OK, I just wrote 500 words of crap that will never see the light of day. I want to write about my writing process, seeing as I'm working on a manuscript and taking a good amount of my free time and money pursuing it. Yet when I write about it I sound like a Ritalin-addled ten-year-old.
That's actually close to the truth. I just took some generic NyQuil and a Mucinex to crush this cold I got last week. I might have a cold because I drank a Charles River of beer while in Boston. Eating a "jumbo" triple pepperoni pizza with three of my colleagues at 1 a.m. last Wednesday might have contributed a little.
Seeing as my writing process involved me getting up early to pound out a couple thousand words, this trip did not help with my rhythm. Well, I had to write in the afternoon or during lunch or right before bed. I'm not married to writing at any time of the day. I think my mind can find that groove in the record and get back at or close to the spot where I was the day before.
It helps to do it every day. If you want to get good at something, do it every day. At least you get good at doing something every day. I can't say that my writing is better after all this time. It's never a struggle to start writing. I heard a little bit of advice at a writer's conference last Saturday. The idea was if you were daunted by a blank piece of paper, start with the truth. Write about what you see out the window or something that's on your mind. You'll get back to the story.
I enjoyed the little challenges of writing, like figuring out a different way to dispose of ashes in each chapter. I had the dead guy's ashes in a coffee can like in Big Lebowski. But I just saw the ashes in a coffee can trick in an upcoming movie featuring Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis. Now it's become a cliche. Yep, I need to find another moderately priced vessel.
The NyQuil is starting to take effect. I don't have much time. It's like I was hit with a dart from a stranger in the corner. Or the cat who's getting revenge for me giving him his daily pill. Either way, I am not long for this evening.
The discoveries of writing are the best. Having your characters do unexpected things is fun. There's a scene in which a married man is set up to have a date on New Year's Eve who is not his wife. He's in a near panic because he's faithful and doesn't even want the hint of infidelity. He finds out that his wife is cool with it, and she even sends him a short video message telling him this. It changes his conflict. Instead of trying to hide, he has to figure out why she's OK with it, and if he's really OK with it.
My ultimate goal is to keep things moving and keep them interesting. This is a guy book. The characters are mostly guys although there is plenty of female influence. I'll always be interested in female characters but the guys are going to be my forte.
ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg...ha, thought I passed out on the keyboard, didn't you? OK, that was a lame attempt. I can't always be touched by the muse. Sometimes my hands just dance across the keyboard and ultimately it means nothing. I'm fine with that. As long as the needle keeps moving.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Zach writes: Making sweet manuscript
In my last post, oh too long ago, I mentioned that I am working on a book. I could say that I'm working on a novel, but what I am supposed to say is that I am writing a manuscript. A manuscript is your pre-publication novel. I wanted to come up with a more pithy version of this laborious word but "mani" and "manu" don't do it justice.
The next obvious thing is for me to give you my elevator pitch for the nov--... boo--... manuscript. I have problems with this. It's not easy to tell the tale of this story, since it's still germinating, in a Tweet-sized bite. I'll start with genre. There is a well-known literary genre called chick lit. This covers most novels written by women about women. I'm sure there are exceptions. My book is on the other end. It's dick lit. This is fiction for guys.
About four years ago I wrote a "year in the life" series of stories that were about a guy named Larry Smith. The stories could together be considered a novel, although I never completely finished the ending. Read it, if you dare. http://ztlwrites.blogspot.com/
This is in the same genre. The Larry Smith story was about a single guy's quest to keep his life the same when events conspire to change him no matter what he does about it. He's in a fantasy football league. One of his friends dies and there's funeral. I did try to shoehorn in some time travel but it didn't really work as much as I loved the idea of writing time travel.
That's what writing can be. What you think is the "good stuff" doesn't work. Every word feels like a new life you have created and sometimes you have to suffocate them.
Anyway, on to the story. About three months ago a friend of my wife's talked about the plot to an Amy Tan novel about a woman going to China after a friend's death.
That was my starting point. I would write about a group of guys in a fantasy football league. One of the league members dies suddenly. They decide to "honor" him by following his beloved Lions around for the entire season. The Lions make an incredible run to the Super Bowl and the guy wins the fantasy championship.
In writing this, I can appreciate why the writers of the FX show The League focus on five guys. This is a comedy about a fantasy football league and it focuses on only a part of the league. It's hard to have 12 "main" characters, including the dead guy. My initial idea was to have each chapter be from a different character's point of view. I can't say that every character will get equal time.
I was in a one-day novel-writing class and the guy said that you need to write every day. He dedicates four hours a day. I give myself one. I don't always write for an entire hour. I have written every day in the past two months and I've missed maybe one day in the past 100. They say that the first draft is the easy part.
I'll attempt to post at least once a week and write about whatever strikes my fancy regarding the process.
Current progress: Just finished chapter 10. 163 pages or 66,937 words.
The next obvious thing is for me to give you my elevator pitch for the nov--... boo--... manuscript. I have problems with this. It's not easy to tell the tale of this story, since it's still germinating, in a Tweet-sized bite. I'll start with genre. There is a well-known literary genre called chick lit. This covers most novels written by women about women. I'm sure there are exceptions. My book is on the other end. It's dick lit. This is fiction for guys.
About four years ago I wrote a "year in the life" series of stories that were about a guy named Larry Smith. The stories could together be considered a novel, although I never completely finished the ending. Read it, if you dare. http://ztlwrites.blogspot.com/
This is in the same genre. The Larry Smith story was about a single guy's quest to keep his life the same when events conspire to change him no matter what he does about it. He's in a fantasy football league. One of his friends dies and there's funeral. I did try to shoehorn in some time travel but it didn't really work as much as I loved the idea of writing time travel.
That's what writing can be. What you think is the "good stuff" doesn't work. Every word feels like a new life you have created and sometimes you have to suffocate them.
Anyway, on to the story. About three months ago a friend of my wife's talked about the plot to an Amy Tan novel about a woman going to China after a friend's death.
That was my starting point. I would write about a group of guys in a fantasy football league. One of the league members dies suddenly. They decide to "honor" him by following his beloved Lions around for the entire season. The Lions make an incredible run to the Super Bowl and the guy wins the fantasy championship.
In writing this, I can appreciate why the writers of the FX show The League focus on five guys. This is a comedy about a fantasy football league and it focuses on only a part of the league. It's hard to have 12 "main" characters, including the dead guy. My initial idea was to have each chapter be from a different character's point of view. I can't say that every character will get equal time.
I was in a one-day novel-writing class and the guy said that you need to write every day. He dedicates four hours a day. I give myself one. I don't always write for an entire hour. I have written every day in the past two months and I've missed maybe one day in the past 100. They say that the first draft is the easy part.
I'll attempt to post at least once a week and write about whatever strikes my fancy regarding the process.
Current progress: Just finished chapter 10. 163 pages or 66,937 words.
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