Yesterday I wrote one sentence. The start of Chapter Six. Today I wrote two and a half pages. Not a great output you say. I say, too. But I don’t really care.
I don’t feel like doing this. I think I do the night before. But when the morning arrives…phooey. Still, I did write something. It’s odd because I’m about to write a bunch of dialogue, which I think I do well, and I know where it’s going, but I didn’t want to do it today.
Tomorrow I’ll see if I want to do it.
It’s been a week since I wrote anything. Well, today I wrote two sentences. Today I have no interest in writing. Other things kept me from writing since last Weds. Last night I was sure I’d write today. I don’t know what happened. While eating breakfast I could feel the desire dissipating. By the time I sat down here my interest was gone, but I pushed myself and came up with two sentences. Feeling the way I did I decided not to force myself. Writing under my new regime I didn’t have to.
Don’t get the wrong idea, I’m not talking about waiting for inspiration. If you waited for that very few books would get written. I certainly wouldn’t have written more than one, if that.
When I finish this I’ll answer email and then I’m going to read because that’s what I feel like doing. Only a few years ago I would’ve pushed myself to go on and certainly couldn’t have stopped to read. And guilt would’ve ruined my day.
Not now. It feels like a senior citizen discount. I could watch a movie if I felt like it. But I’d rather read. Who knows, maybe I won’t want to write for the rest of the week? So be it.
I couldn’t leave chapter two in third person. More accurately, I couldn’t leave character 2 in third person. Now I’m going to have two voices in first person. One fifteen, one forty. One female, one male. Does it work? Who knows. I don’t want to give it to first reader because at this stage it would be a mistake.
I still only have four chapters. And I’m not finished changing character 2 from first to third. As I do this I can’t help thinking why? Why am I doing this at all? As I’ve said before I’m a writer so it appears I have to write.
I shouldn’t read Laura Lippman’s Memory Project, but I like to check out what she’s up to. Still, I’m exhausted from reading her schedule and her word count. Even though she’s younger than I am, I didn’t keep up such a pace when I was her age. I don’t know how she does it. She even writes on tour! I never did. I was delighted to have a real excuse not to write.
I can’t help thinking I’m spinning my wheels, making busy work. Well, not all the time. Sometimes I feel that what I’m writing is good and no matter what, if I keep going this way, I’ll be proud of it when I finish. Sometimes I think what I’m writing sucks and I’ll be embarrassed when I finish.
When I finish? Only yesterday I didn’t want to come to this computer. But I did. I still get the Sunday night blues. I try to remind myself that I’m not going to school the next day and that no one is making me write but me. Even so I have those damn blues. Do others have them?
I think it’ll take me the rest of the week to change character 2 from third to first. I started chapter five before I realized I had to make these changes. Only a paragraph. I hope the changes will propel me and I can get back to surprising myself by what the people do in this book.
I didn’t plan to go back to Chapter One, but it hit me that what I’d written in third person belonged in first person. I thought it would be a snap. It wasn’t. Changing from third to first brought on other changes. Still, I managed to do it in one session.
This came to me while reading a novel Tuesday afternoon. It wasn’t a matter of copying someone else’s work. The spark of what I was reading ignited a flame. And I’m grateful because I would hate to have this come to me in Chapter Twenty or at the end of the first draft. The rewritten chapter is much better this way and it will make the character stronger in future chapters.
Now I’m going to go back to Chapter Two to see how that works in third person. I plan to leave it that way, but you never know.<
There are always surprises when you’re writing blind, so to speak. That makes it fun for me, even though it can create more work.
I now have three completed chapters. I have no idea if they’re good or not. I don’t look back, unless I’ve forgotten a name, etc.
The interesting thing to me is that while writing chapter three I completely changed who was going to do what in the future. Suddenly my new thoughts made so much more sense.
Since I only know a few things about this book sometimes I get stuck. Don’t tell me to write an outline. I get unstuck eventually. It might take some time but it’s more interesting this way.
Again, I’m not being rigid about my time schedule and everything feels better for me right now.
Over the past three weeks I’ve managed to write two chapters and two pages of the third. In the old days that would be a lousy output for me. I was interrupted by the death of my cat so I guess I can call it two weeks. Still.
But this isn’t the old days. This is a new way to work for me. As in, whenever I want to. Whatever time I want to. As long as I want to. Having a schedule is no longer for me. I don’t set an alarm anymore. I don’t rush to be in bed by a certain hour. It’s incredibly free.
If I had a deadline, a contract, I couldn’t do this. But I don’t and that’s what makes it freeing. I try not to wonder if anyone will buy it, but sometimes my mind will go there. I shake it away. We all know what’s going on in publishing and it’s a nightmare. However, I’m going to keep writing this novel and hope that I get to the end someday.
The good news, for me, is that I think about it when I’m not writing. I wonder about the characters. I know when I have to go back and change something. This tip usually comes from a book I’m reading. The point is, I’m interested. I like this novel. And yet I’m not obsessed by it.
For new writers please don’t follow this example. I wouldn’t have published nineteen books if I’d done it this way. It’s fine for me now. Not for you.
Margaret Atwood
This is my 2nd try at flash fiction. This time Patti Abbott asked anyone interested to send in three or four lines of a first paragraph. Then she sent one of those to each of us and we had to do a 750 word story using whatever first paragraph she gave us. The list of the other stories are here: http://pattinase.blogspot.com/ Below is my story. Remember the first paragraph isn’t mine and I don’t know who wrote it. Yet.
MEATLOAF
Davy Dunn was irritable. Stomping his black boots outside of Madison Garden, he bit his fifth cigarette out of a nine dollar deck of Marlborough Reds and smoked the hot marrow out like he wanted to taste the lips of hell.
Ray was late and it was fucking cold. Colder than his old lady's heart. He blew out smoke that curled like a snake chasing a mongoose. Shoving the stick in his mouth he clapped his leather-clad hands together. They made a muffled sound as if they were underwater. Dunn kept clapping but it didn't warm up his hands.
Looking uptown he saw Ray limping his way toward him, the little prick. He was wearing his grimy pea coat which was a size too big for him. He'd told Ray to stop wearing the thing but Ray wouldn't listen. He had on that brown cowboy hat that looked like a sewer rat had made it his last meal. Sometimes Dunn wondered why he kept the loser around. But they'd known each other all their lives growing up in the Bronx, and the thing was Ray needed somebody to look after his sorry ass.
"Hey, Davy."
"You're late, asshole."
"Sorry." He looked down at the sidewalk.
"Sorry ain't good enough, you moron."
"I tole you not to call me that."
Dunn knew he shouldn't because Ray was something like a moron. Retarded maybe.
"You know how long I been standin out here waitin on you, Ray? Wanna know, huh? My balls are like white hot ice."
Ray looked up at him. "How can they be hot and ice at the same time?"
"Shut the fuck up."
"Sorry, Davy."
"What're you doin wearin that asshole cowboy hat for? You know what it looks like? Like somebody took a crap on it."
"Nobody did."
"Shut up I tole you. I oughta leave you here. You know how cold I am?"
"Like hot ice balls."
"Listen, Ray, you're gettin on my nerves."
"Sorry, Davy."
Dunn tore off a drag of his cigarette like a starving vampire, then blew the hot smoke into Ray's beat up face. When they were kids Ray's old man used Ray like a football. He kicked him anywhere he wanted. If Ray was standing up he'd kick him in the nuts or ass. Ray was sitting down he'd kick him in the face. Broke his nose a dozen times until it looked like mashed potatoes.
"So Davy, you got the tickets?"
"No."
"No?"
"Something wrong with your ears?"
"I thought we was goin to the game."
"Sold out."
"You tole me you'd get them. No problem, you said." Ray's eyes began to fill.
"Oh, here it comes." Dunn wanted to bash him into the Garden wall like a rotten tomato.
"I can't help it. I was countin on the game, Davy."
"Too bad. Stop cryin like some pussy."
"I wanted to go to the game. You promised."
"What's that smell?" Dunn said.
"Smell?"
"Yeah. Like dirty feet or something."
"Too cold to smell anything."
Dunn leaned closer to Ray and took big long sniffs like he couldn't get enough. Ray stepped back.
"What're you doin Davy?"
"Smellin the stink."
"What stink?"
"You. That pea coat. I tole you not to wear it no more, Ray."
"I gotta, Davy. I don't have nothin else."
"Well, you stink like rotten feet."
"I'm sorry Davy."
"You fuckin should be. I have to smell it all night. You can't even smell it with that nose, can you?"
"Can't even smell my mom's corn beef no more."
"Good thing. She cooks like shit. Everything she makes tastes the same."
Ray looked at him with his brown eyes like slits in a devil Halloween mask. "Don't, Davy."
"Don't?"
"Yeah."
"What kind a thing is don't?"
"It's what it says."
"You're a dick."
"I don't want you to say nothin about my mom, Davy."
"I'll say anything I fuckin feel like sayin, moron."
"And don't say that no more neither."
"Listen you retard, you're lucky I let you hang out with me." Dunn snapped the end of his cigarette into the street and watched it roll around the gutter until it stopped. "And your mother's meatloaf tastes like puke."
Ray took two steps toward Dunn and shoved his knife through the black jacket and into Dunn's belly.
"Ray." Dunn fell on his knees. He groaned then went over like a side of beef onto the freezing slab of sidewalk.
Ray said, "Mom's meatloaf's the best." He leaned over, pulled the knife out of Dunn, swiped the blood off the knife on his pea coat and limped downtown.
I don’t seem to be doing too well. I’m not able to stick to any schedule. So in the morning it’s whether or not to write. This is a question I never asked myself during years of writing novels. I’ve tried to blame my vacillation on the weather, but I know that doesn’t make sense.
Still, yesterday as the snow fell it was more a reading day to me than a writing day. I started off reading in bed, then moved to the living room and sat in a big comfy chair. Although I could see the snow easily from my bedroom, the living room afforded me many more windows to watch through if I looked over my reading glasses.
But weather isn’t an excuse I would’ve taken if I had a contract for a novel. Or maybe even if I was writing a novel without one. I’m not sure this short story thing is for me. I’ve always known that short story writing was an art unto itself. And I always believed some people could and some couldn’t and I counted myself among the latter.
I’m used to the build of a novel, the many characters, the freedom . A short story needs to be what it says: a story that’s short. Concise. It’s true that my novels have become lean in style, but there’s still a license that I don’t find in writing a short story.
I’ve written most of one story and the beginning of another. I do like that I can go to any story I want on any given day. Or start a new one without finishing another that I decide I’ll go back to. Writing a novel I wouldn’t dream of starting a new chapter without finishing the last.
It worries me that if I start a novel my expectations will rise up and bite me. I have an idea but it isn’t a burning idea. It doesn’t keep me up at night or take my mind away from what I’m doing. It’s just an idea.
I do believe I’d be more disciplined if I was writing a novel. But so what? I see that I can start writing after nine in the morning. That’s one thing that trying to write stories has given me. I don’t have to be as inflexible as in the past.
So what if I started writing a novel and didn’t use my rigid schedule? Would the novel writing police arrive? Of course I’m the novel writing police. What if I give writing a novel in a more relaxed fashion a chance? Although trying to write at least four days a week. I think I’d be happier than attempting short stories and not getting to my desk more than two days a week at most.
There’s no one to stop me except me. Still, I’ll have to stick to one rigidity. I’d never start a novel on a Thursday. I’ll think about this and then if that’s what I want to do I’ll start on Monday.
I feel anxious simply thinking about it. Maybe I have to let go of what day I start. Maybe I have to let what happens happen. Ohmigod!
"It's finding the emotional door you have to go through. You have to find a way, an angle in on the characters, so that your emotional dope, your limits, concerns, needs and hopes at that moment can be expressed through the vehicle of the made-up story. And then you have to shape the story as entertainment so other people can feel that same emotion."
Stephen King, on revising a novel
The nice thing about writing for yourself, no agent or editor nagging you, is that you can go at your own speed, stop and write something else (like the flash fiction for Feb.) or take off the day without guilt.
I was too tired the day after the Golden Globes (all those parties) and the Inauguration took up a whole day and the next day I was too tired (all those balls).
With one thing and another I haven’t written more of the story I posted about below. But tomorrow I’m going to give it a try again. In fact I’m actually looking forward to it. I think now I’ll do stories about the same characters I’m introducing in this first story. Only a thought.
The back page of the NYTBR has an essay today about book promotion. It’s about making movie trailers or something jazzy and different about books for the Internet. The thrust of this essay seems to be that if you don’t do that you might as well flush your book down the toilet.
And I thought book tours were nightmares. I mean, part of wanting to be a writer for me was that I could be alone. But now I’d have to make a movie and be with gaffers and grips.
I guess this is the wave of the future (the future is now) and nothing will stop it. For some this may be fun and exciting. For me the excitement is the act of putting my fingers on the keys and … I almost forgot … shutting the door.
Strange what’s happening. Or maybe not so strange. I started a short story last week and I noticed this week that my mind keeps making dips like: maybe this can become a novel. Why couldn’t this be the YA that my agent is always trying to get me to write? Or, I can write connecting stories and……….
The reason I say it may not be strange is because at heart I’m a novelist. I thought that writing ss would free me. It did at first…by that I mean the first six pages or so. But as the story kept growing, taking side trips, one thing reminding me of another, the long fingers of the novel snagged me. And what’s really odd (for me) is that my family keeps creeping into this thing.
Writing ss I know there’s not a chance in hell that I’d sell one and that’s where the freedom comes in. But with a novel there’s always that hope in me even though I know it’s one of the worst periods in publishing.
I don’t want to think about writing a novel. But I also want to keep writing. I’ll have to press on and let my mind do its tricks and try not to pay attention. I don’t hold out much hope for that.
Good news and bad news. I wrote again today and got a good chunk done. I don’t mean that the writing is good…just that I did it.
BUT…I hate Word 2007. I even bought myself a book called The Missing Manual. It never has what I need.
When I finished my last word I hit the return, clicked on the icon for middle of page and to show a passage of time I did this *** . First it made strange lines and borders and I’ll never know how I got out of that, and then it screwed up my entire format. Two lines on a page. Last lines of paragraphs in the middle of a line. It took me 45 min. to get a format back. Not the one I had, but something like it. Something sane looking. I’m thinking of going back to Word 2003. This is not what you want to do after writing.
Still, I got the work done and didn’t lose it.
Everyday can’t be a winner when you’re writing. Today was not so hot for me. After yesterday I felt fired up. But a feeling isn’t a fact.
I stayed at my desk for three hours, but I got very little done. I was disappointed. Still, I wasn’t depressed by my lack of success.
I have tomorrow and I can hope for a better day.
It’s Saturday. Less than two days left before I start to write. Part of me feels like this is the last weekend of my life. Another part is looking forward to Monday.
What if I just sit here?
What if I stare at this screen and nothing happens?
I do have a title so that’s something. But what if I can’t even write a first line?
In the past two years I’ve written those 200 pages that I ended up stuffing in a drawer; a short story for the anthology A Hell of a Woman and a flash fiction piece. Not my usual output. Not me at all. Not who I once was.
Time has passed, I’ve grown older and I’m rusty. I have a new Word program. I’m not even sure I know how to use it properly.
But here’s the thing I have to remember: I’m not writing for anyone but myself. This is both good and bad. It’s good because I can be on my own schedule, take my time, screw up. Bad because I’m not writing for anyone. Agent, editor, publisher. They aren’t thinking about me. This is a whole new world.
Will I be able to do this without the carrot?
WTF, I’m simply going to try.
Is running out. For me. To not write. Six more days before I try to start a story. Back to a routine. Going to bed early. Hitting the keys by nine.
Nervous? Yes.
I’ve been thinking about what I should write if I’m going to try again. The news from the world of publishing is not helpful.
I think that at this point in my life the commitment of writing a novel is too great. And I do think of it as a commitment.
When I begin a novel it’s as if I’m beginning a new relationship. I have to meet it everyday. I have to spend three or four hours a day with it. I have to give it love.
I have seldom said, I can’t see you anymore. The relationship changes and grows. If it takes a turn I don’t like I don’t give up. I work on it until I’m satisfied. And a great many months or years are devoted to this affair. Most of all there’s an expected outcome for me. My secret romance will be shared with others. First reader, agent, editor, critics, public. That’s the way it goes. Or went. I have expectations. No matter how I try to deceive myself, ignore those expectations, they’re there. I can’t help it.
So I’ve decided to try writing short stories. I have absolutely no expectations. Yes, I’ve sold a few, but it’s not the same as a lifetime of writing and publishing novels. There’s practically no market for shorts so I can’t hoodwink myself.
Writing a novel means publication and money for me. Writing a short story means neither of those things. Even though I need money, like everyone else, I feel no pressure.
And then there’s the idea that any story I write will be a fling. The commitment is so much shorter than writing a novel. Surely I can make one. And if I want to try another commitment I can. Or not. A story will have been written with my fidelity in tact.
So come January 5th I’m going to try to get engaged.
Jules Renard
All my outside obligations are over. So now I have time to write. Do I want to? Maybe.
When I go to bed I tell myself that tomorrow I’ll start something. And when I wake up I don’t do it.
Knowing that whatever I write probably won’t sell makes it hard. I’ve never had to worry about that since I started publishing in the early seventies.
I’m lucky, you say. Yes, I know. I was writing at a great period in publishing history. Now it’s not so hot. And I’m not on the wanted list. I’m not at an age where some editor will feel he/she can mold my career. So what to do?
Should I stay in the crime field? Or should I write whatever comes into my head? I have a better chance if I stay in my genre, but only a tiny one.
I don’t have a book in me that I’ve been dying to write for years and years. I’ve already written that book.
I can only hope that more will be revealed.
Peter Abelard
Today I bumped into someone I hadn’t seen for about a year.
She said to me, “Are you still writing?”
I’ve had this question put to me many times in my life. I don’t think the question is asked of anyone but people in the arts. Sometimes it even comes from people who are in the arts. An actor once asked me this.
But the best one was an old editor of mine who I bumped into in an elevator. The elevator was in a building where the publishing company was located.
“Are you still writing, Sandra?”
“No, Roger” I said. “I’m a brain surgeon now.”
He didn’t blink because I don’t think he was listening to my answer.
Why do people ask this question? I think if you’re a writer, painter, etc. people don’t take what you do seriously. They don’t think it’s work. They view it as if it was a hobby. They can’t equate arranging words on a paper or putting paint on a canvas as work. Especially writing, because everybody writes. And an awful lot of people think they can write more than a letter if only they had the time.
A man I know who had been sick said, “I wouldn’t have gotten through my illness if I hadn’t had mysteries to read. Now that I’m better I’m going to write one to give back what I’ve gotten.”
I wanted to pop him one, but I didn’t. Even I have restraint at times. Afterall, he’d been sick.
Today when I was asked the question I said, “I’m taking a little break now.” And I didn’t ask her if she was still practicing law.
John LeCarre
I may never read a book again. Is it me or is it the books? I know I’m having a terrible time focusing because of conditions I can’t control. But that’s getting better. I have less to do. So why hasn’t my desire to read returned?
I can read newspapers, magazines, blogs, etc. But not books. I read fiction almost exclusively. Occasionally a non-fiction book will peak my interest. But nothing interests me now.
At the moment I have two new novels from the library. I put them on a request list months ago. I was anxious to read them because both are written by authors I like. I’ve started both and stopped both.
Before that I read about 385 pages of a 400 page novel and stopped. I had no idea what I’d read and, of course, didn’t give a damn about the ending. This has never happened to me before. I give a book about 25 pages and if it doesn’t grab me I don’t read it. Sometimes I can tell in 10. But 385?
I don’t actually think it’s the books. It’s me. Reading is one of the great pleasures of my life and not being able to do that leaves me feeling empty.
This is great: I can’t write and I can’t read. Daytime TV? Not yet.
I’m home but I have certain responsiblilities that make it not only impossible to think about writing, but untenable to write. It makes me sad.
I think I want the choice to be mine. Not something that is imposed on me. It will be six weeks before I can focus on myself and make some sort of stab at what I want to do.
There’s a flash fiction project going on and I can’t even do that although I’d like to.
From time to time I’ll try to write things here that pertain to writing even though it’s not my personal struggle. This and that as they occur to me and I have a moment or two. Maybe no one will read it but it’ll be good for me if I can do it. I guess I don’t want to be out of this altogether.
I hope my regular readers don’t abandon me while I’m in this state. I hope one day you’ll drop in and read that I’ve begun something.
Meanwhile, perhaps this tells you what can happen to a writer at my stage in a career. The fact is I don’t have a career at this time. I have lots of work behind me, but now … nothing. And no publisher is waiting for me to turn in anything.
As this stage has gone on and on I realized I’ve been derailed by many things. Not all of them my doing. We all know that the state of publishing is a mess. So this doesn’t make me want to knock myself out trying to get back on track.
I’m a writer and my natural state is to be writing. Still, knowing that probably nothing will happen to anything I write is depressing. This isn’t my imagination. I have a track record and you’re only as good as your last book. In other words, how much money you made for the publisher.
This is understandable. Publishing is a business. My career has not been a splashy one. Pretty steady though. Once I started publishing only one book of mine was rejected…never published. So it’s hard to think of writing knowing it might end up in a drawer. I’m not used to it.
Yes, I put 200 pages in a drawer a year ago, but that was by choice. I’m talking about a finished manuscript. Anyone who tells you they write for the sake of writing is either a liar or a fool.
If and when I start again, the knowledge that what I’m writing may never be published will always be with me. During most of my career I wondered, never sure I’d sell a book, but this is different.
I’m nearer to the end instead of the beginning. Or even the middle. It’s harder here.
I did say that I’d know by now and I do. Things have turned out to thwart any new beginning at this time.
I’m not sure exactly how long I’ll be unable to consider writing. It looks like six to eight weeks. I’ll be away from home for about five days and with lack of concentration or focus no writing will occur except for email and this blog. And I’m not sure how that works in a hotel. The wireless thing, I mean.
I’d be foolish to think I could begin something during this period. And when I get home I’ll be very busy doing other things. So two months more or less before I consider writing again.
Yes, I’m relieved in a way, but I don’t admit to that. I tell myself I would’ve come up with something good and I’d be back on track again.
It could’ve happened, I guess. But this isn’t the end of the line. It’s a postponement. At least that’s what I tell myself.
A writer friend wrote me, after reading this blog, to wish me the “September Fever.”
I knew exactly what she was talking about because after all this time I still think of September as the beginning of the year. A time to start new things. An excellent time to start writing a new book.
For many years that’s exactly what I’ve done. But this year, for various reasons, starting a new anything is not in the cards. It’s out of my control, a state I’ve never been comfortable with.
The worst part of this is that I’m not sure I want to start a new novel. How many months have I been saying that I’m finished writing? It’s only in the last weeks that I’ve been suspicious of that stance.
Herbert Gold says, writers never stop writing, are “always on the lookout for the next book.”
“Writers can’t serve 30 years and then earn release to play golf, wear a baseball cap, enterain themselves by negotiating shopping carts down the aisles of the local supermarket.”
I’ve always believed this, but I know I won’t be sitting here hitting the keys on September 2nd. That’s a given for a reason out of my control. And after that things will depend on what happens on September 2nd.
For anyone who has been a constant reader of this blog, you know that even if everything turns out all right, I won’t start on September 3rd because it’s a Wednesday. Whoever heard of starting anything in the middle of the week?
If I’m lucky I might want to begin writing on Monday September 8th. And if I want to I can only hope that circumstances allow me to do so.
Kurt Vonnegut
My life goes on but my writing doesn’t. I think it was Freud who said that to have a happy life you need both love and work. I have one but not the other. I’ve had both and I was happier.
So sit right down and go back to work, you say. It’s not so simple. I keep thinking that I’ll do that in the fall despite my insistence of retirement.
It’s true that I was tired of the routine, but I’ve had a rest and now I feel I want to write. Perhaps that’s because at this moment I can’t. I may be fooling myself. Once I can I might not want to. That remains to be seen.
The point is that at this moment I feel I want to write, feel I would if I could.
I can read again. I’ve almost finished a novel. And I think my not writing might have something to do with a situation I can do nothing about. The situation will change, but I don’t know when.
It’s not magic and I know it doesn’t mean that when the situation changes I’ll plunk myself down here and bat out the first chapter of something.
But I do notice that I have a sense of longing.
No second line has come to me. I have no desire to find one.
I thought about going back to writing YAs. My agent has suggested it and so have friends. I’ve published 5. But the thing is that would require writing.
I did have a heady moment when I thought it would be okay to write one with another person. And then the idea deflated like a sick balloon.
Since then (about a week ago) I’ve felt hostile toward the act of writing.
Worse than that is that I can’t read. I start something and then I put it down. I’ve had periods like this before but somehow this one is making me mad. Everything is making me mad.
I’ve had a first line for about a week. I think it’s a great first line. So? What am I doing writing first lines anyway? I’m the retired writer.
But what to do when a beauty of a line comes buzzing into your brain? Dodge it? Black it out? Give it to someone else? God no.
I went to Word and typed it on the blank page making it no longer blank. And that’s where it is now. One line. No company.
Is it lonely? Maybe. But I don’t seem to be able to do anything about it. I think of that line a lot. I’ll be making the bed and the line pops into my mind. It makes me smile. I wash a dish and I say it silently.
It’s no big deal to have an opening line, you say. You’re right. So why am I blathering about it? You tell me.
J.B. Priestley
” With gas prices rising they had to change their plans.” This was the sentence given for this particular piece of flash fiction. One had to use it somewhere in the 750 word piece. Mine is below. Links to the other writer’s pieces can be found here.
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With gas prices rising their plans had to change. They had little money to begin with and getting away by car seemed impossible now.
Betty Rae wanted to push Kenny’s head through the windshield because he was ready to give up on the whole thing.
“What are we supposed to do, B.R., go by donkey cart?”
“You’re not funny. This is serious.”
“But how’re we gonna get away after? We need money for food and stuff. Can’t go paying no six twenty-five a gallon. The way this fuckin crate eats up gas we’ll be outta money before we pass the county line.”
“We gotta think a something else.” She knew she was the one who had to think of a plan because Kenny never thought of anything. What was she doing with this moron, anyway? She should never’ve broken up with Bing. Her mother always snarled when she talked about him.
“Betty Rae, can’t you do better than a boy named Bing Cherry?”
It wasn’t his fault that was his name. Wasn’t like he named himself. Wait a minute. Bing had a Vespa. And she knew where he kept a spare key.
“You ever driven a Vespa, Kenny?”
“A what?”
“Vespa. It’s like a motorcycle only smaller.”
“You mean like a mobed.”
“Moped.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said.”
She wasn’t going to argue with him because there wasn’t time for that now.
“So you never drove a Vespa, right?”
“Right.”
“Thing is, you get a lotta miles to the gallon with them.”
“So what?
“I know where we can get one.” She told him about it.
“And you can drive it?” he said.
“Easy.”
“Cool. Let’s get her then.”
Kenny started the old Ford and drove over to Bing’s. He was in Iraq and Betty Rae knew his parents both worked. Kenny parked around the corner and they walked to Bing’s house, up the driveway and peeked through the garage window.
There it was with a grey cover over it.
“What if it don’t have gas in it?”
“Shut up.” She went over to the flower bed near the side of the house, dug around in the dirt and came up with the key. She held it up to Kenny like a trophy.
When they went to open the garage doors they discovered they were locked.
“Now what?”
She looked at him with contempt, took off her shirt, walked to the side of the garage, wrapped the shirt around her hand and punched a hole in the window.
“Jesus, B.R.”
“Nobody’ll hear us.” She put her shirt back on, pulled out the pieces of glass stuck in the frame, climbed through, came around and raised the door for Kenny.
They didn’t say anything and went over to the Vespa.
Betty Rae pulled the cover off the machine. It was a wild purple, like she remembered. She kicked the stand, threw a leg over the seat, put in the key, and tried to get it started.
“Bet it has no gas in it,” Kenny said.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re a goddamn pessimist?”
“Not so I remember.”
“Well, you are and it’s a big drag.”
“Sorry.”
One more try and the engine gurgled to life.
“Get on.” She could see he didn’t want to so she gave him her I’ll kill you if you don’t look.
He slowly took his seat behind her and she drove out of the garage, down the driveway and onto the street.
“Hey, my car’s the other way.”
“Fuck the car. We don’t need it. Listen. We’ll go to my house and get the gun. And you’ll do like we planned. Then we’ll get outta town on this.”
Her fucking parents were on disability so they’d both be home. Shithead would be watching Oprah in the living room and Pigface would be glugging wine and smoking cigarettes in the kitchen.
Kenny would kill her father first while she was in the kitchen with her mother. The stupid bitch would hear the shot but before she could do anything Betty Rae would stab her and then Kenny’d come in and shoot her. After, Betty Rae would pull the jar out from behind the pipes under the sink and take the money.
But what if Kenny got cold feet? He wouldn’t because he knew she’d kill him if he didn’t do like she said.
“Waaatch ooou…,” Kenny screamed.
They hit the car in front, bounced off and smashed into the telephone pole.
Neither one was wearing a helmet.
Those of you who read this blog know I balked at writing a short story last year. Then I did it and it was published in the anthology HELL OF A WOMAN. From there it was picked to be included in A Prisoner of Memory: And 24 of the Year's Finest Crime and Mystery Stories. This came as a great surprise to me.
However, in cleaning out a trunk I found a rolled up scroll which turned out to be a certificate of merit in recognition of winning Honorable Mention in the Regional Scholastic Writing Awards for New Jersey. Yes, for a short story. I have no memory of this or the story I wrote when I was fourteen.
I guess I wrote short stories back then.
Coming up at the end of the week is my first try at Flash Fiction. It’s okay, I didn’t know what FF was either when I heard about it. It isn’t much, but I actually wrote something.
I’ve been walking around with a low-grade depression for weeks. Now something has lifted it for me. I think I miss writing. Everything I’ve said before this is true. I didn’t miss it and I was feeling fine about it, enjoying myself.
I still hate the idea of a routine. But I realized that three days a week I get up to an alarm anyway because I go to an excercise class. This means that three nights a week I go to bed at the same time I did when writing. That is part of the routine I was sick of. The other part is writing itself. Or was.
This doesn’t mean I’m going to plunge into some big project or even a small one. The fact is, I don’t know what it means.
There are adjustments I have to make. I have to accept that I’m not in the thick of things anymore. It’s not twenty some years ago when I was in on starting Sisters In Crime. I don’t have loads of writer friends. Many of them have stopped writing (or stopped getting published) and I don’t live in NYC. There’s a whole new crop of wonderful writers out there and it’s their turn now…as it should be. Going on book tours is a thing of the past for me. I’m not grieving for that. I could still go to conventions but I don’t want to. Again, that’s really for the new kids on the block.
This is a fresh chapter for me. I’m not sure what will be in it, but I guess I’ll find out. I have no illusions about this. And I hope no delusions.
As always, I don’t know how I got from there to here.
Last night I had a helluva time falling asleep. I think it was because I ate a chocolate cookie…very chocolate…too late. But it was also because I was reading a short story by Alice Munro.
I started to think about stories again. When I put out the light to try to force myself to sleep, I could only think of ss ideas.
I don’t know what it means. I’m not saying I’m going to write any, but something is happening. I’ve noticed my ears are perking up when other people are having conversations.
Writing a ss is not a huge commitment the way a novel is. On the other hand I’ve always felt writing one was wasting time. I have to do something about this idea. This way of thinking.
That’s all.
Jess has asked this question:
“In all your years of writing books, did you ever come up short in word count?”
Word count never came up until I signed with Ballantine about five years ago. No one said anything about it. I wrote until it was finished. Some books were longer than others. I guess I went by feel. Or to put it another way, the characters told me when it was time to get out of there.
Then when I got the Ballantine contract it said I had to turn in a book with 95,000 words. I’d never seen anything like that in a contract before. I’d spent my career paring down my writing. My aim was to not have a wasted word. The joke was on me.
Years ago 65,000 words was the length of the average novel. Thomas Wolfe was an exception. I had no idea what word count I had in any novel I’d published. But I felt that 95,000 words might be too many for a P.I. novel. I got them to agree to 85,000, which I still thought might be too long, but I had to sign the contract with that word count. And my book came in around that length.
Still, I think dictating the amount of words a writer must punch out is destructive. Sometimes a very long novel is self-indulgent. I can think of quite a few. On the other hand, very short novels might leave a reader feeling cheated.
If you’re worried about getting a book up to a certain word count you’re bound to load it with filler. We’ve all read books like this and it’s a big bore. Even if it lands on the bestseller list. Boring.
A writer must do what he/she feels comfortable with. Thinking about word counts might take the life out of the novel especially if you’re new at writing. But times have changed and publishing houses have new rules.
I think it’s sad that these rules and regulations have come into play. Asking for a specific word count is as bad as asking a writer to write a book like Dan Brown or Mary Higgins Clark. Or Virginia Wolfe. But no one would ask you to write like her.
If getting published is more important to you than writing what you want to write then, by all means, do your word count.
I believe you have to write like you and you have to write until you come to the end.
Truman Capote
From Patti Abbott
This is the first of what I perhaps overly optimistically hope will become Friday recommendations of books we might have forgotten over the years. Not just from me, but from everyone. I have asked several people to join with me today and recommend favorite books of theirs. Their blog sites are listed below. I also asked each of them to tag someone to recommend a book for next Friday.
I’m worried that we are letting some great books of the recent past slide out of print and out of our consciousness. Not the first-tier classics we can all name perhaps, but that group of books that comes next. If you read a book that someone recommends, please call our attention to that too. It would be nice to think a recommendation had an impact on someone somewhere.
Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
If you’re looking for a fast read, this isn’t for you. Bowen's people are keenly aware and the reader must stay right there with her, because hidden among lengthy descriptions of sea air and drawing-room politics are terse asides.
This is a story of innocence betrayed set in the thirties. Portia, an orphan, comes to live in London with her half-brother, Thomas, and his wife, Anna.
It’s Portia’s innocence that causes so much trouble. She isn’t trained to deal with London society or with boys or with the isolation she endures. Anna and Thomas live dull, sterile lives.
Unfortunately for Portia, she falls in with Anna's friend Eddie, who seems to be made entirely of bad motives. Though the plot follows Portia's relationship with Eddie, the novel's real tension lies between Portia and Anna.
There is a stunning romantic betrayal and it sets in motion one of the most moving and desperate flights of the heart in modern literature.
For me this is the best of Bowen’s novels.
Even though this is a writing blog tomorrow will be different, especially since I’m not writing. Although I did change part of the page and a half I have from first person to third. Does that count?
Patti Abbott has come up with an idea that is quite interesting and I’m participating. So check back tomorrow.
I’ve written about a page and a half since I last posted here. Yes, I have an idea. And I find myself thinking about it especially as I read other people’s books.
Am I working my way toward a disciplined life again? Am I going to find a new way to work? Am I going to work at all? Will I stick to this idea in some way?
I don’t know any of those answers. I guess I’ll wait and see. Or write and see.
I do like the idea. That’s something. Still, I don’t like the thought of a schedule. Perhaps that will pass. Now that I have an idea I like and think I can execute, everything might fall into place. Yeah, right!
On Monday, while I was reading, an idea came to me. I made notes. I put them into my computer. I felt excited.
On Tuesday I couldn’t care less.
On Wednsday I thought about it again. It interested me. Maybe, I thought, maybe….
Today I couldn’t care less.
Gabriel Fielding
This morning I was flipping through Crimspree Magazine and came to an ad by Echelon Press. I was stopped still when I saw the jacket of a novel by Robert Goldsborough. Except for the cigarette in the woman’s mouth, it is the same jacket on the the large print edition of This Dame for Hire. Clean Feet Design is credited for my book. I wonder if Clean Feet knows they’ve been used at least twice. I guess so. I hope they get paid for this.
I think somebody did an article, either on the Internet or in a magazine, about this practice. I don’t know why but I keep thinking Sarah Weinman did it on Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind. Has anybody else come across this with a book they’ve written?
I got an email from someone I’d told that I was no longer writing. This is what he wrote to me in reply: “If you are genuinely happy without the writing, more power to you. I don't seem to be able to shake the bug and am hard at work on a book about my father.”
The annoying thing about this is that this man self-publishes and seems to only write about himself and his family. No fiction. He’s retired. He doesn’t take in that my writing was my career, my job. And clearly doesn’t get that my life’s work had nothing to do with a bug. Yes, I’m grouchy. I would write him a scathing letter except that he’s married to my favorite cousin.
Which leads me to something I was thinking about yesterday. I used to have this saying on my bulletin board: “I think there’s truth in what you say.” The late Edward (Ned) Stewart told me to say that, or a version of it, when talking to my agent or an editor. This was because of my prickly personality. I know this comes as a shock to some of you, but, yes, I did have an abrupt style once upon a time. But all that isn’t my point.
Remembering that sign led me to the other sign I had on my bulletin board. “Advance the Story” in big black letters. They are important words. And I wrote by them. Most of the time.
No matter what kind of novel you’re writing the main thing is to advance the story. That should be your goal. If it is, it will keep you from going off on tangents, doing set pieces, throwing in a dream that bores the hell out of readers, ruminating on the weather, the scenery, the silverware or any other thing that has no business being there. Unless it’s a sentence or two, but even then if it doesn’t move the story along, drop it.
I want to read a well-written book, but I’m not interested in pyrotechnic writing.
I just finished Richard Price’s Lush Life. He doesn’t waste a word. There’s one dream the book could do without. It didn’t tell me anything and didn’t advance the story. It was slightly irritating because it was a page and a half long. But if you’re Richard Price you can get away with it. Almost.
I suggest that you take a piece of white letter-sized paper, turn it so it’s horizontal and in black magic marker write ADVANCE THE STORY and pin it up where you can see it as you write.
Or don’t.
My Medialist disappeared around March 6th or 7th. This is where I listed my recommended books. The website has no new entries after March 8th. I think it’s over. I wish I could find another site that would allow me to do what I did with Medialist. If anyone knows of one I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know.
I’ve made my own recommendation list and I’m starting over because I don’t remember what was on there. It isn’t as pretty as the old one but I guess this list isn’t about pretty.
Obviously the Medialist came back since I wrote that.
And speaking of disappearing, I haven’t. I’m still around and still not feeling guilty about not writing. I’ve been following Laura Lippman's book tour and feeling happy for her and happy it’s not me. I could never do a tour like hers. The most I ever did was two weeks and I found it exhausting. I couldn’t even do two weeks now. Fortunately, no one is asking me to.
I had a short period in which I was unable to read. I found that awful. But now I can. I have a bunch of books lined up and you can see the one I finished on my jerry-rigged list.
When I read a wonderful novel like Lush Life I do feel a bit nostalgic for the act of writing. Not that I could write a book like Price’s. That’s not the point. But there’s a part of me that wants to be in that state…the state of creation. There’s no better state to be in, I think. Even when it’s not going well. Still, I’m not interested or ready to go back to my schedule.
Jess has suggested that I write about “plotting, characterization, making setting come alive--whatever.” I’m not a teacher but I might be able to do this if asked a specific question. I promise nothing.
Donald Hall
I’ve decided it’s the routine that’s gotten to me. It’s not unlike any job where you do the same thing over and over.
What I mean is this: going to bed by 10 P.M.; getting up to an alarm; having breakfast; getting to my desk by 9 A.M. and staying there until 12 or 1.
On the face of it it doesn’t look so terrible. But I’ve been doing it for about 50 years with short breaks here and there.
Since I stopped writing ideas have come to me…not big ones, but little ones here and there. I think to myself I should write that (a habit that doesn’t go away ever, I suspect) and then my mind goes immediately to the SCHEDULE. And I know I can’t do it.
So change the schedule, you say. Write in the afternoon. Write at night. Use something other than a computer. I can’t. I’ve never used anything but a typewriter or a computer. And I’ve always written in the morning.
I’m a morning person. I’d have no energy to write in the afternoon and night is for other things. Like life. Not to mention total lack of energy. Writing with pen and pad leaves me cold. And I can’t write in cafes or libraries or anywhere but here. I have to have total silence. That’s one of the main reasons I left NYC.
I have no idea what to do about this. Perhaps I’ll have to stay silent until the idea of a schedule doesn’t make me feel sick.
