my bad side is done. And I’ve started something new. It’s to be the first in a trilogy on leaving this planet. I have always been enamored of science fiction, and yet, have been, for the most part, disappointed by the story elements. There’s a good idea to start – a journey to the centre of the earth, to the sun, a dystopia, a mirror world, robots becoming human – but it drifts into fill-in-the-blank characters, story arcs and trite resolutions. Is this because the cosmos are beyond our conception? Or is it because science fiction writing tends towards the spectacle? One thing is certain: I’m out of my element. I’ve started my research with the Hubble Space Book and The Definitive Guide To The Universe, reading Stephen Hawking and Brian Greene and consulting my brother, who can translate anything of the universe, all of the neutrinos and dark energy for someone like me. One thing I know: Deirdre (from my bad side) will be the voice.
The destination is as of yet unknown…and it’s time to figure out what’s beyond.
I’ve come to the end. My novel, My Bad Side is done. Ending is hard. I’ve worked toward this moment for over four years. I’ve read through some 40 books for research – on everything from zoos and fire fighters to sex work and Newfoundland. And I’ve written lots of words – over160,000 – some of them too often (suddenly, everything, turned) and edited those down through four drafts to 99,065. And here I am, not as exhilarated as I would have liked – when is it ever like that? It’s almost the opposite actually, like I don’t want to be at this point, finished, like it’s a death. I have the ending down to one of three final scenes: a walk with Apollo, a night of music or an ocean swim. I have vacillated between each. Each has something, some essence, but then I wonder if it is too much. Is it melodramatic or too damn trite? Then again, I can’t avoid the guts of moment – like The Beatles did in their final album Abbey Road, ending not with The End, but with the lousiest Beatles song ever recorded, Her Majesty’s. It’s been a struggle, all of these endings in the mix, and then wondering if there might be another. I’ve considered just throwing it all away and using the Debbie Does Dallas finale where all the characters gather naked and say in chorus, ‘If it feels good, do it!’ Something like that. Or I could go with the ocean swim. It’s a tough call to make.
The editing process can be grueling. You have to be cruel to yourself, almost masochistic. You have to cut, cut, cut! But first you need a sentence: I couldn’t go any farther and trying to do just that, forgetting which way to turn, thinking of nothing like that, drunk, not what I am in my head, fat in my stupid genius, a dreamed ecstasy with gilded mirrors, neon blue, stars on my hips and in my eyes, gold lines along the ceiling, wisteria, my toes out of their straps, my brilliant life.Well, yes, I must admit that does need a bit of an edit: I couldn’t go any farther and, forgetting which way to turn, thinking of nothing, drunk, I was lost in my head, a stupid genius, thinking of gilded mirrors, neon blue, stars on my hips and in my eyes, gold lines along the ceiling, wisteria, all of it, my brilliant life. (It’s a start.) I couldn’t go any farther, drunk and, forgot which way to turn. I realized I was lost. I was stuck in my head, ecstasy in my head, gilded mirrors, neon blue, stars in my eyes, wisteria, all of it whirling. (Have I lost it already?)I couldn’t go any farther. I was drunk. There were gilded mirrors, neon blue, stars, wisteria, all of it whirling. (Is that what I meant?)I was drunk. Neon stars and wisteria spun around me. (Just that?)I was drunk. (No more?)Drunk. (Uh-oh.) And then…a black hole. Not even that. And I have to start again: I saw the wisteria...
Today was a good writing day. I was very fortunate to suddenly -yes!- getting immersed. Most important was a transition where the emotional weight of one chapter empowered the next, a chapter where there was next to no set up, almost entirely dependent on dialogue, and yet, the feeling had been set. I was sad for this poor girl…and I was almost happy about that.
I don’t know if this is such a great blog, but there is only so much you can say about a good writing day without sounding like an ass. And so I will fill it out by adding pictures of three interesting animals, all of which are briefly mentioned in the book:
The time has almost come to get an agent. The book needs to be pitched…
Crystal and Dee Sinclair started life as a news story.
SACRAMENTO, June16, 1978 Two young girls – one an infant of 14 months – were found alive on Wednesday afternoon, beside their recently deceased mother, Dorothy Keynes, 33. Ms. Keynes was undergoing treatment for depression after the father of the children, Mr. Raymond Sinclair, was killed in alcohol-related single-car traffic accident on Sunday, May 4.
Lillian Murton of Sacramento Social Services made the discovery on a monthly wellness visit. Neighbors along the 7400 block of 21st Avenue expressed outrage that Social Services had not been to the home in the past week.
The elder sibling, 3 years of age, is believed to have fed both herself and her infant sister in the days following their mother’s death. The children are currently being treated for dehydration at U C Davis Children’s Hospital; their names have been withheld. Mrs. James Keynes of Pittsburgh, the mother of the deceased, has filed for adoption of the children.
My Bad Side begins many years on. Crystal, now 27, defiant, knows that her life was borne of tragedy and accepts that with a drink. I’ll tell you what everyone is like. Ever think about torture? Ever think about what that is? People torturing others, I mean, people actually willing to literally torture another person, strap someone down and torture, tear off their fucking fingernails, put wire through their flesh, burn their fucking eyes out, what the fuck else? These people will watch, just watch, another person freak out and scream. And for what? Because they fucking can. Because they can get away with it. That’s who we are. That’s what this is about. We’re fucked. We’re so completely and entirely fucked. (201)
Dee, desired and adored, was too young to remember, and yet the memory persists. She chases after it like a childhood dream, desperate for contact and pushing everyone away. I had a tightness creeping inside. It wasn’t bad. It was more like almost remembering something, not what I had been told; it was more of a biological thing, molecular. It was spinning in my head. Words wouldn’t go together; the sounds were broken apart. I wanted this. I wanted to move into this, whole, that glacial wall of light, the sex, in and out in one pristine act. It was my promise. (157)
The sisters try to understand each other, but they don’t know how to forgive and feast on their addictions instead.
The Bad Side film short was shot last night, everything in 5 hours. Mike Deminico (Director) and Adam Holz (DOP) – and Joe Schiffer (AD) at the start – worked through the shot list like machines – some 50 shots in all – an impressive feat indeed.
Adam and Mike shoot opening scene
Gardiner Comfort (Derek) and Megan Hill (Dee) worked through the scene again and again,delivered on all of the fighting and yelling, through every shot – mediums, close-ups, point of views – with a professional focus, getting closer and closer to that feeling of loss and anger. Biba struggled in her role as a badly wounded serval, wanting to either get up or go to sleep, whichever wasn’t needed. Micaela Martegani graciously took on the role of the doorman (woman) at the last minute. She was precise in her delivery and the jacket was a perfect fit. (Thanks, David.) I helped too. I drove. It was a nice car, a Mercedes C250 RWD, but the traffic was terrible – due to the on-going blackout and cleanup efforts in downtown Manhattan – and I missed the final set of shots. It was an interesting experience for me in the end, allowing others to take over my ideas, seeing the characters brought out, the framing choices made. It was not exactly as I envisioned it, but there was a moment listening to a scene, Dee yelling, that it felt like something really had come to life. Post-production is next.
We just had the first rehearsal for our short film, Dee, based on the novel, My Bad Side. The actors are excellent. Megan Hill is Dee with Gardiner Comfort is Derek, while David DiGregorio will play the doorman. Biba decided not to rehearse for her role of Apollo.
Ready for her close up
Megan and Gardiner work very well together; it is something to see actors give life to characters, not exactly what you anticipated and something more as well. Mike Deminico directs the production with Adam Holz on camera. There will be a lot of handheld work and a lot of movement. It might be black and white; that hasn’t been decided. But there will be close ups of high heels on the pavement and a struggle for the knife.
Dee towers over Derek
The shoot is on Wednesday. It doesn’t seem real. I wonder if I should have left Dee alone on the page.
I’m still in limbo, still waiting to get back at the book, another week to go, maybe more, but I have to admit that I have slipped in and messed around, adding details, taking them out, putting them back in.
One scene I have spent the last few days over-writing is the night of Dee’s Grad Cruise. It’s a background moment, something I hadn’t fleshed out previously, and now in which I’ve added a classmate and dialogue to the counselor. She’s alone on the deck and then joined by a classmate who she doesn’t know. He gives her a cigarette, and the supervising counselor shows up.
“Your cigarette.”
“I thought we were allowed.”
“You thought wrong.” He looked back, almost like he was smiling; he wasn’t.
This last line is what I’m going back and forth with at the moment. I’ve tried each of the following:
He stared back, like he was smiling, but he wasn’t.
He glared back, close to smiling, although he wasn’t.
He waited, almost smiling; he wasn’t.
…and a few variations in between. I keep going back to the first because it’s neutral and still expressive. I don’t know. I know I should just leave it alone. And I will…very soon.
There are the good days…And there are the bad…Indeed it is often the bad that help the most. They make you question the work. You have to stop and think. Who is she? Is this worth anything? What the hell is the point?And then you think of something. Anything. Her hand is broken. She’s scared. She loves Jabberjaw. You think a little more and work on that. Just her finger is broken. She’s scared of her past. She wasn’t allowed to watch Jabberjaw. Whatever it is, that thing is a piece to the next. And you continue on, one step at a time, and maybe go back, because back can be forward too, whatever comes next.Or you don’t…and start something else.
Integrity is a catch word in the creative business. Whatever the vision, the aim, no matter what, we know that we must keep our integrity intact. We can’t allow the corporate world to debase and pervert our dreams. We cannot compromise ourselves for money. …unless of course that’s what we want to do.
I had a dream. There was a major science fiction film in the works. It involved eight worlds that were interconnected…that was about all they had. But the budget was big, a mega-monster, and somehow I had an inside track on writing the script. I was suddenly willing to do anything to get it. I offered to just give them my novel My Bad Side immediately, the book I’ve been working on for over four years, the book that defines my vision, and they hadn’t even asked for it. “It’s yours! Take it!” Just like that…just so I could maybe write a draft of this giant sell-out thing.
I woke up doubly disappointed. Mainly it was because I had been so willing to sell out…but more than that, it was the sad fact that there was no such film….which got me to thinking..
“It’s like this. There are eight worlds, and they’re all interconnected…”
And I’ve started something new. It’s to be the first in a trilogy on leaving this planet. I have always been enamored of science fiction, and yet, have been, for the most part, disappointed by the story elements. There’s a good idea to start – a journey to the centre of the earth, to the sun, a dystopia, a mirror world, robots becoming human – but it drifts into fill-in-the-blank characters, story arcs and trite resolutions. Is this because the cosmos are beyond our conception? Or is it because science fiction writing tends towards the spectacle? 
One thing is certain: I’m out of my element. I’ve started my research with the Hubble Space Book and The Definitive Guide To The Universe, reading Stephen Hawking and Brian Greene and consulting my brother, who can translate anything of the universe, all of the neutrinos and dark energy for someone like me. One thing I know: Deirdre (from my bad side) will be the voice. 
