Category: writing

National Book Critics Circle Awards Nominees

I was pleased to see the Vulture headline for the NBCCAs in my inbox:

Michael Chabon and Zadie Smith Are Among the Finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Awards

Great, I enjoy their writing. But then I read the list and was dismayed that they’d not mentioned several favorites in their headline. What, no love to Louise Erdrich for ‘LaRosa’? Or Jane Mayer for ‘Dark Money’? A few headlines mentioned Ann Pratchett but I saw no mention of the excellent Mayer and Erdrich. Then, scanning the list, I saw that Margaret Atwood was winning the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award. That’s marvelous, as she remains a lifelong favorite for me, but again, she’s not in the headlines.

It’s an excellent list of nominees. I need to read more books.

 

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The Now

“What is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain, I do not know. … My soul yearns to know this most entangled enigma.”

I hear you, Augustine.

Writing science fiction that involves thinking about now, the past and present, and the various theories attempting to unify and explain everything, I ended up standing my thoughts on their head: instead of believing the past exists and the future is the potential outgrowth of the past, only now exists. We create now as it happens; without us to establish order to existence and reality, there isn’t any existence and reality, except that which we know now.

Yet, in creating now, we begin creating echoes of now that drift toward the past, creating a past. We believe, therefore, it was, ha-ha. As we conceive of structure to explain what’s going on, we’re creating what’s going on, establishing it as something more substantial, as it were with the laws and rules that we believe to be immutable. As others theorize, it’s our limitations and practices that actually establishes our expectation of how time flows, and causality paradoxes.

Yes, I know, this smacks of Sartre’s POV regarding essence and existence and others’ existentialist thinking. I get a kick out of running it through my mind’s treadmills, taking it back to its ultimate point: in the beginning, there was one. The one thought of others, and the others came to be in the moment called now, and that first one was called God.

God never liked the name God, and used multiple other names as he, she, and it did the same thing with other races, species, places, times and realities, becoming the first each time, and then creating a new now from which others created a past. It was natural he/she/it would become associated with the Trickster and the Mischief Maker.

Of course, just like the Big Bang Theory of how our Universe came to be leaves us wondering, what was there before the Big Bang, we always ask, what was there before the one called God?

He/she/it always answered, “I was always energy. Then, I thought, I think, therefore I am.” Others claimed they thought of it first, and phrased it a little differently. God knew better but wasn’t worried about gaining credit. He/she/it knew that fame was as fleeting as now, as certain as the past, and as secure as the future. And yet, he/she/it knew it was a fragile response, because if he/she/it was energy back then, that’s still something, and if he/she/it is right about being the first, then where did that energy originate from which he/she/it came to be?

Ah, there’s the rub. He/she/it likes to think of themself as a nested existence, beginning with nothing, and conceiving of themself as the first particle and then doubling up until he/she/it achieved sufficient energy to perceive themself, but he/she/it stews over such an answer as much as Augustine stewed over defining time.

All this thinking about physics and now isn’t new; others have come up with various structures of a Now Hypothesis, and are attempting to prove their hypothesis. For me, it’s all just a nice little fun diversion from the serious business of novel writing.

That’s all, for now.

 

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I Will Do Better

I’d been reading articles on success  by Nichole McGhie at The Excited Writer, and how success is defined by Lisa Kron at Writer Unboxed, along with posts about believing in myself and being great, both by Jay Colby.

I was intimidated about trying to be great. I am intimidated about trying to be great. Who am I, to dare to think I can be great? Hell, I’m intimidated about trying to be mediocre.

I used to facilitate strategic planning sessions for U.S. Air Force units. The steps were about defining how the units viewed themselves and what they wanted to achieve. The mission was who they were and why they existed; the vision is who they wanted to be, which would be gained through their accomplishments. Goals were established and plans put into action.

Likewise, I used to write and conduct performance reports. While I’m unimpressed with the standard performance report processes and mechanisms the USAF and many corporations use because they’re rich with folly, the best part of the process for me was asking myself and my people, “What do you really to do? What do you really want to be? Who do you really want to be?”

This worked well. My teams and the individuals were stronger for the effort. The visions provided structure and discipline.

I did the same for myself for my writing endeavors. Such a vision is a powerful, sustaining force. When you’re tired, depressed, frustrated or bitter, a vision of what you’re pursuing is a magnificent catalyst for taking a deep breath, mining out some new source of energy and determination and pressing on regardless.

It’s done wonders for me. I write consistently and patiently, defining and re-defining my process as I learn. I’m pleased with myself as a writer.

I’m not pleased with myself with the business aspect of writing. As I’ve noted before, I had a vision, write a novel. Done, done, and done again and again and again. But guess what? As writers, editors, and publishers all know, writing a novel is the beginning. So while my vision was beautiful for being a writer and writer, it was not significantly developed for being a successful published writer.

I was thinking of all of this today. Using Jay Colby’s questions in his post on greatness as a starting point, I decided I would treat myself to an off-site and set aside a large part of a day to defining my vision for being a successful published writer. Along the way of thinking and deciding this, I considered my meager, weak efforts so far. They’re frankly embarrassing and depressing, yielding the results you’d expect from such half-assed mediocre work. That’ when the voice in me said, “I will do better.”

I know that voice; it’s my inner voice of determination. It’s not a wheedling, apologetic voice used while called on the carpet and groveling. It’s not a voice employed to mollify another, nor a voice of regret when I’ve been caught doing something another doesn’t like. This is the voice of one who has been down, recognized he’s down, and decided that he’s fucking tired of being down. I know this, because I’ve heard this voice before, several times in my life. Each time, though, it took a descent into a morass of doubt, self-pity and self-flagellation for me to speak and hear the voice. The difference this time is that I only usually answered with that voice only after others told me I had the potential to do more and be more; this time, I’m telling myself.

“I will do better.”

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Why I Write

I’ve probably written why I write before, but it’s that time of year again. It seems to be some alignment of energy that is driving me to self-examination about who I am, what the hell I’m doing, and why.

In thinking about writing and writing about writing, I’ve developed greater insights into the complex dynamics of why I write. I’m still just descending from the iceberg’s tip, however. But writing helps me understand why I write. Posting about it gives others the opportunity to provide me feedback and insights, and they often help.

I write to understand what I’m thinking. That holds true through dreams, essays, business cases, white papers, theme papers, fiction, whatever you want to name, throughout my life. My thinking is fast and chaotic, like torrents of fast-moving water coming off of mountains of melting snow. Writing adds order and structure.

I write because I’m arrogant and love to read. Once upon a time, I read some mediocre science-fiction and fantasy, and scoffed, “Hah! I can write better than that.” I’m still trying to prove that I was right about that. But I also write because I admire the writers and their works that I’ve read, the people who grant insights into history, society, personal lives, technology, dreams, who imagine what else might happen, or could have happened. I envy them. I want to be like them.

Writing is much more challenging for me than it appears on the outside. That’s true of many activities, right? It depends upon where you want your activities to take you. I want my activities to take me to a place where others enjoy my writing as much as I do. But to get to that level takes discipline and effort in multiple areas. It takes an application of time, thought and energy.

Which is another reason for why I write: it’s a challenge and a pleasure. I’m a creative person. Writing provides an outlet and structure for my creativity. My science, engineering and observations may be wrong, but it’s logically consistent in my writing world. It is because I enjoy exercising my intelligence to come up with logical, consistent solutions.

Of course, the danger is that I’m writing in solitude. I’m in the cave, attempting to describe the world from the shadows on the walls cast by the fire burning behind me. I’m limited in what I see and comprehend, and I can’t know what I’ve done wrong until I let others see it. But I’m too fragile to permit easy access.

My writing activity is also addictive. My wife, family, friends and acquaintances appreciate that I’m an aspiring writer, and respect the time and rituals I’ve developed to write and pursue my dreams. The writing when it goes well, as it often does, boosts my self-image, as does the feedback I receive not just for what I’ve written, but for my dedication in trying to write.

Tangibly, writing becomes tremendously rewarding, especially fiction writing. There is nothing more satisfying to me than trying to understand, why the fuck did that happen and what the fuck comes next in the piece of fiction I’m writing, and then being able to conceive and write of those answers and end up with completed scenes, chapters and books. These endeavors deliver such a high when it all works out, and I sit back and congratulate myself for accomplishing something.

And that’s why I write, too. Because this is a complicated world where masses of people struggle and suffer in silence. Writing allows me to be someone more unique, someone who is managing to do something to help me rise above the morass of the common and ordinary. It gives me direction and purpose.

And that’s why I write, at least here, today, now. Perhaps someday I’ll manage to see more of the iceberg.

When I do, I’ll be sure to write about it.

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Tough, Exhausting, Rewarding

It was a breakthrough day of writing like crazy. Don’t want to stop, but must. My Fitbit is buzzing, “Hey, move.” The coffee is long gone. Even the cup is gone. Lindsey came by thirty minutes ago, saw it was empty, and offered to take it for me.

Arriving at this writing moment today had required a lot of preparatory thinking about what was happening, and why. Then, I had to assume an alien’s thinking. He’d been mostly like a Human with some telepathic links with those of his own species and race. But now, his breakthrough had arrived. It challenged me to be him and experience his thinking and behavior as my own.

I guess this is character writing’s version of character acting.

It’s been tough, exhausting, rewarding, with a brutal beauty to the process and result. I want to write on but it’s been hours here, over three hours, I realize, looking at the time. I want to go on, but I remember something I once read about leaving more to write, because it’s easier to pick up that thread and continue.

So I’ll stop now. I’m going to try to take a walk but I feel taxed from writing like crazy, and as a side issue, I’m hungry, and I haven’t eaten yet, today. So, fini.

For now.

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I Do Not Explain

I think every writer wrestles with the balance of how much to share. Editors and alpha writers can help with the insights but while the process is ongoing, you’re mostly on your own.

I do not explain the complicated Travail social structure. I do not share Travail Mavarish Seth Ted’s vision, nor the visions of Seth Zed and Seth Mee decas later. I don’t explain decas, stellavel, vyhlla, vyhllaminiums, vyllasethin, or vhyllasetha. I don’t tell what a masq is, nor how they came to be worn. I don’t explain the history of Concentrates. You need to learn these things from the context. Some of that is too ingrained in the characters’ ways to ever be explained. It would be like Humans explaining how and why we’ve come to brush our teeth and the history of the tooth brush.

I don’t explain the involved history between the Sabards, Travail, Monad, Humans and Profemie, and the deeper history of the Travail Exnila and Travail Englis, Humans, Profemie and Monad. I know that history. I’ve thought about it a lot and I’ve written a great deal in the novel bible and other documents. I tell much more about the Wrinkle and its existence in the novel, and why Pram made the choice to be a Colossus, and I tell about his starship, the Pentagon. I guess I’m fond of writing about the starships.

I think about all this frequently in between beginning scenes. Should I tell more? If so, how do I tell it without becoming historian, reporting on these linkages? I think about ‘Lord of the Rings’, Asimov’s Foundation series, and Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’, Michener’s sprawling novels, television shows such as ‘The Expanse’, ‘The Colony’, ‘Dark Matters’ and ‘Stranger Things’, and older shows like ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Firefly’. Those are just the apex material of my thinking pyramid as I write this novel. Each character, era, society and culture maintains its histories. The connections weave through my head and form a substantial fabric, but how much should be shared with the reader?

I pause now to explain this because I write to learn what I think, and to confess and cleanse my writing soul. I confess because I hit the reader with these terms within the novel’s first two paragraphs. Grab on, hold on, if you can. I admit, I like writing like this. To steal one of James Tiptree, Jr’s short story titles to express my approach, it’s the only neat thing to do.

My confession is over. Half of my mocha remains. And look: the coffee shop has emptied. The staff’s voices echo across the space. The rain has stopped and sunshine is visible. It looks like it could be a pleasant walk today.

That’s for later. Time to return to writing like crazy, at least one more time.

 

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Hello, Writers

Starting today with a visualizing exercise. WYSIWYG.

Visualize yourself writing. Completing the book.

See the finished book. See it on your desk, in your hand, and for sale online, and in book stores, on end cap displays, and tables. See it in the library.

Notice it in people’s hands as they go to their gates for flights. See it in others’ hands as they’re reading in the park and at the coffee shop. Hear it mentioned in conversations and discover it in reviews.

How far do you want to go with this? Detail your vision. Make it a rope that carries you through each session and day, through the months of processing and developing and into the sales and marketing arena. See it all the way through. Create it as your vision and feed your determination.

Close your eyes. Spread your eyes wide. Reach out and put your arms around a star.

Don’t let circumstances stop or distract you. Believe in yourself and keep going.

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The Magellan

One of my characters surprised me by bringing up the Magellan. I didn’t know he was aware of it. I thought the characters, stories and ideas were all kept segregated in my upstairs.

The Magellan is ‘conceived’ three hundred years from now. It existed in minds before then, though. It was only three hundred years from now that the impetus develops to create the necessary consortium of resources required for the ambitious projects. In my future worlds, greed, corporatism, and nationalism, along with war and disaster keep Humans from exploring space outside of a few Moon and Mars settlements.

A generational biosphere designed to explore beyond our solar system, Magellan is constructed in space. Part of its construction, equipment and plans is to send ships back to Earth every twenty-five years to bring materials and people back. But all trips are planned as a one way trip.

I thought of the Magellan and its mission a decade ago. As part of its loose story line, it went out there and all went well for about fifty years. Then there was no more, and it was mostly forgotten in the way that efforts are forgotten and yet remain part of history. That’s why I was surprised that one character suggests, “What if we encounter the Magellan or one of its return ships?”

Employing Mom’s tactics from my youth, I told the character I’d think about it.

I don’t know if he knows what that means.

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Work Habits

Here we are, the six of us: writers. Meet Michael the Original and Michaels Two through Six. None want to be called a number, usually channeling Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band when that’s attempted. (“I’m not a number, I’m not a number, damn it, I’m a man.”)

Each writer has their piece to write. We’re seated around a large, round table. Each has their own space and quad-shot mochas. Each is on a computer and has their files open.

One is copy-editing the novel to date. The Original – that would be me – is doing the hard thinking to bring these drunkenly rambunctious stories together. The next four are working on the different storylines and scenes for Pram, Forus Ker, Brett, Philea, Richard, Kimi and Handley, onboard the Faux Mo, Pentagon, River Styx, and Wrinkle, on Willow Glen and the escape pod, in the stasis pod, and in the past, present and future, dealing with the Monad, Sabards, Humans and Travail Seth…and each other…. There are battles, revelations, duplicity, treachery and betrayal.

It’s a lot of work for the six of us.

Unfortunately, there is only me. Having the six wouldn’t be sufficient, either. I would need more, a committee of me to write and edit. Each story and its main character is drumming, “Write my story,” into me. I write a few lines, paragraphs, and then jump into another, tediously advancing on all fronts, advancing, but not anywhere near the desired pace. The process reminds me of a class I took decades ago, in 1988 or 1989.

I was stationed in Germany. Offered by the University of Maryland, the class was four days long, two weekends, eight hours each day. The subject was French literature. Four authors were being studied. Among them was Honore de Balzac.

Balzac was said to write fifteen hours a day. The claim presented to me in that class is that he wrote with a quill, standing up, sucking down cups of coffee. He was said to be always writing and created voluminous manuscripts, often with characters straying from one story to another, and frequently revised. How did he do it, I wondered then.

How did he do it, I wonder now.

But then I figure, man, if good ol’ Honore could write and edit so much on his own, I can as well.

Just give me more damn coffee.

Here we go: time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

 

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Best Writing Movies

I’ve been thinking about the writing process once again, specifically my writing process.

Catching a piece of ‘Mike & Molly’ triggered the thinking. Molly, as a teacher, decides to write, and quickly and seemingly easily writes a book, finds a publisher, gets it published and so on. Although I know from other glimpses of the show that she struggled at times, the sitcom’s presentation of writing effort and success is the sort of sequence that makes me growl and pour a fresh glass of wine to guzzle my irritation. This is the sort of story-telling that makes people say, “I’ve always wanted to write a novel,” the sort of avenue of writing that makes other people ask, “Are you published yet?” Because it is just that fucking easy.

Everyone can present their own movies about writers and why they like them. I liked these movies because of their focus on writers and their processes, and the struggles they encounter while trying to write. These movies present the sense of battle that I feel I endure on frequent days, a sense of battle imposed by the tensions of living, struggling to write, coping with low self-esteem and pursuing a prize in isolation, all somehow with the sense and understanding that no matter what I write or achieve, I’ll probably never be happy with it.

‘Adaptation’. Number one, I’m a Charlie Kaufman fan. He wrote this screenplay. Number two, I’m a Spike Jonz fan, and he directed the film.

This movie has a good cast: Nicholas Cage as a writer, Charlie Kaufman, struggling to adapt ‘The Orchid Thief’, but then we have Tilda Swinton and Meryl Streep, Brian Cox and Chris Cooper, and Judy Greer and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Kaufman is going nuts trying to write the screenplay. In an interview given in 2002, Kaufman says, “The emotions that Charlie is going through are real and they reflect what I was goin’ through when I was trying to write the script.”

Then there is the question of Charlie Kaufman’s twin brother, who helps him write the movie. I often refer to my writing side as another person who happens to live in my shell, and that’s how I interpreted Donald Kaufman’s existence, since Donald is fictional.

‘Stranger than Fiction’. I’m not a huge Will Farrell fan. I like Emma Thompson but I was quite ready to not like this movie (because I am not a huge Will Farrell fan), so I was surprised that I enjoyed it. I particularly enjoyed Emma T as Karen struggling with writer’s block and pensively thinking through what she wants to write, rejecting different approaches and hating herself and the world in the process…but also coming to grips with it all.

That, also, is part of the writing life.

‘Wonder Boys’. I’m once again influenced by the cast and inspiration here, as much as anything, considering myself a fan of Michaels Chabon and Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Francis McDormand, Alan Tudyk and Robert Downy, Jr.

This movie is about several writers as played by Douglas and Maguire. One is the aging, struggling novelist trying to publish another novel, whose novel is now over twenty-five hundred pages; the other is a brilliant young talent (Maguire) on the verge of his career.

‘Barfly’. Kind of based on Charles Bukowski’s life, this is a gritty portrayal of the complications that haunt humans, including writers. Our writer in this movie is Henry. As so many are, Henry is self-aware and intelligent but victimizes himself and his supporters by his inability to deal with his flaws. And so, he begins and ends the movie changed but the same, fighting with the bartender in back of the bar.

Charles Bukowski wrote the screenplay. Mickey Rourke played the fictionalized version of Bukowski, Henry.

Honorable Mention: 

‘Death at A Funeral’. I’ve never seen the American version of this film, just the original British, which represents a great example of British black humor.

The Brit version’s cast includes Peter Dinklage, Alan Tudyk, Keely Hawes, Jane Asher, Matthew Macfadyen and Rupert Graves. Macfadyen and Graves play brothers who are writers. Graves is successful, living it up in New York and fawned upon by everyone as the famous writer while Macfadyen has remained at home, coping with his parents and his marriage and struggling to write a novel. This is carried through into the writing of the eulogy; Macfadyen’s character, Daniel, is writing it, and everyone is disappointed that his brother, Robert (played by Graves), isn’t writing it.

That’s the basic premise of their relationship. I don’t want to spoil the movie by revealing more.

I’m not an expert on these matters, or a pro critic or anything. Please, offer your take on any movies that attract your interest because of their portrayal of writers.

I always want more.

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