I’m late with this update but that’s okay because all I have to report is the collection is being put on hold in anticipation of National Novel Writing Month 2015. Expect the next update (unless I feel wacky) to come sometime in December.
Speaking of NaNoWriMo, I’ve added back the word count widget to the main page of the blog in anticipation of my glory or shame.
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This time I took notes.
With a few weeks to go before I dive into my seventh National Novel Writing Month competition, I cast about for an inspirational book to read, to get me pumped up while I flail about for an idea for my novel. Getting pumped up reduces the chance of injury when flailing about, you see.
This is the third time I’ve read On Writing and perhaps surprisingly–given how often King’s books come out in revised editions–the text remains unchanged from the book’s original publication in 2000. This is not a complaint, mind you, as my five-star rating will attest.
What is it about On Writing that makes it work so well? Is it the best book to cover the nuts and bolts of writing? No. Is it the best autobiography of a writer? No. Is the best book to offer inspiration and advice to new writers? No.
But what it does so well is cover everything King sets out to tackle, which is all of the above. King fuses together a solid how-to book on writing with solid (if common sense) advice and tosses in a dramatic curriculum vitae in which the author’s life at one point actually hangs by a thread. More than anything, King has written an entertaining volume that appeals far beyond his usual horror milieu.
If you want his tips in super-condensed form, here they are (remember, this time I took notes):
– read a lot (he claims he is a slow reader and reads 70-90 books a year)
– write a lot (he writes 2,000 words seven days a week but suggests 1,000 words six days a week)
– don’t watch a lot of TV
– passive voice is the worst thing ever
– adverbs come a close second
– cut out unnecessary words (King is admittedly not so great on this score)
– story is important, plot not so much
– write what you know but do so as broadly and inclusively as possible
– research when needed but remember where backstory goes (in the back)
– write what interests you, not what you think will sell or what you think people want
– write two drafts and a polish (the polish may be a third draft)
– take 2-3 days off writing when done with the first draft
– don’t revisit your writing until at least six weeks later
– don’t have others critique or offer feedback on your work until after the second draft (it’s not ready till then)
Don’t let my list dissuade you from reading On Writing, though. As I said above, this is pretty common sense advice, but King makes the list entertaining as hell, maybe even a little magical.
Thirteen is the number of days before National Novel Writing Month 2015 begins. As has usually been the case since I started participating back in 2009, I have no idea what I am going to write about with less than two weeks to go.
As I have come up an idea every year I am not about to give in to panic.
My success rate of 3-3 might give someone of weaker constitution pause, but not me!
If the Conservatives win tomorrow’s election I am going to write about a post-apocalyptic Canada. EXCEPT IT WON’T BE FICTION. Dun dun dun!
But yeah, no idea yet, just a few vague notions dancing around the periphery of my brain, which is not a helpful place for them to be. Come on, notions, move out to where I can see you! Thanks.
Dreamcatcher by Stephen King
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Going in, I knew a few things about this novel:
– a lot of it took place in or around snowy woods
– they made a big budget movie of it
– something something shit weasels
– it is regarded as perhaps not Stephen King’s finest hour
Having now read the book I can confirm all four of the above are accurate. That said, lesser King is never truly awful and the ending of Dreamcatcher is still a lot better than It or a half dozen of his other novels.
If you’ve never read the book, imagine Alien taking place on Earth but with way more farting. We’re talking apocalyptic levels of farting here, all in the name (and really ripe stench) of otherworldly being proliferation.
Four high school buddies, along with one of King’s favorite archetypes, the magical mentally challenged man, form a kind of psychic bond and then find themselves in the middle of what turns out to be a clumsy alien invasion. They puzzle and struggle and flee and fight as the military moves in to seal off an area of Maine known as the Jefferson Tract. Said military is led by a man named Kurtz. Here King eats his cake and has it, too, directly drawing comparisons to Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now, playing the “Is he crazy or just acting crazy?” card before making it clear that this Kurtz is pretty much like the other one.
This was the first book King wrote after being hit and nearly killed by a van in 1999 and he transposes the physical anguish of his injuries and subsequent recovery onto one of the main characters here. As an application of writing what you know, the pain and suffering is understandably authentic. The characters are vivid and colorful, as one expects in a King novel, but the story suffers from horror elements that are more cartoonish than chilling (the aforementioned shit weasels, alien thingies that explode from people’s butts after a gestation period, preceded by bouts of extreme flatulence) and science fiction aspects that teeter on the line between deliberately hokey and plausible. It’s an odd combination that is carried along primarily by King’s strengths with character.
I would probably say this one is a safe pass for people not set on being King completists. It’s not outright bad but is brought down by the uneven tone and sillier elements. If you want to read King, there are a lot of other books of his to recommend over Dreamcatcher.
Idea: A planet of talking cats. Novel name: Cat Fancy.
Pro: Would appeal to cats that enjoy reading novels
Con: Likely to get sued by owners of Cat Fancy magazine
Idea: A sequel to Moby Dick called Moby Duck. It features a duck.
Pro: Would appeal to giant white ducks and probably other ducks, too
Con: A bit niche without adding werewolves and/or vampires
Idea: Something intelligent and literary. You know, Booker Prize stuff.
Pro: A rich, nuanced story with lasting appeal that wins over critics and the book-buying public alike
Con: I could never write this
Idea: World of Warcraft fan fiction.
Pro: Even if only 1/10th of the WoW player base bought it, I’d be rich
Con: I could never finish writing this
Idea: Write something I know.
Pro: Material would have that ol’ ring of authenticity
Con: It would be WoW fan fiction. Or some schmuck trying to get a printer to work.
Idea: Something about parallel worlds.
Pro: I quite like the idea of parallel worlds/multiverse
Con: I tried this in 2013, lost a large chunk of my story and flamed out shortly after
This concludes my first force-myself-to-sit-down-and-brainstorm session. As brainstorms go, it was more of an intermittent drizzle but I still have sixteen days before the words need to start flowing so I’m at least several days from abject despair and/or panic.
It’s only two days later and another update? Crazy! But I am cheating a little because this is an update to say I’m removing “Stop That Cow!” from the list of stories in the Pairs of Shorts collection. It primarily comes down to having to sort out several logical inconsistencies (the vehicles/cow escaping that were mentioned in the previous post being only two of them). I have some ideas but for now I want to keep moving forward and that means switching to another story that is closer to completion. If I don’t work “Stop That Cow!” back into the mix I’ll have to drop another story or add another story to keep the title of the collection intact. Or I could come up with a different title. So many decisions.
I will pick the next story to polish soon™ though for the next few weeks my main focus is going to be preparation for National Novel Writing Month 2015 and perhaps doing a few more writing prompts to get the ol’ creative juices flowing all over the place.
This is prompt #6 from my list of 50 prompts. It is the seventh prompt I’ve actually used.
Prompt #7: You are a robot and can only speak in binary code. Write a love poem to another robot in binary code.
01001001 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01100001 01111001 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110100 01100101 01110010 01100110 01100001 01100011 01100101 00001010 01001001 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01111001 00100000 01110111 01100001 01111001 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110010 01110101 01101110 00001010 01001001 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01100001 01111001 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101101 01101111 01110110 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110011 01110000 01100001 01100011 01100101 00001010 01001001 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100110 01110101 01101110 00001010 00001010 01011001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01100011 01100101 01110011 01110011 01101111 01110010 01110011 00100000 01110011 01101111 00100000 01110011 01101100 01100101 01100101 01101011 00001010 01011001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01110110 01101111 01101001 01100011 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100101 01101110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110011 01110000 01100101 01100001 01101011 00001010 01001101 01100001 01100011 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100101 00100000 01101100 01100001 01101110 01100111 01110101 01100001 01100111 01100101 00100000 01110000 01101111 01100101 01110100 01110010 01111001 00001010 01010100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101101 01100101 01101100 01110100 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01100011 01101001 01110010 01100011 01110101 01101001 01110100 01110010 01111001 00001010 00001010 01001100 01100101 01110100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01101101 01100101 01110010 01100111 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01110101 01101110 01101001 01110100 00001010 01000001 01110010 01110100 01101001 01100011 01110101 01101100 01100001 01110100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01100001 01110010 01110100 01101001 01100011 01110101 01101100 01100001 01110100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00001010 01010111 01100101 00100111 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110000 01100001 01110010 01110100 01110011 00100000 01100110 01101001 01110100 00001010 01010111 01101001 01110100 01101000 00100000 01110010 01101111 01100011 01101011 01100101 01110100 01110011 00100000 01100101 01101110 01100111 01100001 01100111 01100101 01100100 00101100 00100000 01110111 01101000 01101111 00100000 01100011 01100001 01110010 01100101 01110011 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110111 01100101 00100000 01101100 01100001 01101110 01100100 00111111
Binary code provided by the Online Binary Translator: http://www.ConvertBinary.com
And the carbon-based life form version of the poem:
I like the way you interface
I like they way you run
I like the way you move in space
I like that you are fun
Your processors so sleek
Your voice when you speak
Machine language poetry
That melts all my circuitry
Let’s merge into one unit
Articulated hand in articulated hand
We’ll make all of the parts fit
With rockets engaged, who cares where we land?
To everyone who writes poetry, I offer my apologies. My sense of rhyme, meter and language is similar to that of a robot that has been bashed about with a rock until it shoots sparks and leaks oil. Except worse.
This week I spent a surprisingly long stretch of time working over just a few paragraphs in “Stop That Cow!” It’s right after the farm couple discover one of their cows is missing and based on feedback of a friend, I tried smoothing out what he felt were logical inconsistencies with the scene in terms of how the cow could have escaped and the number of vehicles readily available at a small family farm. In the original draft I had two vehicles–a truck and a tractor. The truck was in the shop for repair so the protagonist uses the tractor to slowly look for the missing cow.
The point was raised that they would have more vehicles, especially being on a farm. Because a large chunk of the story rests on the protagonist driving the tractor I had to first come up with other vehicles they might logically have and then devise reasons why they couldn’t use any of them except the tractor.
I added a station wagon that had its engine sabotaged, then decided that was too sinister, so I changed it to mysteriously not starting. That worked better but wouldn’t they still have another truck or something? Maybe. At that I was ready to run the story over with a combine.
I’m still pondering that.
I think I may shift over to National Novel Writing Month preparation instead.
Stupid cow.
Here is the full list of 50 writing prompts I’ve come up with. If someone comes across this list by entering “writing prompts” into a Google search, I offer my humble apologies. This list is not meant to be used for any sort of constructive writing exercise. If anyone manages to get genuine use out of these prompts, I commend you. Printing them out and using the paper to train puppies, however, does not count.
As promised in this post I will pick one of these fabulous prompts and actually use it in the way nature intended. It won’t be pretty. It also won’t be tonight. But soon.
NOTE: Some prompts have been slightly altered from the originals. The unaltered versions can be found in the earlier posts.
Am I as old as dirt? I’m old as some dirt, not as old as other dirt.
These are things I remember as a kid:
Rotary dial telephones. People still talk about dialing a number on their smartphones, though there is a gradual shift toward using “calling” over “dialing.” With rotary phones you hated people who had lots of 8s or 9s in their phone number. If your finger slipped on the last number you had to start dialing over from the beginning.
Party lines. Picking up the phone and hearing others talking would be a plot for a horror movie now. Back in the early 70s it meant you were on a party line shared by others or your sister was gabbing to her boyfriend on the upstairs extension. “Get off the phone, I can hear you!”
The 8-track cassette. I’ve written about this before. It was the worst format for music ever, even if switching tracks was kind of neat. Like all terrible things, there is a small subset of people who love the 8-track cassette.
Black and white TV. We got a color set in 1975 and I discovered that Gilligan’s Island had color episodes.
The vinyl album. I guess that meant I grew up with a generation of audiophiles or something.
Typewriters. There was a room in the library at the Langara campus of Vancouver Community College that was filled with typewriters. It had a door that automatically closed for reasons that were obvious to anyone who entered the room when class assignments were due. I had my own portable Smith Corona and the only thing better than using it to write my own trashy stories (I did a lot more of that than actual assignments) was mashing as many keys at once. Why this was so entertaining I can’t precisely say.
Disco. The rise and fall and slight rise again.
The energy crisis. The first one.
The following stores: Eaton’s, Woodward’s, Woolworths, Woolco.
Video game arcades. Yes, these still exist in some form but I’m talking about the classic arcades of yore, with rows of games you paid 25 cents (50 cents if new) a shot to play. Duncan had a surprising number of arcades given its size. I spent most of my quarters in one adorably called The Saucy Dragon. I got my first full time job at an arcade at the age of 19, just as laser disc games became a very brief fad. I loved that job. I wrote my first novel working at that place. Handing out quarters was not exactly a demanding task.
Roller skates. You know, the kind that had four wheels, two in the front and two in the back.
Pong. Yes, I remember when Pong was new and futuristic. We’d drive the horseless carriage to the local pizzeria and play the cocktail table version, mesmerized by the bouncing phosphor dot.
The constant lurking fear of nuclear war. I was pretty sure my hometown wouldn’t get nuked but it was scary to think about all the same.
I’ve been thinking about “Hello?”, the story I’ve dropped from my 10 Pairs of Shorts collection. It was described as “garbage” by someone who has offered feedback on other stories of mine and while I don’t think it’s that bad, it is a rather half-baked (if lengthy) writing exercise that would need multiple drafts and some major work to make it live up to the potential of its high concept. In the end I decided it would be more effort than it was worth vs. writing a new story from scratch.
But I like the high concept, enough to at least give some thought to how I would fix the story, if I decided to do so. The concept is something that’s been used many times in books and films: someone finds him or herself the last person on the planet (seemingly), and tries to learn what has happened to everyone else while simultaneously dealing with the inevitable crushing loneliness.
When I wrote the exercise I framed the plot in fairly simple terms: What would be the mental progression of someone who finds himself truly alone? I took a scattershot approach, with the protagonist having good days and bad days, spending some days in despair and others conducting methodical scouting expeditions looking for others. He made some efforts to survive but was clearly no doomsday prepper. I enjoyed exploring these things but in the end the result was unfocused and had some logical inconsistencies that were never addressed because I never did further drafts on the story (I had planned on finally doing this when preparing it for the collection).
What would I do if I decided to fix the story instead of scrapping it and starting over? A few things come to mind:
Of these things, the flowchart intrigues me enough that I am tempted to give it a shot. It would be a lot of work and something I’d probably not do without committing to a full rewrite. But it’s tempting, like a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie.