C.B. Murphy's Blog, page 6
May 26, 2014
Four Questions on My Writing Process
Question #1: What am I working on now?
I have a second draft of my third novel sitting on my desk right now. It’s very different from anything I’ve done before. My earlier books were both mainstream fiction, though the first one CUTE EATS CUTE I’ve started calling “YA” because of the fifteen-year-old narrator.
The book I’m working on is called BARDO ZSA ZSA. When I am pressed for a quick explanation of it, I ask people if they’ve read Kurt Vonnegut. Why? Because Vonnegut wrote funny, satirical, philosophical fiction that only “happened to be” science fiction because he allowed himself the freedom to use that genre as content. That’s how I see BARDO ZSA ZSA.
The story is about the “survivors” of the Heaven’s Gate suicide cult who find themselves on the UFO, but not exactly, the one they wanted. The conditions on the ship are far from what they imagined they would be. Far from a utopia run by friendly Space Brothers who look like they come from Sweden.
Instead, creatures much closer to “classic” aliens put the group on trial to represent earth and give them reasons not to destroy it. Our key characters are selected to be tested to see if our species is interesting enough not being destroyed by the world-weary jaded aliens. The “tests” place the characters inside of 1950s “B” science fiction movies where they have to figure out why they are there and how they might achieve an earth-saving result from the situation.
Our main character learns to love for the first time and believes this human capacity is the “missing ingredient” that would convince the aliens to spare the earth. You’ll have to read the book to find out what happens.
I am planning to illustrate the book with drawings and paintings done by the main character (a technique Vonnegut also used).
Taking a break from BARDO ZSA ZSA’s edit, I am also completing my first memoir—BOOK OF JOBS. I started it as a simple way to tell to my college age sons about all about the jobs I have done. I think there are seventeen. Each story will be illustrated with a cartoon (I call them “New Yorker cartoon style”) and a short, funny story (think David Sedaris). Some of by friends are reading the draft and telling me it’s the best thing I’ve written. They’ve convinced me to put it out as a “real book.”
Question #2: How does my work differ from others in its genre?
This is a good question for me as each of my books so far is in a different genre. That’s not what they tell you to do in “Writing School.” My books come from things I want to write about, and while I admire genre writers (and wish I could do it), I have to write what I have to write. My first book (Cute Eats Cute) was positioned as mainstream, character-driven fiction but because my fifteen-year-old character’s voice “took over” the story, it became more of a coming-of-age (YA) novel than I anticipated. When it first came out, I avoided that moniker but now I embrace it.
My second novel END OF MEN is clearly for adults—a mainstream (dare I say literary?) novel about a group of people who were once wild in college and as they grew older all went different directions. It covers a lot ground from suburban Chicago and the financial district, to a feminist museum, and finally to “art’ filmmaking on an Italian island. This is where all the characters get together again and deal with who they were and who they are now. Wild things happen.
My third book (BARDO ZSA ZSA) is tough to categorize. Technically, it could be considered “speculative fiction” (a funny phrase literary authors use when they write science fiction but they don’t want their work placed next in the “rayguns and spaceships” section.) I’d still call it mainstream fiction due to it’s focus on character.
Question #3: Why do I write what I do?
I had a writing coach once who gave some very good advice (I don’t think it was even his). He said a writer should find a doorway in his or her life that they never went through. Send your character through that door! This way you have the personal motivation to finish your story, as it is also a voyage of self-discovery. I think motivation for writing is very important and is best when it comes from a very personal place. Writing is just too difficult and the results too unpredictable to have motivations for fame and fortune sustain you.
My first novel CUTE EATS CUTE was an exploration of what it’s like to be a young person growing up in our politically divisive culture. It was also a way for me as a father to explore how I wanted to influence my sons. How would I handle the differences I have with their mother (still my wife FYI), for example? Despite finally calling it a YA novel, my real reason for writing was to explore being a parent. I think humor comes rather easily to me (despite my son saying, “Dad, you aren’t as funny as you think you are”) so CUTE is pretty darn funny if I say so myself. It’s funny in the way I think everyday life is funny, which is dark-funny or as it’s been described “Coenesque” (and not just because I live in Minnesota).
END OF MEN, my second novel, my “grown-up” novel, is partly autobiographical. I was “wild” in college and in fact went “straight” (as they used to call it) into a business career while keeping one foot in the world of creativity (cartooning, painting, writing). The older I got the more my “wilder” creative side sort of came back and took over, so much so that people who know me today only know me as a creative and are surprised to find out I once sold industrial metals, yes, in a “suit.” Part of my motivation for END OF MEN was exploring how my life turned out the way it did especially when some of my friends never went “straight,” never veered off the identity of the creative. Years later, even with this history of being a “suit,” I retained a burning interest in making things.
Where did BARDO come from? I was in the middle of writing another book (in a way a prequel to BARDO called LAND SOMEWHERE ELSE) when I veered off course. LAND was about people whose loved ones had gone into a cult. I had at least one solid draft of it when I started to lose interest. I realized that I was writing for an imaginary audience who was “not me,” wondering if this would be a story other people would like. It occurred to me, given where I was at in my life, that it was time to write something just for me and if anyone else liked it, fine. And fine if they didn’t. So BARDO has become the place to play, a place where I write exactly what I want to. Of course, I would still love it if others appreciate it, but I would be able to handle it if they didn’t. This is partly something I learned from painting—how to do it for myself and how that can motivate me to finish something. And delight in creating.
Question #4: How does my writing process work?
Process. Interesting. Well, for starters, I’m fairly disciplined. I usually write five or more “sessions” a week (usually weekdays), often two sessions a day. Despite all my talk about “playing,” I do work quite hard at it. As for how the writing process works, I fall into the camp of figuring it out as I go. Having said that, I spend a lot of time “mapping out” (mind mapping software) questions, characters, plot points, etc. I go tangents of research. What is perhaps the most difficult thing, I let my book take on a life of its own and tell me where “it” wants to go. Sometimes I even “interview” characters like I’m a director and they’re an actor who has been hired to play the character. This allows them to tell me things like, “My character wouldn’t do that.” I often take their advice. This keeps the work alive and separate from my “day mind” intentions for it, allowing magic to come in.
Then I edit. I like to say that each stage of a writing project has its own demons and they’re different. First Draft Demons say things like, “This is dumb. Don’t you have anything more fun to do? Who do you think you are anyway?” Editing Demons say things like, “Gosh, this is hard. Why didn’t you just write it better the first time?” Or: “If you can’t write better than this there’s really nothing you can do to fix your work. Isn’t there anything else you’re good at?” So, one fights the specific demons. And if you’re lucky, you get to the end. To other demons. Don’t get me started.
May 7, 2014
BOOK OF JOBS excerpt: King Charlatan’s Game
I did this drawing for a book I am working on called BOOK OF JOBS, where I take each of my jobs and write a brief description of it. I had to make an entry for our film company, Mona Films, Ltd. I don’t know why Mona or why our logo was a rooster, but I do know we thought the Ltd was international and would scare away copyright infringers.
This is a still of my friend Greg as one of the idiot twins, dressed in white outfits, holding hands and walking with exaggerated lack of coordination (not unlike ‘slow zombies’).
Here lies King Charlatan, murdered by the angry women.
Where did we get the idea to become filmmakers in high school? I’m not really sure. I know my best friend, Greg, (who ended up going to Pratt art school in Brooklyn) was a fan of Andy Warhol. Keep in mind in these ancient times it wasn’t easy to get information about outliers like Warhol. They weren’t on TV. There weren’t readily accessible alternative publications (like the Village Voice or City Pages) in suburban Detroit. And, of course, there was no Internet. It was tough to find out things. You could go to a library and look up magazines that your family.
I can’t remember what kicked it off. We did see some films in Brother Kovalesky’s English class. He showed up Ingmar Bergman’s “Wild Strawberries” (16mm copy) which was rather brave and enterprising for the times. I also remember going “downtown Detroit” to a location near Wayne State University to watch “experimental films” like Ed Emshwiller’s “Relativity” (1966). We managed to see some Fellini and Bergman as the art houses accessible by bus off Woodward Avenue, the spinal column of the Detroit area.
We discovered that one of the kids at Brother Rice, Tim S., had an 8mm movie camera. His dad did. My dad actually owned a 16mm camera but that was deemed too expensive and had an old fashioned fixed focal length lens. So Greg went about befriending Tim and bringing him into our production company he dubbed “Mona Films, Ltd.” We didn’t know what the “ltd” stood for but it looked cool. Our logo was a rooster, don’t ask me why.
Our first production was to be a combination of Fellini meets Bergman. It was to be chock ful of “sex and violence,” as much as we could get away with. We needed actors and a location and costumes. And some kind of script. Was there ever a real script to “King Charlatan’s Game”? I’m not sure.
Here was the plot: Some bawdy medieval “whores” lived in the woods pretending it was a house. I don’t know about calling them whores but Greg seemed to think that was a good thing. We recruited a few girls from the all-girl Catholic school next to ours, Marian. Elaine B. was the main whore, the female lead I should say. The script called for two “idiots” and Greg recruited his brother Mark to be the second idiot. The idiots would wear creepy semi-transparent masks, wear our “bakery whites” uniform and hold hands while they walked with an awkward shuffling gate we now associate with ’slow style’ zombies. For the boys to hold hands in a movie was a bit out there, but they were idiots, retards, so it didn’t really matter. I was to play the King, with a cape and crown and a mustache (black in the beginning then turning fluffy and blond later).
We found a big farm in the suburbs with an overgrown field and clump of trees we thought would be perfect provided we could climb fence (people and props) and film without anyone knowing we were there. The whole film shoot was done while we were tresspassing.
King Charlatan was to have a tryst with the main whore. We filmed a slow motion running scene, cutting back and forth between the running whore and the running king in tall waving grass against a blue sky. I think we had seen a scene like this somewhere but now I can’t remember where. So there’s a rolling around, oddly discrete “sex scene.” Later the King’s lover tells (or rather mimes) that she was raped by the King, and the enraged whore clan gets mad, chases the king and beat him with sticks. The angry women beat the King until ketchup (blood) squirts all over that scrawny chest. Violence like you’ve never seen! The triumphant women take his crown and cape and run triumphantly through the grass, now joined by the idiot twins.
Once we finished the final cut we rented a room downtown Birmingham at the Community Center and invited friends and family to our opening. Greg wrote some balderdash about how we used a theory of “Synesthesia” in film and read it as a introduction. Later the local paper, the Birmingham Eccentric, wrote an article, “Teens Show film at Community Center.”
On to the next production!
May 5, 2014
BOOK OF JOBS
I’m taking a break from my novel BARDO ZSA ZSA to finish this small comic memoir called BOOK OF JOBS. It features one short (funny) story for each of my 17 (?) jobs and a black-and-white illustration to go with each one. This is a mockup of the cover (featuring my father-in-law as my boss) and one drawing from my first “real” job as a night order clerk at a precious metals investment company.
April 28, 2014
Four Worlds I’d like to find on another planet
The assignment was: Worlds you want to find on another planet…These are drawings of some of my ideas
1. Godzilla/Kaiju world
2. Teenage vampire/werewolf world
3. Queen of Outer Space world
4. Anthropomorphic animal with human pets world.
April 17, 2014
The Anthropology of Contemporary Geekdom in Movies and TV
My cartoon was musing on the adoption of certain styles in Early Punk (ie. cool people) that overlapped the way “normal” geeks/nerds dressed. It was a way the Punks were distinguishing themselves from the Late Hippies. For example, the Punks wore skinny black ties not because they wanted to appear “neat and clean” (ie. Establishment) but they wearing them ironically, part throwback to the 1950s and part just to throw you off the scent of understanding them.
Mike Judge’s new HBO hit Silicon Valley proposes to show the underbelly of the techie geeks who run Silicon Valley through the eyes of the ones trying to break in. These are techie geeks but not academically techie geeks like the physics geeks on “Big Bang Theory.” There’s a new “edgy” theme of anti-college. Though the culture is ostensibly universally liberal (everyone claiming somewhat cynically that their product is ‘good for the planet’) there is a secondary ethos that in order to be successful you have to learn to be an “asshole” and those skills don’t come easily but all the successful have them. To learn “assholeness” they’d have to watch “Mad Men.”
The geeks/nerds of Big Bang Theory are academics. They love comics and Star Wars and videogaming and are just as clumsy around women as their brethren on Silicon Valley, but they aren’t necessarily capitalists at heart. They want recognition from the establishment physicists who are big name academics or NASA people. They live on grants and tenure. Though snobbish in their own way on their own subjects, they aren’t “tough enough” (ie. asshole enough) to be successful in Silicon Valley.
In 2009 Mike Judge failed with a TV animation called The Goode Family that skewered politically correct yuppies trying to stay in the good graces of the ever-changing mores of mainstream liberalism. Why did it fail where Portandia succeeds in convering the same material ostensibly to the same audience? I suspect that the audience for this (ABC) show was torn between laughing at the culture from the outside (which isn’t very funny) or feeling like someone is making fun of your friends (which isn’t very funny). For example, when they are in the Co-op, there’s a sign telling them whether wild salmon is good or bad and it keeps switch from one column to the other. This is only funny to an insider who knows how difficult it is to “keep up” with the latest news vis a vis what’s with salmon.
Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein of Portlandia manage to make us laugh at “their” culture (which is also “our” culture wink-wink the only culture worth anything) by convincing us they are on the INSIDE of that culture poking fun at it. Fred and Carrie do a skit with the same material the Goode Family used with the salmon, showing how people “died from indecision.” The ghosts that haunt the living torture them with contradictory information gleaned from “decent sources” like the New York Times. We have a sense that these two actually sit around on Sunday and read the Times finding humor in it at the same time they are gleaning their contradictory tibbits of information.
Mike Judge’s “Idiocracy” (2006) was not a successful film. It’s premise is that the “future” is full of idiots as they’re the only ones too dumb to not reproduce. So it’s the “smart set” (represented by Luke Wilson) being amazed at the Duck Dynasty set (if you will) and what’s funny about that?
My son pointed out to me that Two and a Half Men (2003-present) is a successful show for older people. The “star” is not only a successful computer guy but he’s good looking and “good with the ladies” (maybe too good, ha ha). He’s a playboy and not realistic character that you’d find in either “Big Bang” or “Silicon Valley.”
April 10, 2014
Stephen Colbert and Ali G, problems of famous fake personalities
So Stephen Colbert takes over for David Letterman. My son and I have had a lively text exchange about whether this necessitates Colbert dropping his faux conservative “persona.” We think yes.
The Stephen Colbert Report is a pointedly political satire and his audience is in on the (wink-wink) joke that he’s not really the blustering conservative he pretends to be. But as Letterman’s successor on “The Late Show” Colbert will have to engage people across wide entertainment and “fame” spectrums. Some of them likely wouldn’t be bright enough (or care) about engaging his faux conservative positioning. Thus, he has to drop the act. My guess is he will have to be “himself” and allocate his (liberal) Catholicism to a more Still, it’s a good trick if he call pull it off. He does seem more like an “adult” than Fallon and Kimmel who share a “frat boy” view of the world, ie. everything is funny, isn’t it?
Another famous person who ran into a persona problem was Sacha Baron Cohen. He got famous as Ali G (an irritating mixed race Brit hip hop idiot) whose main gimmick was putting on somewhat famous (and some really famous) people (like Boutros Boutros Ghali and Buzz Aldrin) with dumb questions meant to trip them up. He went on to duplicate his success with Bruno (irritating gay German) and Borat (irritating Kazakhastanian). But once all those characters were “out” in movies of varying success, how can Cohen go back to Ali G? My son postulates that there will still be plenty of people who won’t know Ali G is a false persona and that may or may not be true. I’m sure the comedian is inventive enough to get around that problem or he wouldn’t have Ali G Rezurection slated to return to FXX.
I might even watch one or two.
April 8, 2014
Forgeries discovered of George Bush paintings!
Ok this is a little embarrassing. Yeah, the title was just to get your attention. I realize how polarizing a figure Mr. Bush is. And now with his bold revelation that he is in fact the equivalent of an outsider artist (or a “Forrest Gump” painter as the Guardian called him) I have to say I, too, have been fascinated by painting (some might say crude) portraits of world leaders. OK so we all can’t be as cool as Andy Warhol. But he cheated didn’t he? He painted on photographs. Don’t get me started.
Nicolas Sarkozy’s term as president of France ended in May 2012. He may return though. Watch out.
Junichiro Koizumi’s term as Prime Minister of Japan ended in 2006. He’s retired, but revered as a rare change agent in Japanese politics.
Hugo Chavez died in office as president of Venezuela in 2013. As controversial as Bush for opposite reasons, his successor is having some problems duplicating his success.
Kim Jung Il was succeeded by his son Kim Jung Un in 2011. He died shortly after leaving office.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was voted out of office in 2013, but he was a controversial and charismatic president of Iran. Buddies of Chavez, by the way.
Here are some George Bush paintings. Not anything like mine:
Karzai by George Bush
Tony Blair by George Bush
Jay Leno by George Bush
Putin by George Bush
Andy Warhol Mao Tse Tungs
April 4, 2014
Someone asked to go into my mind
Hello, where do these images come from? Why are you doing this? The Dream Doctor told me that “all cultures are insane” and it’s up to the artists to keep it sane. Even if we work in a cave and no one knows we exist? Yes, said the wise man.
Everyone is shocked and afraid for the future. What is coming? Is it a giant trilobite (one of my favorite creatures ever).
Maybe.
Oh no, the trilobite disappeared! I will ask the people of The Facebook for ideas. Someone says a nuclear bomb but another person says no, that is a cliche. Someone says monsters, all the monsters. But can’t we use the bomb again… the russians…? Don’t start with that! Even Don Draper will be groovified this season. Don’t you understand that? Andy Warhol is a god (not the god but a…) and 1000 years in the future they will look back and say the Age of Dada lasted two hundred years.
Rules: every image has to be something from the book Mexican Pulp Art. Why? Because that’s what I’m doing. I’m “doing” that book. Don’t ask why so much. The ship is leaving.
Ok i see you went with the nuclear bomb anyway. what the hell. Oh, it’s a cliche? Screw that–add a giant cobra! (It’s in the book!) Oh, yeah, no cliches here!
Tired of bombs. tired of death. Oh, really? you think you can escape it? I have to words for you, gringo, Ha ha. Or as we say Ja Ja
ja ja ha ha ja ha ha ja ja
OK it got to me. Too many bombs. but never enough tornados! you can’t stop tornados. Ever. they say there are more and more. We caused it. that’s what they say. all the more reason to be afraid, be very afraid! But still, with the snakes. They are my totem. Why? Don’t ask why so much.
Friedrich Nietzsche
We have art in order not to die of the truth.
Friedrich Nietzsche
March 17, 2014
Cute Eats Cute: the deer problem only got worse!
Back when I wrote my early drafts of CUTE EATS CUTE, my writing coach at the time said, “You better get this out fast. This issue is probably going away soon.” In the months and years that followed, I have only seen the issue of “too many deer” increase its profile in the media. In other words: it ain’t going away.
new york times on deer problem
But the real issue of my book is not just “the deer problem” but growing up in a world of highly opinionated (ahem, boomers) while trying to find your way. In the story, Sam’s parents span the entire spectrum of philosophy and politics making it tough for him to find a path not already overcrowded. While his mother is “anti deer hunt” she represents a more “spiritual” view of nature that isn’t necessarily what Sam’s peers relate to. On the other hand, while his father is “pro deer hunt” using the conservationist/hunter argument, he seems better informed on the problems associated with too many deer.
Then real world problems range from the more serious: collisions (often fatal to both) with humans in vehicles, outbreaks of lyme disease, irreparable damage to forests on the ecosystems of other animals, to the merely irritating—deer munching on our exotic plants. Since we have created a new ecosystem where the deer thrive with minor predation (cars and hunters) there is the issue of herd’s health. When there are too many deer they can starve in winter among other unpleasant outcomes.
One of the themes discussed in CUTE EATS CUTE is deer contraception. The issue remains pretty much where it was when I wrote the book. Anti-hunting groups it as a scientific and humane solution, but so far there isn’t an effective contraception method that is practical (and cost effective) in the field.
But I thought I’d take a moment to link to some of the most recent media flags about this problem and how it’s not going away.
Time Magazine
Wall street journal: Can’t See the Forest For the Deer
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/S...
Wall street journal: Too Many Deer in Rural Japan
New York times: Why Bambi Must Go
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/19/opi...
Plus a number of books on how to protect your shrubbery:
