Only Half a Scene: Writing Process

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I wanted a scene that demonstrated the military might of The Anori Project as Dee and the others collected animal specimens from around the world. And so I had a squad of soldiers save the scientists in Libya:

There were lights on the horizon, vehicles, and then a sudden pressure in her head, like she had descended thousands of feet, and then it reverberated out and was in the ground, dust rising up. She felt her knees buckle as she slumped against the wall. The militiamen moved quickly past her and inside the house.

Lt. Graham heaved Dee up by the bicep and pressed his boot onto Jamal’s neck.

“What is this?” Dee demanded.

“Fence has been breached,” Graham told Dee. “This one has a crew out there looking for something more.”

Jamal tilted his head, searching the street past the SUVs. “Where is this fence?”

“Magnets.” Graham opened the door of the middle SUV and pushed Dee and Robi in. “Payload secured.”

Regrettably it comes across as trite and requires far more exposition to work which interferes with the pacing of everything else. So it’s been left on the cutting room floor.

The Goldilocks Frequency in The Writing Process

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“Thanks much” or “Much thanks“? I go back and forth between what Tony would say. I am never happy with either and continue the fruitless search through “Many thanks”, “So Much Thanks”, “Thanks As Always” or even “Kind of you”, until I end up back where I started. “Thanks much”.

Tony says things to get attention and pretends that he doesn’t. He mutters and stutters, his face forward to be listened to and then acts as if he doesn’t want anyone to hear. It’s a question of not overdoing that about Tony. Too much it’s caricature; not enough it’s obtuse. I need the Goldilocks frequency for this phrase.

The Cx Trilogy: The Book That Will Get Humanity Back On Track

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As crazed as it sounds, that my deep-down aim for The Cx Trilogy. I can feel like I am insane not because I am but because of the insanity to which I am subjected. And so it’s not a burden as a release knowing these things, getting them out of my head so that I can help us get on with it and make things as they should have been a long time ago.

Fallen Greek columns in Termessos, Turkey

Get one with what, you ask? Why, treating people like shit because they don’t have power. It’s that simple. And it’s something we should have figured out a while ago, the 9th century at least. (Fuck all those plague/dark age excuses.) Okay, maybe the 15th century. But the 21st?!? Come on! How many chances can we miss? Allowing Hitler on the scene and then Trump and all of the other fuckers in between? Huh? What? And now we think we are close to being on track for what? Acceptance? Understanding? For anything other than obliteration? That’s just dumb and weird.

Inflatable Christmas penguins at The Brooklyn Navy Yard

Anyway, the book, yes, that, getting humanity back on track. It’s actually about leaving this planet on an generational journey to a distant planet to start anew. And it’s got everything in it: sex, exotic cats, epic action and deep fucking thoughts. And I aim to have it out for you by the end of the year. (If we make it.)

The Thing About Writing

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The thing about writing is the fluidity of the act, getting the thoughts out, sharp and immediate. At the edge of that. Sacred & divine/Drunk & stupid. Between those lines.

Jet Rockwell orates by the fire

No plumbing of the depths. None of that. The story, just the story, simple and direct. Anything more is drivel. Pablum. A brouhaha.

Characters Are Life: Writing Process

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Characters must be drawn from life. I must experience them and the chaos they manifest, witness their actions and words and, more importantly, the fact that they think nothing of the consternation and astonishment they create. They live in their oblivion.

New York’s MTA is a dream place for characters.

Their reality is not an esoteric choice, a façade, but a stark awareness that they could come around the corner at any time and might even have a gun. I aim to do the thinking for them, to make sense of them through that process. And it is through that they enhance what I know about myself.

Pandemic Accomplishments: Eleven Months In

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A pandemic isn’t a bad thing for a writer – health assumed. The waiting and silence works well for honing character and narrative; at least that’s what I tell myself. And so, yes, I’ve done some writing, although not as much as I should have.

After a devastating experience with an editor, I am now halfway through a long, hard draft of Anori. Other projects – Baller, Wave That Flag & Mina – are simmering.

The blogging has been consistent not only in the number of posts (over 140) but in the content, finding focus on the writing process, especially my past writing attempts.

I’ve got new knees – and six months of PT under my belt along with some extra weight. (Is that an accomplishment?) I’ve read a number of books and seen many films of varying quality. And I got a job that will last until the summer.

The chilly yet picturesque setting of my present residence in Newport, Rhode Island.

Finally, I’ve reached Level 2564 of Fishdom, although that interest is waning at last.

Creating Character: Abstract to Concrete

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A primary antagonist in Anori is a know-it-all biologist who looks down on our leading woman, Dee, and yet is obsessed with fucking her. He was named Wolfgang in an early draft (drawing from a deep-seeded Nazi-derived prejudice) and was skeletal in design. Dee despised him from the outset, as was supposed to the reader, but it didn’t work because he was obtuse and one-dimensional.

Dee’s anger with Wolfgang was repetitive; the scenes were flat and dull. This monster wasn’t believable enough for the reader to react to his stark end. I needed someone more insipidly heinous, someone who seemed harmless but was dark matter through and through, someone like Tony*. (*Not his real name. Real name rhymes with tennis and begins with a D.)

I worked with Tony some years ago. He seemed harmless at first, self-deprecating, almost funny with his faux English accent. He looked like Ichabod Crane – bony face, odd features, fleck gathered at the corners of his mouth; if you didn’t enjoy his company, you at least felt sorry for him.

The Ichabod Crane I knew did not let them get away.

It took time to realize that he was a predator, that he lured isolated girls with his sad pseudo-Mensa charm, and then fastened himself on and dragged them in. No joke, he was a pedophile, through and through, and belonged in jail. The thing was how he disguised it, convinced others of the impossibility of such a thing.

That’s what I needed in this antagonist. And so that is who he became…with a fate the reader had better find fitting.

Character Development: Keeping It Real

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I blogged three days ago on the importance of a character being nebulous. I then watched Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things.

Handheld screenshot from I’m Thinking of Ending Things

While I’m fan of Kaufman’s work (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Anomalisa, et al) and admire a writer’s attempt to pry open the meaning of self, this film makes nebulous look adamantine. Characters swimming in vagaries of subconscious angst. All that. And…no.

A story can’t be all dreams and poetry and philosophy because there’s no place for the reader to hang their hat. Definable characters are needed. Without them, we’re nothing.

Pissed Off at Julie the Blogger

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I watched Julie & Julia last night – the film portrayal of the sassy New York gal who blogs on cooking Julia’s Child’s recipes – which made me depressed and irritated.

The premise of the blog is trite and gimmicky, and became so monstrously successful that it attracted hundreds of thousands of followers (NYT included), led to a book deal and then a the film which grossed $140 million. And that does irritate the hell out of me.

Lemur eating at The Bronx Zoo

I’ve blogged for eight years now (1,390 posts to date) and have achieved neither traction (120 views per day) nor phone calls from any media outlet.

It is true that I can meander and have only recently found my Julia (the writing process), but I have always been true and raw and given everything I can think of, including first-person accounts of Hurricane Sandy, the Covid Pandemic and my sad lost childhood.

Steve and Gary drinking stubbies at Ahmic Lake

It’s not that I want attention (not like Amy Adams anyway), but more that I thought there would be something more at this point, something that might give all of these posts some meaning beyond filling the void.

Developing Character: Writing Process

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Writing builds character. Or is it the other way around? The sad thing is that too many characters are caricatures that fulfil an odd addiction of an audience to do as predicted, to make everyone satisfied in knowing what is done next.

Author’s father burning brush on Ahmic Lake

The core of real character is outside the details and patterns we project. Characters are inconsistent. They must be. They must be what is not expected. (And then not.) That is how we behave, what we need to understand our traumatized self.

Author with construction hat and gas tank at Ahmic Lake

As predictable as we might think people are, we aren’t. And if we are, that is death. A character needs to be nebulous. It is in that that a story spirals light.