Rick Just's Blog, page 239

Creeping up to the Edge

When you are nearing the end of a book that you are particularly enjoying, do you tend to slow down, take it in smaller bites, savor it? That’s where I am right now with Blood of Anjels. The only difference is, I’m writing it, not reading it. I could probably finish up the first draft in a day or two. Even so, I might linger for a few days, putting off the end. There is much work to do after I finish the first draft. I need to go back and add three or four short sections that will help build up to later sections I have already written. Then, I’ll need to read the whole thing through to do some tightening before turning it over to an editor.Still, in many ways, the words I write in the next few days will complete the book. I’m looking forward to it, but feeling a little melancholy about it at the same time. It has become a friend that I will miss having around.***Would you like to have the book around for a while? I’m looking for a handful of readers who would be interested in reading through an early draft of the novel and sharing their opinions with me. If you would like to be one of those readers, contact me at rickjust@rickjust.com.

The Crappy Used Diary and Other Stories of the Future

One of the persistent themes of this blog is, Where do story ideas come from? The answer in its most pedestrian form is, they come from the same place ideas for what to fix for dinner come from. They are a collision of memories and events of the day that when mangled and tangled together form something new and shiny. Or, they come from dreams.

I’ve written before about that half-asleep, half-awake territory I think we all wander. We set our minds free, mostly, though there might be a loose agenda involved.

This morning, sometime shy of five a.m., I came out of that dreamland with a book title in my head. It is not the title of the book I’m currently writing, rather the next book I will write or the one after that. Maybe not one at all, but one I will certainly add to the list of possibilities.

The book title is The Crappy Used Diary. I don’t know a lot about the book, other than the situation. A teen or preteen girl receives an antique diary from her father for her birthday. The first few pages have been filled in, one day at a time, by someone a century ago. It is a lovely diary with fine paper that beckons the fingertips. To her, though, it is a crappy used diary.

This book wants badly to be written. Maybe, to be written badly. I’ll try to avoid the latter.

I will finish Blood of Anjels (the title I have settled on), first. I may spend a little time buffing up Keeping Private Idaho for Kindle release, and I may go back to another book called Dog Run that stopped me dead about halfway through a few months back.

Or, I may dip into the idea well and work on other books I plan to write, and which I have spent anywhere from minutes to years thinking about. I don’t always start with a title. Even when I do, the title might change when I get further into the book. Here are some teaser titles from the idea well:

Tell
The Autobiography of gGod
Ruined
Placebo
The Invisible Friend
Interstice
Cooper’s Laundry
Dead Air

Of those, the most likely to eventually become novels are Cooper’s Laundry and Dead Air. It’s not too late for requests.

Chapter One

Yesterday, I asked you to share with me your thoughts about what was going on in the watercolor of the old-fashioned typewriter I posted. Those who responded in one of the five venues where the blog feeds ran were all--drum roll please--absolutely correct.

No, this wasn’t one of those middle school events where everyone with a pulse gets a trophy. It was just a little example of how an image, written or illustrated, will say different things to different people. We are all products of our experiences. They shape us uniquely.

If Stephen King is correct that writing is telepathy, then it is imperfectly so. With my writing, and my art, I try to take something from my mind and put it into yours. If we are sympatico, then I have succeeded. But, what if we’re not? Does that mean that I have failed? Does it mean you have failed?

No more so than we do in everyday communication. If an idea is transmitted imperfectly, well, we should be used to that. It happens every time we pick up a pen or part our lips to speak.

I am not a fan of spicy food, so I sometimes mention to my lovely wife that something she has prepared--while undeniably wonderful--is a tad too hot for me. She always takes umbrage at this, invariably telling me there is nothing in the food that would make it “hot.” Do you see the futility of this continuing conversation? Her idea of “hot” and my idea are simply not the same.

Now, expand that difference in understanding by 100,000 words, each of which we have our own meaning for, and it is really a miracle that we often enjoy the same books.

When I write, my success is not the perfect understanding of my readers. It is in the enjoyment they get from the way I have made the words work. If they come away from the book with some small, new insight, so much the better.

Oh, and who came closest to what I was aiming for with that illustration? Probably Jessica Moyer. I’ve never met Jessica, but she has been a loyal reader for years.

But, as I said, everyone else had the right answer, too. Their right answer.

By the way, the watercolor is titled “Chapter One.”

Telepathy

Stephen King says that writing is telepathy. What he means is that I can describe an object, a scene or a person, you can read that, and the image has been transmitted into your mind without my saying anything.
It’s not a perfect metaphor nor is the transmission of thought perfect. It is useful, though. I am trying to get something that lives in my head into your head. The same is true for all art and, for that matter, all forms of communication.
I just finished a little water color I’m going to attach to this blog. What does it say to you? I did title it, but what does it say without a title? Describing the picture doesn’t count. Tell me, if you’ll play along, what is happening in the picture?

The Trickster

Coyote has fascinated me for many years. He is the trickster of Native American mythology. I am most familiar with his antics in the Nez Perce tradition.
Coyote was the central character in my first novel, Keeping Private Idaho, though all these years later I fear that reference was a bit too oblique. I’ll probably revise it a bit for the Kindle version, which I hope to bring out this year shortly after publishing the Anjels book.
In the Coyote stories he can be about anything he chooses to be, which makes him a multi-dimensional character. Yet, he’s true to his trickster nature and that is usually his downfall. Coyote tales explain the world. We learn from his mistakes.
I wrote the following when friends started falling one by one to dementia. It is just the sort of thing that would make Coyote dance.
I Forget
The Trickster no more plays his pranks on badger and on toad.Today his tools are snapped synapses and binary code.He nibbles on our memories or steals them complete.He rearranges furniture as part of his deceit.He shuffles through our credit cards and hides our Prius keys.He strips the names from faces, lets the words loose in the breeze.Coyote was never funnier than Alzheimer’s disease.

Reading and Writing

Writing is a product of the life we live, so it should surprise no one that some of what we read spills over into what we write. I’m not talking about plagiarism, here, just a flash of image or the beginning of a thought from a book read to a book written. For that reason, I thought it might be of some interest to update you on what I’m currently reading.
I finished Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver a couple of weeks ago. I posted earlier that it had gotten me thinking about butterflies and the role they might play in my book. Since then I have read The Driving Lesson by Ben Rehder, a competently written, though predictable young adult novel. I also read about half of Albert of Adelaide by Howard L. Anderson. I was listening to that one, and finally found my mind wandering elsewhere to the point that I just gave up on it. That teacher who told you that if you start a book, you must finish it? Maybe that’s true, if you’re in second grade.
I’m just about finished with the latest C.J. Box book, Breaking Point. I’m listening to that one, and also to Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes. The Box book is a typical Joe Pickett novel, which means a fun read. I’m only about an hour into Don Quixote. I find that what was probably hilarious in 1605 has lost a little verve 500+ years later. It’s a story we know so well--or think we do--that it is almost too much trouble to read it.
Finally, I’m rereading Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft on Kindle. It’s about 3/4 autobiography, with some practical writing tips tossed in. Definitely worth a read if you’re interested in either King or writing.
Will anything from those book leak into what I’m working on? If it does, even I probably won’t know it.

What do Dogs Have to do With it?

Today, while doing mental research, it occurred to me that my dogs are helping me write this book in a couple of ways.


First, the mental research itself--that time between being fully awake and drifting off to sleep--is arguably enhanced by the imagination of dogs. When I settle down for an after-lunch nap I close my eyes and start to think about the book, usually starting with where I left off and what will come next. My dogs--I have what, 40 of them? Okay, four--settle around me. Most days they leave me alone for 15 or 20 minutes and I eventually drift off. Today, they imagined Mongol hordes attacking about every three minutes. It turned out to be kids going by on skateboards outside, a distant siren or a squirrel running across the roof. Once again, we were safe from Genghis.
But, the frequent interruptions meant I had to regroup my mind, go back to the story and--probably not--drift off to sleep. The dogs were prolonging my mental research time. My reptilian brain wants to bite them for it. Higher brain powers win out, and so they live.
Dogs also contribute to my health, which contributes to my writing. Sure, we go for walks and they throw Frisbees for me. Or something. But they also seem especially concerned that I not sit at the keyboard in one position for a length of time that might result in an embolism. The white schnauzer is particularly adept at this, coming to remind me with his persistent paws about every 45 minutes. Good boy. If I am successful in ignoring his relentless pestering, the Irish wolfhound/Australian shepherd cross will begin whining in tones of increasing pitch until I leap from my chair and go spend three or four minutes with them in the backyard.
And they say writing a solitary pursuit.

Resurrection

Today is the day the Christian faithful celebrate The Resurrection. I could spend a few lines talking about the alleged Pagan roots of the celebration, but that’s a controversy with little actual importance and even less chance of convincing either side of the veracity of the other.

But resurrection, there’s something I could write a book about. Oh, that’s right. I am. Technically the book deals more with a myth of reincarnation than with resurrection, but there are a couple of characters who seemingly leave this life and pop up again for another round.
Coming back from the dead is a popular theme across countless mythologies. And, why not? If we have to die--and all evidence seems to point there--we should at least be able to come back in a shiny new body. Or, how about living forever in a new place? That has a certain appeal, even if harps provide the Muzak.
So, I understand the appeal of this great centerpiece of Christianity. So do the characters in my book, though--spoiler alert--at least one of them will abandon her belief in the end.

Time on My Hands

I’ve been waiting many, many years for this moment. Although I have had the time to write a handful of books while working and going to school, I have been looking forward to retirement so that I could devote more time to writing.

I have some trepidation about that. Not because I fear writing, but because work has taken up so much of my time. All retirees face the issue of what to do with their time. Those still working often envy retirees and are baffled by such concerns. Even if they like their job, the prospect of having so much free time seems so enticing.

It is a jolting change, nevertheless. We lose the routine that has kept us going for so many years and, more importantly, we risk losing our identity. The first question often asked when we meet someone new, is “What do you do?”  Soon, I will have the option of saying, “Nothing.”

I could say that I’m a writer. I have been one for decades. That’s rarely how I answer the question, though, because my working career was how I made most of my living.

I often avoid telling people I’m a writer, because I primarily write fiction. I’m not ashamed of that. It’s just that the questions that follow mostly have the same answer: “Read the damn books.”

Fiction is its own explanation. It is pointless, really, spending time describing your novels.

Now that I’m about to have more time, maybe I can spend some of it coming up with a polite answer.

My Gay Characters

It is an important week in American history. The Supreme Court of the United States has heard arguments about marriage rights for gay citizens. I bring that up in this book blog because the book I’m writing examines gender relationships. One could argue that all the characters are gay.
I did not set out to write about lesbian relationships, but some will assume that is the whole point of the book. The fact that many of my characters are in loving, same gender relationships is an effect of a worldview that has left the rails, not the cause of it.
Nevertheless, my mostly positive depiction of characters who are in such relationships will probably be seen as promoting the dreaded “gay agenda.” Using the word promoting in this context is already judgmental. What would be the point of promoting something that people have no choice about?I am close to several people of both genders who are gay. It is a biological fact for them. For me, it is part of what makes them unique individuals. How can I help but treasure that?
For my characters, same gender relationships are a cultural norm.  Those who may feel different urges suffer some confusion, because they have no option to act on them in their society. How that society became that way is a sub-plot with many hints but no concrete explanation.
The larger and parallel plot is about how a society is shaped by religion.