damellon wrote: Sadly not. I am as bereft of ideas as I was yesterday. So, this evening, after dark, when the only movement on the street is a stray dog foraging for food, and the only sound is from Belle Perdant's open bedroom window, someone will cross the street and something (?) will happen to her. But there will be no falling cow chips. This is not a Western.
Cow chips falling was only a play on a well worn expression--once you get things lit off with a paragraph or 3 or 4, let
any chips fall as they may. Whatever happens to your character(s) can happen, & w/ any luck whatsoever, a plot will develop, & with a lot of luck, a theme may even transpire. But not to worry--50,000 in 30 is a monumental task, & really, imho, your main concern needs to be only that, & if quite a bit of that is garbage, well, so be it; I think that is to be expected to some extent.
This is actually a topic I can become passionate about. I was OCD re this topic for many years, but alas, it was simply one more thing in a list of many that I never really got very good at. My initial post to this thread was out of line; I believe there may be some Ydc in all of us. Some chess players believe that playing on the clock is garbage chess, & vice versa applies, I am sure. Ergo, it may be wrong, but not unnatural to be dismissive of what we are not particularly adept at.
I admire Stephen King for a variety of reasons. But I’ll cut to the chase; in addition to his love for the macabre (a love I do not share) is his pure love for the English language & his same love for the craft. The man from Maine is extremely prolific, & a nano-write would be a walk through the park for him--even now that he’s off the sauce(s). Stephen King’s theory of writing a novel is not shared by all; he seems to subscribe to a theory that says: just sit down, create a character (any character) have something happen to him or her, & just let it rip from there. He mentioned one book (& for the life of me I cannot remember the title, although it was one I had read) that he did not stick to that strategy; he had outlined a plot. I believe it sold well, but in his opinion, it was one of his weaker efforts. Parapharasing his philosophy, he seemed to advise letting things develop as they develop, & that was where, he claimed, life was breathed into his characters & scenes. I think that Hearts in Atlantis is proof he was successful with this. I remember the opening to one of his novels (again, I cannot remember the title, as it was not a favorite of mine) that started with a fatal unexpected aneurysm of a character’s wife. Hence, “starting a story at the moment of change,” a "defining event," if you will. From there, his main character, the husband, began to experience profound changes that eventually led to the conclusion of what was (imo) a forgettable novel.
Take that for what it is worth (possibly nothing) & do what you will or will not with it.
lizzytysh wrote:Oh, good, Ydc... that means you won't need to concern yourself with my "helpful suggestion in the form of a question"
then:
Oughtn't "Frankenstein" be "Frankensteinian"?
~ Lizzy
Grargggggggg …. Try as you might, Lizzy, you will not bring out the old Ydc on this particular thread
. (A rare Ydc smile.) I believe there is legitimate discourse that could transpire over this point, with both you & I both presenting valid POVs. You might already know this, but if not, you may find it interesting. I once workshopped on line w/ a Canadian poet who told me of L. Cohen’s style of workshopping; according to her, when LC & his group would get together they would go over every word--if it couldn’t be justified, it was out. Is that true? I can’t say I know it to be a fact, only what I was told.
However, if I was nano-writing, I wouldn’t do it that way. There would be little time for debates regarding verbiage, proofreading, or editing. The goal in my opinion would just to keep banging that keyboard & spewing something out. Anything out. Kind of like playing chess under the gun of a timer.
I’ve read a lot in my time, but I imagine there are perhaps less than a half dozen authors I admire most & have read the most of. I mentioned Mr. King, above. But who I always wanted to emulate? Raymond Carver. I suspect Carver would have done poorly at nano-write. Carver wrote short stories because he wanted something that he could get the initial job done quickly. He wrote an essay called "Fires" that is worth reading. His children were one of his fires, but not in the traditional sense. They were a malignant fire, he claimed. Because of them, his writing was done on the run & under the gun--in a laundry mat for example. It may sound, at this point, to be an oxymoron, but Carver also claimed he was a “slow” writer. By that, he meant that after his initial product was “finished,” it went on the table for some serious surgery. Surgery that took a long time ‘til RC was satisfied. If you are familiar w/ RC, you know excessive verbiage was not his trade mark. I’ll paraphrase from an essay I read by him, but if a sentence took 15 words, he looked at it hard & shot for 10. Then he took those 10 & tried to find a way to get the job done in 5. Later on, in his sadly too short career, he went back to 10, he said. He said he knew he was done when he was on the umpteenth edit & he was putting commas back in that he had previously removed. (Bare in mind, this is a very rough job of paraphrasing from memory.)
During the years that I was OCD about writing fiction (as an OCD, it is always something), I was always a chameleon, aping who ever it was I was currently reading. It was always Carver I wanted to emulate, but it was Carver I could never mimic. I always knew he achieved something special, something non-glib, but something I could never quite put my finger on. So how could I ever try to follow that act? Carver’s breakthrough, “Cathedrals,” was always one of my least favorites, although I wound up writing a pretty fair essay on it. Raymond Carver died way too early & left way to much unwritten.
****
The ivory felt good in old dick’s pudgy paws. Almost as good as his taxpayer customized grips on his made to order magnum. He could feel the blood of dead elephants as they lay rotting on the plains of the Serengeti, bloody gaping craters where there tusks once protruded from. This was a good visual, & he felt a strange stirring in his loins, one that most always came only from landing his no-bid contracts to repair a country he had previously convinced 70% of the country needed to be blown the fuck up. One that came from full color spreads of the aftermath of insurgent incurrent suicidal wrath on an innocent Iraqi populace. Every attack simply meant terrorism was alive & thriving & that meant all the more justification to spend decades & trillions chasing a bogeyman that would exist nearly as long as the common cockroach. & old dick knew well how long the pesticide industry had been profiteering off that particular insect.
Old dick replaced the receiver on his customized ivory Andy Warhol knock-off. He growled wolfishly as he waited for junior to arrive in the basement. Uh, whassup, boss, the stupid bastard would say. How he despised that. His memoirs needed to include a valid justification for selecting that dumb fuck in the first place. To write that Darth Vader was essentially unelectable, & he needed a viable figure-head to read the speeches & do the corporate bidding, was unacceptable. More lies & more deceit were very acceptable, but before old dick resumed typing his masterpiece, there were numerous semantics that needed to have the bugs worked out. The difference between deeds & misdeeds, for example, was a minor problem; any good neo-com could make an argument that technically they were one & the same….
“Uh, whassup Boss?”
Junior looked disappointed to be interrupted from his play-station.
Old dick’s lips curled back over his yellowing canine teeth, resembling for a frightful instant, a rabid coyote.
“Junior, did we, in fact, create a something that evolved into a Frankenstein proportion, a Frankensteinian series of situations, or a Frankenstein-like series of events?”
“Gee, boss, I thought it was more like a Dracula movie….”
Old dick’s jaundiced eyes literally flared with hatred for his underling. He said nothing, but spittle he could not contain dribbled from the corners of his mouth.
“Can I go now, Boss? I’m just about to kick Iran’s ass on my Flight Simulator game….”
If looks could kill, Old dick would have assumed the presidency at that very moment.
He spoke not a word but returned to his keyboard. Junior waited with a familiar vacant expression, & then turned heel & took his leave.
****
There was the matter of a potential story, or the matter of professional pride. I chose the latter & did my best attempt to ignore the pair with the act of a professional journalist’s snobbery. "And afterall" I told the one armed veteran "perhaps you should try to look at this with an open mind. While you were out there crawling around in the jungles of South East Asia and getting your arm blowed off, junior was flying around the skies of southwest texas keeping this country free of whatever bandits might want to fly in from Mexico. And it wasn't all that safe either...remember...the F-102 he was assigned to was obsolete to the point that it would never have even been considered as a front line fighter in Viet Nam...."
...the one-armed gentleman's craggy face broke into an ugly scowl, he slapped the bar with his remaining hand and began muttering something about his hunting knife and a dark alley. "That's enough" I said, sticking my fingers in my ear, "I don't wanna hear anything I might have to testify to..."
I turned to leave, in the swirling cigarette smoke and the 'Nam veteran’s uttered curses, I had not noticed the stranger that I nearly bumped into in my haste to escape the blasphemy of my handicapped acquaintance. The new arrival wore a thick white gauze bandage wrapped around his head, the pale skin of his face was accentuated by deep blue-gray bruising emanating down from beneath his dark glasses...but I recognized him anyway. "You're Hatfield!" I exclaimed. "I thought you were dead, man! I thought george & jeb & their goons got you in that hotel room!!" My eyes quickly scanned the delaminated veneer of the bar in the poorly illuminated drinkery for a matchbook, or anything, I could get an autograph signed on. "You're great man; I’m a professional too, like you," I muttered digging a pen out of my pocket, "I got my degree at The Community College of Great Falls after things went to shit in ’01; anyway, how didja get away?" The figure in the heavy black overcoat (strange, I thought, on such a hot day) ignored me, and addressed only the Viet Nam Vet. Putting a hand gently on the old Indian’s only arm, he spoke softly "...it would not be a fair fight. The only times george had the guts to raise his fist in violence was to Laura...and only then after copious amounts of Budweiser & cocaine." I gazed awe struck @ the great writer who was ignoring me...he removed his hand from the veterans arm and picked away at a purulent strand of sanguineous mucous that had began to trickle down from beneath his sunglasses...my stomach convulsed & curdled....
The veteran seemed momentarily pacified, he returned to the long-neck bottle of Olympia Beer I had bought him earlier, muttering something about if how junior had any balls at all, at the very least he would have had his daddy buy him in to a tang unit that flew f-4s that might have at least had
some chance of seeing frontline action....
Impotently fumbling with the matchbook I had found in an ashtray among some cigarette butts and the sharpie I always carry, I continued to fixate on the ooze dribbling from underneath Hatfield's dark glasses, when suddenly the man in the overcoat whipped around to face me, and I smelled his breath, reminding me of decaying beef & rotten eggs, like something from the grave....
"...& you" he hissed, now overpowering me with his noxious breath "...learn how to tread lightly. The asscroft has eyes & ears everywhere, and I will show you what happens to those who run afoul of the bush boys." He fumbled with the stained gauze bandage, unraveling it, and as he did so, rotted chunks of membrane and brain tissue broke off and sprinkled his shoulders, reminding me of grotesquely mutated dandruff...he broke the final pus dried section of bandage off, & bent over rapidly, forcing me to gaze into the jagged exit wound that gaped up from the top of his skull...the stench was now unbearable.
My poor stomach recoiled...I fell to my knees and was helpless as my body was racked by spasms of projectile vomitus that lasted well over a minute. When I was through & I had spewed out the last of the beer & pigs knuckles in nasty pink chunks on the sawdust covered hardwood floor, I rose & weakly wiped the thick mess from my face with the back of my right forearm. The hardfaced bartendress with the jet-black braids I had once seen as a maiden who junior had been trying to flirt with was not amused. Her hateful brown eyes were swirling pools of anger, looking like dangerous water, the kind you don't want to fuck with without a life jacket.
"Out of here!! Both of you!! Nowwww!!" Oblivious of Hatfield I staggered across the darkened bar room for the door & out into the street, but his words echoed in my head
"...the asscroft has eyes & ears everyehere, & I will show you what happens to those who run a foul of the bush boys...."
...I clambered out of the gloomy cool of the air-conditioned bar & into the street with the sun shining high in the blue western sky, with the Hatfield's words & the curses of the bartendress ringing in my ears. Everything looked blurry in the bright sunlight as vomit trickled down my chin; I made sure to keep the malodorious bile from dripping on my new expensive tennis shoes. The economic recovery that bush had engineered had not quite made it my way yet, I needed new glasses, my father was sick with aspiration pneumonia & was unable to afford health care & I hadn’t sold an article since I don’t remember when--but I kept my priorities straight & purchased some good American tennis shoes made by third world workers for dollars a day--I knew the president would want it that way. I fumbled in my pocket for my car keys, and was startled that the little brown vial I kept to emulate bush’s behavior was missing.
Shit! It must be back in the bar, I thought; what would george bush do if that happened to him(?)I asked myself. Why, self, he'd swagger right back into that pub & get the cocaine that was rightfully his, I answered back....
...with the taste of my own noxious puke still in my mouth, I strode back in to the Great Plains Bar, just like the pissed off cowboy reporterI wanted to be perceived as. Hatfield was gone, he had disappeared through the rear exit into the alley. My miopic eyes seemed to adjust more quickly to the dinge than to the bright, and I caught the surprise on the face of the bartendress as her head jerked up from the bar, her nose still coated with the fine white sugar around it; but what really grabbed my attention was the other patron my abrupt reentrance had surprised. He looked up as well, with that idiotic grin still plastered on his face...
...my dilated pupils readjusted to the airconditioned gloom inside the tavern. Hatfield had made good his escape out the back exit into the alley, taking with him the one armed 'Nam Veteran, & leaving only as proof of his being here, yellow, crusted shreds of his head bandage & fragments of dried gray matter on the floor beside the bar. A puddle of my vomit remained to incriminate me; the bartendress was on the bar on all fours, glaring at me with her baleful eyes & baring her teeth in a snarl. The Texan with the idiotic smirk flicked his cuban cigar, no doubt an illegal gift from the govenor of Florida, & without so much as another glance at me returned his attention to the white fluffy pile on the worn faux cherry veneer of the bar, a white fluffy pile that at this point was probably rightfully mine that the tendress of the bar was so ferociously gaurding. My miopic vision strayed & caught still two more new patrons slow dancing on the dance floor to a toby kieth tune on the juke box. The one who was turned away from me wore a stringy muscle shirt revealing a back that looked like a mile of bad road. Telephone pole like arms, obviously pharmaceutically enhanced, were wrapped around his partner...who looked suspiciously like...
rush limbaugh!!! The opiate glazed eyes were a dead give away!! It was rush!! But it was the stupid looking cowboy stuffing his nose back into the white pile in front of the feral lady crouched on the bar that inflamed my temper.... "YOU THERE!" I shouted "Desist!!" The monster with with the freakish guns pushed the dazed limbaugh backwards & spun around to face me with a menacing gap-toothed sneer, gapped teeth that told of a few too many HGH injections. I hesitated, then took a step forward. If the last four years and my momentary encounter with Hatfield had taught me anything, it should have been not to expect a fair fight.....
“Choke him out,” the here-to-for silent old dick cheney ordered.
As I faded out into a cyanotic blue with a thick Austrian accent ringing in my ears, I was not to know we would meet again….
Harrrrr forty-seven grand more would almost do it....
Good luck, nano-writers!
Ydc
Past the 1500 word mark and have to stop soon. Cohen is providing the music and Cortez is a double edged sword of distraction and inspiration. Does he know Young's Zuma and 'Cortez the killer' I wonder?
