Playing Whack-a-Mole

That's really what it feels like. Every time I think I'm coming to the end of the rewrite of In The Dark, I notice three or four more places where I've started to say one thing and then finished some completely different sentence. What if you had to take an existing house of cards, and go through them to make sure all the faces were oriented the same way, without just knocking the whole thing down and starting over. Oh, and when you get halfway done, you realize it looks better with them facing the other way. Yeah.

A bit late posting this. Claudia was vending at San Japan over the weekend and just got home. I wasn't able to get the time off to go with her, so I got this weekend to myself. Nice, but I'm glad to have her back.

Next part may get a bit self-indulgent. Be warned.

I'm also getting to that point where I'm doubting every single thing about the book, from the title, through the opening line, and all the way to the part where nothing look the last sentence that I was thinking 'Damn this is good' when I first typed it. I've read and reread the same lines over and over again, and am nearly at the point where I want to pull up the file and just click 'Delete.' My thoughts keep coming back to something I saw back when I regularly watched TV. I don't know if it was a one-shot show or part of a series, but at some point a few years ago I saw a documentary about the struggles of a salvage crew as they tried to float a ship that had run aground somewhere on the coast of Alaska. They planned out their tactics in good detail, had enough experience to know what they were doing, and were ready with a backup plan if something went wrong. They went in there ready to take charge and kick some butt.

With a set up like that, you know what happened. Everything, and I mean everything, went wrong. The ship was deeper in the sand than they had thought it was, equipment failed, and the weather turned against them. After trying everything they could, the captain had no choice but to cut his losses and head for home. Before he did, he said, “Right now I'd just like to take this thing out to the middle of the ocean and blow some holes in it.” I keep seeing an image of what the captain's face would look like at that exact moment. The troublesome ship is floating in the water a safe distance away, his crew have planted the explosives and are back on board to stand with him, and the detonator is in his hand. He takes a long, deep breath to savor the moment, then he pushes the button. Flash, boom. Sound and fury. How long would a big ship take to go down into that cold, black nothingness? I have no idea, but I know what expression would be on the captains face while he watched, and I have an idea that it would last for quite a while.

Click, select 'Delete,' click. Close my eyes and breathe a long, contented sigh. I am free.

Yeah. Then spend every remaining second of my life regretting that one click. I know myself that well, at least.

Now let me get back to rewriting.

Getting in touch with our inner ghost

I mentioned 'The Woman In Black' in my last post, and if I hadn't been distracted by the thought of Christmas I would have gone on about ghosts themselves. Funny creatures, those unquiet spirits.

The basic idea is this: We live here, in the sunshine, the summer, and the morning dew, then we die. Our family puts us in a box, cries and huddles around it for a while, then it goes into the ground. Our grave gets flowers put on it once in a while, and people tell stories either about how nice we were, or what a mean fill-in-the-blank we were. The living move on.

We, on the other hand, don't. Not in this case. Our house feels cold, no matter how much wood gets put on the fire. Silence hangs in the air, strangling laughter. People get up suddenly to look behind them, and then can't explain why. Conversation is hushed, just because.

The reason is us, of course. We're still there, haunting the house or the churchyard, or the where-ever. But our behavior isn't what it used to be. These days the phrase 'unfinished business' gets used a lot, and there's the concept of a spook hanging around to point our hero or heroine to all the obvious clues which show just who helped us unwillingly shuffle off our mortal coil. But those are more convenient plot points than anything else, and ghosts like that don't seem to truly terrify us.

It's the other sort that we're talking about here. The kind that can also be neatly summed up in a sentence or two, but who are a lot harder to portray effectively. This is the more dangerous kind, because they don't give a damn.

What can the word haunted mean? In a B-movie or a B-grade book it means sharing a house with someone who walks through walls, clanks a really long set of chains, and wears clothing that went out of style two or more generations ago. But we also use it to describe someone who has had Death pay them a recent visit, someone who has lost some person in their life that they loved so dearly that they took all the meaning of life with them when they died. Someone left alone only in the sad ways.

That's the human part of the equation: pain, loss, fear. Not the normal sort that is everyone's portion in life, but the sort of gut-wrenching injustice that kills a person's soul. In a lot of the classic stories, our heroes and heroines are halfway dead, bringing their own ghosts with them into the story. With that door already open, what else can come through?

Why would it come? Why would it have never left in the first place? Anger. Blind, mad, rage. The sort of virulent soup that you get when you mix hate, loss, regret, and fear together, and then boil. Not very sensible, is it? To stay here where people weep and get hurt, when we have a ticket to a better place? Seems a bit petulant, doesn't it?

That's why I said part, and only part of us stays. That's why we feel ghosts before we see or hear them. That's why our belief in them is stored down in our gut and in our spine, while our head is full of reasons to not believe in them. Could non-believers, say atheists, be afraid of them without believing in them or in any of their related bumpers in the night? Oh hell yes. That's how people's heads work.

Ghosts like this live in our ID, where we whine rather than ask, scream instead of explain. They're what's left of a person when you strip away reason, and then strip away every flavor of love. Imagine a spoiled child that no one can control, and that no one can stop. Ever sat in a restaurant, a bus, or on a plane with an infant that did nothing but howl? Perfect. That infant is now somewhere in your house, waiting for you to relax. Pleasant dreams.

As you can see, my thoughts tend to ramble a bit when I explore a concept. Maybe I'll do it again.

Still writing.

Ghost stories in front of the Christmas tree

A few days ago I finished reading 'The Woman In Black.' As I've probably said before, one of the regrets of my miss-spent youth is that I never dove into a lot of the classics that make up the foundation of my preferred genre. Rest assured, I'm slowly chipping away at that deficiency.

I saw the recent movie first, and I deliberately avoided reading anything about it or the book, to avoid comparing the two until I had finished both. I'm not going to get into spoilers. Go read the one and see the other, in that order.

What got me thinking, and now writing, is a minor bit at the beginning, a tiny little piece of the setting. The image of a large, proper Victorian family sitting in what we would call the living room, staying warm by the fire while winter gusts and blows outside, telling ghost stories.

This is going to be another stroll down the trail of 'maybe,' like I strolled not to long ago when I pondered what might have sparked the first belief in vampires. We're going to meander along this twisted path where ever we may, not minding the destination as much as enjoying the journey. It's not going to be the last word, the first word, or even necessarily a coherent word. This is my word, one of many.

I really wonder what the average person's views on family was, back then. I like having my own house, and I like choosing who comes and goes. Some days it's nice to just sit in the middle of the house and listen to silence.

Things were different, way back when. You might have three generations living under one roof, and everyone sharing bedrooms. Add to that cozy scenario folks coming in from across town or a different town, and you're going to have company no matter where you are in the house. It's a happy time, and even if it doesn't really feel like a happy time, you've got little choice but to act happy. There's whatever version of a feast your life can afford, and probably a bit of wine or gin. You get the renewed love of seeing your whole family together again, and all the petty old quarrels that are part of the same package. Since we're talking about Victorian England here, there's the added stress of it being colder than a witch's pointy hat. Everyone wants that perfect spot by the fire.

At the end of the day, people are going to be tired, maybe a bit grouchy, and groping through the house by lamp or candle-light. Christmas Eve is the traditional time for the stories, though I doubt they were all kept until then. So when the big night comes not only have we had a few day's buildup, but there's the anticipation of wondering just what's in that sock you nailed up by the chimney. The perfect setting to provide a bit of escape.

Why ghost stories? Again, it's dark, which is always scary, and it's cold. The caveman part of our head tells us there won't be as much food running around for us to hunt, and that the days themselves will be shorter. Because of the time period, our family unit has probably seen one or two of its previous members pass on during this season of coughs and chills. If they haven't, they've seen or heard stories of the 'unfortunates' who die from cold and starvation this time of year. Merry Christmas.

The connection is subtle to us, but in those days the relevant themes were more prevalent. The story from the handy family Bible is about death, resurrection, and hope. Father Christmas wasn't so fat and cuddly back then, so in each person's head, he would have that nebulous quality that people associate with a universal father figure: loving, but stern. If that grouchy old man in the big house came back as a ghost when he died, then that means that death isn't the end, no matter how much we fear that it is. It also means we better bite our tongue when Aunt Bertha steals the last bit of pudding, no matter how much we want to call her out on it. We don't want to end up a ghost and miss out on Heaven.

I'll close with that, but I think we can talk about ghosts again, and discuss their emotional well-being or lack thereof.

Still writing.

“One of my favorite blog authors is a lazy bum.”

Okay, guilty. I had plans to at least get something down the weekend before A-Kon, but didn't, obviously. I did some odd chores around the house, and then Claudia and I saw the new X-men movie with some friends that Saturday, which was fun. The verdict from the ladies is that it's worth seeing for the sight of Hugh Jackman's ass alone. This is coming from the same ladies who refer to '300' as 'Beefcake on parade.'

We drove up to Dallas on Wednesday, set up on Thursday, and started selling on Friday. All the rest of the days sort of blur into one long sales pitch with breaks for napping. There were a lot of fun costumes to see, including a Dalek, a battleaxe that was too big to fit in the back of a pickup truck, and the first time I've ever seen a person cosplaying Jigsaw. I was able to get into the Artist's Alley for a bit, too. My daughter had requested that I pick up some buttons for her, and I discovered that there is a small, niche market for art based on the TV series, 'Hannibal.' Curiouser and curiouser.

There were also rumored to be some 'odd' goings on, the sort that you're never able to find anyone willing to confirm or deny that they really happened, but that stick in your head and pop up like bad music from your teen years. Would kids really dig a grave-sized hole in a walkway area and try to spend their nights sleeping in it? Could a vandal desecrate a historic piece of art and expect his excuse of 'I didn't know there was paint in my can of spray paint' to be believed? Is someone warped enough to use a koi fish for a purpose that I'm not going to name in a blog that doesn't screen out minors? Maybe. True or not, they're going to get used at some point.

When my head is working on selling shiny things to pretty ladies, it doesn't wander well, so I've got some catching up to do. In the Dark is reaching that stage where I'm reading the dialogue, listening to the voices of each of the characters and finding uneven spots. These are where it sounds like some deranged brain surgeon attacked them while the other person was speaking and performed impromptu trepanning, because all of a sudden their entire attitude and pattern of speech changes. I know this is what has happened in some books that I've read, and that if I just re-read them enough times I’ll get all the subtle clues that point this out. Rest assured, if you ever notice this problem in one of my stories and you don't get to read about the hero catching the surgeon, it's all the book-printer's fault, because obviously they used an inferior glue and all the pages that would have had the story make perfect sense popped loose and fell out.

Oh, the title of this post? You can that Claudia for that. I can always rely on my wife for subtle hints. Maybe I should have her read all those stories and look for the mad surgeon.

Still writing.

How well do I draw? Umm...

One of the things that I need when I write is at least some idea of the setting. Is everything taking place in the cab of a truck? I need to have a clue how much room there is to move around, what angle the steering wheel is at, and whether the seats have a lot of padding or if they feel like a wooden bench with fabric stretched over them. When I wrote 'Roja' I sat down and drew a map of the town, naming all the important streets. When I wrote 'Stilling the Demons' I got my wife to put me in touch with a friend of hers who sometimes drives a snowplow up in Maine, because I wanted to know the layout of their cabs. Good thing I did, too. I had no idea that there is usually only room for the driver, since the controls for the blade take up the passenger side of the seat. I had set a minor event occurring on the passenger side in the first draft, and had to rewrite it.

Unless you've been in a coma for a few months or are just now reading my blog, you'll know I'm rewriting my second book. This one is science fiction, taking place a long time from now in a solar system far, far away. (Nope. Couldn't resist) Ninety percent of it takes place in one base, located on a dry, hostile world with barely enough of an atmosphere to keep you from popping like a balloon if you walk out the hatch without a pressure suit on. In my head, the base is about the size of my old high school, and all the sections are arranged in a rough square so that almost everything is connected to everything else. It makes a kind of sense, since patterns that work get reused.

I've had a vague idea of the layout for a while now, knowing which side most of the airlocks are on and figuring out where they would put the solar cells to protect them from the blowing wind. But I have scenes that include walking through one section while our hero subtly looks around, taking in the details that will mean something later. I have elements in the plot that hinge on whether or not a person can get from point A to point C without going through point B. So I need to define if those points are in a straight line or not.

Doing this also gives me a better sense of the story happening in a real location, a sense of place. I may end up creating a dozen or more details that never get used, but if all of them are interconnected, and if points two and eleven make it into the book, then after a person reads it and the story is settling in their heads, they just might connect all those invisible dots themselves. Then out of the blue they'll say, 'Ahh, that's why everyone thinks the carpet is made from human hair.' When a person makes a discovery like that for themselves, they invest a little bit of their heart in a time, place, and setting. Call me greedy. That's what I want.

Today was memorial day, and while my time of getting shot at was quite a few years ago, the memories are never very far away. Some of our men and women are going through times like that right now, and some of them have already come back in boxes. Others may ask more, but I just ask that you remember.

My wife and I got out to see Godzilla today, and I liked it. It's a good retelling of what has become a modern myth that has its roots back in the days when trees were black, noon-day skies were off-white, and every person in every movie and TV show had skin that was a shade of gray. They kept a lot of old and good, and added a thing or two that was new and cool, too. The roar remains the same.

Oh, the title of this post? I'm drawing out a map of the base, with all the important places that are used in the book. Looking at it, I have to admit that except for my descriptive text being more mature, and no longer being obsessive about words being complete and spelled out (well, not always), it looks a lot like the ones I used to draw in grade school, showing all the weird and fantastic places I dreamed about seeing and building. So the answer to the question is no, not very well. But the map will do what I need it to do.

It will help with my writing.

It's in my hands

On my way home from work today, I stopped off at Barnes and Noble. I had put in an order a few days ago, and it finally arrived. I walked in and, after getting distracted in the movies section, headed to the counter to pick up my books.

My books.

They belong to other people too, of course. Steve Berman's name is on the covers, where it should be, because he's the one who put out the call for stories, sifted through what was probably a deluge of them, and went through the whole process of turning all our crazy ideas into a book. Richard Bowes's name is on top, followed by Pat Cadigan. There are others, including Tanith Lee,and 'AND MORE...' at the end of the list.

I'm part of that 'AND MORE.' I found my name in the table of contents, and flipped through the book to find 'Dirty.' There it is. But now I'm reading it on paper that someone else printed, in a mass of folded and glued paper, that was put together by a professional printing company. This is my book. There are many like it, but this one is mine. Be glad you're not in the room with me, because I'm discovering that I cackle whenever I look at it. Yep, cackle is the word for it.

So after I post this, I'm going to take a sheet of paper and go downstairs to watch 'Suspiria.' It's what distracted me as I walked in the store, and while I watch it, I'll keep rewriting the last scene in 'In The Dark.' I expect to be cackling while I do it.

That book contains my writing.

Still not real

So when I decided I wanted to be a writer, what did I know about the craft itself? Why I knew everything, of course. You have to tell an interesting story, and tell it in an interesting way. What else could I possibly need to know?

So a lot of today has been spent looking up what units a Geiger counter displays, how many different types of radiation there are and what they're made of, and what the minimum number of people you can have on a generation ship if you need it to actually be self-perpetuating for more than one generation and how likely it is that those people will decide to throw the plan out the window after the third generation of children who grow up never seeing a planet, or a star. Could I just make all of this fun stuff up and get on with it? Sure, and everyone who put any time and effort to study those subjects would drop the book in the trash when they reached that point in the story. Will I put more than a couple of hours into researching these points? No, especially not at this stage. If I discover any big facts about these subjects that contract what I've already written, will I change the storyline? Only if I see a really cool possibility that I can put in without too much rewriting. Otherwise I'll just include some minor plot point to get around that barrier and get on with the story. That's the whole point of all this pounding of the keys.

So it's now all over the Facebook page. Burnt Offerings Books has released 'Hard Luck,' and 'Dirty' is the next to last story in it. Just now I looked the title up on Amazon, and there it is. I have the page up while I'm writing this, and it's causing another of those weird moments where it feels like the ground has dropped out from under my feet and I'm falling in slow motion. There's the title of the book, there's the title o f my story, and there's my name. I'll let you know when it starts feeling real.

Guess what I'm doing, right now.