The clay takes a while to dry

Ah, yes. That's what summers in Houston are supposed to be like. Air so humid that it feels like you're wading through wet cement when you go outside, and temperatures so high that after a few minutes you look like someone has dumped a bucket of water over your head. How could I have ever forgotten?

We've had a bit of respite from the heat these past few weeks. Lots of wind and rain, coming once every two or three days, kept things from being too bad. It was almost bearable.

All that's over and done with. I can get up at eight o'clock to take the dog out for a walk and be sweating before we make it to the gate. At work I have a fan blowing on me, a cup of ice water within reach, and find a reason to step into the air-conditioned part of the building every thirty minutes or so, and I can still feel sweat running down the backs of my legs where no cool air reaches them. It's hot.

I'm making what will hopefully be the last or next-to-last run through In The Dark. Getting the brackets cleaned out and making sure I don't have our hero sneering at someone at the beginning of a paragraph and they're best friends at the end of it. When you have to change what people say throughout a story because you've altered a small part of the plot, it can happen. In fact, I can't remember a story that I've written where it didn't happen. This is why it's so important to have a new set of eyes look something over before you send it out into the world in the hope that it will convince people to support your writing habit. Which brings me to my main point.

I still have an idea of how In The Dark was supposed to run. Way back at the beginning I thought I had a nice, clear plot all made up that would grip the reader and pull them in at the very first page. That perfect plot lasted right up until I had to put it down on paper. (well, a screen that's made to look like paper) Anything that only exists in your head may or may not be able to stand on its own two feet after being born. I've had one or two short stories that could do it, but nothing longer than a few pages. Ideas are little dreams that you have when you're awake, and as anyone who has ever tried to live them has found out, reality is very unfriendly to dreams.

In this reality a lot of characters that I never even thought of have come to life, wearing faces of people that I used to know. The place where they live is a little bigger, and no longer reminds me of my old high school. Little details, like knowing the color of the sky, and picturing parts of the world that none of the characters will ever see, bring it into sharper focus. Those details make it real.

I was able to change it because it hasn't been all that long since I first typed in the last words of the last sentence of the last paragraph of the first draft. (and I have to tell you, typing those words felt damn good) Of all the conflicting versions and explored possibilities that I've written down and erased, no one story has shoved the others out of the nest and let them die. Time or inactivity will do that, and both together will do it faster than you think. Form the clay into a shape that nudges your imagination, but your first result probably won't match what you pictured. So reshape it. Step away from it for a little while, to give the first image and what your hands have made a chance to merge into one entity. But don't wait too long. Picking up something you once smiled at and finding it shriveled into a dead, lifeless lump will kill something inside you. You'll feel it die.

That's why you'll probably never read any of the first stories I wrote. I remember the shivers that came when I was gathering my clay, going over bits of the stories just in my head, usually when I couldn't sleep. But that first time I finished a story and really read it with as much detachment as I'll ever have, it was a hell of a shock to get that sour taste in my mouth that comes whenever I read something that should have been quietly smothered at birth. I didn't walk away, I ran. I started other things, but I never came back to those first attempts. See my entry about crap if you think you want to read them anyway.

Now here's where I hedge my bet. I did say probably. Letting those stories die still gnaws at me, and I'm possessive enough that I will never let anyone take the seeds of those stories and write their own versions of them. We'll meet with drawn swords on some moonlit beach before that happens. Could I hook those withered things up to a taser and shock them back to life? That's a scary thought.

But not as scary as not writing.

A funny thing happened on my way here.

Thanks to Netflix, I have something of a nightly ritual now. I found out a while back that if I get really into working on something and then try to go to bed, mental inertia keeps my head running in the same direction for a couple of hours. Lying there in the dark, I keep getting ideas for new stories and little insights on how I could improve existing ones. So I'll turn on a flashlight (I accidentally turned on the over head light once in the middle of the night when I thought Claudia was still up and in her study. The sounds she made convinced me that between midnight and six AM my loving wife is replaced by some alien life form that is both homicidal and photosensitive. I now use the flashlight) and write my new ideas down. Then three minutes later another idea will pop up. You see where this is going.

So I enjoy some TV reruns to shift my brain into neutral before closing down. I watch shows I saw and loved when I was younger, and some of the shows that gave the seeds of ideas that are still banging around in my mind today. One of these was the original Mission: Impossible series, truly a gem if there ever was one.

I started at the beginning, and got a shock when I discovered that stoic Peter Graves has not always been the infallible leader of our team. Steven Hill was originally in that position, and did a good job of it. But I'm noticing something else, too.

As I work my way through them, I'm re-watching some of the ones that made a big impression on me. That's where I got another one of those moments where I have to admit, just to myself, that I'm not a kid any more.

You know the premise of the show. Mister Phelps gets a set of instructions on a tape-recorder that's been stashed in an abandoned car somewhere, or hidden in a phone booth marked 'Out of order.' He briefs his team of super-spies, and then they dive right into the action. We know what they need to do, but because a detail or two from the plan never gets mentioned, we don't know exactly how they're going to do it. Somewhere along the line, something seems to go wrong. But more often than not, it turns out to have been part of the strategy from the beginning.

I never questioned how none of those tape recorders were ever discovered and vandalized by kids, or how Phelps’s car was never stolen when he left it parked in the street with the top down. Having studied a bit of electronics engineering and a smattering of statics, I now look at all those neat toys with a bit of skepticism, wondering how much range a detonator with no antenna would have and pondering what metal that expanding beam has to be made of to go all the way across a room without collapsing under its own weight. But the biggest shock is coming from the tension in the scenes. Most of them are repeats for me, and at some point over all the years I'm sure I've gone over them all in head at one point or another. I've probably even used them as a model when I'm trying to give to readers the same effect that these shows had on me. What you take in when you're young forms your framework.

Good grief but some of those lines are campy. Peter Graves sounds like he's reciting Shakespeare, and Martin Landau hams it up enough to be a three course Christmas dinner. Peter Lupus and Greg Morris now seem just a little stiff, though I've found one episode where they both get a bit more of the spotlight.

On the other hand, damn but Barbara Bain seems to be made of ice. She's got a lot more on screen presence than I ever remember. It really is a pity they didn't let her get a little more hands-on with the dirty work. She could have pulled it off. On the other hand, it probably would have made people's heads explode, back then. The TV watching audience of that time likely wasn't ready to see a ruthless female. Might be part of the reason that real-world female agents were so effective.

It's like someone went back in time and made them all re-film every episode, with none of what really mattered to me in the show. I have my memories, and they don't match what I see. How? Well, it's difficult to admit this, but the obvious answer is that the change isn't in the show, but in my head. Some of the episodes were made before I was even born, so I couldn't have been too old when I saw them. The thought of having once been naïve enough to worry whether the team would survive, let alone succeed, is, well, let's just say I plan on claiming my blog was hacked on the day this post was written if I ever get asked about it.

Am I going to stop watching? Heck no. Even with the mismatch, to me this series will always be the standard that all the others are judged against. This show emphasized wit over brawn, and the agents are more like con men than soldiers. Without Mission Impossible, I don't think there would have ever been shows like Hustle, or Macgyver. It had, and still has, the appeal of being a little more sophisticated than what the James Bond franchise became for a while. Unrealistic gadgets or no, there's a lot of the real here.

So I'll watch it, after I write.

How to become a mechanic, whether you want to or not.

If you've been a reader here for any length of time, then you've heard me rant a bit about the summers here in Houston and their poor manners. They give you plenty of notice that they're coming, true. But they show up at exactly the worst time possible, bring uninvited friends like humidity and bugs, and often stay a lot longer than they were supposed to. When they finally leave, it's with a sincere promise to be back next year.

Just the right time for a surprise issue with a car, right?

While driving around town yesterday, Claudia noticed the battery light come on. We headed for home, and crossed our fingers. Then we muttered under our breath as the gauges and displays started shutting off and turning back on. Finally we both cursed loud and long when the engine died, at a red light. When the light turned green, the honking began.

I hopped out and tried to wave cars past so we didn't end up receiving a rear-end collision, while calling a number for a twenty-four hour towing service. I got a recording saying they weren't open, and started wondering how long I could stand there waving my arms before somebody paid more attention to their cell phone than to me and sandwiched me between two automobiles. By luck, a guy drove by who was a mechanic, and who had a tow chain in his van. He hooked up, and while Claudia rode with him and gave directions, I stayed in out car and tried to brake at the right times, (you have to keep the chain tight, or it can get chewed up from dragging on asphalt) remembering why I hate trying to steer any vehicle that has no power. If you've never done it, don't. It's like wrestling with a tree.

One trip to Auto Zone later, I spent a long, miserable time figuring out everything that needed to be done to hook up my new battery. I've done it before with the vehicles that I drove in the Corps, but that was a few years ago. When everything was put back together, the car seemed to be working. Until I drove it today, that is. The battery light came on again and I drove back as fast as I could, imagining having to push the car a mile or so by myself in the same heat. So now I have an early trip to our mechanic planned, first thing in the morning.

Well, if worst comes to worst, I can always use the experience in a story, once I get the situation fixed in real life. Oh, bit of irony? I have royalties coming, but they're in such a small amount that I asked to just receive a copy of the book so I can hand it out or use it for a display at a convention. Which book? Why, 'Hard Luck', of course.

Enough miserating. Time to get back to writing.

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.