Good news and bad news

Some time, back in the distant past, I had a spiral notebook in front of me and I was trying to figure out what a middleaged-plus dockworker would do if he suddenly became near-omnipotent, when I had a giddy rush and thought to myself, 'Holy crap, I'm writing a novel.' It was a major power-trip. I mean, a novel? War and Peace is a novel. Jurassic Park is a novel. The Shining, 'Salem's Lot, and Hell House are novels. Those are examples of novels, and I'm writing one?

Of course, the reality is, writing anything that size is serious work. Writing anything that size that is coherent is a lot of serious work, and writing anything that size that's any good, well, I'll wait until someone hands me money for Roja before I make a claim to knowing what writing a good one is like. I will, however, say that rewriting a novel, even before you know whether or not it's any good, is like breaking a hole in a brick wall by throwing individual grains of sand at it.

Now imagine how I felt last week as I started scribbling on the top of a blank page and thought, 'Oh wow, I'm writing my second novel.'

I've actually had the opening section written for a while, now. But thanks to my 'special' method of organization, I may have to re-create it. The first full-sized chapter opens with two young boys enjoying their summer vacation, and that's where the wholesomeness ends. Pondering a couple of events that I want to put in it, I realize this going to be a really nasty one.

If you've read the title of this entry, you're no doubt waiting for the other shoe to drop. On Monday, my wife got up after getting one night of sleep to recover from FenCon, including the moment when some idiot in one of the elevators hit the fire alarm, and she went to work. An hour or so later, she came home. Seems the higher ups at her company decided that had a few too many employees on the payroll. They laid her off.

To say that she is upset, or that I am upset, is a bit of an understatement. They were actually pretty nice about it, giving her a bit of a safety net. But as I told her, that's like someone putting a pillow under your head and applying ice to your nose after they've kicked you in the face. It's a nice gesture, but it's a nice gesture from someone who has just kicked you in the face. Now she's looking for a job, and at the same time prepping to run her booth at Oni-Con. She's pretty damn incredible.

Still writing, and by the way? I still get that same, 'Holy crap, I'm writing a novel,' feeling as I rewrite Roja.

By the way, this week is Banned Books Week! So go read something you shouldn't!

From the weekend

Okay, slightly different setting. I'm writing this (on paper at least) on Friday night, in Dallas, in the bar of the Crowne Plaza Hotel. The bar has already closed down, and I'm in a comfy chair tucked in a discrete corner where the bartender hopefully won't come over and kick me out.

I'm up here for Fen Con, a literary convention that Claudia introduced me to a few years back. She usually vends at it, and I often come up to help out. I wasn't able to come last year, and I missed a lot of fun. While not as closely related to what I do as World Horror Con is, this is still a good opportunity to touch base with other writers.

One of the panels that I was able to attend was about going to Mars, and it was given by an honest, no-bull, astronaut. Stan Love was up there in space for thirteen days, and he came to the con to talk to all us geeks about the really grounded problems that space travel presents. According to him, the international space station is only 250 miles up. I drove three times that distance just going from Houston to Las Cruces.

Which brings me to a piece I have that's sitting in the rewrite pile called 'In the Dark.' It's the first, and so far only, bit of science fiction that I've written. I don't want it to be horror set in space, but I do want it to have a very specific sense of lurking menace. This is a place where isolated pockets of humanity are huddled around their campfires, seeking shelter from the cold darkness that really wants to eat every single one of them. Those fires just happen to be nuclear-powered, and built inside protective shelters, which are designed to hold in what little air is available.

So how do you spice hard sci-fi with a dash of horror? Since 'you' in this case is me, it's a question to ponder. Horror uses reals threats presented in impossible situations to induce a fear by proxy. That (usually) makes it easier to deal with. With science-fiction, you're dealing with threats that are semi-possible, what the Mythbusters would call 'Plausible.'

Part of how we become afraid when the people around us are afraid is that we pick up on little clues that they give us. We see them breathe differently, we notice that their pupils are dilated, and we get uncomfortable when their movements become jerkier.

I suspect this is why a lot of folks give themselves away when the police interrogate them. All the cop has to do patiently sit there and gently poke a few mental buttons on their suspect, and then watch for results. In a situation like that, there is no visible, present threat, but people react as if there was. It's not likely the cop is going to draw their weapon and shoot, but if they just hint about all the terrible things that could happen, they get the result they want. If they can pull up something solid and concrete that the suspect really did, to crank up the pressure, so much the better. But it's the vague possibilities that do the job. Put in too many concrete details, and holes can be poked in the scenario.

What sorts of vague hints could I supply about a place where food, water, heat, and shelter from solar radiation is the exception and not the norm? I'm smiling just thinking about them.

This has been another of those posts where I sort of think through the eyes of my blog, with your help of course. You may not realize that you help, but you do. I thank you for that.

Still writing

So near, and yet so damn far

These days checking my e-mail is done with a mix of hope and trepidation. I have stuff constantly floating around in the nether, and each time, just before the screen shows my inbox. I can't help but imagine I'll see something with a subject line like, 'Where do we send the check?'

I haven't seen something like that yet. Yesterday, when I checked, I had another rejection letter. This one was from Bloodbound Books, telling me that they're passing on Tracks. They said it was in no way a reflection of the quality of the story, which they enjoyed. Seems I just missed the final cut.

As my wife put it, it sucks, but it's a good suck. Personal rejections like that are a good sign.

A few hours later, I got a little message from Glimmer Train. It was an e-mail form letter, offering a polite refusal on Stilling the Demons. The line that immediately sprang to mind was from the episode of Penn and Teller's Bullshit where Penn is narrating through the plagues that rained down on Egypt. He exclaims, 'Yeah, whatever, God. Bring it on.' So I went out and celebrated with a Monte Cristo at the newly-resurrected Bennigans.

Roja is coming along. The more I read through it, the more I realize just how many breaks in the narrative and inconsistencies I have in it that I need to clean up. But it's still fun. There's still that sense of joy as I weave more ideas and connections into it. At present count it's about five hundred pages long, so I'm going to have to do a major hack job on it near the end. But for now, I can make it everything I want it to be.

Still writing, and yes, part of it is the power trip.

Deadline

Has an ominous ring to it, doesn't it? If the ghosts, vampires, and ghouls in this world ever decided to start their own telephone network, that would probably be the name they would give it.

Roja has been my main focus for a while now, and as much as I love it, I'm getting anxious to move on. Earlier this week, I popped a fresh sheet of paper on my clip board and started the opening for 'The Red Man Burning.' The prologue's been written for a while now, though it might have been lost a couple of computer crashes ago. I like the story, and the more I think about it, the more I want to start pounding it out. I have short stories sitting on people's desks and waiting in slush piles out there in the great abyss, but they aren't books. Roja is a book.

Technically, I'm rewriting Roja and writing a short story called 'Explanations of a Pedivorous Umbrella,' but the way Roja is going, I'm needing to write brand new chapters of it, from scratch. That takes large amounts of creative mana, not leaving enough to give EPU what it needs.

So I'm giving myself a time limit. Roja will be done, cleaned up and spit-polished by the end of this year. In less than four months, my first novel will be ready to leave the nest.

I got an e-mail from Bete Noir about my short story 'Mine.' Seems they 'enjoyed reading it,' but it's not what they're looking for. I had submitted it for their Seven Deadly Sins anthology, under pride, and felt like it was a pretty strong fit. Damn. Moving on.

My daughter's birthday is this week, and I've got her main present already sent. Now I just need to get what she really wants, a big musical keyboard that a friend gave me a while back, out to her.

Still writing, now with a deadline.

Something positive from something negative

At least twice a week, I wish that I had time to go back to school. The list of subjects that I want to know about includes (but isn't limited to) engineering, physics, chemistry, history, and psychology. The reason that I don't take the time is because as much as I want to learn about damn near everything, I want to write even more.

Psychology, in particular, seems fun, and it has a more direct application to writing than the other subjects. Way back when I first discovered the Horror Writer's Association, I browsed through their website and found an article written by Nancy Etchemendy entitled 'Writers and Depression.' You can read it here, http://www.horror.org/writetips/writetips-etchemendy.htm.

One of the points that the article makes is that the very nature of writing, that is, sitting on your butt all day, working alone, getting constant impersonal rejection, and the fact that few of your friends or family seem to understand that what you're doing is real work, can be pretty depressing by itself. Then there's the very real possibility that creative types are a bit more prone to it than most. I can't remember a solid source for that, so I'll leave it as a maybe.

Also a maybe is the odd little thought that the writing process goes through the same part of the brain that our negative emotions come from. I went through a bunch of my books trying to pinpoint where I heard that, and I couldn't find it. That's why it's a maybe. Expect to hear this subject again when I find the source.

I mention it because it feels right, especially for what I write. When I write the story about some coarse, greedy bastard who commits one evil too many and dooms himself to live in terror for the rest of his life, I'm tapping into the egotistical part of me that would gleefully crush such a person under my heel, and I'm remembering every person like that who I have encountered in real life. When I write about hate, pain, loss, dread, and rage so hot it boils your blood, I'm feeling them. Not the real things, understand, but some safe-looking version, emotion by proxy. Now consider the following:

I write damn near everywhere I can get away with it. In the car, on my lunch break, on my fifteen minute breaks, and often in between my breaks. (Sorry Larry) Despite the fact that I know perfectly well that I'm going to be interrupted, by the clock if nothing else, every single time something or someone interrupts me, I really want to scream at them to get the ---- out of my face. Maybe it's just part of their personae, but when I think about the writers that inspire me, the majority of them are known for some really negative traits. Stephen King is a recovering addict, Robert E. Howard committed suicide, and Harlan Ellison frequently channels his inner SOB. Richard Matheson once wrote a book where a magician explains that the audience is a hostile entity. Guess what? The writer can be one, too. If he or she does it right, you'll never even notice.

Yet after going through all that, look at the result. The Shining, The Bloodstained God, , Demon with a Glass Hand, and Hell House. Now if those don't put a smile on your face, I don't know what will.

Because it's worth sharing: A DJ giving a weather report for us down here in Houston today summed it up perfectly. 'Hotter than the hinges of hell.'

Still writing.