Jamie Sheffield's Blog, page 6

Finishing 2 Writing Projects!

I'm nearly done with both my fourth novel, Thunderstruck , and fifth novella, Speaking in Code. Both are Tyler Cunningham stories that follow him as he works his way through the confusing world of violent crime and the human condition (neither of which he really understands, either taken together or separately).


Speaking in Code is just a working title, but I'm nearly done with the story, so we'll see. It picks up shortly after Between the Carries leaves off, and follows Tyler and Hope dodging winter via a trip out west. Not surprisingly, Tyler stumbles upon some violent crime, along with a reason to solve it. It should be out in mid-December.



Thunderstruck is the fourth novel in the Tyler Cunningham series of Adirondack Mysteries. Tyler gets pulled into an unexpected adventure, along with the usual cast of characters, and bad things happen. It should come out in January of 2016.

I've had fun the last four years exploring the mind of Tyler and the other people that live in his world, but after the release of these stories, I'll be taking a break from Tyler for a while ... I'm working on some short pieces for a couple of anthologies, and am excitedly making preparations for a high fantasy novel that I'll begin serious work on next summer.

I hope you enjoy these stories when they come out!

Thanks,

Jamie

Interview with Lawrence Block

Lawrence Block is America’s preeminent crime writer, and the author of more than 50 novels, 100 short stories, and numerous books on writing. In 1994 he was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America; he was awarded the Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. On top of all that, he’s both my favorite author, and an inspiration to countless wrters (myself included); I was recently lucky enough to have him agree to an interview (which you'll find a few inches further down).

 I first encountered Mr. Block's writing when I stumbled onto the eighth book in his Matt Scudder series, A Ticket to the Boneyard . I fell in love … with the pitch-perfect dialogue, taut and suspenseful storyline, stark and sometimes shocking brutality, and with the moral ambiguity of the intriguing cast of characters (no pure white or black hats among them, everyone brings their own wonderful shade of grey to the story). As soon as messieurs Scudder and Block and myself finished with Leo Motley (the story's ill-fated antagonist), I quickly found the first book in the series ( The Sins of the Father , if you were wondering) and kept reading until I had caught up.

Once I was current with the Scudder series, I worked my way through his other famous series (Bernie Rhodenbarr, who I will always think of as 'Bernie the Burglar', and 'Evan Tanner the world’s most unusual spy') before exploring his other great novels (like Such Men are Dangerous, one of my all -time favorites) and his short stories (like the fantastic collections, Defender of the Innocent and Some Days You Get the Bear ). I’ve never failed to enjoy any single one of his books, and his writing seems to only get better as time goes by.

 A perfect example of this is his recently released novel, The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes , a fast-paced, sex-filled, and nasty piece of noir that’s as good or better than anything Block’s written, in my opinion. I bought/downloaded it the day it came out, and read my way through it more quickly than I wanted to … trying to stretch and savor the experience, but unable to delay the pleasure of reading one more page/chapter of retired cop, turned detective, Doak Miller’s violent romp through the steamy days and nights in Gallatin County, Florida.


The confidence and competence with which Lawrence Block steamrolled through this story called to mind both John MacDonald (at least partly because of the story being set in Florida) and Elmore Leonard (for the depth of characters and great dialogue), but with that special flair and edge that only Block can bring to his version of adult storytime; it would be fair to say that The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes is a prime example of Lawrence Block writing exactly the kind of story and characters he loves best, while at the full height of his powers.



 At any rate, enough prelims, here are the questions and answers from my interview with Lawrence Block:

1. What are you working on at present?

 An updated and expanded edition of Writing the Novel from Plot to Print , my first book for writers and continuously in print since 1978. It's stood the test of time, but the word has changed in the past 37 years, and certain areas — ebooks, self-publishing — are unrecognizably different. I should have the new edition on sale in early 2016, probably with the title Writing the Novel from Plot to Print to Pixel.

 2. How do you deal with writer's block?

 At my age, I'm apt to yield to it. But my friend Jerrold Mundis has a short book that's truly the last word on the subject. It's called Break Writer's Block Now , and I recommend it without hesitation.

 3. Do you have a favorite work that you feel has been overlooked?

 The nature of the business is such that non-series novels never get the attention of books in series. I'm delighted my books about Matthew Scudder and Bernie Rhodenbarr and Keller and Tanner are as popular as they are, but regret that Random Walk and Small Town get less attention. My newest book, The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes , is getting plenty of attention right now, and several reviewers have been kind enough to call it my masterpiece. But it's not part of a series, and its popularity will probably prove less durable in years to come.

 4. If you could have lunch with any three writers, living or dead...

 Ah yes, that popular favorite, and easy for me to answer. I'd pick Ross Thomas, Evan Hunter, and Donald E. Westlake. I already know what excellent company they are. And I miss them. If you'll set two more places, I'd add John B. Keane and Dave Van Ronk.

 5. Do you feel you've inspired other writers?

 Oh, I know I have. All over the world, no end of readers have hurled books of mine across the room. "I know I can write a better book than this piece of crap!" they've thundered. And wouldn't you know it? Time after time, they've been right.


Personal note: While I've never hurled one of your books, or thought them crap, I have been inspired, by a continuous exposure to your great ideas and characters and plot twists, to try my hand at writing ... it's safe to say that without your books, I wouldn't have written/published my books.

 I’m deeply grateful to Mr. Block for taking the time to answer my questions, and even more grateful to him for the superb writing he’s done for me and all of his fans over the years. His writing, and books about writing have been an ongoing inspiration to readers and writers over the year, myself included. I look forward to reading more great books from him in the coming years, especially the updated and expanded Writing the Novel from Plot to Print to Pixel.

 You can find Lawrence Block’s work and words in your local bookstore and online. I’ve provided links to buy some of the works mentioned up in the blog/interview above, as well as few of other relevant links below:

Lawrence Block's Website
Lawrence Block on Amazon
Lawrence Block on Facebook

Thanks,

Jamie

Mid-November Update (a few days early)

I'll be the first to admit that the biggest reason for this blog update is that I love the loop of Kermit typing ... but even beyond that, I do have some important stuff to share!

The new novel, "Thunderstruck", is going through another round of story and line editing by the tireless minions at SmartPig ... it should be, as Horation Alger urged, going West (to our out-of-house editor for her first swipe at the work) within the week.I'm hard at work on, and up to my elbows in, the fourth Tyler Cunningham novella, tentatively titled "Code Talkers", which follows Tyler and Hope on a trip out to the Four Corners region for some cryptography and murder in red rock country.In getting ready for my big shifting of gears next summer, to write a fantasy novel, I'm reading my way through a pile of the best work in the field, both new and old. I'm also taking lots of notes and drawing maps and making up character sheets ... this should be a fun project.I recently conducted an interview with writing legend, and an idol and role-model of mine as a writer, Lawrence Block, and I should be posting the results of the Q&A sometime this week ... it was incredibly exciting to be in communication with this fantastic writer, and to get his thoughts on his writing and the writing process in general.Enjoy your Sunday, read and write!
Jamie

Halloween Poem: Invitation to the Party

Invitation to the Party
I’m out this Halloween,out delivering invitations.
Walking down dark roads,and quiet paths,even padding along carpeted hallways(I passed your bathroom, heard you in the shower, but I don’t have an invitation for you, not today).
I see many people along my route,am seen by few,invite fewer still.
My home is the woods,cold fog and damp and the smell of rotten things on forest floor are my family;neither fallen leaves nor twigs crunch or snap underfoot,dead things all work for me.
The signs to deliver an invitation differ in every home,some glow with sick or fear or desperate need,mine is a gift given to rich and poor, young and old,innocent and guilty (of sin or life or love).
I come in, to visit, through unlocked window or door,from under the bed or out of the slightly gapped closet,I know the boards that creak and stairs that squeak and hinges that sigh with gentle opening;everyone comes to the party eventually,why not with me,by my invitation.
A bittersweet kiss while you sleep,the gentle caress of sharpened steel from the right when you looked left,a lover’s embrace of pillow over mouth and nose (rough thrashing soon spent and stilled)legs swept from under you brings a swift fall on hard tile when rinsing soap from your eyes;my invitation varies in every home,
but I always show up at the party with a new friend in tow.

Short Fiction: "Now is the Winter"

Last fall I worked with a number of author indie authors to produce an anthology of short stories. It was a fun process, and I enjoyed the opportunity to work with them all, and to try my hand at writing something outside of my usual pattern.


The idea for my story came from a writing themed picture/meme I posted on my FB page:

I liked the idea of an interaction between the protagonist and the story in progress and the reader ... and in this way, my desire to write a short piece of metafiction was born. The story was quite different from the stuff I ordinarily write, but the words came freely, and I liked what I ended up.
You can buy the full anthology at Amazon HERE, it's really a fun collection of stories, read the story here (well, a tiny bit further down this blog entry actually) for free, or download it in pdf format from my public DROPBOX folder (also for free).



Now is the Winter
I came to my senses behind the wheel of a strange car, on a strange street, with a strange woman (in both/all senses of the word) beside me, and the day quickly got more strange and unpleasant from there. The tropical heat and humidity, along with a chorus of blaring car horns, told me that I was in tropics, in traffic, and in trouble. I was drunk and dry-mouthed and muzzy-headed; under my white knuckles, the steering column was sweat-slick and on entirely the wrong side of the car for this day to not be a complete disaster. I turned to my passenger, cleared my throat, and aimed for a normal tone (if there is such a thing in these circumstances).“Excuse me,” I said, trying to ignore the ongoing honk-a-palooza coming from behind us, “do you think you could ...”“Oh my Goddesses,” she said, whistling a bit through the sibilants and a sizable Letterman-gap. “Go, go, go! Get us out of this intersection before the cops come to see about all the honking.”I stepped on the gas, and promptly stalled the car as my left foot slipped off of a clutch I hadn’t been aware of until the car jerked a couple of feet forward and died. I looked stupidly down between my legs as my passenger started chanting, “Go, Go, Go” in time to her hitting my left arm, which had dropped from the wheel to find the shifter. I hadn’t driven a stick since Father taught me how to drive using his ancient Saab 900 (and I certainly couldn’t remember driving one with the stick on the wrong side, especially not drunk or in traffic).“If you don’t stop the hitting and the shrieking this second,” I said, “I’ll rip your fucking hand off at the wrist and jam it in that noise-hole. I can get us out of here if you’ll give me a moment of quiet to think.”Her teeth clacked together, sounding like the ancient Cubanos who played dominoes out front of the bodega near Nana Cecily’s. The offending hand flew up to cover the offending noise-hole; more importantly, away from my hand, which now found the shifter, and eventually first gear. I feathered the gas and clutch as gently as if they were made from baby bunnies. I got clear of the intersection just as the light was turning red, pulled away from the angry drivers behind me, and drove until I found the first left turn that I could make. I made the turn without any honking or yelling or crashing, pulled into a shady spot under an enormous fig tree, shut the engine of the car off, rolled out of the door, climbed to my feet and went to lean against the slick and cool bark of the tree.She walked over and said my name a couple of times before I figured out who she was talking to. My eyes were tightly closed against the sun and the day and the headache that was trying to split my skull open right above those same eyes.“Richard, we have to get to the wedding,” she said. “You said everything would start at two, and it’s half past already.”The shock opened my eyes, and I looked the two of us up and down, “Jesus Christ, please tell me it’s not our wedding?” I was only half joking.She smiled and reached out to slap the back of my head. My altered-state muted my normally muted response, and I nearly broke her wrist before I reined in my reflexes.“Goddess! That hurt, asshole,” she said. “No, we just met at the Swizzle. I’m from Yellow Bird Escorts. We’re paid through nine tonight to go to the rehearsal for your brother Eddie’s wedding to whatshername. I wouldn’t even have hung around, much less gotten in this car with you in this state, if it weren’t for your story of the orphaned baby fox.”“Barb, not Barbara,” I said, as things finally started coming back to me. “Eddie’s marrying his new girl, Barb, in … Bermuda. We’re in Bermuda!”“Congratulations, Richard,” she said as she queued up her next question. “Now, do you think we could get going, it’s not getting any earlier. Do you need me to drive?”“Nope, I’m good,” I said, which is my inevitable answer to that, or any question regarding my well-being, or capacity to function in any given situation; I slid back into the roasting-hot rental, gingerly touching the steering wheel, listening to my knees crack as I settled into the car.“I have a picture of the general layout of Hamilton, and some idea of how to get from here to the resort the wedding’s at. I feel like an ass for asking, ma’am, but can you remind me of your name?” I asked.She looked at me, sitting behind the wheel, squinting in the tropical glare, sweating out what must have been an impressive number of rum swizzles, and she gave a deep, rumbling laugh before taking pity on me, sharing a sweet and pretty smile, and answering, “Pepper Divinity, Richard, pleased to meet you.” She took in my reaction to the name, and continued, “I know, right?”“There is no way I can introduce a two-stripper-name ‘date’ to my family with a straight face, what’s your real name, or at least real-er?”“That’s the real deal, honey,” she said, nodding as she did. “My workin’ name is Norma-Jean, ‘cause people say I look like Marilyn Monroe.” I couldn’t see it, but also couldn’t think of a good reason to mention that.“Norma Jean it is,” I said, shifting the car into first gear, putting the car through a three-point turn, and heading back into the noise and traffic of a minute ago, somewhat more clear-headed. Long years of hard-drinking and a mixed bag of blackouts and brownouts were finally paying off in the form of partial function while fully inebriated.I managed to get through town, and onto the right road to feel my way towards the resort that was perched on a cliff at the far end of the island. I’d never been to Bermuda before, but my brother Edward and I had decided on it as the perfect zombocalypse retreat nearly twenty years ago, so the roads and general layout were still etched in my mind from long hours spent with maps and the fancy glass globe in father’s study. My head cleared further while I drove farther, and by the time I handed off the rental to a valet and escorted Pepper Divinity inside (I had perversely decided on introducing her to everyone at the wedding by her real name while crossing the island). I could remember whole stretches of the flight out of JFK. I had been alone and drinking early in the first class section. The limo driver, who provided the ride from the airport into Hamilton, arranged for me to meet the lovely lady herself at The Swizzle Inn (which serves those vicious and eponymous drinks). More importantly, I remembered that I was planning to kill my eldest brother, Eddie, tomorrow, on his wedding day.“Would you be a peach, Pepper,” I said, giggling, though, who wouldn’t, “and get us a couple of swizzles from the bar that must be hiding somewhere nearby, while I check in; tell them to charge it to the Gloucester Wedding Party. Thanks.” I pressed a fifty dollar bill into her hand as she started across the grand entry hall, just in case, enjoying the briefest of touches as our hands made a nest around the money. Her fingers and palm were smooth and muscled and not at all soft, much like what I could see/imagine of the rest of her. On a whim, I told the woman behind a yard of cool marble (upon which I may or may not have rested my forehead for a few delightful seconds) that I was Richard Gloucester, checking in, would need a suite instead of a single, and that there would be two of us staying for the wedding. “Lord God, Ricky,” Father said from next to me, appearing, as always, as if out of thin air. “You smell like a high-speed collision at the corner of Fruit and Rum. You missed the entire luncheon, and a walk-through of the wedding by the planner. Your brother’s only going to get married this one time; do you think you’ll be sober for the dinner tonight, or the ceremony tomorrow morning?”“Father,” I said, gathering my thoughts, and thankfully hearing Pepper’s heels clacking across the Italian marble, obviating my need to think up anything meaningful to say. “So nice to see you too; this is my friend, Pepper Divinity, she’ll be joining us at table tonight, and tomorrow.”She reached out to hand me my drink, and continued the movement by sliding her arm inside of mine for a quick caress before turning to face Richard Gloucester Senior with a confident outstretched hand, and a fun and fierce and frantic smile that wholly surprised Father. At that moment I wanted nothing more than to throw her over my shoulder and take her up to the suite for a grown-ups’ play date.“I’m so pleased to meet you, Mr. Gloucester,” Pepper said. “Richie has told me so much about you.”Something about her tone or touch or the way that she held his eyes, warm and friendly, but not giving an inch, seemed to stop the snarky comment in his throat. He held their shake longer than the 1.2 seconds he had drilled into Eddie and me when we were growing up, and even moved his left hand to give her forearm a brief squeeze that was outwardly proper, but which seemed to me, based on my family’s general level of warmth and human contact, almost obscene.“I am pleased to meet you, Pepper!” he said. “Richard the lesser’s ‘dates’ for family gatherings generally leave something to be desired, but seeing you on his arm makes me want to think better of the boy.”I had never wanted to be any place less, or to kill anyone more. I could feel the red climbing up and out of my shirt collar, and felt the retort pushing its way out of my mouth like angry vomit when she answered him for me.“If my daddy could see me today, he’d likely say the same thing about me, only with Richie dressing me up in this case. He had a talent for saying exactly the right thing to make me feel about as big as a grasshopper; but then he always was a nasty sonofabitch.”Father looked stunned for a few seconds, debated getting angry for a few more, and then surprised all of us by laughing out loud, at her, at himself, at all of us.“By God,” he said. “I like you girl. Pepper? That’s one hell of a loop to be hung on your whole life, but it fits you. You kids get up to your room and get settled in, and I’ll see you down at beachside where Edward and Barbara and some other members of the wedding party will be heading out for a guided snorkel at four.”“Sounds like fun, we’ll try to make it, but we may take a nap or shower or something first, so don’t hold things up for us,” she said and turned to walk after the bellman hauling my bags up to the suite. As she walked away, she perhaps put a little extra sway in each step … a bonus that was not lost on Father, who was watching Pepper walk away like there would be a quiz on her ass later.“Father,” I said sharply, trying to reel him back in for a moment’s talk before I followed Pepper down the hall to the suite, “we need to find time to talk about that ridiculous proposal and paperwork you had Mitchell send over last week. It virtually drops Eddie into the CEO slot, and freezes me out of the company.”“There’s no ‘virtually’ about it son,” he answered brusquely. “That’s what’s happening, effective immediately. He’s a man; you’re a boy, a drunk, Peter Pan without the boyish charm or ability to fly. You are far too irresponsible to help Eddie take over The Company when I officially step down next month.”I had no answer to this. He was right, which pissed me off and made me want to slap the self-righteous, self-assured smile off his face. Instead, I finished the drink in my hand, grimacing at the fruitiness, and turned quickly enough to slip, slightly, on the slick floor and nearly pratfall in front of the man I least wanted/needed to look a fool for on this day. I recovered, but dropped the empty glass to the cold, hard floor, then stomped off towards the room, the happiness and horniness and hopefulness of moments ago broken on the floor too. I remembered my reasons for planning the death, murder, of my brother, and wondered if I should start with the old man instead.Pepper’s high heels were a few feet inside the door to our suite, my bags had been placed on the bureau, and her lovely silk dress was hung neatly, but casually, on the back of what looked to be a comfortable reading chair. I could hear her singing in the shower (Patsy Cline, “Walking After Midnight”) with more gusto than talent. She must have heard or felt my presence in the suite, because when she reached the end of the stanza, she warbled the ending into an invitation and an offer that I couldn’t refuse.“I’m lonesome as I can beeeee,” she sang. “Richie, can you come and help me wash my back?”I haven’t gotten undressed as quickly since the nineties, and the grace I’d been lacking a minute earlier was thankfully mine again, as I negotiated the high and slippery wall of the enormous tub/shower to climb in behind Pepper, who was rinsing her face and hair.“Reporting for duty, ma’am,” I said, and, unable to help myself, I brushed my lips against her perfect neck, and ran a hand down her spine and then around to the front of a hip. “You taste like sunshine and dewdrops, and look good enough to eat.”“We’ll get to that in a couple of minutes, mister,” she said, “but no serious monkey-business in the shower. I have a girlfriend who broke her elbow and a wrist getting frisky in the shower. You can look, you can touch, but save the good stuff for the bed out there, okay?”She turned and gave me a long and acrobatic kiss that almost unmade her logical argument, then slapped a soapy washcloth into my hand, turned, and presented me with her back again. I dutifully scrubbed, albeit spending more time and energy on some parts of her than others, and she did the same for me (which again, almost convinced me to try and get her to break her rule about showers). Father and family and a fortune just out of reach were forgotten, and after a quick rinse and toweling off, I chased her, both of us giggling, to the bed.Watching her race naked across the room took my breath away and put my heart in my throat; she was tanned with a few pale stripes, long-limbed and lean, but with just enough curves and softness and then still more curves to leave no doubt of her femininity.“Jesus, you must do yoga or whatchamacallit,” I said. “You’re hard.”“You too,” she said, turning to give me the onceover, and a ridiculously endearing giggle, “Come here and let’s do some Pilates.”It was a wonderful afternoon … perfect really. The air was warm and smelled like a flowers and spice, the sheets were crisp and clean, the ceiling fan dried and cooled us between interludes of love, and we kept the room-service staff busy and amused with outrageous and extravagant, even unlikely and hard to believe, orders for food and drink. The sex was fun and frenzied and athletic and playful/experimental without guilt or power-struggle or inhibition. Pepper was enthusiastic and greedy and giving and genuine in bed, and by the time we should have long since started getting ready for dinner, I felt like some Caribbean god of carnal pleasures. I also felt as though I’d been beaten with sticks, had layers of skin sanded off, and been bitten/licked/kissed everywhere I had nerve endings.“Will your father send someone for us if we skip the dinner?” she asked as she finished the last of the champagne out of a coffee mug and threw a tiny cube of ripe and juicy mango into her mouth. All of the flutes had been broken in an explosion of Greek exuberance; now broken glass littered the area around a (wholly unnecessary) fireplace.“Eddie would actually feel betrayed in some small way,” I said, “and something about the way we’ve spent the afternoon makes me want to not hurt my little brother.”“I must be a fucking magician in the sack then,” she said, “because the drunk, angry, airplane-cramped you of a few hours ago was intent on killing him, unless my memory’s going, and it’s not.”I tried to play back the tapes of my jittery, drunken, and grumpy morning. Could I have been stupid enough to share my plans to murder my way up the Gloucester corporate ladder with a woman I’d just met, hardly knew, an escort (let’s call a spade a spade, she’s a hooker)? I was simply incredulous at my credulous simplicity; I went from feeling a Pirate King to one of the boobs singing loudly about their ‘cat-like tread’ as they stomp towards the house of General Stanley. The look on my face must have betrayed my emotions and confusion.“Don’t sweat it,” Pepper said. “You were very drunk when you told me about coming down from the icy depths of Manhattan to kill him and his blushing bride because you were being edged out of the family business, whatever that is. I didn’t believe you until I met that beast who spawned you; with that monster in your gene-pool, anything is possible. All the intrigue and plotting and murderous greed was a nice counter-balance to the drunken, morose, and moping cutie-pie who talked about his dreams of opening an ‘animal shelter and wildlife-rehabilitation center’ in the mountains somewhere north of ‘The City’; the guy who cried telling me about the baby raccoon.”“It was a baby fox, and it died in the exact same moment as those stupid dreams,” I moved over to the bar, feeling once again fat and old and slow and impotent. I filled my own coffee-mug with a few inches of mid-market single-malt, and drank it down like the medicine it was.“I’ll go in and rinse off the afternoon,” I said, eventually. “Unless you want to go first, and then we’ll head down to the dinner after.”“New rule,” she said, “as long as we’re gonna be together, we’re gonna be together. We’ll rinse off together, to save water, and be downstairs all the sooner.”“Sounds perfect,” I said. I was relieved and happy and thought that I just might be able to face the dinner, and Eddie, and Father, after some scrubbing-bubbles therapy-time with Pepper.“The discussion of our taking a team-shower does raise another point, possibly two,” she said, looking down my body and smiling, not without kindness or fondness. “Given this wonderful room, and a bathroom bigger than my apartment in town, and the wedding you sorta invited me to tomorrow, we need to talk about money.”“I want you,” I gushed, then pulled back, slightly embarrassed/embarrassingly. “I mean I want you to stay with me during my stay in Bermuda, until I leave the day after tomorrow. How much money do we need to talk about?”“I like you, Richie,” she said, “like this place, had fun in bed with you this afternoon, wouldn’t mind snorkeling tomorrow if there’s time, or the morning after. Five thousand dollars is a nice, round, and steeply discounted number.”“Done,” I said, before she finished. “Can I run it on my card, like before? I’d like to get it out of the way, behind us, before dinner and tomorrow.”Pepper beamed at me, and I noticed a tiny chip missing from one of her incisors on top that I chided myself for thinking was cute, charming even. She walked across the room like she owned it, and me, kissed me like no mother ever kissed their child, and dragged me into the shower.Two hours later, I was near the center of a long bridal-party table, under a tent with dance floor and mirror ball and a DJ to shield us from a possible tropical rain that had been threatening. I was sweating under a heavy load of lights and booze and banquet food and the pressure of being with a small group of people I didn’t like, and a big group of people I didn’t know. Father had said something to Eddie when we first came in, about me, or about Pepper, or about both; whatever it was, it had diminished the usual happy/wrestling hugs of greeting Eddie and I usually shared to a quick/dry handshake. It had also soured our too-brief initial conversation, and every word or smile or glance since. Father kept up a campaign of gently leering at Pepper, and savagely winking at me, while I continued lovingly to drink tumblers of their mid-market single-malt to help me avoid stabbing him with the tiny cake-fork at the top of my place setting.“Can I steal my brother for a moment?” Eddie said from behind us.“Only if you promise to return him in time to dance with me later,” Pepper said.I got up, located my drink, and staggered off after Eddie into the growing dark outside the tent. He stopped near an embarrassingly bloom-tastic and gratuitously wonderful smelling hibiscus bush, and leaned in as if to share a secret with me. I considered, for the briefest moment, breaking his neck and chucking him off the cliff and into the pounding surf below, but assumed that someone, likely ‘Barb, not Barbara’, would be watching and spoil everything.“It’s winter,” he said. I expected more, so I waited for it; he could never hold onto a clever thought for long, and didn’t in this instance.“You’ve lived your whole life like the bug in that stupid story,” he said.It was a grasshopper, I mentally corrected him. He continued, “The one that lives it up all summer long, making fun of the ants and everyone else for working and planning ahead.”I nodded at him, having heard versions of this story before, from both him and Father.“That fucking bug parties like a rock star until he feels the chill of winter, and then expects the ants and everyone to help him out,” he continued, projecting spittle onto my shirtfront with his vehemence. “Well, fuck that noise. I’ve worked for what I’ve got, to be where I am, and you can freeze for all I care … Grasshopper. You’ll have what you inherited from Grandfather, and that shitty cabin Cecily left you, but I’m telling security to keep you out of the offices come Monday.”“Is that all?” I asked, trying to play it off as unimportant, unwounding, to me.“That is it, Rick,” he bit off the last syllable an inch from my nose. “Winter is coming for you, and you’re on your own from here on out; enjoy the whore tonight, she’s out of your price-range from now on.”I nearly lost grip of my unravelling control, but I heard Pepper laugh from inside the tent behind me, drained my tumbler, tossed it over the side instead of Eddie, and felt my way back to the table, taking a detour by the bar.She leaned over a few moments after I’d regained my seat, perhaps sensing an approaching tipping point, and placed a hand over mine for a moment. It was a tiny gesture, but so loaded with support and warmth and sharing and commiseration, that I looked up into her fierce green eyes with my rheumy and scratchy-feeling ones. She moved her head close in to mine, as if to kiss me, (perhaps she did, I certainly felt her soft lips on my ear), and whispered.“You could kill them,” she said, the words tickling the side of my neck in a way that was disturbingly erotic. “You could kill Eddie and your father. But, people who should know have said that living well is the best revenge. For two hours mingling and talking and listening, I’ve watched you and watched them, and you’re not one of them, any of them. You can fake it, probably have been your whole life, but you are different. Just walk away … from killing Eddie, from running or not running your father’s stupid company, from all of these hustlers, hustling in Hustletown (by which I assumed she meant Manhattan). Just walk away.”“And there will be an end to the horror,” I said, completing the line from the movie; although Pepper was as unlike Lord Humungous as was possible for a human to be, she made, perhaps had already made, the connection, and smiled.I thought, envisioned, imagined for a few moments, then took a deep swallow from my glass, and waved it at a passing waiter, slopping an ice cube over the side and onto the table. When one of the white-coated minions had swung by to take my glass, I leaned in to Pepper’s neck, smelling the soap and sex and a dab of expensive perfume on the soft skin just between her jawbone and a lovely, perfect ear.“I wish we could, I could,” I quickly corrected, “but after playing the game for so long, so hard, it’s as much about the game as it is about the prize, or prizes, or winning. This is my story, and although the chapter with you has been both wonderful and unexpected, unexpectedly wonderful in fact, the ending can only go one of two ways at this point; if Eddie wins, I lose, and for me to win, Eddie has to lose. The only one way for me to win is for Eddie to lose everything; the best place, the best way to do that, is here, in this sunny exile.”I could feel her turn her head toward me so I pulled back and looked into her eyes. “I wish you didn’t know,” I said, “wish you could keep seeing me as the man you spent the afternoon in bed with, not the man who’ll kill Eddie for money, for power. I don’t want you to see me as one of them,” now gesturing at the room-full of ‘hustling hustlers from Hustletown’.“But I don’t have to see you like that,” she said, “because you don’t have to end up like that. This is your story, you can change the ending.”The tone of her voice, the urgency, grabbed me. I looked at her face, so close to mine, our conversation a private island of conspiracy in a room of conspirators and conspiracies. Her eyes were earnest and wet and wide and I wanted to believe her, desperately wanted it to be my story, not Eddie’s or Father’s. I saw movement beyond her, and shifted my whisky-slowed focus to Father who was eyeing me, us, and speaking in Eddie’s ear. My defenses, my resentments, my vulnerabilities, all came to the fore as I imagined him whispering with Eddie about my whore. I felt someone, some hand, put a glass, filled with a reassuring liquid weight, promising surcease of pain, into mine; the moment, her moment, her promise, my hope, was gone. I turned from her to take a drink, and saw Father smile.Eddie picked up his knife and gently tapped the rim of a water glass with it, to get everyone’s attention. The room quieted quickly, and enough eyes darted quickly to, and away from, me that I could tell that I was soon to be put under the spotlight … as brother, drunk, failure, passably witty, and introducer of the best man. This was evidently something discussed at the lunch I’d missed, and mentioned briefly by Eddie when Pepper and I made our slightly late entrance to the pre-dinner cocktails on the bluff overlooking a pink sand beach and the infinite ocean beyond.Pepper seemed to sense (or possibly just remembered it better than I, being considerably less drunk) what was coming, and leaned in close to me. She gave me a short, fierce kiss on the mouth, ending it by sucking my lower lip in to her mouth; surprising me by biting my lip quite savagely. “Remember me,” she said, “remember us, remember yourself. None of the rest of it, or any of them, matters. You can rewrite your story from here on out … you just have to decide to do it.”I could taste blood mixing with the whisky in my next swallow, and the inside of my lip stung … crazy bitch.Eddie had just finished saying something; people were laughing, and looking in my direction. Beyond Eddie, Father smiled wryly at me, and held up his own glass of bourbon (never whisky, which explains at least two things about him, and me). I climbed the seemingly endless distance from the comfort of my chair to the stilt-tall, wobbly feeling of my tired legs, and felt the chair tip over behind me as I pushed it back while standing. It clattered and bounced for a second, which brought first a shocked silence and then some nervous laughter from the crowd scattered around the tent. I felt in my breast pocket for the three by five card Eddie had pressed into my hand during our shake, loaded with first and last names of all of the people in the wedding party, along with their roles; it was gone.I drank the last swallow from my glass, glad of both the fire it brought and the mists it promised, and put the glass down on the table, over hard. Pepper reached over to give my hand a squeeze, and I felt it, like electricity all through my body, ending in my throbbing lower lip. She smiled up at me, I smiled down at her, everything else was gone, or at least unimportant for a moment; then Father stage-coughed loudly.“Thank you all for coming to help my brother, Eddie, celebrate his wedding, marriage, with … Barb,” I said, drowning in inanity, and feeling the fear and anger and booze climb back up and fog my already foggy brain. I looked out across the room for a friendly, or even a marginally sympathetic, face. Finding none (not even the wait-staff, whom I had kept relentlessly and thanklessly busy fetching my drinks all evening), I cleared my throat, reached up and back into my brain for the words I would need to talk my way across the next few minutes (and then back down into my chair) as gracefully as possible. Standing there, balanced on the triple-edge of drunk and embarrassed and angry, a thought came to me. Pepper said this was my story, and that I can write it however I’d like. If that’s so, I thought to myself, “I’d like for my glass to not be empty.” I looked down and nearly gaped at the half-full tumbler. I imagined a fat and balding writer correcting his work in a stuffy cubicle up on Mount Olympus, and a reader somewhere near Dubuque rereading the last sentence to make sure they’d gotten it right. I shifted my eyes again up to the crowd, looking to see if anyone had noticed, and continued my thought process. “If this was my story to rewrite, there’d be a bic lighter …” and before I could finish my thought I felt the slight bulge and weight I’d lived with for years when I smoked, but had given up five years ago. “No, a gold doubloon,” I thought, and I barked out a short laugh that I barely covered with a cleared throat as I felt the weight shift and increase and flatten. I looked around the room at increasingly impatient faces, smiled, and thanked my imagined writer and reader.Booze-fogged, and still not ready to give my little speech, I nervously/accidentally chewed my lip, aggravating the Pepper-spot and with that pain came a brief flash of clarity … in that moment I rewrote my story, my too-drunk-brain, the evening, and I began to talk.I pointed above and beyond the tables, at the mirror ball and dance floor behind the restive mob seated in front of me, as they waited for dessert or the best man or something besides this drunken, fat, and red-faced ‘Eddie’s brother’ they currently had to suffer, and said:
Now is the winter of our disco-tent,made glorious summer by this son of New York;and all the clouds that lower’d upon our housesin the deep bosom of the Atlantic buried.
I saw a few appreciative nods from the ones who’d read The Bard in prep school or college, and as I reached for the next bit, I thought that it would be nice if the rest of the night and the wedding tomorrow could simply be sped through in a pleasant montage.The rest of the evening was pleasant and as stress free as could be reasonably, or even unreasonably, hoped for with Father present, and Eddie and his best man angry at my speech stealing their thunder a bit. I only had eyes for Pepper, she was by far the loveliest, sexiest woman in the room, and she only had eyes for me, as we danced deep into the next morning. The rest of the crowd faded first from our view, and then actually faded from the tent, until there was only us and a yawning DJ who remained long after everyone else, spinning a perfect web of music for us to dance within. We fell into bed as the sun crept over the horizon, napped until just before the wedding, had a fabulous time with each other and with the wonderful people we met at the reception, who seemed more lively and interesting and fun than any of Eddie’s friends normally did. We had no problems with Father or Eddie all day. Pepper and I again collapsed into the huge bed in our suite, drunk on life and love (or sex and lust and something maybe a little bit more), in a sea of warm skin, teasing/stroking hands, and happiness to the horizons.I woke the next morning alone, terrified in those first instants of gently hungover muzziness that it had all been a dream, and that it was the afternoon before the rehearsal dinner (which would be a distinct possibility if Father, and not me, had been working on the rewrites of my life story). Then I heard Pepper singing in the bathroom, and knew that everything would be okay … not okay, wonderful.“Crazy,” she sang, the words pulling me out of bed and into the shower, “for thinking that my love could hold you … Lord God, Richie, I didn’t even hear you.”“We’ve got to save water, Pepper,” I said, reaching for the loofah and bath gel. “I understand Bermuda depends largely on rainwater for their supply.”We fell giggling into bed twenty minutes later, having very narrowly avoided breaking Pepper’s rules about sex in the shower, and spent a slow and relaxed and comfortable and leisurely hour of lovemaking; by now we each knew how to touch and kiss the other for maximum effect, and affect, it was delight.“I can drive you to the airport this afternoon, and return the car for you, Richie,” she said, looking away towards the open window and the emerald sea we could smell beyond it. “It’s been a fun few days. I’m glad that you seem to have decided not to kill your family, I’ll miss you, and them, even.”“That would be great, I’m not looking forward to driving that wrong side car on the wrong side roads again,” I said, starting to respond to her statements as though they were questions. “They’ve been the best days and hours and minutes and seconds of my life, Pepper Divinity. When it comes to my family, I’ve decided both to leave them alone, and to leave them entirely, entirely thanks to you, my dear.”“But as to the last, sweetness-heart,” I said, kissing my way down her spine to that glorious, world-class, ass, “I have to confess that I won’t miss you a bit.”She turned quickly at this, leaving me with a chin full of pubis, and her startled and sweetly sad expression (two and a half feet north of my current position).“I won’t miss you, because I’m not leaving you … here, or anywhere,” I said. “This is my fucking story, and I don’t know how the writer wrote it, or what the reader wants to read, but I’m riding off with you in that Delta 737 to the cold and grey slushiness of New York in February. I’m taking you away from all of this hot sun and pink sand and good money, and giving you the chance to chuck all of that for a hunting cabin up in the Catskills that Great Grandfather built, and Cecily left me.”“It’ll never work,” she said, in a voice that betrayed her desire to be proven, or at least convinced that she was, wrong. “We’re too different. I live in paradise, you’ll be poor, I’m a two-stripper-name ‘date’, and you’re probably Richard ‘something fancy’ Gloucester, the 17th.”“Richard Broderick Gloucester, the 3rd, actually,” I said. “But I don’t give a shit about any of that because it’s my story, and I know how I want it to end. I want to spend another couple of hours in bed with you and a couple bottles of champagne. I want to race to the airport so late that we can’t possibly make it onto our flight, but somehow do. I want to rejoin the mile-high club in the first-class bathroom, and then skate through customs and security in the airport without hassle, without even having to take off my fucking shoes.”Pepper looked me in the eyes for the longest ten seconds ever to pass in Bermuda, before reaching across to order the champagne from room service (along with some strawberries and chocolate sauce and whipped cream and a ginger root and paring knife … oh my). The rest of the day went just as I had hoped/rewritten, faithful reader (thank you, faithful and patient writer). We’re adjusting to life in my adjusted story, and absolutely cannot wait to live the next chapter. Not quite the end … the other shoe
Three weeks later, Pepper and I were sitting on the porch of the cabin, watching snow fall, bundled and coffeed in Adirondack chairs, watching the stray cat who’d found us play ‘lick the fallen icicle’ with painful deliberation.“You’re going to leave,” I said, knowing it as I said it, without having known it the moment before. “You’re going to leave here, leave me, leave Cat (we didn’t know Cat’s sex, as he/she hadn’t let us get close enough to tell yet, so we’d been holding off on a name).”“I have to,” she said. “This is your dream, your story; it’s not mine.”I reached across the space between us, praying that she wouldn’t pull away; she didn’t instead reaching her hand out to meet mine halfway. “It could be yours too, we can rewrite it, write the ending, however we want,” I said, working to keep the desperation and fear and longing out of my voice, “We could make it work.”“You could,” she answered. “You could probably rewrite this story, your story, our story, my story, so that we stay here in this sweet and kooky cabin, fucking like minx until we’re nothing but wrinkles and liniment, but I hope you won’t.”She wanted me to figure it out, to say it for her. I didn’t.“If you write the story that way, or make it so that it’s written that way, I’ll lose myself, be less, maybe be gone. I can’t be a supporting character in your story, I need to be the protagonist in mine.”I covered dark thoughts with a prolonged slurp of coffee. She was right. I could rewrite the story, rewrite her, to serve my needs and wants. I had considered minor alterations in the very fabric of Pepper (bigger boobs, her being awake when I woke up horny in the night, small things like that), but to date I had rejected it due to some nagging and niggling fear in the back of my skull.“Your power to change was a gift that saved you from the brink of some genuine horrors,” she said. “But using it from here on out won’t be good for you, I think.”“Explain,” I said, pausing to reach out and try to rub Cat with my foot while leaning over acrobatically to kiss a soft and sweet-smelling spot behind her ear. “I can have whatever I want. How can that be bad?”She smiled up at me and waggled her empty coffee mug, signaling that she wanted another cup, and said, “Montage-ifying chunks of time, smoothing out the tough stuff, making sure that things always work out, all of that will make your life soft and grey and boring. You stayed up for two straight days as a kid, feeding that tiny baby fox by hand every hour, and warming it inside your shirt against your chest; that was real experience, real pain when it died. If you had montaged it, regardless of how you wrote the outcome for the fox, you would be a less interesting person. You need to let life soak you in pain and angst and frustration and helplessness from time to time, in order to connect with other people and with the world, in order to matter; if you don’t, you’ll end up being a shadow-person. I need my life, and want your life as well, to be filled with those details. I agree with John Lennon that ‘life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans’. I love you, in my way, Richie, and love the cabin, and Cat, and the thing you’re starting with the shelter, but it’s not me, any of it … well almost any of it, so I gotta find mine, and you gotta let me.”“I’m scared Pepper,” I said, flatly, returning with the French press coffee that I’d left just inside the door off the porch. “Scared you’ll take the magic with you when you go. Scared I’ll be less interesting, less magical, less strong, less the ‘new’ me when you’re gone.”“Growing up, we once had a Lab named Puck,” I said, “Father got him with the idea of hunting, but Puck was a useless and scared thing, he gravitated to me as I was largely the same way. He would sleep with me every night, and what I remember most was the feeling of safety and love, having him curled up and warm against my back, guarding my flank.”“So I’m your dog?” she said, affecting a hurt tone, but I could see the smile creeping in at the edges of the faux-pout, showing off her chipped tooth to glorious effect (at least on me).“Don’t take it the wrong way, Pepper,” I said. “I love that dog more than anything in space or time, except you. You make me feel safer and stronger and loved-er than I am, or deserve to be; I don’t want to lose that feeling.”“But you understand why I have to go?” she said.“I do,” I said. “ But, or, and, I don’t know which, I fucking well hate the thought of losing you when I seem to have the power to have or do anything I want.”“Choosing to do the right thing even, especially maybe, when you don’t have to, is a sign of being a grown up,” she said. “You might be losing your Pan-ness, but in a good way.”“So you’re leaving me, us,” I said, gesturing dramatically at Cat. “Where will you go, and when, and how can I reach you, and when will I see you again?”I looked over casually, topping up her mug, pretending my heart wasn’t breaking, that I wasn’t terrified almost beyond rational thought or deed, and that I wasn’t considering using the power that she or God or you (the reader or writer of this, my story) gave me to change her; and force her to stay.“I’ll ride into town with you tomorrow morning,” she said, “and catch a bus to Albany. I’ve got a friend in Santa Fe, and I might ride out the winter with her down there. I’m travelling, dearheart, exploring, not dying … you can reach me on my cell or by email, same as my momma does.”She stood up and shook off the quilt she’d wrapped herself in when we’d come out onto the porch, and flashed me a thousand watt smile that took my breath away (although her standing there, nearly naked and all goose-bumpy didn’t hurt). “Take me to bed and screw me wobbly, lover. Give me another reason to remember this crappy, wonderful, leaky, lovely cabin, say you love me in a convincing tone, and then promise you’ll let me go. I’ll hide in the high-desert for a few months, cry some and probably drink too much red wine. Then I will miss you too much, and one of us will come to the other, and we’ll be together for a while, and then I’ll run away again, maybe forever,” she finished this crying and smiling and goddess-beautiful in her pain and wanting.We ran inside, Cat following our two-soul stampede, certain that if we were fleeing the porch, there must be a reason. Cat ended up cowering in the corner for hours, as we celebrated Pepper’s decision and story and protagonist status in that story, ignoring my only-partially broken heart, with a mixed grill of love and lust and lewd behavior.I’m not sure how it will all turn out, what will end up happening with me and Pepper Divinity, if I’ll learn to stop using my/your gift, if I can make a go of it as a recovering grasshopper, or what the next chapter will bring, but I’m eager to see. Yes, it’s winter, but the cold days and long nights hold a certain beautiful magic for Cat and me, particularly because we can feel a well-earned spring just around the corner. You keep writing and reading, and I’ll keep living, the words.
The End
Thanks for reading - Jamie

Top 10 Tips From A Four Time NaNoWriMo Winner

I've participated in the National Novel Writing Month program (NaNoWriMo) four times, and won every time. The decision to participate in this amazing program/experiment, may be the hardest and scariest thing you will ever do ... once you find your way into it, the writing will become easier and easier (I promise, despite what SK has to say about it).


After four years, I have three novels in print, and the fourth will be coming out in Early January of 2016 ... some of my success is due to luck, some to skill, and some to a simple set of routines that I try to establish and follow long before my writing sprint starts.


1) Know Your Characters
My stories start with people ... I get a feeling for the characters, and write down everything I can about the people who will be acting out the story once I get writing. If everything works out the way it should, I get to know them quite well in the weeks and months leading up to NaNoWriMo.

A classic guide to story structure
2) Know Your Story
I like to write stories the same way I like to vacation ... plan out a rough map/guide of what I want to see and do, and then follow my instincts once I'm hip-deep in the action. It's often enough for me to make notes on one of the two structure guides shown above/below ... filling in characters and conflict and crucial scenes on the sheet of paper.


The hero's journey is a well-known model for authors/stories to follow


3) Do Your ResearchOnce I know who will be living in my story and what will happen to them (in a general sense), I spend a lot of time looking at maps, reading everything I can about the setting of the story, topic of my plots and subplots, and details that can hopefully stimulate the wee-beasties living in the back of my head as well as appeal to future readers.

4) Establish and Maintain Your Support NetworkOnce you are foolish enough to decide to write a novel in a month, tell everyone you can think of ... it can help you not back out later on (once you come to your senses). Family and friends and coworkers will support you just by virtue of their knowing; some of them will go above and beyond that and actually support you in surprising ways. 
I would also recommend finding other writers who will be living the NaNoWriMo experience during the same time period. They can be supportive in ways that people on the outside cannot (cannot even know about), and you can share daily wordcounts and tips and encouragement and great spots to write and drink coffee.
5) Read, Read, and Then Read Some More
Spend time as much time as you beg, borrow, or steal in the weeks and months leading up to your writing sprint reading. Read novels that are similar to what you're hoping to write (in genre, or narrative style, or setting, or dialog structure); read great books and crappy books (you can learn valuable lessons from both). Read books on the art and science of writing fiction ... there are lots of fantastic books out there to teach you what you need to know.


6) Spend Time Thinking About Routine and Schedules
Once the writing sprint starts, you need to be ready to go, ready to commit, so you should have thought about routines and schedules way ahead of time. 
I write best early in the morning, and not in my house, so it's important for me to work out ways/times/opportunities to make that time work for my job and family and dogs and all of the other moving parts in my life. When writing my novels, I prefer chunks of time of 3 hours, or more if possible. Long before I start writing, I try to coordinate with my wife and son and other family and friends, so that they know what my needs/wants are, and so that I can avoid inconveniencing or disappointing them.
I was able to start writing most mornings by 6am, and be done by mid-morning (sometimes stretching until 11 or noon if I was on a roll, and the other factors in my life made this work), and then I would spend the rest of the day with family and friends and dogs ... doing everything else that makes my life work. You'll find the right balance, because you have to, just make sure to start making plans ahead of time.


7) Make Technology Work for You and Your Writing
The best technology makes writing easier, any time you spend fiddling with your tech is time that you're not putting words down on the paper or screen.

I've written my last three novels using a Chromebook and GoogleDocs. My Chromebook has an 11 hour battery life, so I can easily write my way through a long day without having to plug in or worry about the battery running down. GoogleDocs saves automatically to the cloud every time I stop typing (although just to be sure, I tend to save/email my latest version of the story to myself and/or my wife at the end of each day). GoogleDocs has recently added a speech to text feature which I haven't tried, but am intrigued by.


8) Learn About, and Understand, the NaNoWriMo Process
I didn't know almost anything about NaNoWriMo the first time I tried it ... if I had, I would have tried it sooner.

It's not just a way to squish writing a book into a month of your life ... it's a fantastic tool for letting go of fear and embracing what can be the best writing you'll ever do in your life.

NaNoWriMo forces you to push yourself to write fast, and writing at speed, although a bit scary at first, is great for lots of reasons:

you abandon the dream of writing a clean first draftyou can't afford to worry about saying everything just rightyou can skip scenes, knowing you'll be able to add them in during later editsyou step away from the notion of perfection, and work at simply telling the story

Perhaps the most amazing thing about writing using the NaNoWriMo way (at least for me) is that it allows - even forces - me to uncouple from my conscious and careful thought process, and to let the story tell itself ... through me.


By the time I start my annual writing sprints, I know the characters and the setting and the conflicts pretty well, and have a general idea about how/where the story is going to go. I have found that a few minutes into each morning's writing session, that my fingers begin to paint pictures with words, and I just have to keep feeding them (and some part of my brain, one assumes) coffee and the occasional snack.


9) Give Yourself Rewards for Writing, Beyond Writing
I'm entirely in agreement with Henry Miller, writing is most certainly its own reward ... but I also find that I have an easier time finding my way back to the desk, and the requisite mental state, day after day if I build some more substantial rewards into the NaNoWriMo process.

ice-cold cokes and guilty-pleasure Netflix (2 episodes of  Archer is standard) as reward for finishing a day of writinga book or small piece of camping gear makes a nice marker for ten or twenty thousand word milestonesan indulgent steak dinner or fancy bottle of bourbon makes a nice treat upon finishing the first draft

10) Give Yourself a Vacation Day from NaNoWriMo
At some point during your writing sprint,  you'll wake up one morning (or come home one afternoon or evening) entirely un-psyched to work on your novel ... that's OK!

Take a day, and don't spend a minute thinking about your novel, or writing, or NaNoWriMo ... have fun, take a nap, stack wood, go for a swim, eat twinkies.

Then come back the next day, ready to write. I try to write three thousand words a day, and am OK with anything over two thousand words; writing at this level helps me come in with a finished novel of around ninety thousand words by the end of the month (I generally take a day or two off, but it's balanced by those days when I'm able to write five thousand words).

Good luck, have fun, write fast, and get in touch if you have questions, or want to share your first draft with me.

Thanks - Jamie

Reflections on Writing as the Year Falls

In the last four years, I've written four novels and a collection of novellas. When I'm not writing, or teaching, or parenting, or husbanding (my other jobs), I spend a lot of time thinking about the writing. 
I would like to share some of my thoughts about the writing process and the writing life, and meditate for a few minutes about what it means to me (and what it might mean to you, if you let it) ... I'll do that with the help of some great thinkers about writing.

Writing is often hard and frustrating work, but it's not magic. I've spent my whole life reading a lot, and thinking about stories ... sometimes a story comes to me, I take notes, outline my ideas, and if I still like the story, begin writing.


I almost always go into writing a story not knowing everything about the characters and conflicts involved, but so that I can find out more about them ... and myself. When my writing process is at its best, I come out the other side changed somehow (and hopefully so do my readers).


Often the seeds of the stories I tell in my writing come from imagining myself, or someone else, in an untenable position ... how would they/I get out of the situation with their body and soul intact?

If a story cannot stretch me as a writer and a person, as well as my readers, I have some trouble picturing a good reason for the investment in time on anyone's part.


I recently finished the first draft of my fourth novel, and the above quote is now being hammered home daily ... during meetings with my reader, while trying to work through the first round of edits, while imagining the rough work in front of me as finished novel.

I write drunk, as Ernest suggested ... not literally, but close enough.

I have done the pre-planning and outlining months ahead of time, and when the time comes for my annual writing spring, I get into a zone/mood/state of caffeinated tension/relaxation.

I let the words, the story come out of me as fast as my fingers can move ... sometimes as much as five thousand (or more) words a day. I don't sweat spelling or grammar or even completeness of thought (sometimes I leave a blank spot in the page with a note about how the scene should end, to be fixed later).

Something about this process, this release, works for me, and I'm able to disconnect the careful and self-conscious parts of me, and just write ... just tell the story.

Later, after I've finished the first draft and my reader has gone through the rough work with a fine-toothed mind, I sober up and start to look at each word and sentence and paragraph and page and scene and, eventually, the book/story, as a whole.

We work together to fix/make linkages and connections throughout the story, to enhance continuity and the feeling of place and people, to round off any edges too rough for my readers to read through without hanging up on.

It takes an entirely different approach, possibly another kind of mind or writer, to make this part of the process work, and luckily (for me) I have a partner in the process who makes up for what I lack, and together we manage to craft a nice story (if I do say so myself).


One of the things that amazes me every time I produce a story is the truth of Neil Gaiman's statement above ... readers can always identify when something in a story doesn't ring true, but hardly ever offer the right fix for the problem.

I think the problem with the second part of that equation (there's nothing wrong with the front end of that particular equation .. it's a sort of magic that allows for readers' crap-detection) is that readers weren't involved in the 'drunk' segment of the process, the writing.

Something in the sub-conscious, or unconscious, connections that are made during the writing of any story tend to make the fixes unavailable to people who didn't do the writing ... they can, and thankfully do, make useful suggestions about what is wrong, and then stand aside to let me (and other writers) re-immerse themselves in the story to try and fix things.


The above is a poem/statement made by Donald Rumsfeld, while serving as Secretary of Defense ... it captures imperfectly, but wonderfully, the feeling I get when approaching both the writing and editing side of my storytelling endeavors.


As I march forward in this process for the fourth time, grafting and pruning and fixing and (sometimes) ignoring, I can feel something huge looming ahead of me ... a change in my life, my writing, my process, the ways in which the various parts of my writing life and the rest of my life fit together.

It's scary and exciting and scary, and if I think about it too much, it might swallow me whole ... but I cannot ignore it.

There's an ominous presence lurking in the closet, sometimes under the bed, occasionally just inside the woods when I take the dogs out late at night; waiting for me to acknowledge it, so it can swoop in and ... hug me and make everything better, or rip me apart and feast on my marrow (I don't which, possibly both).

The only thing I can do until the unknown knowns and the unknown unknowns make themselves known is to keep writing drunk and editing sober ... you keep reading and I'll keep writing.

Thanks,

Jamie

95k in the first draft ... now for the hard work!

Yesterday at about noon, I finished the first draft of my next novel, tentatively titled "Thunderstruck", in the back of my favorite coffee shop in downtown Saranac Lake (Origin, if you were wondering). It is nearly 95 thousand words, and my experience (based on writing the last three novels in the series) is that the final product will be a bit longer when all is said and done.


I sent the document to my first reader in multiple formats shortly after finishing, and then this morning printed out a copy for an initial read-through ... there's something about reading and marking and flagging a printed copy that just isn't there with electronic forms.

95k words translates to 204 pages in 8.5X11 paper, and probably a bit more than 300 pages in the size that I tend to print my books, but that's a discussion for much later in the process (maybe January).


What happens today is that my reader/minion begins working her way through the novel, looking for story continuity, character development, unintended cliffhangers, slow stretches, nonsense, and the too-frequent use of the word "frangible" ... we're trying to find and fix big-picture issues with the book on this go-around.

Once she's done, and we've had a talk/meeting/drink/debrief, I'll head back to my lonely writer's garret to try and cut and prune and graft and polish the first draft into a second draft. If all goes as planned, I'll then share that product with a slightly broader audience, and go through the same thing again. Eventually, with sufficient 'rinse and repeat'-ing, I'll end up with a story that pleases most of the people most of the time.



It's important to keep the Neil Gaiman quote above in mind ... readers can find the problem with your work, but very seldom can they give you the secret to fixing it (that's all on you, or in this case, me).
It's a long process, but it's generally more fun than going to the dentist, and in this instance, I've got what I think is a pretty good story to work with as base material.
Thanks,
Jamie

The finish line

I'm almost done writing the first draft of my fourth novel, and I'm terrified ... like always.
What if it's not any good? What if people don't like it? What if the ending makes people want to throw fruit at me, or worse, just scratch their heads.
What if ....

I generally defer to Sir Stephen (I knighted him myself more than three decades ago when I devoured everything of his I could find over a summer vacation) in all things writing, but in this case I strongly disagree.

The scariest moment is always just before you finish!
In the months leading up to my (now) annual writing sprints, I get to know the story I'll be writing quite well. I'm quite well acquainted with main and secondary characters, storyline, setting, and the arc my story will be following long before I ever start typing. I may not know exactly what happens at every twist and turn ahead of time, but I can see the beginning, numerous waypoints along the journey, and roughly where/how the tale ends.

I've written three novels prior to this one, so I know about beginnings and middles, know I can do the writing involved in a monthlong writing sprint ... but the endings still give me the wiggins.
When I get to the final days of writing - the last few thousand words, after the climax, tying up loose ends and aiming for neatness - that's when I'm scared.

I'm probably three to four thousand words from the end of "Thunderstruck" (which is how I've been thinking of the novel, although I'm not sure that's the name it'll wear when it hits bookstores, hopefully in January of 2016), and I know which ends need tightening, which threads may require some trimming/neatening, and have a few ideas for things that I need to go back in and fix before I put the first draft down for a nap.
Once I'm done with the first draft, I generally put the thing away for a week or two to let the madmen in the back of my head think about it, while I consciously think about something - anything - else.
I'm always nervous about the last day (or days) of writing, and find myself second (or third, or fourth) guessing myself. I am suddenly overcome with doubts about characters, worries about subplots, new ideas for twists and turns. 
I've been writing this novel with gusto and abandon and joy, and now find myself tiptoeing up on the ending, slightly unsure and hesitant. 
I wrote to a background accompaniment of brash and bold music, and too much coffee, and now feel my fingers scrolling past my writing mix and wandering down towards Mozart or Bach.
I'll bear down and finish the thing this weekend, enjoying just the right amount of peace and quiet and stimulus and noise and coffee and music at Origin Coffee, my new favorite spot to write in Saranac Lake.
If you want to see a writer in anguish/turmoil, then swing by sometime between 6:30 and noon ... I'll be there, figuring out how to close down the amusement park I've been enjoying all summer long.
Send me a shot (of espresso!), wave, smile, give me a thumbs up, send some luck my way ... I'll be grateful.
Thanks for all of your support!
Jamie

19 days into my fourth Camp NaNoWriMo!

This is the fourth time I've written a novel in the summertime using the NaNoWriMo method, which basically involves a month-long writing sprint to produce a rough draft.



This method has worked well for me because of my teaching schedule during the school-year; it allows me produce a rough draft when I have the time to devote hours a day to writing, and then to work for the rest of the year with beta-readers and editors to put the rough draft into shape, and get it ready for publication.



I've done some of the writing at home, working at my standing desk in the living room, with the dogs watching me, but most days I've been heading to Origin Coffee, a new coffee shop in nearby Saranac Lake, and working from when they open until midday.



This week, though, I've been lucky enough to have my parents up visiting, and been able to work a few mornings up on the roof of the boathouse of the camp they've been renting. It's a lovely spot to write about the Adirondacks from ....


I spend my mornings watching the morning light hit the far shore, mist rising from the lake, and herons flying by.


I've found that I have an easier time each year meeting my writing goals during my month-long sprints. My first year I aimed for 1600 words per day, and often struggled to make it. This year, I've been averaging 3800 words each day of writing (and unlike in years past, I gave myself permission to miss the first few days of the month and the occasional day along the way).



I can feel the story coming together more effectively/efficiently in my head, and on the laptop screen, at least somewhat because I have gotten comfortable with the idea that the rough draft I put together during the sprint is not remotely a finished product.


Getting the bones of the story down and out of your head makes it possible to work with beta-readers and editors of various sorts, which will in turn allow you to bring the story from where it is in the rough draft to where you would like it as a rough draft.


I drink a lot of coffee during my writing sprints, and not just to stay awake in the face of long days. I find that being in a stimulated state helps me access my creative side in a way that I have trouble doing without the extra caffeine in my life ... the first week after the month-long coffee-immersion is a little tough, but my body and mind soon adjust to the change.


I'm a big believer in the idea that the simple act of writing is the single biggest factor in improving both one's ability to produce words on the page, and to craft/create meaning (and stories) from these words ... I'm nearing a million words written in the pursuit of my writing in the last four years, and would recommend writing over workshops and classes every day of the week.



I estimate that I have about 15000 to 20000 words left before the rough draft of this summer's story is completed, then I'll put it aside for a few weeks before taking a peek at what I wrote. If I have the time, I try to bang off some of the rough edges before I pass it along to my first reader.

After my writing sprint is done, I generally find myself sore and tired and head-achy from so many hours in the same position (my teaching day/job is mostly spent walking and talking, not sitting and typing). I also find that I feel yucky from not eating as well, and getting much less exercise during the month, but I'm looking forward to re-starting my running regimen and trying to drop some weight this fall.

Thanks, and wish me luck in the rest of the writing sprint!

Jamie