Novel Finished!

Tags

Canada 150, editing, nanowrimo, novel, Writing

As if novels are ever finished.

I have finished draft number 6 of novel 2011. A review: I start a novel every year during NaNoWriMo and have won that contest six years in a row. I spend the rest of the year re-writing these novels or working on other projects. Here’s a list of my novel WIPs:

Year – My Ranking of Potential (1 to 5) – Draft – Words – Status – Plan

2010 – 4 Stars – Draft 3, a complete story – 80,000 – not touched since 2012. Needs a setting overhaul and a major rewrite. – Indefinite revisit.

2011 – 5 Stars! – Draft #6 – 129,000 words – Ready for pitching – About to undertake a major submission agenda.

2012 – 4 Stars – Draft #4 – 130,000 words – Needs a story trim; much too much happening; needs a writing overhaul, a killing of bad habits. – Indefinite revisit.

2013 – 2 Stars – Draft #1 – 51,000 words – Need to find the tension. I have characters and ending but the plot falls down in the mud. – Indefinite revisit.

2014 – 4 stars – Draft #1 – 51,000 words – A Sequel to 2012; I really like this story and it could become 5 star – Indefinite revisit.

2015 – 1 Star – Draft #1 – 50,000 words – an attempt at writing in an additive style; I cannot function in this style, not solely – XXX

Undecided Upon

2016 – 5 Star! – Concept – 0 words – A story with social implications I am not sure I am qualified to pull off, but if I do …
2016 – 4 Star! – Concept – 0 words – A less defined story with social implications I feel more comfortable attacking, but the story itself is mostly undefined.

I’ve had to overcome some major writing issues since I undertook this journey, and I don’t claim to be finished. My writing has been a rebellious child.

I tend to write weak conversational sentences which overuse stage-management verbs: she looked, she saw, she felt, etc.. I also tend to generalize. I know the story, so I don’t need to write all the details. I don’t need them. And putting myself in my readers’ shoes has been a struggle. Even when I try hard, I tend to slip into the internal know-it-all mode. Yet whenever I read others’ writings, their generalizations jump out at me. It is a pattern I have yet to resolve.

I think I have figured out the tension and drama of sentences, paragraphs, sections, scenes, chapters, and stories. I have a series of blogs in progress where I elucidate my understanding of pattern in prose: the general narrative arc we so easily apply to story also applies at each sub-level. My daily reading and analysis of narrative prose has been a tremendous help as has my attacking of several writing craft books.

I think it is all coming together, finally, but of course it seems held together by fine threads.

This 2012 novel feels really good. At least it does to me. I have concerns how others will take it, and I have been mindful of the differences between my own thinking and the common person’s. I am an INFP who lives in his diffuse-thinking half of his mind and who easily visits all angles of an argument but has difficulty taking sides. He hates run-on sentences but sometimes uses them to demonstrate how he thinks. This novel has political implications, and I fear staunch wingers, left or right, may view this story as wishy-washy. Yet our world is full of wishy-washy people, and I might argue these people should run the world.

2012 is also uber-Canadian. You can’t get more Canadian than my story, and I mean that in every conceivable sense. I cant see the rest of the world reading it (especially Americans) and saying, “Wha?” Yet they will never find a better guide of our country 😉

2017 is Canada’s 150th birthday. It’s going to be a hell of a party. My guts say this story needs to be out there for much of next year, and there’s only one sure way I know of doing that, and that’s not really the route I want to take. I’d rather a major publisher take it on and pump it out in six months rather than the twenty four they a lot new authors.

If they’d only read it!

Anyway, wish me luck on this journey.

 

 

 

 

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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. 😉

Slump Broken

Tags

additive style, blog, novel, reading, the manatee, Writing

I have not been working hard on my novels for the last couple of months. I don’t know what the problem has been. I’m not sure any writer can tell you why they back away from a project. I have been writing, just not my fiction.

This has not been writer’s block. The few times I’ve sat down, I was able to write. But then I later re-wrote it. And I re-wrote it again. I sat at Starbucks and outlined once again, fully satisfied with the scene’s future, and I sat on it. Funny how our guts tell our minds it’s not right.

Last week I wrote a blog post for The Manatee. It was a simple, stupid post, but I thought it was funny. Others have too and it has over 2500 hits. That’s nowhere near great, but it feels good to me. The interesting bit was I wrote it in one sitting, made no revisions, and the editor accepted it as is. I read it again today and I laughed again. I also found no errors or changes I’d make. Believe me, this is positive reinforcement.

I’ve been reading Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. We all know the history of that book, but what I didn’t know was it was written as magical realism in an additive style. If you don’t know what an additive style is, then read Tony Reinke’s blog. I am not enjoying the book, but it is making me ask questions. I want a little more grounding, more story, more empathy. As Bill Shatner says, “I Just Can’t Get Behind That.”

But something says such a voice might be what I am looking for in my next project, an additive style but with friction and trust. By the way, as I listen to Bill, the song is written in an additive style. So today I sat in Starbucks, pulled out TWSBI Micarta fountain pen, and wrote a 500 word story. Then Sean Rouse stopped by and we chatted about writing. Sean was so encouraging, and when he left, I felt elated, motivated, and ready. I went home, had a nap, a great dinner, poured a glass of Magnetic Hill blueberry wine, and finished my Québec chapter. I wrote in a more additive style than I had been, and it felt good. It not only felt good writing it but also reading it. It felt right.

A missing ingredient in my voice? Perhaps. This is a constant game of assessing and reassessing. But I feel good. I feel very good tonight, and it’s not just the wine. Anyway, enjoy the beginning of story I wrote today, written in an additive style. It has not been edited or revised except as I transcribed it. Nearly straight from the pen.

Her load was too big. He’d told that to her too many times, so many times that she stopped listening to him, so many times that he was sure she purposely refused to listen to him. Marion Black may not be the brightest streetlamp on the backstreets of Dallas – it only makes sense that if a lamp is punched, kicked, and clubbed with garden and auto-repair implements enough times, dimness would creep into the shadows of the mind – but if one person in a relationship stops listening to the other, then there is a good chance there is a communication problem and the relationship may be in peril. It only made sense that when he saw the dual forces of her stumbling with her wavering load of apricots, piled higher than her eyes, and the speeding 1988 Oldsmobile Delta 88, green, bigger than his mother’s mobile home, pristine as oil refinery piping before they encroached on each others’ spaces, before the inevitability of collision was imminent, and before she busted the Oldsmobile’s grille, that Marion Black would not move. His hands did not attempt to roll down a window, open the door, or press his truck’s horn (the horn was busted anyway). He wanted to think that he knew such actions were pointless, that he was powerless to save her, that she’d have kissed the Oldsmobile with her lips spread and apricots splattered, but if Marion Black is one thing, it is honest. No such thoughts coursed through his mind, and he was too dim-witted to create any visions to compensate for his emotional void. The truth came a long time after being realized. And the truth was Marion Black didn’t react when she and the Oldsmobile perished – the young driver of the Oldsmobile panicked and swerved into an oncoming 30 foot U-haul van, the front of the Oldsmobile collapsed, and the young lad kissed the back of his engine as it drove into his face. Marion Black never flinched, his mouth didn’t open, and no tears offered to be shed. He never even thought it was a cool – by any objective Texas standard, a slightly overweight woman overburdened with cases of apricots kissing the grille of a 1988 Oldsmobile Delta 88 travelling at 70 mph in a 30 mph zone performing seven and a half summersaults and plunging feet first into a chasing police car and wrapping her legs around the police officer’s face would be considered cool. Marion Black shook his head, said ‘my life as I know it is over,’ started his 1974 Ford pick-up (yellow and rusty), and hit the road. He didn’t even stop at their apartment for clean underwear and a beer. He drove onto highway30, said ‘I’ll follow that thunderstorm,’ and he drove. Three months later he stood in front of a sign that said Welcome to Vermont. He still hadn’t bothered with clean underwear.

Novel Progress [2012]

Tags

literary agent, nanowrimo, novel, publishing

I’ve been busy this summer, writing-wise. Otherwise it has been pretty slow and laid back. I am unemployed and off of EI, so we are living off my wife’s salary only. We have also moved into an apartment in the city, and our daughter, who began her first full-time job in May, and her boyfriend are renting our house from us. The housing market sucks around here, and we have some foundation work to complete before we are ready to sell. Call it an experiment. So far, all tests are positive.

I decided to use this downtime to focus on a novel. Every day that passes I feel more comfortable with my abilities as a writer, more confident in my abilities to write a readable novel. Hell, let’s cut to the chase. I think I can write a best selling novel, and I think I have two in my portfolio, maybe even four.

Okay, pop the balloon head.

Seriously, I do think I am approaching take-off, that point where one of my novels can be pitched to an agent. And I’ll get this off my plate right now: I have zero interest in self publishing. None! I believe a novel placed in front of readers needs a large amount of care. Novels not only need a great amount of effort by the author, but also a great deal of editing, story and copy. As an avid reader, I want a quality book in my hands. I do not read trash. At least not often. And when I do, I give the book the review it deserves. I think my worst rating this year is two stars, but blame that on my prejudice against werewolves.

So when my school term ended in late June — I’ve been teaching part time at our community college — I began to stick my head back into my 2012 NaNoWriMo effort. I cannot accurately describe all the work I have done on this story, but I know it is a lot. 50,000 plus words were originally written in November 2012, and in the time since, it has grown to 115,000 words, give or take, as of July 1, 2014. *If you are an agent and are turned off by seeing NaNoWriMo, please do not be. I treat Novembers seriously. It is a convenient time to write, and the group support very helpful. We — me and a few other keeners who hope to get, err, plan to get published — are actively planning our 2014 novels now. Brainstorming mostly. I have almost nothing concrete in my notebook, and frankly, I didn’t in 2014 either. But that’s not my point. The point is I write seriously, and NaNoWriMo for me is a serious project kick-off. How many times have I heard authors say “I wrote this story quickly, in a couple of months?” And the audience says “ooh.” It’s impressive to write 50,000 words in a month if you are a published author but not if you are a hack writer? *end of rant*

I began by writing about my story. It is a complex tale with many subplots and themes interacting. I created a page for each and cross-linked them all. Funky graphs. Various colors of fountain pen ink. Stabbing, paring, dodging, and reconciling. Two weeks later I was still happy with my story but with notes. Gaps and danglings. Dead ends and stupid wtfs. No darlings though. I’m that good 😉

I am now deep into editing. I just finished off 90,369 words of 120,000. Yes, I have added 5k since July 1. And I am learning a lot about my writing. I think too much and direct the stage too much — he feels, he watches, he thinks, he looks. He edits with a heavy pen and a light heart.

I have a big stickler of an issue though. I introduce a main character late in the story and another after her. It pains me to leave them so late, but it kills the story to bring them in earlier. I think. I did manage to bring him, the second character, in much earlier, and I am real happy with the scene and placement. But I cannot bring either in sooner. Let me describe it another way that might make sense. I have two stories. I have the internal transformation — let’s call it becoming a wasp from an egg — and I have an external story, an in your face, dramatic story — the wasp saves the nest. These two characters belong more in the second story, and if look at the second, external story on its own, they are introduced early. But if you look at the lead up, the egg-to-wasp story, they play more minor roles, so they come in late. They cannot show up until the threats to the nest appear, really. I think. Anyway, that’s where it stands, at 90.4k of 120k words and less than three weeks left to my self-imposed deadline.

Then it’s beta reader time. They are lining up to read it!

I only wish the agents and publishers were lining up.

*** If you are local, I think I am going to read a short scene at Bernie’s open mic night in September at the Arts Centre. It’s a head twister 😉 ***

Novel Status – July 2013

Tags

hero's journey, joseph campbell, monomyth, novel, novel writing

Here’s the situation. My current novel is a completed rough draft. I penned it during NaNoWrimo in November 2012, totally off the cuff. It started from a seemingly innocent personal experience. I took that experience, replaced me and the other person involved with blank characters. I kept the location and its character template. I then asked some questions:

–          What sort of person would react like I did?
–          Is there an alternative reason for this situation that the reason I was given might mask it?
–          Given the disparity between the people-template and my new main character, what circumstances would keep him engaged?

My answers came like explosions, wham, wham, wham. I developed a story and presented it to my writing group.

“Well, that seem sort of goofy.”
“Hmmm, yeah, I suppose it is.”

Question number three, the engagement glue, didn’t work. I came up with a new idea and presented it the next week, the Wednesday before November, crunch time.

“Ah, no, that doesn’t work either.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, we’re sure.”
“Damn.”

I realized I also needed an initial reason for him to be there. My protagonist just didn’t belong in the location, and I doubted my whole idea. Looking back, I now realize this is the ideal situation, and the tension I felt translated into tension I wrote. As I began writing, I quickly learned about my character. I quickly discovered his major character flaw that opened several doors. This flaw was not only the engagement glue but also formed the basis of his transformation, of the story. Literary gold! Writing flowed like motor oil out of my 2002 Accord’s leaky oil pan.

My initial idea still held, the masked situation, but I had no conclusion. I worked on the story, his flaw, and realized the symbolism matched perfectly the symbolism of the masked situation. Really? Yes. When I later I added a snippet to scene three, it all came home. Wham!

So I’ve been working on this thing since November. I have about fifty scenes and eighty thousand words. But it feels wrong. It feels like my lawn (an acre plot with gardens, trees, and hills) after my son mows it – patchy, inconsistent, with mangled shrubs and gardens. A big mess. I have been happy with my scene editing. I make three passes on them. After a few days of attention and revisiting, my writing fleshes out. When I read it, I think wow, did I write this? Let’s not kid ourselves though; my first view versions are pretty amateur. My initial writes are pretty meager . My son’s blog puts them to shame. My son’s writing puts most of ours to shame. Too bad he can’t mow like he writes. *Sorry, I’ve lost track of it. I don’t like following my kids online.

I’ve been running into dead ends, not within my scenes but tying my story together. So I’ve been spending time reading up on story. I read stuff, read through my own story board, try to match, get a big headache, and go play a computer game.  I did realize I had gaps. I couldn’t articulate them, but I felt them. I had timeline, plot-point, and motivation inconsistencies. This whole narrative arc thing has been an abstract mess. I found myself in bed at night playing through scenes, standing in the shower trying to link the falling drops of water to plot lines, and reading novels and thinking “this person got it, why can’t I?”

During these activities I’ve done other things. I taught a couple of courses for seven weeks as a substitute instructor at the local community college. Out of that I got a Microsoft DreamSpark subscription. Cool. I have installed ultimate versions of Video Studio and SQL Server. Yes, I can code. I’ve been trying c# Winforms and have built some business classes and a database class. I can’t explain it here, but I know loose coupling and interfacing. These are important elements of software architecture, and they relate very much to novel arc or story architecture. I am finding my ability to sort out my story arc improving. Then a few days ago I watched a cool video on the Hero’s Journey.  Not only did it help clarify Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, but I learned that screenwriters purposely write the key scenes first then fill in the blanks. It’s very much how I’ve been coding – code the key elements first [with tight coupling] then fill in the interfacing later [abstract, loose coupling]. Wham!

I tried it with my already written scenes, and it didn’t work. What? I must really have a mess here. I decided to approach the problem from a linear perspective. I sat down and went through each step of the hero’s journey and wrote how I accomplished each. I also wrote the gaps, either the missing scenes or linkages to tie the journey (story) together. It worked. Wham! I discovered that my story pretty much covers the whole hero’s journey arc with some exceptions.  I summarized and jotted down four scenes I need to write and five elements I need to tie down. I also have a timeline issue I need to unravel, and that may have to wait until a more macro-level edit.

So that’s where I am. I have a clear plan of action:

–          four new scenes
–          five tie-downs
–          a complete read-through and copy-edit with some attention to time-line
–          reassess

I want to complete these four objectives by August 24^th. That’s beach party weekend, and I’d love to bring a readable manuscript to share with a couple of people. I won’t likely share it there, not during party time. It is a time to celebrate long friendships, and I want to be fully engaged, not struggling with any balls and chains. It will be a mind-freeing weekend, so I better get it done by then. I may not have much of a mind left afterwards.

NaNoWriMo 2012 #1

Tags

change, editing, nanowrimo, novel, Writing

If you’ve never participated in NaNoWriMo, try it at least once. Scratch that item of writing a novel off your life’s bucket list. 2012 is my third attempt. I won my previous tries in 2010 and 2011, and I plan on winning this attempt as well. How do you win? Simple, write 50,000 words of a NEW novel during November. Nobody reads it. Nobody really cares if you really succeeded or not. Nobody cares if it’s any good. It’s all about you writing that story.

Some will argue against this venture, and I suppose they have good points. Who really needs another trashy novel cluttering the shelves? Lord knows we have enough of them already. But NaNo is not about creating masterpieces — tell that to Sara Gruen — it’s about putting words on a page. Everybody who writes knows the benefits of writing. The main purpose of Nano is to get people to write. During November some five billion words might be written that might otherwise not have been. How many good words are in that mess? If ninety percent of a good writer’s are bad, then we can cut this down to at most five hundred million good words. The majority of NaNoers are crappy writers — the majority of writers are crappy. The one thing all writers do well is produce crap. Let’s say we’re so crappy that only one in a thousand of our passages are actually worthy. Five billion divided by a thousand is still five million. NaNoWriMo therefore produces at least five million quality passages every November. Isn’t that worthy?

Don’t you want to make your own contribution? So what if few of these words will ever be read? The writers were affected. Possibly ninety percent of NaNoers are affected by their writing. Possibly as many as a quarter of a million writers are so affected by their own words that they make change in their own lives. Okay, that’s a bit ambitious, but say ten percent are, or maybe one percent are. Say twenty-five hundred writers are so affected that they make a significant change in their lives. Isn’t that worthy? Isn’t that worth the effort of writing two or three hours a day for a month? Isn’t that worth the risk of failure?

NaNo is my time to start a new novel, and I’m deep into my preparations. I turned 2010 into an 80k uncompleted story followed by turning 2011 into a completed 120k story which I’m now seeking feedback on. Both are active projects, but that doesn’t mean I can’t start another. I need to write creatively, and spending 100% of my free time editing and revising doesn’t come close to meeting my creative needs. By the time November rolls around, I have a deep itch to write, something short stories, poetry, blogs, and forum comments can’t come close to scratching. I’ve read several books on writing, several novels, attended many writing and reading club meetings. My muse is well fed and ready to fly. I think I’ve turned NaNo into my annual jump off the literary cliff. I also tend to be competitive, so I enjoy the pressure. Yes, a quickly drafted story can turn into a mess, and my next blog will attempt to cover how I’m approaching this year’s story. Stay tuned.

What are you waiting for? Sign up today.

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

Changes

Tags

author, character, diabetes, focus, novel, personality, plot, riptide, story, theme, unemployment, Writing

You can read David Bowie’s lyrics here and listen to his song here.

I’ve seen a lot of changes in my life. I’ve described this diabetes affliction as a ball and chain, an inhibitor of change. I’ve drug the thing around for nearly 37 years, and yes, it is a heavy burden. But I’ve moved forward. I no longer live with unknown blood sugars, hopelessness, 911 calls, constant late night hypos, or fear. Yes, those were the days prior to me pumping, prior to June 26, 2006. I’ve made major changes in my own health care. I’m now my doctors’ best patient. They shake their heads when I leave the room. I still carry the ball and chain, but I swing it like a grandfather watch. I look at it and ask it what time it is, and I slide it in my pocket as the master of a business empire might.

No, things are not now perfect, but they’re good. I have much more focus and much more confidence. I now call myself one of Canada’s best read authors based on my correspondence in various diabetes forums. I’ve made well over 15,000 posts, some of them quite lengthy. Even a mere 100 words each comes out to 1,500,000 words. Some have been read tens of thousands of times, some over a hundred thousand. That many posts times 1,000 reads each is 15 million reads. If this was my novel writing, I’d be rich and famous. I’m obscure at best. Many posts are fluff, but most are serious. I have fans. People have told me I’ve saved their life. I’ve told people they’ve saved my life, and they have. Their words have. The words they spoke when I asked the right questions. The questions I asked when I changed my attitude. The answers I finally heard when I began listening to others, the real experts, the other diabetics out there seeking help, seeking change.

I’ve learned to write, at least that’s what I tell myself. I am a type B personality. I am the furthest person on the scale my university organizational behavior professor had ever seen. I wish I could remember her name. She was hot. She wasn’t hot in the entertainment sense; she was hot as a person. She was strong, confident, yes she was good looking, but she moved forward with power and grace. She was not a woman young men ogled over. She was a woman young men feared. When she walked through the halls full of students, she didn’t fit in. She stood out gracefully. She never smiled in the halls. In class I could feel her words, her message: learn your own strengths; learn to change. I nearly failed that course. I found it distasteful to surgically categorize people, yet I loved it. It’s the one course in business school I use almost all the time when writing fiction: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Herzberg’s Dual-Factor Theory, and Vroom’s Expectancy Theory of Motivation stay with me. Dr. Stuart-Koetze’s textbook is the only one left on my shelf. Oh how that shelf has changed over the years too [blog idea alert]. I learned that I need to communicate. I love working on teams with people. I hate sitting alone working on a project — that didn’t sound right for a writer. I also learned I don’t lead by talking. My ideas come to the surface slowly. They perk like a good cup of Folgers, and my ideas are good to the clichéd last drop. Writing suits my soul. I love sitting alone working on a project when I’m tapped into my mind, when I’m free to let my ideas flow. I do think it’s my strength.

I have never looked negatively on change. I look negatively on stagnancy, even though I’m guilty of wearing boots unfit for trudging in mud. I’m a type B personality. I don’t create change for the sake of change; I simply ride the waves and enjoy the ride, trying to steer my board to a beach rather than rocks. I’m good at riding waves, not at finding new, better waves.

And now I’m faced with a new change in my life. I am no longer employed with the firm that employed me yesterday. Technically I still am, but I’m free to stay home and write blogs, drink rum, and play computer games. It’s not a change I’m upset about. It was expected. We used to be a shop of 150 and now about 30. I’m one of the last to go. I’m happy to be moving forward. I admit I needed a push. I have no idea what I want the new wave to look like or go, no, yes I do know. But that approach, that stretch of sand is filled with big, scary sharks and sharp rocks. It’s almost assured I will crash and be swept out to see, a casualty of this wave called life. I want to write. I want to be a writer. I remind myself it’s not the beach that’s important but the wave. It’s the words and ideas and self expression that matter, nothing else.

I can carry this attitude for a while; then I will have to find new employment. Joy. It’s tough writing these words; because, well, I am not a writer. I have no training, no experience, no supporters. When I tell people I’m writing a novel I get the standard “that’s nice John, but what are you really doing with your life” look. My wife is afraid to read it. She’s afraid of breaking John’s heart. My writing group nods passively — I don’t know if they really like it or if they don’t want to upset me with criticism. My friends think I’m just crazy. Novelists don’t make money; they don’t support their family; they have no hope for success. I admit I’m no Stephen King or Ken Follett. I have an impossible task in front of me.

This writing business is a real ball and chain. It’s not the same burden as diabetes. It’s a load I choose to carry. This is not a culmination of a life of experience; it’s merely another fad hobby in John’s life. It’s not hockey [midget AAA]; it’s not chess [CFC 1900 class A]; and it’s not photography. My infatuation will end like all my other diversions have ended. I no longer play hockey or chess. I no longer photograph much. I could drop writing just like that, couldn’t I? I have said over the years that I have a peculiar strength: I can see patterns others can’t. Playing hockey I could see the whole ice and the movement of every player. I had hands of stone, though. In chess I saw more forces at work than most players could see. I’ve surprised masters with my analysis. I’ve beaten a master. Yet I couldn’t easily see the straight route to the king. I find photography a natural fit. I let the lines and shapes fall into position on their own, yet photographing people posing for the shot is a completely mind-boggling task. I really think my strengths are suited to writing: I can see the plots, themes, motivations, tensions, etc. I am also not suited to writing. My focus on the complex story often leaves good writing technique drowning in a riptide as I walk along looking for shells and lost coins.

I wrote last night, and I think I wrote well. I now have 92,201 first draft quality words with 15,492 left to work through. I am planning on making the time over the next weeks to finish a draft of this thing ahead of schedule, get my wife to read it, then if she doesn’t die from embarrassment, get someone qualified in vetting stories to read it. I have two people in mind, both have suggested they are willing to help. But I need some feedback soon, and I need to get this weight off my shoulders. I also need cup of coffee number two and a shower.

Later.

*One of the drivers of wanting to complete this story is its potential commercial viability. I’ll be honest here: such thinking is wrong. I’m writing these words largely to expel them from my head; because they do not belong in a writer’s head. But it’s a big, attractive story. It’s a story any adult in Canada would turn their head at, and I can’t find any equivalents in my head. It’s not a fluffy character-based story where the plot needs to be extracted and can only be seen at the end. My story is not on the level of Harry Potter or Lord Of The Rings. I’m not that pretentious. The Grapes of Wrath comes to mind: it’s a national story, a story everybody will immediately recognize, but it’s a story with attractive bling not dusty destitution. I won’t claim the writing matches the story. I will need an expensive editor. I may need a new author.

Final 20,000 Words

Tags

editing, jig saw puzzle, music, novel, rolling stones, story, Writing

Last night’s session left me with 88,000 words edited of my 105,000 word story. About 150 pages have been through a second edit and 200 or so a first edit. This doesn’t add up to 20,000 left to edit, but I know a few things:
– my ending is wrong. It needs a complete re-write.
– the setup for the ending is incomplete. It needs more internalization, and a character needs to go away.
– the penultimate scene needs a better focus, and I think I found it this morning in the shower.

Many words need to go, many new words need to appear, and it probably adds to much more than 20,000. But I like the number, and there is a reason I like the number.

I started thinking about this story back in 1977 when I turned 16. I received a stereo system for that occasion, and I still run the turntable. I also bought a lot of records that year. My favorite, and still my favorite, was The Rolling Stones’ Beggar’s Banquet. I must have played it a thousand times since then.

One song on that album always caught my attention. I can’t say it’s my favorite tune. In fact, it’s possibly the most difficult for me to listen to. The lyrics are largely non-sensical, at least to me. But it created an image in my head, a radical image of big encounter between 20,000 grandmas and Queen Elizabeth and her Guards. The song of course is Jigsaw Puzzle.

JIG-SAW PUZZLE
(M. Jagger/K. Richards)

There’s a tramp sittin’ on my doorstep
Tryin’ to waste his time
With his methylated sandwich
He’s a walking clothesline
And here comes the bishop’s daughter
On the other side
She looks a trifle jealous
She’s been an outcast all her life

Me, I’m waiting so patiently
Lying on the floor
I’m just trying to do my jig-saw puzzle
Before it rains anymore

Oh the gangster looks so fright’ning
With his luger in his hand
But when he gets home to his children
He’s a family man
But when it comes to the nitty-gritty
He can shove in his knife
Yes he really looks quite religious
He’s been an outlaw all his life

Me, I’m waiting so patiently
Lying on the floor
I’m just trying to do this jig-saw puzzle
Before it rains anymore

Me, I’m waiting so patiently
Lying on the floor
I’m just trying to do this jig-saw puzzle
Before it rains anymore

Oh the singer, he looks angry
At being thrown to the lions
And the bass player, he looks nervous
About the girls outside
And the drummer, he’s so shattered
Trying to keep on time
And the guitar players look damaged
They’ve been outcasts all thier lives

Me, I’m waiting so patiently
Lying on the floor
I’m just trying to do this jig-saw puzzle
Before it rains anymore

Oh, there’s twenty-thousand grandmas
Wave their hankies in the air
All burning up their pensions
And shouting, “It’s not fair!”
There’s a regiment of soldiers
Standing looking on
And the queen is bravely shouting,
“What the hell is going on?”

With a blood-curdling “tally-ho”
She charged into the ranks
And blessed all those grandmas who
With their dying breaths screamed, “Thanks!”

Me, I’m just waiting so patiently
With my woman on the floor
We’re just trying to do this jig-saw puzzle
Before it rains anymore

The imagery of the song overwhelms the melancholic tune and makes it an underground fan favorite. And this image of battling grandmas has stayed in my head all these years.

In the winter of 2010-2011 I had completed my first NaNoWriMo and was searching for a new story. Of course I played this LP during that time and the image came up once again. I let it ferment awhile. I played with it. I played with current events. My coworker Bill and I went outside everyday for a smoke and a political talk. Bill and I share the same birthday and we both photograph. Our personalities contend, and we have interesting discussions. He can be uber-serious, but he always adds his friendly laugh. He’s one of my favorite people to be around.

I mulled over different scenarios that might end up with 20,000 grandmas rioting. Your mind is probably racing right now as mine did, and there are many problems creating such a scenario. I won’t discuss my options or solutions, but this song is the root of my inspiration.

Then one morning in February I woke up with a whole novel in my head, just like that. “Wow” I said to myself; this works. This really works. So I worked it. I worked it a lot, and I’m still working it. It’s an epic plot, naturally, but I think it’s balanced with a strong character and tied together with interesting themes.

*Sigh* I know I want to tell the story to people, I think. I’m still battling the ending. It’s a difficult book to end properly, and I’m sure I will discuss it with my readers and hopefully agents and editors lining up for a cut of John’s book. *wink*

Target date for completed two rounds of edits is still end of September.

My Simple Backup System

Tags

backup, novel, security, story

Data stewardship is important. There’s a saying I like to use: “There are two types of computer users: those who have lost data and those who will lose data.” I take it as a given that something bad will happen, and it has. I’ve owned home computers since 1985, a state of the art IBM AT clone with a 40MB hard drive and maybe 16k RAM. After investing hundreds if not thousands of hours into a story, the last thing I want to see on my computer is a big honkin’ error message telling my story is toast.

We need to discuss objectives first. Not every data solution fits everybody’s needs. I guess I’m a power user. I work in the business and I know how to do things your average Joe could never dream of knowing. But I’m a software guy. I’ve always left backup and recovery to the hardware guys, the server administrators.

I need access to my story wherever I am. I like to write at Starbucks, Magnolia’s Café, the city library, and if I’m on the road, a hotel. I also write in various locations around the house: my office/writing room, the living room, bedroom, or basement rec-room. I’ve even ventured out on the deck, but the light there doesn’t agree with my damaged eyes. *I’ll have to blog about diabetes proliferative retinopathy

I want easy recovery. I don’t want to have to rely on a piece of software to compress then decompress my files. If I need to recover, I want to copy the files. I have tons of backup space. My main rig has three drives. Two are two-gigabyte monsters and the other half a gig. My play box has a single 320 megabyte drive. Not sure what my netbook has. I also use my wife’s laptop. I have more than enough space to make copies, and I have enough boxes to spread the risk.

Lets look at some worst case scenarios. Say the house gets robbed and they steal one computer. My other one, hidden under the stairway, remains. I’m safe. Say the house burns down completely. Oops, there goes John’s novels. Say John’s wife once again leaves a tap running and the flood shorts out his downstairs box. We’re safe. Say a hard drive crashes completely. We’re safe. The biggest risk, from a complete loss perspective, is where all my boxes are destroyed. A house fire, a major earthquake, or maybe a hurricane or tornado are threats. Really only the house fire is, and I suppose theft is as well.

Fortunately enabling access from many points and keeping a backup copy off premise are easy objectives to fulfill. It’s called Dropbox. Dropbox is a cloud service that lets you store files, and it’s free for basic usage. I have a low 2.5 GB of free space, far more than I will ever need for my text files.

I also use another service called Evernote. It’s also a cloud service, but this one is designed to help you track notes. I’m always bookmarking websites, and this helps me organize it and store it. It actually stores copies of the webpages versus a simple link. How many times have you linked to something only to have it disappear on you? Then all your bookmarks need to be clicked on. With Evernote, I can browse all my bookmarks visually. But back to backups.

My primary workspace is Dropbox. That’s where my current files live. But of course I don’t trust Dropbox, not with my bestselling novel. For all I know, I might wake up one day to find it gone, a victim of chapter 11. *poof* No, I copy my files to my own computer drives.

I keep all my data in a folder called “_John” which lives on drive D. I back my files up with simple scripts that run an xcopy command. Here’s the simple steps to create the files:

1. Right-click on a folder, preferably the folder to file your backup scripts in, and create a new text document. Give it an appropriate name and change its file extension to .bat. Bat files will execute when double-clicked. *You can also run a bat file from anther bat file by including a single line with its path and full name.

2. Right-click the new bat file and edit it.

3. Type in the xcopy backup command and close the file.

4. Double-click the file and watch it run.

Step number three needs some elucidation. I assume you are running windows. If you are running anything else, you do not need these instructions anyway. Click the start button or windows button and in the search or run box, type “cmd” and hit enter. A black console window will open. Now type “help xcopy” in the new window and hit enter again. The resulting list shows you what all the switches do. Switches are added to the xcopy command to tell it how to perform in specific situations. I use the “/e” and “/y” switches. The first tells it to copy all subdirectories — otherwise you’ll need to run many, many commands — and the second says don’t ask if it’s okay to overwrite. I run these at night while I sleep, and I can’t sit there and say “yes” to everything. his is not a fancy command, but I don’t have fancy needs. I copy everything and let it run.

xcopy needs to use mapped files. You can’t copy server locations using UNC (universal naming convention) format such as \\servername\filename Let’s run through this process quickly. By the way, dropbox will map itself to your drive, so if you are simply copying from dropbox to disk location, no mapping is involved.

Main Writing Files: Dropbox at D:\_john\Dropbox\Dropbox *only the last folder is in the cloud. D:\_john\Dropbox is on my D drive.

All John’s Data Files: D_\john

Backup on 2nd PC”  We’ll call the pc “2nd_PC” because I don’t want to give out the names of my computers for security reasons. I mapped it to drive J and created a file on it which I shared and called _Backup_Dropbox. Here’s the quick steps.

*note that I like to start data file names with an underscore. It tells me it’s my data and not some file Windows or some stray software created.

1. Create the folder on the target computer

2. Right click the folder and share it. (You may need to enable file sharing. Google it.)

3. On the source computer, where you are copying from, you should now see the destination computer in teh network section of windows explorer. If not, fix it.

4. Browse to your shared target folder. Click on the target computer name listed under “Network” in windows explorer, and your shared folder should show up. If not, fix it. Refer to Dr. Google. Copy the address from the address bar.

5. Find your computer listing, where all your drives are displayed. Right click on the word “Computer” and click “Map Network Drive …” Select a drive letter to map to and paste the name of the folder you just copied. You do want to connect always. Click Finish.

File Location Summary

Location of Work:  D:\_john\Dropbox\Dropbox which is my dropbox cloud share.

Backup target 1 on pc_1:  D:\_john\dropbox\_backup

Backup target 2 on pc_2: j:\_Backup_Dropbox *my shared folder

Backup target 3 on pc_1: E:\_D_JOHN_BACKUP\_DROPBOX

The image shows five copy commands. The first three copy my Dropbox working files to three backup locations. The last two copy my writing folder from D to E. No, I am not yet copying this to pc_2.

So how do I execute this? There are two ways I use. Whenever I think I’ve written a significant amount of words that I don’t want to lose — it may only be a single comma 😉 — I will browse to the file and double click it.

I also schedule an execution each night via Task Scheduler. You need to be an administrator to create and execute a task, so if you are not, try to learn how to become one. You can find Task Scheduler in Control Panel->Administrative Tools. Create a task and a wizard will walk you through the steps. It’s pretty easy. Know where your bat file is so you can enter it into the schedule.

Test your work. First, double click your backup bat file. You should see a window open, and it will display all the files being copied. Resolve any errors. Create a new test file in Dropbox or wherever your main files live, and check the next day whether it got copied.

Remember, you can nest work. I also run backups for all my photos, but it takes forever to run. I only run that script once a week.

Good luck.

One Meal A Day

Tags

butter, coconut oil, editing, firewood, fried, novel, olive oil, onions, weiners, Writing

I tried something new yesterday. I ate only one meal.

I didn’t eat only once, though. I drank two coffees during the day and each contained both whipping cream and coconut oil, significant calories. I had another around 7PM as I sat down to write, and I ate a later snack of raw pineapple and a hunk of cheese.

When I got home around 5PM I felt empty but not famished. Thunder storms threatened, and it’s raining today. I still has some wood to stack, and I wanted to try exercising after a fat-fast — eating just fat, a lesser amount of calories than needed, is called a fat-fast. I wanted to know if I would be able to exercise as well, not that I exercise well, to determine if I was feeding my body sufficiently while exercising. If I wasn’t, I’d expect to feel tired or needing to rest, and I’d expect to feel intense hunger. I never thought about food once, and I never felt the least bit lethargic. I stacked the last hundred or so pieces, covered both rows with tarps, and even walked to my garden and picked some fresh kale.

I then cooked my only meal of the day: four wieners fried with a large Spanish onion in a combination of butter, coconut oil, olive oil, and sunflower oil. I washed it down with water.

My writing later went well. I updated chapter one. I refered to my red-marked manuscript, and went through every note. I also re-read it. I expanded on many sections and re-wrote a few paragraphs. I felt good writing. The basis felt good, and the expanded prose seemed to really add completeness. I felt really comfortable with my writing and my story. I don’t think it was my eating pattern.

Today I’m making lunch my one meal: Maple Leaf Bologna!