I've got one of My Headaches--I always get headaches the week I get my period. I'm all drugged up and I lay my head down for awhile and read--we'll see if it gets better. Won't be able to wear my headphones. :-( (I like loud music.)
Also my room is coldy! It's usually the coldest room, I think because the connector to the dryer is in here. I've hauled out...
- the space heater (I own 3)
- my new fingerless gloves from the Gap
- my matching fleece sweater
- my fuzzy jammies
- my new furry socks
- and my really well-made oatmeal colored slippers from an etsy shop ($15 + $3.50 shipping - the pair I bought from another seller got holes in them really fast -- these are much thicker)
"The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters.... The clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed."
The writing isn't being helped along by (a) the fact that I've hit another research-necessary part, and (b) my writing program got updated. Look how cute my menus are now! (I procrastinated by organizing all my research.)
Some of the icons I made myself, of course.
Scrivener is pretty much becoming the "industry standard" re software for scriptwriting, novels, and research papers. I used it throughout my MA, and for all my novels now.
You can split the screen and have research or pics on one side, and your writing on the other...
And it's got a little bar where you can set a word count goal...
But other than the icons, I haven't tried out any of Scriveners new tricks. Will save that for Dec.
So I've just watched a week straight of Sports Night, all three seasons. And I've had these things on my mind all week that I need to spill, so it's going to be long. Skip now or forever read this post.
TOPIC I - The Wizard Behind the Curtain 1. Writing Style - It's Not a Criticism
From episode 1 I've had that weird wizard-behind-the-curtain sensation.
I had the same feeling the last time I read Georgette Heyer. And the last time I re-read Connie Willis' Bellwether it was so strong as to be almost jarring, similar to this Sports Night time.
It's when you've read or watched a writer's work so much that you see the structure under the surface. The cast of Sports Night talk exACTly like the cast of West Wing. I'm sure it was the case with Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip as well, but it didn't hit me over the head that time.
It's weird, cause you go around feeling like the only people in the world who talk like the West Wing characters are the West Wing characters. You feel like it's *their* thing. Intellectually you know it's Sorkin's Thing, but you can forget. With Sports Night I couldn't forget. There were moments when the show's head cheese, the Stern-yet-Fatherly Isaac, would walk into a room and say and do something exactly the same way as the president would in WW.
Almost every character could have been played equally well by another good actor, or the cast of WW. Wouldn't hardly change the show.
The only actors who really stood out for me as transcending Sorkin were two actors who I loved in David Mamet's State and Main: Clark Gregg and William H Macy. They were acting like themselves, because they're character actors. So they brought that extra something special that only they can bring.
I'm not saying all this as a criticism of Sports Night. It just came from watching back to back episodes of the entire show. For the same reason I rarely read more than 3 books in a row from one author, because no matter how great they are, by book three you can see the wizard behind the curtain and it loses a little magic. What IS interesting is that I haven't watched West Wing in yeeeeaaaars. Maybe 10 years. And Studio 60 in four years. I've always loved Sorkin's dialogue, so it must have really imprinted on my brain.
2. Okay There's a Bit of Criticism
One criticism, though, is that ALL the characters in SN talk à la Sorkin. I'd be curious to rewatch WW and see if by then he'd learned to limit it to only certain characters. Cause in Sports Night the ubiquity of the style of talking gave me some cognitive dissonance. You can imagine an inner circle of friends all talking the same, because that definitely happens; but not an entire office. My boss and I have worked together for 13 years and you would not mistake my dialogue for his.
Incidentally, kudos to Joss Whedon. The "Scoobies" in Buffy all talk the same, but not everyone in the town, and not the characters on Dollhouse.
Anyway. Just somethin' on my mind.
TOPIC II - Sorkin At His Best
The other thing I spotted in the first episode was the reason why Studio 60 failed in the beginning. Sorkin's at his best when balance drama / touchingness / with humour. Politics was the best playground for this style, because it can so easily be grave, moving, infuriating, righteous, and funny. I've never forgotten the one small scene where a hurricane is about to hit a fleet of Navy ships, and at the end of the episode the president gets on the phone with a young signalman and talks to him until the line goes out. Shiver.
How can you be that moving with a comedy show? (Studio 60 was supposed to be another Saturday Night Live.) It could have been done, but he floundered for the first half of the season. There were these moments where you felt like you were supposed to be Moved, and you just weren't. They weren't sufficiently important. Only towards the end did he pick up steam--one of the only scenes I really remember was the Christmas episode, when the band-of-the-night were New Orleans musicians, playing "O Holy Night" in front of devastation scenes from Katrina. Shiver!
And proof that Sorkin could have been moving with comedy just as he was with politics, was that he managed it with sports. In the very first episode one of the main characters is feeling disenchanted with his job, when they start reporting on a 40 year old South African athlete, whose knees were broken because of his political protests, breaking a world record in running. And the character runs to the phone to call his son and tell him to watch. Brilliant!
The episode made me want to tear my hair out because that's how good Studio 60 could have been, and with a subject dear to my heart. Comedy is very important. Georgette Heyer wrote "fluffy" books, which she herself put down a bit; but her favourite fan letter was from an ex-Romanian(?) prisoner who for 12 years told the story of Friday's Child over and over to her cellmates, and it's what kept them sane.
It's what Spike Lee does when he's at his best--he's able to bring poignancy out of basketball, or TV, or politics. It's also what I loved about Slings and Arrows, which was about a Stratford Festival type theater.
So anyway. There's my rambling. Aaron Sorkin. Brilliant. Better make a TV show again one day. Might need to lay off the shrooms from time to time.
She put in a few samples and came out as Stephen King, JK Rowling, and a "dash of Dan Brown." Which means she's going to be rich!
I put in my personal blog, the edited version of a story I wrote for Nanowrimo in 2002, the novel I finished-finished this past year, and the unedited first draft of Henry V written for Nanowrimo in 2009.
The blog + unedited Henry V = David Foster Wallace = when I don't edit, I'm bound for awards! critical acclaim!
The finished-finished romance novel = Margaret Mitchell = immortality! Or maybe I'm just racist.
The somewhat edited romance story from 2002 = HP Lovecraft = cult following but fame only after death.
To test The Machine I put in some HP Lovecraft text, and the answer did at least come out right. And I know The Machine has Wodehouse in there, cause I entered some Wodehouse text and it came out right. However, I begin to suspect it since Georgette Heyer came out once as Shakespeare, twice as Charles Dickens.
Anyway, now I know what I need to do--just keep rewriting my works, and plugging them into this thing, until they come out as Wodehouse. I suspect if I remove all contractions from my writing, I'll achieve the status of Dickens. Or Shakespeare.
Part of the fun of researching for my Henry V novel is gathering ideas of kookiness. Since the book takes place in the entertainment industry, and in California, the possibility for kooky characters is great. People can have weird jobs and weird lifestyles.
Like being a baby-naming expert:
According to an article in The Wall Street Journal the professional baby naming business is booming. Anxious almost-parents are paying up to $350 for baby naming consultation that includes phone interviews and packets of name options with name histories, linguistic origins and personality traits, all information that is easily found online for free. The naming "experts" weed through millions of name choices and then deliver a handful of options that fit the parents' vision for their baby. (Psychology Today)
Now there's a job that just about any novelist could do, since we spend so much time thinking over such things. How on earth do you get "certified" for such a thing?? That's a "truth is stranger than fiction" job.
Bill: The only true wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing. Ted: ... ... ... That's us dude!
(Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure)
Earlier this week I had a mild Dark Night of the Soul. Let's call it an Overcast Day of the Soul. I've been fretting, for a couple months now, that maybe I don't have the discipline or drive to ever get published. If I'm never published that's okay, cause it's really hard; but how much I max out my possibilities is up to me. So I've been feeling un-maxed.
It's not just because I work full-time again, though of course that's part of it. It's a question of what happens to that non-work time.
* Movies - I rarely go to the movies, and don't rent them much. So that's ok. * TV - I can avoid getting overly committed, but I'm fooling myself if I think I can give up PBS mysteries and other good British tv, and some comedies. And I occasionally get a new DVD set that I enjoy working my way through, like Entourage. * Books - Well obviously I'm not about to give up reading. I usually have about 5 on the go at one time, and usually read every morning before work. * Internets - Here's the real culprit. And I'd be fooling myself to think I can cut down on it. I've tried, it just doesn't happen. It divides into... - communicating with people I know: Not too bad. I check email about once a day, and give facebook a good read about once a week. - blogging: Time consuming, but something I've committed to. - commenting: I do a bit. - reading or listening to music: This is where most of the time goes. I'm fascinated by almost everything. Today I read a comparison of baby strollers, even though I don't possess anything of babylike substance. If online reading were packaged into page numbers, I'd be through several War & Peaces by now.
And so my inner head wheel kept running... what to give up? How to give it up?
I poured out my woes to my husband. And thankfully he came through with the goods. [Pictured here, with Nombly whispering the secrets of the universe into his ear.]
My husband feels--as do I--that I'm not a super smarty at any one thing. I'm kind of a B+ or A- in everything I undertake. I have a few B's, like cooking, but anything less than a B (aka: sports) and I lose interest.
- I have a good, general knowledge of music - I have a broad but not very deep knowledge of literature / books - I have fairly good, natural people skills - I'm funny, but I'm not The Funny Kid at the Back of the Class - I'm smart, but I have friends much smarter than me --> I was an A- in English Lit, and an A- in Political Science. - I know a lot of Stuff, but I don't remember details, and I don't think fast on my feet, so I'm not a good Trivial Pursuit player. - I'm a pretty good teacher, but I'm not Oh My God THAT Teacher - I'm a good writer, but I'm not The Next PG Wodehouse, waiting in the undiscovered wings
Back to Fernando's Opinion. Fernando has always thought that what I'm best at is taking all these its and bits of things I know, and putting them together in a useful or interesting way.
So his question for me, during this Overcast Day of the Soul, was: Would you still write like a London Mabel if you didn't do all the things that you love to do? They might detract from my time, but I also don't know what they contribute towards my style and content.
And that idea sat so totally right with me, that I sat in the Subway restaurant feeling slightly stupid.
Since as long as I can remember I've been preaching the gospel of Stop Looking at Other People and Just Be Yourself, and I've been breaking this very rule. It shouldn't surprise me that breaking a Cardinal Value led to an overcast soul. Let's say there is a Type of Person who gets published, because they're more disciplined about they spend their time, and therefore I diminish my chances at being published because of Who I Am. Well now, that's quite alright with me. Cause I can't be anyone else.
And of course once I had this Epiphanical Moment my writer's block (researcher's block) unblocked and I've spent the past 3 days working on my book.
I guess this what Oprah would call an Aha Moment. It felt more like Uh Duh Moment, à la Missy Elliott. Must be why I married someone smarter than myself.
When you complete Nanowrimo they sometimes give you offers--one was from createspace.com, which does self-publishing. You could order a free proof copy of your book. I didn't find the site/process very intuitive, but I made a point of doing it just for the fun of having a hard copy of my last book. Then if anyone wants to read it, it's in a convenient form.
Anyway, I'd forgotten I'd ordered it, so when I got this package today I was confused. And I opened it up, and it was a book by London Mabel! Weird. Very weird moment. It turned out cute. I chose a photo of one of the neighborhoods portrayed in my story, and it's really pretty. Except it looks like a literary book from a small Canadian publisher. It looks arty, rather than trashy! (They didn't have any trashy options in the cover-maker.)
I guess if I needed inspiration to keep working on my books, this should be it. It's freaky to see your writing in book form!
How to write about fictional inventors? Let's say you want to write about a character who revolutionizes an industry (the - ahem - music industry, for example, which I'm writing about, and which is imploding)... how do you invent the revolutionizing thing when you, yourself, are not actually genius enough to predict or come up with Thing That Needs Revolutionizing?
Luckily, as a humour writer, I will probably fight my way out of this paper bag by doing something silly. But in the research/thinking phase it's hurting my brain like hell, which means I'm procrastinating a lot.
I usually enjoy researching, but on a personal level I'm not sure I care all that much how this music thing is going to turn out. I consume music, but I don't make it. I'm happy to sit back and see what happens. But now I can't! I can't just SBASWH because I'm writing this damn book. Or rather, I'd like to be writing this damn book, but I can't until I get a breakthrough.
Frikkety frak.
It's 6 AM I'd better go to bed. Frakkety frakky frak frak frak.
Howdee all. I wanted to answer MyAmericanFriend's comments from the last post, but it's a bit long to comment in the comments. And if I only email her my comments, then it looks like I'm
hiding
something.
So here are MAF's comments, and my replies. Don't worry... I won't be offended if you don't read it! But do scroll down for the videos!
***
Eh, not wanting to be language police, but just pointing out... No one has said "Afro-American" since the 1970's. Last I remember is Michael Richards in that TV apology. I think "Afro-European" has a different connotation, but "Afro-American" is borderline racial slur, very dated at minimum. Just wanted to make a note. ... Or, in other words, calling someone "Afro-American" is kind of like using "negro" down here. It's not *that* n-word, but it's old and kind of offensive. Maybe the equivalent of calling an Asian person "Oriental" or something.
* I was just writing fast. In Canada I guess it was still in use in the 80s (by my Barbados-Canadian music teacher for course on "Afro-American" music.) But thanks. Usually when I'm feeling lazy I just write Af-Am. Which sounds like a charity.
Erm... Also, please tread carefully in representing US ethnicities... Since this is the one you're shopping around, especially. I guess that's why I'm taking the time to point this out.
* As I wrote at length sometime last year... (mostly here, here and here) I started this whole thing off by reading reams and reams of "race fails 09" which was all about how non-people-of-color can/should write about POC. (And POC in other countries of course, unless you're writing fantasy.) The conclusion I took away was that yes, white people SHOULD make the effort to write about POC (and I would apply this to other differences, like sexual orientation); do as much research as you can (though without expecting POC, or your buddies who are POC to do all the work for you, or to speak for all POC); and yes you ARE going to fuck up; and when you do just apologize and do better the next time. The general consensus seemed to be that this was the better course of action than only writing about white people; or being all "well if you guys are going to jump on me every time I make a mistake, I can't win can I! So I won't even try! (wounded wounded)" --> I have given this enormous amounts of thought, and the research is ongoing.
...and disability too.
* Sorry, the word, or how I write about it? I never write about anything without thinking it through as best I can. I have too much of the academic in me to just "wing it" (except when I'm Nanowrimo-ing.) When you're a writer, you're almost always writing about people who aren't like you--and the ones who are the most unlike you, you just have to put more work into. --> I just read a really popular book which takes place in WW2 Guernsey, and a lot of inhabitants are pretty sad about how poor the research was.
* I don't even name characters without some research, and I take things like state differences into account. (Okay no, I didn't when I made those girls from Tennessee. But that was another nanowrimo story!)
Sons of Anarchy, the FX (cable network) show about a motorcycle gang in California, is based on Hamlet. It's also one of the best TV dramas that I've ever seen--and Season 1 is on DVD now. I'd recommend checking that out for examples on how people do this modern day huge cast of Shakespearean characters. If you're looking for examples. Particularly when the show gets into the second season, the characters are beautifully developed. ... But honestly they do a lovely job in Season 1 as well... I fell in love with the show in Season 2 and went back to Season 1 once I'd become a hardcore fan.
* I've seen 2-hour movie adaptations, but never a series. Interesting! It's easier to tell people apart on tv, though, cause you see them. You can have absolutely HUGE casts on screen. In a book, just naming two people with the same first letter is problematic. (Most epic fail of all time: Sauron and Saruman. What was Tolkien thinking??) But I'll have to watch that series one day, sounds good.
* And the problem with the history plays isn't just the casts themselves but I've got three casts in one book (Hen Iv.1, 2 and Hen V). And worse, this is all real history he's dealing with, so he could assume his audience knew a lot of it. They would have known what the French King was saying in this scene:
Other thing is... People don't so much distinguish "black-Chinese" in the States. At least not in popular culture. Obama is a Black President, not a Caucasian/Asian/African-American. I mean, we *know* he's all those things, but he's read as a Black person. That's why people understood the SC senator's "You lie!" heckling as meaning something like, "You lie, boy!" It's more "mixed," or people get pressured to identify primarily as one side of their heritage. Sometimes it's because of how they're "read" in life (One of my grad school friends is always read as black, while her brother is always read as white.). Basically, I'm saying... If you're writing a book using mixed characters, I hope you'll read some stuff about biracial identities in the US. Because there are a lot of tensions around biracial identities (and light skinned people tend to be socially privileged over darker skinned people), and all I'm saying is... I hope you're doing your reading on this stuff. I think it's very specific to the US (and totally different from the all-mixed culture of, say, Brazil or the multiculturalism of Canada).
* Ya I get that. It's pretty much the basis for this Chappelle skit (the second skit in this clip):
Tim | MySpace Video [Mos Def loved playing this character so much, he walked off with the suit. Don't miss the end to see who the Asians pick. "Konnichiwa bitches."]
* I only identified all these identities in this post because when I'm looking for actors/singers etc. to "picture" my characters, I start by trying to find people who actually *are* biracial, so I can get a realistic idea of how they might look. (How dark skinned they might be, their hair etc.) In fact, for the Chinese-African combination, I ended up looking at the Caribbean where it's much more common.
Also, it's true, there aren't a ton of African-Americans in California... Any chance you could relocate to N'awlins or something?
* I actually looked up the demographics for San Fran, and am somewhat following, as silly as that is. I'd actually have the right "mix" if it weren't for my heroine's group of friends who are all... ex Somali pirates. Yes, you read that right. Don't ask how they managed to immigrate to the US... this is a comedy after all. Everything is possible, including too many African-Americans.
*Anyway, a lot of the characters are all related to each other, so really it's like you're looking at one family.
* You begin to see why I'm saying I'm screwed. It's not just complex in terms of introducing all these characters in a way that the reader can keep straight; and telling all the back story in a way that the reader can keep straight; but I've got to do a certain amount of research on each "community" so that they read right. So that a letter written by a Guernsey farmer doesn't read like a letter written by an Alabamian, so to speak.
* ... ... I complain a lot, but of course it's vair vair interessant.
* I can't change the location at this point, I've already done waaaay to much research. I originally picked California because the initial kernel idea all centered on Paris Hilton, so it was West Coast. And then I had to choose where in California, and decided I'd much rather travel to San Francisco than LA, so the final city of choice was vair vair selfish. (Plus there are a lot of musicians in San Fran, and this whole thing is music industry based.) ...But I'd love to visit New Orleans. That'll have to be the next book! (Tourism based fiction writing.)
Basically, I guess... Remember what Harry Reid (the House majority leader) said? Something about Barack Obama being a viable candidate because he was a "light skinned man without a Negro dialect"? Even though he was ignorant to use "negro," he was kind of making a statement about something that has long been a pattern here. Light-skinned Blacks *are* socially privileged above darker-skinned Blacks in this country. (A lot, a lot of that plays into, for instance, the rebuilding of New Orleans. Mayor Ray Nagin was/is seen by many Black Americans as a corrupt official who upheld a system of light-skinned racial privilege in the city.)
* The light-skinned thing is one of the few things I understood before researching, and it's constantly coming up on the blogs I read. Though I'm only JUST getting to the point where I automatically notice women's hair, and the darkness of skin, when I'm watching tv or something. It's kind of a weird thing to make yourself sensitive to.
And one more thing... I'm not meaning to lecture, but... Racial politics is very, very different in every single region of this country (I keep meaning to write a post about Southern racism and Northern racism). It gets over-simplified in almost every representation that comes out of media in this country. Certainly, it's...usually problematic when it's written by white people. And often problematic even when it isn't. Note how in "Precious," Lee Daniels cast all light-skinned Blacks--Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz--as the "good characters" who could inspire Precious to rise above her life situation. Or the ridiculous stereotypes perpetuated by the awful Tyler Perry franchise (about which I very much agree with Spike Lee). Basically, I'm thinking... If you're updating a Shakespearean tragedy with a bunch of minorities, you will undoubtedly touch on US racial politics. Which are *really really really* fraught. Which I realize that you know, but... Please give as much thought to historical and sociological research about this stuff as to plot. Especially to contemporary stuff about racial relations and racial solidarity and biracial identity. Because it's almost always rendered in a *really* offensive way in fiction. Is what I'm getting at. And... Oy. Sorry, I'll shut up now.
* Thanks. I'll just make you make it when it's done. ;-) The good thing is that the chances of me ever being published are about the same (or worse) than the chance of me winning the lottery. Literally.
* It's still a comedy. The plot itself is not supposed to be realistic, the actions people take are ridiculous, the situations they're in , the way they respond, etc etc all has to be un-realistic in order to be funny (to do the sort of humour I like.) It's not realistic-social-commentary humour. It's not a Spike Lee comedy. And it's not Chappelle either, where it's very silly, but the race-stuff is still at the heart of all the comedy. I just want the details to be accurate enough so that you don't notice them.
* I've thought somewhat about the state differences. California has had more Hispanic and Chinese people lynched than African-Americans, for example. The group they considered ethnically cleansing from San Fran after the 1906 earthquake was the Chinese. The Native American communities are really small. The history with Mexico is very unique. And there are now less Af-Americans than ever before. Etc etc... Because I started with the historical research (for my back story), it's given me an ok idea of California's particular racial history. Doesn't mean I would fully understand how that plays out today, but one thing at a time...
* I've never seen any of Perry's movies, only the ads. Chappelle has criticized the fact that almost every Af-Am male actor is, at some point, expected to dress as a woman. (Perhaps homophobic or sexist, but still an interesting observation.)
* But I have a nice Perry story. I just read about this pool in 2009, in Philadelphia, that kicked out the mostly children-of-color who were signed up to come swim there once per week that summer as part of summer camp. And Perry was so angry, he paid for them all to go to Disney.
* What I also wrote about last year on one of my blogs, is the challenges of writing about POC, or gay characters etc., and not immediately fucking up. When I wrote the first rushed draft in 2008, it was of the back story -- I did it for nanowrimo (50 000 words in one month.) I had two Chinese characters--an abrupt, sort of rude woman, and this laid-back butler guy. At one point they get together to try to figure out how to get the heroine and her old friend together, and though it's meant as a nice thing, after writing it I thought: "Hmm. I now have two Scheming Asians on my hands." Doh!
* And when I wrote this year's nanowrimo, which was the first draft of my present-day story, I suddenly introduced a Mexican character, and she gets into one of the fight scenes, and she's really fierce. And afterwards I'm like... she's a Fiery Latina. Fuck! I'd still like her in the fight scene, because the bad guys need her, but she can't be all crazy. She'll have to be a cool fighter instead. Maybe I'll give her some martial arts skills, or maybe she does boxing.
* Or I'm plotting out all this back story, and if I mirror the actual history this is all based on, it means lots of people have to die. So I'll have a Muwekma character, and she's based on the Black Prince. Well the BP was killed in battle in real life. But if I kill of MY character, it means the one Native American in my story has to die. ...I don't want to kill off anyone gay or Native, because it's happened so much in Hollywood. It's the old "the gay cannot be happy and must die." So I have to find other endings for them. Which is fine really, because the whole point of "comedy" in the Shakespeare sense is that everyone lives, baddies are transformed, everyone falls in love, and the chaotic world is brought into harmony. So I have to turn what is basically a lot of tragic history, and turn it into harmony. Sort of artistically interesting.
* The most difficult challenge is this: It's normal in comedy that the main characters are well-drawn and somewhat complex. They might be silly, but they're not Just Silly, because you need to know what motivates them, what they're fighting for, a bit of their past etc. And the side characters are often caricatures. Which is normally a great thing--that's how you get all these AWEsome sidekicks and best friends and bad-guy's-patsies etc. They don't need to be complex, and complex is just less funny. Simplistic is where a lot of the great humour comes in.
* But I have to be very careful of buffoonish black side characters. Spike Lee's Bamboozled is a perfect example--the "Mau Maus" are funnier than almost everyone else, because they're side characters.
"How do you fucking pronounce that shit?"
But to have funny black side characters, when your heroine is white and blonde... is potentially problematic.
Oh who was it that said--dying is easy, comedy is hard!
Today I worked on building and rebuilding the family trees today, deciding on names, relationships, nationalities, personalities, and appearances -- for my Henry V story.
I started this family tree last year sometime, after trying out a few family tree programs. This one's the easiest to use. You should be able to see the whole tree here, but you have to click on various people to see all of it (you can't see it all at once.)
Here's the main branch of my heroine's family. No, she's not related to Princess Leia, Caravaggio, Pussy Galore, Sophie Marceau and Terrence Howard.
On the right are the French. They don't show up until Henry V... I'm still on Henry IV. So I haven't developed anything but their names and their villainy.
Afro-Americans are over-represented in my story, for California. But almost everyone descends from the Hawkins brothers (Red, Green and Pinky) so one branch is Afro-Chinese, one is Afro-Hispanic, and the third is Afro-Euro, with an adopted Native woman. It's the "it's a small world" approach to multi-representation--Taishanese (Chinese), African-American, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Mexican, New Orleans Francophones, Muwekma (Nat Amer), several gay people, probably all sorts of mental illness, and so far one disabled guy (there are two World Wars in here after all.) And not everyone is this beautiful... I just choose actors to anchor my mental image on.
I really wish Jilly Cooper had written a book on how she writes, because she's one of the few authors who uses this many frikkin' characters every time. I guess I'll read a Cooper book next.
I've got a problem. My story not only has a lot of characters, which is always confusing, but they're all related to each other in a complicated back story. This isn't my fault, it's the source material--the lead up to the War of the Roses. I've even cut out an entire generation (Edward III's) but it's still confusing.
Isabella the She Wolf was the daughter of a French King, and married the English King Edward II. Then came Ed III. Then his kids, Richard II and John of Gaunt. Richard II was King for awhile, but he was party-hearty, and he also stole all of Gaunt's lands. So Gaunt's son, Henry Bolingbroke (who Richard had banished) came roaring back to town, with some allies, and dethroned Richard, and then had his murdered. Bol became Henry IV. Then Henry's allies weren't too pleased with him, so he had to kick their asses--Mortimer, Glendower, Hotspur, Hot's dad, Hot's uncle, York and Douglas. And then Bol dies and his son becomes Henry V, and decides to take on the French (whose throne he claims through the She Wolf), but only after cutting one of his best friends, and hanging another for treason.
Once you translate this into a modern setting, it gets even more confusing, cause you can't have modern day people running around killing each other over throne succession.
I seem to have fallen back into cooking again, over the past month. I think it started in November when I got into the Making Soup habit; and now the husbando is eating healthier, so I want to make sure there are things to eat.
I think I can eat a lot of homemade if I...
- make a couple veggie-filled big things on the weekend, which I can bring to lunch at work. They don't need to turn out great, cause at work I don't care what I eat.
- make a couple easy things, a couple times during the week when I get home from work -- like pasta with oil and lemon.
And I'm back to making my own muffins and cookies, and eating them Moderately.
Tonight I'm trying to make hot breakfast cereal (corn meal with dates and nuts, from that slow cooker book), as something healthy to eat for breakfast.
Okay. I've got to do some writing now. (I've actually taken my Mail program out of my mac dock, so that I'm not inclined to check it all the time and procrastinate. So I only have to resist my Home page (which has blog updates) and facebook. Which apparently I'm better at than resisting Mail. Oh, and I found a program that will email me all my twitter updates once a day, in one email. Like that too.
And I haven't got back into any TV shows yet. If anyone asks me "Are you watching XYZ it's amaaazing!" I'm just going to nod my head enthusiastically and give a thumbs up. I'm not a tv snob. It's just that movies and tv are at the bottom of my Entertainment Pole--they're easier to cut out than books and internets.
PS - I'm back with a bowl of hot cereal. It's pretty nice. This may turn out to be my favourite use for the slow cooker.
Did some freshening up of my web site, added some more content. I sent out 7 queries tonight, and query-sending always makes me think about my web site.
Not to mention... I like playing with blogs and web sites. Satisfies some part of my brain... the part that likes to sort and organize things I guess. It's like reorganizing a collection into a new formation, but without the mess.
You see why this scene from High Fidelity speaks to me.
The question remains... am I ready to buy a domain yet?
By the way, if you want to see another example of how a weebly site can look, this is my brother's.
His main page is a blog, and then he has tabs for his various artistic endeavors.
My vair vair creative brother has never been able to settle on one preferred art form to express himself because his soul needs to be heard IN SONG! IN COMIC STRIP! IN BOOK! IN SCRIPT! IN FLASH CARTOON! IN MUSICAL INSTRUMENT! IN HUMOUR! IN MOVIE! IN ACTING! It just cannot be contained by one measly medium.
Luckily the internet--that specialist at multi-tasking--has come along to free him from the confines of having to be One Thing. Every day he comes closer to that Perfect Form... like a flash humorous cartoon movie ukulele video with voice acting. (Okay he hasn't combined voice acting and song yet. But he will. ... ... RUSHTY!)
I've been slowly putting together and sending out queries this evening, in between bits of cooking, bathing the cat, reading Connie, listening to music, and internetsing.
I've sent out three. Want to do about... 8. Then if they're all rejected I should take a look at my query letter before continuing with the next batch. Or so someone somewhere in something I read suggested.
"If you start me up--if you start me up I'll never stop!"
And once that's done I'll be set free to follow Henry V with a clear conscience. Weee!
I'm using Query Tracker, a free web site for keeping track of who and when you've queried. Nice site.
In my new book my heroine is reading her great-grandmother's diaries, and I'd like to incorporate some of them into the book. So I needed to find some writing by women at the turn of the century, to capture a bit of the tone. I was having trouble finding good online sources, so wasn't I pleased when this book turned up in the bargain section of my store! 700 pages of historical women's letters.
I've been reading them over breakfast each morning, and they're so interesting.
Well I didn't meet my writing goals this week. Mostly I felt tired because I stayed up too late every single night, and watched a lot of Entourage and Chappelle's Show. So yesterday (first day of weekend) I slept for 12 hours. Then watched Entourage and Chappelle's Show. I did a lot of healthy cooking this week... that's got to count for something right?
But actually I'm not too disappointed, because I did finish my synopsis tonight, which was the biggest obstacle. I can officially say my damned story is done. The first goal I didn't meet was to actually send off some queries. And the second goal I didn't meet was to go back to my new story, and outline what I wrote in November. We'll see if I can catch up this week!
And I still did more work than the weeks when I had no goal set. ;-)
I finally found a site where you can easily build a web site. I mean... EASILY build. I know some web designers, but I'm not yet ready to spend real moulah on a web site when I don't even have an agent. I feel that would be an irresponsible use of my moneys. Plus, once you get a designer, you need them to maintain and update the site for you.
So for my current purposes, I am quite quite happy with little weebly. At the most I'll spend money for a domain name.
Now that Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) is over, and Dotewamo is over (Domestic Television Watching Month) is over, it's time for Regoreyear (Regular Goals Rest of Year). I was pretty good about working on my writing this year, but I'd like to be more disciplined so I can get things done faster. Imagine this conversation...
Potential Agent: Ooer I loved your book, how long did it take you to write?
Me: [mumbling as I count on my fingers] Let's see I started it when I returned to school and I got the bulk of it written the next summer but then I changed the ending and then had to revise a bunch more and then school finished and I gave it to people to help me revise so I worked on those changes and then I decided it needed to be longer so I wrote some more and of course then I had to revise some more, and with the final edits, and then composing the query letter, and finally the synopsis it took... [whips out calculator] six and a half years.
Potential Agent: ... ... ... So your next book will be ready in--
Me: 2016... maybe 2017, cause it's longer.
Ease.
I'm quick at the actual writing. It's the revising and editing and query letter writing and (now) synopsis. I need some realistic but strong goals. Meh meh meh.
There's a lot of chatter on the writing blogs I read when Nano rolls around--do you just end up with a bunch of crap? Is it actually useful? Etc. And now the blogs are asking: What did you learn this year from doing Nano?
The first year I did Nano I tried to create an actual complete story in 50 000 words. I didn't do that the next two times, because there are few books that are really that length--instead I write the first 50 000 words of a book and don't worry about getting to the end. I end up with something much more useful in the end--I end up with a dry run of my book.
The company I work for (like many) has a "pilot" period for any project it wants to roll out. I think they usually try the project in one or two stores first, and then roll it out to a larger group of pilot stores, and then roll in out in waves. And of course the point of being a pilot store is to find all the mistakes--because no matter how much you plan something out, there's no replacement for experience.
Nano is my pilot store. No matter how much I try to plot a book out, there are ideas I just can't come up with until I start writing. That's when I finally fill in the plotting holes, and try out my characters, and see who needs cutting, what scenes need revising, etc. For that reason I force myself to do zero editing on my Nano--it's a waste of time because the entire thing will get re-written.
So now I'm going to start up my "post-mortem" -- what worked, what didn't work, and how to fix. And hopefully I'll be ready for another draft in January or February.
I decided I needed a new avatar. (Why? Because I'm procrastinating of course! Ya-duh!)
The first one I made years ago when I was trapped in the prison of school. The second I made showed me writing romances in London, wearing an historical type gown. This time I chose a Victorian look (with clogs) in a theatre, while writing. Because part of me wants to be back at Stratford watching Oscar Wilde plays, and the other part is happy to be here, writing. Okay but in reality... I spent a few hours reading Hunger Games this morning, and I made some scones, but the rest of time has been spent working out my plot so I can actually start the WRITING part. I think I've got enough plot worked out to get going tomorrow.
- the space heater (I own 3)
