WHAT IT IS, week ending September 20, 2020

It's been a week, and I've kept to my writing habit (I did take yesterday -- Saturday -- off, but I have responsibilities, like mowing the lawn and doing the laundry and being a father and husband, so back off inner-monologue-me, I had shit to do!). I've even begun a new short story, which is exciting. 

Typically, when I've taken time off from writing before, my mind has still been churning with ideas and turns of phrase, while working to problem solve the narrative corners I've backed myself into. But these past three-plus months, nothing. So the return of that was surprising and pleasing (though now I need to prepare for more sleepless nights, but what're you gonna do?). It's like I've written here before, the one way to lure the muse is to make writing a habit, and it worked. 

Also interesting was how the short writing exercise I did here, a couple of weeks back, fed into this new story -- though I wasn't fully aware of it until later. In that exercise I wrote about a character tied up in a completely dark room. Neither the characters nor the setting transferred to this new story -- it's in a totally different genre, for one thing -- but the idea of absolute darkness did shift over into this new story, and it's working out to not only be a perfect setting for a later revelation, but also a fine thematic parallel that should enhance the narrative. Regardless, I find it interesting how one's experiences can subconsciously feed into one's writing. (ah, but I'm sounding a bit pretentious now, so time to split and head on down the list. Follow me...)

VISUAL MEDIA --

My wife and I watched Martin Scorsese's adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel, THE AGE OF INNOCENCE. This movie guts me every time. Daniel Day-Lewis is amazing as Newland Archer, Michelle Pfeiffer is radiant as Ellen Olenska, and Winona Ryder is pitch perfect as May Welland, the vacuous wife of Archer who proves to have more mettle, in the end, than most any of the socialites orbiting her world. The romantic ideal of honor, or giving up that which you so dearly want in order to fulfill one's responsibilities, is epitomized by Day-Lewis's Archer, and yet, one could also say he was trapped by convention in a marriage that, if not as exciting as the one he might have had with Madame Olenska, was, at least, fulfilling with his children and the adherence to tradition and family. So much is said in this film without saying anything at all, and the heartache and sacrifice is palpable. I love this film, and it is easily my favorite of Scorsese's magnificent catalogue of work. If I'm looking for a good cry, this is the one that'll do it. (It's 2020, men are allowed to cry . . . at least, they can do it behind their keyboards, as long as nobody sees them)



WRITTEN MATERIAL --

From 1990 and Adventure Comics, written by Charles Marshall, with art by Kent Burles and Barb Kaalberg. 

I bought the first issue of this series right off the rack, thirty years ago, and I really enjoyed it. For some reason, though, I never purchased any others (maybe it was a title that didn't sell at the comic shop, and subsequent issues went unordered by the owner). I recently got the next 11, to see if they were as entertaining as that first one, which I've read multiple times in the years since. 

They are.

The art is satisfactory, not great but not terrible, but the story is intriguing and engaging. Caesar's grandson, Alexander, is carrying on the legacy of trying to bring peace to apedom, but while out in the wastes, General Ollo begins a campaign of terror in Ape City, in order to take over the city and subjugate the citizenry to his will. Ollo has no qualms about ape killing ape. 

I'm only a few issues in, but thus far the narrative threads are interesting and sets up nicely the impending conflict between Alexander and Ollo.



INSPIRATION(s) --

Typically, this spot is set aside for inspiration as far as writing and creativity, but we lost a giant, and a hero, this past Friday, in Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Words cannot do justice to her legacy. If you're not well familiar with the late Supreme Court Justice, please do yourself a favor, read about her, watch the recent documentary on her, learn about one of the most important Americans of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. She will be sorely missed. 



MUSIC TO WRITE BY --

An old standby, but a perfect one to write by, Vangelis's soundtrack (the 3-volume collection is the way to go) of Ridley Scott's classic film, BLADE RUNNER. Haunting, ethereal, moving, heartbreaking -- these all describe the sensations elicited by Vangelis's music. Wonderful.



ON WRITING --

When writing a short story, in particular, you need to capture the attention of your audience as soon as possible. That means, you need a spark of an opening scene, a hell of an opening sentence. I wrote about that here, with able assistance from a quote by Harlan Ellison, a man who knew a thing or two about story openings. 

 

WHAT IT IS: week ending September 12 (the "get back on the horse" edition)

It's been a long time since I've written one of these. For almost three-and-a-half months, during this COVID pandemic, I haven't done any writing. This week was my time to try and get back to doing what I do in my spare time, write. (though, to be more precise, it's not that I utilize my spare time to write as much as I carve out writing time from my daily schedule . . . it's work, and you need to make sure to do it, or you won't. Pretty simple) 

So, this is day 6 of my return to the writing habit. Let's go.

VISUAL MEDIA --

My wife and I finally watched the Downton Abbey film, from a couple of years back. Having enjoyed the original series, this was a must-see, and it was like coming home again to see some old friends. The story revolves around the fact that King George V is going to pay a visit to Downton Abbey, during a tour through his kingdom. This puts everyone on high alert, in order to get the house in order for such a Royal visit. 

It's interesting to see how Julian Fellowes moves characters around, so that they can all get their moment in the spotlight. Managing to craft a narrative that allows for so many characters to stand out, in only a 2-hour film, is commendable. That said, there were many instances where I was thinking about how quickly things progressed in a certain storyline -- for example, Tom Branson's budding affection for Lucy Smith. It felt, to me, that this could have been better done as a seventh season of the series. Allowing things to progress more slowly would certainly have added to the emotional resonance and satisfaction of watching these characters "living their lives" once more. But, when watching a film, one should be cognizant of the inherent constraints of the medium. 

In the end, as is to be expected, everything turned out for the best, for all at Downton, and Lady Crawley, as is her wont, had all the best lines. She, most assuredly, had to have been the character Fellowes look forward to writing the most. 


WRITTEN MATERIAL --

Ducks, Newburyport was recommended to me by a friend, Johanna Barrett, who runs the bookstore in Castine, Maine. So, I picked it up, and upon completing Alan Moore's gargantuan tome, Jerusalem (clocking in at 1256 pages), I moved onto Lucy Ellman's latest novel, which was shortlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize and only runs to 988 pages (minus glossary). 

This book is amazing, propelling me along with every page. Thus far, at 200 pages in, it's a day-in-the-life story, but taken to an extreme I've not experienced before, in that it is a rolling internal monologue of the main character. Mother of four, living in Ohio, an adjunct professor at a local college who also has a pie business, she is an overly anxious woman whose life has been overcome by hardship, in the form of her mother's death, her failed earlier relationship, and her own battle with cancer. 

The book is primarily a single sentence, wherein the narrator rolls through the needs of the day, the past experiences that have shaped her, along with non-sequiturs and random strings of words that often take on a poetic feel, with their connective tissue often being a rhyming scheme or an aural similarity. It's a brilliant bit of writing, to my mind, in that the continuous stream of consciousness manner of the narration, coupled with Ellman's facility with words, pushes you along its narrative thread, while also feeling very much like the way that my brain will often be working, jumping from idea to idea, shifting mid-sentence, and making connections that nobody else would readily make. It's a propulsive book that also feels familiar, and I'm anxious to continue on with it. 

INSPIRATION(s) --

Tom Taylor (not the DC comics guy). 

I discovered Taylor when I started listening to the great podcast, Indiana Jones Minute, which examines each Indy film, one minute at a time, which he co-hosts with two of his friends. It's great fun, and through listening I discovered that Taylor was a writer and had self-published a YA novel, In Memory of Todd Woods. I bought it and read it, and it was pretty good. I was really impressed with the characterizations in the book. Taylor managed to make them feel genuine, and there was nobody who was fully good or fully an asshole. It was terribly impressive. 

So, when I heard he was starting a patreon, I jumped on. The promise Taylor has put forth is to share a new short story every month, at the $5 level, and if you support him at the $10 level, he will also share a new short-short story on a postcard mailed to you. I know how challenging this can be, and so far he's hit the mark. I applaud Taylor for challenging himself in this way, and I look forward to seeing what he has coming next -- one of those things being his second novel, The Nearly-Useless Powers League. Judging by the initial chapter he shared in his patreon, it should be a lot of fun.

MUSIC TO WRITE BY --

Getting back to writing means getting back to music without words. How I love my soundtracks -- and my jazz and flamenco and classical playlists. John Wick, chapters 1-3, have been playing loudly when I've been writing this week. The heavy bass and dance music vibe adrenalizes my fingers as they play across the keyboard. It's energetic and exciting and just what I needed to get me back into the habit. 

ON WRITING --



Filed under:  Taking too literally the old saw of "write what you know." 

All of my writing, this week, has been in public, with six blogposts (this one being number 6; THE PRISONER!) Two of those involved making writing a habit, and why that's important. (very meta) 

The first was: ON WRITING: The Habit's the Thing.

The second:  ON WRITING: Why the Habit?

Basically -- and obviously, though it took me years to get to this point -- without making a daily habit of writing, the work won't get done, and you won't begin to recognize problems with your writing. Only through doing it, living with it, working on it will you ever get to a point where your writing will be ready for primetime. 

-chris

WHAT IT IS -- week ending 5.12.2019

Two weeks have passed since I offered up one of these week-ending roundups.  I'm not happy about missing the past two weekends, but I'm not going to beat myself up too much.  I was still working on my writing through revising the novel and/or reading.  So, without further ado, let's see what's what.

VISUAL MEDIA --

Avengers: Endgame –

Caught Endgame last week and really enjoyed it.  Be aware, SPOILERS MAY FOLLOW.  

I can't say it was a great film--cards on the table, I've found most of the Marvel films I've watched enjoyable, if forgettable.  Read that as a criticism if you want, but I'm more than happy to be entertained for a couple hours by the MCU without needing to ruminate on it after I walk out of the theater.  This was a similar experience, a good way to spend three hours with my youngest son.

There were moments, certainly, that stayed with me.  I really enjoyed "Professor Hulk," and though I'm uncomfortable with the Thor fatsuit (they could have easily gotten across Thor's frame of mind without humor at the expense of overweight people), I appreciated his character arc.  Captain America wielding Mjolnir--that was fun!  I also appreciated the fact that the creators utilized Jim Starlin's idea of Thanos becoming a farmer, with a major swerve as Thor decapitated the Titan, in the opening of the film.  That was a great move.  And finally, I have to applaud the writers and directors for managing to juggle so many characters so well.  For the most part, it felt natural, the way they managed to get most everyone a chance to shine, even if for only a quick moment.  

Ultimately, though, I do have trouble with the finale of Steve Rogers's character arc, from a logical, character-driven standpoint.  Steve would never stay on the sidelines.  And, despite the Russo Brothers' arguments for that ending, their explanation that Steve went into a different timeline to live out his life is not evident in the film they made, so it just doesn't work for me.  It betrays the character, as a number of people have noted online with far better werdz than me.

That said . . . I have to admit that, on possibly the most important level, the emotional level, it works.  Allowing Steve to have lived the life he lost, to have been given a second chance, to have had that time with the woman he loved is incredibly cathartic for fans of Cap.  And I felt that too, even without being too invested in the MCU.  It's the Romantic ending that I love, and the one that I work hard to veer away from with my own writing.  It's a fitting reminder that, if done well, emotion trumps logic, in writing, almost every time.  

Columbo: By Dawn’s Early Light –

The Commandant of a military academy, Colonel Rumford (played by Patrick McGoohan), is unhappy with the school's chairman of the board, the grandson of its founder, who wants to make the school into a coed institution.  The colonel manipulates the chairman into declaring he will fire the ceremonial cannon for the Founder's Day celebration, which has been loaded with a charge the colonel filled with gelignite, while also stuffing the barrel with a cleaning rag, which is intended to put suspicion onto one of the cadets with a poor disciplinary record.  Everything would have gone as planned, if it weren't for the fact that Lt. Columbo is in charge of the investigation.

As Columbo digs into the case, he's bothered by the fact that the cadet who is implicated, because he was the one in charge of cleaning the cannon and who has such a poor disciplinary record, would have been given the job of cleaning the cannon, since it is considered as more of an honor and reward than a punishment.  It doesn't sit well with the lieutenant.  Asking more questions ("Ah, just one more thing, sir"), Columbo uncovers the fact that the school was going to be shifted to a coed facility.  Now, he just needs to be able to tie the colonel to the crime, because he knew (as we all knew, watching) from very early on that it was murder rather than an accident, and that the colonel was involved.

In the end, it comes around to the fact of a separate investigation put forth by Colonel Rumford, into the fermenting of hard cider by the cadets--something he discovered the morning he stuffed the cleaning rag in the barrel of the cannon. Columbo does his own investigation of the hard cider, finds out the small window of time when the colonel could have seen it (because this is how he's aware of the infraction) and then determines the only spot form which he could have caught sight of the jug, as it hung in one of the dorm room windows . . . he could only have seen it BEFORE the time he says he awoke, and he could only have seen it from a spot beside the cannon.  He was the killer, and his testimony unwittingly put him at the scene of the crime.

The biggest lesson to take from this is a reiteration of an important writing idea:  all characters, even the villains, think they are the hero of their own story.  This not only speaks to the selfishness and ego we all possess, thus making even a villain a little more human for that, but it also speaks to something more important.  When writing, you want to try and craft complex characters.  One way to do that is to give your characters, all your characters, motivations that are altruistic or laudable.  In this example, the colonel worried about the military readiness of America and did not wish to see a decline in that respect, by making the academy coed.  But, just because a character is doing something for what he or she contends are the "right reasons," does not mean their actions are necessarily laudable or good.  The villainy comes in the form of misconstrued values or, more often than not, in bad deeds and bad actions done in the name of their personal good, which, when viewed from a wider lens, is obviously an act that can only lead to prosecution in a court of law, or some other, more dire, consequence.

WRITTEN MATERIAL --

Nexus Archives, volume 1, by Mike Baron & Steve Rude ---

Sometimes you just need to read a stone-cold classic of the medium, and this book is one of those.  Horatio Hellpop, known as Nexus, dreams of serial killers and mass murderers, many of them in some type of governmental or military position somewhere in the galaxy.  With his near-limitless power, at least as far as we can tell from these early stories, he goes out and executes them, balancing the galactic scales and ridding himself of the nightmares.

The beauty of the character of Nexus isn't just the sense that he's doing what we all would like to do, meting out justice in a way that we don't experience in real life, i.e. even those with power and money get their come-uppance from Nexus, its beauty comes from the fact that here we have a Superman-level hero, whose power seems able to defeat any threat or obstacle, and yet, Baron, with Rude, makes him a compelling character.  The problem with Superman, as many put it, is that he's too powerful.  The same could be said of Nexus, but Baron & Rude don't necessarily focus on that, they focus on the inner turmoil he experiences, not only from these nightmares but from the responsibility he feels in doling out justice.  By weighing Nexus down with this heavy responsibility of balancing the scales of justice on a galactic scale and making him the sole judge, we get an interesting character with interesting tales, and the "explodo" is merely the cherry on top of the sundae.

And the rest of that bowl of cherries would be the art from Steve Rude.  His sleek linework is just incredible.  He infuses the best of Jack Kirby and Alex Toth and Saturday morning cartoons (Surprise!  Both Kirby & Toth worked in Saturday morning cartoons.), with a flair for inventive and thoughtful panel layouts, that makes this one of the best looking comics out there, even today.  Very few artists can match Rude, even this early in his career.  Just magnificent!

Hellboy: the Complete Short Stories, vol. 1, by Mike Mignola, et al. ---

I've also gone back to this classic, as well.  The stories of Hellboy aren't as complex as those of Nexus, but they're just as enjoyable.  Mignola throws ghost circuses and werewolves and luchadors and demons into these stories, among very many other things from mythologies across the globe, and there is a wonder and horror to them that I find magical.  Hellboy is a character who continually moves forward, even in the face of impossible odds, and that is to be commended.  Many times the stories end simply, in an almost banal manner, but that's okay, because the point of these stories isn't necessarily to tell tales with a surprising twist as much as they're intended to add to the mythology and the history of this strange creature who looks like the devil but is on the side of the angels.

The real star here, as with Nexus, above, is the artwork.  Mignola is the master of drawing Hellboy, and his facility with spotting blacks coupled with the sharp, angular linework that epitomizes his style, is just wonderful to behold.  But we also have Duncan Fegredo, whose work never looked as good as when he does Hellboy, Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá, master illustrator Richard Corben, among a few others.  If you're a fan of comics, and, particularly, a fan of comic art, then this is a book you will thoroughly enjoy.  I can't wait to move onto the next volume.


Uncentering the Earth: Copernicus and the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres,
by William T. Vollman --- 

This was an intriguing book, and, if I'm being honest, one that got away from me, at times.  Some of the arguments put forth by Vollman, including much of the mathematical representations he offered from Copernicus and Ptolemy and other ancient astronomers, was often above my head, which is not a bad thing.  Indeed, I wish I could have absorbed it all in a fashion that I fully understood it, but, in the end, I was able to comprehend the major themes and insights of the book.

Ultimately, Vollman's case, which is supported within the book, is that Copernicus is a more nuanced cat than we've been led to believe (surprise!).  Certainly, he put forth the idea of a heliocentric universe, though he was not the first to do so, and it was done at a time when the tools of the astronomic trade were primitive, to say the least (no telescopes!), but the way he got to many of his conclusions involved faulty calculations or faulty premises.  And yet, he somehow managed to calculate many things, such as the distances of certain planets or the durations of certain orbits, to a relative precision that is astounding.  And though he was more indebted to the ideas of Ptolemy than might be generally known, and despite the problems inherent in a world where scripture still won out over science, for fear of being persecute and prosecuted for heresy, Copernicus managed to hold fast to his conclusions.  It's an interesting book for the broader understanding it gave, of Copernicus and of the time, and I would certainly recommend it if you have an affinity for the topic.


INSPIRATION(s) --

Alex Ross! 

MUSIC TO WRITE BY --

Tori Amos, To Venus and Back ---

I love the swelling piano and the driving beat of Amos's songs on this double album, and, most importantly, I love the live songs on the second part of the album.  Live music almost always trumps studio music, for me, and this is no exception.  Amos has been part of my writing repertoire since very early on, back around 2000.  It helps that my brain has trouble processing lyrics and focuses, mainly, on the musicality of an album.  Having listened to this so many times, while writing, I've gleaned many of the lyrics, at this point, but I have now passed through that to a point where the lyrics fall into the back of my brain, and I'm able to focus on the music, only, once again.  These songs infuse me with a vigor and excitement that helps propel me through whatever bit I may be writing, at the time, and it also achieves something else I've been feeling lately -- taking me back to an earlier point in my life and wrapping me in a warm blanket of nostalgia.
This is good music.


ON WRITING --

If you want to be a writer, habits are incredibly important -- specifically (maybe obviously) the habit of actually writing on a regular basis.

Writing, like many creative endeavors, is too often romanticized.  Ideas of The Muse coming down from on high to bless the author with Divine Inspiration (TM), allowing her or him to pluck a beautiful string of words from thin air and put them to paper (digital or otherwise).  Sometimes, quite rarely, this occurs -- or seems to occur, because there's still a lot of work that went into the apparent unconscious ease with which the words came out, on the page -- but for the most part, writing is work.  And forming good habits can help that work move forward . . . with slightly more ease.

The best thing to do is to make a habit of your writing.  When you sit to write, do it at the same time of day, in the same spot, with (as near as possible) the same circumstances.  For example, Saturday and Sunday, when I don't have to worry about getting to work in the morning, I get up around 6:00, make the coffee, quickly check email and FB, pour my coffee, then get to work writing, and go for an hour and a half or so before wrapping it up.  It may sound odd to set things up this way, but like practicing your jump shot or getting in the batting cages, setting up your writing time in this way will help it to become something like a muscle memory.  After you've done it a few days or a week, it will become part of your daily routine, you'll feel natural sitting down to write, it will grow into something as familiar as brushing your teeth after waking or slipping on your silk pajamas before watching "This Is Us" (because we all have silk PJs, right?).  Now, of course, your mileage may vary (YMMV) as to how long it takes to get into this habit, maybe it's longer than a week, but, realistically, it shouldn't be too long, and if it is, maybe it's not the thing for you.

Anyway, once you get this habit going, you'll find it much easier to get your daily writing in.  It's just a natural part of your day.  And, once it starts to feel comfortable within your schedule, you'll find that the words come more easily, that inspiration arrives more often and without as much struggle.  "Chance (or inspiration) favors the prepared mind."  It's kind of like good luck, it's not something dictated randomly by the universe or God, it's something that comes from all the work and experiences you've had prior, without all the time spent writing and researching and thinking (or throwing and working out and batting), you would never be able to achieve what you're hoping to.

And, conversely, as noted at the top of this post, it is quite easy to fall out of these habits.  I did it the last few weeks, and unlike the few days it takes to get into one, it only takes a single missed day to fall out of your habits.  For me, once it happened that first week it was far easier to skip the second week.  But I made myself sit down again, at the laptop, and type away this weekend.  So, we'll see if I'm back in the habit (of this weekly roundup, at least; I'm still pushing forward on the novel, fast approaching the halfway point) when there's either a post, or no post, next week.  'Til then . . .

chris

WHAT IT IS, week ending 4.14.2019

School vacation week is upon us, for my little guy, and in a couple days we'll be winging our way to NYC, from Maine, with a trio of friends.  Sox @ Yanks one night, Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" the next, with some walking exploration of the city, including stops at the Public Library and MoMA (to see Van Gogh's "Starry Night," as requested by our son), among other hotspots, this should be a fun, if quick, time away.  I can't wait!

But, for now, it's time to look back at the week that was.  Let's have at it!


WRITTEN MATERIAL --

Space Crusaders #1: Rex Dexter of Mars, by Christopher Mills & Peter Grau:

Christopher Mills (Leonard Nimoy's Primortals; Femme Noir) has been working in comics for a couple of decades now, and he's finally taken his sensibilities and overlaying them onto older, public-domain characters, in order to create and "Atomic Pulp" universe filled with exciting adventures stories in a hybridization of 1970s comics and classic pulp magazines.  His initial foray is a 40-page space extravaganza, with art from Peter Grau (Valiant's original run of "Magnus Robot Fighter" and "Solar, Man of the Atom," among others), starring Rex Dexter of Mars, and it's wonderful!

This is what an adventure comic should be!  The first thing you notice is the art from Grau.  His linework is sharp and uncluttered, reminiscent of classic comic illustrators like George Pérez or Jim Aparo, and his storytelling is clear while also being dramatic.  The guy can draw, and you never feel lost.  There's definitely something to be said for classic panel layouts with clear delineation.  And the writing--it's top-notch.  Mills gives us all the information we need without it feeling forced or stilted, and the narrative zips along at a crisp pace, providing plenty of action interspersed with just enough downtime to allow readers a quick breather before being propelled along to the next bit of adventure.  Comics can be fun and exciting and engaging without being angsty or overly serious, and Mills understands this fully.  (Not that we need to get rid of these modern approaches, it would just be nice to have more variety.)

If you enjoy fun comics and have a soft spot for adventure, you should definitely check this out.  And keep an eye out for Mills's future offerings from Atomic Pulp, I expect they will be just as enjoyable, too.


INSPIRATION(s) --

Alex de Campi is a music video director and writer, whose comic work includes SMOKE and NO MERCY, both of which are great books.  Check them out. 
Also, you should check out de Campi on twitter where she dispenses writing advice all the time, and it's always good.  This week was another case in point, regarding this.  I shared some screenshots of what she had to say.  You can check it out here . . . or probably just scroll down to the next post, where you should find it. 

MUSIC TO WRITE BY --

Vivaldi's Four Seasons:

Specifically, his Concerto No. 4 in F Minor, "Winter."  I actually came to this work through Netflix's original series, Chef's Table, which is a wonderful docuseries that isn't only about food and food preparation by some of the world's greatest chefs, but it's also a travel show, as the focus is on the chef and their surroundings and life as much as it is about the food.  One of mine and my wife's favorite shows, this piece is the theme music opening every episode.  Its vibrant tempo really enlivens me, helping me to write, but its association with Chef's Table also makes me happy, invigorating my fingers as they skip across the keyboard.  Just brilliant!





ON WRITING --

Made my way through chapter 9, in the revision of the novel, which dropped me below 400 pages on the first draft that are left to rework, which means I have revised 130 pages, translating them into 113.  From a word-count standpoint, I've taken 38,000 words and boiled them down to just under 30,000.  At this rate, I should have a 2nd draft that comes in around 110,000 words.  Not bad, but not exactly where I want to land.  It would be nice to dip below 100K.  With roughly that many words to work with, as I push toward the end, it shouldn't be too difficult to get to where I need to be.  We'll see, maybe those final 10,000 will have to be sheared off with the 3rd draft.

WHAT IT IS week ending 3.31.2019

It's really starting to feel like spring, up here in Maine.  The snow is thawing slowly.  Clusters of birds can be seen in the upper branches of many of the trees, filling the air with their chirping.  And everything is turning to mud.  Yup, it's spring all right. 
Anyway.  Another week down.  Another week in review.  Let's get to it.

VISUAL MEDIA --

Sherlock:
My wife and I returned to a favorite of ours, the BBC's Sherlock, with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.  We started season 4, and it was like slipping into a comfortable pair of shoes [metaphors, the sustenance of pretentious and unpretentious writers alike].  The plotting in these episodes is always fairly tight, but in my opinion the series really thrives on the characters of Sherlock Holmes and Watson and, more specifically, the characterizations infused therein by Cumberbatch and Freeman.  This series really is less about the mystery, for me, and more about the interactions of these two, and the inherent chemistry between the actors.  The humor comes directly from character, as well as the drama, and when, in this particular episode, we finally see Sherlock have a true emotional reaction to a tragedy, it lands with a weight that is earned, made possible by his aloofness in the previous few seasons. 

Ripcord, a play by David Lindsay-Abaire:
Friday night we celebrated my birthday by going out to dinner and then seeing a local production of Ripcord, at the Penobscot Theater in Bangor.  Described as "The Golden Girls meets The Odd Couple," this was a really wonderful show. 
Roommates in a retirement home, Abby and Marilyn do not get along -- or, more to the point, Abby does not get along with Marilyn.  Abby has always wanted a private room and managed to go through a succession of roommates thanks to her cantankerous and off-putting manner.  But Marilyn seems unfazed by Abby's harshness, with a sunny demeanor that feels almost too good to be true.  Through the course of the play, their back and forth provides plenty of laughs, but we also discover the hidden pains both of them harbor, as, through both women's stubbornness, they become far closer than either could imagine. 
The way information about each character was parsed out in this play was rather spectacular.  Lindsay-Abaire's writing allowed the audience to get to know the two women, before it's revealed, through actions that felt natural on both their parts, that each has a hidden tragedy in their past, tragedies that have formed their characters in the present -- both Abby's anger and Marilyn's brightness -- and with this new understanding, the whole play is put into a new and interesting light.


WRITTEN MATERIAL --

Hemingway and Women:
This book continues to fascinate me.  As I read more from female critics about their perspectives on Hemingway's writing, I find myself anxious to get back and read or re-read many of his stories.  I can't wait to finally bring a more incisive and thoughtful approach to one of my all-time favorite authors.  Highest recommendation.


INSPIRATION(s) --

Chris Staros at Top Shelf Comix:
This past week marked 25 years that Chris Staros has been in comic publishing, from his "Staros Report" to co-creating Top Shelf Publishing, with Brett Warnock, not too long after.  Top Shelf is definitely one of my favorite comic publishers, thanks in no small part to Staros's coup of getting publishing rights for much of Alan Moore's post-superhero, more adult books, such as From Hell and Lost Girls.  The Top Shelf table was always a destination when I attended a convention, and Staros was always very open to talking with me and others of his fans.  And when I started tabling at conventions, he was more than kind to stop and chat, if he was passing by, or to ask how my writing was going, when I stopped at his table.  A truly good human being publishing some of the best comics work of the past quarter-century, this is definitely an anniversary to mark.


MUSIC TO WRITE BY --

Graeme Revell's score for The Crow:
This is an all-time favorite.  Revell's compositions are energetic and moody, and they always energize my writing.  I don't know what more to say.  Watch the film.  Read the comic.  Then listen to the music.  I don't think you'd be disappointed.


ON WRITING --

Seven chapters in, with 114,000 words to go. 
One thing I struggle with, even though I do manage to cut a lot out when revising, is whether or not I am doing enough when working on later drafts.  Shouldn't I be rearranging full scenes?  Bringing something to the fore to heighten tension?  Shifting a bit to later in the novel because of pacing?  These are things I hear authors speak about when they discuss revising.  But I always seem to keep to the skeleton I've already created.  I tend to be a strong planner, it's just how I am, but is my planning always sound and does it work when I write a first draft of a novel? 
I don't know. 
But, I guess I should just move forward.  An argument could be made that the fact I am conscious of this means I'm thinking about it, and if a structure issue in the novel arose, I would be already prepared to see it and fix it.  So, I continue with the revising, in the hope that I know (enough) of what I'm doing.

-chris

WHAT IT IS week ending 3.24.2019

Back again.  This week I'm expecting to be spare in my descriptions of what I've read, watched, listened to, etc. because I'm hip-deep in the revisions of novel #2.  Things have been going along quite well with that, but it takes up a lot of time and it has to be my priority right now.  So, let's see if I can temper my "wordy-bitch" personality and knock this one out quickly.
(to be honest, I'm dubious, but we'll see)


VISUAL MEDIA --

The Dark Knight:
When Christopher Nolan's Joker movie hit, I saw and I wasn't as enamored as the scores of online fans.  But in rewatching it with my son, this past week, I have to say, it's better than I remember.  Not as unassailable as its rabid fans would have you believe . . . but, then again, I see pull quotes on comic collections I read that are so flamboyantly hyperbolic that I kind of chalk it up to fanboys being fanboys.
Don't get me wrong, Heath Ledger was amazing and rightly deserved the Oscar for his turn as the Joker, and the Dark Knight is a pretty great action movie and a top of the line comic book movie, but it's not exceeding its reach by too much.  I had forgotten how much it took from Alan Moore's "Killing Joke," which was something that pleased me, in this rewatch.  And, though I may not hold this film as highly as many, there's still much to learn from this movie.  (it was directed by Christopher Nolan)  Primarily, the ability of Nolan and the writers and actors to make something as off the wall as a caped, gravelly-voiced vigilante going against a psychopath in clown makeup who ends up birthing a second fractured psyche with only half a face and somehow ground it enough to make you believe that all of this mayhem and destruction could actually be happening somewhere is laudable and well worth analyzing.

To Kill a Mockingbird:
Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch.  Robert Duvall as Boo Radley.  Brock Peters as Tom Robinson.  Harper Lee's singular novel brought to life on the screen.  This was the first time I'd watched this film, after finally reading the novel a few years back.  We watched it with our son, and though he wasn't excited about the prospects, he settled in and was engaged the whole time.  So, that's a win, especially as we prepare to go to New York and see Aaron Sorkin's adaptation in April.
As with most adaptations, there are scenes truncated or excised wholly, and other bits shifted around.  Having only read the book once, I wasn't as aware of these things as I might have been, though there was one scene shifted around that I felt was weakened by the change (the scene where Jem catches his overalls on the fencing behind the Radley house as the three kids run away), but this is a minor nitpick.
The most important thing to take away from watching "Mockingbird" is what Sorkin has stated he wished to achieved with his adaptation, allow those characters who are not white to have a say and have some agency in the story, especially considering how focal the character of Tom Robinson is to "Mockingbird."  For me -- and this is something I do strive for -- I want to include characters from all different backgrounds in my stories and make them significant and well-rounded, to try and make my fiction a reflection of our world and all its myriad wonders.

Bloodline:
When the first season of this Netflix series dropped, I was all in.  Kyle Chandler.  Ben Mendelsohn.  Sam Shepard and Sissy Spacek.  Family secrets.  All set in the Florida Keys.  Yes, please.  I binged season 1 and was ready for season 2.  But, when season 2 hit, I watched the first half of the first episode and then tapped out.  I'm not sure what it was, but it felt different and I wasn't buying anymore.
Well, I decided to drop back in and see if I still felt that way.  Not so far.  I've rifled through the first four episodes of season 2, and the tension is ramped up to a point where I just want to sit and finish this season over the weekend.  (But I've got adult things to do, so that's not happening).
SPOILER:

Even though Ben Mendelsohn's character died at the end of season 1, Mendelsohn is back for the second season, in flashbacks and as a haunting specter talking to his brother, John (played by Chandler), which, as much as anything, has me excited for this season.  Mendelsohn is electric in his scenes, and when he and Chandler get to interact, it's top of the line stuff.
Each episode is at least an hour long, thanks to the Netflix model, and yet it never feels overstuffed and it never feels long and, conversely, it never feels long.  The creators have managed to pace out these episodes almost perfectly and that is certainly one thing to take away from this series.  But, secondly, and most importantly, I think the best thing about this show is the way the writers manage to paint the main characters into a corner, with few options of getting out, none of them good, and then have something happen that is unexpected, on the part of the characters and the audience, to save them, at least for a short time.  It's not just the cleverness with which the writers manage to lift the characters out of their dire circumstances, but it's the deftness with which this happens.  It never feels forced.  It never feels like a trick.  It always feels natural.  They lay the groundwork for these twists, but they don't tip their hand.  It's really smartly written, and I'm glad I got back on the Bloodline train.



WRITTEN MATERIAL --

Hemingway and Women: Female Critics and the Female Voice
Ever since reading "The Old Man and the Sea" in high school, I have been a fan of Hemingway.  He is my favorite classical author.  But I've only ever read him for pleasure, never thinking too deeply about his fiction, which is obviously -- for someone like me, who aspires to publication -- a personal shortfall.  With this book, I am working toward remedying that.
This has been a fascinating read, so far.  Female critics reevaluating Hemingway's fiction through a feminist lens.  The main thesis running through all of these essays is that, for too long, the male perspective has overwhelmed the analysis of Hemingway's work, often utilizing Hemingway's larger than life and overly masculine legend to overlay onto his fiction, putting forth the idea that his women characters are shallow, one-dimensional pieces on the chessboard, when, if one looks at things from a female/feminist perspective, multiple dimensions are opened up, as to these characters, and a new understanding of Hemingway's work is revealed.
It really has been a joy to read these essays.  And the idea that, maybe, it isn't so much the misogyny of the author at work as the misogyny of the critics, which has colored our understanding of Hemingway's writing, for so long, is revelatory.  Not that these female critics are letting him off the hook for that misogynistic view, that is a valid reading of much of his work.  But some of the ideas -- of twinning, or of Brett Ashley in The Sun Also Rises not being a "bitch" character but a strong, independent woman -- are ones I want to take with me when I read, and re-read, Hemingway.  And many of the ideas and thoughts put forth in these essays are also ones I would like to put forward in my own work, with regard to female characterizations.



INSPIRATION(s) --

Eric Shanower and his Oz graphic novels:

Shanower's delicate and precise linework is always beautiful.  And his ability to craft characters that are more than one-dimensional within the framework of Baum's world of Oz is laudable.  These books are, at their heart, fun adventures.  They don't need darkness or relevance to be enjoyable.  And this is something to applaud.

MUSIC TO WRITE BY --

This week I was all over the map.  No one composer or artist grabbed the bulk of the time in my ears.  So, a shoutout to John Williams (music for Star Wars), Graeme Revell (music from The Crow), Don Davis (music for The Matrix), Trevor Jones & Randy Edelman (music from The Last of the Mohicans), and Clint Mansell again, among others.


ON WRITING --

So, last week I bragged about my 40-day streak of writing.  And then, on Sunday, family stuff came up, and I didn't do any personal writing, breaking the streak.
But, that meant I could start another.  We're at 6 days and counting.  Work continues on the second draft of Novel #2.  I've started in on chapter 5 and have been working through roughly 2000 words a day on the first draft.  I've been cutting, reworking, and shifting around major pieces of what I wrote, initially, and I am finding a clarity and conciseness that I am happy with.  Of course, this second draft will go through another stringent revision, but at least I'll have something lean to work from.

WHAT IT IS week ending 3.16.2019

A recap of things I've read, watched, listened to, ingested in some fashion, with a focus (hopefully) on how I can apply (read:  steal) any lessons gleaned (or tricks of the trade) to my own writing.  So, let's do this!


VISUAL MEDIA --

Columbo, "Blueprint for Murder":
This was another great episode, the final episode of season 1, written again by Steven Bochco.  In this case, an egotistical architect, Elliot Markham, murders a client of his, a rich Texas businessman, Bo Williamson, when he pulls the funding for what the architect believes could be his greatest achievement, Williamson City.  Of course, Lt. Columbo is called in to investigate.

The trick with this one is that there's no body.  Williamson's wife (second wife), a fan of Markham's architecture and who authorized going ahead with Williamson City, believes he just left on another European trip, as he does.  Markham knew this and made it seem this way.  But Williamson's first wife doesn't believe it, because Bo always notifies her when he's going out of the country.  She's the one who harangues Columbo to look deeper into this.  Which he does, because Columbo has a hunch, and his hunches are usually correct.

Columbo keeps turning up where Markham is -- at his construction site, at the college where he teaches, at his home -- and Markham knows what the lieutenant's angling at.  He pokes and prods Columbo, almost daring him to dig up the concrete pile that was filled the day after Williamson went missing.  Columbo knows Markham wants him to dig it up, but he's not sure why.  The belief is that the body's buried under those tons of concrete.  But when it's brought up and chiseled away, there's nothing.  It seems Columbo has lost.

Except Columbo doesn't lose.  That night, after having dug up the best hiding place for Williamson's body, knowing that he could never get another permit to dig up that same area (Markham's plan all along), Columbo waits at the construction site with a cadre of police officers.  And Markham, too smug in his own intelligence, obliges Lt. Columbo and shows up with Bo Williamson's body.  And the officers take him away, after the lieutenant and the murderer exchange pleasantries.

Another stellar twist, and another wonderful performance by Peter Falk, who also directed this episode.  Once again, I watched it with my 11-year-old son, and he seemed to enjoy it as much as the first one we watched.  He's already caught onto how Columbo works, and I think he enjoys the game of feint-and-parry Columbo and the murderer of the week go through.  I know I do.


SPOILER WARNING AHEAD

Better Call Saul, season 3:
With his Breaking Bad universe of characters, Vince Gilligan found a rich field of storytelling possibilities that one might not realize, when first hearing the summary of his award-winning TV series.  When I called The Americans final season a masterclass in TV writing, I wasn't being overly hyperbolic.

But if that's the masterclass, then what the hell is Better Call Saul?  Because this is the tip top of the television heap, currently, and Gilligan and his writing staff don't seem to be approaching an end point anytime soon.

There are many brilliant aspects to this show -- as with its predecessor, Breaking Bad, the characterizations and their interactions with one another are the core of what makes this series so good.  But if there's a secret ingredient, it would have to be the ability of the writers to have a character do something that feels like a "checkmate" move, only to have a counter move that blocks the first character's move and throws the status quo to the wind.

SPOILER WARNING!!!!!!!!!
(for example:  in the penultimate episode, Charles McGill [Michael McKean] sues his law firm for a buyout amount that would bankrupt it, after Howard suggested Charles should consider retiring, and it feels like game over.  But, next episode, Howard calls Charles's bluff, offers him a first payment on the buyout from his own personal savings and then leads Charles out to a gathering of all staff, where Howard announces Charles's retirement, forcing Charles's hand.  It's brilliant.)

And once we reach the end of the season, there's some real question as to what the status quo will be, come the beginning of the next season, despite the fact that we have seen many of these characters in the future of Breaking Bad.  It's a superb, tightrope-walking act, and something to which I aspire, with my own writing.
Don't just settle for the first big twist, let your characters fight back, amp up the drama, and keep the readers guessing.


WRITTEN MATERIAL --

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys:
Last year I read Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, and thoroughly enjoyed it.  At some point, I discovered this book, Wide Sargasso Sea, which was a response to Bronte's Jane, and I knew I had to read it soon.

Written as a feminist, anti-colonial response to Bronte's novel, the book is separated into three sections:  a moment in the early childhood of Antoinette Cosway, Mr. Rochester's first wife, that includes a traumatic episode that colored her life from that point on; the time in Antoinette's life when Rochester (told from his point of view) came to know and marry her and the troubling relationship that quickly ensues between them; and a short coda, told again from Antoinette's point of view, during her time in the attic of Rochester's mansion.

Maybe a quarter of the length of Bronte's Jane Eyre, the novel that inspired it, Sargasso Sea isn't as immersive or all-encompassing as Eyre, offering snapshots, really, from important moments in time in the life of Antoinette Cosway.  But even with that, the novel is moving and rich, utilizing the knowledge of Eyre to inform its own narrative, while fleshing out a relatively minor character from that earlier story to make her far more realized, as well as sympathetic.

The novel moved along briskly, and Rhys's confidence in her subject matter and her writing showed through in her ability to paint a full picture of Antoinette Cosway with an economy of words and settings.

I worry, at times, that my own writing can become bogged down in the minute actions and reactions of characters, that maybe I become too enamored of their conversations and possibly do not give enough over to setting the stage.  Rhys's ability to set the table without lingering too long is something to strive for, and something to give me hope that maybe I'm not going as far off course as I might believe.


INSPIRATION(s) --

Once more, I look to Warren Ellis and his Orbital Operations newsletter, for a bit of inspiration, from the sign-off of his latest:

A lot of you are people who make things.  A lot of you are just trying to get through the day while still remaining yourselves.  Feels like wading through mud sometimes, right?  Exhausting, dispiriting.  All starts with one step.  And then one more step.  At your own pace.  One step a week is victory.  One step is victory.  Lean into the wind.  The handrails are there for a reason, and, trust me, they're there, even if some fucker turned off the lights.  Hold on tight.  See you next week.  

I do love how Ellis always signs off with a positive message for all those reading, urging them to keep pushing ahead, even as the world threatens to crush us all.


MUSIC TO WRITE BY --

I.  Love.  Clint.  Mansell.  

Certainly, the fact he's worked so closely with my favorite contemporary film director, Darren Aronofsky, has a lot to do with my affection for Mansell's music.  Without that symbiotic relationship (if I may call it that), I probably would not have been introduced to Mansell's genius, or maybe not introduced to it as early.

Mansell's scores for The Fountain and Moon, Requiem for a Dream and Pi, are all amazing, and the additional music I've discovered on spotify, are all brilliant collections to listen to while writing.  The range of emotions evoked by Mansell are broad, and even when there's a melancholy tone it is still beautiful to the ear.

If you're looking for some great music, check out Clint Mansell's film scores, you will not be disappointed.


 ON WRITING --

A great writing blog, focusing on crime fiction with a rotating collection of authors, is Do Some Damage.  This past Monday, Dharma Kelleher, had a great post on "Essential Principles of Storytelling."  I would heartily recommend you hit the link and read the whole thing, but if you're short for time and want the Cliffs Notes version, here you go:

1. Don't bore the reader --- one particularly great example she shares is to "describe characters in ways that reveal who they are, not just what they look like."  It's a two birds-one stone thing, and it's brilliant. 
2. Don't insult the reader or their intelligence --- Basically, do your research so that you don't misrepresent something that could have easily been fixed before publication. 
3. Don't confuse your readers --- This is a tough one, to offer enough information that readers are engaged but not too much that they feel overwhelmed.  Use beta-readers to help find out if you reached that balance.

These are lessons I certainly plan on applying to my writing, especially the revisions for the latest novel, which I have started.  This is great stuff.

Revision of the novel continues apace, and my streak of writing days has reached 40 and seems unlikely to abate any time soon.  I am loving, so far, what I've got, as far as a skeleton for this novel goes, while also taking comfort in my ability to shift and cut and adjust what is in this first draft to create a clearer and cleaner narrative.  My latest time at the keyboard, I managed to cut 1500 words to a bit over 1000.  This is good.  And I look forward to what comes next, because having let this sit for a while (over a year, at least), a lot of what I'm reading feels brand new, and that's pretty exciting.

-chris

WHAT IT IS week ending 3.9.2019

Back for more ---  week 5 of my return to writing regularly, here at Warrior27.  This is the week that was . . . March 3 - March 9 of the year 2019.
For those new here, this is a look at what I read, watched, listened to, ingested, and osmosized over the past week, in the form of entertainment, with a look at how I might hope to apply lessons or tricks gleaned from these resources into my own writing.  And if that convoluted sentence didn't put you off, let's sally forth to the heart of the matter.

VISUAL MEDIA --

SPOILER ALERT...........

The Americans, final season:
These last 10 episodes have been a masterclass in writing.  The writers create drama from the relationships and the personalities of the characters, using their temperaments and loyalties to guide the choices made by the principal players, which affords the storytelling to evolve in, what feels to the audience, a natural manner.  It is exceptional and riveting.

But, they also don't lose sight of the characterizations of the protagonists within the framework of the plot.  As an example, in episode 8, "The Summit," Philip reveals to Elizabeth that he has been spying on her for the past couple months.  There is a cadre of military generals, back in Russia, who want to bring Gorbachev down and make sure the nuclear summit with the American government is a failure.  Philip knows that Elizabeth has been working, unknowingly, for this cadre, at the bidding of the Center  He wants her to look at this situation with an open mind, not just take the word of their handler and do the job like some automaton.  Elizabeth . . . is furious. 

By the end of the episode, she has come to realize that maybe Philip is right.  She is having second thoughts about what is being asked of her, in the specific instance of a Russian operative they want assassinated, and discovers that her reports were to be doctored so that she would have full deniability.  Elizabeth doesn't believe this operative is someone who has betrayed Russia, and the idea of her reports being changed without her consent doesn't sit well with her.  She goes home and asks Philip to get a message to the operative who came here to have him spy on her.  She now believes Philip was correct in his assessment of the situation, but the fact he didn't tell her he was relaying information about her work still fills her with rage; she is in no way ready to forgive him.

This is great writing!  So often, when something like this happens -- two characters have divergent opinions on something meaningful and one of them is proven right -- the other just falls in line and accepts it without much consideration.  But here, Elizabeth acts like a real person.  She has accepted what Philip told her is correct, but she is still pissed off he betrayed her.  And that is so much more interesting.

WRITTEN MATERIAL --

My Half Century:
I finished Anna Akhmatova's "My Half Century," which is a selection of prose from the Russian poet, much of it in the form of letters or diary entries, but there is also a section dedicated to some of Akhmatova's thoughts and analysis of Pushkin, particularly his final story, "The Tale of the Golden Cockerel."  Admittedly, I've never read Pushkin before, but after reading this book, and being introduced to the fact that, alongside her poetry, Akhmatova was regarded as an authority on Pushkin, with major works devoted to the analysis of his poetry, I am more than ready to seek out his work.

Despite little more than a recognition of names and a personal lack of knowledge surrounding Russian history, both political and creative, I found this book to be fascinating.  The early sections utilizing Akhmatova's diary entries included many entries that evoked strong images and insightful opinions, thanks to her facility with the written language.  There were a number of quotes I pulled out to share here on the site, and there are a few more I plan on sharing in the coming days.

QUOTES part one
QUOTES part two
QUOTES part three

I cannot recommend this highly enough, if you are someone who loves language and, in particular, loves poetry.  Seek out the work of Anna Akhmatova (I read a book of her poetry last year, which led to this book).  And if you're also a lover of history and, in particular, early 20th-century Russian history, then this book is for you.

Black Science vol. 1, by Rick Remender & Matteo Scalera:
I read the first volume of this science fiction comic series, from Image Comics, and it was pretty great.  An obsessed scientist, Grant McKay, has discovered how to successfully traverse parallel dimensions in the Eververse, but the machinery is immediately damaged, continuing to regularly jump those within the proper vicinity to other dimensions but without the ability to navigate where it takes them.  Through the course of these first six issues, the group, which includes a bodyguard, assistants, the antagonistic head of the project, and McKay's two children, one a pre-teen and one in high school, jump from one harrowing experience to another, with a few of their numbers meeting a fatal end.

I was impressed with how quickly the story moved along, and how ruthless Remender was about his characters.  He is more than willing to kill a character to throw up more dramatic roadblocks to the protagonists's desire to get home.  It makes for good drama and engages a reader, spurring me to ask, how the hell is he going to get them out of this fix?

The art from Scalera is a wonderful complement to the story Remender is telling.  Similar in style to Sean Murphy, Scalera's ever so slightly loose linework overlaying a photorealistic approach provides an appealing base that is infused with a franticness that mirrors the narrative.  Also on display are Scalera's design chops, asked to create strange alien creatures for some of the parallel dimensions, while "dressing" others in distinctly "futuristic" costuming, when the denizens of a dimension closely resemble the humanity we are all familiar with.  And all of these creatures and settings are brought to wonderful, chromatic life by colorist, Dean White.  His color palette for this series is sharply distinct and makes the images pop, when needed, or become somber and disturbing when the story calls for it.  Overall, this is a fun series, and I can't wait to read more.

Southern Bastards, vol. 1 by Jason Aaron & Jason Latour:
On the other end of the scale, we have Southern Bastards from the two Jasons.  A story set in a small town in Craw County, Alabama, revolving around a former high school football star, Earl Tubb, who was son of the local sheriff and has returned, after too many years, to settle things, since his father died.  The football team is now coached by Coach Boss, who seems to have a stranglehold on the town, like some Mafioso in a 70s crime film.  Tubb comes into conflict with a couple of Coach Boss's minions, after an old friend he runs into winds up dead.  Violence and dredged up memories ensue.

This is a raw, mean comic, with art from Jason Latour that fits perfectly.  With Aaron's dialogue and Latour's jagged lines, the audience is offered a window on the harsh reality of this small southern town.  This first collection only includes the initial four issues, and they breeze along at a quick pace, but it whets the appetite and sets the stage for the hard knocks, and inevitable bloodbath, that is sure to come.  I'm looking forward to reading the next collections.


INSPIRATION(s) --

Scott Morse -- comic book creator, Pixar animator, overall nice guy who is hugely talented, Morse is one of the people on my personal Mt. Rushmore of comic creators.  The man's a genius.  I just wish he had more time to focus on comics, but I suppose a day job at Pixar isn't a bad trade-off for the man.

Anyway.  One of the biggest lessons you can take away from Morse's work is his ability to craft stories about serious subjects -- suicide, depression, the loss of a child -- and still make it entertaining without it being too heavy.  A lot of it comes down to the man's cartooning style.  His work is very stylized, almost cute, which can be disarming for a reader when he throws the heavy stuff at them.  But it works, and it works extremely well.  It's this juxtaposition of cartoony, cutesy characters with adult themes and scenarios that makes his work resonate, long after you finish the book.

How to apply this to my writing:  infuse my drama with humor; infuse the funny bits with some pathos; make sure to craft complex characters who aren't merely 'good' or 'evil'; and try not to write at a single tonal level -- the joy and the verisimilitude are found in the idiosyncrasies of humankind.

For more of my thoughts on Morse, check these earlier posts out:

--Comic Artists I Love...
--Review: The Barefoot Serpent
--October Comics: Crime & Terror
--October Comics: Frankenstein
--an early interview with Morse


MUSIC --

Took another page from Warren Ellis's book (or, more accurately, from one of his recent Orbital Operations newsletters).  He listed the podcasts he currently subscribes to, which includes a number of ambient and experimental music podcasts.  These are always great for writing, so I added a couple to my own collection of podcasts, and this week I listened to AMBIENT ATOMIC ORBITALS, while writing, and it was great.  Definitely check it out, if you're in the mood for some mood music.

ON WRITING --

I wrote a piece about details in my writing, why I try to add a good number of details in the beginning of my stories and how, aside from adding verisimilitude to my narratives, they can often benefit me as I approach the climax of a story.  Check it out here.

Also kept to my daily writing and equaled my previous best streak of consecutive days of writing -- 34.  It helps that I've started revising the first draft of novel#2.  In the first few days I took the opening 2996 words and whittled it down to 2017.  As I stated on twitter & FB, there sure was a lot of chaff in them there words.  But this is a good thing.  As I seek to have my first novel published (still waiting to hear back from one agent who requested the full manuscript), it's necessary that I offer books that run to under 100,000 words, which is a general rule of thumb to help increase first-time authors' chances.  The first draft for this novel came in just shy of 140,000.  So, I have a bit of work to do.  In my experience, my second drafts always come in at roughly 75% of my initial drafts, so this shouldn't be a problem.  But it's nice to see that my tradition of piling on in the first draft continues -- much of this comes from trying to figure out what the novel is, as I'm writing, with much of what eventually becomes subtext or backstory, and unnecessary for the readers to know, being on the page in the opening draft.

So, the work continues, and, so far, it's been fun.  Hoping the next 137,000 words are just as fun.

Until next week, keep pressing forward, make time to do something you like, and let those important to you know that you love them. 

-chris