Tues. June 13, 2023: Peeking Between The Pages
image courtesy of Ag Ku via pixabay.comTuesday, June 13, 2023
Waning Moon
Pluto Retrograde
Rainy, warm, humid
How was your weekend? Ready for the regular Tuesday natter?
Today’s serial episode is from Legerdemain:
Episode 93: Descendants of Doom Pub
Tracking Grimmkins is thirsty work.
Friday seems very far away. But I was out of the house early, and headed down to Pittsfield, to the library. I got there right after they opened, and spent the next two hours on the Ancestry database. I wound up with more questions than answers on Dorothy Dwin; I need to follow up with the National Gallery, and see if they have any information. I did some additional research into some of the other names I’d found in the census, and got a bigger picture that adds texture: things like how the parents often only had education through 7th or 8th grade, but their children finished high school and went to college.
It still doesn’t get me my Playland Painters information; I need the payroll books from Playland to do that, and until the grant money comes in, I can’t take the time and expense to go down to the Westchester Archives. I’m at a pause point on this project.
On the way home, I stopped at what used to be Price Chopper and is now Market 32 Fresh. The store is overwhelmingly huge, and the prices have risen to match. I only picked up a couple of things there. I had much better luck at Adams Fresh Market.
I didn’t get another book to review (they’re out), which worries me, too. I did the social media rounds for Angel Hunt, and played with some ideas that may or may not go anywhere. I was mostly tired and discouraged.
I read a book by an author whose work I’ve read for years; this is one of her earlier books, published in 1985, and it was filled with typical of the era tropes that didn’t work for me: a heroine who is supposedly cute and bubbly but is, in fact annoying; a hero who treats her like a possession. No, thank you.
I was up early on Saturday, and I meant to go to the Farmers’ market. Really, I did. Only I started writing, and when I looked up, it was nearly noon. Too late to go (the market closes at 1). I worked on the script I shouldn’t be working on. I’m starting to think that the novel format would serve the story better, because I want/need the settings to be additional characters, and I want to delve into internal monologues in a way that a script can’t serve. But the script will be a good outline. I also did some work on the Heist Romance Script. I added in some inserts to a couple of scenes, where I needed to place a character, and added two new scenes (one in Sardinia, one in London). I have a couple more scenes I can draft, but I need to do more research on Malta before I can write the next section (in spite of the outline notes).
One of the things I get pushback on in the script analysis work, from writers, is when I give the note about things taking too long to get going. The argument is that some pieces are meant to be quiet. Which is fine, but in a script, you have a finite amount of time/pages to tell the story, and if you take too long with the setup, you lose the audience and you run out of time to tell the meat of the story. Also, the genre of the script determines pace and where certain points need to be hit. There’s some wiggle room in that, because each script has its own unique rhythm, but if your script is 110 pages, and it doesn’t get going until page 30, it’s a problem.
Basically, if my mind wanders when I’m reading the script, and I’m tempted to check social media or remember something that needs to get done that day, something in the writing or structure has flattened and lost me. As an analyst, I have to go back to the writing and figure out why it did so, and provide a note that hopefully helps the writer get the piece back on track, both in terms of craft and genre expectations.
Even in novels, where there’s more room (mentally and physically) to explore layers, if it’s too much and not placed well, it doesn’t work.
It all goes down to craft. A writer with brilliant craft can do whatever they want and get away with it, because the craft is so strong it holds the reader. Quiet books are great, but they contain wonderful craft so that they keep the reader engaged through the quiet. Think Anita Brookner’s work, or STONER by John Williams, or BEFORE THE COFFEE GETS COLD by Toshikazu Kawaguchi or THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST by Anne Tyler. The craft in all of these is brilliant.
So when someone says, “Well, Phoebe Waller-Bridge did this in FLEABAG” or “Gabrielle Zevin did this in TOMORROW AND TOMORROW AND TOMORROW” – yes, they did “it” (whatever the specific “it” was in each situation), and it worked because they understand craft and structure. When they deviate from traditional structures, it’s a solid choice with layers of craft to support it, and it works. Other writers are not Waller-Bridge or Zevin, and what worked for them may not work for a different author who has a different voice and is still figuring out the craft aspects. Just because another author made it work doesn’t mean YOU can. Especially if you copy a stylistic choice, but don’t have yet your own unique voice to back it up.
If you want to mimic familiar tropes, and want the comfort of a piece that is similar to what’s already out there, then you have to do it very, vey well, not just a pale imitation. Again, it comes back to craft.
Anyway, some client work came in over the weekend, and, since I had such a light week of client work, I took it on. I did one project on Saturday afternoon. At the regular rate.
I read LAST CALL AT ELAINE’S, by one of her bartenders turned writers. It was very well written. I went to Elaine’s once, with a few people after some show or event or something, in the mid-90’s, because it was iconic, and, living in NYC, I wanted to experience it. The drinks were good, the food was bad, the atmosphere wasn’t something I particularly cared about, one way or the other. Elaine herself didn’t like women much, and, since I have a low tolerance of misogyny, especially from other women, I chose not to go back. She didn’t pay any attention to me, which was a relief; I was with a group, stayed quiet, and listened a lot. But I saw how she treated the other women in the restaurant, and the difference in the way she treated the women and the men. I’m glad I went, but there were other bars and restaurants I preferred to hang out at with my friends and colleagues, after shows and events. But the book was interesting.
And, of course, many of the places I used to love hanging out in have since closed.
Up early on Sunday, because all three cats were prodding me with little paws and yelling their heads off. I’m so grateful it isn’t terribly hot and humid yet.
I had trouble finding the Legerdemain episode I’d started working on, and then realized I was looking for it under the wrong episode number.
While I looked for it, I found out that the Nina Bell serial, which started with TAPESTRY, and then added what later bcame some novellas and a novella that I hadn’t yet titled or placed anywhere– is a completed serial and I even gave it an ending. 117 episodes worth – and that ending feels a bit rushed. But it was an ending. I have a complete serial that would run a little over a year if I did 2 episodes/week, and 39 weeks if I did 3 episodes/week. I re-read the last novella-length bit, and it’s funny as hell. I mean, the Nina Bell stories, which are dramedy/hot mess dating/theatre/mysteries have always had a weird humor. One of the things the Nina Bell stories capture well is all the emotional, semi-romantic, semi-lust gameplaying that went on during the mid-90’s. Maybe I should run the entire serial, and then re-release everything as a novel and some novellas? I have to think about it.
I don’t know how many serials one can run at once on Vella (I have a question in). I don’t want to jeopardize REP or future “seasons” of ANGEL HUNT. But this would be something I can revise pretty easily and put up the whole thing before any of it goes live. Although I’ll probably fix the ending – I ended it abruptly because the company for whom I was writing the four serials went out of business. I think TAPESTRY was the only one that got an ending, and I don’t think it even was released.
But once it was uploaded and scheduled, it would just be about the promotion.
Something to think about. And to worry about timing. Because Saturn goes retrograde at the end of this week, which means I’m going to get my ass kicked until November (it’s the planet of life lessons), and Jupiter goes retrograde in early September, so it would have to start running before the Jupiter retrograde. AND Mercury goes retrograde again in mid-August. AND I’d hoped to get REP going by then.
It wouldn’t be “passive income” (how I hate that term), because I’d be heavily promoting it every week, but it would run without having to write constant new episodes, the way I have to for Legerdemain (because I didn’t bank enough episodes early enough).
I’m playing with a new title for it. It’s got a wry, self-deprecating tone that a specific audience enjoyed when it first ran, but was ahead of its time. Maybe it would appeal to a wider audience now?
Nina put me on the map, initially, when I was early in both my writing and theatre careers. There’s plenty to her story that’s never seen light of day, and the mix of comedy and mystery with romantic adventures, almost a chick lit feel to some of it, I think works. And, if I wanted to keep it going, I could deal with the turn into the 21st century, 9/11, etc., etc., the way I originally planned in the series. I found notes on various books in the series, and the series overview I’d originally planned.
But can I make that commitment?
I have to think about it.
I don’t want to get too scattered and spread out. But it would be nice to have something complete that’s uploaded and scheduled, and drops regularly, and all I have to worry about is that day’s promotion.
Re-reading all that material distracted me from writing the new Legerdemain material. When I finally got back to it, I adjusted the episode I was writing, so that the night out with Shelley and Daedalus was more fruitful, and started the next episode, which is primarily action.
There are several things that need to still happen in this arc before it’s done, and it’s a case of breaking them down properly so that the climactic confrontation wraps up a bunch of loose ends, but also propels us into the third major arc. Some of the threads will run through this second arc into the third arc, because not everything can wrap up, but many things have to wrap up, because the catalyst for the third arc changes Shelley’s relationship with her job and the city. It’s plotted out; it’s just taking me more episodes than I expected to get there.
Should the audience continue its growth, I have a fun 4th arc planned.
I did another client project in the afternoon, and then got back to work on the next ANGEL HUNT episode. I figure I have three or four episodes to write to create this additional material to cover the plot hole. Then I have a few more chapters to adapt into episodes, and then it’s pulling out the notes and writing the climactic sequence and resolution.
Because I’d really, really like to get the rest of ANGEL HUNT finished, polished, uploaded, and scheduled this month, so I don’t have to worry about it. I’m figuring, once it’s all uploaded, ANGEL HUNT will run through next April.
It means I have to manage my time well, because there’s also client work, the Llewellyn articles, the plays, some flash fiction, and other stuff that needs my attention. And I have to focus on projects bringing in the money to pay the bills, since I’m starting to doubt the grant money will EVER turn up.
I’ve been watching BALTHAZAR, the French crime drama. It’s so well done, but it’s exhausting. The subtitles run by fast (because they’re speaking naturally), so I’m listening, using my long-forgotten high school French, and it requires a huge amount of concentration. But it’s so interesting how certain elements that are shied away from in American and British crime drama are front and center in the French drama.
Monday morning, I was up early. I started the Writers Rough outline of “ But Is She a Betting Man?” – all that time I spent at the Saratoga racetrack over the years will come in handy! I wrote two episodes of Legerdemain. I have to choreograph a fight scene better – it’s reading more like notes for a fight scene than the fight scene. But that’s why I need to bank episodes, so that I have time for revision.
Went to the library and sorted out some books I’d returned, but the scanner hadn’t counted as “checked in.” We found everything and took care of it. Did a quick grocery shop (and bought some flowers and an ivy plant). Mailed some bills. They were replacing the drive-by box, and I got confused, but they told me which one to use (and they were postal workers I knew, so I could trust them). It was pretty funny.
The stupid beeping heavy machinery was again over at the library. It didn’t start until 8 AM, but all the guy does is drive it around the library making noise, cover the windows with boards, then drive around again taking them down. Over and over again. Nothing is happening on the walls. The windows are already replaced (destroying the beautiful, stained glass windows that used to be there). It’s about dragging it out and being annoying.
Turned around two client projects. Sent an LOI to a place I really admire, even though it’s not the kind of work I really want to do right now. But we’ll see. Read a couple of novellas that were interesting, although out of my usual realm f reading. It’s good to do that, and keep up on tropes and structures across genre, how they shift, and what certain authors can make work.
Got answers to some Kindle Vella questions. I can run as many serials as I can handle at a time (one author has 14 up, 7 complete and 7 in progress – yikes). Most of them leave up the completed serials forever, even if they release them via KDP as books. That does not fit my plan for the serials, at least not at this point, but it gives me information to bolster my initial plan. Basically, I’ve got a 5-year plan going for the serials. Or they’re part of my overall 5-year plan, depending on how you want to look at it.
All the women and several of the men who answered the questions in the forums gave straightforward and encouraging answers. But there were those several men who played “devil’s advocate” and were combative. Um, I was asking straightforward questions. There was nothing for which the devil needed an advocate. But there are always THOSE people.
This morning, I worked some more on the outline for “But Is She a Betting Man?” Most of my notes so far are textural details that need to be woven into the plot and story rather than paragraphs of explanation set within the story. Those paragraphs are for my outline; now I get to dramatize them. I know who’s murdered, but I still have to figure out why and who the murderer is.
This morning, I’m writing on a variety of projects. I need to get back to work on the plays. I’d almost figured out the anecdotes for the memorial section of FALL FOREVER, and then I lost them (didn’t write them down in time). I have to figure out an important motivation in “Summon Thee” and then I can finish it up. I think part of me dragging my feet on the play is I’m worried I can’t keep it within 10-15 pages, so I have to simplify. I have some client work in the afternoon, and then yoga in the evening.
I better get going!
