What’s missing is the What

Writing a first novel means trying to make every good idea you’ve ever had work in the story.

Then, writing a first novel becomes extracting almost every idea you’ve ever had from the story.

But the longer you take to tell the story, the more you read and live, the more ideas you generate, then the more you have to filter. At first you feel like you’re trapped in a whirlpool (metaphor ends here). But if you’re lucky, filtering/working out the ideas becomes a lot of fun and a lobe-tickling exercise, and even leads to shiny armor clad moments of near religious ecstasy (Joan of Arc moments).

And if there’s a malevolent Lack of Something in your treasured story that nags you in the middle of the night (keeping you from sleep), nags you in the middle of the day (pausing you in the middle of the street facing traffic and a train coming), that nags you just as you’re about to give the most important speech of your life (okay, your day) or tell someone you love the most important thing you can tell them–filtering new ideas that may vanish the Lack can save your life. (No, I’m not being too fucking dramatic–this is serious shit to the first time novelist.) Especially when you’re so deep in the process of telling your story that only your subconcious knows the truth (ain’t it always so?).

So the other day (he says), I was reading Dave Egger’s What is the What–a novelized account of one of the Lost Boys of the Sudan and his trek from Sudan to the United States (and a beautifully written and moving story) and 50 pages in the other I says, Buddy, there’s a character in your own story who you barely mention, who you dropped in and then out for dramatic effect, but who is an important part of the plot and who, if you take a bit of inspiration and information from WITW, can lift your story, give it contrast, depth, and more complexity that intersects more or less neatly and logically with the other threads. And you don’t have to copy Eggers or work in a Lost Boy–you just have to pay attention to what he’s doing and learn from it. (This is where you, as the blog reader, imagine the reimagined character bursting from the forehead of tall geeky near-sighted Zeus.)

Once I recovered from the adrenaline rush, I set to work thinking and writing out how this boy and his journey will take place and, because I had such a strong reaction, whether he really was too strong for the current story. I spent a day doing that and was happy to find that he did fit without turning him into Gumby, that he also extended and tied up frayed plot elements that happen much later, that’d I’d mentally set aside.

He also reminded me that I had another character, an important character, a very complex Mother character, with particular motivations I hadn’t worked out. Maybe it never ends. Just as long as it leads to writing, that’s okay.

 

Corteo

There’s more wonder in being an adult feeling like a child, than in being the child. Childlike wonder in an adult is bittersweet (like a truffle) and heartswelling (like an ocean bath), and he has visions of it, and words for those visions. He chases angels through the twilight between chromatic clouds, crawls fingertips and knees through glittering underground tunnels, climbs apelike through a forest of dandelion seed, spurs a clown horse over tundra in search of the owner of a single feather, the child’s laugh pressing him forward. That is what he sees, in his visions. What he says, like the cross-lobed streetcorner prophet, tumbles from his mouth in worn stones of words: mystical, wonderful, superb! You must! Ahhhh. Oh yes. Go! Come back. This feather is mine mine! Share…please.

He’s fascinated by his feet, where he sees that his fallen words aren’t stones, but an acrobatic cortege of clowns flipping from his toes into the street, feathers in their caps and completely stealing the scene.

 

First impressions

What was that noise?

First impression: I’m alone in the … and trying to get to sleep and…

First impression: Something woke me and I’m just trying to focus…

First impression: I’m burglaring and…

First impression: The wife and I are alone at last…

First impression: It’s inside of me.

First impression: <explosive cartoon balloon, no time or day or other visual, may go better with “What the hell was that!”>

What’s that light?

I thought we taped all the blanket seams?

It looks like a campfire…

See <explosive cartoon balloon>

What’s that smell?

See all of the above.

I asked myself and two other people these questions without providing a setting or any other cues–the lines above are our immediate reactions. In writing, what are the minimal cues needed to set the scene around a character’s reaction? Our flash response is partially framed by common experience, partially by, well, who we are. My son gave the cartoon balloon response–not once did I consider anything so abstract. When is it important to leave it in the mind of the reader? Possibly too open of a question without more to go on.

Late night ponderings before tomorrow’s visit to my (well heeled) gasteroenterologist, who’ll stick a tube down my throat to determine what’s bugging my esophagus, besides the tube, while I’m loopy on some nifty narcotic (and liable to giggle if I re-ponder any of these during that 5 minute procedure or soon afterward). What is that noise? Well, isn’t that different! And look, colors!

 

Spring lawn fever

Sozzled by constant lawn care responsibilities? No more scissors for your grass, Judy! Modern lawnsters use the Brin Pulsating Lawn Shaver®, with Touch-n-Go® technology to shave more blades with every stroke. Neighbor ladies will give your man the approving nod when they see his perfect grass, so keep him on a leash! The programmable Pulsonic Edge Guard® accessory keeps your sod a sharp one mm off walks and drives, and creates an invisible fence against pesky intruders. It’s a lawn so perfect it’ll confound a cat!

 

Conducting business as usual

This morning, across from the Coffee Plant (my favorite downtown Portland coffee dive), I watched a street person conducting the activities of an ATM from the front patio of a tall steel and glass bank building. He was standing about 15 feet back, waving and pointing his hands and fingers with wild precision at the flashy, extra large ATM screen–think Leonard Berstein or Tom Cruise at his holographic interface in Minority Report. He looked about mid-30’s, 6 feetish (tall, not number of metatarsal foundations), in dirty layers and knit cap, and almost serene. He was as good as any performance artist (and could have been one). The few people passing in and out of the building didn’t visibly pay him much attention. I’m not sure what would have happened if anyone else tried to use the ATM–I guess they’d have to get in line.

I can’t project what may have been on his mind, what he may have been seeing; if he was just drawing neon squiggles in the air or absorbed in bending the ATM to his will–similar to what I did as a kid standing at the edge of the Pacific surf, commanding the waves to stop at my feet. Knowing that I’d positioned myself for almost certain success didn’t stop the guilty rush of power I felt when the mighty ocean, when gravity itself, succumbed to my will. There was always the chance that a big ignorant wave would piggyback on another and wash over my feet and suck my toes into the sand, and I’d have to teach it a lesson by whipping the next five or so waves into submission (literally, if a big sea onion was handy). Then I’d take off with my luck intact before a big one came along to dethrone me or otherwise kick my ass. (I’ve seen all my kids exercise the same power trip, arm outstretched and palm out, shouting “stop, I command youuuu” and then race off giggling when the ocean changed the rules.)

 

The Writing Tag Lesson

Trudi Topham, another WordPress blogger, has some educational things to say about/to ignoramuses like me who freely “create” tags and categories for our entries, perhaps thinking that these labels apply only to our own blogs as internal nav; not knowing that these tags are global to WordPress and are searched by people seeking (even casually) a random expulsion, tidbit of wisdom or paranoia, or insightful commentary or analysis that sparks.

Read her post. It’s a good one.

She inadvertently alerted me to this problem by commenting on my end of the week wordplay (what can you do with a nutriceutical), that led me to her blog and the lesson. With billions of monkeys at keyboards, there aren’t many unique tags I can create (unless I use the “strong password” method of combining special characters, upper and lower case, and integers; for example: $Nut-j0B!). Time for me to rethink how I’m categorizing and tagging so that I can gain appropriate readership and allow visitors to find all my delightful entries (there’s no “delightful” tag or category–that would be redundant).

The catch-22: that wordplay entry was, I think, miscategorized as “writing,” which probably led her to it, where she left a sensible comment about my favorite entry, which led me to her blog, which resulting epiphany caused me to recategorize that wordplay, which would have kept her from finding it, and me in cloudy bliss. It’s not fate, it’s just the Web. And using your mistakes like a flashlight.

 

Friday is free association day

At work today, the word “nutriceutical” stuck in my head (I don’t know its spelling but am okay with that). Then it started rattling around like a gumball. Or like a dried pea.

• nutriceutical
• neuter receptacle
• nut receptacle (that would be my cube)
• new trick tentacle
• no tri-cuticles (read the sign)
• nutria cute, Al!
• new trick zoo cows
• nuts trick cute owl
• no treats for you, gal!

I’ll stop at the precipice.

• nutter tries to chill

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhh!

 

Why write

Write because intentional ambiguities are beautiful–when they mean something.

Write because in writing you can act out your insanities in the sanest of ways.

Write because you desperately seek and fear the pat on the back.

Write because you can’t stand not knowing what’s going on in the minds and lives of others, so you make it up.

Write because the idea of legacy is appealing, if even if it lasts only for a generation and the only people who care are children–your’s, if you have them.

Write because you think it’s the only thing you’re good at. Who cares if anyone else thinks differently–they have their biases, too.

Write because you’re good with words, even if you have nothing important to say. Someday, out of nowhere, you will. (Cleverness will get you by in between times.)

Write because you can craft plots like Scheherazade, even if your word coining skills feel counterfeit. Eventually, you’ll earn the keys to the mint.

Write because, if you don’t, all you have is Potential (a word that should be tied in a gunny sack and dropped into the Columbia at midnight from the middle of the Interstate bridge).

Write because it’s the best way to explore what it’s like to be bipolar.

(Why’dya do it? What led ya to it? See the series at http://whywewriteseries.wordpress.com/.)

 

Genre busters chop wood, carry water

The London Times essay linked below is another knot in a recent string of reactions to (non SF) lit crits dissing science or speculative fiction genres and people leaping (some like crickets) to the defense of genre. This one’s well written, but for heaven’s sake…

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article2961480.ece

…why should we continue to scrap with stringy goblins, evil queens of industry, or scene-stealing Hutts who insist on debasing the merits of story based on genre (unless we’re talking about the business of genre)? It’s a lot of shagging the flagpole (problematic in winter months). So my snotty reply: there’s only one genre of fiction, called story. I constantly find great stories in libraries or bookstores and online that resonate a little or a lot, and often in surprising (O Damn That’s Right!) ways. I subcat this genre with my own internal tags–fiction being the genre that is everything to anyone, as personal to the reader as the publisher’s thong-strapped fleshy bottom line is to stockholders. Recent tags:

• This was important to me (I think I’ll hug it)
• This generated a rash of ideas that creams and ointments can’t banish
• This I couldn’t put down but also couldn’t bear to think of it ending (resulting in a psychosis of parallel worlds I’ve lived in since childhood)
• This one seemed like a good idea at the time
• This one I can’t describe in a blip, but boy oh boyo, you really outta
• This I just couldn’t finish, but I’ll probably lie to the friend who recommended it
• This one will still be there when I’m ready for it
• This one was written by someone who is very very very smart
• Hey, this person writes like me! It could be me! Why couldn’t it be me? Son of a gun. Son of a bitch.

If you want to pump up a genre, I think the world needs more more sonnet-writing tarts with pocket protectors and thick lenses. Of course, I’m just speculating….

(This is all easy to say. Writers need to be genre conscious because that’s how writing is marketed. And people can poo poo SF all they wish–it’s still on the shelves–in many booksellers, on many many shelves, and on those shelves you’ll find at least a smattering of incredible fiction that qualifies for that genre-free “story” genre.)

 

Timely books that need a home

Recently displayed in New Nonfiction at the Beaverton Powell’s Books not far from my home:

Are You My Obama?

Three Little Kits Have Lost Their Mitts

Hillary Mounts Everest

Me, I’d like to see Obama and Richardson on the Demo ticket and win the election–we might just have a chance of presenting a different face to the world that isn’t just about hope and isn’t all about power politics. Unless Obama brings the same irritating email marketeers to the White House that are currently on his campaign staff. I recently donated a small sum and have received weekly email asking for more money in the tone of “For just another $25, little Barrack can get the operation that will save his life and the world.”