New Death Cab for Cutie. Very nice. Makes me think I need to go see them when they come to Red Rocks next month.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Monday, April 14, 2008
If Only
Rowling tells court she's stopped working - Yahoo! News: "Rowling told a New York court on Monday that the demands of the case had caused her to halt work on a new novel. The author, who wrote seven novels about the boy wizard, said the stress has 'decimated my creative work over the past month.'"
Oh, poor, poor, Ms. Rowling. Too busy raking in millions and suing a fan to do any decent writing.
This woman is a joke.
Oh, poor, poor, Ms. Rowling. Too busy raking in millions and suing a fan to do any decent writing.
This woman is a joke.
Book Review: The Lives of Rocks
The Lives of Rocks by Rick BassFor such a well-reviewed book, this short story collection was extremely disappointing. The stories, though they contain lyricism and apt descriptions, were naive, as if written by a first-year MFA. Nearly each of the ten stories contained some element that was far-fetched, hard to believe, or simply unnecessary or out of place. It's as if they were written by someone just new to the craft and exploring what he can make happen in a story. Either that, or they read as autobiographical, but no less far-fetched. The kind of stories that would be defended by "Well, that's how it happened."
Rick Bass has a name that carries with it some credibility and so coming to this collection with a high expectation and anticipation, I was extremely let down. Let me not discount Bass's ability to put together strong sentences, vivid descriptions, all filled with content that demonstrates his wide ranging knowledge. I only wish he'd been coached some on shaping the stories into what they could have been.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
First Freelance Piece
This week, my first piece of freelance journalism was published. I'm happy. I'm proud. But let's keep it in perspective. This is a relatively small trade publication, ACTE Global Business Journal, published by the Association of Corporate Travel Executives. Don't ask how I got hooked up with them.It feels good, though, to see my name there in the glossy print. And it really wasn't hard work. 1500 words. I've written more 20 page papers than I can count, so this wasn't difficult at all. I had nearly 3000 words to start with and had to cut it back.
There are two things that may be better than see my name up there under the article's title. First, I got paid. That would definitely be the first time I got paid for my writing (other than minimal prize money). Second, I can hopefully use this credit to get more writing gigs.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Book Review: A Sport and a Pastime
A Sport and a Pastime by James SalterI was very surprised by this book for many reasons. I simply wasn't aware of Salter until just a few months ago, though this novel was published in the early sixties. It is reminiscent of many classics. The style is like Hemingway. If Hemingway was in a colorful mood. It is also reminiscent of On the Road. It is told from the point of view of one character, telling the story of another more colorful and heroic character, here also named Dean. It does benefit from these characteristics, and it is beautifully done in its own right.
Most surprising might have been just how dirty it was. I mean truly explicit. It is not for the faint-hearted. Makes Henry Miller seem tame.
It was the perfect kind of book for a quick three-day immersion. I'll definitely have to read more Salter in the future.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Judging Your Literary Taste
It's Not You, It's Your Books - New York Times: "Sloane Crosley, a publicist at Vintage/Anchor Books and the author of “I Was Told There’d Be Cake,” essays about single life in New York, put it this way: “If you’re a person who loves Alice Munro and you’re going out with someone whose favorite book is ‘The Da Vinci Code,’ perhaps the flags of incompatibility were there prior to the big reveal.”"
Yes, I will judge you by your literary tastes. Let me in your place and I will gravitate to your bookshelves, head cocked sideways, reading titles. Unless, dear lord, you don't have bookshelves. It's almost as disturbing as not having a stereo. And if you don't have bookshelves or a stereo, I'll bet you have a large TV centered in your room like a shrine.
Books definitely tell a lot about a person, though I can't say I've ever dismissed someone because of their literary tastes. I've been attracted to someone based on their literary interests. I once went on a date with a woman because we had struck up a conversation about Steinbeck. She turned out to be about as dull and dry as the Salinas Valley. Books provided a perfect way to strike up a conversation. On a plane last week, the man across the aisle was reading American Pastoral. We ended up talking about our children instead. His wife was reading Driving with Dead People. I'm not sure what this says about them. Their child, crying most of the flight, was watching Elmo DVDs. That might say more about them. Or at least it explains why they thought they could read on the plane with a toddler.
(Also, I almost stopped to talk to a woman at the airport who was reading with an Sony Reader.)
Regarding the quote above from Rachel Donadio's piece in the NYTBR, I list Alice Munro among my favorite writers...and there's only one person in my house who read The Da Vinci Code. It wasn't me.
Yes, I will judge you by your literary tastes. Let me in your place and I will gravitate to your bookshelves, head cocked sideways, reading titles. Unless, dear lord, you don't have bookshelves. It's almost as disturbing as not having a stereo. And if you don't have bookshelves or a stereo, I'll bet you have a large TV centered in your room like a shrine.
Books definitely tell a lot about a person, though I can't say I've ever dismissed someone because of their literary tastes. I've been attracted to someone based on their literary interests. I once went on a date with a woman because we had struck up a conversation about Steinbeck. She turned out to be about as dull and dry as the Salinas Valley. Books provided a perfect way to strike up a conversation. On a plane last week, the man across the aisle was reading American Pastoral. We ended up talking about our children instead. His wife was reading Driving with Dead People. I'm not sure what this says about them. Their child, crying most of the flight, was watching Elmo DVDs. That might say more about them. Or at least it explains why they thought they could read on the plane with a toddler.
(Also, I almost stopped to talk to a woman at the airport who was reading with an Sony Reader.)
Regarding the quote above from Rachel Donadio's piece in the NYTBR, I list Alice Munro among my favorite writers...and there's only one person in my house who read The Da Vinci Code. It wasn't me.
Children find woman's head on beach
Children find woman's head on beach - Yahoo! News: "LONDON (Reuters) - Children playing on a Scottish beach discovered a woman's severed head in a plastic bag, police said on Tuesday.
The discovery, along with a hand, was made in the town of Arbroath, Tayside police said. 'Officers attended at a stretch of foreshore near to South Street shortly after 10:30 a.m. after the grim discovery was made by children playing on the beach,' a statement said.
'They found what appears to be the head of a woman concealed in a plastic bag. A hand has also been recovered from the beach.'
No other details were immediately available."
The discovery, along with a hand, was made in the town of Arbroath, Tayside police said. 'Officers attended at a stretch of foreshore near to South Street shortly after 10:30 a.m. after the grim discovery was made by children playing on the beach,' a statement said.
'They found what appears to be the head of a woman concealed in a plastic bag. A hand has also been recovered from the beach.'
No other details were immediately available."
Sunday, March 30, 2008
The Reading List Revisited
By the middle of the third month I had finished only reading the second book of the year. I'm failing horribly on my reading list. I've put 25 books on that list and at the rate I'm going I'll be lucky to read 10. And what was the third book on the list, the next one I was supposed to read? Denis Johnson's Tree of Smoke. Another one over 600 pages long.
So, in order to come away with sense of accomplishment and be able to tick off a few more titles on the list, because of the business and leisure travel over the last two weeks, I've jumped ahead on the list some. And I just kicked that Denis Johnson can down the road.
So, in order to come away with sense of accomplishment and be able to tick off a few more titles on the list, because of the business and leisure travel over the last two weeks, I've jumped ahead on the list some. And I just kicked that Denis Johnson can down the road.
Book Review: High Lonesome
High Lonesome: Selected Stories 1966-2006 by Joyce Carol OatesI will be direct. I like this writing very much. I feel a kinship with her methods and approach, and of course the darkness within her stories. It is funny when reading many of the stories, I was simply waiting for things to go horribly wrong. And they tended to do so. I am partial to stories about degenerates, perverts, murderers, and plain ol' bad luck. And it was only when Oates ventured away from this formula that I struggled.
A lengthy story in this already lengthy collection of 660 pages, "My Warsawza: 1980," was an adventure and torturous. It seemed like an attempt to deal with more substantial (less titillating) subject matter, but it wanders without the normal road map.
I enjoyed these stories very much and am encouraged to read more of her work. And also I am reminded of Flannery O'Connor and must read her stories again.
Friday, March 07, 2008
Origins of a Writer
Thinking back this week about what led me to become a writer, what made me want to create and shape worlds, I was led back to one particular aspect of my life. Of course we can't discount the foundation of reading from an early age or being taught to think creatively, but if I were to point to one think that made me being to create fiction it was being in trouble as a kid.
I grew up with strict curfews, deadlines for play, times that I was supposed to be home. Commonly during summers I was told to be home by noon. This wasn't "around" noon; this was BY noon. Sometimes, though, I didn't make it home on time.
There could be many reasons for being late. I never was a good judge of time. I'm not sure what should be expected of a twelve year old.
Hustling home, from a friend's house on the other side of the highway, or limping home a bike with a flat tire or a busted chain, I would think about what it would be like when I got home. I would imagine exactly how it would play out. Not just my excuse, but the expression on my dad's face, the light through the window, the feeling in my gut.
By the time I got home I would have been through the scenario about thirty times, diffusing the situation, taking all the anxiety out of it. This mental exercise, though, made me think about creating a scene, shaping a world, and all the things that were possible with the imagination.
I grew up with strict curfews, deadlines for play, times that I was supposed to be home. Commonly during summers I was told to be home by noon. This wasn't "around" noon; this was BY noon. Sometimes, though, I didn't make it home on time.
There could be many reasons for being late. I never was a good judge of time. I'm not sure what should be expected of a twelve year old.
Hustling home, from a friend's house on the other side of the highway, or limping home a bike with a flat tire or a busted chain, I would think about what it would be like when I got home. I would imagine exactly how it would play out. Not just my excuse, but the expression on my dad's face, the light through the window, the feeling in my gut.
By the time I got home I would have been through the scenario about thirty times, diffusing the situation, taking all the anxiety out of it. This mental exercise, though, made me think about creating a scene, shaping a world, and all the things that were possible with the imagination.
Monday, March 03, 2008
Three Right Feet
From another Drudge link:
In an Answerless Canadian Inquiry, 3 Bodyless Feet
GABRIOLA ISLAND, British Columbia — Should a fourth human foot float ashore here in the evergreen Gulf Islands off the west coast of Canada, the person who finds it would no doubt want to know the answers to three questions.
Is it a right foot?
Is it wearing a running shoe?
Is the shoe a size 12?
In an Answerless Canadian Inquiry, 3 Bodyless Feet
GABRIOLA ISLAND, British Columbia — Should a fourth human foot float ashore here in the evergreen Gulf Islands off the west coast of Canada, the person who finds it would no doubt want to know the answers to three questions.
Is it a right foot?
Is it wearing a running shoe?
Is the shoe a size 12?
Another Faked Memoir
What the hell is going on? Is the world short of supposed inspiring memoirs? Did the whole Frey thing not scare people away from this sort of thing?
Gang Memoir, Turning Page, Is Pure Fiction
In “Love and Consequences,” a critically acclaimed memoir published last week, Margaret B. Jones wrote about her life as a half-white, half-Native American girl growing up in South-Central Los Angeles as a foster child who went on to live a gang-banger’s violent life, wielding guns and running drugs for the Bloods.
The problem is that none of it is true.
Margaret P. Jones is a pseudonym for Margaret Seltzer, who is all white and grew up in well-to-do Sherman Oaks, in the San Fernando Valley of California, with her biological family. She graduated from the Campbell Hall School, a private Episcopal day school in North Hollywood. She has never lived with a foster family, nor did she run drugs for any gang members. Nor did she graduate from the University of Oregon, as she had claimed.
And no one suspected anything? No one thought that the whole think was a little far-fetched, coming from someone clean-cut? Who was the editor who didn't bother looking into it:
Sarah McGrath, the editor at Riverhead who worked with Ms. Seltzer for three years on the book, said she was stunned to discover that the author had lied.
McGrath? Boy, that name sound familiar.
Over the course of three years, Ms. McGrath, who is the daughter of Charles McGrath, a writer at large at The Times, worked closely with Ms. Seltzer on the book. “I’ve been talking to her on the phone and getting e-mails from her for three years and her story never has changed,” Ms. McGrath said. “All the details have been the same. There never have been any cracks.”
Yes, that Charles McGrath, former editor of the New York Times Book Review. Nice.
Some have suggest that the memoir is supplanting the novel, but I think these sorts of things must being turning folks away from the genre. The real question is why? Why on earth is this necessary? What does it mean that someone is willing to cover this sort of thing up, instead of calling it fiction? Does fiction have that bad of a name? Geez.
And what does it mean that Drudge is linking to this story?
Gang Memoir, Turning Page, Is Pure Fiction
In “Love and Consequences,” a critically acclaimed memoir published last week, Margaret B. Jones wrote about her life as a half-white, half-Native American girl growing up in South-Central Los Angeles as a foster child who went on to live a gang-banger’s violent life, wielding guns and running drugs for the Bloods.
The problem is that none of it is true.
Margaret P. Jones is a pseudonym for Margaret Seltzer, who is all white and grew up in well-to-do Sherman Oaks, in the San Fernando Valley of California, with her biological family. She graduated from the Campbell Hall School, a private Episcopal day school in North Hollywood. She has never lived with a foster family, nor did she run drugs for any gang members. Nor did she graduate from the University of Oregon, as she had claimed.
And no one suspected anything? No one thought that the whole think was a little far-fetched, coming from someone clean-cut? Who was the editor who didn't bother looking into it:
Sarah McGrath, the editor at Riverhead who worked with Ms. Seltzer for three years on the book, said she was stunned to discover that the author had lied.
McGrath? Boy, that name sound familiar.
Over the course of three years, Ms. McGrath, who is the daughter of Charles McGrath, a writer at large at The Times, worked closely with Ms. Seltzer on the book. “I’ve been talking to her on the phone and getting e-mails from her for three years and her story never has changed,” Ms. McGrath said. “All the details have been the same. There never have been any cracks.”
Yes, that Charles McGrath, former editor of the New York Times Book Review. Nice.
Some have suggest that the memoir is supplanting the novel, but I think these sorts of things must being turning folks away from the genre. The real question is why? Why on earth is this necessary? What does it mean that someone is willing to cover this sort of thing up, instead of calling it fiction? Does fiction have that bad of a name? Geez.
And what does it mean that Drudge is linking to this story?
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
'No Country for Old Men' Cleans Up
I enjoy seeing a movie as dark and interesting as 'No Country for Old Men' earn this sort of adulation. Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay. Not bad. Oh, and add Javier Bardem for Best Supporting Actor.
'No Country for Old Men' Wins Big at Oscars - NPR
On a night when the acting awards had a distinctly international flavor, a quintessentially American story of violence — No Country for Old Men — made the deepest impression on Oscar voters at the 80th annual Academy Awards.
A ceremony once threatened by the recently concluded writers' strike was the setting for multiple triumphs by No Country, a film adapted from the work of the unflinching novelist Cormac McCarthy and the wide-ranging writing-directing team of brothers Joel and Ethan Coen.
The bleak tale of the bloody aftermath of a botched West Texas drug deal won Best Picture and the Coens were jointly honored for Best Achievement in Directing and for Adapted Screenplay. Javier Bardem, who played the sociopath at the center of the action, topped a deep field for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
'No Country for Old Men' Wins Big at Oscars - NPR
On a night when the acting awards had a distinctly international flavor, a quintessentially American story of violence — No Country for Old Men — made the deepest impression on Oscar voters at the 80th annual Academy Awards.
A ceremony once threatened by the recently concluded writers' strike was the setting for multiple triumphs by No Country, a film adapted from the work of the unflinching novelist Cormac McCarthy and the wide-ranging writing-directing team of brothers Joel and Ethan Coen.
The bleak tale of the bloody aftermath of a botched West Texas drug deal won Best Picture and the Coens were jointly honored for Best Achievement in Directing and for Adapted Screenplay. Javier Bardem, who played the sociopath at the center of the action, topped a deep field for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Richard Ford Leaving Knopf is News?
The Novelist Richard Ford Leaves Knopf for HarperCollins - Books - New York Times: "In a surprise move, Richard Ford, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Independence Day” and “The Lay of the Land,” has switched publishers for his next three books."
I love Richard Ford, but can someone tell me why this is news? Do the other authors' changing relationships make it the New York Times?
I may not think it qualifies as "news" it probably does signify a coup for Ecco. If anything it may also mean that Ford's next book will get a more "literary" treatment.
I love Richard Ford, but can someone tell me why this is news? Do the other authors' changing relationships make it the New York Times?
I may not think it qualifies as "news" it probably does signify a coup for Ecco. If anything it may also mean that Ford's next book will get a more "literary" treatment.
Book Review: Ward No. 6 and Other Stories
Ward No. 6 and Other Stories by Anton ChekhovI was amazed by this wide ranging collection. These are psychological stories, with nothing held back. The mode in contemporary fiction, indeed fiction of the last thirty years, is to keep strong emotion hidden. The feeling has been that it is better to show, to express it with action, as opposed to with words. But the truth is that we feel these things, we say these things to ourselves, things that are more dramatic that anything we see in modern fiction.
"Kill me! Kill me!" the protagonist of "The Grasshopper" proclaims.
I often wonder if I have my characters over-think things, putting too much into words. I've been accused on more than one occasion of as much. But I do not write distant stores. My stories tend to take place within the minds of the characters, and it would be false to deny them from expressing what they feel.
What do we miss in today's fiction by not connecting deeply with the characters?
Some of the stories in this collection were so good that I could hardly put the book down. They were strong psychological stories, were sometimes nothing at all happened, or where some decision turned out fruitless. Other stories were long, meandering and devoid of meaning. I will never understand why anyone would the longest and most boring story at the end. There were stories that read like fables full of magic. They were philosophical stories, riddled with ponderances that left me wondering for some time afterward. Yet, as much as I was stirred by some of the stories, I was grateful to get to the end. I may not have been enjoying the collection near the end, but there are stories here that make "The Lady with the Dog" seem just mediocre.
Monday, February 04, 2008
Yes, We Can
I've tried to keep my mouth shut on the whole political issue, but after seeing Obama last week and thinking about the importance of what we do tomorrow, I thought that the least I could do was leave you with this little video to inspire you.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
LSD, television westerns, and literary "sex and sadism"
From The Marketing Mode by Theodore Levitt, copyright 1969.
In such a world, combined with generic-product standardization and far-above-subsistence living, it is not surprising that man responds eagerly to the fascinating shock of the unexpected. The enormous attractions of marijuana, LSD, television westerns, and literary "sex and sadism" are understandable. They provide man with escape--not escape from reality but escape back to reality. He wants to escape from the artificiality that the machine has imposed on his life and return to a more primitive involvement of his senses with nature in the raw. The only reason teen-agers and college students are greater consumers of LSD and marijuana than adults is simply that adults have greater obligations to the machine. They cannot "drop out" because they are too deeply in. They are prisoners of the world they made.
This accounts for the intensity of the adult furor over LSD. It represents less adults' concern about the health and happiness of their children than the fact that they are envious of their children's freedom. The young people who take LSD trips or smoke pot need it least because they are already so much less thoroughly bound to society's rigid routines. The people who need most to escape, who are most firmly imprisoned by the world from which LSD is an escape and who have the greatest need to drop out, are the adults. They are understandably unhappy about the liberated behaviour of their children.
In such a world, combined with generic-product standardization and far-above-subsistence living, it is not surprising that man responds eagerly to the fascinating shock of the unexpected. The enormous attractions of marijuana, LSD, television westerns, and literary "sex and sadism" are understandable. They provide man with escape--not escape from reality but escape back to reality. He wants to escape from the artificiality that the machine has imposed on his life and return to a more primitive involvement of his senses with nature in the raw. The only reason teen-agers and college students are greater consumers of LSD and marijuana than adults is simply that adults have greater obligations to the machine. They cannot "drop out" because they are too deeply in. They are prisoners of the world they made.
This accounts for the intensity of the adult furor over LSD. It represents less adults' concern about the health and happiness of their children than the fact that they are envious of their children's freedom. The young people who take LSD trips or smoke pot need it least because they are already so much less thoroughly bound to society's rigid routines. The people who need most to escape, who are most firmly imprisoned by the world from which LSD is an escape and who have the greatest need to drop out, are the adults. They are understandably unhappy about the liberated behaviour of their children.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Kudos, Garfunkel
Being a fan of reading lists, and always trying to read more and get all the classics under my belt, I have to give Art Garfunkel, yes him, some credit. According to this New Yorker article, Garfunkel has been keeping a list of the books he's read since 1968. 1,023 books.
So, if you're looking for a reading list to last the next fourty years, here it is.
So, if you're looking for a reading list to last the next fourty years, here it is.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Reading List 2008
I managed to read only twenty books last year, which is just a little depressing. I could blame the slow pace on spending most of the summer reading Ulysses, but either way it demonstrates that I'm not spending nearly enough time reading. Given that my bookshelves are filled with books still waiting to be read, and each year new books come out or there are other books that I learn about and want to read, I'd better pick up the pace.
I figured that the best way to to approach reading this year was to give myself a list. So this is the list:
Ward No. 6 and Other Stories - Anton Chekhov
High Lonesome: Stories - Joyce Carol Oates
Tree of Smoke - Denis Johnson
Collected Stories - Eudora Welty
All Aunt Hagar's Children - Edward P. Jones
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Pushcart Prize 2007
Light in August - William Faulkner
Best American Short Stories 2007
All The Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
Lives of Rocks: Stories - Rick Bass
A Sport and a Pasttime - James Salter
Stories of John Cheever
Absalom Absalom - William Faulkner
Best New American Voices 2007
Death of Sweet Mister - Daniel Woodrell
Heart Is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers
Gilead - Marilyn Robinson
Rabbit Run - John Updike
Middlesex - Jeffery Eugenidies
For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway
The Orchard Keeper - Cormac McCarthy
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Do With Me What You Will - Joyce Carol Oates
The Idiot - Doestoyevsky
Collected Stories - Richard Yates
Aloft - Chang Rae Lee
An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser
Mercury - Anna Kavan
The Liars Club - Mary Carr
It is an ambitious list at thirty titles, with only a couple of epic titles (Garcia Marquez). The emphasis this year is on short stories, including the year's best of collections and collections by some masters. And Faulkner, McCarthy, and Oates each get two slots because I've got some catching up to do on their back catalog.
So, enough blogging, I've got reading to do.
I figured that the best way to to approach reading this year was to give myself a list. So this is the list:
Ward No. 6 and Other Stories - Anton Chekhov
High Lonesome: Stories - Joyce Carol Oates
Tree of Smoke - Denis Johnson
Collected Stories - Eudora Welty
All Aunt Hagar's Children - Edward P. Jones
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Pushcart Prize 2007
Light in August - William Faulkner
Best American Short Stories 2007
All The Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
Lives of Rocks: Stories - Rick Bass
A Sport and a Pasttime - James Salter
Stories of John Cheever
Absalom Absalom - William Faulkner
Best New American Voices 2007
Death of Sweet Mister - Daniel Woodrell
Heart Is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers
Gilead - Marilyn Robinson
Rabbit Run - John Updike
Middlesex - Jeffery Eugenidies
For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway
The Orchard Keeper - Cormac McCarthy
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Do With Me What You Will - Joyce Carol Oates
The Idiot - Doestoyevsky
Collected Stories - Richard Yates
Aloft - Chang Rae Lee
An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser
Mercury - Anna Kavan
The Liars Club - Mary Carr
It is an ambitious list at thirty titles, with only a couple of epic titles (Garcia Marquez). The emphasis this year is on short stories, including the year's best of collections and collections by some masters. And Faulkner, McCarthy, and Oates each get two slots because I've got some catching up to do on their back catalog.
So, enough blogging, I've got reading to do.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
The New Year - The Old Project
I guess it's time to get back at it. And maybe it's time I remark on the progress of my "project." While at this stage of the work, I'm more likely to call it a novel, what it is intended to become, but it remains only a manuscript until it is published as a novel.
I had hoped to be done with the second draft now and I'm probably over half-way to that, but I feel like there is much more to do. There are more chapters to be written. Certain characters got short shrift in the first draft and they really deserve more pages. And I don't think I can be positive about the ending until I see how all the pieces come together. More may be necessary there as well.
The story lines of most of the characters all come to a climax at one point and it's hard to get it all done for them in that moment, at a climactic pace. I would like it to all be apparent in those pivotal chapters what is happening to them, what changes are happening, what decisions are being made, what courses are being altered. And I would like to do it all without chapters of denouement. I fear over-telling in that. It should also be satisfying to the reader, and I know much of the satisfaction in reading a novel comes from learning the outcome, how things have turned out for the main characters. Having an ensemble, like I do, makes it difficult. I'm reluctant to give them each a chapter post-climax so that we know what's happened. I don't think I can really get that right until the rest of it comes together. While I know that much work lays ahead of me, I remain anxious to get ahead, to write new things.
I had hoped to be done with the second draft now and I'm probably over half-way to that, but I feel like there is much more to do. There are more chapters to be written. Certain characters got short shrift in the first draft and they really deserve more pages. And I don't think I can be positive about the ending until I see how all the pieces come together. More may be necessary there as well.
The story lines of most of the characters all come to a climax at one point and it's hard to get it all done for them in that moment, at a climactic pace. I would like it to all be apparent in those pivotal chapters what is happening to them, what changes are happening, what decisions are being made, what courses are being altered. And I would like to do it all without chapters of denouement. I fear over-telling in that. It should also be satisfying to the reader, and I know much of the satisfaction in reading a novel comes from learning the outcome, how things have turned out for the main characters. Having an ensemble, like I do, makes it difficult. I'm reluctant to give them each a chapter post-climax so that we know what's happened. I don't think I can really get that right until the rest of it comes together. While I know that much work lays ahead of me, I remain anxious to get ahead, to write new things.
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