Before I begin…

CONGRATS TO TRAVIS!!!!

Yup, he’s breakin’ out the ol’ cigar now. Well, he would be if he was a Presbyterian….

Oh well.

Anyway, today I edited through two different stories I’m working on. They’re both basically complete now. One, Snake Oil, is ready to go; I’ll try to submit it tomorrow, but since work is going to be a bear (we’re doing one of those HR-forced-bonding experiences called an all staff “picnic” so that means that we have to be finished with all our work before we go, which only accomplishes us having to do 8 hours of work in 3 hours…you know, kinda the “let them make bricks without straw” mentality) I might end up not sending it off until Monday. And re-reading that sentence I have to say: “Hello. I’m a professional writer.”

Anywho, the other short story is at a point where I feel comfortable saying it’s done, but knowing me that means that I need to do another revision of it to make sure. Otherwise, after I submit it I’ll look at it and go, Why does this sentence have two periods?

Editing stories isn’t anywhere near as much fun as writing them. On the other hand, it’s not as easy either. On the other foot (I ran out of hands, ya see), it’s the only way to get published.

Stupid Bush.

When it comes to editing, I think sometimes the most painful decisions involve cutting. You’ve worked on a scene and perfected it…only to find that in the overall structure of the story your perfect scene is perfectly irrelevent…

I only bring this up because I just had to do that with a scene I worked on for a story I’ve written entitled Snake Oil. It’s a short story that topped out at 5,500 words. Unfortunately, the places that I’ve looked to send it for publication want everything under 5,000 words. There was a specific scene, however, that I knew could go, and it was just over 600 words long.

It was a tough decision because I like the scene, but on the other hand the story works perfectly fine without it. And while I lose two sentences that I thought were extremely well written, the benefits to losing this material is better than keeping it. It got to the point where I just couldn’t justify keeping it, especially in lieu of the fact that the publications I’m sending it to have word length restrictions.

Oh well. This is the way things go sometimes. And it’s better as a writer to be able to let go of a scene than to hold on to it and ruin your chances.

Based on some things I’ve read before, I think the feeling is a common one to authors. It’s the feeling when you read something that you wrote but it’s been a long, long time since you wrote it. The feeling…Did I really write this?

In between working on some short stories and editing The 13th Prime for what will hopefully be the last time (we shall see how that goes!), I’ve dug out my old NaNoWriMo story from last November. I read through it last night to get the flavor of the story once more, and I’ve been working on it now too, filling in the gaps, etc. As you may recall from last November, I wrote the novel just to get 50,000 words, and I did succeed at that. But the novel wasn’t finished. I only got the entire first act and portions of the second act (as well as the very end of the third act) finished.

Part of the reason why I didn’t write more on it is because a lot of the sections that are left are extremely complicated to write. Not in the sense of looking for research or anything of that nature. All I can say about it is, once it’s finished you’ll have to read it to understand. And you will understand why it would be difficult to come up with those portions.

Anyway, as I read it there were many times when I felt that feeling: It doesn’t feel like I wrote this. I surprised myself in a few places even. Words and turns of phrases that I forgot I put in.

Ironically, just the other day I was talking to my friend Travis and I mentioned how even working on The 13th Prime, which I think is a good novel, I still feel that Public Tranist was better. Public Transit had a certain quality to it that I told Travis I didn’t think I could ever duplicate.

But having read through my NaNoWriMo project, even hacking out some of the bad prose that I had put in just to ensure I got over 50,000 words, I have to say that that story definitely has the potential to surpass Public Transit in my esteem. I can’t wait to finish it and share it with the world, not because I want money (although that would be nice, of course!) but because I think it’s actually really, really good.

FWIW, I would love to write a book some day that Stephen King would say “I wish I had written that” about. For that matter, before M. Night fell into the deep end of the pool, I wanted to write a script that he said “I wish I had written that” to as well.

Oh well. At least it’s a goal, even if one that I will most likely never attain. :-)

I.
Look over beyond what the pale mystic skies show clear
To find a purposeful knowledge, wisdom we forever impart. Near
The catacomb’s shadows and the dungeon’s darkness. Hear
With a heartfelt bitterness. Hate raging, embracing fear.

II.
Look beyond the mystic show
To a knowledge we impart
The shadows, the darkness
With heartfelt hate embracing

Over what pale skies clear
Find purposeful wisdom forever near
Catacombs and dungeons hear
A bitterness, raging fear.

III.
Look beyond the mystic show
Over what pale skies clear
To a knowledge we impart
Find purposeful wisdom forever near

The shadows, the darkness
Catacombs and dungeons hear
With heartfelt hate embracing
A bitterness, raging fear.

Note: It took me about an hour this morning to come up with this little poem. When I wrote it, I was looking more for structure than for any thematic concerns.

The structure, which some of you may have gleaned by reading it already, is as follows. The first block contains the four lines that are in A-A-A-A rhyme scheme. If you take every other word of the first block starting with the first word, you create the first stanza of the second block. If you take every other word starting with the second word, you create the second stanza of the second block. Finally, the third block shows what happens if you alternate between the two stanzas. Thus, the first line of the first stanza of the third block is every other word of the first line of the first block starting with the first word; the second line of the first stanza of the third block is every other word of the first line of the first block starting with the second word. Etc. It may be easier to say that the third block consists of the first line of the first stanza of the second block followed by the first line of the second stanza of the second block, followed by the second line of the first stanza of the second block, etc.

Of course, all of it should be easy to see if you just look at the poem itself :-P

I should note that there can be improvement with my method above. For instance, you can see that the first stanza of the second block has no rhyme scheme at all; this could be fixed if I spent more time on it. Furthermore, the poem itself could use a little ironing out. But all in all I think it’s a fairly successful first attempt at combining two stanzas into one.

I sent off a “Please Reject Me” request today, otherwise known as submitting a story for publication. Any author who’s anyone can paper their wall with rejection slips. A lot of this has to do with the fact that authors tend to think they’re better authors before they actually get better.

As with anything, writing involves practice. I remember when I first wrote The Outlaw I thought it was the best thing I’ve ever written. When I wrote Public Transit, that novel blew The Outlaw away. Why? Because two and a half years passed between when I thought I finished The Outlaw and when I finished Public Tranist. During that time, I got better. In fact, when I reread the “final” draft for The Outlaw it embarrasses me because of how poorly written it is.

But that’s more of a digression than relevant to this post. I sent off a story today and decided that I might as well aim as high as possible, so I picked The New Yorker to submit it to. Consequently, my chances of being published there are quite small. On the other hand, I have the audacity of hope (to steal a phrase from some charlatan in a cheap suit) so I think, “If they read it, they won’t reject it.”

We shall see what comes of it. In many ways submitting a manuscript is much like asking a girl out. You have the same nervousness as you present a request. “Will you go out with me?” is not that much different from “Will you publish this work?” Both put you out there and you risk rejection. Of course, if you ask a girl out there’s a slight difference: you’ll know a whole lot quicker whether she rejects you than you’ll know if The New Yorker rejects you!

So I’ll wait with baited anticipation for a response. But that won’t stop me from writing new things. I figure it’s time for me to create my “platform” of published works, something that I could attract an agent to. My goal is to submit one short story every month (not all to The New Yorker of course, especially since they request no more than two submissions per year per author and a good way to not get published is to piss off the publisher!). Perhaps I’ll go a year. I don’t know. I’ll test various genres. And of course in the meantime I’ll also continue to edit my novels. Novels tend to come easily enough to me, so I don’t mind spending a lot of time on short stories instead of working on them. Besides, the payoff once I do get my foot in the door will be well worth it. After all, even if half of my stories are rejected, I’ll still have a “platform” with the other half. And I’ll be able to submit those that were rejected to other magazines, after I look over the story to make sure there’s no way I could improve it.

Anyway, that’s the goal. Here’s hoping that in five years I’ll be on the NYT Best Sellers list. :-)

Confession time: I’ve seen The Dark Knight four times at the movie theater. This is the most I’ve ever watched a movie at the theater. In fact, I’ve seen it more times than I’ve seen some DVDs I own.

What makes The Dark Knight so good isn’t just the great acting that Heath Ledger did. It’s the strength of the story that the Nolan brothers wrote. The Dark Knight works well because it’s such a well crafted story that it transcends the superhero genre.

I just rewatched Batman Begins, which was also directed by Christopher Nolan. I remember the several times I watched it before that I thought it was a great movie. Watching it today, I still think it’s a good movie but the growth between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight is astronomical. The Dark Knight makes Batman Begins look weak in comparison.

There is just something about a story that is well done, one that has all the pieces in place. It hits on many levels. My friend Travis is letting me borrow the third season of Lost (he’s let me borrow the first two before too, since I don’t watch much TV). Lost is also (usually) very well crafted. In this case, I think it’s because the creators knew the entire story arc before they began. They also made a conscious decision to have a definite end point to the series. They wanted a set number of episodes to tell the story in, and then they’d finish up.

Granted, there are times when you wish they’d get on with the story already, but by and large the tension is enough to keep you going. And when you watch it on DVD without commercial interruption and without having to wait a week between episodes, it works well. Even the episode that Travis said was the most wasted hour of television ever created (the explanation of Jack’s tattoos, for those wondering which one that was) wasn’t that bad in my opinion. I do agree that it’s one of the weaker episodes, but I’ve seen plenty worse on TV.

Having a well crafted story is difficult work. It’s not just the inspiration factor that you have to deal with, it’s communicating that message to everyone else in a way that is relevant and meaningful to them. The best stories are those that encompass more, that are not limited to one framework or one view. Because the more people who can relate to your story, and the more often they can do it, the better the story is.

What is the point of a story? Sometimes it’s simply to escape from reality and provide a measure of relief. But sometimes it’s to confront reality in a different way, a way that helps us learn from it. Escapism is great to relieve stress, and there is benefit to it. But when I think about those stories that are the best written, all my examples are in the latter category. They all depict reality (even those that occur in fantasy stories!) in a way that is more than escaping. They’re educational. They’re inspirational. They’re honest. They’re real. They’re true.

Perhaps life itself is just a well crafted story written by an Author who reveals Himself in His work…

I just have a quick miscellaneous thing about today. I’m sick of having to deal with computer problems at work! Yup, I’m the designated computer guy in my department since I have a decent understanding of them. But unfortuantely, we’re switching over to Windows Vista…and that’s just a downgrade no matter how you look at it.

Case in point: today I spent probably three hours of my eight hours at work trying to install a simple update to one of the programs that we use. Here’s the kicker. It installed perfectly on every single XP machine that we use. However, there are about eight people who use Vista and needed the update. The update worked on two of those eight computers, but not on the other six.

‘Splain me why.

And yes that’s a gratuitious Flowers For Algernon reference…

Anyway, moving on to better fields, I’m starting up a new novel (I told a bit of the plot to my friend Travis today in hopes that he will one day steal the plot and make millions of dollars on a movie script so that I can sue him and become rich myself). The important detail for this one is that it will have no action, no attributions, no descriptives in the text…nothing but dialogue. Yup, straight up dialogue.

Of course it’ll be difficult making this a full novel length (because face it, when you open up an average novel maybe 20% of it dialogue…and that’s if you’ve got an author who uses a lot of dialogue). Whether I will actually be able to publish this or not is not a concern of mine at the moment; I just want to be able to do it. Sort of like how I’m making sure there isn’t a single adverb in the current book I’m working on. Adverbs are completely unnecessary…just look at this sentence. :-P

It is fun, however, for me to set up little “rules” for my writing. It gives me a challenge. Language is my playground and I intend to have fun. So if I can write an entire novel (defined as 50,000 or more words) using only dialogue, I’m gonna do it. If I can write an entire novel without using a single adverb, I’m going to do it too (and by the way, that particular goal is very easy to accomplish). My natural style includes lots of adverbs, as you can tell from reading my blog. But I’ll just give you a quick example of how all the points remain the same without using an adverb.

The Secret Service Agent ran quickly down the hall after the fleeing assassin. The shooter had shot expertly, most likely killing the president. The Secret Service Agent gripped his pistol tightly in his hands, angrily vowing his vengeance. He had failed, he thought bitterly. But the killer would pay dearly.

The above paragraph is one I just made up on the spot, but it’s typical of writing the overuses adverbs. You can spot them by looking for the words that end in -ly. Now compare that above paragraph to the following revision:

The Secret Service Agent rushed down the hall after the fleeing assassin. The shooter had aimed well; it was probable the president was dead. The Secret Service Agent gripped his pistol and vowed vengeance. The bitter thought that he had failed came to mind, but he brushed it aside. The killer would still pay.

Even now I wouldn’t be finished editing this paragraph, but you can see that A) I used stronger verbs to explain the action (”ran quickly” becomes “rushed”) and, B) I got rid of extraneous words (”gripped” assumes the “tightly” and therefore “gripped tightly” is a redundancy, and furthermore what else is the agent going to grip a pistol with if not his hands?).

Of course, adverbs aren’t completely forbidden. However, as you can see, they’re not necessary at all. It therefore becomes an art as to when you would use them. And in the above circumstance, I would personally allow the use of them when it makes the final text shorter. (The first paragraph had 50 words; to avoid all the adverbs and still explain the same thing the second paragraph increased to 54 words). Therefore:

The Secret Service Agent rushed down the hall after the fleeing assassin. The shooter had aimed well, probably killing the president. The Secret Service Agent gripped his pistol and vowed vengeance. He had failed, he thought bitterly. But the killer would still pay.

This brings us down to 43 words. And, minimalistic writer that I am, I would probably continue to slash and burn and the last two sentences would become: “He had failed, but the killer would yet pay” (or something similar); and likewise I’d remove “down the hall” from the first sentence, as well as “aimed well”. And I’d name the Secret Service Agent too. In this case, John Doe. Thus, after some more cutting and reformatting:

Secret Service Agent John Doe rushed after the fleeing assassin knowing the shooter had probably killed the president. Doe gripped his pistol and swore vengeance. He had failed to protect the president, he thought bitterly, but the killer would yet pay.

This gives a total of 41 words for that paragraph. It started with 50, so I only saved 9 words. Of course it would have been a few more if I didn’t have to introduce John Doe as a Secret Service Agent. If we already knew that information we could just simply say “Doe rushed after…” and cut out another three words right there. Also, note that because I lost enough words I had no problem adding in some more clarifying remarks. Thus I explain what Doe had failed at (protecting the president). In this case, that phrase is probably redundant (after all, we should know what a Secret Service Agent’s jobt is), but it feels to me like it should be there. Finally, note that I changed the “vowed vengeance” from the repeated “v” (which in some circumstances is useful, but here I find distracting to the flow of the text–”swore vengeance” expresses the same thought without the drawback of being disruptive to the reading).

And even after all that, just to show how my mind works:

Secret Service Agent John Doe rushed after the fleeing assassin, certain the shooter had killed the president. Doe gripped his pistol and swore vengeance. The agent had failed to protect the president but the killer would yet pay.

Now it’s down to 38 words…and I managed to get rid of all the adverbs again.

I was tempted to start the last sentence with “Doe”, but the second sentence has to have the name “Doe” (to avoid the ambiguous “he” where you wouldn’t know if I was refering to Doe or the shooter, which is also why I couldn’t start the last sentence with “He” either). Furthermore, having two sentences in a row start with “Doe” is also disruptive to the text. So in this case, I think the best compromise is to use an abbreviated form of his title.

Likewise, you’ll see I made some comma choices there. When it comes to commas, I don’t pay as much attention to the rules of grammar as I do to the flow of text. Do I want the reader to have a pause there? Even if grammatically correct, if I don’t want the pause I’ll often leave out the comma.

Anyway, as you can see, there are some quick and easy ways to cut out some bloat from your writing as well as tightening it up to avoid the dreaded adverbs that editors tend to hate. Unless you’re editing J.K. Rawlings, in which case the motto is “Pile ‘em high!”

You know, it’s interesting being a writer/musician/computer programmer/animator/etc. Basically, anything to do with the arts. There will be moments where I’ll be thinking on something that I want to write about–a story in my mind that stews for a bit, or a melody, or a visual picture of some movie shot I’d like to see. And what’s interesting is that most of the time when I do creative stuff, it exists in my mind in a very primative state.

Then out of the blue I get hit with inspiration.

A brief example will suffice I think. When I wrote The Outlaw (which I’ve no longer made available, BTW, since I’m going to work on a revision now that my writing is much more gooder), it took me a few weeks to do the first two “books” in it. Then, one Saturday in 1998, I sat down at around 11 AM and wrote non-stop until around 8 PM. During those 9 hours, I did the entire last book (which was approximately 30,000 words). Why? Because I knew exactly what I wanted, and it just shot out of me.

When I write music, it’s often the same way. I’m getting good enough to know chord structures in my mind before I even sit down to write music. I’ll be like, “I want to write something in E minor today.” And I’ll instantly think of Em - C- G - D (one of my favorite progressions) and suddenly there’s a melody there.

Today, it happened with both. I was sitting there minding my own business when a song leapt into my mind. While I currently lack the ability to record anything, I hammered it out on my guitar in about thirty minutes. The chords for this one are B5 - F#5 - A5 - E5 for the verse, and the chorus is B5* - A5* - E5* - B5* and the bridge section goes C#* - B5* - A5, which are tabbed:

Regular E-A-D-G-B-E tuning

 B5    F#5    A5   E5      B5*   A5*    E5*    C#*
----- ----- ----- -----  -----  -----  -----  -----
----- ----- ----- -----  -----  -----  -----  -----
--4-- ----- --2-- -----  -----  -----  --9--  -----
--4-- --4-- --2-- --2--  --9--  --7--  --9--  --11-
--2-- --4-- --0-- --2--  --9--  --7--  --7--  --11-
----- --2-- ----- --0--  --7--  --5--  -----  --9--

On this one I actually didn’t think up the chords first, but instead when the words popped into my mind they already had their melody and it took me about 30 seconds to figure out what chords went with that melody :-) And then the words instantly came out too (very little revision was required):

Woke up this morning at three AM
Thinking of the way my life has been
Wondering what happened to all of them
Those friends I had way back when.

Sat beneath the glow of an orange street light
Sheltered from the sounds of a haunted night
Thinking that I might’ve turned out all right
Still wondering how I got here tonight.

[Chorus]
And time marches on
Further into the past
Everything will soon be gone
Shoulda known it wouldn’t last.

Fell away for an hour or two
But I still ended here without you.
Remembered time, how it always flew
And all the chaos that would ensue

Oh, I remember waking ‘fore the crack of dawn
Never had to even stifle a yawn
Met with all of them out on the lawn
Raced toward trouble like we were drawn.

[Repeat chorus]
[Bridge]
These things I see will come again
In someone else’s day
When my memories grow dim
I’ll still know what to say.
[Repeat chorus]

Now don’t ask me what this necessarily means or why it came to me. That’s the funny thing about getting sudden inspiration….often you have no clue why it came out. Anyway, I wish I had some recording equipment so you could actually hear it. But maybe you’re glad you can’t :-)

One thing that occurs with every author to some extent is the repetition of our favorite words and phrases. This is especially common in first drafts, and when it comes to my blog entries I’m sure there’s a lot of instances of them due to how almost all of my blog posts are first drafts! In any case, when editing a book, it is necessary that you go through and get rid of as many repetitions as possible.

To use me as an example, when doing first drafts I over use the words “realized” and “suddenly.” I know these are words I over use, so when I edit I look for them and kill them off as soon as I find them. The goal is to have as few repetitions in a text as possible to make it easier to read.

Now I should explain that I am not refering to characters names and such; rather, this deals mainly with verbs and adverbs. If you are repeating the same action, you have a problem.

Knowing this made it really ironic as I just finished re-reading Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. (Child was a former book editor, mind you.) This book was their first collaboration, and in general I enjoyed it a great deal, although they have definitely improved through time. One thing stopped me though.

On page 433 we read: “Gingerly, he moved to the pipe and began crawling in the darkness.” We then have three sentences, and the fourth is: “Gingerly, he brought his foot outward and downward.” Two paragraphs later, we read: “One at a time, people emerged and spread out against the wall, feeling their way gingerly, collapsing in exhaustion.” (Mind you, that sentence only begins on page 433, the repetition of the word “gingerly” doesn’t actually occur until page 434.

This is problematic not only because of the repetitions, but also because of the fact that it’s repeated adverbs. (Adverbs are the anti-Christ when it comes to publishing texts.) We can also add to it the fact that “ing” words lack the same emphasis as other verbs. But couldn’t at least one of the “gingerly”’s be replaced with “tentatively”? Perhaps another with “hesitantly”? It’s not that difficult to get alternate words in there….

Needless to say, Child and Preston have made far more money that I have selling books. So the “rules” are about as relevant as the guidelines in Pirates of the Caribean….as long as you’re a former book editor with your foot already in the door!

One thing that’s nice is since completing my last draft of The 13th Prime I’ve gone back into Writer Mode. While I have been too busy with work to do much actual writing, I’ve got several plots for several different works simmering and nearing completion. This includes an idea that would be my most ambitious one yet, but which I won’t talk about in great detail (isn’t that nice of me!).

It’s definitely nice to be hitting this going into my vacation instead of going into another stretch of more overtime… :-)