The Name Game

I changed the name of this blog again... See it's different. It's different because I can't decide.

I had a lot of fun writing the story of Charon (pronounced as far as i can tell Kai-ron (like the bad guy from Robotech)). It makes me want to try again. I noticed on my hard drive that I have a collection of these sort of first person "this is my life" stories. Little first person ditties musing about existence or their lot in life. Maybe I'll do another this week. I know I'm going to run a draft on Just A Boatman in the next couple of days, maybe write it out again in longhand (a craft which I feel I need to be doing more of).

I had to write a cover/query/pitch letter for my Advanced Fiction class about the full movement we're turning in today. It's chapter two of the currently stalled Jack novel. It was interesting spelling out exactly what I had in mind for it, and I feel like I've got a good grip on it.

Now I'm going to dive back into the Rider's story while i'm at work. Tally-ho!

Webistes To Check Out

This is just a placeholder for websites for me to explore in more detail.

http://freeculture.org/
http://www.jonathanlethem.com (he hasn't updated his tour schedule in over a year, but his Promiscuous Materials Project looks interesting)

Keywords to keep searching:
Hardboiled, Noir, Pulp, Crime Fiction, Archetypes/Tropes/Cliches of those previous words, Humphrey Bogart Films

Basically in a nutshell I'm beginning to do some research for what I'm thinking is going to be my next novel once I finish the rider's first story. I started working on a couple period pieces set during the 20s and 30s in the vein of pulp and hardboiled, and they were unrelated and I got to thinking that maybe I should cut them together. And in my journal it's grown to a cast of like a dozen characters all representing diferent archetypes of those genres. It draws from the storytelling structure of Stephen King's "The Stand" with each chapter taking a different character as its centerpiece and following as they slowly roll together.

I'm thinking of titling the story "7 Days In Paradise." I'm having my friend, Anna, who is a visual arts major and was playing with map design early this semester (or was it last fall? I can't remember) and I'm thinking of wooing her to design for me the city of Paradise, giving me a large playground to play in.

I'm also starting to do some reading on the subject to create a wide basis on the topic. I'm starting with Raymond Chandler's "The Long Goodbye"

I didn't get to do any writing on the rider last night. Instead I made a beasty fried rice with what few ingredients were laying around the house and I pretended to do homework.

Change Is A'Comin'

Spring is here. (technically if we're going with the solstice it's been here for 19 days)

And with it, for me at least is coming the end of things, and the beginnings of others. School has less than 40 days (37 if my calendar in my head is correct. You can see the official count on my facebook profile). It's going to be a grueling month and a half to finish without going mad. It's that senioritis point where my brain is telling me that everything worth learning has been learned, and all the homework worth doing has been done. While at the same time my teachers are telling me the converse. And my good sense, knowing that I am only accepted into UofM's School of Information on a conditional basis until I graduate and give them my final and complete transcript, agrees with my teachers.

I had a conference with my Advanced Fiction teacher, Patty McNair, and we talked about where I was at in terms of writing. She was very insistent about digging out the deeper meaning in my work. What's it about? What revelation on life is in there. And I couldn't help but grow more and more defensive of the fact that, where I am at right now in my writing process and in the material I'm trying to finish, I'm not concerned with the "deeper meaning" and that I'm more concerned with just telling entertaining stories. She pushed that really that's not a great mindset to have and that we should leave the "entertainment" for people like Tom Clancy. I wanted to, but didn't say that in truth I wouldn't mind being Tom Clancy, having Tom Clancy's salary or comfortable lifestyle, and knowing that around the world millions of people each year are reading my book, and that yes, it might not make canon 100 years from now, might not be revealing of deeper meanings on life, but it's an entertaining page turner.

That night I was reading a column by Stephen King (one of my favorite authors) talking about the misuse of the acclaimed 4-star rating by film critics. In it he said something that resonated with me, and had I had this quote memorized I would've gladly pulled it out.

There's nothing wrong with having fun, and I sneer at people who sneer at summer movies -- in fact, I sneer at people who sneer at entertainment for entertainment's sake. I feel sorry for them, too. Riding that high horse has got to be uncomfortable, especially with a stick up your butt.

That article can be read here.

Our conversation went on to cover my process and how I have this frustrating tendency to work on a project, get bored with it, get excited about another new project, or just happen to glance at an older project and find myself interested in that once again. And then I drop the first project, move onto the new (or old) project and riff on it until it becomes not new and shiny, shove it aside and repeat the same process over again.

Patty asked me how anything gets done. And then I, trying to find a good response, realized that things don't, in fact, get done. Ever. That I, now finishing my second year at Columbia, with well over 500 pages of material, have only a few minor short stories to my name.

It bugged me. It wore on my mind. And then this weekend, pulling out the rider's story once more and sitting down to work on it, on a whim, cranked out 10,000 words. Today at work I formatted my novel with the correct margins, and page numbers and page breaks. It's over 40,000 words and 200 pages. This beauty puts me further along than I've ever been in a story, and it's a sweet thing indeed. I now have the idea that it's going to be close to 80-100,000 words by the time I'm finished. And that end has never looked so attainable as it does now. I find myself wanting to do nothing but sit and write. Lose six hours, like I did yesterday. Crank until my brain hurts as bad as it did last night, and then go to the bar, get a pint to celebrate, crash, and repeat the process the next morning.

I've also started running again. I'm out of shape, but I'm getting back into shape. It's a good thing.

With this fresh weather and the need to just DO boiling and burning in my mind I have a feeling that I've reached a new stage. The Nathan Enters The Real World (after 2 more years at grad school) Stage. Of course all this writing has put me behind in homework. Very far behind...