The Writing Walls are Crumbling.

Tags

Biden, bipartisan, debate, discussion, left wing, moving forward, right wing, Trump, walls

I have had a very hard time blogging over the past four years. It wasn’t just Donny and his insane cabal but his many followers. I have unfriended many people during this reign, and I have blocked many of them. And I did try to listen. I tried to understand the divide, not just in America but in Canada and around the world . I have teased and ridiculed not only Donny but these followers. I knew converting the mindless was not possible, but they were never my target. I targeted the middle-of-the road centrists, the non-partisan voters who see truth above party politics. Unfortunately, these people tend to be more laissez-faire and vote less than the indoctrinated [on both sides]. Biden winning the vote feels like a victory but a tainted one. We are not in a good place.

Now that we have a change on the horizon, can I dump the farcical memes and get back to arguing with logic? I hope I can. I hope we all can. I would much rather see far-righters and far-lefties write out what they believe and openly discuss their arguments. I would hope we can all sit down quietly, read others’ stances on issues, and work to some consensus. It is this back and forth playing with ideas that moves us forward. It is how I move my writings forward. I don’t write knock-out stories in one go. It takes many tries of pushing that theme or pushing this character or pushing that conflict. All of my best writing has come from pushing into areas I never ended up in. The same is true, I believe, for moving forward in social and political discourse. Life is story, and those of us who write a lot of story can attest that what we think is best almost always is not.

I could not write much about life these past four years because so many have adopted views of life I do not agree with. And no, it is not just the righties. I am anti-government. When governments in my Canada want to implement new programs, I cringe, because I know my government’s debts will rise with no compensating benefit. Too many pay no service at all to our enormous debts.

What do I want to Write About?

The list is long, and I don’t claim to be qualified to write about much of it. But the following is a quick list.

• Socialism
  • what is it?
  • where should social policies fit in a capitalistic society?
  • what do Liberals really want?
  • what are Conservatives afraid of?
• Competition
  • I am for competition, when it makes sense
  • when does competition not make sense?
  • how do we manage non-competitive units so everyone is happy?
• Executive Accountability
  • this is currently a critical problem in not only America but in Canada and around the world
• Taxation
  • does the low-taxation-of-billionaires model make sense?
  • what is the logical management perspective on achieving good government?
  • of course, taxation of expatriates and management of tax fraud.
• Reading and Writing
  • I work at my writing every day. I have many ideas on making writing more interesting and relevant
  • reading is a forgotten skill. We have millions of experts who do not read anything more than Facebook posts or their favorite news headlines
  • how to correctly punctuate lists 😉
• Racial Injustice
  • unfortunately, the list is endless!
• My many other interests: books, fountain pens, inks, poetry, nutrition, diabetes, and more.

There is so much to write about and such little time to do it. I’ve been sitting on my hands for so long, I don’t really know if I can do this. Is Humpty Trumpty falling off the wall enough to get me back into this? But of course I have to write. The only way we’re going to move forward as a civilization is through discourse and debate. I remember when the Berlin Wall started to come down. It was the day my firstborn entered the world. I was so hopeful. The world really did seem to offer a brighter future. But of course we’ve erected replacement walls, and unfortunately we always will. I think the purpose of my writing and many other blogs has to be the dismantling of walls. These ideological walls need to crumble.

The SAD month of MAY

April was poetry month, and now May is short story month. That’s a short story a day, every day, for 31 days. I’ve done seven NaNoWriMos and eight NaPoWriMos or equivalents. I don’t want to try to name this month. NaSsWriMo?

I sat at my desk on Monday, May 1, 2017, having written 54 poems and a blog post about it, wondering what to write next. Do I pull out 2012 and commit three or four months to fixing it? Do I continue salvaging parts of 2016 to make a short story collection? Maybe I should pull out 2010 or 2014 and have a second go at those unfinished novels. 2016 called the hardest and I’d all but settled on it. That would mean skimming the 50,000 words looking for nuggets. I have pulled the first three scenes as stories already, but where to next? Always the question.

So I did what any good writer would do: I opened Facebook. Almost immediately I found a post by my friend Andrea about a contest in May to write a short story a day. We talked about this in the past on our Sunday morning write-ins, I’ve participated in 15 other x-a-day events, so I didn’t need to think about the implications very much. I went to the Story-A-Day site, signed up, took the first prompt, and wrote a 1489 word story.

Bang. #1 done. It felt great.

\The story had nothing to do with anything I’ve written before, but it was based on reality. For that reason alone, I will not share it. Especially where fiction is weaved in, and some of that fiction is not nice. Sorry I had to kill you off, X.

May 2’s prompt fit almost perfectly a scene/story for 2016 I had been pondering. I sat and wrote. I took a break at 500 words to think, ponder, and write nasty political tweets — Even though I gave up my U.S. Citizenship, I still fight for Americans living abroad. And I’ve been quite acerbic lately towards the liberal shills out there supporting #FATCA and calling people like me tax cheaters.

I could not fit today’s prompt into any existing project, which is no concern, but I could fit it into a potential 2017 NaNoWriMo story. I’ve been pondering writing Science Fiction instead of my social conscious urban literary stuff.  I only invested 313 words in it, but I think it is full of theme, conflict, and potential. The conflict is implied: we’re all becoming the same, and what does that mean for humanity. Could be my backbone theme for my seen-book series *grin* It is a very thin piece, trite, but I actually love it. I will try to write more around this piece and other ideas this month and through the busy summer ahead of me. NaSsWriMo might just make NaNoWriMo very productive.

Enjoy

Prompt: People called him The Doll Maker. Nobody ever wondered aloud why every doll had the same face.

“Did you guys see Doctor Davis’ new robots?”

The lunch table paid no attention to him. Jared set down his tray and pulled in his chair.

“He can choose any face he wants with a few clicks but he picks the same face, the same physical features for every one of them. You guys don’t find that odd?”

“Jarrod,” Emily says. “You had a busy morning? You’re late.” She stuffs a roll of California Gold into her mouth.

“You haven’t heard a word I said.”

“Sorry,” she says as she crunches on the crusty, green roll of processed unknowns the government has certified as optimally nutritious for young scientists. She chases it with a glass of fortified water the color of the noon sky as displayed in the wall monitors. “We were just discussing Doc Davis’ new robots. Did you know he ordered them to all look identical? Why would he do that?”

Jarrod picked the gray New Jersey Jets roll up from his gray plate. “It makes no sense. You’d think he was building an army or something.”

Emily inspects her mint-green plate for crumbs but finds none. “I know. It’s so creepy. We’re not going to be able to tell which is which.”

“They’re all fucking robots,” William chimes in with his usual cheer. “Who cares what they look like? You ask for a Solar Coffee, they get you a Solar Coffee. It’s not like you’d have sex with one of them.”

“Speak for yourself,” Emily says.

“They’re all male,” Jarrod says.

“So?” says William.

“They’re all so…unremarkable,” Emily says and smiles.

“He could have selected at least some variety,” Jarrod says.

“They’re robots,” William says.

“What does he have planned?” they all say simultaneously. They stop but don’t laugh.

William picks up his blue Florida Fish Roll from his light-blue plate and looks at it. “Why are they all the same?”

 

Blizzard

Tags

blizzard, chronic pain, shoulder pain, sleep deprivation, weather

I write this from the middle of a blizzard, our second in four days. I don’t use the term blizzard lightly, but I live in a winter storm belt and 30 plus centimeter (1ft) snowfalls are common. The National Weather Service defines a blizzard as a storm which contains large amounts of snow OR blowing snow, with winds in excess of 35 mph and visibilities of less than 1/4 mile for an extended period of time (at least 3 hours). Being unable to see the road from a sidewalk is not unheard of. The image below is from two years ago.

 

My life the past few months has been blizzardy. In August 2016 I somehow partially tore a tendon in my shoulder. I’ve lived with nearly constant pain since then. It is not intense pain but it wears on you. The worst part is trying to sleep. An arm hangs straight when I sit or stand, and the tendon likes that. But lie down and the arm wants to move sideways or backwards. Ouch. Most of my sleeps have been two-hour sessions, and I wake in stiffness and pain. I stay up for a couple of hours, try to write, let the pain dissipate, and go back to bed for hopefully two more hours sleep. I’ve slept six hours maybe three times in the last six months.

Lack of sleep is an insidious condition. It slows your thinking, your memory, and your concentration. Writing, editing, thinking, learning, exploring a poem, whatever I try to do is impacted negatively. Yet somehow I finished NaNoWriMo, Robert Brewer’s November Chapbook Challenge, have written at least a poem a week, have studied poetry, and have edited some of my novel. Short sessions. Even now my mind drifts back to my throbbing shoulder.

Then there was the election. The election affects my novel as my story is set in Canada’s political environment. It is a trip across the nation and explores various protests, the divide between left and right. It is not so much a political book, but it is. It was written when this extremist divide was more or less defined in my head. left likes this; right likes that. But now President Trump has thrown a bag of hammers into the political machinery. I struggle with trying to understand him, people who support him, and people who defend him. I struggle with the left too but on a more purely ideological scale. The question of whether my story is relevant haunts me, and it has hobbled my progress.

I think it is still valid, and in many ways I think my message is more relevant than ever. I’ve been through reader feedback and am now reading to myself aloud.  I am up to page 65 of 303 in my Word document, and I hope today I might knock off a hundred more pages.

Anyway, I wrote a poem this week after the last blizzard ravaged us. I had originally written it with longer lines, but it didn’t work very well. Too much wallowing image and emotion and not enough tension, so I busted it into short, tight lines. I had it all in one stanza, but I do have some logical breaks in scenery. I don’t know if it will speak to you, but it speaks to me. I have lived through at least one blizzard a year for the last 46 years.

Oh, and the shoulder is slowly improving. Motion is up, MRI was definite, and back to physio today if the storm lets me.

Blizzard

a biblical plague
snowballs from
the fists of God
smack you in the face
the wind sucks
the breath from your lungs
a frozen sneeze
spraying your world
the howling ghosts
of dead trains

slippery footing
hobbling
plunging bodies
shoulders lean into
conflicted heat differentials
slams you hard
into the boards
grabs your collar
throws straight punches
tight knuckles

a father and son
killed
the New Jersey Turnpike
doesn’t care
if you are hunkered and afraid
the raid comes
brave cower
the regretfully stupid
quantum motion
of infinite chaos

the day before
calm
wet and clammy
you could smell it
coming up the coast
throbbing temples
filled with supplicants
refugees
nobody lays claim to
a blizzard

The front window view at 6:20AM

Novel Progress

Tags

2011

I am exactly halfway through my current project — I have two projects demanding attention — and I need to write something about it for posterity.

I completed Version IV of “2011” last October after some heavy summer slogging. It is a curious process, writing a novel. For each scene I read, edit, and repeat until happy, then move on to the next scene. It’s the happy part that is curious. Each pass through when I re-read a scene after much time away, I think, “My Jesus you suck, John. You write like a middle schooler.” But of course I see the errors of my ways and correct them.

This process has happened without fail. Well, there have been some temporary failures. I’ve read scenes and been happy enough to make only minor changes. I’ve never glowed with delight after reading them, well, I lie. Yes I have. But eventually I come back and return to the John-is-a-shitty-writer realization.

Sometime during last summer and fall’s edit, I recall hitting a point where I said, “You need to write like this: this is your structure, your style, and your voice.” So I changed. This January/February I read Bell’s Write Great Fiction – Plot & Structure and Wood’s How Fiction Works, two fairly advanced writing-craft books. As I worked through them, I almost continually remarked, “This is how I write; this is what I do; I know this stuff.” I have felt totally confident in my writing since I finished both. This week I hit that point in my novel I had reached last edit. I have edited about six scenes in a row where my re-reads excited me.

Of course I am editing; which means changing some things. I needed to build the threat of conspiracy, so I have been weaving that in. I have also enhanced some of the goings-on with gesture, tighter dialogue, and cutting some of the excess. There is always excess in my writing.

The 40% prior to this week, February to end of April, has been a struggle. I have used the big knives for this one. This has been the grand sacrifice of virgins and wayward travellers. I have killed so many darlings, I just about need mass graves. And I have invested much time in transience. I’ve walked, sat in coffee shops and played AlphaBetty, chatted with Tina and Bill, written poetry (see my PAD posts), and tinkered with many things not “2011” related. Yet about once a week I’ve received epiphanies. I have fed my Muses with thoughts and troubles, and I have given them long leashes. I think they have delivered. I’ve been able to pare this thing down to a level of tightness I currently feel pretty happy with.

My current word count is 125,500 down from 133,500. I’ve cut 8,000 words from the first half of this novel. Yeah. I do see some more cuts, maybe, but there are no scenes dangling in front of me like there were in the first half. I have only 1/2 a scene to cut and maybe a whole one, but I’ll decide when I get there.

This may seem like a large word count, especially if you are an agent or publisher wanting to give me a large contract, emphasis on large, but the story demands it. Seriously, it does. I won’t say much, but it is a cross-country journey. If you’ve ever travelled Canada, you know you can’t do it quickly. You know you can’t do it justice in 70k or 105k words. 145k feels right to me, but my editing skills are so good, I am now well below that. BFG 😉

So I’ve come full circle again, and this time it feels good. This time it feels very good and very right. Every day I am laughing and crying, and it’s at my work, my story, my characters. I sure hope I can get it ready sooner than later. Canada and maybe the world need to read this story 🙂

 

My Entire Novel Posted for Your Reading Pleasure:

The following is my entire [current] novel minus the words. It is the punctuation only. This post has been making rounds in Facebook writing circles. Since I code and already have a little word processing test app I’ve been playing with, adding code to strip characters was a trivial step. I have not included quotation marks — I didn’t see the point, yet. This data of course begs the question , “What does this mean?”

Action.
Friction.
Depth.
Rhetorical questions.
Voice.

I already know my writing can be languid (lots of strings of commas). I already know I tend to ask too many rhetorical questions (strings of question marks). I know I use semicolons liberally, but the result doesn’t show it. Of course it is hard to pick out trends visually.

I think this is an interesting path of analysis.Counts, repetitions, patterns.

• I use triadic sentences which should look like “;;.” A quick search in Word reveals 46 instances. Too many?
• My longest string of commas is 15.
• My longest string of semicolons is 6.
• My longest string of periods is 12.
• 821 question marks.
• I abhor exclamation marks, yet I use 142 of them!

Interesting features to investigate and edit. *sigh*

Anyway, enjoy the story.

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Novel Update

Tags

2017, Canada 150, editing, novel, Writing

I don’t say much about my writing on this blog. I’ve written much but have said little. Meet me for a coffee, and I will talk your ear off. There is too much to write about, and I’ll be honest, I don’t really know what I am doing. *grin*

2012 Novel

I have received feedback from 5 of my 8 beta readers. It ranges from apathetic to, “you probably need to have a real editor help you through the next steps. I’d send it to an agent now.” My three remaining readers are not so much proofers or editors but audience feedback. I touch areas, and these readers live in those areas. It is prodding the sleeping lion with a short stick.

2012 is currently sitting idle and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

2010 Novel

This story keeps creeping into my head. It is probably because the inspiration for it came from an apartment in the building directly across from our apartment (been here just over a year.) The story has issues, and I don’t know if I am ready to tackle them. I do like it, though, and will have to put serious thought into a plan.

2013 Novel

No plans to take this on. It might have potential, but there is nothing particularly compelling about it.

2014 Novel

This is a sequel to 2012. As with 2012, it addresses important issues that have never before been covered in a novel, and it needs to get out there. *Damn you 2017!

2015 Novel

I am currently trying some ideas out for the next NaNoWrimo. My mind hoards images and inspiration. A few of them are colliding: magical realism, additive sentence style, satire, immigration and emigration (I descend from immigrants and I are an expat), the American Revolution, Vermont dress-code and hairstyles, and the history of my current city a.k.a. The Loyalist City. There is still something missing, and I don’t know what it is. Yes I do, a story.

The Manatee

I am writing a few satirical articles for the Award Winning online blog. My stories.

2011 Novel

I have decided to re-write 2011 and this is where my current fiction-writing efforts are focused. The reason is simple and pressing: this story needs to be published in 2017.

I have overcome some serious flaws in my writing. I still write conversationally, but I am much better at using active verbs. I used to write passive sentences habitually, and I somehow developed the habit of overusing stage management verbs. Copulas have also been a problem, but no as bad as the other issues. A focus on editing has done wonders over these past five years, my reading pace and the quality of my analysis has picked up, and I am seeing the bigger pictures: conflict, character, imagery, theme, etc. My writing feels tighter when I read it back to myself.

I sat down with Mr. 2011 sometime this winter or spring. Its prose was dreadful. Not all of it, but much of it was filled with stage management, filtering verbs – she thinks, sees, feels, and wants. *gag* The scenes had little purpose except for getting from A to B (as one has to do in travel stories), and it was loose. It was more than loose, it was wobbly. It was bloody awful. But as I said, the story needs to be published in 2017.

2017 is Canada’s 150th birthday. It promises to be a huge year in Canada. If you have a Canadian novel — a novel written by a Canadian, set in Canada, and about Canada, this year could be a gold mine. You’d be a fool to pass it by. My 2011 story is about a cross-Canada tour. It is political, tactile, thematic, and in the end, celebratory. I say this honestly and not because I want to sell a million copies: my 2011 story is the perfect Canadian read for 2017. I began writing it long before I realize the significance of 2017, so I will claim it is an honest novel and not manufactured to take advantage of the birthday. I am also encouraged that the people I tell the story outline to all agree — this story needs to be published in 2017!

This morning I finished re-writing up to page 182 of 333, double-spaced Word 2007. 127k words at the moment. I have much left to do. The next step is to edit the belly-of-the-whale scene, the center of the story marking the return home, virtually speaking. The scene takes place on parliament hill during Canada Day celebrations, and I have spent much time at it. This edit will be more a line edit but also to add in elements to make it align with the story and themes, if it doesn’t already, if it would help. The scene has to stay pretty much as it is though. It is a darling that will never be killed by my hands. Without giving too much away, let’s just say the Don Cherry Seven Second Delay makes an appearance.

I have struggled getting this far. I still may re-write PEI and NS. NF and NB are sitting well with me. Québec was a struggle — isn’t it always? — but some research and some deep thought have helped me straighten it. My editor — if you are an editor, I need you! — will have fun with Québec. I left Québec very happy, and I think Québec is very happy I left it.

I entered Ontario a couple of weeks ago distraught. It was some of the worst prose I have ever put on a page. I cut quite a bit of it, yet the basic story needed to remain — again the A to B thing and a need for a setup of the belly-of-the-whale scene. I pondered my root story and my themes, tried a few things, discussed a few ideas with fellow writers, reminisced about certain activities in my past from my time living in Ottawa, and I have crafted some scenes that I now really like. I laugh just thinking about them. And I have to say, this will be a fun, summer read. It is not light and fluffy. It is not an airhead read. It is simple prose, and technically, it is an easy read, but I ask important questions most of us may need to think about.

There are groups of people that will disdain this story — the clowns and the jokers. I acknowledge that, and I am sorry, but there is nothing I can do for you but smile and wave.

Where to from here?

There are big questions surrounding this story:

• is my writing really tight enough?
• is the story tight enough?
• does the story really need to be published in 2017?
• do I invest time in beta readers?
• do I query an agent, a mid-level publisher, or go it alone?

I only have two “knows” at the moment. 1. This draft will be completed by the end of August, and 2. Martin(1) will edit it(2) during that first week of September. He doesn’t know his schedule yet 😉

2017 arrives in 17 months! I have to get this to an agent, sign a deal, and get a publishing deal all during September. Self-publishing might be the only way this thing gets out on time, and I hate that thought. I disdain self-publishing for its deigning of quality.

(1)Martin Wightman is a journalist and copy editor at NB News who has recently started writing a regular science column for the Telegraph Journal (protected by pay-wall,) a freelancer, and a song writer (I think). He is also a friend who has edited a few of my pieces, tough but encouraging .
(2)I love working with editors 😉

If you are an agent or publisher looking for that perfect, Canadian novel for 2017. Please contact me. Save us both some time and effort. 😉

The Long, Compound, Subordinate Sentence

Tags

anaphora, climax, dragonette, emphasis, epiphora, epistrophe, foreplay, Letter From Birmingham, martin luther king, music, sentence, sex, subortinating, tension

I had a discussion the other day about sentence length. “High tension prose should use short sentences, and languid prose should use long sentences,” we initially agreed. But then I thought and I read. I won’t deny that long, languid sentences are useful in more passive prose, but not all long sentences are languid. The compound, subordinate sentence is often used to heighten tension, not only heighten it but hold it for a length of time and make the reader squirm.

I am going to use an analogy some might find offensive: sex. The best sex follows [surprise] a standard story format. It starts out slow and playful, languid foreplay slowly triggers the more intense responses, then as the couple prepares for the climax, they engage in the short strokes, that one long sentence held and repeated that maximizes tension but refuses to release it. And then bang, it’s over.  Over course even better sex has multiple events of this nature – that heightened tension held and savored but pulled back before release, an even stronger buildup for the next engagement and eventual climax.

An example of such an encounter is Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. It begins with a slow, reflective buildup, then about a quarter way through, he hits us with one of his most famous sentences:

But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”–then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.

Now the tension is ready to explode, but he brings us back down a notch and holds us there. He engages us with a series of smaller ups and downs, a long, slow, heightened engagement. Then at the end he hits us with another zinger. It is written as a series of sentences, yet given the repetition, the whole paragraph could likely have been constructed as a single sentence. It has the same effect, the long, heightened tension followed by the quick release, the climax, the conclusion.

I wish you had commended the Negro sit inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy two year old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: “My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest.” They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience’ sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Another example is in the Bible (There are many examples in the Bible). Proverbs 1 sets the purpose and theme of all the proverbs with this wonderful sentence.

1 The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel:

² for gaining wisdom and instruction;
for understanding words of insight;
³ for receiving instruction in prudent behavior,
doing what is right and just and fair;
⁴ for giving prudence to those who are simple,^[
a]     knowledge and discretion to the young—
⁵ let the wise listen and add to their learning,
and let the discerning get guidance—
⁶ for understanding proverbs and parables,
the sayings and riddles of the wise.^[b]

⁷ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,     but fools^[c] despise wisdom and instruction.

This is not languid but a heightened plea to listen, read on, and save your sorry soul.

If we can revisit my first assertion: “High tension prose should use short sentences, and languid prose should use long sentences.” As demonstrated by King’s second example, we can read these long sentences as a series of small, incomplete sentences held together by common themes and repeating prefixes (anaphora, considered a literary technique for adding emphasis). The take home: don’t assume length equals tension.

I’ll leave you with a musical example, Dragonette’s ‘Live In This City’. Notice half way through, at the 1:30 mark, the singer repeats key phrases over and over (the bolded lyrics), almost in the form of a compound subordinate sentence. It does not use anaphora but an implicit epiphora (epistrophe), a repeating ending — ‘You can’t live without’ sung in the background seems to fill the role. The section acts as a long, tension holding sentence before down-trending into the ending. You could write them as “Kings of the indie rockers, you can’t live without me; top of the toilet choppers, you can’t live without me; riots and rebel rousers, you can’t live without me; high roller phantom powers, you can’t live without me; kings of the indie rockers, you can’t live without me; top of the toilet choppers, you can’t live without me; riots and rebel rousers, you can’t live without me; high roller phantom powers, you can’t live without me.” Marvelous technique!

Dragonette
“Live In This City”

I start it up
Turn it over like a general motor
And come down heavy
‘Cause I drop it like a Tomahawk chopper

I gotta keep on doing what I’m doing
‘Cause we’re clapping our hands now
Yeah I found a lipstick that I like
And so I’m walking it downtown, downtown

[Chorus:]
But I only live in this city
Live in the city
I only live in this city
Live in the city
I like to keep the place busy and I do it for free
Cause this city can’t live without me
Can’t live without

Me and my gang and some blonde defender
We wind it up around the center, roll it over to Camden
Just so you know that queen with the face that you call my little pony
We basically invented this place,
That’s why it’s standing room only
Standing room only

[Chorus:]
But I only live in this city
Live in the city
I only live in this city
Live in the city
I like to keep the place busy and I do it for free
Cause this city can’t live without me
Can’t live without

Kings of the indie rockers
The top of the toilet choppers
Riots and rebel rousers
High roller phantom powers
(You can’t live without)

Kings of the indie rockers
(You can’t live without)
Top of the toilet choppers
(You can’t live without)
Riots and rebel rousers
(You can’t live without)
High roller phantom powers
(You can’t live without)

Kings of the indie rockers
The top of the toilet choppers
Riots and rebel rousers
High roller phantom powers

[Chorus:]
I only live in this city
Live in this city
I only live in the city
Live in this city
I only the place busy
Keep on working for free
Cause this city can’t live without me

[Chorus:]
I only live in this city
Live in this city
I only live in the city
Live in this city
I only the place busy
Keep on working for free
Cause this city can’t live without me
Can’t live without me
Can’t live without me
Can’t live without me
Can’t live without me
Yeah I only live in this city
Cause this city can’t live without me

The long, compound, subordinate sentence is powerful. It is the short strokes of the story. Used with anaphora and epiphora, it brings tension to near climax with its series of dependant clauses and holds it there until finally driving home the resolution or major point with its trailing independent clause. It is not the slow, languid, reflective sentence but in fact a mesh of tightly packed short, punchy fragments. Use it with care!

*as an exercise, find the lyrics to some of your favorite songs and read them as such sentences where the lyrics are the subordinate clauses and the refrain is the pointed, complete clause or conclusion.

2012 NaNoWriMo Version 5 Completed!

Tags

bata reader, manuscript

I feel drained. The 80cm of snow we’ve received since last Wednesday (this is Sunday) have something to do with it. 50cm more are due tomorrow. That’s 52 inches of snow. That’s enough snow to bury children and animals, not to mention cars. I literally have nowhere to shovel this snow. We are talking about cancelling our car insurance for the next three months because we won’t be going anywhere in them.

Middle Of Second Storm

Still, it doesn’t compare to the stress I’m feeling as I finish this edit of the novel I’m working on, my fifth major version in two and a third years. I know there are changes to make: too many ellipses, thinking verbs, rhetorical questions, voice transgressions, theme continuity issues, and story line consistencies. And these are only the headers of my shopping list. Yet the need for input from others outweighs these abstract objectives. At the end of this edit, as I reviewed my notes and made a few more changes, I felt myself sinking into Johnny Weissmuller quicksand.

I think a writer needs to edit from a good place. We cannot be fighting our visions. I feel my story is a piece of art. I feel my story can be an attractive read for millions. Seriously. But I am finding the doubts creeping in. Every page I read makes me question my sanity, my ability to write. I have made so many mistakes! Of course what I need is time away and some concrete feedback.

So I sit here typing this post as the first printed copy of my V5 manuscript prints. It is 126k words, which at font-10 and 1.5 line spacing equals 277 printed pages. I am printing double-sided this time. My previous manuscripts were just too thick. And I did not make the decision alone. I checked with my primary readers for their preferences, and they are fine with reduced note making space. The next steps are to distribute copies to 6 to 8 readers. One EPUB version is already out.

In a month or so, I’ll need to gather the herd. I’d like to take my readers somewhere for at least coffees. I’m thinking a Starbucks on a snowy Sunday morning. I might even rent a room at the library and bring in some pizza. If I host them at home, I could also serve beer. We’ll see. If I get a constant message that it sucks and there is zero hope anybody would want to read it, then they’ll be getting nothing 😉

2015 Reading Log

In 2015 I am keeping a reading log. Last year I kept track of books I read at a couple of web sites: Goodreads and Harper Collins’ 50 Book Pledge site. But looking back, and these were issues I had uncovered during the year anyway, I determined I needed more.

I review books for myself. I read literature not only to enjoy but to learn how to write better. I make notes when I read: new-to-me words, interesting lines, interesting technique, criticisms and questions, and even the occasional error. Last year I discovered errors in four books, including Neil Gaiman’s “American Gods”, the epub version.

I am also in a couple of book clubs. Notes do not raise their ugly heads during the library discussion. We have a dozen or so members, most of whom cannot hear well anyway, and if they can hear me, have no idea what I ramble on about anyway. It is led by a librarian who loves to hear herself talk, and she chews up a big chunk of our hour. There is not much point in using notes to help you say whether you enjoyed it or not and give an example of what you liked. Seems I used the same logic at school decades ago. But I am also in a small, men’s book club. There are four of us. We are all keeners and we like to drink. We only read four books a year, but so far they tend to generate hours of discussion and drinking. We take turns supplying drink, preferably something related to the book in question. We’ve only read three books so far: Crime and Punishment, Fifth Business, and One Hundred Years Of Solitude. We’ve drunk Russian vodka, Canadian whiskey, and South American wine. Our next read is Beloved by Toni Morrison and my turn to bring the booze. I bet you can guess what I will be bringing for drink. Anyway, making notes of books is pretty much required, unless you just want to sit and drink.

Particularly with these three chosen books but also with others, I discovered that note taking and deep thought when reading slows down your pace. It took me two months to read Dostoyevsky and two months to read Marquez. Other books also hung around too long on my desks and tables. I pledged 50 books for 2014 and I only made it to 34. I dilly dally, and I need help keeping on track. I need more granular goals and record keeping. Oh, your a half-book behind pace? Pick it up! I decided to try logging how much I read each day.

Then there are craft and technical books. I read a Unix book last year. It required extra time. I read five or six writing craft books. You cannot breeze through the stuff. You need to read slowly and take it in.

You know what else? I have a shelf full of notebooks and journals I will likely never use. I want to buy more, but how do I justify it? By using them up.

This is January 6th and the day is not done. This is what my next to last page looks like:

1    The Progress Of Love (finishing)                                    12    /    12
2    Hunting Badger [HB]  [275 pages]                                 77    /    89
3    HB p163                                                                      86    /   175
4    HB p217                                                                      54    /   229
5    HB 275                                                                        58    /   287
.     Bird By Bird [237 pages plus 21 Intro]                           21    /    308
6    BBB    Ch 1                                                                  15    /    323
.    Carnival by Rawi Hage [Cl] [289 pages begins @ 3]         17   /    340

So as of right now, I have read 340 pages in the first six days of 2015 and completed one book. Yay! But this begs the question: how much should I read a day? And can I pick up the pace? I read slowly due to eye issues and desire to absorb. Due to the need to scratch this notebook with notes. I am on page five of notes, and there is no way one book will suffice at this pace. But Hunting Badger was abysmally written, or should I say edited. I made a lot of notes from it, the bulk of the note-taking so far. I am running with fifty pages a day. That’s 350 pages a week. At that pace, as long as I don’t attempt too many Tolstoys, I should achieve my fifty book target. My current pace is 56.67 pages a day and I still have seven hours left on today’s clock. Though Hunting Badger’s word count per page was quite low, around 250, and his writing was simple and terse. Carnival’s is more dense and lyrical, but it too is about 250 per page. Some books are around 333 or even 400. I just read Rabbit Run and some of its pages must have 480 words [40 lines x 12 with no white space]. Yeah, fifty a day works. The density will average out.

So where does this get me? It gets me to the concrete goal of reading fifty books a year, employs use of a goal-setting and measurement tool, which frankly I could use elsewhere as well, and keeps me on a pace to publishing.

Oh yeah, publishing. My Jan 15th goal of editing 477 pages is about on track. I am on page 222. I started this around Dec. 19th, and the holidays were not real productive. Two scenes lopped off the list today with more tonight.

Novels High School Teachers Teach: version #4 is in the books

Tags

John Updike, Rabbit Run

In The Books

I am writing novels. I wrote a novel just this November for NaNoWriMo. No, it is not a readable let alone publishable story. I think I know the differences. My November drafts are forays, experiments, and practice. I pick a rather random idea and write to it. I do some structural planning, but I do not put much thought into them. This might seem bad, but for me it is good. I have no limits when I write, no outline to guide my creative process. I follow enough scene-level form to keep me on the straight and narrow; I don’t need more.

I have five novels in the works, 2010 through 2014. I ran for a year with 2010 just because that was all I had in the hopper. It grew to 80,000 words and I am still fairly happy with its characters and ideas. But it takes place in Newfoundland, and it makes me uncomfortable. What right do I have to write about that province and their peoples’ events? If you have read February by Lisa Moore, you might catch my drift. By the way, she is coming here in February 2015 and we are so excited!

I also ran for a year with my 2011 novel. It is a long Canadian epic at 120,000 words, and it screams for twenty thousand more. My reading suggests publishers want short first novels, something less risky. And lets face it. Two years of fiction writing does not a writer make. I knew I needed to improve my knowledge and skills of this craft. Craft. Let’s all remember that writing is hard and it takes broad and in-depth knowledge and experience. I wasn’t there yet; I am not there now. There are also rumors of grant money for Canadian stories in 2017, the country’s 150th anniversary. I decided to let it sit.

My 2012 story excited me from its conception. I had nothing but an image in my head on October 15th. After two weeks of active brainstorming and diffuse thinking, the premise came to me. W5 plus how. I was excited that first day of writing, and the excitement stayed with me for the month. Yes, there have been ups and downs. I have asked myself a lot of hard questions. I have put my story and my skills up against firing squads. Like Colonel Aureliano Buendia, we have both survived. Unlike the good colonel, I hope to someday emerge from my solitude. I concluded edit pass number four this past week on December 15th, 2014.

So what to do next? Approach an agent? Pass it on to more beta readers? Let is soak? Stick my head into it again? I have two marked up version #3 manuscripts from beta readers I have not even looked at yet. I pouted for a few days, celebrated my daughter’s 25th birthday on Friday, and I printed out the first six scenes, 83 pages. I went to Starbucks, ordered a Venti coffee, and read the cut off MS. I marked it up as I read with a fountain pen I had lost for seven months (we moved) and an ink I haven’t used in a while.

I found myself marking up many words, phrases, and sentences. I clarified some things and unpacked others. Nothing particularly major but every page was becoming marked up with violet ink. Most changes were to make the sentences clearer. I changed “these” to “those” a few times. I removed much thinking, mostly “know” and “feel.” But I also added some literary flair:

He gave up on being a dad before he met Jill, and she had not changed his mind. “I don’t know how to be the father I never had; I can’t become him.”

I refuse to say if it is good writing, but some of my additions made my heart thump. The good part was I was happy with the story structure. My second and third scenes have always been bloated, and pass #4 was designed to remove bloating. Still, most of my changes this weekend were significant enough to warrant another serious pass. I concluded I need to continue with this edit before I let anybody else read it. I am focusing on the writing and not so much the structure; though I have already killed a significant paragraph. Today I updated 40 pages of changes and modified some of the mark-ups.

I am setting a short deadline of January 15th as my drop-dead date. It currently sits at close to 122,000 words, so this will be an intense few weeks. But it should be a fast edit. Hopefully most of the scene shuffling is over with. Hopefully I can focus on the writing and get it to where it needs to be, to where I want it.

Oh, I made a stunning discovery. I have been reading John Updike’s Rabbit Run and I learned it is one of the early, well regarded use of third person present tense which I use in my story. Like me, Updike drifts up and down in his perspectives. I probably drift more than he does, and I incorporate much reflective past tense as well. Unlike Updike who changes perspectives — sometimes it’s Rabbit and sometimes it’s Eccles — mine stays in one person’s head. In only a handful of places at most do I hint at drifting away. 

One of my beta readers made an interesting comment as we chatted briefly about it. “It reads like one of those novels your high school teacher asks you to read and you never forget.” My line of the year 🙂