The Evolution of a Novel – “Swan Song”

December 27, 2012 at 7:53 pm (Books, Writing)
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Why do writers write? It is the fascination and obsession with the Word. Their connection, their sound, their emotional weight. We are story tellers and we tell our stories with words.

This is the story of “Swan Song”, my debut novel published by Deadly Niche Press. {The Kindle Edition is available at Amazon.com; the print version will be available after the first of the year.}

In 2007, I won a prize in the Adult Poetry Division of the Kansas Writer’s Association’s yearly contest. At the presentation and corresponding reading at Watermark Books in Wichita, KS, I talked with Storme Maynard who told me about a strange thing called NaNoWriMo. All you had to do was write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. No problem, right?

The stress of the thing was palpable. Writing poetry in Boston in the mid 1990′s was a thought-provoking, emotional, and at times intellectual process. But we took our time until we got it right. This thing was literary insanity. But I finished it; I completed a “book”, such as it was. However, looking over my effort in December was out of the question. The holidays were approaching and I didn’t want my sloppy 50,000 words to depress.

I did work on it. Many times through several years. Eventually I came up with a piece of neo-noir hardboiled fiction that still captures my attention and creates striking images in my mind. Keep in mind that it is still nothing more than a manuscript at this time.

That is until I met Dan Case of AWOC.com. He was a speaker at the KWA Scene Conference in 2012 and a panelist for Pitchapalooza, sponsored by The Book Doctors, David Henry Sterry and Arielle Eckstut. In a what-the-heck kind of moment I decided to pitch my Transgressive novel, Weekend Getaways, or Adventures in Contract Killing. I got an honorable mention for my pitch and some additional people looking in my direction, one of whom was Dan Case.

I ran into him at the OWFI Conference in May. We talked; he said he was interested and so was I. I sent him the manuscript for both. Knowing that the Transgressive piece might be a harder sell, he opted to start with “Swan Song” which has just been released as an e-book.

I am thrilled and pleased and know that the work has just begun. But consider the evolution: writing contest to casual conversation to online writing event to writer’s conference to pitch session to another writer’s conference…

There are those who say that NaNoWriMo is silly and it’s not really about the art and craft of writing. There are those who say that writing conferences are a venue for published novelists to garner attention. There are those who think that an e-book is somehow not a “real” book.

Whoever those people are, I do not agree with them.

5 Comments

It’s like a jigsaw puzzle…

June 16, 2011 at 8:52 pm (Writing)
Tags: , , , ,

I’ve been working on a police procedural entitled “The .9 mm Solution” from an idea inspired by discussions with my brother-in-law. He has some straight-forward ideas about law enforcement and the penal system. So, I formed them into an idea for NaNoWriMo in 2009. I’ve been working on various drafts since then.

I think I get it down to something workable and entertaining and figure it might be the traditional type piece that could secure an agent. During a KWA meeting last year, I read the first chapter in a small workshop. Gordon Kessler, one of the founders of KWA and the current president this year, made some comments causing me to revise that first chapter. I saw him again at the KWA Scene conference, passed on to him fifty pages (along with the revised first chapter) and waited.

THIS is why we need feedback. We CANNOT work in a vacuum.

I got back the binder at a KWA monthly meeting and when I got home I didn’t see any notes until about page 20 or so. “This is where the story starts.” I’ve always read that in blogs and in Writer’s Digest articles, etc. What you think is your beginning is not; it’s the prelude to your beginning. And love it as you might, you’ve got to chuck it. Start where the starting is good.

Along with that, I realized that I needed to change the focus and center of attention and restructure it completely.

So…

It’s like a jigsaw puzzle where you pull the pieces apart, keep what fits and find new pieces to fit the old pieces. As long as you still are in love with your story, the heart of it, the sense of it, then it makes sense to keep going.

I’m still looking for the new pieces. I’ll let you know when I find them.

Leave a Comment

A Desire to Write; A Need to Revise

May 18, 2011 at 9:46 am (Personal, Writing)
Tags: , ,

I can’t help it. I have an over-abundant and over-indulgent imagination. I look and see things and imagine and re-imagine them. New items are fodder for crime stories. Novels by favorite authors are jumping off points. Colors of one item coordinate with shapes of a completely different item. I want to create something all the time.

I almost feel like I’m in my twenties again.

Then, the guy who is about to turn forty-nine says “Hold on a minute! Take a good look at ALL of your files. The ones on the computer AND the old papers from twenty plus years ago.” And I start to have an argument with that guy, only because I hope he’ll cut me some slack and let me get around to creating new worlds and developing new characters to send down interesting roads.

But he wins. I look back at my blog entry and the paper I typed at the beginning of January with my 2011 Writing Goals. The Edit column has more entries than the Complete column. I had already stated to myself that this was going to be a year of perfecting the craft and not starting new projects.

But it’s hard in the same way that you are not supposed to eat a favorite item after starting a new diet. How can you possibly give up a favorite food simply to accomplish a healthy lifestyle goal? I realize that a fertile and creative mind does not have to “go to waste” on revision and editing. I realize you need as much if not more of your creative self but more formally balanced by your intellectual guiding forces.

And so, I turn back to “old friends” and become re-acquainted. The new friends will just have to wait.

4 Comments

Skating on Ice versus Swimming in the Lake

February 9, 2011 at 2:39 pm (Personal, self-publishing, Writing)
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Since 2007, there has been a flurry of writing activity for me.

I have participated in NaNoWriMo, that madcap literary dash to the finish, writing (scribing, transcribing, composing, etc.) 50,000 words on a “novel” within the month of November. And I have successfully completed this event in each of the last four years. I put it aside for the month of December and then begin the new year with a rewrite, editing, polish, etc. But not really.

After a profoundly interesting meeting of the Kansas Writer’s Association in May 2009, I realized many things that I did not know about networking and blogging and self-publishing with POD services, etc. So, I got business cards, started this blog, found two short novels of mine ripe for publication and set to the task of networking. But not really.

With my wife’s help, I reorganized the office, separated personal from writing, and got myself in a position to take care of household needs separate from literary ones. But not really.

Since 2007, I’ve been only touching the surface of these things, skating on a thin layer of ice, polishing the impressions while fearful of falling and losing ground. I should have been diving into the warmth of a lake in summer, splashing around, unafraid of getting wet or staying out too late.

I wrote recently of having lost notes regarding a novel I was still working on in first draft. It occurred to me that perhaps this was a wake up call to go slower, refocus the efforts on work that needs more attention. I need to take some pieces that are good but not great, interesting but not fascinating, entertaining but not must-read and flesh them out and bring them to a truer point of completion.

So, whereas my 2011 Writing Goals shows that I wanted to work on two new pieces, I am revising even that. My focus will be on three works (perhaps a fourth) that will undergo extreme scrutiny and finer revision. I will slow down the train of the agent search before I derail myself. I will place unwavering attention on the skill and the craft and the art.

I will finalize two poetry collection manuscripts for publication on Lulu only because, well, they’re poetry and the whole idea of Lulu for poetry reminds me of when everyone was putting out their work in chapbooks.

It’s winter time. we just had a snowstorm here in the Wichita, KS area and we got about 7-9 inches of snow. That’s the real world. As far as my writing is concerned, I’m going to go swimming in the lake for a while.

2 Comments

Paper vs. The Digital World

January 25, 2011 at 9:39 pm (Personal, Writing)
Tags: , ,

No, this is not going to be one of those stories about forgetting to back something up or losing something on the computer or the computer crashing. I’ve been through those stories before. As a matter of fact, it was less than six months ago when I thought I had lost significant personal information and wound up purchasing a 500 gb external hard drive.

I have learned how to become functional in this digital world, able to do what I need in order to keep up with the ever-changing technologies. I’ve learned how to adapt to the Digital Age through USB storage drives and blogging and Windows Movie Maker and Microsoft Office, etc.

What I need is a better storage and filing system for paper.

Over a year ago, I started a novel in a more literary vein. It was the story of a widower who takes a cross-country trip along the Lincoln Highway and reflects on his life and learns a few things as well. It was going to be an homage to the American Road trip and undying love. I had done a great deal of research on the Lincoln Highway as well as other scenic byways throughout the United States as a background for this couple who used to visit sections of the country by driving over fascinating roadways. I wrote in a blog entry or two about writing this non-crime piece, taking great care to provide detail and emotion and sensitivity. I was making some headway on it after not being able to proceed and getting feedback from Jennifer Neri, a wonderfully compassionate and sensitive writer from Canada whose blog I follow. I got down over 18,000 words.

I can’t find the paper. I can’t find the notes. And, unlike digital media, there is no IT person around that will be able to scour through my files, office, or even house to help me find them.

The notes, the papers, are either somewhere in the files/office/house in an inappropriate location or they have been accidentally incorporated into a pile that has since been relegated to a compactor or incinerator.

Now, I know enough about the story to proceed but not enough to finish without trying to replicate the sensibility of what I was attempting to achieve. And with other projects piling up, it is difficult to devote much time to sending out a search party.

I just find this all rather ironic. This is not a digital or technological issue. It is one relating to my own mental faculties. How can I back-up my brain?

3 Comments

Reflections on Resolutions

December 28, 2010 at 12:42 pm (Personal, self-publishing, Writing)
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It was about a year ago that I composed a document: 2010 Writing Goals. I had never been much for New Year’s resolutions relating to diet or lifestyle or anything, really. But by the end of last year, I had started blogging and had published a book “Kansas Two-Step” on lulu.com, had gotten rather quaint business cards from VistaPrint, and felt that in some small way I was making progress and wanted to continue to encourage my own growth as a writer.
After printing up this document, I taped it to a shelf above my computer so that I could simply look up and refresh my waning memory. Well, it’s a year later and I am taking account of my efforts.
EDIT
I wanted to work on editing four novels. I did a fifth and sixth draft of “The .9 MM Solution” and a fourth and fifth draft of “Swansong”. Both were NaNoWriMo efforts. I did not get started on “Weekend Getaways, or Adventures in Contract Killing” (my transgressive novel) or “The Stooges” (another NaNoWriMo effort).
COMPLETE
I wanted to complete a first draft on two recent efforts: “The Last Road” (a literary piece about a widower’s cross-country adventure) and “All Day Long I Biddy Biddy Bum” (another even darker transgressive piece). The only NEW writing efforts were “Professor thug” (this year’s NaNoWriMo) and “Unemployed and Dangerous: A Trilogy of Transgressive Novellas”. After being terminated from my job of thirteen years, I had a lot of understandable anger which I filtered into these works. EXTREMELY dark in nature, they are not something I want to present to my 80+ year old parents as an example of my efforts. However, they do stand on their own as strong, well-defined pieces.
ACCOMPLISH
Multiple things on this section. No luck yet with finding an agent although I gave a four-week exclusive to Jessica Regel of the Jean V Naggar Literary Agency. Even though that did not turn out the way I wanted, it was a very good step.
As for networking efforts, I got onto Facebook and actively sought out people with the additional repercussion of contact relatives that I either hadn’t talked to in years or had allowed my efforts to lapse. Bonus points for that.
I did get two more books onto Lulu: “Quick” and the aforementioned “Unemployed and Dangerous”. In doing so I continued learning formatting and cover art (thanking my wife/my editor for the photo on “Quick”).
I started initial research on web sites and my brother-in-law (a talented software engineer who also happened to inspire “The .9 mm Solution”) offered his assistance.
Not on the original list was attending Writer’s conferences but I did go to the KWA Scene Conference here in Wichita as well as a seminar by Gordon Kessler earlier in the year. I also learned how to make small movies on Windows Movie Maker. I’m working on a book trailer, just to develop my skills. In the meantime, I did a project for the family for Christmas that was highly entertaining, especially if you know my family.
And finally, there was blogging. I may not have presented as many articles as I desired but I did what time would allow. And I also avidly followed other writers whose efforts seem somewhat similar to mine: refreshing commentary on their lives as writers.
Jennifer Neri (http://jenniferneri.wordpress.com/), a writer from Canada who shared her experiences with motherhood over the past year and still had time to pass on significant motivational comments.
Lawrence Estrey (http://lawrenceez.wordpress.com/), a writer and photographer and IT kind of guy from north of London who writes psychological thrillers, takes very moving photos, and has impressive feedback regarding storage systems and photo editing software.
Ryan David Jahn (http://gunsandverbs.wordpress.com/), a crime writer from Los Angeles, whose novel “Acts of Violence” won the Crime Writer’s Association Dagger award and yet talks about day-to-day life and his impressions of the minutiae as though they should be considered more strongly than the greater events.
Teresa Frohock (http://frohock.wordpress.com/), a dark fantasy and horror writer who gleefully advised her readers of her representation by Weronika Janczuk of D4EO and then of her sale of her book “Miserere: An Autumn Tale” while those of us who read her blog gleefully cheered alongside her.
I wish I could say that I follow more blogs regularly but Time is a beast with wings hovering over my life as a husband and homeowner and employee.
Overall, I would say that I got through nearly half of my goals, some to differing degrees than others. It is not measured as SUCCESS/FAILURE or PASS/FAIL but rather as another chapter on a long road. At some point within the next couple of days I will create a new document and tape it to the shelf above me. And I will proceed and continue and persevere and think and create.
And write.

5 Comments

A NaNoWriMo Follow-Up: The Story of the Novel

December 2, 2010 at 9:41 pm (self-publishing, Writing)
Tags: , , , ,

A new job and a new schedule threw a curve ball into this year’s NaNoWriMo activity. But it was the same new job which actually inspired some of the characters in the story.
In my training class back in July/August, there was a unique man named Jeremi. He looked like a combination biker and/or gangster and yet spoke profoundly about a variety of subjects. He was also a writer, having done spoken word poetry in the past.
We had discussed general story lines, concepts mostly, and he presented the idea of a well grounded man who is inaccurately accused of a crime. Realizing he can’t escape the accusations, he becomes the subject of the accusation.
I turned the idea on its ear. I started with a gangster who works his way up and out and becomes a highly non-traditional, often confrontational college professor. And this is how “Professor Thug” was born.
The NaNoWriMo product was (as is typical for this event) of extremely poor quality. I knew this character could be a series character and yet I didn’t even have much of a plot in mind when I started on November 1. I muddled through and completed it. But I recognize that there is something there.
While writing it, I needed two other characters, the underlings, the young people to whom Professor Thug could pass on his own form of instruction. One character is his teaching assistant, a girl from New York City, tough as nails, but with issues. (I know; it all seems cliché now. But that IS what NaNoWriMo is about.) The character truly wanted to better herself on her own terms. Well, there was Christina, also from the training class. She was smart but had a lot of self-doubt about herself, not sure if she was going to get through training. She also admitted that she can party pretty well until she drinks whiskey. And then she’s a fighter.
The other character was a male, brought up in a well-to-do household but feeling as though he has missed something of life, actual real life, because he has not experienced the Mean Streets. He is well-versed at research and using his smart phone. Chris was a young man from training class who impressed me immediately. Self-effacing and yet able to project a great amount on intelligence though barely twenty years old.
I still work with these people. They are real and they live outside of the realm of any novel. But circumstances being what they were, they presented themselves at a time in my life when the freshness and newness of a situation yielded some very interesting creative opportunities.
As I have done prior, I plan on reworking this intently, perhaps self-publishing it on lulu.com, if only to present these individuals with a copy.
To that end, I am reminded of a t-shirt my wife got me for Christmas a couple of years ago. It read:
Careful or you’ll end up in my novel.

2 Comments

Looking for the Macguffin: The Final NaNoWriMo Update

November 24, 2010 at 12:06 pm (Personal, Writing)
Tags: , , , , , ,

This past Monday, I was sitting at 41,000+ words, trying to wrap up NaNoWriMo for the year. I knew how I wanted the story to end but I was at the point in the story where I need a plot element to get past the hurdle.
I need a Macguffin.
(Those of you familiar with Hitchcock know what I mean. Those that aren’t can always Google it.)
I had placed ideas for subplots earlier in the story but, being that it was NaNoWriMo, I never developed them and it was too late to bring them up now. that’s all for the editing WAY later. I kept thinking and trying to come up with something that sounded legitimate and would fit in without too much explanation.
I used the notorious “files”. They were something just hanging around the bad guys house, in his safe, or somewhere else undefinable. Despite the fact that he had taken great steps to avoid association with the other bad guys, he just happened to have them hanging around his house. In paper. Traceable.
WHATEVER!
The point is that instead of just sitting there at 41,000+ words, I continued trying to put together just a couple of hundred words to make enough sense to blaze through the last few thousand to get to the finish line.
All this, mind you, while my wife and I were enjoying two days off together BEFORE Thanksgiving, trying to decorate the house for the Christmas season (which included me putting up the lights), AND preparing the food to bring to our Thanksgiving dinners (as in plural, as in more to make).
Waking up at 5:45 am on Tuesday and this morning and writing until about 8:30 am brought me to the finish. Fourth year in a row having completed NaNoWriMo with perhaps the biggest load of crap in any of those years.
However, it will rest and rise (like the bread I am now baking) and be ready for MANY rewrites after the first of the year.
I want to give special thanks to two Wichita regional NaNo-ers, katismom77 and SusanPopejoy, beside being writing buddies on NaNo were also friends on Facebook. I don’t usually get to the write-ins because I don’t use a laptop and if I’ve got time to meet-and-greet then I have time to write. Writing is more important. These ladies were encouraging, motivational, and just a lot of fun to gab and jest with. They finished either late last week or earlier this week and they deserve the praise that any participant deserves for completion of a very difficult task.

2 Comments

NaNoWriMo 2010 – (Update #2)

November 9, 2010 at 12:01 pm (Personal, Writing)
Tags: , , ,

I got to a point where I was four days ahead of schedule and then I got a curve ball.
An internal position at work that I had applied for requested a presentation to be made and delivered by noon on Monday. I got the email on Friday. I work on Saturday and Sunday. Wow!
So, on Saturday I worked on the ideas for the presentation, worked out a script, thought of some photos I would need, and then came up with a game plan. My wife and I still had Happy Hour and dinner and then she shoved me off into the office.
I got the project done using Windows Movie Maker which I had only recently learned to use and put it aside for the evening.
Sunday night I made some revisions and did a final edit, answered the short questions and then emailed it off.
I went from four days ahead to 2 days ahead. I did a little bit of writing on Sunday night and then picked up on Monday. Now on my day off, beside the household stuff and the grocery shopping, I hope to get four or five days ahead again.
I love doing NaNoWriMo. I’ve completed it each of the last three years and have gone on to do revisions of the pieces (in some cases up to a sixth draft). But a good position at work…well, I know what the priority is.
I hope I will be successful with both things.

3 Comments

NaNoWriMo — 2010

November 1, 2010 at 10:06 pm (Writing)
Tags: , , , , ,

Well, let the games begin.  I’m sure that for the younger crowd, the games began just past midnight.

A brief reminder for those of you unacquainted with NaNoWriMo.  It stands for National Novel Writing Month.  It is an online event (more so than a “contest”) in which the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in the 30 days of the month of November.  I use it as a tool to actually force myself to sit down and write.  Not that I have a problem with writing or anything like that.  It is more the idea of integrating the writing of a novel within the framework of a busy time of year.

There is so much going on right now in my life and so much more because of the “holiday season”.  However, I have “won” this thing for each of the last three years.  In 2007, I wrote “Swansong”, a hard-boiled piece about a former disgraced Wichita police detective returning to the city five years later to find what, if anything happened to his kid brother.  I’m working on the sixth draft of that.  In 2008, I wrote “The Stooges”, an episodic dark comic crime caper about three losers deciding to commit a crime in order to make money, but first trying to figure out WHAT crime to commit.  In 2009, I honored my brother-in-law, Greg, by writing “The .9 mm Solution”, a police procedural involving FBI profilers.  I’m on my fifth draft of that.  (He got a nicely bound copy of the fourth draft.)

This year it’s “Professor Thug”, a crime fiction about a former gang member/convict turned college professor with a unique and unorthodox style who’s forced to return to some old haunts to investigate the murder of a former student.  The character is inspired by a current co-worker whose appearance belies his intelligence.  He has been a pleasure to know and converse with.

I have found two things about NaNoWriMo.  First, it is very motivational for me from the standpoint of developing a story and then forcing myself through an utterly horrendous first draft.  Eventually, it will become something.  But I can not be like Flaubert and casually write, searching for the perfect word.  At least not until I have 50,000 imperfect words to play with first.  The other thing is that I am amazed at how many people here in Wichita, KS are involved.  The large percentage of them are considerably younger than I am but that is a gratifying thought.  For whatever reason they are involved is not as important as their involvement itself.  That means creative people attempting to express themselves.

Tonight, 3756 words.  That puts me ahead of the day two schedule.  More updates to follow.

6 Comments

« Older entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 734 other followers