Thursday, March 23
75k
Nearly two more hours of work tonight at Daz Bog took me over the 75,000 word mark.
Here are all the places I've worked on this novel so far: My kitchen table, my upstairs bedroom desk, our living room couch, Daz Bog, Margie's Java Joint, Seattle's Best Coffee at Borders, the Greeley Farr Public Library, the Cheyenne Wyo. Public Library, a Tempe Mission Palms hotel room in Tempe, Ariz., Gate 20 at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, an airplane flying over Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona (going both ways, twice), and the upstairs bedroom at Kristen's parents house. I think that's it.
Here are all the places I've worked on this novel so far: My kitchen table, my upstairs bedroom desk, our living room couch, Daz Bog, Margie's Java Joint, Seattle's Best Coffee at Borders, the Greeley Farr Public Library, the Cheyenne Wyo. Public Library, a Tempe Mission Palms hotel room in Tempe, Ariz., Gate 20 at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, an airplane flying over Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona (going both ways, twice), and the upstairs bedroom at Kristen's parents house. I think that's it.
Tuesday, March 21
Like the salmon of Capistrano
So the words were flowing tonight, like the salmon of Capistrano as my friend Murray would say. Up and over 72,500 words, at 149 pages now, working on a scene where our hero Les is about to sleep with Girlfriend No. 1 and things are moving the right direction. Good times! And man, does writing make me happy.
The male Anne Tyler?
So, I've been reading and re-reading some Anne Tyler recently, and it's slowly dawning on me that maybe (and this will sound incredibly presumptuous, but so what) I could become the male Anne Tyler, only instead of writing about middle-age women who use food as a substitute for love and other wacky characters who live in Baltimore, Maryland, I write about middle-age men who feel trapped in their corporate-suburban lives and other wacky characters who live in Utopia, Colorado.
And hers would be a fine career to chase: she's a Pulitzer prize winner who regular publishes and lands on the best seller lists, who's respected among the English departments of our fine college and universities and who from time to time has films made of her books. It's also something to keep in the back of my mind for my agent pitches, as a way to try to identify my style (and one that expands from my previous self-comparison ideas of me being (wanting to be?) a suburban American Nick Hornby, or a western Tom Perotta, or as an untalented Walter Kirn [the last one being more of an 'aspiring to' comparison than a serious one].)
And we won't even go to the stars I really, secretly, nay -- desperately-- want to someday be compared to. I dare not even write their names outloud, at least not in this post. OK: I'm off to the library for two hours of writing and editing. Later!
And hers would be a fine career to chase: she's a Pulitzer prize winner who regular publishes and lands on the best seller lists, who's respected among the English departments of our fine college and universities and who from time to time has films made of her books. It's also something to keep in the back of my mind for my agent pitches, as a way to try to identify my style (and one that expands from my previous self-comparison ideas of me being (wanting to be?) a suburban American Nick Hornby, or a western Tom Perotta, or as an untalented Walter Kirn [the last one being more of an 'aspiring to' comparison than a serious one].)
And we won't even go to the stars I really, secretly, nay -- desperately-- want to someday be compared to. I dare not even write their names outloud, at least not in this post. OK: I'm off to the library for two hours of writing and editing. Later!
Sunday, March 19
DeLillo's baseball movie
I'm a fan of Don DeLillo, and a fan of baseball, so when the two come together, I guess that means I should be pretty excited about it. DeLillo's Game Six is profiled on LitKicks in a glowing review. I suppose I'll be reserving judgment until I get to see it, even though it'll never play on the Edge of Nowhere. Still, I'll cop to looking forward to it arriving someday in the red NetFlix envelope. Oh, and here's the film's site.
Friday, March 17
It's Friday
So I'm back, after a few days down in Arizona where I was able to work on the novel to the tune of some six hours or so, in the hotel and Gate 20 at Sky Harbor (one of the great airport names, if you ask me). I passed the 70,000 word mark as well. Check out the Anderfamily blog for some baseball photos, if you're into that sort of thing.... My brain is moving pretty slowly at the moment, so not much to report. Just back from a new version of Shakespeare's 12th Night... in the form of an Amanda Bynes teen movie, which was actually quite amusing. Now some hoops.
Sunday, March 12
On the road ...
In the morning I'm heading down to Arizona for my day job for three days, but it won't be all work. I've got my laptop and am planning to log some serious hotel room novel editing time, and I've got tickets to a couple of spring training games on Monday and Wednesday. So here's to six more hours of novel editing...
Thursday, March 9
You know, like Hitchcock or Shyamalan
So I had a funny if unoriginal idea today at lunch. Sitting on the second floor balcony overlooking the parking lot at work, eating my frozen burrito, reading an Anne Tyler novel in which her main characters were walking down the street and Tyler described a couple of the passerbys, I had the idea of putting myself into my novels in supermicro bit parts, just walking through a scene or saying "acknowledge" to one of the novels main characters. You know, like Hitchcock or Shyamalan do in their own films. And not just one of my novels, but all of them. To make it one of those things Anderson does. So I think I will.
Wednesday, March 8
Kirn goes for it
Walter Kirn goes for it: writing a novel in real time on the internet. Starting Monday. Slate has it.
Dang.
Dang.
Sunday, March 5
Packing thoughts
So I was able to write for a bit more than three hours this afternoon up at the library in Cheyenne while the kids were in class, and as I was packing up feeling extra weird about what a weird hobby writing fiction is, and how it would be nice if I could just finish something and give it to someone to worry about trying to find an audience for it (i.e., an agent), I had this "great" idea: what I need to do is hire someone to find an agent for me. Just hire some college kid, an English major or something, and pay them $10 an hour to write letters to agents and package up my stories and pitch letters and track it all.
See? What a strange, strange hobby.
Anyway, three hours today, an hour yesterday and two or three Friday night, and I'm somewhere on the high side of 66,000 words. I feel like I'm probably 2/3 of the way done. But we'll see.
See? What a strange, strange hobby.
Anyway, three hours today, an hour yesterday and two or three Friday night, and I'm somewhere on the high side of 66,000 words. I feel like I'm probably 2/3 of the way done. But we'll see.
Friday, March 3
It's like...
Writing a novel on a laptop is like painting a mural on a canvas 10 feet tall and 20 feet wide and all you've got is a No. 2 brush and your subconscious and all you get to see at any one time is four square inches.
Thursday, March 2
Another two hours
Not much to say tonight, except I put in another two hours of editing/writing work, and drove the story through the 61,000 word mark. I'm on page 80 something of the 125 I have written on this book. Now it's time to go read for awhile...
Wednesday, March 1
The plan for the next few months
Two months down on the year, and as I noted yesterday, I have 42 hours of writing and editing finished so far this year on the current novel. I fell a few hours short of my hourly goal for February, but overall for the year I'm on pace to work as much as I hoped I could. Or would. Or should. So that's good.
It's probably also time, with one-sixth of the year already gone (but: leaving 84 percent of the year left!), to take a look at plans for the next few months. With my son nabbing the Gandalf role in the school's April production of 'The Hobbit', he has rehearsal two hours a night four nights a week (when I can duck into the library and write), and at least one more four-hour session on the calendar in Cheyenne, I should be able to log a bunch of writing/editing hours in March. I also have a three-day work trip to Arizona on tap, so I might be able to put in some serious hotel room writing time at night. If I can remain focused, perhaps I can get pretty close to having a complete draft of this current novel (well, as complete as I ever make 'em, which is adifferent story and the subject of I'm sure a few dozen posts over in the archives).
So, for the sake of public pressure and personal commitment, I'll saythat's my goal for March: finish the first draft of 'Les Dempsey Tries Again.'
Then I'm going to shift my focus to a couple of my more recent novels and make a sincere effort to market them, particularly 'Messiah's Sneaker,' 'Balance' and 'The Edge of Nowhere.' By 'sincere effort,' I think that means making a final once-over final read/edit first, letting someone else read 'em second, then writing my hilariously perfect short and compelling pitch letters for each as I finish. Then I need to start assembling lists of agents and methodically sending out the pitches to the list. And keeping track of responses. Run it like a business, right Krell? A little bit each week, keep the process moving, ignore the rejections and keep going. I'm realizing the neat thing about having three or four (well, nearly seven, now....actually) mostly complete novels is that I can keep a lot of pitches in circulation at the same time, because from what I can tell agents can be notoriously slow to respond.
OK. I'll keep you posted.
It's probably also time, with one-sixth of the year already gone (but: leaving 84 percent of the year left!), to take a look at plans for the next few months. With my son nabbing the Gandalf role in the school's April production of 'The Hobbit', he has rehearsal two hours a night four nights a week (when I can duck into the library and write), and at least one more four-hour session on the calendar in Cheyenne, I should be able to log a bunch of writing/editing hours in March. I also have a three-day work trip to Arizona on tap, so I might be able to put in some serious hotel room writing time at night. If I can remain focused, perhaps I can get pretty close to having a complete draft of this current novel (well, as complete as I ever make 'em, which is adifferent story and the subject of I'm sure a few dozen posts over in the archives).
So, for the sake of public pressure and personal commitment, I'll saythat's my goal for March: finish the first draft of 'Les Dempsey Tries Again.'
Then I'm going to shift my focus to a couple of my more recent novels and make a sincere effort to market them, particularly 'Messiah's Sneaker,' 'Balance' and 'The Edge of Nowhere.' By 'sincere effort,' I think that means making a final once-over final read/edit first, letting someone else read 'em second, then writing my hilariously perfect short and compelling pitch letters for each as I finish. Then I need to start assembling lists of agents and methodically sending out the pitches to the list. And keeping track of responses. Run it like a business, right Krell? A little bit each week, keep the process moving, ignore the rejections and keep going. I'm realizing the neat thing about having three or four (well, nearly seven, now....actually) mostly complete novels is that I can keep a lot of pitches in circulation at the same time, because from what I can tell agents can be notoriously slow to respond.
OK. I'll keep you posted.
