Big Step Forward, then Work

Good day of work Wednesday, but today will be a different story, I'm afraid.

Gotta work. Gotta cover the V.I. Senate online. It'll be a long day of listening to them talk – and talk and talk and talk. Last time, a couple of weeks ago, I ended up listening for about six hours, had more than 6,000 words of notes that had to be turned into a 1,000 word story. This is potentially much worse, since the last time it was one topic. This time there's a dozen or more bills.

Fortunately, this is the final vote on them. I imagine the senators have said all they need to say on the subject. Although, being politicians that's never stopped them. Give them five minutes to ask questions to witnesses testifying about a bill, and they will talk for five minutes and usually never ask a question. Sometimes they ramble on about things completely unrelated to the topic at hand. Just once, just once, I'd like to hear the chair say, "Sen. So-and-so, you have five minutes," and the senator reply, "No, I'm good, keep moving." It would be refreshing.

But Wednesday was a good day. I worked over 4,883 words of almost three complete chapters. Just need a couple more grafs and the chapter is done with a scary discovery. Again, some of it was just tweaking existing stuff and some was new stuff, so it's hard to say how much actual writing I did. Most of it was taking out a long boring part and creating a new, interesting bridge. I got them right to the point where they're about to find the cave – a completely different cave than the one in the first draft – then stopped for the day. But the next dragon is coming.

I also had the villains do something that really makes them villains. It's the most villainous thing I've ever had a character do. Think of four or five things a character can do that marks them as a villain – this is right at or near the top of the list. There will be no mistaking who the bad guy is here.

And it gave me a nice moment with Spider, finally got a name for one of the bad guys who has been called "the big man" for far too long, and sets up something really nice for the conclusion.

I had a good day. Now I'm gonna have a long one to balance the tables.

Dark and Stormy Etc.

Winners – if that's the right word – of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest have been announced. The contest, named for the English lord who penned the deathless lines, "It was a dark and stormy night ..." has for more than a quarter century invited people to submit the opening line of a make-believe terrible novel.

You've just gotta read this year's grand prize winner. Most evocative use of the image of a pork knuckle I've ever seen.

And the long, long list of winners of the various sub-categories is hilarious.

A Useful Lesson Via Mom and Dad

Years ago – 20? 30? Quite a while, anyway – my parents went to a daylong mystery-writing seminar by author Paul Bishop. He was an L.A.P.D. detective who started writing mystery novels with the goal of being the next Joseph Wambaugh. I think it's something in the water in L.A. Everybody has an idea they think can become a movie.

That was the sort of thing my parents did. Their idea of enjoying retirement was to go to seminars and workshops on any subject that sounded interesting, or get in their camper van and drive out to the desert for a couple of weeks to volunteer at an archeological dig.

Anyway, Dad brought a cassette recorder – Does this help set it in time? Caseette recorder? – and taped the whole thing. That was very Dad. He then sent me the three cassettes. Probably sent them to my sisters too, now that I think about it. Mom and Dad were interested in everything, and loved sharing it, assuming you'd be as interested as they were. Usually they were right, but it was their enthusiasm that made it so interesting.

This was long before I had seriously considered writing a book. I had been a newspaper reporter and editor for at least 10 years, probably more like 15 or so by then, and I knew I was capable of stringing sentences together.

I wish I still had them, I'm sure they're gone, although I suppose there's a chance they're in a box in the storage shed that still holds so much of our worldly goods in Oregon. Even if I had them I'd have no way to play them now. But I can still see them, Dad's careful, engineer's handwriting labeling each one.

And I remember a lot of his lessons, have used them. 

The voice on the tape had a lot of really good, sound advice about writing. He knew what he was doing, even if (in my opinion, and I'm just one guy) he didn't do it particularly well. And there are a couple of things he said that I have picked up and adopted.

The most important thing, and one I find very useful, is about work flow. Each day when I sit down to work, the first thing I do is reread the writing I did the day before. It's still fresh in my mind, and I can clean it up, tweak it. Not any major editing or rewriting. Pick up any typos that jump out at me, maybe change a word or two. Then I'm up to speed and ready to jump into that day's writing. It's like taking a running start. The work flows much better. When I'm done with the first draft, I'll not have only written it, I'll have also given it all a cursory edit.

Scurvy Dogs Update – As I suspected. Between work for the Source and work on the website I got nothing done on the book Sunday. Today was better. Managed to work through three chapters – exciting stuff, I think – totaling 4,307 words. That was between covering a teleconference with the governor of the V.I., and an errand that couldn't be put off that ate up about two hours. So progress has been made.

Now I've gotta get back to "pay copy." Got the gov's presser to write up, then at least four cop briefs. Seems odd, I admit, to be making a few bucks per story on other people's misfortune. What can I say? It's an ill wind that doesn't blow someone some good. Such is the life of a reporter.

But at this point I've got nothing on the calendar for tomorrow, so Scurvy Dogs! will be job one.

And Then an Unwanted Detour

And suddenly I come to a pause. Not what I want to do, but other things get in the way.

I will still work on Scurvy Dogs! every day between now and my self-imposed deadline, but not as much as I'd like. Have to spend most of today (Sunday) doing some serious editing of the copy on the Talk Like a Pirate Day website. Some of that stuff is amazingly old, and really long and self-indulgent. Stop taking yourself so damn seriously! The holiday is coming up fast now, and the website is being completely overhauled, so this is the time. We also have a couple of videos we have to do.

And next week I've also got at least three long story assignments that will take me the better part of the day each time. Gotta pay the rent.

But I can't lose the momentum. These other things are things I have to do. Scurvy Dogs! is what I really want to do. So even on the busy days, I'll find a way to get some work done on the book.

Because it's steaming right now, and I don't want to lose the pressure, the sizzle. Even with the little delays, I will finish by Aug. 19 and Tori will get on the plane the next day with Scurvy Dogs! on her Kindle. By the time she gets to La Guardia, she'll be able to call and tell me if it works or not.

Quick Scurvy Update

Made it through 11,335 words today – But it wasn't writing. Mostly editing. This was the most solid part of the story, didn't have to change much at all, except for the way they dealt with the old pirate. Like the bit about Buck's DTs. (of course they didn't call it that in the 18th century.) And with that, there were still plenty of typos.

The next bit will go easily as well. Then I've got to wrap it up cleanly, incorporating the new stuff.

And of course, it rollicks.

Slight change in the deadline. Tori is leaving to visit Millie in New York on the 20th, and I want her to read it beforehand, or at least take it with her to read on the plane. So the deadline is now Aug. 19.

It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This

Does it get any better than this? At some point the story takes over, and you're so caught up it almost feels like taking dictation or something. It's as exciting as writing can be.

After I stopped for the day yesterday, I found myself getting more and more excited about getting back to work. If Max hadn't been so into his Minecraft game, I probably would have.

I spent some time Thursday afternoon with the notebook, amending my sketched-in plans for the next few chapters. Then last night, just as I was falling asleep, I had to get up and hurry out to the kitchen to scribble down another idea that had leapt unbidden into my brain, this for the end of the book. The words I found in my notebook this morning are "Ruined remains of an old dinghy." I know exactly what that means and what it gives to the story.

This morning I jumped right in. It's getting harder to say exactly how many words I've written or what progress I'm making, because I'm now working directly in parts that were already done, and I thought done well. But this is even better. I wrote 949 fresh words, deleted 1,087 including one image that I really liked that now wouldn't make sense, and when I was finished for the day, I had two chapters totaling 2,232 words where one chapter had been. So that's definitely good progress, but some of it is kind of sideways.

There's another section coming up, probably a couple of days from now, that I was never really happy with. Too wordy without much payoff, and kind of a dead end. I know how I'm going to handle it now, and have already sketched out the action. The key word here being "Action." As Leonard Elmore said, try to leave out the parts readers don't want to read.

Now I've got some yard work to do.

Moving Right Along

Another good day. 1,643 words and the story is finally flowing and coming together. Just like the kids who are the center of the story, I'm on the road and moving into growing danger – except I'm the one who's creating the danger.

I've actually made it a little longer to get them on the road, but it works. There's a dragon in every chapter, so to speak, a surprise or an obstacle, something to overcome, there's some humor, a real sense of danger much earlier. It's working.

I've talked about dragon-killing before. It's a rule I developed while reading the Percy Jackson books, something Tori constantly reminds me of. She did again today. "I wrote 1,643 words today," I said. "Is there a dragon?" Yes, yes there is. It looks a lot like a tree with one bough sawed off, but trust me, it's a dragon.

I haven't decided if the next chapter's dragon is a drunken fisherman or a cat. Maybe a drunken cat.

Still on track to make the Aug. 20 deadline.

I feel like I could keep writing today, but it's probably best if I leave a little something in the tank. That way when I sit down tomorrow, I'll be eager to hit the ground running and know right where I want to go.

Besides, Max is antsy to get on the computer for a while, so I'll let him have at it. He's obsessed with Minecraft these days. I'm either going to nap for just a bit, or put the DVD of "Finding Forrester" in and watch that. It's my favorite movie about writing.