Category Archives: Books, Writing, Publishing

Books, Writing, Publishing, Publishing:, Writers, Writing

One Writer’s Process

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As some of you may recall, I started writing a novel  in November 2006.  It’s a jerky process.  And by “jerky” I mean both Steve Martin-esque and filled with more stops and starts than a  pimply teen learning to drive a stick shift.  I can hardly believe it has been two years and  my best hope is that it will be no more than another year before I am willing to show it to a stranger.  Not before then, surely.  Coming November I’d like to participate in National Novel Writing Month again, which is the event that prompted me to start the thing in the first place.  So I have set the goal to get the plot written out before November, hopefully with a week or so to plot out the project I’ll begin for NaNoWriMo becuase it will be no fun  writing daily without a plot.  Even less fun editing it later. Trust me, I know.

By writing out the plot, I mean writing every scene that takes place in the book.  Right now I have a chapter by chapter outline, scenes of which are written in caps like this: IF JANET IS GOING TO SHAG ROCKY, MAYBE ADD A SCENE HERE WHERE SHE SINGS TO BE TOUCHED?  For many months I struggled to wholly finish the chapter outline because there was one character I just hadn’t gotten right from the start.  He kept whispering, I’m not who you think I am.  And I knew he was right.  It made it damn near impossible to write his scenes because his  dialogue and movements were all uncertain.  Its one thing to write a scene with the expectation that the writing may be crap and will have to be redone.  Its even more annoying to be unclear about what characters are thinking/doing because a wrong fork may mean you have to redo every scene following.

About a month ago it all came to me, in the form of a power outage of all things.  The power outage introduced a new and significant character as well as a subplot that threatens to dwarf the major plot.Maybe not.  The major story arc was finished almost two years ago and I am seldom working on it so it is tough to say. And now that i have this new subplot I’m thinking I may not need all the others.  But they are so intrinsically tied into my story that I’m not sure where I would snip them. I’m just going to run with it.  If whole sections need to be cut out, now is not the time to decide that.  I have to stay focused on the goal of getting the whole thing written out first.  Like I can’t worry about if the protagonist is likeable enough (not a major deal, though I hear books with femaie protagonists don’t sell if the lead isn’t likeable) because there are more opportunities to flesh out her motivation as more gets added.

I find I spend more time than I would like adjusting the outline to reflect changes in chapter length, story, etc.  The outline is essential because it is really easy to forget where you are in the story (what secrets the protagonist knows, if someone is dead and whether someone else knows it, for examples).  If Shakespeare wrote with a feather and a candle I have no room to bitch.  But next novel, I’m using some kind of outline program.

Now that my plot is written out, I went ahead and counted how many scenes I need to write for my goal.  I came up with eighteen.  This is a misleading number because more often than vice-versa, what seemed like one scene will take multiple scenes to develop when pen gets to paper.  I don’t think this is overwriting, it is a sign of maturity as a writer in my mind.  Sure sign of an amateur is an underdeveloped plot—you know, the guy and gal are making out and they just met last scene?  Still, 18 scenes could definitely be written in a month!

Hopefully, post November I will have the seeds of another novel to puzzle over.  That should be put aside for December, when I plan to pick this one up and look at it afresh.  At that time, I have a number of read-throughs to do, each of which will involve reading the whole thing from start to finish.  These include:

*making sure the dialog is consistent for each character’s personality
*plotting everything on a calendar to find inconsistencies.
*Make depressed character more sad.
*One plot point that afflicts the character needs to be brought up and developed more throughout.
*I noticed on the show Weeds that every character in every scene wants something and this adds more drama to every scene.  I want to do a read through where I think about that.
*Make dream sequences more surreal and tighter, better written. There’s only one I’m happy with now.
*The five senses: what season is it?  What’s the weather?  How does the room smell?  Some scenes are strong on this but I still have whole scenes that suffer from talking-head syndrome.
*The verb tenses are all screwed up, but I think I can deal with passing this problem along to my volunteer editors.
OK, now the good news! Since I did that count a few weeks ago, I am down to thirteen scenes that need to be written.  Out of 20 chapters, I have the story written out for nine.  This means I’ve written five of the eighteen projected in under a month.  And through that chapter, things flow pretty smoothly, meaning I didn’t just plug the scene in with no context, I wrote the necessary stuff to make it fit in with the story line, even if that means rewriting parts of Chapter one.  I even entirely rewrote one of the later chapters.  There was nothing wrong with it, I just decided I could do it better.  One sentence entered my mind and then another and another and before I knew it, dawn was upon me and the chapter was reborn.  It felt great.  It felt like writing should feel: exhilarating, liberating, total immersion. Today was another great day.  I watched an episode of telly, ran some errands and then threw myself into it for 12 hours, stopping only to intake and elimate fuel.  Every two hours I would look up and be surprised that so much time had passed.  Then I would keep on truckin’.

Culture, Gotta Hear This Music, Writing

Song Lyrics and TV on the Radio


SeeqPod – Playable Search provided the songlist for the tunes mentioned in this blog

I have a long running argument with several people that love music but ignore song lyrics. Their thinking tends to be that they listen to music for the music, any poetry is incidental. I reply that by paying no attention to lyrics they are missing out on a huge facet of the experience, like watching a ballet without any music. True, not every great song has great lyrics. But finding out that a song you already love has an interesting story woven throughout adds a new layer of excitement to it. It allows a fresh discovery. I imagine this is one reason I am able to listen to some bands without tiring of them for months—because after getting to like the melody there is another whole layer to discover.

All art is simply communication—more stylized, beautiful, and complex but communication nonetheless. If one ignores the lyrics, that is like saying that you are interested only in the pleasure the sounds produce in your ears and not the idea the artist is using that music to impart. Thus, listening to music and ignoring the lyrics is a bit like kissing without affection. Most artists don’t sit down and just string together a melody. They usually have some idea of what the song is going to be about, at least a vague concept—love, politics, revenge. Just listening to an instrumental song, this is the most you can generally get out of it, an abstract feeling. Most artists have a more specific concept: “I’m going to write about how this person made me feel when they rejected me” or “I’m going to write a song about right now, lazing about on a Sunday afternoon.” All artists set out to express something, music is just their chosen medium. If they have taken the time to put words to the song, they’re giving you a message about what that song is about. As the music rises and falls, the lyrics correspond to that swell in emotion. You can speculate as to why the music crescendos and wanders as it does but if the artist has taken the time to write you a roadmap in the form of the lyrics, why not take a look at it?

How can one listen to “Both Hands” and not be drawn into the story about the woman on the third floor that listens to she and her partner’s “swansong”? Just the line, “I am writing graffitti on your body I am drawing the story of how hard we tried,” gives so much power and meaning to the song I am incredulous to imagine that you listen to the melody and aren’t moved by it.

Or the way Buffalo Springfield plings the guitar on the lines “Paranoia strikes deep/ Into your life it will creep…” That song is indelibly linked not just to the turbulant sixties but specifically to the clashes between cops and protestors. That song never had meaning for me until I listened to the lyrics. Now I can understand why it was a rallying call for a generation. The same goes with “Subterranean Homesick Blues”.

All this I’m talking about I experienced again today with TV on the Radio. I’ve been absorbing their sound for more than two years now and I never gave much thought to the lyrics. Electronic bands tend to be weak on songwriting anyway. But I happened upon a fantastic live acoustic version (which you can enjoy here) wherein the lyrics are more clear and I was able to appreciate them for the first time.

First I listened to “Young Liars.” The wordplay is intriguing and makes me want to listen to the song over and over to grasp how the interplay of these lyrics ties to the larger work. It starts off: “My mast ain’t so sturdy, my head is at half. I’m searching the clouds for the storm,” putting a dark sailing image in my head. This is followed by a huntress, her “bullets bearing the name of each tigress who’s left to a tooth. Save the skins for a pelt and the rest for a belt.” Later he says, “my heart’s still a marble in an empty jelly jar.” That’s a fantastic metaphor—it captures how he is feeling physically, intellectually and emotionally. He goes on to say that his nervousness will become prescience and “I’m Making maps out of your dreams.” The song ends with “Young liars, (Oh I said) Thank you for taking my hands/And burying them deep in the world’s wet womb/Where no one can heed their commands.” TV on the Radio has a sound that is dark and ominous, the music has already given us that abstraction. But more specifically the lyrics suggest the writer’s fear of the future and what he is capable of. And he does this using images (the ship in the storm, the ruthless huntress, the heart-jelly jar metaphor) that create a picture in the listener’s mind. The lyrics, though still vague, take the song from a pleasant abstraction and transform it into a dark journey. It adds such a visual layer to the song that a music video is the only way to supplement it (and videos never seem to be the artist’s vision, but the director’s, so it wouldn’t be the same at all). Reading the lyrics, how do you not visualize them? I picture the huntress on a B-52 bomber, loading a revolver, her legs crossed, a stack of rifles at her side, dressed in the 1940’s splendor of the Safari. And all this, visually, is just a metaphor for how he is feeling. You may visualize it differently, but undoubtably the image as you experience it brings something new to the song.

Now that I had discovered their lyrics, I was excited to move on to “Dry Drunk Emporer”. I was in for a surprise. I had no idea that TV on the Radio even wrote vaguely political songs but this one is clearly about our commander in chief.

The lyrics, in full:

baby boy
dieing under hot desert sun,
watch your colours run.

did you believe the lie they told you,
that christ would lead the way
and in a matter of days
hand us victory?

did you buy the bull they sold you,
that the bullets and the bombs
and all the strong arms
would bring home security?

all eyes upon
dry drunk emperor
gold cross cross jock skull and bones
mocking smile,
he’s been
standing naked for a while!
get him gone, get him gone, get him gone!!
and bring all the thieves to trial.

end their promise
end their dream
watch it turn to steam
rising to the nose of some cross legged god
gog of magog
end times sort of thing.
oh unmentionable disgrace
shield the childrens faces
as all the monied apes
display unimaginably poor taste
in a scramble for mastery.

atta’ boy get em with your gun
till mr. mega ton
tells us when we’ve won
or
what we’re gonna leave undone.

all eyes upon
dry drunk emperor
gold cross jock skull and bones
mocking smile,
he’s been
naked for a while.
get him gone, get him gone, get him gone!!!
and bring all his thieves to trial.

what if all the fathers and the sons
went marching with their guns
drawn on washington.
that would seal the deal,
show if it was real,
this supposed freedom.

what if all the bleeding hearts
took it on themselves
to make a brand new start.
organs pumpin on their sleeves,
paint murals on the white house
feed the leaders L.S.D
grab your fife and drum,
grab yor gold baton
and let’s meet on the lawn,
shut down this hypocrisy.

Wow. That’s a statement as bold as any rage against the machine like “Killing In the Name Of.” Here all along the phrase “Dry Drunk Emperor” was meaningless to me.  I was liking the sound of the words strung together and nothing more. But it is so concise and apt. Bush is a “dry drunk” and those two words express so much—a history of irresponsibility, weakness and mistakes, the fact that he is dry implies that he is stifled, unhappy and looking for some other outlet, like war. “Emperor” is a better choice than president (which he isn’t) or even king—as the latter is related to kingdom while an emperor leads an empire, something liberals do associate with our government. More importantly, “emperor” reminds us of “the Emperor Wears No Clothes” which he alludes to with “he’s been standing naked for a while!”

“Dry Drunk Emperor” is more than a pretty song, it is a call to action. Like the Buffalo Springfield song, the lyrics mark it to this moment in history that so many of us feel connected to. Prior to knowing the words, I enjoyed the song but did not identify with it. Now that the lyrics have provided a key to understanding what TV on the Radio sought to express I feel a personal connection to the song and thus the band itself. This is so much more meaningful. It can only add to my experience of the music. And to all those music-lovers that like the pretty songs, and they like to sing along, but they don’t know what it means—well I say you’re only hearing half the music.

All, Writing, Climate Change, Environment

The Fire in My Kitchen, My Belly

As a birthday present to myself, I bought a copy of Poet’s Market 2008. I’ve put my novel aside for a bit but a sudden fire under my bum has been lit to get some of my other stuff published. I think Evan set this fire, by mentioning in his blog that he is interning with Sharon Olds, who is my favorite living poet. Or maybe it is this thing stirring in my belly, this turmoil about the state of the world and a desire to express that in writing. A lot of people ask me where the best places are to go dancing, etc, but I am not really interested in that. I want to go to poetry readings or stay at home and write.

The other day when I posted that article about global warming, wherein a scientist said that in one week the arctic had lost an area of ice almost twice the size of the United Kingdom, another interesting thing happened. My boss came back to work from his basketball game. The game ended early. Why? Because two players got into an argument over a foul. Not usually a game-ending event, but in this case one of the players left the game and came back half an hour letter and put a case full of bullets in the other guy. Somehow no one felt like playing basketball when one of their teammates was lying on the court full of more holes than blood. My boss seemed to be taking this pretty well.

The most striking to me about this was its insignifigance in the grand scheme of things. Oakland has a serious problem with the whole shooting thing (maybe you’ve heard about it). I’m not playing that down by any means, nor the suffering of the family. But the high murder rate in Oakland is not going to kill as many people as global warming, not even close.

This is what I want to capture in my writing: this feeling that the issues humanity is facing right now are huge, but they don’t feel huge. The day of the shooting, I also set a fire in the kitchen. I remember the exhileration of that moment, the thrill of the temporary emergency. No matter how much perspective I have intellectually, it is hard to feel the difference, it is hard to feel the suffereing of the vicitims of the shooting or global warming when that fire is the danger in front of me. And that same fire is a thousand other things, social conflicts or career concerns or a packed to-do list and on and on.

It seems that the only way people can reach these higher, more important concerns, is through art. Books and music allow us to feel, rather than only think about, these problems. And you can hear a lot of artists now are immeshed in it, this compulsion to capture the direction the world is heading. The Besnard Lakes, in a recent interview, explained it as the reason their new album is so dark. And Tom Morello described it recently in an interview on Sound Opinions, “Its preaching to the converted, well I strongly believe the converted need a kick in the ass. Why the White House is not ringed by pitchforks and torches I don’t know.” And the new (and frankly, the previous) Modest Mouse record captures that spirit as well.

This juxtaposition of what we are feeling and what we should be feeling is my new obsession. I know how to capture it artistically and maybe that’s why I have been so interested in drawing lately. I am only just beginning to explore what it means for me as a writer. I am very interested in how this conflict between the struggles of day-to-day life and the larger problems facing the world have affected the rest of you. Does it change your passion for the things you are pursuing? Some days, it makes my desire to be a writer feel like empty egoism.
On other days, that same desire seems like the only power I have to affect the world at all.