Thursday, November 30
Positive Pynchon
Oh, and I finally found a mostly positive review of Pynchon's new doorstop (cinderblock?) in the Sunday NY Times last week.
Ten best
Well, I like the end of the year for a lot of reasons, one of them being the critics lists of the best movies, books, music and so on of the year. They're getting an early start this year: here's the New York Times 10 best books.
A quick scan shows I've read exactly zero of them, but I almost own one of them: Richard Ford's Lay of the Land, the January 2007 MELDAR* selection, which I have on hold at the new local indy book store.
*MELDAR = something that starts with Multiple Erics but the rest of which I now forget. (And a happy shoutout to the other Eric in that book-reading club, who's wife is delivering their third child at noon on Friday.)
[Update: (HEY: AR= Association of Readers, I think, now that I think about it. )]
[Later: (Now! I got it: Multiple Erics Long Distance Associaton of Readers. Whew!)]
A quick scan shows I've read exactly zero of them, but I almost own one of them: Richard Ford's Lay of the Land, the January 2007 MELDAR* selection, which I have on hold at the new local indy book store.
*MELDAR = something that starts with Multiple Erics but the rest of which I now forget. (And a happy shoutout to the other Eric in that book-reading club, who's wife is delivering their third child at noon on Friday.)
[Update: (HEY: AR= Association of Readers, I think, now that I think about it. )]
[Later: (Now! I got it: Multiple Erics Long Distance Associaton of Readers. Whew!)]
Jokes
Jonathan has a funny post over on his musicology blog today, about musician's jokes about each other. Check it out, and share your joke in the comments.
Fifteen below
Zero, that is. -15. Negative 15 degrees. At this moment, on the edge of nowhere. It's one of the coldest moments of my life. I remember a -18 the first winter we moved here, fifteen years ago.
A cold and frosty morning. The dogs aren't having much fun outside.
A cold and frosty morning. The dogs aren't having much fun outside.
Wednesday, November 29
Eggo my legos
Forty-eight years after they were introduced, LEGO toys are still much beloved by children and parents alike.
So there you go
Anticlimactic finish to NaNo, since the book is only just getting started, but there it is: 50,000 words. 51,664 to be a bit more exact. It's not a novel, not a complete novel, which I guess is the goal, but it's a good start. This one feels huge, but then again it might just be a brain-dumping ramble. I don't know. It's too soon, and there's still too much.
Outside, it's 1 degree above zero at the moment, and the yard is buried under a good five or six inches of snow. It'll be nice to put this month behind us, what with all the personal tragedy we've had near us. No joy this month, no joy in NaNo this time.
There's a long way to go, but tomorrow's another day. And for now, I'm tired.
Outside, it's 1 degree above zero at the moment, and the yard is buried under a good five or six inches of snow. It'll be nice to put this month behind us, what with all the personal tragedy we've had near us. No joy this month, no joy in NaNo this time.
There's a long way to go, but tomorrow's another day. And for now, I'm tired.
Snow is falling
We've had our first winter snow storm of the season float through starting yesterday afternoon. The snow fell much of the night, enough to require a driveway/deck shoveling last night and again this morning in the 16 degree predawn darkness. A snow day would be nice, but it's not that much. Word count: 44,743.
Tuesday, November 28
Day 10 - or 12?
So I got back on track yesterday, putting another 1,234 words or so on TLA, this year's NaNo novel. I've been off for the past two weeks, but need to crank out some 2500 or so words per day over the last few days to take me over the pointless but NaNo-Worthy goal of 50,000 words in November. Plan to write late into tonight to see how far I can get....
Monday, November 20
Catching up
Somehow I missed linking to Jared's NaNo story in a new, local arts paper, NextNC. Sorry buddy.
Tom Pynchon's new book has been getting mixed reviews, at least of the three I've so far come across and partially read. Time (P vs. the Toaster) and the NY Sun praise the man but not the plot, while Entertainment Weekly (that hotbed of quality literary reviews) gives it an A (and has yet to put it online, go figure.) Someday I'll read it, but this is not that day. Nor next year. I'm still working up the courage to start Gravity's Rainbow.
While we're at it, the NY Times over the weekend has Walter Kirn (another of my favs) writing about a new Allen Ginsberg biography (with a photo of a Jeff Goldblumish-looking young Allen on a rooftop).
And Richard Ford, another of the current greats, has a new book out which I have ordered from an expensive new locally owned shop, which (aside from Wal-Mart and a couple of groceries) might now be the closest book story to my house here on the edge of nowhere. The book: The Lay of the Land. The very nice owner of the bookstore didn't know who he was, and after looking it up, pretended she had it boxed up in back and said she'd give me a call in a couple of days when she got it unpacked, then (I presume) ordered it and called yesterday to say my book was in. As she's new, and independent, I'll go buy it from her. But...
Finally, the Art of the Feud.
Oh, and I wrote about 575 words tonight on the novel, taking me to a word count of 36,207 with 10 days to go. Doable, considering I don't have to work at my day job on four of those days.
Tom Pynchon's new book has been getting mixed reviews, at least of the three I've so far come across and partially read. Time (P vs. the Toaster) and the NY Sun praise the man but not the plot, while Entertainment Weekly (that hotbed of quality literary reviews) gives it an A (and has yet to put it online, go figure.) Someday I'll read it, but this is not that day. Nor next year. I'm still working up the courage to start Gravity's Rainbow.
While we're at it, the NY Times over the weekend has Walter Kirn (another of my favs) writing about a new Allen Ginsberg biography (with a photo of a Jeff Goldblumish-looking young Allen on a rooftop).
And Richard Ford, another of the current greats, has a new book out which I have ordered from an expensive new locally owned shop, which (aside from Wal-Mart and a couple of groceries) might now be the closest book story to my house here on the edge of nowhere. The book: The Lay of the Land. The very nice owner of the bookstore didn't know who he was, and after looking it up, pretended she had it boxed up in back and said she'd give me a call in a couple of days when she got it unpacked, then (I presume) ordered it and called yesterday to say my book was in. As she's new, and independent, I'll go buy it from her. But...
Finally, the Art of the Feud.
Oh, and I wrote about 575 words tonight on the novel, taking me to a word count of 36,207 with 10 days to go. Doable, considering I don't have to work at my day job on four of those days.
Saturday, November 18
Microfame for my brother
My brother the NaNoist gets front-page coverage from the local daily up in central Washington for his effort this year. Good for him!
Tuesday, November 14
Emma
Our small friend the princess Emma Taber passed away today 11:23 a.m. surrounded in song by her loving family. Emma turned 4 on October 6, and proved to be a very brave, strong and tough princess over the last months of her life. Emma loved to dance and twirl, and she loved dressing as a princess. We're sure the beautiful princess Emma is now dancing and spinning on her toes. She is survived by hundreds of loving, loyal subjects. Words can't describe how sad and broken hearted we are today on the edge of nowhere.
Thursday, November 9
Day 9
A cloudy, dark and gloomy night here on the edge of nowhere. I wasn't in much of a mood to write tonight, but I did finally drag myself down to the library and pounded out 2800 or so words. Mostly, though, our thoughts and energy and hope are with the four-year-old daughter of family friends who live nearby, who has been in and out of the intensive care unit at Children's Hospital down in Denver for much of the past six or seven weeks. She had another surgery tonight, so mostly we've been thinking of Miss Emma, and wishing the medical mystery get solved soon so she can return to her smiling self.
Wednesday, November 8
Day 8
A more normal 2,625 word count tonight. But I'm tired, man. Too many three and four hour days. It's wearing on me. The relentlessness is what gets me. Yeah, I got 3500 words yesterday, but now I have to go do it again. And again. I was dragging my feet tonight, not wanting to start, and K asked how it was going. "Well, it's not fun," I said. "I mean, it's fun to be done, and it's fun to actually do the writing, but it's not fun to think about having to do the writing, or sitting down to start the writing."
If I could get that part nailed, so I sit down to write for an hour or 90 minutes -- about my productive max on any sort of sustained, non-Nano pace -- for ten or eleven months a year, I would be a much better writer than this crazy three hours a day for one month.
As I've said, this is no way to write a good novel. But: it is a way to write the first draft of a novel. Quickly. I'll stop complaining and whining now and got downshift with television and the knowledge that I'm already somewhere north of 32,000 words for the month. Cra-zee.
If I could get that part nailed, so I sit down to write for an hour or 90 minutes -- about my productive max on any sort of sustained, non-Nano pace -- for ten or eleven months a year, I would be a much better writer than this crazy three hours a day for one month.
As I've said, this is no way to write a good novel. But: it is a way to write the first draft of a novel. Quickly. I'll stop complaining and whining now and got downshift with television and the knowledge that I'm already somewhere north of 32,000 words for the month. Cra-zee.
Tuesday, November 7
Day 7
And on the seventh day, he wrote more than 8,000 words. And he's too tired to of typing to write any more.
Update: Proof is in the nonsensical second sentence.
Update: Proof is in the nonsensical second sentence.
Monday, November 6
Day 6
Sometimes, writing is so easy. Some days, the words just go and I have to race to keep typing, to type as fast as my brain can go. Some days it's hard (see yesterday, when I just didn't try too hard and wasn't in the mood, letting myself be distracted by real life). Other days: Two years ago, I had a couple of those kinds of othe days, over 5,000 word days. And it happened again today.
I spent some time at lunch, taking my frozen burrito and my notebook down to a second floor break room where I plotted out some next steps, getting over the hump I ran into Saturday night and floundered around on top of yesterday. So that helped. Then, I had a bit more than three hours at the library to work while Connor was at play practice, and it just went and went and I could barely keep up. So now, almost a week in, I'm over 22,000 words with a 7,148 word day. Say it with me: seven thousand, one hundred and forty-eight. Whoa. It took me until Nov. 16 last year to get this far. So, there you. With a good day tomorrow, I'll be half way in the first week. Which would put me on pace for, what? 200,000 words? Insane. And not going to happen. But 50k is within sight. And the story? Well, that's secondary, of course, in this crazy game called NaNoWriMo, but I'd guess I'm maybe a fifth or a quarter of the way into it. So, it could be a big one.
Update: Well, clearly I can't do math. I'd be on pace for 100k words, not 200k. More proof why I'm a writer and not, say, a mathematican.
I spent some time at lunch, taking my frozen burrito and my notebook down to a second floor break room where I plotted out some next steps, getting over the hump I ran into Saturday night and floundered around on top of yesterday. So that helped. Then, I had a bit more than three hours at the library to work while Connor was at play practice, and it just went and went and I could barely keep up. So now, almost a week in, I'm over 22,000 words with a 7,148 word day. Say it with me: seven thousand, one hundred and forty-eight. Whoa. It took me until Nov. 16 last year to get this far. So, there you. With a good day tomorrow, I'll be half way in the first week. Which would put me on pace for, what? 200,000 words? Insane. And not going to happen. But 50k is within sight. And the story? Well, that's secondary, of course, in this crazy game called NaNoWriMo, but I'd guess I'm maybe a fifth or a quarter of the way into it. So, it could be a big one.
Update: Well, clearly I can't do math. I'd be on pace for 100k words, not 200k. More proof why I'm a writer and not, say, a mathematican.
Sunday, November 5
Day 5
A lazy day, at least on the NaNo front. Walked all five dogs for what seemed all morning, then went down to a politically rally to root on the big candidates for the home team before Tuesday's election, then settled into the living room to watch the Broncos with one set of eyes while I tried to work on the novel. That didn't work so well.
Added 1185 words, taking me to 14,942. And it was something of a slog yesterday, and I never really got going today. I'm stuck. And it doesn't look promising, despite the word count. Enthusiasm waning.
Added 1185 words, taking me to 14,942. And it was something of a slog yesterday, and I never really got going today. I'm stuck. And it doesn't look promising, despite the word count. Enthusiasm waning.
Saturday, November 4
Day 4
Now it starts to get harder: spent two hours at the library and muddled around and wasted a bunch of words -- typing all the time -- but just kind of long-winded crappy crap, looking for a direction. It finally came, with about 15 minutes to go, but whew. Ugly.
Still, all that matters is word count, right? Well, not really, but for these 30 days, that's the goal. So: 3,413 words today, giving me a healthy if wobbly 13,757 total. Not pretty. But I'll take it.
Still, all that matters is word count, right? Well, not really, but for these 30 days, that's the goal. So: 3,413 words today, giving me a healthy if wobbly 13,757 total. Not pretty. But I'll take it.
Friday, November 3
Day 3
I spent about 90 minutes at the library after work while waiting for C to get out of play practice, and I spewed some 2675 words taking move over 10,000 in the first three days, 10,441 to be exact. A great start. It feels good. And a whole weekend ahead to pick up, dare I dream, another 10,000 words?
Thursday, November 2
Day 2
Just back from another two hours at the library, and some 3700+ more words, taking me to somewhere above 7,700 words, so I'm well ahead of pace. It seems to be writing itself so far, which is really fun as long as I can keep up because the words just flow. I have no idea what the main plot is, yet, but I have plenty of ideas for secondary plots and people, so right now I'm just kind of gettin gthe story started, the main characters introduced and setting up the premise for this whole exerise.
You want an excerpt? Sure you do. OK: here it comes, with this warning - this is very raw, cut/paste NaNo text right out of the working text file. I'm not going to try to proof, edit or fix anything, just offering my three dedicated Edge of Nowhere readers an inside glimpse at what comes out when you turn off your internal editor and strive to write lengthy, bad prose without context. Here goes:
An excerpt from Chapter One of TLA, by me, eba:
“OK,” Jeff said after a moment. “Fair enough. Give it your best shot.”
“Alright.” Jeff heard Steve clear his throat, and then take a sip of something. He listened hard, trying to decide if it was coffee or tea or soda or water, or something harder, gin and tonic maybe, or a whiskey, or maybe a martini. He had no idea, and knew he’d never be able to figure it out, but he tried anyway. “OK, so my name is Steve, and I own a moderately large business consulting company in Colorado, pushing 3,000 employees, we made $32 million profit on $700 million sales last year. And I would like to hire you, Jeff, to come work on some special projects for my company, and in return I’ll do a couple of things for you.
“First, what you’ll get: a steady five-day-a-week job, access to a condo very similar to the one you and Holly are currently living in, and at least $80,000 a year for two years. Plus, I’ll pay make your mortgage payments on your California home in advance. I’ll give you a $25,000 signing bonus, if you agree to the two-year contract, and another $75,000 if you make it through both years.”
“You said Colorado?”
“Yes sir, the headquarters are in a small growing city on the Front Range, about a half-hour north of Denver, in the fast growing exurban areas, a little place that might not show up on your travel maps, called Utopia.”
“Utopia? That sounds too good to be true. Like your offer.”
“I’m not done yet. Please don’t make any judgments yet.”
“OK,” Jeff said.
“OR decisions. Hear me out.”
“OK.”
“OK, so you’ll make decent money, with the opportunity for a raise the second year if you do good work, like all our employees do. You’ll be assigned to one of our special projects teams and, publicly, you’ll be researching and writing a variety of internal and external communications projects, news releases, internal publication stories for our intranet and, also publicly, perhaps a history of the company.”
“You want me to write for the house organ?”
“And probably the annual report, and the company history, as I said. We’ll be celebrating our tenth anniversary in a couple of years, and I would like to give all our employees a nice coffee table book to celebrate our enterprise, our organization and mostly our people.”
“You know who I am, right?”
“Of course.”
“And you want me to write for a crappy company newsletter, no offense.”
“None taken. Yes. It’s a good job. There are hundreds of people, young journalists who would love to come work for me in that capacity. I also happen to know you haven’t done much of anything for a dozen years or more, Jeff. I know you like so sit around on your ratty brown couch taking showers ever three or four days when your girlfriend finally gets sick of you moping around, and I also know you’re a talented and proud writer. I believe in you, and I want to give you a change to get your mojo back.”
“My mojo? Did you really just use the word mojo?”
“Yes, but that’s beside the point. Listen, in addition to writing for the company intranet sites, I also want you to act a spy for me inside the walls.
“A spy?” Jeff laughed. “You want me to spy on your company from the inside?”
“Yes, sort of. Listen, I have a dozen or so people working for me already. I like to hire smart, creative people and let them loose inside the company to see what happens. Call it spying, call it an experiment, call it smart leadership, call it whatever you want, but no one can know we’ve talked, or that you’re working for me.”
“This is some sort of joke, right? Who’s this, really?”
“I need you to learn everything you can about the company from the inside. I need to know what people think, who has the good ideas, who’s full of it, who has the real power that’s not reflected on the org charts, who the natural leaders are, who the troublemakers are, and I need it all to be hush-hush. Undercover. On the sly.”
“Mike? Is this you? Did Mike put you up to this? It’s not funny.”
“I’m serious, Jeff. Listen, I loved your book. It changed my life, it really did. It opened my eyes, and instead of going down the path I was headed, it changed my life. I went to college instead. I studied computers and software, because of Blue and Seven in your book. I ended up in grad school at Stanford in ‘91. I never graduated. I now own -- outright -- a $700 million a year company. And now I want to do you a favor.”
“Writing for a company rag is not a favor.” Jeff reached for the remote and hit the mute. The play-by-play started popping up as white-on-black digital text, full of amusing little typos.
“No, I agree, it will be a little bit of grunt work, and little bit of hard work. But listen: I’m in a position to return the favor, and I want to return the favor, and I need to return the favor for reasons you won’t understand. It’s not just about writing press releases for a cutting edge business services company: I’ve giving you insider access to a global business, and all the smart and interesting and stubborn and political and working-for-a-living and assholes who work and run and live for such a company. Think of it this way: I’m turning you loose inside a place that will change your life, and it will open you eyes. I’m handing you two years of in-depth grad-school level business access that is very ripe. Very ripe. You will get some good habits back, by having to report to work every day, and you will get your eyes opened by the state of American business and our company’s unstated goals, and you will write one hell of a fucking good novel from this experience. You will work for me for two years, you will watch and listen and learn, you will get your mojo back and you will write the first great American novel of the 21st century.”
Jeff was sitting up now, leaning forward, thinking.
Thinking hard.
You want an excerpt? Sure you do. OK: here it comes, with this warning - this is very raw, cut/paste NaNo text right out of the working text file. I'm not going to try to proof, edit or fix anything, just offering my three dedicated Edge of Nowhere readers an inside glimpse at what comes out when you turn off your internal editor and strive to write lengthy, bad prose without context. Here goes:
An excerpt from Chapter One of TLA, by me, eba:
“OK,” Jeff said after a moment. “Fair enough. Give it your best shot.”
“Alright.” Jeff heard Steve clear his throat, and then take a sip of something. He listened hard, trying to decide if it was coffee or tea or soda or water, or something harder, gin and tonic maybe, or a whiskey, or maybe a martini. He had no idea, and knew he’d never be able to figure it out, but he tried anyway. “OK, so my name is Steve, and I own a moderately large business consulting company in Colorado, pushing 3,000 employees, we made $32 million profit on $700 million sales last year. And I would like to hire you, Jeff, to come work on some special projects for my company, and in return I’ll do a couple of things for you.
“First, what you’ll get: a steady five-day-a-week job, access to a condo very similar to the one you and Holly are currently living in, and at least $80,000 a year for two years. Plus, I’ll pay make your mortgage payments on your California home in advance. I’ll give you a $25,000 signing bonus, if you agree to the two-year contract, and another $75,000 if you make it through both years.”
“You said Colorado?”
“Yes sir, the headquarters are in a small growing city on the Front Range, about a half-hour north of Denver, in the fast growing exurban areas, a little place that might not show up on your travel maps, called Utopia.”
“Utopia? That sounds too good to be true. Like your offer.”
“I’m not done yet. Please don’t make any judgments yet.”
“OK,” Jeff said.
“OR decisions. Hear me out.”
“OK.”
“OK, so you’ll make decent money, with the opportunity for a raise the second year if you do good work, like all our employees do. You’ll be assigned to one of our special projects teams and, publicly, you’ll be researching and writing a variety of internal and external communications projects, news releases, internal publication stories for our intranet and, also publicly, perhaps a history of the company.”
“You want me to write for the house organ?”
“And probably the annual report, and the company history, as I said. We’ll be celebrating our tenth anniversary in a couple of years, and I would like to give all our employees a nice coffee table book to celebrate our enterprise, our organization and mostly our people.”
“You know who I am, right?”
“Of course.”
“And you want me to write for a crappy company newsletter, no offense.”
“None taken. Yes. It’s a good job. There are hundreds of people, young journalists who would love to come work for me in that capacity. I also happen to know you haven’t done much of anything for a dozen years or more, Jeff. I know you like so sit around on your ratty brown couch taking showers ever three or four days when your girlfriend finally gets sick of you moping around, and I also know you’re a talented and proud writer. I believe in you, and I want to give you a change to get your mojo back.”
“My mojo? Did you really just use the word mojo?”
“Yes, but that’s beside the point. Listen, in addition to writing for the company intranet sites, I also want you to act a spy for me inside the walls.
“A spy?” Jeff laughed. “You want me to spy on your company from the inside?”
“Yes, sort of. Listen, I have a dozen or so people working for me already. I like to hire smart, creative people and let them loose inside the company to see what happens. Call it spying, call it an experiment, call it smart leadership, call it whatever you want, but no one can know we’ve talked, or that you’re working for me.”
“This is some sort of joke, right? Who’s this, really?”
“I need you to learn everything you can about the company from the inside. I need to know what people think, who has the good ideas, who’s full of it, who has the real power that’s not reflected on the org charts, who the natural leaders are, who the troublemakers are, and I need it all to be hush-hush. Undercover. On the sly.”
“Mike? Is this you? Did Mike put you up to this? It’s not funny.”
“I’m serious, Jeff. Listen, I loved your book. It changed my life, it really did. It opened my eyes, and instead of going down the path I was headed, it changed my life. I went to college instead. I studied computers and software, because of Blue and Seven in your book. I ended up in grad school at Stanford in ‘91. I never graduated. I now own -- outright -- a $700 million a year company. And now I want to do you a favor.”
“Writing for a company rag is not a favor.” Jeff reached for the remote and hit the mute. The play-by-play started popping up as white-on-black digital text, full of amusing little typos.
“No, I agree, it will be a little bit of grunt work, and little bit of hard work. But listen: I’m in a position to return the favor, and I want to return the favor, and I need to return the favor for reasons you won’t understand. It’s not just about writing press releases for a cutting edge business services company: I’ve giving you insider access to a global business, and all the smart and interesting and stubborn and political and working-for-a-living and assholes who work and run and live for such a company. Think of it this way: I’m turning you loose inside a place that will change your life, and it will open you eyes. I’m handing you two years of in-depth grad-school level business access that is very ripe. Very ripe. You will get some good habits back, by having to report to work every day, and you will get your eyes opened by the state of American business and our company’s unstated goals, and you will write one hell of a fucking good novel from this experience. You will work for me for two years, you will watch and listen and learn, you will get your mojo back and you will write the first great American novel of the 21st century.”
Jeff was sitting up now, leaning forward, thinking.
Thinking hard.
Wednesday, November 1
Day 1
A perfect day, I must say. Got out of work at 4:30, took the two big dogs for a nice two-mile run through the twilight, dropped C off at play practice at 6 and settled into Farr Library on the Edge of Nowhere for a solid two hours, and came home with a word count of 4,072 words. I've been thinking about this first part of the book for about five weeks, and had hand-written seven or eight pages of it before I left/lost it on an airplane, so it pretty much wrote itself. I know it won't be this easy every day, but I won't complain when it is. Like today.
