Echoes in a Hollow Space

Random quote of the day:

“It seems to me that all this yapping about writers selling themselves to Hollywood or the slicks or some transient propaganda idea, instead of writing sincerely from the heart about what they see around them,—the people who make this kind of complaint, and that includes practically every critic who takes himself seriously, overlook the point (I don’t see how they can, but they do) that no writer ever in any age got a blank check. He always had to accept some conditions imposed from without, respect certain taboos, try to please certain people.”

—Raymond Chandler, letter to Charles Morton, 28 October 1947



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

 

Ever since the Syfy Channel’s new series, Haven, debuted I’ve been in a slight funk. You see, the novel I’m doing revisions on is a contemporary fantasy which involves people in a quirky rural Southern California county where the paranormal is an everyday occurrence and the inhabitants take it for granted. Much like the quirky small town of Haven on Syfy. It was bad enough when their show, Eureka, premiered. That was about a quirky small town in which wild experiments in fringe science took place, causing paranormal-like events to happen all the time. Everyone there pretty much took it for granted, too.

I think the story of my novel is original, but it can’t help but be overshadowed by all this quirk and all these strange towns. I continue to polish the novel, however. It’s what I have; I will market it. It’s a stand-alone, but it’s also part of a trilogy, see, and I really want to write those other books. Maybe even more than I wanted to write this one.

I first came up with the concept of Dos Lunas County, my quirky entry, about eleven years ago. Formulating the concept, the characters, the plotting took awhile, and this novel had at least two false starts before I finally finished it. This is not an atypical pattern for me, unfortunately. For a time I was finishing a novel a year, but those individual novels were often years in the making. One would come on strong, then need restructuring so I’d work on another until I solved the problems. About once a year, one of them would finally click completely into place and I could push forward to the finish. This has, as you can imagine, sometimes worked to my disadvantage, marketing-wise.

If only I weren’t such a slow writer. If only I didn’t think so much. If only I didn’t think up perpetual if-onlys. This isn’t a whine, not really, because I know that the fault, dear Brutus, lies not in my stars but in myself. I could get back to the novel a year pace, I think, but I seriously doubt I will be able to conceive, plot, and write a novel in a year. They surge and wane and surge again, so I’m always a beat or two behind the rhythm of the market.

I write on and continue to market my arhythmic novels. What else can I do? I am what I am, the market is what it is, and the zeitgeist is always pumping out ideas in multiple directions, hoping that somebody will take up the challenge and run (fast) with it.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

If you haven't already seen this over at sartorias's place, here's a hilarious homemade video:

For some reason, I've got that song from Oklahoma on my mind:

     Everything's up to date in Kansas City.
     They've gone about as far as they can go...

Which, I guess, is how I'm feeling about these old stories of mine set in Dos Lunas County, in rural Southern California. These are contemporary fantasies and I've loved writing them. I even have a coterie of local readers who still ask me now and then to write some more—but I've never been able to make a go of them in the "real world." One, they're too long and novelistic; two, they may not be genre-y enough. As in, a plot you can stick a fork in. They're mostly about internal journeys and magical stuff and a safe, sweet place where bad things don't ordinarily happen. People get sad, sure, but they rarely get hurt bad. Much of my other fiction is dark, sturm und drang, so Dos Lunas has been a haven of sorts. A kind of wishful daydream, maybe. A collection of "darlings," I suppose.

The thing is, I've gone about as far as I can go with most of them. Or maybe I'm just stubbornly holding on to stuff I should let go of. I've been contemplating for some time turning them into a real novel, told in a series of stories from different POV's—and they do hang together in an overall story arc. But that issue of having a plot you can stick a fork in always keeps jabbing me in the rear, that danged pesky conflict stuff. Yet every time I think I've consigned them to the trunk once and for all, they never stay there. Six months or a year down the line, they open the lid and tell me I need to do more work.

And I do. They inch closer to something like a "final" form, but it's a painfully slow process. (I wrote the first of them five years ago.) I don't know if I'll ever get there. But there must still be value in the effort, because they keep insisting, and every time I try yet again to make them better, I learn more stuff. And maybe that's the point of all this effort.

Not everything you write is going to be for the larger world, pro level and fighting to break in. Some things are just about learning to be a better writer, about working and applying the newly acquired skills to the next project. But who knows? Maybe some day I'll learn enough to turn even these stories into a marketable commodity. Or I'll learn to be content with not making them marketable.

I'm trying not to think about word count too much--just hunkering down and writing. Everything else in the equation will be what it will be. I just have to write. I'll worry about making it marketable once the first draft is complete.

The other day I was reading this blog entry by pbackwriterfeed. I'm nowhere near her pace, of course--the job thing interferes with that kind of production--but I'm actually ahead of the "one page a day five days a week" pace talked about in the article she references by William Dietz. I produce 2-3 pages a day, five days a week--sometimes more. I also write on the weekend, but that's more dedicated to catching up with other stuff like critiquing and maybe playing with new stories. That life thing occasionally happens in there, too. Although recently I haven't had time for any of that on the weekends. It's all taken up with moving-related stuff. So, the only thing I can count on until the chaos subsides a bit is that Mon-Fri writing session. It's my lifeline. It's the one steady thing keeping me (what passes for) sane.

I'm fighting the urge to think it still isn't good enough, that I'm a slacker. I think that inevitably when you read about someone else's work pace being so much more productive, it tends to make you feel like you aren't doing enough. Or maybe it isn't you, maybe it's just me. :-) It's an illogical thing because I know my life circumstances aren't the same as hers. I have taken less time to write each novel and I dearly wanted to produce the complete first draft for this one in a year because my ultimate goal is to produce the whole package in a year, not just a first draft. Within one year, I want to be able to slap an entire caught-cleaned-and-gutted salmon on the counter, wrap it in newspaper, and send it off to be grilled.

And I think I'll get there. I've always been good about making deadlines, even occasionally the ones I set for myself. The process streamlines a bit with each novel. If I can write faster, hallelujah. But my main duty to my writing, it seems to me, I keep reminding myself, is to be honest about it. Set modest goals I know I'll be able to make so as not to discourage myself; increase them by small increments each time--and just keep working. Do the best job I can. I have absolutely no control about what other people do with their time. I can only control what's right in front of me and do the best job I can with the time, circumstances, and talent I'm allotted.

Even if on some days that doesn't seem good enough.

It isn't a perfect world. No one is entitled to success. So you'd better like what you do when you do it. It better be enough for you. Although the success would not be unwelcome.

Actually I was alternating between London Calling by the Clash and Shirley Horn, which is a strange combo to say the least, but I'm in an inclusive and expansive mood this evening, and the old and moldy stuff suited me fine.

And speaking of old and moldy, I rescued an old novel from the woodpile and decided to reacquaint myself with the research Bible I put together for it several years back.

Am I glad I had that notebook because I sure wouldn't want to read all those books again. They were interesting, but I'd rather press ahead with new books on the same subject. I'm studying Dark Ages Britain which I've been fascinated by ever since I read Rosemary Sutcliff's wonderful historical fiction when I was a kid.

I'm funny about research—if I'm dealing with a historical era, I want to get it as right as I can, even if I go off on fantastic plot tangents (as I usually do). So I will no doubt be obsessed about Dark Age Britain for awhile now. If anyone has any good books on the subject to recommend...

The old novel was one which stalled two novels ago, mainly because I realized my plot was not for a single novel but probably involved two or three—and I just did not want to do the trilogy thing at the time. I also realized certain plot points wouldn't work as conceptualized, but I'd done a ton of work on it. Hated to let that one go.

But as so often happens with me, the Backbrain Country worked on the story while the Forebrain Country worked on other things. The issues resolved themselves. And the novel would make am interesting follow on to the novel I'm currently marketing. Not a sequel, but taking one of the supporting players and making him the main focus. A rare foray into first person for me, but I couldn't see telling this story any other way. The character, Caius, seemed to demand it. I think I might even be up to doing a trilogy now. Have no idea how tough or not tough it will be to market such a thing, but by the time I finish writing the first novel the market could have changed several times anyway, so what the hell?

Besides, as I said to a friend lately, you can't chase the market. That's rather like a dog chasing its own tail.

And on a non-writing note, I got a clean bill of health yesterday on a medical test I've been dreading for months. It was a follow-up to a major illness I had some years ago. They like to do a scan every five years just to make sure it hasn't come back. Neither my doctor nor I thought it had—I felt good, my blood tests were good—but even so, it preys on my mind every time we do one of these scans. The what if mindset is not a good one to possess when it comes to such things. I had to go on a very restricted diet the last couple of weeks before the test so there wouldn't be any conflict with the test and the first week I was obsessing over that, getting irritated and cranky as hell as a way, I realize now, of not thinking about the test. But this last week running back and forth to the doctor for shots and doses of stuff, I realized it was the test I was fretting over. But all done! I'm good to go for another five years and have been celebrating with good food.

And getting back to work, of course.