Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Category Archives: Writer’s Life
Editing . . .
I’m more than halfway through my first read-through and really enjoying the story. Some time ago, I must have mentioned the fact that I write primarily to please myself. Consequently, I tend to love my own writing with a most unhealthy lack of objectivity.
So, so unprofessional. But here I am, giggling away at my own jokes.
Tammy, by the way, truly is a wicked wench. My wife was doing just fine reading my manuscript until we received the ARC for Tammy’s Valley of the Soul. Then Karen “got distracted.” Thanks, Tam.
Karen is easily distracted from my manuscript, particularly since she reads it not as romance but as autobiography. I can’t imagine what she means by that. I’m not tall, I don’t look a thing like Adam Sandler, and I’m an even better cook than Brad. But if she wants to act out scenes from the book with me, I’m game.
The question I’m mulling is how much to add to the manuscript. Karen thinks the relationship needs to play out over more time. As it presently reads, the whole thing is very much a whirlwind. Is this necessarily a bad thing? But the more I futz with the timeline, the more difficult my editing job will be.
Gotta think about it.
Time to go shopping.
***
Live blogging tonight, folks. Let’s shoot for 7 PM Pacific time. The weather cooled off some, so I doubt I’ll be topless this time. Sorry.
D.
Honesty, humor, and SERIOUS fiction
Only one point to make here, people: SERIOUS fiction (all caps because, you know, these literary fiction writers are SERIOUS, unlike us genre writers) does not have a monopoly on honesty.
I thought about this while listening to my new Gogol Bordello CD, Voi-La Intruder. The song is called “God-Like” and here are the first few stanzas:
You and I resemble god
made by him to come after him
everything in us resembles god
except for one thingEverything in us resembles god
except for one thing.
Everything in us resembles god
except for one thing.I am a liar you are a cheater
I am a thief and you are a traitor
I’m downright stupid
and you are paranoid
haha, there’s more than oneWell let’s just keep going, then;
When I screw
I don’t care for the beauty.
I drape myself over hands that are crookedWhen I’m hurting myself
I just try to hurt you
you respond with tears
but they are never true
Read the rest of the lyrics here.
When I first listened to this song, I felt a strange pleasure rushing through me as I recognized that unique mixture of honesty and humor, something buoyed up from the well of emotion found in a real, loving-and-hating relationship. I realized that it doesn’t matter whether you’re writing lyrics, genre lit, or literary lit. If the honesty isn’t there, the writing is crap.
Remember these lyrics?
I need you, babe
To put through the shredder
In front of my friends
Ooooh Babe.
Dont leave me now.
How could you go?
When you know how I need you
To beat to a pulp on a Saturday night
Ooooh Babe.
How could you treat me this way?
Karen and I have always loved that song for its honesty. The protagonist is a creep, an abuser, but he’s honest enough to bare it all and expose himself to universal contempt. Also, as painful as this song is, black humor abounds.
I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that humor can be taken as an index of honesty in writing. I’m not saying humorless writing is dishonest — but if the author hasn’t mined the humor from a situation, he hasn’t done the full job.
What do you think?
D.
Snip
I reread the ending over lunch and made some minor edits. I like it. I really do.
Next, I printed out a hard copy of the full manuscript so that I can get down to business editing. Halfway through the print job I picked up a random page, read it, and started giggling. This is either a very good sign, or else it means I’m one of those pathetic losers who laughs at his own jokes.
Anyway.
Here’s what I was laughing at — below the cut:
Done!
The romance, or whatever it is, she is finis.
Final word count for this first version: 90,122.
Here’s when I started it: May 29, just over three months ago.
It took me a little over 18 months to write my SF trilogy (300K words). I may not be getting better, but I’m certainly getting faster.
To my betas: let me stew on this a bit before sending it out. And thank you.
D.
Kitties (redux)!
As you may recall, we had Ash and Mist for all of about three days before we had to bring them into the vet for an herpetic eye infection. Since they wouldn’t let us medicate them (well, they would, but they each required a blood sacrifice from us prior to each dosage), we boarded them at our animal hospital and let the vet techs take the brunt of Kitty Wrath.
They’re back, thank heavens, and settling in nicely. Here’s a photo of Mist.
In other news: I’ve had a decent writing weekend so far and I may even finish the NiP. Much depends on what my muse decides tonight while I’m sleeping. Cutesy rom-com wrapup, or something approaching realism? Don’t know. Guess I’ll find out.
In any case, nearly 4K words later, I’m written out.
D.
What Killer Yap didn’t get to see
I didn’t make the random cut for Miss Snark’s crap-o-meter, so I thought I would float my entry here instead. You may unleash your own crap-o-meters on me, if you like. Apologies to my beta readers — you’ve all read my first page, so this is nothing new.
Here goes:
Dear Ms. Snark,
I am seeking representation for my completed 90,000-word romance novel, _Technical Virgins_. Similar in style and humor to the work of Sandra Hill or Jennifer Crusie, _Technical Virgins_ concerns two surgeons-in-training who have been too busy/distracted/emotionally whacked to have a normal romantic life – but that is about to change.
I am uniquely qualified to write this story, as I
*am a surgeon who trained at a busy community hospital, just like my protagonists,
*share many of my hero’s obsessions and interests, kinky and otherwise,
*was a virgin for longer than I care to admit.This is my first novel, but I have several e-zine and print-zine publications to my credit.
Attached, you will find the first page of _Technical Virgins_. I look forward to hearing from you.
Best,
(Me)
This is not entirely accurate, since the manuscript is neither finished nor polished, so I’m not ready to float it to agents. But I figured the point of the exercise was to pretend the manuscript was ready and go from there.
First page below the cut.
SBD: Dangerous Ideas
Americans like to fight over dangerous ideas. Evolution, there’s a good one. God help us if we could have gotten here without God, you know? Democracy is another dangerous idea. See: Lamont vs. Lieberman and all the fear-fallout that occurred when the people’s candidate won the primary.
But this isn’t about politics. This is about another set of dangerous ideas, ideas that go largely unchallenged by the fundamentalists, that permeate our supermarkets, our libraries, our bookstores. Ideas that threaten the family, people!
I’m talking about that most insidious of genres, ROMANCE.
Taking one for the team
This is the funniest political protest song I’ve heard in the last godawful six years. Big tip of my hat to Blue Gal. I also understand from Blue Gal’s post today that tomorrow is Blog Katrina Day. Hope I can think of something worthwhile to say.
***
Meanwhile, back at Chez Walnut, I made some o’ this today:
CRÈME SAINT-HONORÉ OR CRÈME CHIBOUST
Crème Saint-Honoré is a crème pâtissière lightened with stiffly beaten egg whites or whipped cream. A.k.a. Chiboust cream — crème Chiboust — this mixture can be flavoured with vanilla, chocolate, praline, liqueur, grated orange zest etc.
It’s pretty effing amazing how much of this stuff you end up with if you start with five measly eggs. Five eggs . . . that’s like a two-person omelet, for the love of everything unhealthy. I’m going to use it to make a trifle, along with some pound cake, raspberries, and fruit preserves. Nonalcoholic trifle so the boy will eat it, too.
I also made some yummy chopped chicken liver. Although I mentioned this aaaages ago, I never gave a proper recipe. Anyone interested?
***
Decent writing weekend, by the way — about 7000 words thus far. I’d like to get one last 1000-word scene written, but I’m getting a bit pooped.
I’m at 80K words on this NiP and I suspect I need another 10 or 15K words to wrap things up nicely. A little long for a first novel, but I should be able to edit out some of the drier medical passages.
Still not happy with titles. I like Sloppy Firsts, but that’s been done. Technical Virgins hasn’t been nabbed yet for fiction, as best I can tell, but it doesn’t have the same sense of fun as Sloppy Firsts. And it’s important to convey the fun.
Off to check mail . . .
D.
SBD: Do you really need that ring?
To get the taste of Trouble in High Heels out of my mouth, I picked up Jennifer Crusie’s Fast Women at our local used bookstore. I peeled through it in a week, record time for me.
Here’s the set-up: sisters-in-law Nell, Suze, and Margie (related through their marriages to the men of the Dysart family) are the eponymous fast women. Nell, our protag, has been through a rough divorce. Forty-something, cancer thin, and an emotional zombie, she takes a temp job at a detective agency, where she soon tries to run Gabe McKenna’s life and gets her post-divorce cherry popped by Gabe’s cousin Riley.
Despite the early Nell-on-Riley action, this is Gabe’s and Nell’s romance, with Suze + Riley playing a strong supporting role. An embezzling mystery (which soon becomes a murder mystery) provides a good slug of narrative drive, as does the verbal back-and-forth between Gabe and Nell. Margie is the weak link of the team, a bewildering character whom Crusie did little to develop.
For me, the most interesting part of Fast Women was Crusie’s dissection of the reasons why people get married. She seems to be saying that folks get married for the wrong reasons all the time, so it’s not enough to end that romance with a ring — the ring needs to be offered for the right reasons, too. As Nell speculates towards the end,
It should be harder to get married, she thought. You should have to take tests, get a learner’s permit, you should need more than a pulse and twenty bucks to get a license.
For today’s Smart Bitches Day post, I’d like to pose a question: is marriage a necessity for an HEA?
Let’s look at it. Happily ever after. We end up together, we’re bonded, we’ve vowed to be there for one another no matter what crap the fates throw our way. Sure sounds like marriage to me, but that narrowminded opinion shows disrespect to those folks who have bonded for life without license, ring, or ceremony. Alan Rickman and his gal, for example. And what about all the married couples who are living unhappily ever after, or have made a farce of their vows? Surely happily ever after should not require a wedding ring.
Opinions?
D.
PS: There’s even some girl-on-girl action in Fast Women. I shit you not. I would have taken it a good deal farther, but that’s me for you.