Biff Mitchell's Blog: Writing Hurts Like Hell - Posts Tagged "coffeebreak"

Sometimes you have to cry before you laugh…or just do something that’s not anywhere near laughing…like being confounded, grossed out or puzzled. The Weekly Man is a mystery of sorts. In terms of genres, it would fall loosely into speculative/magical realism/humor/social commentary/not always so humorous. Something along those lines.

The first episode is not humorous. My apologies. It’s kind of serious, kind of gross, kind of foul-mouthed and kind of hopeful. You won’t like the main character…for now. However, if you don’t like serious/gross/foul-mouthed/hopeful, you can just skip it. It’s being published on a Sunday anyway, and my friends tell me they’d rather stay home and watch football than go into work so that they can have a coffee break and read the first episode of The Weekly Man.

Oh well.

But honestly, the first episode won’t make any sense until almost halfway through the novel anyway; however, it sets a tone that’s important coming into the story because, sometimes, it’s necessary to erect humor on a solid foundation of muck.

Dark muck.

There’s something deeply wrong with humans (that would be you and me), but I won’t get into that now. I will later…well into the story when, hopefully, you’ll see something intrinsically wrong with the way the lives of the characters unfold. It’s something we do all the time and it’s probably going to kill us eventually and that’s why the story starts on a down note.

There will be humor, but you won’t be slapping your knees or choking on coffee. It’ll be quiet and bothersome. And it’ll go well with your morning coffee.

Follow The Weekly Man at theweeklyman.com.

It was one hell of a busy summer. I finished a novel and gave up on another one (for now, anyway). I put together a game and marketing plan for the world’s first free daily serialized coffee break novel (seriously, Google it). The novel is currently running on my parallel blog, www.theweeklyman.com .

I also, visited Fundy Park for the first time with my bestie, Stephanie, and will definitely be going back. I discovered a lake I’d been wanting to see for years along with my friend, Nanook of the Nashwaak.

I also put together my first solo exhibition featuring my macro photography and board drawings. I did 37 boards last winter and lost over 20 pounds. They were addicting to the point that I would start right in on them as soon as I got home from work and forget abut things like eating and making a lunch for the next day.

I did the actual drawing at home but took the boards into the studio to paint and varnish them.
I’ve visited the studios of many of my artist friends and it always fascinates me to see their works in progress and then see them on display with all the messiness of creation left behind. I think this is what many skeptics fail to see when they look at a painting and say something stupid like, “A few dollars for paper and a few dollars for paint…and you sell it for ten times what it’s worth.”

Bastards.

I hate these people with a passion. I’d like them all to work for me for free for one year. You know, doing whatever they’re good at and not being paid for it. Or being paid a couple of dollars an hour. On the other hand, these are most likely to be people who don’t do so well on their jobs because they’re not smart and they talk too much. Maybe I don’t want them working for me and just messing everything up.

So, with that aside put aside, seeing the work in progress gives you a true sense of the intense focus and commitment that goes into creating art. I’ve seen artists on the verge of collapsing from hunger and fatigue because they had a deadline for an exhibition and they’ve gone for days without sleep and they’ve survived on coffee and air.

And this isn’t always a matter of the artists not preparing properly. Often, it’s because the gallery or other venue has changed the rules, the dates, the physical venue or whatever. Or, preparing for the exhibit leads the artist into new areas and the temptation to add some of the new stuff to the exhibit. Fortunately, most galleries don’t allow this, or there’d be a lot more crazy artists jumping out of windows and off bridges.

For me, working on the boards was one of the most fulfilling and mystical experiences of my life. I believe that where there was life, there will always be life. Life is energy and wherever that energy has existed, there will always be some remnant of it…like when you cut down a tree, the tree’s life energy doesn’t just disappear…patches of it inundate the wood like shadows of the tree’s memories, and you can feel that energy in the boards even after they’re cut into useable sizes from the tree.

Before I start drawing on the board, I spend some time getting a feel for its life energy, and that’s what directs the tip of my gel pen to bring out the board’s story.

And the stories are never boring.

Mr. World News: So, Biff, how did the first week of your free daily serialized coffee break novel go?

Biff: It went well, Mr. News. I only lost half my usual readers.

Mr. World News: Half? That’s horrible.

Biff: Tell me about it. Now I have just one reader.

Mr. World News: And what are your plans now?

Biff: I’m going to get that reader back. I may have to send money…or maybe I could just learn how to write. That can’t be too hard.

Mr. World News: No, uh, that should be…(looks at schedule)…you are Biff Mitchell, right?

Biff: Did you want the evil one or the nice one?

Mr. World News: (looking confused) I was hoping for the…uh…nice one, I guess.

Biff: Great. That would be me. Are you one of my readers? Are you the one who stopped reading?

Mr. World News: (looking uncomfortable, about ready to run) Um…back to the first week. What was that first week like, Biff?

Biff: (gets faraway look in eyes) Let me see. It was…hell. Pure hell. It rained every day. I posted a bad link and one of my readers (the one that stayed) sent me a death threat with a graphic description of what will happen to me if I screw up again. MS Word caused massive format changes of an evil manner in WordPress. My iMac died just when I needed it the most and needs a few hundred dollars worth of repairs, but I have a MacBook, so the posts went on. Other than pure bloody hell…things went well.

Mr. World News: (eyes glazed) It…it sounds like…an interesting first week.

Biff: And there are only 9 more weeks to go. I think I’ll jump off a bridge tonight.

Mr. World News: (looking around to ensure there are no bridges close by) Is it true that you have two versions of the novel?

Biff: Yep. It looks fine on my blog if you’re on a desktop or laptop (https://theweeklyman.com/). But it looks like crap on a phone. I know this for certain. I saw it on my iPhone and immediately sent myself a death threat. So I put together a cell phone friendly site (https://biffmitchell.com/welcome-to-t...).

Mr. World News: It certainly sounds like a lot of work, Biff. How do you manage it?

Biff: Awakeness

Mr. World News: Awakeness?

Biff: Yes, I wake up each day and do things.

Mr. World News: Um…uh…yes. That’s very interesting, Biff. Good wholesome advice. (hands Biff the microphone and runs over a hill and into the setting sun)

Biff: (looking at mike in hand) I wonder…was he that other reader?

(NOTE: You can start reading The Weekly Man at any time. All the episodes published so far are at the welcome screen. https://biffmitchell.com/welcome-to-t...)

I’m not sure if I’ve written about how I create characters yet, but here goes for, hopefully, the first time…and maybe the tenth.

I started my first novel with three characters and no story. No plot. No idea where any of it was going because I had nothing that was going. I had two men and one woman. I had a rough idea of what they looked like, though their looks changed a little as their characters evolved.

For months, I did character studies, wrote about their dreams, their likes and dislikes, how they dressed in the morning, what they ate and what would make them vomit. I put them in conversations with the other characters and with people I created just to have conversations with them. I got into showers with them. I had sex with them and became them having sex with others. I had conversations with them on the bus and over coffee. But mostly, I went into their minds and memories and created back stories for them.

Back stories are significant snippets from a person’s past, things the experienced that changed the course of their lives, kept them on course, or changed the lives of the people around them.

Backstories are almost always intense, interesting scenes in which important, character-shaping things happen. For instance, what does the skinny ten year old do when he sees the school bully heading toward him with a malicious smile draped on his jaw?

Does he run? Does he stay? Does he cry? Does he fight back? Does he give up and suffer a few minutes of humiliation?

Whatever he does, it’s going to travel with him. If he runs, he’ll likely run again and again. If he stays and fights, he’ll likely never take shit from others. Back story moments define our lives and make us who we are.

I spent months writing back stories for the three main characters and for the minor characters and, as I wrote them, the plot for the novel unfolded in their stories.

I’ve always respected what my characters have to say about their fates and the paths they take through the novel. I let them lead the way and I never question their decisions.

And this was a long, roundabout way to say that there will be no episode of The Weekly Man this Sunday because that’s not the way the characters told their story. However, Jack will be back on Monday (just as weird as ever) and the story as a whole will be taking a sprint into the world of crazy.

Maybe you could read one of the free short stories here: https://biffmitchell.com/the-weekly-man.

In any event, have a great weekend and may all your coffee breaks be magic.

It’s been over two months since I completed serializing The Weekly Man: The World’s First Free Daily Serialized Coffee Break Novel and after spending 72 days, every day, including weekends, upwards of three hours posting and marketing the novel…being at the mercy of the daily technology hurdle and building my life around the serialization, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll never do anything like this again.

At least not for 72 days. I think that was the biggest mistake: it went on for too long. It became a draining process after the first month. I’m sure that the daily announcements for new episodes started to look like spam in social media outlets. They started to feel like spam to me.

I’m working on a series of articles inspired by those 72 days of joy and hell and at the same time, I’m working on a print and ebook version of the novel. One thing I learned is that you can never finish re-writing a novel. But I’ll get into that in one of the articles. The print version is turning out to be almost a full re-write but it should be on sale sometime this summer or fall.

I’m going to leave the free one up, both the blog (https://theweeklyman.com) and smart phone (https://biffmitchell.com/the-weekly-man) versions, for those who don’t mind scrolling up and down a blog or opening 72 separate PDFs.

And to top it all off, I'm starting a newsletter to keep people informed, throw a few contests and give stuff away. That should be ready early to mid-spring.

In the meantime, get through winter as best you can and remember…somewhere on this planet, at this exact moment, a warm wind is caressing the fronds of a palm tree.