Writing Process: No More “Charlie’s Angels”

Posted on by

I am back to killing my babies. Today I had to delete a pet scene from Anori which recalled my father’s secret passion for Charlie’s Angels:

“My father’s other guilty pleasure, Tommy, along with the crackers and vodka, was Charlie’s Angels.” She turned around and smiled brightly at the others. “He would never admit it, but he loved the titillation, a knife against their throats, lovely breasts on the verge of exposure.”

“Can’t say I was ever against those girls,” Fitz admitted.

“He would fall asleep before the show was over and then wake up and snap, ‘Who put on this poppycock? What is this nonsense?’ He’d switch the channel before the crime was solved.” Lai looked back and forth between them, her eyes small and dark. “I never found out who did what.”

“Or more importantly who this Charlie fella really was,” Fitz added.

“Exactly.”

“Christ, it was that guy from Dallas, the oil guy. Everyone knows that.”

“John Forsythe,” Dee sighed.

“But that ain’t the point, is it now?” Fitz added.

“What’s the point then? The girls running about in their underwear, Farrah Fawcett and her big hair?”

“Dare to dream,” Lai replied. “Molestation will be your return.”

Writing Process: At a Loss. And Then What?

Posted on by

I am coming to the end of Anori, Draft #5, a process that has taken ten months. I have had some satisfying moments – tightening up narrative, deleting unnecessary characters and scenes, building the arc and all of that – but it feels almost pointless in the end.

I will be hiring an editor once again. I will see what advice is there to get this thing published. After all, it has been some eight years since I started. It was called The Ark, and it seemed so remarkable to me at that time. It feels more a cage now, with Dee and the others just screaming to get out.

Writing Process: The Damnable Story

Posted on by

You must create story moments where the body reacts to something on the page – EKG machine response.

EXIF_HDL_ID_1

It’s the modulation of distance that makes a story work, moving in and out.

Writing Process: Opening It Up

Posted on by

The key to writing is finding the way into it. It isn’t a question of discipline – although it is – nor Hemingway’s leaving something for the next day – although it is. The route needs to be found. The thing has to open up.

Otherwise, it is just copy and you’re selling jeans with freedom catchphrases – not that I’m knocking it if they’re giving out the pay check. The access point can be as easy as remembering what an ass I was for doing something awful. Not to be obtuse.

Collecting: Process of Living

Posted on by

Life is just collecting things. It starts with toys and then, later, other things like postcards, shells and cars.

The process evolves into a need for kids then memories and just dust in the end.

Drone Ambient: Writing Process

Posted on by

The thing about drone ambient music is not the sound itself, not the humming but what’s inside that, the permutations of the sound, the rhythms from the echoes, the ebbs and flows of that, and remembering, listening to it again.

Whether it’s Ekca Liena, Misleading Structures, Fripp & Eno or William Basinski, the message is always the same: it’s the sound within the sound, the fuel not for writing contrivances but for the more elemental thing.

Writing Sex

Posted on by

The feeling came into Dee, a distant tremor, hardly there, and then deep and she held it long, making it straight, more fully inside, her truth in this raw pleasure. She dug into the bull-man’s shoulders, pulled on his arms, incredibly, childishly on that.

She held on and then didn’t, succumbing, sliding off, her chin jutting into her chest, all of that streaming out of her, jerking her hips up, thinking if she stayed still, she might climb back into that perfectness again

That Awkward Topic of Self Abuse

Posted on by

I recently received this email from Jessica Howard:

Your wank was filmed using my application. I’m not going to explain in details how that occurred. I’m going to give you a tip – steer clear of questionable websites. Do not attempt to reach law-enforcement agencies, they will not be able to fix the situation. I am an alien. If you defy these requirements, I’m going to send your disgraceful vid to your buddies and loved ones, screwing up your public image for the rest of your life!

Rhythmic gymnast Jessica Howard

Within 48 h pay me for my silence, and I will destroy all dirty laundry. It’s useless to beseech me. It is not for me to criticize your predilection, even though it’s a sin in any religion.

I clearly don’t know Jessica Howard. Nor to even what she is referring. Perhaps it’s my inconsistent dedication to writing? My lack of focus in this blog? It’s all so confusing. Let me know if you receive this disgraceful vid, and I can go from there.

Scene Expunged: Writing Process

Posted on by

It’s hard easy to delete a scene that works. It can take a long time to accept. That’s why it’s called “killing the babies.” I liked this scene because it gave background to who Dee was before the novel and underscored her sense of isolation. I edited and rewrote it several times before finally realizing – and then accepting – that it just wasn’t needed.

She went back to her old club. It was an automatic thing. She gave the address to the cab driver and half expected the place to be closed. It wasn’t. She climbed three floors up, above the DJs and the stage to where the air ducts cast crucifix-like shadows against the ceiling and the giant holograms of naked dancers, and looked down at the scattered audience in the pink and green lights, the flow of heads and arms reflected in the plexiglass floor and walls, the girls, gorgeously brown, grazing their arms and breasts against the men who, clutching their drinks, leaned back and followed them up the stairs.

 “Elle.” A hand came from behind, brilliant blue nails clutching her wrist. “What the fuck?”

Dee couldn’t remember the woman’s name, just that they had worked together, been naked, had orgasmed in tandem.

“I haven’t seen you in fucking years.” Her skin sparkled with rainbow translucence, like an abalone shell, her lips dark red, her green eyes highlighted by painted glowing lines.

“Here I am.”

“I heard you were with Nico, right? Didn’t you go out to Iceland or something?”

“Greenland.”

“I saw what happened. Holy shit. I mean what the fuck, right?”

“I’ve been out there for more than a year.” Dee said the words for no reason; she just wanted to leave. “I’m this kickass biologist now.”

“I did a shoot in Turks and Caicos. You been there? That sand is so fucking…”

“You look like some perfect angel.” A bull of a man arrived, a tattoo of the buildings on his bicep, and she wanted nothing else. She needed his hardness, his arms and tendons, his need, his pelvis rotating like a machine.

The Mother of All Writing Advice

Posted on by

A story can’t be self on self. Avoid the Uber Voice. Seeing someone else through another’s eyes just might be the highest level of interiority.

Looking down a cold tunnel at a mother

Omniscient first person, that’s the thing. Whatever you decide, modern literary theory states that it’s all about what your mother says you didn’t write.