Tag Archives: my bad side

Naming names: Three Ways to Name a Character

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Whatever the genesis, naming a character can be a challenge. Here are three common methods:

1. The name is symbolic of an attribute. Jason Quati (from The Sacred Whore) is a derivation of the word quat, meaning small pustule. (Yes, he’s a bad person.) The Adamantine sisters (from Sister Prometheus) get their surname from the hardest of substances, the rock to which Prometheus was affixed according to Greek mythology. Adamantine_ore

2. The name is a random discovery. I found a picture of a man named “Gerbi”  (from The Life and Home of Gerbi Norberg) in my father’s old files, who was a banker with whom my father worked in the 1950s. IMAG00013. The name evolves as the book is written. The main character in my bad side was originally named Sunshine (ugh) and then Francesca, Elle, Ellen, and finally Dee which actually changed ro Deirdre halfway through the book…because that was her name.outof fog

Snowballs in New York City

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IMAG2412Excerpt from My Bad Side: Everything was brittle and cracking. I beat my arms across my body, kicking my legs to get warm, and then lay there, as cold as before, worse, breathing fog. I closed my eyes. It was the same, awful and cold.

IMAG2408

I was cold and dark in my head. My cheeks hurt. My breath was stuck. My sleeping bag was twisted and stunk of industrial plastic. I couldn’t move my fingers. I felt for my
heart and couldn’t feel that and then it wasn’t right, half beating and then
too many in a row and then none at all.

Subway Chronicle III: “My Bad Side”

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Subway scenes from My Bad Side:

I half followed him across Union Square and took the 4 Train. I found an empty car. There was a homeless woman sleeping at the end, her head cushioned on a blanket against the window. I wondered if she was really asleep. I wondered if she ever slept. I sat and stared and missed my stop. I was going to get off, but I didn’t. I went to the end of the line instead.IMAG2406

“You ever think about throwing yourself in front of the train? I mean more like rolling along the front of it like a dance move or Cirque de Soleil thing. You spin up kind of, hands out like a spinning top, you know, with that old thick wire. And then it gets bad. You hit the wall. Not even that. You just fall down and the train cuts off your legs or something like that.”IMAG2403

 

Subway Chronicle I: Disappointment

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Disappointment is a simple word. It is a big word too. It is the signpost marking so many turns.IMAG2361

Mostly I am disappointed in me, but I find it too much in others as well, those I know, pass in the streets, in the news and everywhere else. Today, I was on the 6 train northbound, and a young woman sat down, crazily smiling. I thought she had just remembered something funny, seen somebody, something like that, but her smile went on and on. She kept smiling crazily as she put on her chapstick.

A homeless man got on the train at Bleecker Street and made his appeal. “Anything you can spare, even a penny, whatever you can give helps us provide those in need with a sandwich or a bowl of soup.” He held up a laminated badge. Most everyone ignored him except the crazily smiling woman, who gave him a dollar. He bowed to her for that. “God bless you. I hope you get safely to your destination.” He made the rounds. No one else contributed. He bowed to the crazily smiling woman again. “God bless you. I hope you get safely to your destination.” I was disappointed in him making such a point of her dollar, weirdly damning the rest of us for not coughing up the money. (I doubted the soup story.) And I was disappointed in her for encouraging him to do it again – and take his “god-bless-your-trip” smiling still. Phone 005But in the end, when they both had gone and it was just me and all the other silent, staring people, I was disappointed in myself. I had done nothing and, worse, had stood stupidly in judgment of a smiling woman giving a dollar to a homeless guy. Ugh.

It’s Time for Sci-Fi.

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my bad side is done. serval and girlAnd 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? hubbleOne 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. barbarella

The destination is as of yet unknown…and it’s time to figure out what’s beyond.

Looking for The End

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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.

Editing to nothing

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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...

Good Writing Day

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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:

Caracal, Kalahari Desert

Red-footed Booby, Genovese Island

Babirusa, Sulawesi

My Bad Side – The Pitch

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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.

Bad Side Movie – The Shoot

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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.