Book Concept in a Shadow Box

During March (and now soon during April) I’ve been working on my second novel in progress, SUNLIGHT. I’m trying to write as many words as I can, filling in the pieces of my now 3/4-done first draft. It’s going pretty well. So far I’ve put together a pretty solid outline and written about 12,000 more words (to add onto the 30,000+ I already had), so I’m happy with all that.

Just for fun, I decided to put together my own “Cornell Box” for my book SUNLIGHT. Joseph Cornell was an artist who used commonplace objects set into small boxes to create visual poems to express ideas and emotions.

So, here is a photo of my book idea, boiled down into some items I was able to scrounge up around my house and arrange in a box.

I’m not sure I’m done with my Cornell Box just yet. Many of the key elements are there—but it’s missing a few things that represent important moments and characters. To be honest it probably needs more fire, darkness, bone and blood, pine trees, starlight and curtains fluttering in cold, spring breeze—and a cat. But I’m keeping my eyes out. It’s interesting what the universe will sometimes provide when you open up the artistic parts of your mind.

Some actual samples of Joseph Cornell’s work.http://www.josephcornellbox.com/gallery_menu01.htm

Cutting Characters

A poem by Austin Kleon, author of Newspaper Blackout. (The text reads: so/they look/as they did when I was 10/the Old King/and his queen/ my parents/ The size of/Egyptian/ sculptures, all/ Secrets/ that/ I didn't know)

And a nice image for my past month of editing.

I've just finished cutting five characters out of Once We Were Bears in an attempt to fix a problem that had been worrying at me and that my beta-reader confirmed: many people die after the middle section, making that one and the third feel disconnected. I'm pretty sure the character-cutting hasn't solved this; any future reader may very well still feel as though characters they spent time with are just dropped. It's just that now there are are fewer named characters for whom that will be the case.

So the problem's not solved. BUT, making these cuts did shorten the middle section considerably. I'm now at about 92,000 words (down from the all-time high of about 130,000). That feels good, as I'm now closer to the upper range for a middle-grade novel.

What was interesting to me in the process of making these cuts were first, it was actually very easy to excise these characters. It always takes a long time for me to get through the whole (because I read it aloud as I edit), but I didn't have to substantially change that much. Which says to me that these characters may not have been all that central to the story in the first place. And second, I was never really in love with these folks. Mostly because I felt like I'd never really nailed down their names. There's something that happens when I've got the right name for a character. Only then do I have the character. And I just didn't have these five. So, tho' I may not have fixed the big, bad, I think the novel is more trim and fit in its present state.

RIP, Lexie, Alex, Zander. Sleep well, Mikey and Rebekah. If I find your true names in dream, I'll write you anew.

Soon!

I'm sure all of you long time, hardcore Scribblerati-heads will probably easily recall me announcing my first sale a few months back. But for all of new fans out there who are probably going "What the holy heck is this crazy som-bitch goin' on about" right about now, the long and short of it goes like this:

Yours truly (Jon)  wrote a short story called Harris. I then turned around and submitted it to a genre fiction anthology called Cifiscape (It's pronounced Sci-fi scape), because the anthology's central idea was to write about the future of Minneapolis, a dystopian future to be specific, but one with a little bit of hope. So this is what I kept in mind when I sat down and put pen to paper, hoping to put together a little something-something that would fit the bill.

And apparently I did.

You see, a few month ago my story was accepted and in the time since, the book has been making it's way though the publishing progress. If you are already one of the few, the happy few, the band of brothers who follow my Author's page on Facebook or my Twitter, then you've probably already caught a whiff or two of the building anticipation that is permeating the Internet. For those of you who haven't, allow me to lay down the low-down, cats.

It goes like this: the Cifiscape website first put up an Author's Announcement page for me. Then they put up a Story Synopsis page a few weeks later and then we did a little Q and A session for their Author's Spotlight page. It's good stuff, man, it's all really good stuff, pure entertainment, you should check it out. Seriously. Now, granted, I'm a little biased. Okay, okay, maybe I'm more than a little biased, but you know what? Ask my mother, she'll tell you the same thing... Go ahead, ask her. I'll wait...

See?

Anyway, the best news of all showed up late last week.

The book is ready. It comes out next week. Oh yeah, you heard me right. Next week. It will be available for you--the great unwashed masses who I love so, so dearly--to purchase next week. Next week, kids.

How excited am I?



Jesse Spanno don't have nothing on me!

But what does that mean for all you kids, the average, everyday Scribblerati fan? How can you stay informed? Where do you go for your up-to-the-minute publication/release schedule? Calm down, people, calm down. Just keep your eyes on the Cifiscape website here and until the big day, here's a schedule of some upcoming Cifiscape Volume 2 centered events.

Get ready,

Jon

So here's a crazy idea...

I've been working on a lot of edits to To Kill the Goddess lately and I'm at this phase where I'm doing a lot of really down and dirty editing. In the process, I find myself thinking about the structure of my book in ways I haven't previously focused on. One result of new focus is some rather serious changes to the arc of one of my characters, which I've talked about here. Another result is this bizarre idea:

What if I were to split my book up into three separate books?

Let me back up a for a moment. At this point I'm 99% certain that I will self publish To Kill the Goddess. This means, at least at the outset, that I'll be going entirely digital. Furthermore, my last version of To Kill the Goddess clocked in at roughly 130,000 words. That's one porker of a book. It's not long because it's bloated and full of unnecessary fluff, I just need that much space to give each of my five separate point of view characters the the fair shake that they deserve.

Now back to my crazy idea. Most books these days are around 70,000 to 80,000 words. That means To Kill the Goddess is nearly the size of two books all by itself. In addition, my outline has, for a long time now, split To Kill the Goddess into three separate parts, each about 45,000 words. In some ways, these parts almost work like acts of a play. Part one introduces most of the characters and defines what at stake. In part two, plot lines begin to intersect and the story evolves. And in part three, as I like to say, the shit hits the fan.

Individually, those three parts would each be a little on the short side for a full novel, and no, the first two wouldn't be self-contained, nor would they achieve much resolution, and yet… why not split them up? Where does it say you have to tell a story all in one chunk? Comics don't do it. Neither do series. Did the Wheel of Time ever actually end?

Remember, were talking digital here. I don't have to worry about printing, or contracts, or any of the other issues if traditional publisher would have to deal with. All I have to do is format three different files and send them in.

The biggest question I have is how the mass public react to an idea like this because, as far as I know, it hasn't been done. Although it seems like it could have appeal. For example, someone could try out part one for $1.99 and if they didn't like it then they wouldn't have to buy any more. Or, I could give away part one on a promotional basis and then charge $1.99 for each of the other two parts. I'm sure someone will complain and say I'm just trying to make an extra buck, but there are a lot of e-books out there selling for a completely asinine amount of money and I guess if somebody wants to complain about paying $5.97 for all three parts of my book then there's really nothing I can do about that.

Anyway, it's all just an idea at this point. Just one of the many rolling around in my head as I look into the Wild West of self-publishing and wonder what the hell I'm getting myself into!

Star Wars - The Phantom Menace: Jar Jar is funny—but the 3D’s not that good.

Now let me just clarify, those are not my words.

Last weekend I took eight nine-year-olds to see Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace 3D. My son picked this activity to celebrate his birthday and all the kids he invited showed up excited to see the movie (OK, just the boys showed—all the girls declined—sorry, Star Wars, apparently young ladies do not dig you.)

Critics and Sci-Fans alike seem to almost universally dislike this film (57% approval rating at www.rottentomatoes.com)—but yet the early matinee was 80% full—and I notice this week “Phantom” is still rated number 6 at the box office—not bad for a movie that first came out 13 years ago.

Although I’ve seen the movie a couple times, it had been several years since my last viewing of “Phantom”—and I was at first excited to hear the Star Wars anthem and see the rolling, yellow lettering explaining what was going on in that galaxy far, far away. But then the first star ship appeared on the screen, rumbling in space like a 1968 Corvette with a blown out muffler. Then a short while later Jar Jar Binks was on the scene, annoying as ever. My enthusiasm soon faded. The movie is over two hours long and I expected the kids to start getting restless a short while in—but that didn’t happen. They were eating it up—I was the one shifting in my seat and looking at my watch.

But, despite plenty of flaws with character and story, George Lucas and his crew got a lot of things right. There are cool aliens and Jedi, and one of the best-choreographed fight scenes ever. There are heroic moments, spot on special effects, loads of artistic backgrounds and details and even moments of humor.

When the movie was over I asked my son and his friends (now all drinking lemonade and eating cupcakes with 2” thick frosting) what they thought of the show. The consensus amongst the 3^rd grade crowd was that it was a 9 out of a possible 10. They debated whether the best moment was the pod race or the Darth Maul/Jedi fight. (It turns out my son’s favorite birthday gift was a double-bladed Sith light saber toy, by the way.)

Q: “What did you think of Jar-Jar?”

A: “Pretty funny.”

Q: “The Jedi?”

A; “Pretty cool.”

Q: “How was the 3D?”

A: “Not very good.” (I concur.)

One of the other parents at the party, kind enough to help us chaperone, commented to me after the show, “Some of the writing really isn’t very good, is it?” “No. No it's not.”

But long live Star Wars and the Lucas Empire, if not here but in some galaxy far, far away. If for no one else other than the nine-year-olds (and nine-year-olds at heart) out there who know what it is to be entertained.

Mark

Oh—and if you want a good laugh (about all the things wrong with Star Wars: The Phantom Menace) please check out this link (thanks, Q!):

http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episode-1-the-phantom-menace/

The challenge in part 1 of asking people to describe the character traits of Qui-Gon Ginn (the drunk) and Queen Amidala really cracked me up :-)

On Not Being Able to See the Trees, Let Alone the Forest.

I've been working through a Beta Reader's comments for the last month. And I am stuck.

In the past, I've often put aside readers' comments when they've suggested changes that felt too big. I'd think, "Perhaps what they are suggesting would work, but I'd rather do that sort of major reworking on the suggestion of an editor/agent. I'll get this as good as I can get it within my own vision, send it off, and if an agent is interested but wants a shift in direction, I'll more seriously contemplate major rewriting then." Sometimes I worry I'm just being lazy: "ACK, change too big, take too long, just put that one aside." But being more charitable, I also think I'm following the inner voice of the story when I accept or reject my peers' suggestions.

And why I'm feeling particularly lost at the moment is that my Beta Reader put her finger on that inner voice and pushed until it was screaming at me: "Lisa, there is a major problem here! I've been trying to tell you this, why haven't you been listening? The lovely and very, very smart Sofia agrees! Now will you believe already?" And what Sofia and Inner Voice are suggesting scares me, because I don't yet know how to fix the problem. The story is so written into my cells, that I don't know what it becomes if I completely rewrite the middle section. A crisis of imagination. A serious crisis of imagination.

I haven't found my way through, but I figure the only way to find my way through is by writing. Right now I'm trying a medium fix - keeping the middle section close to what it has been, but trimming it down, mainly by merging and deleting characters. But I keep getting stuck by not knowing if what I'm doing is for the good. And that is a new experience for me. Whenever I've taken on Scribblerati suggestions, I can sense as I'm writing that I'm taking the piece to a new level. It's a tangible feeling of rightness. And I haven't been feeling that over the past month and so I have no idea whether my changes have any value. (Thank the stars and the moon for my writing program, Scrivener, which allows for very easily creating new versions and reverting back to older ones. I keep myself going by telling myself I'm just playing - these changes don't have to be real ones, Lisa, we're just having a bit of fun here and experimenting.)

It's odd. Trying to trust the Inner Voice, and feeling at the very same time that I've completely lost my ability to self-evaluate my writing.

Perhaps it's time to follow in Shawn's footsteps and start from scratch...Oof.

Why blog?

Sometimes I wonder about the point of blogging. If you look out over the seething, screaming mass of humanity that makes up this filthy pit we call the Internet, the personal blog is Legion. We’re just one voice crushed in the cacophonous din, an e-needle in the LAMP package stack.

So, why bother? What’s the point? Why do I blog? Why do we, the Scribblerati, blog? Who’s it for? Who are we talking to? Why do we do this thing we do? A valid question, right? I mean, we’re not a writing resource, per se. We’re not a news source, not really. We’re not strictly a pop culture blog, nor are we really an art project. We’re kind of self-promotey, I guess, but that’s not really our aim, either. So why blog?

I know for me, myself, I like to have things. I’m a collector that can’t be bothered to collect any one thing specifically and the things on the Internet I like are things you can’t really put on a shelf, they’re internety things: Videos, pictures, what have you. Also, I’m drawn to lists. It’s all very OCD of me. I just like to have them. Other folks treat their blogs like a diary of sorts, sometimes posting when drunk, or angry, or perhaps without foresight—which usually ends up being a bit unfortunate—but hey, if being embarrassingly honest (or dishonest) with potentially the entire planet is your thing, well… good for you. Also, there’s the fact that they say that, should you ever become an author in these modern times, then you will need a central place, somewhere your devoted multitudes can gather, a place to bask in your musky essence and glean the few little driblets of information that you, their anointed one, has deigned to scatter down into their midst. And that’s great. Thumbs up. All of that is great, more or less, perfectly valid reasons to blog, but is that why we do it here?

Writing is insular, as most of you no doubt know. Most writers write alone, even in the middle of a crowd (That is so deep…) and more so, most writers stick to a certain type of writing, something they do, day in and day out. And as such, they can burn out, get stuck in a rut, or just generally get too lost within the worlds they’re creating to even realize that they’re ignoring craft and quality and narrative or whatever…

Ahem…

Or, to lunge away from a suddenly very Star Wars heavy post, when you work out the same muscles the same way each and every day, you can end up defeating your original purpose. You can take something that started out as good and you can end up twisting it into something…

…fucking gross.

Sorry about that.

I can’t speak for the whole of the Scribblerati, but the way I look at it, blogging is a writing exercise. It’s a random bump in the writing road, it’s a little something different, an excuse to stretch your legs. Sometimes that’s what you need. Things aren’t flowing? Can’t get that one scene right? Are you staring at that blank page, all knotted up with indecision and failure inside? You got a case of the mental Carpal Tunnels going on?

Well, quit your whining and work on something else for a bit. Blog. You see, the good thing about blogging is that it won’t accidentally erupt into a brand new project that will end up eventually sucking you away from your current work either. That age old rule “Write Everyday”, the one that presses down on your shoulders, making you feel guilty and terrible and talentless?

Nonsense.

Forget it.

You can’t take that shit literally, it’s impossible. Leave that shit behind. It’s the core truth that matters: You want to write, you keep at it, you take it seriously, and you do it often, but most importantly, try to change it up every once in awhile to keep it interesting, because Carpal Tunnel Syndrome sucks… I assume.

I mean, look at that poor lady. Such pain and yet, she’s still there at her station, working, refusing to quit. Look at her. Such nobility.

Keepin’ it fresh,

Jon