A Promotional Experiment

In a rare excursion from my shell of introversion, I built a web site to promote my latest novella BROKE DOWN ON THE ROAD TO GLORY, which is still in search of an agent and/or publisher. It's odd, for me at least, to be hyping something that isn't for sale yet. Heck, the car companies do it all the time. I guess it's not so weird.

So anyway, the site is http://brokedownbook.com. It contains all kinds of info including; a sample chapter, character bios, story synopsis and much much more. Take a look. If you like it, tell your friends. If you don't, tell your enemies.

Coping With the Day Job

"Your files have been published." A simple sentence. A passive sentence. The kind of sentence I email to my fellow employees dozens of times a day. An exclamation of boredom. A cry for help. Save me from the abyss! Do they hear my plea? They do not. Unless there is some hidden meaning to "Thanx Tom" that eludes me.

Then there is our director. Every email I send him is written in an A-A-B rime scheme. He's never noticed. Messages to the legal department have only one and two syllable words, yet they always respond in their over-blown fluffy language.

So why do I play these games? Well, there's the sheer evil pleasure of subversion. There's the ego-boosting arrogance of getting away with this stuff. Mostly though it really is a cry for help, building a wall in defense of my sanity. I'm not sure it's working.

Killing an Innocent Character

Tonight I killed one of my characters. It was weird because up until tonight I didn't know that there would be a murder in this book. I knew it was a psychological thriller, but didn't know the stakes would be raised that high.

On the bright side, she wasn't that great a character in the first place. She was merely the bridge between two of the main characters, girlfriend to one and roommate to the other. Now though, in death, she becomes a major source of conflict and launches the story easily and definitely into act two.

The weird thing is that I feel guilty. Not that I killed her off, but how great I feel about killing her off. Her death has helped the story so much that I'm giddy with delight. How sick is that?

Rediscovering Your Own Work

Today I was cleaning up the writing folder on my had drive, moving bunches of old stuff to subfolders like, "needs work", "bits and pieces" and of course, "pretentious garbage." In the midst of all this I came upon a rather large file I had completely forgotten about. It's a 25,000 word story titled HEAVENVILLE about a professional wrestling promoter who own an RV park that was once a drive-in theater. Surprisingly it's pretty good. It needs a major rewrite, but it's all there.

How could I have forgotten about this? I searched my memory and seem to recall that i wasn't able to resolve problems with the plot, particularly the climax. i must be maturing as a writer because I now see simple solutions for what was, at the time, insurmountable difficulties.

Encouraged by this gem I spent several hours reviewing all my old work for some other salvageable beauty. Unfortunately all this yielded was the movement of a great many files to the "pretentious garbage" folder. Ah well.

Suffering From Character Envy

My characters have much more interesting lives than my own. Every day for them is an adventure. Oh sure, occasionally they're murdered or dismembered, but they will never die of boredom or suffer the unending horror of having a day job. Many of them have cool cars and nice houses and get to have sex with lots of people without worrying about getting a disease. 

Does all that balance out that their existence relies on my whim or whimsy? Perhaps they must live life out loud in an attempt to find favor with me, their creator. To avoid having some new horror befall them, or worse yet, being left forever, hopes and dreams unfulfilled, on the unfinished page as has happened to so many of their kind before them.

Well, that still sounds better than sitting though two hours of budgeting meetings.

I Hate Good Advice

Many people give me advice. Mostly I ignore them. I'm an I-know-what's-best-for-me DIY kind of guy. You either know someone like that or you are someone like that.

However some advice just can't be ignored, no matter how painful it might be. I've been working on a novel for over a year now. It sucks, but quality isn't mandatory for a first draft. For a long time now my inner critic has been telling me that it doesn't suck because of its draft status. He says it sucks because it sucks. Of course that's just my inner critic talking. It's his job to be an asshole. The problem is, lately my more positive writing forces, the skull of the muse and the dream lizard, are agreeing with him.

I've lost all focus. The book is a collection of unconnected scenes. My villain has lost all his edge. My heroes their whimsy. The story arc has become a slinky in an Escher drawing. It's a mess and I just don't want to play ball with it anymore. Worst of all, I realize that this isn't, even if it didn't suck, a book that I would want to read. I realize that this isn't the book I want to write. It is the book I thought I was supposed to write.

In the midst of my inner critic's victory dance I considered, "What now?" So I sat at my desk, did my meditative breathing, and starting writing out a recent dream. Then I wrote some notes on the possible meanings of this dream and filled a page with "what ifs" and came up with a possible conflict/conspiracy. Looks like I've got a story write.

Am I My Critic's Keeper?

My inner critic won't speak to me. He sits on my desk with his head in his lap, weeping. The Skull of the Muse keeps telling him jokes, but he won't laugh. The glass rabbit, who I think represents my feminine side, keeps telling me in German that I need to feed the critic. She says that he will die if I don't write something soon. Quite a dilemma.

Can I survive without the inner critic? Sure, he trashes my work and makes me doubt and question everything, but he also keeps me from hoisting confusing and unpolished drek upon the unsuspecting reading public.  

Can I survive without writing? Sure, if I don't mind becoming an alcoholic flesh-eating zombie. Such a choice.

The Dream Lizard is no help either. Last night he had me trying to impress a bunch of skateborders by bragging about my clothes only to realize that I was dressed like Herb Tarlek from WKRP. I know there is a message in there somewhere but the allegory escapes me.