Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 204
March 5, 2016
Caught up, sort of...
My taxes are ready to take to the CPA, and small wonder I'm in a mess. I made less, this year, and spent more. The one positive is my tax burden won't be quite as bad as 2014's...but I do wish my debt were going down instead of up.
As regards Underground Guy, I read the following article, and this part of it resonated with me --
4 Tips for Building a Novel Writing Career Right Now (no waiting!)
By Kevin Tumlinson
Monday, December 7th, 2015
...
1. WRITE NOW, EDIT LATER
I can sum up this whole tip in one sentence:
“When you’re writing, your only job is to write.”
Simple, right? Yet after years of talking to aspiring writers, this is the one thing that has hands-down proven toughest to get across. For some reason, we just can’t turn off the Inner Editor.
The problem is, we’ve been fooled by our own nature.
There’s a delusion we’ve fallen victim to—and it’s the idea that if we edit and make the writing perfect as we go, we cut the whole process in half. We think that by editing as we write, we’re saving ourselves double work later.
The reality is, we actually increase the amount of time we spend. And it’s not just double … it’s an exponential increase. We end up busting our momentum and slowing ourselves down, getting off track and increasing the risk of losing the thread of the story altogether.
If we want to write faster, we have to turn off our Inner Editor and just write.
Let’s just get one thing straight—you are never going to escape editing. Not if you want to do this work for a living. Editing has its time and place, however, and that is definitely not during the actual writing.
Turn off your Inner Editor, send him or her on a vacation and then just start writing in total freedom. Spend your energy on making tons of mistakes, going on wild tangents, flinging words on the page like a monkey flinging poo at zoo-goers. You’ll make a heck of a mess, but it will be a glorious mess.
Later, when you pull on your Editor Pants™ you’ll find yourself coming across happy little accidents. You’ll laugh at something you wrote that you couldn't have planned in advance. You’ll discover that you took chances with your narrative that you might never have taken with the overly cautious Inner Editor nagging your every word. In short, you’ll have a better book because you did your only real job at the time.
...
I am so guilty of this...and it's truly hurt me on Place of Safety. I'm gonna stop that, beginning with UG. No more reworking it till I have at least a first draft done.
Famous last words...
As regards Underground Guy, I read the following article, and this part of it resonated with me --
4 Tips for Building a Novel Writing Career Right Now (no waiting!)
By Kevin Tumlinson
Monday, December 7th, 2015
...
1. WRITE NOW, EDIT LATER
I can sum up this whole tip in one sentence:
“When you’re writing, your only job is to write.”
Simple, right? Yet after years of talking to aspiring writers, this is the one thing that has hands-down proven toughest to get across. For some reason, we just can’t turn off the Inner Editor.
The problem is, we’ve been fooled by our own nature.
There’s a delusion we’ve fallen victim to—and it’s the idea that if we edit and make the writing perfect as we go, we cut the whole process in half. We think that by editing as we write, we’re saving ourselves double work later.
The reality is, we actually increase the amount of time we spend. And it’s not just double … it’s an exponential increase. We end up busting our momentum and slowing ourselves down, getting off track and increasing the risk of losing the thread of the story altogether.
If we want to write faster, we have to turn off our Inner Editor and just write.
Let’s just get one thing straight—you are never going to escape editing. Not if you want to do this work for a living. Editing has its time and place, however, and that is definitely not during the actual writing.
Turn off your Inner Editor, send him or her on a vacation and then just start writing in total freedom. Spend your energy on making tons of mistakes, going on wild tangents, flinging words on the page like a monkey flinging poo at zoo-goers. You’ll make a heck of a mess, but it will be a glorious mess.
Later, when you pull on your Editor Pants™ you’ll find yourself coming across happy little accidents. You’ll laugh at something you wrote that you couldn't have planned in advance. You’ll discover that you took chances with your narrative that you might never have taken with the overly cautious Inner Editor nagging your every word. In short, you’ll have a better book because you did your only real job at the time.
...
I am so guilty of this...and it's truly hurt me on Place of Safety. I'm gonna stop that, beginning with UG. No more reworking it till I have at least a first draft done.
Famous last words...
March 2, 2016
Life intrudes...
Have to get taxes ready for my CPA, giving me an excuse to let the storms settle in my brain's writing side. So here's an article I stole off The Page Awards Newsletter about Aaron Sorkin:
The article is by Zoe Simmons
Writer Aaron Sorkin once said, “I enter the world through what I write.” And I imagine that this is how many of you feel as you work on your scripts in the quiet of your room.
I know that sometimes dreams can seem far out of reach and you may at times wonder whether to give up or continue to hang in there and risk it all. So I thought Aaron Sorkin would be a good mentor for this month.
The first three films Aaron Sorkin wrote grossed $400 million: A Few Good Men, Malice, and The American President. His personal net worth now hovers around $80 million. But this is a man who started from nothing. He worked his way up. He struggled with his own demons. He risked it all and failed over and over again.
How did he do it? Here are some facts I culled for you to ponder:
While in college, a favorite professor kept telling Sorkin, “You have the capacity to be so much more!” When Sorkin asked “How?” his professor said, “Dare to fail.” Sorkin has been following that admonition ever since.
Sorkin originally wanted to be an actor and it was “just a chore to get through English class.” In the ‘80s, as a struggling actor in New York, he was working a plethora of odd jobs: delivering singing telegrams, driving a limo, handing out fliers dressed as a moose, telemarketing, and bartending at Broadway’s Palace Theatre. One weekend while housesitting for someone, he found an IBM Selectric typewriter, started typing, and “felt a phenomenal confidence and joy” that he had never experienced before. Remember the first time you touched on your own talent – how exciting and remarkable a moment that was? Sorkin started writing A Few Good Men on cocktail napkins. He would come home late at night with a pocket full of cocktail napkins that he had written on at work, then enter them into the Macintosh 512K that he and his roommates had purchased together. He wrote several drafts of A Few Good Men this way, learning his craft through a book on formatting.
In the early ‘90s, Sorkin did uncredited script doctoring on The Rock, Enemy of the State and Excess Baggage. He then signed a contract with Castle Rock, where he wrote Malice and The American President. The American President took him several years to complete, as his early drafts were over 385 pages long and he had to whittle the script down to the then required 120 pages.
Sorkin’s huge television hit The West Wing came about by sheer accident, as he went unprepared to a lunch with John Wells and in a panic pitched the idea for the show using leftover ideas from his original, overlong script for The American President.
Like you, Sorkin has his “down days,” especially when starting a new script. He readily admits the paralyzing fear that greets him every time he faces that first blank page. He says, “I love writing. I hate starting.” He refers to himself as a “screw-up.” He does know his strengths, however. He always knew he had a knack for great dialogue. “Dialogue sounds like music to me,” he says. He describes his writing process as “physical” because he will often stand up and speak the dialogue he is writing.
Sorkin says that whether you’re writing a movie, play or a TV series, “your characters have to WANT something. The real rules are the rules of drama, the rules that Aristotle talks about. Somebody’s got to want something, and something’s got to be standing in their way of getting it. You just look for a point of friction. You do that and you’ll have a scene. The underlying motivation is the drive shaft.”
Sorkin believes it is always the artist’s job to entertain the audience. He says, “My job is to captivate you for however long you give me your attention. I want it to have been worth it for everyone to sit through (my work) for however long I ask them to.”
Sorkin’s advice to young writers? “Every once in awhile you’ll succeed; most of the time you’ll fail. The circumstances will be well beyond your control. Trust your own compass, take risks, dare to fail.” At the end of the day, he says, “The world doesn’t care how many times you fall down, as long as it’s one fewer than the number of times you get back up.”
... I encourage you to take Aaron Sorkin’s words to heart. "Trust your own compass. Take risks. Dare to fail." Because, ultimately, that’s the only way you will ever succeed. Most importantly, as Sorkin says, “Don’t ever forget that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world; it’s the only thing that ever has.”
The article is by Zoe Simmons
Writer Aaron Sorkin once said, “I enter the world through what I write.” And I imagine that this is how many of you feel as you work on your scripts in the quiet of your room.
I know that sometimes dreams can seem far out of reach and you may at times wonder whether to give up or continue to hang in there and risk it all. So I thought Aaron Sorkin would be a good mentor for this month.
The first three films Aaron Sorkin wrote grossed $400 million: A Few Good Men, Malice, and The American President. His personal net worth now hovers around $80 million. But this is a man who started from nothing. He worked his way up. He struggled with his own demons. He risked it all and failed over and over again.
How did he do it? Here are some facts I culled for you to ponder:
While in college, a favorite professor kept telling Sorkin, “You have the capacity to be so much more!” When Sorkin asked “How?” his professor said, “Dare to fail.” Sorkin has been following that admonition ever since.
Sorkin originally wanted to be an actor and it was “just a chore to get through English class.” In the ‘80s, as a struggling actor in New York, he was working a plethora of odd jobs: delivering singing telegrams, driving a limo, handing out fliers dressed as a moose, telemarketing, and bartending at Broadway’s Palace Theatre. One weekend while housesitting for someone, he found an IBM Selectric typewriter, started typing, and “felt a phenomenal confidence and joy” that he had never experienced before. Remember the first time you touched on your own talent – how exciting and remarkable a moment that was? Sorkin started writing A Few Good Men on cocktail napkins. He would come home late at night with a pocket full of cocktail napkins that he had written on at work, then enter them into the Macintosh 512K that he and his roommates had purchased together. He wrote several drafts of A Few Good Men this way, learning his craft through a book on formatting.
In the early ‘90s, Sorkin did uncredited script doctoring on The Rock, Enemy of the State and Excess Baggage. He then signed a contract with Castle Rock, where he wrote Malice and The American President. The American President took him several years to complete, as his early drafts were over 385 pages long and he had to whittle the script down to the then required 120 pages.
Sorkin’s huge television hit The West Wing came about by sheer accident, as he went unprepared to a lunch with John Wells and in a panic pitched the idea for the show using leftover ideas from his original, overlong script for The American President.
Like you, Sorkin has his “down days,” especially when starting a new script. He readily admits the paralyzing fear that greets him every time he faces that first blank page. He says, “I love writing. I hate starting.” He refers to himself as a “screw-up.” He does know his strengths, however. He always knew he had a knack for great dialogue. “Dialogue sounds like music to me,” he says. He describes his writing process as “physical” because he will often stand up and speak the dialogue he is writing.
Sorkin says that whether you’re writing a movie, play or a TV series, “your characters have to WANT something. The real rules are the rules of drama, the rules that Aristotle talks about. Somebody’s got to want something, and something’s got to be standing in their way of getting it. You just look for a point of friction. You do that and you’ll have a scene. The underlying motivation is the drive shaft.”
Sorkin believes it is always the artist’s job to entertain the audience. He says, “My job is to captivate you for however long you give me your attention. I want it to have been worth it for everyone to sit through (my work) for however long I ask them to.”
Sorkin’s advice to young writers? “Every once in awhile you’ll succeed; most of the time you’ll fail. The circumstances will be well beyond your control. Trust your own compass, take risks, dare to fail.” At the end of the day, he says, “The world doesn’t care how many times you fall down, as long as it’s one fewer than the number of times you get back up.”
... I encourage you to take Aaron Sorkin’s words to heart. "Trust your own compass. Take risks. Dare to fail." Because, ultimately, that’s the only way you will ever succeed. Most importantly, as Sorkin says, “Don’t ever forget that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world; it’s the only thing that ever has.”
March 1, 2016
My own private psychoses...
I have to wonder just how insane I sound when I start complaining about my characters and how I sometimes hate them because of the crap they pull. Didn't this get people lobotomized, once upon a time? I'm beginning to understand how that can be a blessed thing.
I'm having some great back and forth with Devlin Pope, right now, from Underground Guy. He was pushing me to get rid of the serial killer aspect of the story and make it about a couple of guys -- one gay, one straight -- coming to terms with themselves and things they've done. So I redid the first 28 pages of the book into that. Set that up. It moves faster. Stronger. Better. And then stops dead. Brick wall dead. A solid ten feet deep.
Reg -- Reginald Brewster Thornton, the underground guy -- doesn't like it. He doesn't know who or what he is, anymore. And Dev is sitting there thinking...well...maybe it wasn't such a good move, after all. No big deal to put it back the way it was, right? No, you little shit; it's just days of work wasted making it read correct.
Now Dev's pissed at me because I'm not being nice about him fucking around with me. And Reg is hurt and unhappy because he feels betrayed at not being asked about this. And other characters are not talking to me because they were being cut out. And I'm ready for my padded room.
It's times like these I wish I'd stuck with art. My sketches and paintings never talked back to me. Or if they did, I wasn't listening...or I was so in sync with them, there was no need for confrontative communication. I'm feeling the urge, right now, to dump the story and pull out my old acrylics and whip up a couple of things, even if all they do is let me vent.
Maybe I should just stick with The Vanishing of Owen Taylor.
I'm having some great back and forth with Devlin Pope, right now, from Underground Guy. He was pushing me to get rid of the serial killer aspect of the story and make it about a couple of guys -- one gay, one straight -- coming to terms with themselves and things they've done. So I redid the first 28 pages of the book into that. Set that up. It moves faster. Stronger. Better. And then stops dead. Brick wall dead. A solid ten feet deep.
Reg -- Reginald Brewster Thornton, the underground guy -- doesn't like it. He doesn't know who or what he is, anymore. And Dev is sitting there thinking...well...maybe it wasn't such a good move, after all. No big deal to put it back the way it was, right? No, you little shit; it's just days of work wasted making it read correct.
Now Dev's pissed at me because I'm not being nice about him fucking around with me. And Reg is hurt and unhappy because he feels betrayed at not being asked about this. And other characters are not talking to me because they were being cut out. And I'm ready for my padded room.
It's times like these I wish I'd stuck with art. My sketches and paintings never talked back to me. Or if they did, I wasn't listening...or I was so in sync with them, there was no need for confrontative communication. I'm feeling the urge, right now, to dump the story and pull out my old acrylics and whip up a couple of things, even if all they do is let me vent.
Maybe I should just stick with The Vanishing of Owen Taylor.
February 29, 2016
Battling, again...
Having one of my battles with my characters in UG, right now, so not in the mood to think. Here are some photos from my first trip to Ireland in 2002.
The Liffey River in Dublin's City Centre.
Ha'penny Bridge.
The Guinness Brewery. You take a self-guided tour of the history of how Guinness is made up and up, until you're at the top and get a free pint and 360 view of Dublin.
Galway City.
St. Columba's in Galway. I use both these locations in Return To Darian's Point, as Perri is finally realizing what's going on with him in Ireland.
Griann an Aileach, a 5000 year old circle fort just west of Derry. When I visited here is where Brendan began to finally talk to me, for Place of Safety. And scared the hell out of me by telling me his was a story about a simple boy who wants to live his life even as his world careens into chaos. No way could I have done justice to it, then. But now? I know I will.
Poulnabroh -- a portal dolem or tomb, if you prefer. I used a smaller one in RDP, for Perri to see.
I shot this from Inish Oirr as I walked over to a cemetery. It could almost be Inish Ciuin, the island Thomas' and Perri's families hail from in Darian's Point and RDP.
And The Cliffs of Moher, that figure so heavily in DP and RDP. They truly are breathtaking and terrifying.
I'll only be there 4 days, this go...no time to do anything more than have lunch at the Guinness Brewery's restaurant. They had a killer Irish Stew with a pint of the good stuff. I almost got to spend a few days in London, too, but that fell through.
The joy I feel at going back to these places makes me wonder if I ever belonged in America.
The Liffey River in Dublin's City Centre.
Ha'penny Bridge.
The Guinness Brewery. You take a self-guided tour of the history of how Guinness is made up and up, until you're at the top and get a free pint and 360 view of Dublin.
Galway City.
St. Columba's in Galway. I use both these locations in Return To Darian's Point, as Perri is finally realizing what's going on with him in Ireland.
Griann an Aileach, a 5000 year old circle fort just west of Derry. When I visited here is where Brendan began to finally talk to me, for Place of Safety. And scared the hell out of me by telling me his was a story about a simple boy who wants to live his life even as his world careens into chaos. No way could I have done justice to it, then. But now? I know I will.
Poulnabroh -- a portal dolem or tomb, if you prefer. I used a smaller one in RDP, for Perri to see.
I shot this from Inish Oirr as I walked over to a cemetery. It could almost be Inish Ciuin, the island Thomas' and Perri's families hail from in Darian's Point and RDP.
And The Cliffs of Moher, that figure so heavily in DP and RDP. They truly are breathtaking and terrifying.I'll only be there 4 days, this go...no time to do anything more than have lunch at the Guinness Brewery's restaurant. They had a killer Irish Stew with a pint of the good stuff. I almost got to spend a few days in London, too, but that fell through.
The joy I feel at going back to these places makes me wonder if I ever belonged in America.
February 27, 2016
Guess where I'm going...
Probably the third week of March, to pack up an archive. In honor of that, I'm posting a book dealer's trip to the same place, a few years back, when he was president of the Antiquarian Bookseller's Association in the UK.
Dublin’s Fair City
Posted on October 25, 2011 by Laurence Worms
Yet not so fair yesterday – with some of the heaviest rainfall ever recorded, flooding, traffic chaos, and a state of emergency declared. Our taxi back to the airport through almost the worst of it at times resembled more of a speedboat ride than a car journey.
Only one thing could ameliorate any of this, but we found it – and found it in plenty. Some legendary Irish hospitality. A warm welcome at our first port of call – David Cunningham at Cathach Books in Duke Street. A lovely stock – especially of Irish literature, full of interest and rarity. And how splendid that a serious shop like this can survive just off Dublin’s main shopping street – and that despite all we hear of the Irish economy, there were no obvious signs of retail doom. Very few empty shops – and Grafton Street in full swing despite the weather, which was just beginning to turn ominous.
Next to the charming Stephen Stokes in the George’s Street Arcade – yet more attractive books and strains of Miles Davis from the adjacent music-shop. We are enjoying ourselves. (Time you joined the ABA, Stephen?) And then a cab out to Blackrock to the house of books of Éamonn and Vivien De Búrca. “To be sure, he’s a famous man in Ireland” confided our cab-driver with genial satisfaction when told our destination. Royally entertained to a fine lunch (smoked salmon with oh-so-many extras and a slab of Vivien’s famous apple pie – thank-you both). Book-talk, laughter and reminiscence. Tall tales and short – and twenty thousand books.
The rain by now lashing down, but on to the main business of the day. Membership Secretary Roger Treglown and I are in Dublin to present the ABA’s seldom-presented Fifty Years a Bookseller badge to James Fenning (it’s actually fifty-three years, Jim tells me privately). Another house of books – a carefully chosen and impressive stock – the finest Oliver Twist in cloth I have ever seen – two more three-deckers which I presently purchase – coffee and cake, and more book-talk, wry humour and entertainment. Jim’s grandfather had a bookshop right on the Liffey back in the days of the Great War (we see some photographs), his father too was a bookseller (as well as Ireland’s most famous amateur snooker player), and via a training that brought him through the inter-linked famous old Dawson’s, Frank Hammond and Deighton, Bell firms he returned to Dublin some forty years ago.
The pedigree shows. Ours is sometimes a solitary occupation and Jim perhaps does not know, perhaps has never been aware of, the esteem and regard with which his peers regard his taste, discrimination and skill in cataloguing. I try to express a little of this on behalf of us all – but make the presentation without trying to embarrass him too much. A master of his trade.
A commemorative photograph or two. A cab called for – it turns into our longest taxi journey ever. But eventually safely home at the end of what has turned into a twenty-two hour day – but all well worth it. A truly memorable day – thank you all in Dublin. I shall return.
Dublin’s Fair City
Posted on October 25, 2011 by Laurence Worms
Yet not so fair yesterday – with some of the heaviest rainfall ever recorded, flooding, traffic chaos, and a state of emergency declared. Our taxi back to the airport through almost the worst of it at times resembled more of a speedboat ride than a car journey.
Only one thing could ameliorate any of this, but we found it – and found it in plenty. Some legendary Irish hospitality. A warm welcome at our first port of call – David Cunningham at Cathach Books in Duke Street. A lovely stock – especially of Irish literature, full of interest and rarity. And how splendid that a serious shop like this can survive just off Dublin’s main shopping street – and that despite all we hear of the Irish economy, there were no obvious signs of retail doom. Very few empty shops – and Grafton Street in full swing despite the weather, which was just beginning to turn ominous.
Next to the charming Stephen Stokes in the George’s Street Arcade – yet more attractive books and strains of Miles Davis from the adjacent music-shop. We are enjoying ourselves. (Time you joined the ABA, Stephen?) And then a cab out to Blackrock to the house of books of Éamonn and Vivien De Búrca. “To be sure, he’s a famous man in Ireland” confided our cab-driver with genial satisfaction when told our destination. Royally entertained to a fine lunch (smoked salmon with oh-so-many extras and a slab of Vivien’s famous apple pie – thank-you both). Book-talk, laughter and reminiscence. Tall tales and short – and twenty thousand books.
The rain by now lashing down, but on to the main business of the day. Membership Secretary Roger Treglown and I are in Dublin to present the ABA’s seldom-presented Fifty Years a Bookseller badge to James Fenning (it’s actually fifty-three years, Jim tells me privately). Another house of books – a carefully chosen and impressive stock – the finest Oliver Twist in cloth I have ever seen – two more three-deckers which I presently purchase – coffee and cake, and more book-talk, wry humour and entertainment. Jim’s grandfather had a bookshop right on the Liffey back in the days of the Great War (we see some photographs), his father too was a bookseller (as well as Ireland’s most famous amateur snooker player), and via a training that brought him through the inter-linked famous old Dawson’s, Frank Hammond and Deighton, Bell firms he returned to Dublin some forty years ago.
The pedigree shows. Ours is sometimes a solitary occupation and Jim perhaps does not know, perhaps has never been aware of, the esteem and regard with which his peers regard his taste, discrimination and skill in cataloguing. I try to express a little of this on behalf of us all – but make the presentation without trying to embarrass him too much. A master of his trade.
A commemorative photograph or two. A cab called for – it turns into our longest taxi journey ever. But eventually safely home at the end of what has turned into a twenty-two hour day – but all well worth it. A truly memorable day – thank you all in Dublin. I shall return.
February 25, 2016
Maybe I'm still being scared...
I've been working on Underground Guy while waiting for responses from my readers on OT, and I've started to wonder if I'm avoiding letting the story really follow its own path. The more I work on it, the more I think the whole serial killer aspect of what happens in it is a way of me not digging deeper into the characters and how they're interacting with each other. I've wondered what would happen if I cut that out and just made UG about a man finally beginning to grow up and take on true adult responsibilities.
I don't mean simple responsibilities like a job and marriage and taxes and such, but accepting your own reality. Acknowledging that you've hurt people by your actions and need to make amends, and learn from what you've done. Allow that you've done right by other people, even to the extent it hurts you, in some ways. What would that mean for a guy like Devlin, who thinks he's in complete control but doesn't see how out of control he is? Especially since his interaction with Reg is what causes the reflection to begin?
I halfway think I want to drop Reg being a cop. Drop the whole aspect of him helping in an undercover operation...except that ties in so well with the title. But comes the realization that here I am trying to figure out what I want to do with the story and already trying to talk myself out of changing it...even as I think it would be for the better of the two main characters.
It would mean shifting Tavi and Sir Monte to another story, completely. I like them both so can't let them just die off. But it would become a lot simpler if Tavi's suspected of being a serial killer and has to find the real killer on his own. Toss in another character like Reg, maybe.
So could I make the entire story about Dev and Reg? A long conversation between them as they try to understand themselves and each other? Dev thrown off-guard by how he connects with Reg, who's not the kind of guy he usually goes for. And Reg deeply confused by how he's able to get off with another man, when he's married and has kids and has never even thought about being with a man before. Make it a love story, of a sort?
Or am I practicing avoidance by trying to see if I'm practicing avoidance?
I don't mean simple responsibilities like a job and marriage and taxes and such, but accepting your own reality. Acknowledging that you've hurt people by your actions and need to make amends, and learn from what you've done. Allow that you've done right by other people, even to the extent it hurts you, in some ways. What would that mean for a guy like Devlin, who thinks he's in complete control but doesn't see how out of control he is? Especially since his interaction with Reg is what causes the reflection to begin?
I halfway think I want to drop Reg being a cop. Drop the whole aspect of him helping in an undercover operation...except that ties in so well with the title. But comes the realization that here I am trying to figure out what I want to do with the story and already trying to talk myself out of changing it...even as I think it would be for the better of the two main characters.
It would mean shifting Tavi and Sir Monte to another story, completely. I like them both so can't let them just die off. But it would become a lot simpler if Tavi's suspected of being a serial killer and has to find the real killer on his own. Toss in another character like Reg, maybe.
So could I make the entire story about Dev and Reg? A long conversation between them as they try to understand themselves and each other? Dev thrown off-guard by how he connects with Reg, who's not the kind of guy he usually goes for. And Reg deeply confused by how he's able to get off with another man, when he's married and has kids and has never even thought about being with a man before. Make it a love story, of a sort?Or am I practicing avoidance by trying to see if I'm practicing avoidance?
February 23, 2016
Fighting myself...
Seems I still have this tendency to try and play it safe with my characters. I want to mitigate what they do by giving explanations and justifications as they commit actions that are illegal or wrong...and that's not how they always want to work. It's funny, but Curt in How To Rape A Straight Guy was nothing but self-justification but not in a way that excused his destructive decisions...except in his own mind. Which worked for his limited abilities.
I wrote a bit on Underground Guy and saw I was slipping into that safe pattern with Devlin. My first draft of the story had nothing about why he hates cops or that he even suspects Reg is a cop, and it shot ahead. Only the sheer coincidence of Dev attacking a man who's undercover trying to stop a serial killer who's attacking men was just way too bizarre, so having Dev make Reg as a cop does work better at setting up the story. But then I was explaining why he hates cops and how he's been harassed by cops for being gay...and that sort of justification was just cowardly.
Removing the animalistic nature of Dev's actions was hurting both him as a character and the flow of the piece. So I dumped it, and now he's just out to mess with a cop who he thinks is out to mess with someone else. And as the story goes along, he sees he hurt a man who was trying to protect others, and who was wounded in Afghanistan, and who's cut into Dev's protective shell in surprising ways. And the story returns to Dev realizing he's been an animal and deciding to be a human being, instead. The details can come out later in the story.
It's a bit like what happens with Curt, albeit too late for him to make a difference in his life. Alec never did really get it in Porno Manifesto, but that was okay. Antony was too psychotic to understand in Rape in Holding Cell 6, except as it affected Jake. And Eric in Bobby Carapisi goes the full arc, from self-involved jerk who accidentally destroys a man to a human being who takes responsibility for himself and his future, not forgetting his past but trying to learn from his mistakes.
With Daniel in The Lyons' Den, it'a about accepting he is worthy of love, success and happiness. As for Jake, it's about coming to terms with his past and freeing himself from it.
And with Brendan in Place of Safety, it will be about accepting his destiny, to his horror.
I wrote a bit on Underground Guy and saw I was slipping into that safe pattern with Devlin. My first draft of the story had nothing about why he hates cops or that he even suspects Reg is a cop, and it shot ahead. Only the sheer coincidence of Dev attacking a man who's undercover trying to stop a serial killer who's attacking men was just way too bizarre, so having Dev make Reg as a cop does work better at setting up the story. But then I was explaining why he hates cops and how he's been harassed by cops for being gay...and that sort of justification was just cowardly.
Removing the animalistic nature of Dev's actions was hurting both him as a character and the flow of the piece. So I dumped it, and now he's just out to mess with a cop who he thinks is out to mess with someone else. And as the story goes along, he sees he hurt a man who was trying to protect others, and who was wounded in Afghanistan, and who's cut into Dev's protective shell in surprising ways. And the story returns to Dev realizing he's been an animal and deciding to be a human being, instead. The details can come out later in the story.
It's a bit like what happens with Curt, albeit too late for him to make a difference in his life. Alec never did really get it in Porno Manifesto, but that was okay. Antony was too psychotic to understand in Rape in Holding Cell 6, except as it affected Jake. And Eric in Bobby Carapisi goes the full arc, from self-involved jerk who accidentally destroys a man to a human being who takes responsibility for himself and his future, not forgetting his past but trying to learn from his mistakes.
With Daniel in The Lyons' Den, it'a about accepting he is worthy of love, success and happiness. As for Jake, it's about coming to terms with his past and freeing himself from it.
And with Brendan in Place of Safety, it will be about accepting his destiny, to his horror.
February 22, 2016
Grrr...growl..
I'm in a foul mood and tired as hell from driving all day. The truck I'm in shared every damed bump in the road with me, even as it sucked down gas and was so noisy, I couldn't play my CDs. Even with my earbuds, it was harsh. So I drove in a noisy world and tried to sort out things in my brain.
I'm back to being broke. After spending too damn much money on competitions and seminars and tools to make my books work and my scripts better...I cannot pay the taxes I owe and have increased my debt to where I will never get ahead. Plus my books aren't selling as well because they've been around for a while, and I have nothing ready to take over.
I also got shrugged off by two more competitions. I read one of the scripts that made the finalists in one of them, thanks to Talentville, and it's damed insulting. It's a feature but has dialogue that's at a 1980's TV level, and the premise is silly -- a dog that's never been trained is adopted by a family, trashes their home, then winds up winning a competition to help its new boy.
Obviously I have no idea what will sell in Hollywood or will even win competitions, anymore. Good writing obviously is not required. Another script I read that was written by a guy I know who is only barely literate...and it has won a couple of awards. This guy doesn't even know the difference between your and you're and such, but he's close to being produced.
I was consistently told that if a script is good, people will find it. I'm at the point of wondering if that's either an outright lie...or if there's a brutal truth in this non-stop rejection that I should finally be accepting. I've got seven more competitions to hear from; if I get nowhere with any of them, maybe it's time I stopped being so damned arrogant at how great my work is and accept the fact that I'm no good at writing screenplays that producers will buy or make.
In short, back away from the money pit.
I'm back to being broke. After spending too damn much money on competitions and seminars and tools to make my books work and my scripts better...I cannot pay the taxes I owe and have increased my debt to where I will never get ahead. Plus my books aren't selling as well because they've been around for a while, and I have nothing ready to take over.
I also got shrugged off by two more competitions. I read one of the scripts that made the finalists in one of them, thanks to Talentville, and it's damed insulting. It's a feature but has dialogue that's at a 1980's TV level, and the premise is silly -- a dog that's never been trained is adopted by a family, trashes their home, then winds up winning a competition to help its new boy.
Obviously I have no idea what will sell in Hollywood or will even win competitions, anymore. Good writing obviously is not required. Another script I read that was written by a guy I know who is only barely literate...and it has won a couple of awards. This guy doesn't even know the difference between your and you're and such, but he's close to being produced.
I was consistently told that if a script is good, people will find it. I'm at the point of wondering if that's either an outright lie...or if there's a brutal truth in this non-stop rejection that I should finally be accepting. I've got seven more competitions to hear from; if I get nowhere with any of them, maybe it's time I stopped being so damned arrogant at how great my work is and accept the fact that I'm no good at writing screenplays that producers will buy or make.
In short, back away from the money pit.
February 21, 2016
More on length vs. brevity...
To follow on my previous post about how some people say cut, cut, cut to make things tighter and better, I remembered a couple years ago TCM was showing Kurosawa's Seven Samurai with a guest host alongside Robert Osborne -- was it Rose McGowen? Rachel McAdams? I don't really remember.
Now so far as I'm concerned, this is a brilliant film I can watch over and over and over, about how in old Japan seven samurai are hired to protect a village of farmers from a marauding band of thieves. It's long, and has fight scenes that are still beyond belief, even today. It influenced action films for decades. So I made time to watch it...again.
The intro by Osborne and the co-host was nice, the film was magnificent, but then came the discussion afterwards. And both Osborne and the co-host dissed the film for being too long. I think a comment the co-host made was, "All right, I get it already, let's move on." And Osborne agreed. He has a wealth of knowledge about film and its history...and he went along with the idea a classic Japanese film was too detailed for an American audience.
I was livid. There is not one tedious moment in that movie, to me -- from the realization the bandits will be back to loot the village to the long, hard search for samurai willing to fight for room and board only to the preparations for protection and counter-attack to the tensions between the samurai and the people they've sworn to help to the final skirmishes...the movie builds and builds and builds like a symphony until the final battle in the driving rain. It shows the whole of human emotion and decency and venality.
And they got bored until the big fight. They felt a lot of the village stuff could have been cut out or down. Completely ignored the full measure of the movie and only thought of how it should be for an audience of 12 year-olds.
I haven't watched TCM since.
Now so far as I'm concerned, this is a brilliant film I can watch over and over and over, about how in old Japan seven samurai are hired to protect a village of farmers from a marauding band of thieves. It's long, and has fight scenes that are still beyond belief, even today. It influenced action films for decades. So I made time to watch it...again.The intro by Osborne and the co-host was nice, the film was magnificent, but then came the discussion afterwards. And both Osborne and the co-host dissed the film for being too long. I think a comment the co-host made was, "All right, I get it already, let's move on." And Osborne agreed. He has a wealth of knowledge about film and its history...and he went along with the idea a classic Japanese film was too detailed for an American audience.
I was livid. There is not one tedious moment in that movie, to me -- from the realization the bandits will be back to loot the village to the long, hard search for samurai willing to fight for room and board only to the preparations for protection and counter-attack to the tensions between the samurai and the people they've sworn to help to the final skirmishes...the movie builds and builds and builds like a symphony until the final battle in the driving rain. It shows the whole of human emotion and decency and venality.
And they got bored until the big fight. They felt a lot of the village stuff could have been cut out or down. Completely ignored the full measure of the movie and only thought of how it should be for an audience of 12 year-olds.
I haven't watched TCM since.
February 19, 2016
Good artists copy; great artists steal
This is, supposedly, a quote by Picasso, though no one knows exactly when he said it...or even if he did...and it's probably a play on T.S. Elliot's comment in The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism -- "...(I)mmature poets imitate; mature poets steal..." I knew what he meant -- that good artists copy other artists, develop work based on their betters' styles and such, while great artists focus on the object of their art and take from its essence everything they need to remake it into whatever they perceive it to be.
That works in writing, too. You copy the style of a writer you like until you develop your own...if you do. Like Judith Krantz copied Jackie Collins, who copied Jacqueline Susan, who copied Grace Metalious, who copied Erskine Caldwell...and on and on. But when it comes to great writing, the whole idea of theft changes into something more than mere interpretation of an object's reality. It involves real theft...not of something physical but of the truth in the soul of that object or story.
So many teachers and advisers tell writers to work with that they know and use the likes of Willa Cather and James Heller and John Steinbeck to show how that works. Willa lived on the Nebraska plains growing up and colored her stories about pioneers in the last quarter of the 19th Century with that background. James Heller's experiences during WWII became the basis for Catch 22, and Steinbeck's own youth filled his novel, East of Eden. Great writers, all of them, but what is rarely mentioned is how these books are filled with stories that were stolen, not specifically lived in.
I don't know if I can put this in a way that will make sense, but a great writer steals moments from others and forms them into his own. Stories and gossip and details gleaned during conversations overheard and hammers of speech and attitudes...things a good writer can merely fit into a framework that reveals the story.
A great writer lets these stories and details and such devise a framework to suit themselves...as if they were building themselves a home to their own specifications and comforts and needs and dreams and desires and fears...and when the last nail is driven and the final coat of paint is dried, they dwell in it, happily. Even if the structure is tragic...even if it is wrong and criminal...they settle in and will not move. Tolstoy knew this. As did Shakespeare and Thackeray and Voltaire. You can feel the stories expand beyond anything one man could experience unto himself, even as they remain honest and true.
When I build my stories, I steal everything I can. From people, places, things, you name it. Does that mean I think I'm a great writer? That's not for me to decide. Sometimes I read what I have written after a time and cannot believe I wrote it. Other times I cannot believe how false and juvenile it seems, and become embarrassed. My screenplays, most especially, cause me grief in how I copied rather than appropriated far too often.
My best work grows from when I steal someone else's story and mold it into my own form of reality then let it blossom and grow. Let it shoot off in directions I'm not ready for or happy with. And the hardest part of working with that is not suffocating it. Sometimes the roots turn out to be shallow and the branches die. Sometimes I get lazy and copy another's way of dealing with the same situation...and find I have only wasted my time as the truth of the story kept going in the direction it needed, and now I have to play catch-up.
I don't know if I'll ever be a great writer. I've had people tell me there's no way in hell I could be. Not enough control over my style or grammar. I've had others remind me of how Steven King says you have to edit and cut and kill your darlings to make a good book. And maybe that's true...for him. But I keep thinking of my argument with a film professor in college.
We had a film society that showed old movies, and I ran the projector for a year. 16mm prints that had to be manually switched from one projector to the other when a reel was done. I saw movies I would never have been able to see anywhere else -- things like Even Dwarves Started Small and The Jackal of Nahueltoro and Heart of Glass.
It's also where I saw Grand Illusion. Set in WWI, it's about French prisoners of war in German POW camps, the indomitability of the human spirit, and how an aristocrat is treated with different civility from a mechanic and a Jewish scholar. The mechanic and Jewish scholar escape and are sheltered by a German farm-woman whose husband and brothers and all the men she knew were killed in the war.
I loved the film. Felt it was near perfect. My film professor -- Dr. Manfred Wolfram -- said it was too long. Said the whole section with the farm woman could have been cut and the movie would have lost nothing. I vehemently disagreed. Up until that point, the film was a good story; with that bit added in, it became poetry. It became great. It started me on the belief that a great film director must have something of a poet in his soul for his work to truly sing. So few have.
I ran into some of this same "too long" attitude with Bobby Carapisi. A couple of people who read it said they felt the story was complete with just Eric's and Bobby's tales, that Alan's wasn't needed. But to me, it was still lacking something...and adding in a vague explanation as to why Alan was like he was was what it took to make it whole. And for that, I stole a couple of stories I had a glancing involvement with...and molded them, using my own DNA to keep them malleable...and for the first time really felt like a novelist instead of just a screenwriter writing books.
I'm feeling the same way about The Vanishing of Owen Taylor. In my last pass through it, I found very little I wanted to rework or change or adjust or remove. I'm finally at the point where all I want to do is polish it till it shines. It's long -- over 112,000 words -- but everything is in it for a purpose, and to cut them would throw off the balance. And this makes me feel powerful enough to think I may know what I'm doing.
And finally...finally...that I will be able to do justice to Place of Safety, because I want that story to be great, and I am ready to steal whatever I must for it, now.
That works in writing, too. You copy the style of a writer you like until you develop your own...if you do. Like Judith Krantz copied Jackie Collins, who copied Jacqueline Susan, who copied Grace Metalious, who copied Erskine Caldwell...and on and on. But when it comes to great writing, the whole idea of theft changes into something more than mere interpretation of an object's reality. It involves real theft...not of something physical but of the truth in the soul of that object or story.
So many teachers and advisers tell writers to work with that they know and use the likes of Willa Cather and James Heller and John Steinbeck to show how that works. Willa lived on the Nebraska plains growing up and colored her stories about pioneers in the last quarter of the 19th Century with that background. James Heller's experiences during WWII became the basis for Catch 22, and Steinbeck's own youth filled his novel, East of Eden. Great writers, all of them, but what is rarely mentioned is how these books are filled with stories that were stolen, not specifically lived in.
I don't know if I can put this in a way that will make sense, but a great writer steals moments from others and forms them into his own. Stories and gossip and details gleaned during conversations overheard and hammers of speech and attitudes...things a good writer can merely fit into a framework that reveals the story.
A great writer lets these stories and details and such devise a framework to suit themselves...as if they were building themselves a home to their own specifications and comforts and needs and dreams and desires and fears...and when the last nail is driven and the final coat of paint is dried, they dwell in it, happily. Even if the structure is tragic...even if it is wrong and criminal...they settle in and will not move. Tolstoy knew this. As did Shakespeare and Thackeray and Voltaire. You can feel the stories expand beyond anything one man could experience unto himself, even as they remain honest and true.
When I build my stories, I steal everything I can. From people, places, things, you name it. Does that mean I think I'm a great writer? That's not for me to decide. Sometimes I read what I have written after a time and cannot believe I wrote it. Other times I cannot believe how false and juvenile it seems, and become embarrassed. My screenplays, most especially, cause me grief in how I copied rather than appropriated far too often.
My best work grows from when I steal someone else's story and mold it into my own form of reality then let it blossom and grow. Let it shoot off in directions I'm not ready for or happy with. And the hardest part of working with that is not suffocating it. Sometimes the roots turn out to be shallow and the branches die. Sometimes I get lazy and copy another's way of dealing with the same situation...and find I have only wasted my time as the truth of the story kept going in the direction it needed, and now I have to play catch-up.
I don't know if I'll ever be a great writer. I've had people tell me there's no way in hell I could be. Not enough control over my style or grammar. I've had others remind me of how Steven King says you have to edit and cut and kill your darlings to make a good book. And maybe that's true...for him. But I keep thinking of my argument with a film professor in college.
We had a film society that showed old movies, and I ran the projector for a year. 16mm prints that had to be manually switched from one projector to the other when a reel was done. I saw movies I would never have been able to see anywhere else -- things like Even Dwarves Started Small and The Jackal of Nahueltoro and Heart of Glass.
It's also where I saw Grand Illusion. Set in WWI, it's about French prisoners of war in German POW camps, the indomitability of the human spirit, and how an aristocrat is treated with different civility from a mechanic and a Jewish scholar. The mechanic and Jewish scholar escape and are sheltered by a German farm-woman whose husband and brothers and all the men she knew were killed in the war.
I loved the film. Felt it was near perfect. My film professor -- Dr. Manfred Wolfram -- said it was too long. Said the whole section with the farm woman could have been cut and the movie would have lost nothing. I vehemently disagreed. Up until that point, the film was a good story; with that bit added in, it became poetry. It became great. It started me on the belief that a great film director must have something of a poet in his soul for his work to truly sing. So few have.
I ran into some of this same "too long" attitude with Bobby Carapisi. A couple of people who read it said they felt the story was complete with just Eric's and Bobby's tales, that Alan's wasn't needed. But to me, it was still lacking something...and adding in a vague explanation as to why Alan was like he was was what it took to make it whole. And for that, I stole a couple of stories I had a glancing involvement with...and molded them, using my own DNA to keep them malleable...and for the first time really felt like a novelist instead of just a screenwriter writing books.
I'm feeling the same way about The Vanishing of Owen Taylor. In my last pass through it, I found very little I wanted to rework or change or adjust or remove. I'm finally at the point where all I want to do is polish it till it shines. It's long -- over 112,000 words -- but everything is in it for a purpose, and to cut them would throw off the balance. And this makes me feel powerful enough to think I may know what I'm doing.
And finally...finally...that I will be able to do justice to Place of Safety, because I want that story to be great, and I am ready to steal whatever I must for it, now.
