Balls and Walnuts
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Category Archives: Writer’s Life
Friday night reading material
Paperback Writer recently discussed posting short stories on one’s blog. You can blame her for this.
Here’s a link to “The Mechanic,” a story I published in 2004 at a small but very cool crime zine, Crime Scene Scotland. Of all my shorts, it’s my favorite. Best characters, best narrative drive, best ending. What, that isn’t enough? But wait, there’s more:
Pickle deep-throating!
Spanking!
Automotive violence!
I might turn it into a novel one of these days (I would flash forward twenty years and have my two protagonists meet again). Who knows.
Use this post as your comment thread on the story, if you’d like.
D.
Two thin letters
Received: two thin letters, both SASEs, both rejections*. I have a third query floating out there in query-space, but it’s addressed to a Big Name. Fat chance.
On the other hand, I made it into a Big Name med school after getting rejected by nine others. To be more precise, Big Name School of Medicine wait-listed me for a few months, then tapped me late in the summer of ’90.
I nearly missed out on a future full of boogery.
Question to my author-readers: do your agents represent science fiction? And, if they do, how would you feel about putting in a kind word for me?
Figure on me being a total noodge for a while.
D.
*Neither were form letters, and both were kind. But one of ’em, it was clear this fellow hadn’t even looked at the chapters — not with any care, anyway, since he got the manuscript title wrong.
Bring on the Guardcocks
My beta and gamma readers know what I’m talking about, but for the rest of you, that title requires an explanation.
Thirteen books I’ll never finish
Wherein I get in touch with my inner Philistine.
1. Europe, A History by Norman Davies. Too many words. Besides, nothing much has happened in Europe for the past two millennia.
2. The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. Why should I read this? I watched the movie.
3. The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence. Ditto. You know what’s interesting about this book? Lawrence felt it necessary to address the homosexuality issue right on page one.
4. The Danzig Trilogy by Gunter Grass. Because life is depressing enough as it is.
5. The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories. It seemed like such a good idea: read Doyle’s classic mysteries and develop my forearm muscles at the same time.
6. The Best American Short Stories of the Century, edited by John Updike and Katrina Kenison. I wondered if every story’s ending would make me go, “Huh?” After the fourth or fifth one, I gave up.
7. Tractate Berachos I and II. Every Jewish boy, no matter how agnostic, secretly desires to be a Talmudic scholar. To my credit, I made a dent in Volume 1.
8. King Rat and Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. I want to like Mieville. I really do. There must be some reason why he’s so popular. All the elements are there: good words, good sentences, good paragraphs. And yet, with each book, I gave up after less than 100 pages because I simply didn’t care.
9. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. I don’t know what I was thinking. I read Albert Zuckerman’s Writing the Blockbuster Novel and took his advice on what to buy. (The Godfather is a fine novel. The Thorn Birds, Gone with the Wind, and The Man from St. Petersburg? Meh.)
10. Pierre by Herman Melville. I once asked my college English teacher, “What was the most depressing English-language book ever written?” She asked her colleagues, and they came up with Pierre. I couldn’t get past page one. Not that it’s depressing . . . it’s boring. And while I’m tempted to put Moby Dick on the list, too, I’m reluctant. There’s all that homoerotic stuff concerning Queequeg, the huge South Sea Islander who is never without his harpoon . . . GUFFAW! Damn, I have to finish Moby Dick some day.
11. John Updike’s Rabbit novels. A patient gave me the collection and told me, “You’ll love these,” which only underscores one of the basic truths of medicine: Your patients don’t really know you.
12. Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow. I liked Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom so much that I bought this one in hard cover. But, but, but . . . the protag’s mom is a washing machine: “Alan’s mother rocked harder, and her exhaust hose dislodged itself.” And that’s just a tidbit.
I thought I liked strange, but this novel surpassed my tolerance for absurdity. I’m sorry. For me, a fantasy world should make sense. It should have rules. Doctorow’s world may have had rules, but I never made it that far.
Great cover art, though.
And last but not least . . .
13. The Lord of the Rings. How many times have I tried to finish this trilogy? A skazillion. Most recently, I made it about halfway, and then Tom Bombadil killed my reading pleasure.
That’s it for now, folks. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m starting to run out of Thursday Thirteen ideas. I’m open to suggestion.
***
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You know what to do. Do it.
Darla invites us into her magic garden
JMC dishes up a smorgasbord of memories
D.
Blockhead
Today, Paperback Writer has an interesting post (and comment thread) on the related topics of writer’s block and hypergraphia (Paperback Writer: Stalled and Driven). This reminded me of my all-time worst experience with writer’s block.
A few years ago, I wrote a short story (“All Change”) for a Writer’s BBS challenge. One of the other participants, a guy with some experience writing screenplays, gushed that I should be writing screenplays. If I wanted to turn “All Change” into a screenplay, he’d be happy to collaborate with me.
What the hell, thought I. If nothing else, I might learn a thing or two about writing screenplays. I agreed to the collaboration and before long we were emailing each other back and forth something furious.
Things went well at first. As long as we stuck to brainstorming, we got along fine, but when it came to the writing itself we snagged on every line. I wanted to scream at him at least two or three times a day, and I don’t doubt that he felt the same way about me. After several weeks of this hell, we parted sort-of amicably.
A week later, he wrote to tell me that our collaboration had fired up his creative juices and he was writing faster and better than he ever had before. My wife, disappointed that this partnership had fallen through (greed had pickled her brain), decided she would finish the screenplay. She did, too. It still exists in Rough Draft Space on our hard drive, and one of these days I suppose she or I will take another look at it.
So . . . my erstwhile partner is writing faster and better than ever, and my wife is chugging away on the screenplay, and I’m blocked. Even thinking about writing made me vaguely nauseated.
I broke the block the way I usually break my blocks: flash fiction. Can’t remember what I wrote, but I slammed through 1000 words of something, and after that I was all better. As for “All Change,” it became my first print publication (“The Gorjun is Free,” in Continuum). I still think it’s a way cool story, but don’t expect to see it in theaters any time soon.
D.
What to do, what to do . . .
This has been bugging me for the last few months.
Here’s a writing question for all of you — especially those of you who are wise in the ways of publishing. Should I try to get the first book of my trilogy published ASAP, or should I wait until I’ve finished editing the whole trilogy?
The facts:
1. The first book is ready to be shipped, assuming none of my gamma readers detects any major plot holes. I really don’t think I’ll be making any further substantive changes to book one.
2. Since this is satire, some of the humor is topical. I’d rather not try to sell this book after Bush is out of office. On the other hand, I suspect many folks will read this book and not notice any parallel to modern politics.
3. I’m halfway through the edit on book two. At the rate I’m editing, it may take me another year to finish the edit on books two and three.
4. If pressed, I could synopsize books two and three before I finish editing them, but the final results may differ significantly from the synopses.
5. I would dearly love to send out book one to agents, but if this looks premature (or, God forbid, amateurish), I’d rather wait.
I hope a few of you will let me know what you think. Thanks.
D.
Reversal of Fortune
Everyone recognizes that conflict and struggle are essential elements of any story, be it dramatic or humorous, and most books on writing craft also emphasize the desirability of change in the main character. Thus, a good story must feature a main character who changes as a result of his struggles.Which brings me to this guy:
Last night, before completely zonking out, Karen and I watched the opening to Tim Burton’s 1996 movie, Mars Attacks! The film follows the usual grand action movie pattern of introducing multiple characters who will, over time, change. Think about Poseidon Adventure, Airplane, Independence Day, or Starship Troopers.
Even though many of my books on craft emphasize that boring little pearl repeated above, few (one, IIRC) point out that the best kind of change is a reversal. The coward becomes the brave hero; the all-powerful criminal mastermind is revealed as a weakling; the cold and distant (though handsome) love interest becomes warm and lovable; the innocent loses his innocence, and the boy becomes a man. I would argue that reversal gives viewers/readers the most satisfying emotional experience.
Mars Attacks! provides a number of examples.
What I didn’t do today, and why.
Today, I didn’t catch up on my chart basket. I didn’t call 15 voters in California’s 50th District, encouraging them to go out and vote for Francine Busby. I barely glanced at the Huffington Post headlines, Daily Kos, or The News Blog.
I dropped by my own blog briefly, left a couple of comments, got distracted. I stopped by Beth’s place only long enough to let her know that my weak attempt at SBD was day-old Harry Potter porn. And that’s all the blogging I did today.
Yes, I did my job, saw patients, made a few people better. But I would have shirked that responsibility too, if I could have gotten away with it. Why? Because of this book:
The losing entry is . . .
For those of you who have been following Miss Snark‘s writing contest, here’s my entry. Beats me why it didn’t cut the muster. (Hey — just found out, Stephen won! Here’s a link to the winning entry.)
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Internal consistency check
For Smart Bitches Day, I thought it would be fun to see if my views on the romance genre are stable over time, or if I am thoroughly full of shit.
Remember the post where I went on and on about what I wanted from a romance novel? Well, I found one I really, really liked: Jennifer Crusie’s Bet Me, recommended by the wonderful, insightful Darla.