looking into February

Boreas, John William Waterhouse

12,435. That wraps January’s production on A Lamentation of Swans, and I really did well this month, despite my inclination to dismiss the progress I make ’cause it’s never enough! Forever chasing words–reminds me of that line from Prince’s When Doves Cry–”She’s never satisfied!”

Come February, I’ll continue on dogpaddling in the great white sea. I realize I’m not yet at that full-on writing stage, but scenes are working their way to the surface and swimming out onto the page, sentence by sentence. This morning’s work went particularly well. I introduced a new character, Kei-Nori Duma, Ferrant’s fellow assassin and lover, and my character work with Ferrant is progressing well. He’s taken on dimension and Kei-Nori will be a good foil for him. I’m already loving this relationship.

Details overwhelm me. Like long-tailed mice, they scamper through my mind when I’m writing, clambering about trying to find a way through. I’ve divided the story into sections. I’m trying to focus only on one section at a time and ignore the rest of the story until I write my way into it. Right now I’m concentrating on Ferrant’s section, keeping out of it those things that don’t need to be there ’cause so much presses on me, so much of the story, the weight of creating the characters, of visualizing the settings, of developing a sense of the world of Raeve and its insular, secretive culture. I find I must have all the pieces loosely lying about so I can pick them up and put them in place as the pen moves–however, I’m also letting things go as I write this first draft–and that’s new for me. As long as I’m saying what I want to say, after I’ve thought it through, it’s okay if it goes down rough. I cannot write nonsense (unless it’s November); I’ve got to hit close to the mark or it’s no good for me.

Weatherwise, last week’s rainstorm’s given way to icy, knock you down, drag you along the sidewalk winds, blasting through Century City’s glass and concrete canyons. Going out for lunch, gusts barreled into me and beat me about the head I checked to make sure my ears were still on. No kidding–I had to lean into it to make it down the stairs and once I was on the sidewalk, the devilish gusts whirligigged at my back and shoved me along. Geesh! Women had to hold their skirts and the petite among us struggled to stay upright. I kid you not. Boreas was on a tear!

happy trekkies

La Condition humaine, Rene Magritte 

11,699. Saturday last Janet and I went to “Star Trek: The Tour” at the Queen Mary Dome here in Long Beach. We had too much fun! ST: The Tour is a fantastic and fun exhibition of all the Star Trek shows featuring costumes, special effects accoutrements, like Dr. McCoy’s medical instruments, phasers, recorders, various alien replicas, like the marvelous head of the Borg Queen, and the blue-skinned Andorian, the many weapons and cultural what-nots of the alien races, and costumes from the shows and more.

Plus, there were sets! The bridge of the original starship Enterprise and the bridge of the Next Generation’s Enterprise and the Captain’s Quarters, and NG’s sickbay, and oh yeah, the Transporter Room where you could see yourself being transported. Janet and I checked to make sure we had all our pieces before stepping down. We were like little kids at the interactive exhibits. We rode in the shuttle, were confronted by the Borg, blew up the Cube, dodged asteroids, and landed safely at base. A popular set exhibit was the time gate from City on the Edge of Forever. Lots of posing and picture taking went on there. 

And there was an interactive video where you were spliced into an episode and responded to Kirk, Spock, and crew with suitable lines of dialogue, with everyone outside the video cubicle watching. I was a tad too shy to do that but it was great fun watching braver souls have their few minutes of fame. (The interactive photos and videos were recorded for you and you picked them up in the store.)

My favorite of the wonderful displays were the models of the incarnations of the Enterprise and other ships of the ST universe.

We rested in Ten Forward–the original from NG–and I shopped the store, of course. What a fun day!

I took lots of photos with my camera phone. Had I known cameras were allowed I would have brought my digital.

Oh, by the way, a new Star Trek movie reprising the original with a new set of young actors to play Kirk, Spock, et al is in the works! (Squee!)

And I’ve just ordered a dvd set of all 79 episodes of the original Star Trek. I can hardly wait.

Yes, I’m a trekkie geek and I’ve got a brand new Mr. Spock poseable action figure doll to prove it! (And a coffee cup printed with colorful classic insignias, and a Star Trek Academy sweatshirt.) Yes. I’m hopeless.

images

Eldena Ruin, Caspar David Friedrich

11,515. One day, several years ago, I was driving to work and as I turned down Linden, I think, I saw a body, a man, lying face down on the sidewalk in front of the line of stores on the opposite side of the street. I remember thinking, that guy looks dead. And another thought crossed my mind: he’s been stabbed to death. Really, I’d no clue, but something about that body–its absolute stillness, face down, on the sidewalk, in the early hour of the morning, as if somebody had dropped a wool coat on the ground. Some images stay with you no matter how long ago they were made.

One day, as I sat stopped at a red on Ocean, an elegantly dressed old lady caught my drifting gaze. She was slim; she wore a navy blue silk suit of impeccable tailoring and navy blue heels; her hair was silver, salon-coifed, and she carried a black briefcase. Lawyer, I thought, or senior-level CPA. She appeared to be in her seventies. Her face was delicately lined, her back straight, her stride purposeful; I couldn’t see her eyes, but I imagined they were ice blue, vivid, sharp, and still twenty.

otl

Fruit and Flowers on a Table, Henri Fantin-Latour

I’ll be off line for a few days. Here’s another delightful Fantin-Latour painting…d

zombies can be fun

Roses, Henri Fantin-Latour 

10,594. Last night’s dreamscape was all zombies and monsters and we had a good time. I always like when zombies are friendly. In this case it was one zombie and one of Vince Locke’s ghoulish creatures. We were playing a risky game, but lucky for me I won each time. The way it went, Zombie had a wand that he’d drop. If he dropped the wand before I made it to the bottom of this winding stair, I was compelled to catch it, and once I caught it, I had to go all the way into the basement and make a present. We played this game with the usual dreamworld repetition and at one point when I got to the basement to make my present (in a certain amount of time, I think), it was a bit shadowy in there, and full of junk, and Creature shuffled in–all decaying skin and a mouth full of pointy flesh-renders but I gave him a cheery wave and yelled “Hey Boo-boo!” He grinned and waved back. Nice guy. Think I spent a bit too much time browsing through Vince Locke’s drawings yesterday afternoon.

Devon commented that first drafts are wonderful ’cause they’re so full of possibilities. Absolutely! It makes writing A Lamentation of Swans exciting and nerve-wracking. To break through my obsession with perfection, Lisa challenged me to do 5000 words of bad writing, just for the exercise. I got started on them this morning, and the whole time I mumbled to myself–writing is rewriting. If ever I needed a mantra…

It’s Friday! Yabba-dabba-doo!

put down that whip, she said

Asters and Fruit on a Table, Henri Fantin-Latour

10,180. Wrote a few words this morning in the manuscript about Gadiel Rachor, whom I’ve not written much about at all, although he is closely connected to Ferrant. I know a little about Gadiel. He is the son and grandson of a physician and was educated as a physician himself, although he’s not practiced medicine in a long time. He is, in the story, turning out to be of more interest to me than I’d at first determined. Gaius is also a physician. I think a new story connection just opened up. The writing of this novel is like an excavation, an archaeological expedition. The more I write, the more I think, the more layers I discover.

daisy loops

Still Life with Flowers, Henri Fantin-Latour 

I laid out my writing calendar for the year, but I’m going to give it the gimlet eye and maybe change a few things, like when I’m going to start rewriting one of the two November novels. I’m thinking April for SILK RIVER–I can’t make up my mind; I swing back and forth between the two, loop de loop. First it was going to be SILK RIVER, then I decided the Isabella book ought to be the thing, now I’m back to SILK RIVER ’cause lightning struck and I got a feeling about Jewel and her mother. So April–by April my mind may loop toward the other manuscript, either way, one of them is going to be the rewrite project. Guess I’ll have to surprise myself.

The way the calendar looks right now for the first quarter of the year:

JANUARY - MARCH

Sundays = Project B

Monday - Friday = A Lamentation of Swans

Saturdays = Potluck! (+ a short story)

APRIL - JUNE

All of the above but Saturdays will be: November Novel rewrite. Probably will have to backburner something.

Me needs to focus before me drives me crazy!

butterfly chase

Beautiful World, Rene Magritte 

10,011. 4:50 a.m., the radio news announcer slaps my ears awake with his urgent prattle. My eyes blink open. I’m awake and in serious need of inspiration, already dreading facing the novel this morning. Since I’m still at the re-visioning stage of this new version of A Lamentation of Swans, there’s no reason for me to be afraid–it’s a wide open field and I can chase all the butterflies I want.

Soon enough I’m at my desk with coffee, Mac is up, the journal is open, and I start chasing butterflies down the merry path. It’s a good thing I didn’t blow it off. The formless dark behind my eyes began to suggest a bit of shape here and there, brought into being through my story notes, the hand talking to the journal. I’m trying to develop Chapter 2. I think it will be Gaius’s chapter. I’ve already got one scene written, and now I’m thinking of what he does next–maybe he hangs with his new lover, the alluring Annasara. Need to bring her on scene, start establishing their relationship, and set Gaius up for that little problem waiting for him just ahead–where a fanged butterfly hovers.

a lovely afternoon

Venetian Ladies, Frank Cadogan Cowper

Took a walk down Second Street. It’s warm today, sunny and windless. Wide enough for the carriages that once traversed it in Long Beach’s early days, Second Street runs one way, parallels Ocean Boulevard and the long sweep of beach. It’s lined with towering date palms and magnolia trees with hand-sized creamy white blooms always out of my reach, and distinctive homes dating from the late 1890s through the 1940s. A few may date from the fifties, but most of them are great old houses–a Craftsman next to a Spanish hacienda next to a California bungalow next to a Cape Cod. I love looking at them in their architectural splendor. They’ve got character. There is a two-story Craftsman painted two shades of yellow, amber accented with lemon. Its front yard is my favorite, a tangled riot of rose bushes, nasturtium, trumpet flowers, and other verdant flora I can’t identify. A single yellow rose blooms on a bare bush near the fence. Whoever bought the brick house a few corners down has placed two wonderful Hindu statues to each side of the steps. I walked as far as Redondo Avenue, crossed to Ocean and to the bluff. People are out and about, walking dogs, bicycling, strolling in the sunshine. Acacia bushes sweeten the air, and white sails speckle the wrinkled, sky blue sea. Overhead hangs a sliver of moon, a brushstroke of white on cloudless blue, and westward the sun lays a glittering path to the horizon. A lovely Sunday afternoon.

Last night I finished the last dvd of the short-lived television show, PROFIT, and listened to the commentary by the writers after. The commentaries are excellent learning tools for how to write stories for television. One of the writers commented that writing for television is better, creatively, than writing for movies because in movie screenplays too many hands get in the pot but in television, there’s no time to rewrite and rewrite and revise and change and have all these other people putting in their two cents; the script has to be done as written, for the most part. So a television writer’s vision will hit the screen just as he or she envisioned it, while a movie screenwriter is lucky if the screenplay is left alone. The writers talked about creating the characters and how character is structured to fit into story and how story is affected by character. PROFIT, ran 1996-1997, starred Adrian Pasdar, superb as the psychopathic Jim Profit, and was dark, sharp, character-driven, a cutting edge show ahead of its time, canceled after one season because it was too cutting edge for Fox. (It received great critical reviews, but the viewing audience couldn’t hang with an antihero whose lover was his manipulative, treacherous, sexpot stepmother beautifully rendered by Lisa Blount. In fact, in the original script she was actually his mother–OMG. One of the writers said a CBS executive they pitched to basically threw them out of his office when he heard that.) Fox suggested stepmother–okay!). Nowadays it wouldn’t raise an eyebrow, and would be on cable. As Stephen Cannell comments, they didn’t just push the envelope; they tore it. I loved it; hope the dvd is for sale somewhere so I can add it to my collection.

Today’s work was Project B, and last night, I wrote a page on the rewrite of a short story, “A Terrible Thing”, which will need a new title once the rewrite is done, I think.

I hate to see Sunday come to a close.

10,000!

Sybilla Palmifera, Gabriel Dante Rossetti

10,010. This morning’s work got me over the first 10,000-word hump in my new version of A Lamentation of Swans. That’s cause for a bitty celebration. February is the official “into the brink” month,  and January was for planning, but I couldn’t help myself–so I’m warming up to February.  A good thing about this month’s writing is I’m seeing what I’ll need to research. I like to research “on the note”, i.e., I don’t want to read my way through dozens of books making notes–I don’t have the time and I don’t want to be bedazzled by research; I want to read about what I need to know, the exact thing for the story. To help me visualize my settings I’m going to spend time browsing through paintings–I did this once before while working on a Regency historical and it was wonderful for  writing both characters and scenes, and I need to delve into my books on medieval commerce. I have an early map of the city of Angharad somewhere; must find it and add to the city’s layout so I can picture my characters moving about their hometown.

Starting in February, my page goal is 100 pages a month–about 3 pages a day. I want a finished draft by March 31, 2008. I’m aiming for 50,000 words to rough out the book to completion, and then, I’ll research for a month, maybe two, and begin the rewrite to expand and deepen. My goal is a finished novel by December 31, 2008, and in 2009, agent shopping time! That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.