J. Allen Wolfrum's Blog, page 3

Big Questions, Big Responsibility, and Pam's Mortal Enemies

Writing:

I haven't said much about the book I'm working on, it's the prequel to Selected and it covers the Dove Revolution from beginning to end. The concept is exciting the implementation is scary. When you get right down to it, something serious has to happen for a political revolution to take place. Whatever the events are that trigger a political revolution, they will be inherently  controversial.

Yes, it's fiction, but as the person writing it, I have to be comfortable with the decisions I make while telling the story. Easier said than done. There are some big questions that have to get answered and a lot of responsibility comes with the answers.

What events led to a political revolution? That question seems a bit outlandish in the context of the relative political stability of the last hundred years in America. But things change. How?Who is the person that starts the revolution? Why?Who is the person/group fighting to keep the current system? Why?

There are plenty more questions to answer but those are the big three on my mind right now. I have the answers and I'm getting more confident in those answers with each chapter. 

That was a long winded way of saying, this next book is tough and it has some opinions. But at the end of the day it's a bunch of made up stories, so maybe much ado about nothing.

Reading:

I started reading The Naturalist by Andrew Mayne and once again realized that I have no business writing in the crime genre, my mind just doesn't work that way. The book is about a computational biologist who is investigating the murder of a former student. Sounds cheesy, but it's really really good. The first couple of chapters do a great job of grabbing you into the story. I'm about half way through the book and can't wait to find out who ends up being the killer. (Side Note: I really really wanted to end that sentence with "who the killer is." I can hear the beautiful bride whispering in my ear, "dear, please stop ending your sentences with prepositions.")

Life:

There have been more birds hanging around the Catranch this week than normal and Pam has a new mortal enemy, the doves. There are a few doves that hang around the back door and Pam does not appreciate it when they trespass on her territory. She rushes the door every time she sees them. An old wine cork has also drawn her attention the past few days. Richard just sits back and watches the show.

Still on the To Do List:Figure out a theme for these posts.

 

-jerad

Stumbling in the Right Direction and Finding a Theme

Writing:

I hesitate to say it, but I think I'm finally on the right track. I wrote five chapters and was very nervous about the direction. I had my first line editor, a.k.a. the beautiful bride read it before moving forward. She has a great sense for distinguishing between works and doesn't work. The first five chapters I wrote got a thumbs up from the beautiful bride. I think things are finally settling into place.

All that's left is turning blank pages into chapters. Nothing to it, should be a breeze :)

Reading:

I finished A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami and really enjoyed the storytelling. The book felt like a literary novel with just a touch of science fiction thrown into the mix. I'm not sure I fully understood the ending and I'm sure there's a bigger theme under the surface that I'm missing. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised and am looking forward to reading more from Haruki Murakami.

The next book I'm reading is  The Naturalist by Andrew Mayne. Based on the Amazon description, I'm expecting a Sci-Fi thriller about a computational biology professor who solves the murder of a student. We'll see how it goes.

Life:

All is good on the Catranch. Rich and Pam continue to enjoy their sunspots. Everything runs smooth as long as the humans follow the rules, which reminds me, I need to get cat food on the way home from work today.

The Future:1. Stop Rambling and Find a Theme

I enjoy writing the blog every week but the writing and life sections are tough. Not that I don't have stuff to write about but I'm unsure about what to share. I think the root cause of my angst is that there isn't a theme to the posts. I need to be able to finish the phrase, "This is a blog about ... for ... ". For example, "This is a blog about writing for aspiring writers." Anyway, I'll figure it out. 

For the next few weeks, I'm going to experiment with the format and try to come up with a clear theme for blog that I'm comfortable with, that makes sense, and hopefully is entertaining.

Happy Tuesday!

-jerad

Back to Writing and A Wild Sheep Chase

Writing

Nothing but good news on the writing front this week. I finished two chapters and I'm excited about where things are headed. The way things are shaping up, this book is going to be much grittier than the last. If you think about a scenario that would produce a political revolution, things have to be bad. The threat of things being bad isn't enough. I'll leave it at that.

Reading

I finished reading Underground: My Life in the SDS and Weathermen by Mark Rudd. For those of us that weren't around during the mid 1960's and 1970's, the concept of a group of students deciding to fight a guerrilla war against the United State government is incomprehensible. But it happened and the book does a good job describing some of the events during that time. I wouldn't recommend reading the book unless you have a specific interest in the topic. I read it for research on 'what not to do' if you're trying to overthrow a government. Violent confrontations with police officers and blowing up unoccupied government buildings is a great way to make it on the FBI's Most Wanted List, but you aren't going to find many others who are willing to follow you down that path, no matter how righteous the cause.

I started reading A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami. I'm about a quarter of the way through the book and I still have no idea where the book is going, which is fascinating. Haruki Murakami is a Japanese author and the book was originally written in Japanese and translated to English. I know next to nothing about Japanese culture outside of what I've seen on TV and had no idea what to expect when I started the book. 

A friend recommended the book to me and I reluctantly took it. I honestly had no idea what to expect, what is 'Japanese Fiction'? I'm not sure that's even a genre, but that's the label I put on the book in my head. I was totally wrong to put that label on the book. The characters and scenarios are very familiar, in the book, if Haruki Murakami replaced Tokoyo with New York City, a reader would easily think the book was written by an American author.  What I think I'm trying to get at is, the book isn't a book by a 'Japanese' author with 'Japanese' themes and characters. It's a book written by a human about human experiences and it's got some serious depth to it.

Anyway, I'm hooked. Totally worth checking out.

Life 

Not a lot of exciting things happening on the Catranch, which is a good thing. Go to the day job, come home, work out, play guitar for 5 minutes to calm down, and write. Pretty boring stuff, which is exciting to me. That means writing is happening.

I struggled to sit down and start writing the first chapter of the new book. Staring at a blank screen titled "Chapter 1" isn't a pleasant experience and I found every excuse possible to do something else. I spent more time planning, I wrote down the 5 commandment of story for the chapter, I cleaned the shed, I read The Writer's Journey again, everything except actually write Chapter 1.

Two things actually got me over the hump this time. The first was something Shawn Coyne said on the StoryGrid podcast, if you want to accomplish something, "Put your ass where your heart wants to be".  For example, if in your heart you want to write a book, put your ass in the chair, turn off the internet, and write Chapter One. There is no other option, that is the only way to do it.

The second was this post from Steve Pressfield's blog back in 2009, I printed out the last three paragraphs and stuck it on the wall of the shed.

-jerad

P.S. 

In case you were wondering, Rich and Pam are doing just fine. Their world this week was all cat treats, strings, and lounging in the sun spots. 

Weathermen, The Silk Road, and Excuses for not Writing

Writing

This was not my most productive week. My plan was to start writing this week, it didn't happen. I could come up with a hundred reasons why it didn't happen, but none of them matter. The only thing that counts is sitting down and doing the work.

On the bright side, a lot of good research and planning happened this week.

I spent some more time with The Writer's Journey book in an attempt to lock in my plan before starting to write. At this point, I feel like the word "planning" means the same as "an excuse to not start the writing". That's alright, the research and planning is going to get translated into completed chapters. It just might not happen as soon as I want it to.

For research, I picked up the book, Underground: My Life with the SDS and Weathermen by Mark Rudd. The book is written by a former member of the SDS and Weathermen, from the introduction of the book.

"My friends and I formed and underground revolutionary guerrilla band called Weathermen which had as it's goal the violent overthrow of the United States Government. Conformed idealists, we wanted to end the underlying system that produced war and racism. It didn't work. From 1970 to 1977, I was a federal fugitive, living the whole time underground inside the country."

Resistance is part of the process, all I can do is push through and write Chapter 1, the rest will fall into place. Maybe this chocolate pop-tart I'm eating will help.

Reading

My reading time this week was focused on the Writer's Journey book and Underground: My Life with the SDS and Weathermen by Mark Rudd.

This isn't really reading but I came across an amazing podcast called Case File, it's a true crime podcast. I'm not really into true crime but there is a series of three podcasts dedicated to the story of The Silk Road. The Silk Road was a website on the "dark web" that was supposed to be an anonymous marketplace. As an example, think of, eBay, Craigslist, and PayPal except every transaction and listing was totally anonymous. And the website marketed itself toward the selling of illegal items, such as, drugs, guns, body parts, etc. 

The podcast does a great job of going into the life of the person who created the website and the FBI/IRS Agents who eventually caught him. They also caught several law enforcement officers using the investigation for their own profit.  Turns out, BitCoin isn't as untraceable as you might think.

Anyway, it was interesting and brings up a bunch of legal and ethical questions. Spoiler, the guy who created The Silk Road is in jail for life.

Life

Rich and Pam are doing great. They're enjoying the relatively cold weather and the occasional fire in the fireplace.

The second batch of Kombucha is in the fridge waiting for the final fermentation stage to complete. I took a taste test this weekend, it's much better than the first batch. Batch #3 is fermenting on the counter, there's a weird white foam-ish substance on the top. I'm not sure if that's good or bad, more investigation required.

That's all from the Catranch this week.

-jerad

 

Planning and Abiding by the Rules of the Catranch

Writing

So what does the drawing board look like?

When I wrote Selected, I started with a blank Google Doc titled Chapter 1 and went from there. I dove right into the writing because I had no idea if I could do it or not and there was only one way to find out. Anyone can outline and plan a book, that's easy, zero pressure, nobody will ever read it. Actually writing Chapter 1, that's a totally different experience, and that's why I started by writing. The story structure and planning went side by side with the writing. In retrospect, the story would have been better if I spent more time planning. But if I spent more time planning, I may have never made it to the writing. 

This time around, I'm spending more time planning out the story structure before writing. Spending time planning feels like procrastination but it's necessary. My grasp on the balance of writing versus planning is tenuous at best. So far what I've done is write until I get to a point where I don't know what to do, then plan, and vice versa. That rhythm between writing and planning seems to keep me moving.

Right now, I'm stuck on the planning phase. I have a plan for about half to three quarters of the book, which is enough to start writing.

If you want to know more about story structure and in the process, ruin the movie watching experience, I highly recommend The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler. His book uses the work done by Joseph Campbell regarding the monomyth and Hero's Journey to describe how the Hero's Journey has been used is modern film and literature. Joseph Campbell studied myths and folklore across the world over centuries and found that there are common elements in them all.  Those common elements are described as The Hero's Journey. If you believe in his theory, you can find the elements of The Hero's Journey in popular movies, literature, and religion. Again, depending on your perspective, it either ruins movies or gives you a greater appreciation for the work that goes into making a movie.

Reading

This week's reading was focused on The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler. The book has been sitting on my nightstand for months and I've never opened it until this week. I bought it based on a series of episodes on the Story Grid podcast. They used Vogler's book as a guide for talking about The Hero's Journey moments and archetypes. Tim and Shawn's conversation on the podcast about the concepts in the book was great but reading through Vogler's explanations and examples is much more helpful. To give you a sense of the book, he uses examples ranging from The Wizard of Oz to Beverly Hills Cop. 

Life

Cold. We've had a fire going for the last three days straight. To be fair, I did sit outside and read in shorts and a t-shirt on Sunday. Cold for San Diego.

Rich and Pam are very much into the fireplace. They each have their own assigned seat on top of the couch. In the mornings, Pam sits over by the window in the sun spot and Rich sits on the opposite side near the lamp. The seating changes by time of day. In the afternoon, Rich takes over the sun spot near the window on top of the couch and Pam moves to the sun spot on the seat of the couch. The seating arrangement is very well defined, there appears to be no room for negotiation. A misplaced pillow or backpack on the couch throws off the balance and the house is engulfed in chaos.

As a human living with Rich and Pam you must learn the rules. They may seem random but there is an order to things. Once you learn the rules, the operation runs smooth. Break the rules and you'll find yourself listening to Pam pound on the dresser door with her paws at 3 am.

-jerad

Back to the Drawing Board

Writing

I spent the week chipping away at the sequel to Selected, until I stumbled into a crisis moment yesterday morning. I realized that I can't write the sequel until I know what happened with the Dove Revolution. The Dove Revolution is what brought about the concept of the President, Senate, and Congress being selected at random. In my mind there are too many questions from that process that need to be answered before writing a sequel to Selected. 

I don't think I've said this in the blog before but Selected, is really the middle book of three. There needs to be a book explaining the Dove Revolution and a book where Jack Anderson finally meets his demise. I didn't plan it that way, it's just how it happened. When I started writing Selected, I had a very vague idea about political representatives being selected at random, that was about the extent of it. What came out was the middle book of what I think will eventually be a trilogy.

This week I also realized that I can't write from the perspective of an FBI Agent, it just doesn't work for me. I don't know enough about the day to day details and they're important if you're writing from an FBI agent's perspective. Don't get me wrong, I've never been the President either and I've never been in the White House. Writing from the perspective of an FBI Agent is too much of a stretch, I'm not as in tune with that world as I need to be. It's not a coincidence that the people writing amazing Crime and Serial Killer thrillers are either former police officers or investigative reporters.

Is that en excuse? Sure it is. It's also the truth.

The most important lesson that I learned from writing Selected was that it is an absolutely terrifying experience to tell everyone you know that you wrote a book and they should read it. The only way to make it through is to be confident that the story is good and that you did the best work you could do at the time. Everything else could go wrong, a couple of words misspelled, commas in the wrong place, formatting doesn't look great, cover isn't perfect, none of that stuff really matters and it can all be fixed. If you want to avoid having a nervous breakdown, you had better be sure that in your heart you believe the story is good and you did the best you could do.

That was a long winded way of saying, it's back to the drawing board and the drawing board is a good place to be. Life doesn't go in a straight line, course corrections need to happen. Between you and me, I thought of the sequel as just a step I needed to do in order to write the book I wanted to write, the story of the Dove Revolution. I needed to have a personal crisis moment to see through my own nonsense and write the book I'm excited about.

A little inside baseball, this isn't the first time in life that I've gone through the thought cycle of, "I'm going to do this thing I don't want to do ... then when that's wildly successful, I'll have the time to do the thing I really want to do". Nobody's perfect, at least I'm getting better at recognizing the pattern :)

Life and Reading

Rich and Pam are doing good, they got some new tuna flavored cat treats which are always a big hit. The Kombucha turned out to be good, the second fermentation with fruit gave it a nice flavor. The second batch is brewing.

I finished up reading The Attack by Jack Arbor and wrote a review. If you're into spy thrillers, it's a good read.

I need to do some research, if anyone has a recommendation for Man Against the State action stories send them my way. I've read Animal Farm, V for Vendetta, and It Can't Happen Here.

That's all the news from the Catranch this week.

-jerad

 

The Attack by Jack Arbor

I found Jack Arbor's work while searching through the political thriller list on Amazon. I've struggled to find new thriller authors that don't go overboard with gory details of murder and violence. My threshold for scary stuff is pretty low, I won't even watch The Walking Dead. Jack Arbor does a great job of mixing suspense and action without going beyond my limit for violence and gore.

The descriptions of Max Austin in the previous two books is what first caught my eye, who doesn't want to read about a second generation Belorussian spy? I decided to start with the most recent Max Austin thriller, The Attack, and I'm glad I made that choice. After reading The Attack, I'm totally hooked on the Max Austin character and the rest of his team. I mean come on, when the super smart computer hacker on the team is a woman named Goshawk, how can you not want to know more about her? The name alone is worthy of a book.

The first chapter of the book grabbed me by the shirt collar and dragged me into the world of Max Austin. I always feel better when a book opens with the main character in an action scene, doing what they do best. It sets the tone for book. The opening scene of The Attack hooks you into Max's universe and opened up a Pandora's box of questions that get addressed later.

Throughout the book, Jack Arbor does a great job of pacing by mixing up the action scenes with investigative scenes. The descriptions of remote mountain villages and crowded cities drew me into the story and made me feel like I was standing right next to Max. As the book moves along, you learn more about Max's past and the team he has assembled to help him take out the group that killed his family.

I'm ready to go back and read the previous Max Austin books and looking forward to the sequel. Max's revenge doesn't seem to be finished. If you're planning on reading Jack Reacher #23, check out a Jack Arbor book first, you'll be pleasantly surprised. And they're free on Kindle Unlimited, you can't go wrong.

 

 

Point of View, Kombucha Update and The Little Free Library Project

Writing

The impact of point of view choices has been on the front of my brain.

There are basically two options for point of view, first person and third person. I think of them in terms of a camera angle in the the movies. First person is like having a GoPro mounted on the character's head. There are varying degrees of proximity for third person point of view, they range from a camera mounted on the character's shoulder, to a camera man standing next to the character, to a camera mounted in the corner of the room.

It's my opinion, the closer the proximity of the 'camera' to the character, the stronger the bond between the reader and the character. For example, the Sherlock Holmes mysteries are written in first person, from the perspective of Dr. Watson. As a reader you build an intimate bond with Dr. Watson, you're reading his diary, doesn't get much closer than that. The second example is Harry Potter, half of the content in those books are describing Harry's thoughts. Writing a character's thoughts is a great example of bringing the reader closer to the character while using a third person point of view.

In both Sherlock Holmes and Harry Potter, an intimate point of view was used to create a bond between the reader and the lead character. A strong bond between the reader and the lead character makes for a more memorable reading experience. It's part of what makes a character 'stick with you' as a reader. And that's what makes you start wondering what Dr. Watson is up to while you're staring at the computer screen in the office.

Reading

I finished reading The Attack by Jack Arbor. It's a solid, action packed spy thriller. I want to go back and read the entire series about the main character Max Austin. Max has a solid network of spies that he uses for his missions and each of them could easily have their own series of books. If you're planning on reading Jack Reacher #23, check out a Jack Arbor book first, you might be surprised and they're free on Kindle Unlimited. Tough to go wrong.

Life

I'm declaring that Pam is fluent in the language of human manipulation. She has developed very specific methods of letting us know when she wants to snuggle. At the core of her language is running around the house meowing loudly or banging on the closet door at 3 a.m. As an untrained human, you might think that when she's running around the house meowing she wants to play. You would be wrong. What she really wants is for you to sit down on the couch so she can snuggle in your lap.

Richard takes a different approach. When he sits next to you or in your lap, he's really just monitoring your movement for any sign that you might be moving toward the fridge for cat treats.

The Catranch is running smooth. I bottled the Kombucha this week and added some fruit for the second fermentation. I took a small taste test this evening, I have my doubts on whether the fermentation process worked, it tastes a lot like sweet tea with fruit added. Mehh, we'll see what happens, at worst I end up with fruit flavored sweet tea.

I donated several copies of Selected to the Little Free Library Project locations near the house.  If you haven't heard of the Little Free Library Project, it's worth checking out. The description of the project from the project website is below.

A Little Free Library is a “take a book, return a book” free book exchange. They come in many shapes and sizes, but the most common version is a small wooden box of books. Anyone may take a book or bring a book to share.

Little Free Library book exchanges have a unique, personal touch. There is an understanding that real people are sharing their favorite books with their community; Little Libraries have been called “mini-town squares.”

Signing off from the Catranch with the glow of the fireplace in the background.

-jerad

An Old Volkswagen, Rainbow Smelt, and Hard Livin' on Repeat

Writing

I had a lot of fun this week writing the first two chapters in the sequel to Selected. I also have seven or eight more chapters written that probably won't make it into the book.  I wrote them to get a feel for the inciting incident, characters and story line that will drive the book.  It was a good feeling to get moving on the actual writing of the sequel. I don't think going from blank page to 'Chapter 1' is ever going to be easy and there's only one way to make it happen, sit down and do the work.

Most of the characters in the sequel appeared in Selected and in the sequel we'll get a chance to learn more about them. I think I have a good plan in terms of plot, but the journey from blank page to completed chapter is never a straight line.

Without giving away too much, the sequel will follow the FBI agent Rebecca Sanders, she briefly appeared in Selected as the FBI agent investigating Mason Adams. General LeMae, Mr. Anderson, and Brad Turner will also get some solid page time.

Reading

This week, I started reading The Attack by Jack Arbor. It's his latest book in a series about the Belarusian spy Max Austin. It's a great political thriller, the opening chapter grabs you by the collar and drags you into Max's world.  I'm about 80% through the book and every chapter has left me asking, what happens next? The character development is also very good, I want to go back and read more about the back story of his partner, Kate and his technology asset, Goshawk. 

My plan is to start writing up longer reviews of the books I'm reading on the website. Look for a 'Book Reviews' section on jallenwolfrum.com in the next few weeks.

This isn't really 'reading', but the new Netflix series Altered Carbon,  is awesome. I've watched the first four episodes, the writing is fantastic. It's a Sci-Fi series and the concept driving the story is that people can live forever, their brains are carried in a 'stack' that is placed in the back of their neck.  A person's body is referred to as a 'sleeve' and 'sleeves' can be purchased. The only way a person can die is if their 'stack' is destroyed. The series isn't for the faint of heart, the first scene has some graphic violence, I'm extremely squeamish and refuse to watch horror movies and I made it through, so it's not that bad. This is coming from someone who can't watch The Walking Dead.

Life

Rich and Pam are living the good life on the Catranch. They got some new cat treats this week, dried rainbow smelt, which come as whole fish, heads and all. Rich and Pam are totally into it. The new cat treats were the highlight of their week.  I think they're actually labeled as 'dog treats', Rich said he'd give them a pass on their labeling error.

On Sunday, we went on a short road trip to Encinitas in the VW Bug. Who needs fenders anyway?

I'm not sure what it says about me, but I've been listening to this on repeat for the last two days with the volume cranked up.

-jerad

The Things They Carried and Kombucha

Reading

I picked up a copy of The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien a few weeks ago. I read it for the first time more than fifteen years ago. My oldest friend gave me a copy when I was stationed at Camp Pendleton. My memory is a little hazy on the specific date but it was before 9/11/2001. I remember reading it in the barracks and the piece that stuck with me the most was the title, at that time I didn't have the perspective to connect with the emotions Tim O'Brien was trying to express.

This time around, The Things They Carried hit me like a ton of bricks. The book describes how events that happen during war shape the lives of soldiers long after the war is over. I'll leave it at that for now, I don't have my head wrapped around it all yet. If you haven't read the book, it's definitely worth the time.

Writing

I'm still working through some planning for the sequel to Selected. I'm trying to make sure that I have a roadmap for answering all the questions that were left open in Selected. My goal is to get a first draft done by the end of march, which is an ambitious, but achievable goal.  We'll see how it goes.

Life

Rich and Pam are holding things down at the Catranch.  The weather has been chilly (for San Diego) and we've been able to use the fireplace in the evenings, Rich and Pam are both big fans of a crackling fire.  Other than the fireplace the evenings, the Catranch was relatively quiet this week.

I started brewing my first batch of Kombucha. Much easier than I anticipated, basically you're just brewing a batch of tea and adding in the Kombucha culture for fermentation. The tricky part seems to be the temperature, it needs to stay between 68 and 86 degrees for the fermentation process. I have a feeling it's going to take a few batches before I can get it to the point where it's pleasurable to drink.

That's all I can think of for this week. Not writing is frustrating but taking the time to plan is important.

-jerad

P.S.

If you're into songwriting and good music, check out the interview with Sturgill Simpson and John Prine.

Toward the end of the interview, John Prine talks about one of the first songs he wrote while delivering mail, Sam Stone.

Strange that I ran into The Things They Carried and the John Prine discussion in the same week.  Coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe not.  But definitely got the wheels turning.