September 30th, 2009 by Neal

You Bring That Shit, Captain Crunch!

If that don’t sell a book, I give up. What will?

September 29th, 2009 by Neal

No Weak Sister is shooting along. I’m gaining about a thousand words a day. I haven’t even finished the first chapter, so I feel like a layabout, but the first chapter is morphing into something much better.

Cameron is Hal’s sidekick, and he’s fleshing out more and more. Here’s all you need to know about the guy.

“I banged his mom stupid multiple times as a reward for saving her, but he’s not even smart enough to know that. The kid is a sack of hammers detached from their damned handles, rattling around the back of a truck with two cylinders, thank you very much public school.”
“Profound metaphor.”
“Silence, bartender. I once asked him when World War 2 was and he said 1972. When I asked him who the combatants were, he said it was between the United States and Mexico.”
“Who won?”
“He didn’t fucking know.”
“Yeah, you’d have my blessings to go fuck his mom.”
“Fuckin’ A!”
“But don’t let him try and be you. You’re no role model.”
“Fuck, I know. Bless his dumbass heart, though, he’s trying to be me. He drinks beer. He picks fights he can’t win. But the problem is, he doesn’t have my drunken luck, so he just gets his underage ass kicked, or yelled at by the corner store idiots he tries to buy beer from. They used to call me and yell at me for what he did, you know? I can’t wait until that shit starts again. Christ.”
“Just tell the little bastard you banged his mother. He’ll hate you.”
I shake my head. “No. No, see, that won’t work. You want to know why?”
He stares for a minute, thinks, then nods.
“He’d try to fuck his own mother,” we say in unison.

September 29th, 2009 by Neal

I hate embedding disabled. Lame. Stupid.

But anyway, this song, a song I listened to a lot when I was walking to class in college, given that I felt my soul was literally being jacked from my chest at times, is a great lead-in song to write as well, especially for Hal. The lyrics are pretty good in relation to the stories, and it’s also got enough me to help me subsume into characters.

So click here, because they don’t want you to see it for free anywhere, except, uh, here.

September 28th, 2009 by Neal

Sort of. I feel like I didn’t accomplish much, but the first day of editing is always like that. Because it’s the fifth day of editing. I’ve spent the last week trying to get into the editing process, but the postpartum is pretty heinous this time, not sure why. I think there’s something about the first chapter that bugs me. I feel like I’m explaining too much of what happened last novel, so I might move it forward and bring the action up a bit.

It’s a pain in my ass, honestly. I hate getting stuck, because it’s usually pretty easy to dig out by this point, having written as many books as I have, and I always feel stupid when I see what it was.

Regardless, I’ve crisped up a lot of dialogue, added some descriptions, and I feel like I’m ready to start the process, whereas last week I utterly failed in that regard.

September 22nd, 2009 by Neal

Check it out, more on Wide Awake, the webcomic/future film I keep yammering about.

DO EET!

September 18th, 2009 by Neal

Hal 2 is finished. I wrote seven thousand words today. Nineteen pages (with two of them admittedly chapter break pages). It clocked in (unbelievably for me, given how much longer this one feels) at 54,009 for the rough.

I think the last one was over 56 because of the fact that there was a LOT more action in that first book. This is good, because this new book is full of character scenes, and that will add a layer to it and make it lengthier. But I’m not going to worry about that right now. Right now, zee book, she is set. I’m guessing the final draft will be 90-95, given that I have a few scenes to potentially add, and will have to add a ton of dialogue tapdance along with the descriptive stuff. Huzzah!

Eight finished novels, one still in progress to be picked up later. That means I’ve done more novels than Buk and Heller did in their lifetime now, which is kinda scary. I guess two of mine aren’t worth a damn unless they’re completely re-written, though, so I don’t know.

I do know that I have to come up with a finished novel tradition. I stole one from a friend last time, and while it was fun, it’s not MY tradition, so I gotta think of something else. At any rate, I’m gonna get to dress like a pirate, and that’s good enough for me this time around. YAR! It’s gonna be cool to see Bogg and Salty now that I’m familiar, and like I’ve been saying, I need some pirate pants. Or at least a sword.

September 17th, 2009 by Neal

I managed to work it pretty good, I think. It was tough. That’s an editing baby, not as smooth as Passion of the Scope, but I can see the wall.

It was 3,500 words where I thought it would be 5,000. Again, I am bitten by the fact that something I expected did not occur. In this case, I thought that the guy would hesitate to spill more. Then my brain took over, and realized that when you’re burdened with a secret, you WANT to spill it, especially when you’re otherwise a moral person. Even to Hal.

I have trouble getting in the mind of liars. I find a great ease in people like Hal, who are always like, “Hey! You have a booger, man!”

This leads me into trouble in real life, because those kind of people always lack tact. Like, if I’m feeling gregarious, I’ll be like, “I fucking love you! You rock!” and if I’m feeling shitty, I will unload with both barrels. Either can and does regularly irritate and overwhelm. I’ve been trying to learn to play my cards close for a while, just because there’s value in mystery, but Hal’s not helping that, I have to concede.

Regardless, I did my 3,500 today, I am a happy camper, so now I’m going to exploit this sun and finish that damned fence before the rainy weekend.

I see three more solid days of writing, which basically means two, because I’m a shit who can’t rest when something is close to being done. I’ll do 3,000 tomorrow, no doubt, and then finish Monday in a blast. It’ll probably be 53 or so, as things currently stand, but that’s okay.

Oh! Shit! Ellie Jay. Sorry. 56, easy.

I think you guys are gonna love Ellie Jay. Hal needs a regular counterexample to fall in love with. There’s a subplot whereby Hal has to decide between what’s around and what he’s used to, the dysfunctional (Bitch) and his ideal, which he doesn’t believe himself good enough for (Ellie Jay).

I keep forgetting Ellie Jay because she’s not a part of the overplot, but like Cameron, she’s a new major character. Cameron is Hal’s sidekick, for lack of a better word. More a fucked up Watson, though.

Anyway, I ramble. Tired. Going to work.

September 17th, 2009 by Neal

I have to listen to music when I write. Sometimes it completely distracts me, and I pop online, like, “Whatever happened to Swingin’ Utters? Jesus!”

Sometimes it’ll give you a completely WRONG song for what you’re doing. Like, I was just writing a scene about child rape and it gave me “Best Day Ever.” Then you’re like, “AHHHH!” and you slap at the forward controls and move on.

But sometimes, on rare occasions, it’ll pop you right back into the headspace you were in for another novel, which is freaky. It’s close to time traveling.

Whenever I hear this song, no matter what I think of Moby (oh, and I heard tings, lemme tell ya, I heard tings), I remember writing the last part of my first book. I put this song on endless repeat and played it for about six or eight hours. Maybe it’s the monotony. Maybe it’s the name of the song. I think that’s nine tenths of it. Writers, in their arrogance, like to be God Moving Over the Face of the Waters.

It’s probably just that it was the only song I had worth a damn longer than two and a half minutes in length. HAW. But anyway.

September 16th, 2009 by Neal

Well, maybe not today, but definitely tomorrow. Depends. I’m so excited to write it, I may do it this evening and just do a double shift. The heist was the culmination of the subplot, but now the axe is about to fall, and I set it up pretty well. I like how Lawrence Block did it in Sins of the Father.

Usually, the narrative I’ve read goes like the detective finding out what’s really happened, then explaining it to the victim. It’s a suspension of belief with the “show, don’t tell” mantra a lot of the time, because the audience is so enthralled with the mystery being uncovered, they forgive that they’re not being told a story, only facts. This can vary in effectiveness, but I’ve seen Block do it extraordinarily well. My problem was that this is not something Hal does. He’s intelligence 10, wisdom 18, to explain it like I did to Will. Or maybe intelligence 10, wisdom 10, luck 25. Who knows. Point being, he has a hard time with mathematics, but he’s quite insightful as to why things occur interpersonally.

This kind of person is not one to lay out a cogent argument about why someone did something in a laundry list. He will waver all over the place, so the “explanation” scene will be very different in this respect from other books, and this pleases me and excites me.

I did just blow through a lot of plot in very little time, so my word count estimates may change, but the bones are almost up at least. I know the explanation of the murders is a five thousand word affair, easily, and then the pump fake stuff I can’t reveal without spoiling the story is another 3-4 grand, and then the resolution with four major characters is at least another 4 grand. That puts me at 56K, the same as the first book, unless something else occurs to me. So it might be more similar to the first than even I realize.

September 15th, 2009 by Neal

The heist is over, and I’m about to pump-fake a bit. I always love that, when I get it right. When I get it wrong, I can be stuck for a day, sometimes more. But I’ve thought this one out enough that I think I have it in hand.

I’m all beat up from doing the fence yesterday. I planted four posts, did eight cross-tie treated 2X4s, and did one section of fence. My fingers already hurt from all the typing, so now my hands are annihilated, and it’s time to take it a little easy.

I was looking at Blue Collar, and the rough on that one was 56 K, and it ended at 87 K. My guess is that this will end at 60-65 K in rough, and that’s without many of the descriptions, which I’ve taken to writing for the second draft, which I’ve evolved almost to a complete rewrite draft. It’s hard to explain. Basically, instead of editing each paragraph I’ve already written, now I write the whole thing over again, even if I do it word for word, and typically some small improvement will show. It’s like reading it to myself, only faster.

A good example of how it would work is, say, the following, which is completely NOT in the damned book, but is the idea.

“You eat the badger?”
“Fuck you. I didn’t eat the badger. We don’t need no stinking badgers.” Yates tosses it onto the counter.
I stare at it. “That’s a fucking ugly bitch, Yates.”
“So’s your face.”
“How are we going to get rid of it?”
“I say we make Virgil take it to the Letch.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“You still chasing that woman with the knife?”
“Yeah. Excuse me.”

This is something editors used to shit on me about (in the early books), because I’m pretty committed to minimalism, and I believe that the above, while not sensible in this case, can be more than enough in context when brushed up a bit. As I get a little older, I’m more prone to wiggle and add stuff around the dialogue.

For instance, who cares what Yates is doing while he talks beyond what’s necessary for speaker tags or when it will impact the scene? We’re thinking about a fucking badger and the subplot of chasing a woman with a knife. If I want to know what the characters are doing while they talk, I’ll write a comic book, as I am, and throw in interesting backdrops. But novels are fundamentally tests of ideas against the backdrop of a plot (which can be prominent or negligible to the character) in my opinion, not a plot that might happen into tests of ideas. At least, ideally. Most of that happens in good dialogue and with strong characters (whether you like them or not). As hopefully I have managed here:

I walk into the bar. My knee still throbs from where that bastard smacked it with the beer bottle.
Yates is wearing a shirt that says, “What, Me Worry?” with a picture of President Bush picking his nose. He throws a towel at me. “You bastard. I told you never to come back here.”
I catch it and sit. “You eat that badger I found?”
“Fuck you and your badger. I don’t need no stinking badgers.”
“You’re fucking me over. Bailey’ll kill me if I don’t get rid of that badger.”
“I don’t need no stinking Taylors.” Yates reaches down, takes the badger, and drops it onto the counter. One of the legs has broken off. He sets it next to the carcass. It rolls a little. “There. Now take this shit and get it out of here before I kick your drunken white ass.”
I scrub my beard stubble and ponder. “Maybe I can get Virgil to take it to the letch.”
“Maybe fuck you in your ear. Get it out of my bar!” He waves a hand at the beast.
And then, I see her out of the corner of my eye. My victim.
Yates turns. “You ass. This is far more important.”
I reach across the bar and into the silverware bin before he can stop me. He lunges, but I’ve got the butter knife out. “Nothing, my friend, is more important than chasing beautiful women with knives. Ask any horror director. It’s what I live for. Woop! Woop!”
And a guy walks out of the bar.

See, that kind of shit I’m okay with, because it’s not so much a detailed description of the bar as it is taking a scene with some grains of good ideas and expanding it to be more real and human and cogent. I guess. I dunno. That’s just how I work. And I’m even pissed at that “improvement,” but it might be okay after three more drafts. I guess what I’m getting at is that I’m used to writing too much and cutting, not writing too little and filling in. I think I’ve written enough novels now that I’m just making more bones first, and then adding meat, instead of making a Giraffe and realizing I want to cut it up until it turns into a monkey. Or a badger.

Or maybe my brain is too tired right now to be pondering this. So away.