But it may in the end only resemble a book and not have any sense of unity. Much further along, very close to the end, the book starts to gell. At least, in my view of the book; maybe it really gelled much earlier, but I couldn't see it. I think that with most of my books, I've written almost all the words before it suddenly begins to feel like a unified book that is properly centered around a theme or idea.
I haven't yet reached that point with TimeSold, but I'm feeling hopeful that that will happen soon.
Gary, who has posted in the comments, and I were discussing via e-mail the problem of passing the hump in a book, the point at which you really can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I realized that, for me, there are two humps per book. The first is the dreaded mid-book slump, the point at which the project seems endless and hopeless. That's where I was on Time and the Soldier when I started this blog. For me, the second and very important point is what I might call the gelling point. After passing over or through the mid-book hump, I can let myself believe that I really am going to end up with a book-like object. But it may in the end only resemble a book and not have any sense of unity. Much further along, very close to the end, the book starts to gell. At least, in my view of the book; maybe it really gelled much earlier, but I couldn't see it. I think that with most of my books, I've written almost all the words before it suddenly begins to feel like a unified book that is properly centered around a theme or idea.
I haven't yet reached that point with TimeSold, but I'm feeling hopeful that that will happen soon.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Just over 1200 words today. That's good.
I still haven't managed to get Delia back to 1937. At least Tommy's finally finished lecturing to her. ("As you know, Delia, the primitives of those dim past ages were crude and uncivilized, so be very careful never to look any of them in the eye. We will be equipping you with the newest delastifrabisticizer for your protection. " Well, it's not quite like that.) The next part I'll be working on will be Delia's Exciting Adventures in the Past.
I've also been jumping around the book and adding little details that pop up again in another part, set in a very different time. When such resonances are done well in a time-travel novel, they can provide the reader with a nice sense of something snapping into place, like a jigsaw-puzzle piece fitting unexpectedly. When they're clumsily done . . . Mustn't think about that.
I'm worried that I have too many characters jumping around in time. It's a plot-driven story, but of course I want the characters to be real, and I want them to be driven by their own motivations and situations, not by the visible hand of the author and the outline he sweated over before starting the book.
But at this point, my focus has to be on actually getting a first draft written. The way I write, I can't do much about adding solidity and detail until I've got the book done in a rough form.
I still haven't managed to get Delia back to 1937. At least Tommy's finally finished lecturing to her. ("As you know, Delia, the primitives of those dim past ages were crude and uncivilized, so be very careful never to look any of them in the eye. We will be equipping you with the newest delastifrabisticizer for your protection. " Well, it's not quite like that.) The next part I'll be working on will be Delia's Exciting Adventures in the Past.
I've also been jumping around the book and adding little details that pop up again in another part, set in a very different time. When such resonances are done well in a time-travel novel, they can provide the reader with a nice sense of something snapping into place, like a jigsaw-puzzle piece fitting unexpectedly. When they're clumsily done . . . Mustn't think about that.
I'm worried that I have too many characters jumping around in time. It's a plot-driven story, but of course I want the characters to be real, and I want them to be driven by their own motivations and situations, not by the visible hand of the author and the outline he sweated over before starting the book.
But at this point, my focus has to be on actually getting a first draft written. The way I write, I can't do much about adding solidity and detail until I've got the book done in a rough form.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Just over a thousand words tonight, which is better than I expected when I started. I thought I'd have to be satisfied with another mickle, so I made up a proverb to encourage myself: "A mickle a day keeps the blister away." But tonight's production turned out to be two or three mickles, so I feel pleased.
I'm still in the long section where Tommy tells Delia (as she's now named) that he's a time traveller and she will soon be one as well. I wanted to keep it short and punchy, but it's getting rather long. It's also turning into one of those "'As you know, John,' the professor said" scenes that science-fiction writers always try to avoid. I've had such scenes in other novels of mine, and I try to disguise them by having the characters doing stuff while talking, and also by trying to make the scene a dialog rather than a lecture. But it's hard to disguise such a scene satisfactorily. "Disguise" is the wrong word. What I mean is that one has to make the scene interesting despite its really being a lecture.
Well. Gotta get through this draft. Then I'll fix it up on the rewrite. That's always the hope.
I'm still in the long section where Tommy tells Delia (as she's now named) that he's a time traveller and she will soon be one as well. I wanted to keep it short and punchy, but it's getting rather long. It's also turning into one of those "'As you know, John,' the professor said" scenes that science-fiction writers always try to avoid. I've had such scenes in other novels of mine, and I try to disguise them by having the characters doing stuff while talking, and also by trying to make the scene a dialog rather than a lecture. But it's hard to disguise such a scene satisfactorily. "Disguise" is the wrong word. What I mean is that one has to make the scene interesting despite its really being a lecture.
Well. Gotta get through this draft. Then I'll fix it up on the rewrite. That's always the hope.
Monday, October 16, 2006
A mere 400 words, boo hoo. However, that's partly because I spent much of tonight's writing time pondering names.
Earlier, I came up with Dolores as a new name for one character - a good name plotwise, but not a good name for that character. However, in the plot, she goes by two different names at different times, so I chose Delia for the other name. That one does fit her much better, and it's a name my wife, Leonore, suggested, so my using it will please her. That's always a good thing.
So she's Dolores in the 1930s and 1940s and Delia from the 1960s on (and on and on and on, but I don't want to get into all the details now). It makes me think of The Importance of Being Earnest - of being Jack in the country and Ernest in the city.
As to the number of words, it occurs to me that there've been a lot of periods in the past when I wrote only small amounts at a time and didn't write often enough. And yet those small bits added up to a fair number of complete novels. Many a mickle makes a muckle, as an old Scottish proverb supposedly says. Gotta keep mickling on.
Earlier, I came up with Dolores as a new name for one character - a good name plotwise, but not a good name for that character. However, in the plot, she goes by two different names at different times, so I chose Delia for the other name. That one does fit her much better, and it's a name my wife, Leonore, suggested, so my using it will please her. That's always a good thing.
So she's Dolores in the 1930s and 1940s and Delia from the 1960s on (and on and on and on, but I don't want to get into all the details now). It makes me think of The Importance of Being Earnest - of being Jack in the country and Ernest in the city.
As to the number of words, it occurs to me that there've been a lot of periods in the past when I wrote only small amounts at a time and didn't write often enough. And yet those small bits added up to a fair number of complete novels. Many a mickle makes a muckle, as an old Scottish proverb supposedly says. Gotta keep mickling on.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Work. WORK!
Sometimes, I feel like Maynard G. Krebs. Because of deadlines I'm behind on, I spent Saturday working on job matters and thus not writing. The deadlines are tight, but I should have been sufficiently on schedule that I could have had Saturday to myself*, and it's my fault that I didn't. I can't blame the company I work for, although I could blame the general concept of work itself, as Maynard would have.
I was a teenager when the Dobie Gillis show was on the air, and I thought that Maynard was, like, cool, man. Nowadays, various noxious rightwing fundie freakazoids would be shrieking their demands that the character, or the whole show, be removed from the air. As work was to Maynard, so anything out of the ordinary or faintly, suggestively liberating is to them.
* After doing the grocery shopping and before exercising to the standard embarrassingly bad original science fiction or horror movie on the Sci Fi channel in the evening.
I was a teenager when the Dobie Gillis show was on the air, and I thought that Maynard was, like, cool, man. Nowadays, various noxious rightwing fundie freakazoids would be shrieking their demands that the character, or the whole show, be removed from the air. As work was to Maynard, so anything out of the ordinary or faintly, suggestively liberating is to them.
* After doing the grocery shopping and before exercising to the standard embarrassingly bad original science fiction or horror movie on the Sci Fi channel in the evening.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
SBOBU
In my last post, I should have added that I spent some of that non-writing time updating the SBOBU Economic Index page on my Web site.
This is an utterly unscientific, anecdotal, silly, trivial way of looking at U.S. unemployment that seems to mirror reality far more closely than the official numbers produced each month by the cynical data massagers of the Bush Administration (motto: "We're fascist swine, and that's just fine.").
This is an utterly unscientific, anecdotal, silly, trivial way of looking at U.S. unemployment that seems to mirror reality far more closely than the official numbers produced each month by the cynical data massagers of the Bush Administration (motto: "We're fascist swine, and that's just fine.").
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Static Friction
Oh, a blister to the eye, indeed!
Around 1250 words tonight. Acceptable, all in all. The blister begins to subside.
So what kept me from writing for so many days? Depression, my usual enemy. I'm very prone to it and slip into it too easily. Some slight thing will trigger it.
I was feeling a bit down for various reasons and took time off to read the new Dick Francis novel. Francis had announced his retirement, but I suppose his publisher waved an enormous checkchecque in front of him and he felt he had no choice but to turn out another novel about horses and murder and an intrepid but introspective and sensitive ex-jockey. I read light fiction to recharge my batteries, and the new Francis novel accomplished that end.
I wrote a bit last Friday and then went down to the basement to lift weights and did something weird to my wrist.
That wrist has been bothering me for years. Many of my joints have been bothering me for years. Both of my parents suffer/suffered from severe arthritis, and now it's my turn. Exercise and supplements seem to be keeping it somewhat at bay, but only somewhat. When I was young and hurt something while exercising, I didn't think too much of it. Now I always fear it means The End. The great decline begins! I'll have to stop lifing weights, and I'll turn instantly into a withered, decrepit, disgusting old man! I'll become that eventually, anyway, but I'd rather it be well in the future. So the wrist injury, which didn't seem to be improving over the next few days, cast me into gloom.
Which finally began to lift today. I don't know why, since my wrist still hurts. Maybe it's the Guinness Gary gave me as a birthday present today.
Writing and exercising both make me think of static vs. dynamic friction. It takes less force to keep an object moving than to start it moving. When the object is at rest, the force binding it to the surface beneath it, static friction, is actually greater than the force binding it when it's in motion, dynamic friction. I think we all know that from experience. When you don't lift weights for a while, I like to joke, the weights put on weight from lack of exercise, so they're that much harder to lift when you finally get back to it. It's also harder to make yourself get down there and start lifting again. The longer you stay away from writing, the bigger and more daunting the task of writing seems. I think it was Frederik Pohl, the science fiction writer, who advised against ending a writing session at a logical stopping point. He said you should stop in the middle of something, while you have momentum, because that way it's easier to get started the next time.
I'm writing a scene where Tommy reveals to Dolores that he's actually a time traveller. He sort of slips it into a conversation. "Nice weather today. Don't think there's anything good on television tonight. I'm a time traveler. You're going to have to go traveling in time, too. Read any good books lately?" She's disconcerted.
Originally, her name was Farani, which made no sense at all, as I finally had to admit to myself, but it did suit her. Her character has changed a bit, and I needed a name that did make sense in terms of the plot. Dolores is better, but it doesn't suit her. She's not a Dolores, but I can't think what she is. It sort of needs to be an Hispanic name, but preferably one that is also commonly used in the wider society.
I hope the right name will come to me in a blaze of inspiration after a wonderful writing session and while I'm vigorously lifting heavier weights than I've ever lifted before. If not that, then while I'm drinking a beer
Around 1250 words tonight. Acceptable, all in all. The blister begins to subside.
So what kept me from writing for so many days? Depression, my usual enemy. I'm very prone to it and slip into it too easily. Some slight thing will trigger it.
I was feeling a bit down for various reasons and took time off to read the new Dick Francis novel. Francis had announced his retirement, but I suppose his publisher waved an enormous checkchecque in front of him and he felt he had no choice but to turn out another novel about horses and murder and an intrepid but introspective and sensitive ex-jockey. I read light fiction to recharge my batteries, and the new Francis novel accomplished that end.
I wrote a bit last Friday and then went down to the basement to lift weights and did something weird to my wrist.
That wrist has been bothering me for years. Many of my joints have been bothering me for years. Both of my parents suffer/suffered from severe arthritis, and now it's my turn. Exercise and supplements seem to be keeping it somewhat at bay, but only somewhat. When I was young and hurt something while exercising, I didn't think too much of it. Now I always fear it means The End. The great decline begins! I'll have to stop lifing weights, and I'll turn instantly into a withered, decrepit, disgusting old man! I'll become that eventually, anyway, but I'd rather it be well in the future. So the wrist injury, which didn't seem to be improving over the next few days, cast me into gloom.
Which finally began to lift today. I don't know why, since my wrist still hurts. Maybe it's the Guinness Gary gave me as a birthday present today.
Writing and exercising both make me think of static vs. dynamic friction. It takes less force to keep an object moving than to start it moving. When the object is at rest, the force binding it to the surface beneath it, static friction, is actually greater than the force binding it when it's in motion, dynamic friction. I think we all know that from experience. When you don't lift weights for a while, I like to joke, the weights put on weight from lack of exercise, so they're that much harder to lift when you finally get back to it. It's also harder to make yourself get down there and start lifting again. The longer you stay away from writing, the bigger and more daunting the task of writing seems. I think it was Frederik Pohl, the science fiction writer, who advised against ending a writing session at a logical stopping point. He said you should stop in the middle of something, while you have momentum, because that way it's easier to get started the next time.
I'm writing a scene where Tommy reveals to Dolores that he's actually a time traveller. He sort of slips it into a conversation. "Nice weather today. Don't think there's anything good on television tonight. I'm a time traveler. You're going to have to go traveling in time, too. Read any good books lately?" She's disconcerted.
Originally, her name was Farani, which made no sense at all, as I finally had to admit to myself, but it did suit her. Her character has changed a bit, and I needed a name that did make sense in terms of the plot. Dolores is better, but it doesn't suit her. She's not a Dolores, but I can't think what she is. It sort of needs to be an Hispanic name, but preferably one that is also commonly used in the wider society.
I hope the right name will come to me in a blaze of inspiration after a wonderful writing session and while I'm vigorously lifting heavier weights than I've ever lifted before. If not that, then while I'm drinking a beer
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Can't think of a silly title. Maybe I won't bother with those normally.
Just over 800 words tonight. Not bad, especially since the part I wrote included a fairly coldblooded murder, and I had been concerned that I wasn't keeping up the gore component sufficiently. This book requires a considerable amount of gore, or at least serious nastiness. This section also introduced a minor character who may or may not remain minor. I've always enjoyed it when a minor character takes on depth and substance and becomes important. This guy may grow.
I think I have all the difficult parts either written in some form or sufficiently plotted/pinned down/imagined in advance. I should be able to write steadily until it's done, now. That's a comforting feeling. Until I reach this point in a book, I always fear on some level that it won't become a book, that it will end up as a partially complete book, lurking on my hard drive, haunting me for years.
Job stress continues. At some point, the deadlines will be past, and then presumably the stress will be over. I don't know for sure. I haven't been working for this company long enough to have a handle on such things yet.
Just over 800 words tonight. Not bad, especially since the part I wrote included a fairly coldblooded murder, and I had been concerned that I wasn't keeping up the gore component sufficiently. This book requires a considerable amount of gore, or at least serious nastiness. This section also introduced a minor character who may or may not remain minor. I've always enjoyed it when a minor character takes on depth and substance and becomes important. This guy may grow.
I think I have all the difficult parts either written in some form or sufficiently plotted/pinned down/imagined in advance. I should be able to write steadily until it's done, now. That's a comforting feeling. Until I reach this point in a book, I always fear on some level that it won't become a book, that it will end up as a partially complete book, lurking on my hard drive, haunting me for years.
Job stress continues. At some point, the deadlines will be past, and then presumably the stress will be over. I don't know for sure. I haven't been working for this company long enough to have a handle on such things yet.
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