Friday Book Recommendation

Since I have many thoughts and only a small portion of them are fit for public consumption, I’m thinking that my Friday blogs should be book recommendations. I have read many books, after all. I might as well share the love—both with potential readers and with writers who make their livings this way.

But where to begin?

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott’s book about writing and life is lighthearted, funny, and incredibly relatable. It addresses insecurities matter-of-factly, which made me feel less self-conscious about my own. The writing advice is very good (and honestly, applicable to most creative endeavors), but the life lessons are even better. I think the thing I liked the most was the fact that it covered a variety of serious topics without ever seeming serious. Pensive, wistful, and nostalgic at times, but never weighty or epic. Which makes the observations feel that much more universal.

Lightspeed Magazine: Women Destroy Science Fiction edited by Christie Yant

This collection of science fiction short stories by women is just… I can’t recommend it highly enough, especially if you like science fiction, of course. Despite its bulk, it’s very approachable. Few of the stories are longer than ten pages. I think what I loved about it was that the stories were legitimately great, largely about women, but never preachy or “trying to teach a lesson.” Great before-bed reading.

I’m also in the middle of a book called City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers. Looking it up just now I have learned that it is the fourth in a series; I wouldn’t have known. I will almost certainly be recommending that next Friday, once I have finished it.

I haven’t written since Wednesday, so no updates on that front. But that’s okay, faithful readers. I just need to let it gestate.

An interesting realization

I’ve been rereading Becky’s first novel for the purpose of critique (and enjoyment, of course). I’m a bit nervous about it, because I don’t pretend to be an authority on writing quality, literary virtues, or writing clichés one might want to avoid. Every time I find something I want to “pick on,” I second-guess my own intellectual authority on the subject. It’s not going to stop me from giving my complete critique, but it makes me want to poison the well in advance, before she’s even gotten to read it.

But I’ve been thinking about my “qualifications” as a reviewer, and I’m realizing that I may not be the most unqualified person on the face of the planet to give meaningful critique. That’s a nice feeling.

Until our writers’ group was formed, I’d never really had the opportunity to give critique to an unpublished work, and especially not one that was intended for eventual publication. Because my group are my friends, my first instinct is to be kind and pull any punches that I might feel like throwing. For you writers’ group members who may be reading this, I’m never ever dishonest; I just have a tendency to emphasize my positive feedback. Recently, I polled the group to find out what we are all hoping to get out of it, and discovered to my delight that some of us are actually looking for the most rigorous critiques we can get. So, for those who want them, the gloves are coming off.

But something to keep in mind while critiquing is what audience the author is aiming their work at. You don’t want to rip apart the lack of wooly sheep in a book that is hoping to appeal to fans of rhinoceroses, for example. I am, at this point, hoping to write a book that has “literary merit,” by which I mean, “has subtlety, symbolism, allegory, themes, and a moderate amount of currently-relevant politics.” That is not what everyone wants, and that is okay. I don’t want anyone to think that I think that kind of writing is better than any other kind. It’s just that, right now, I’m highly attuned to that kind of writing: looking for the themes, looking for the hidden messages, looking for the slight twisting that gives a story ambiguity. If I don’t see it, I throw up red flags, and I have to remind myself that not everyone writes that way. It’s a balancing act.

But something else I realized is: I actually feel qualified (well, as much as I ever do) to give critique on pretty much any genre of story. My sci-fi teeth aren’t as sharp as some other people’s, but I’m able to keep up, I think. I won’t spot tropes and traditions in that genre as quickly as many of my peers, but that’s not always a bad thing. I’ve definitely been made to rethink choices I’ve made in my own book because of observations made by people who aren’t well-versed in the hardboiled genre. </tangent> I read almost every genre of book, from popular literary classics to literary classics few of my generation would have been exposed to to Poe to Shakespeare to Silverstein to King and Koontz to Scalzi to Grafton to Patterson to Niffenegger to Vinge to… well, the list goes on and on and on… and on. I’ve read Interview With a Vampire, I’ve read Dracula, I’ve read 30 Days of Night. (Not the Twilight series, though.) I loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I think that about covers the spectrum of the vampire genre? And that’s just the example that is closest to the surface right now. I read almost anything with words on the page, and I’m… fairly discerning, at this point. I can enjoy bad books, but I know they’re bad.

So… maybe what makes someone an “authority” is extensive study of a topic, rather than someone pinning an “authority” badge on them. Maybe I do have the intellectual authority to give meaningful critique.

I’m still working on reading through it, Becky, but so far I’m enjoying it, and I hope that my (eventual) critique will be helpful to you. ❤

Word count: 3,278 (೎)

This book stole my brain last night.

Last night, I was having a little trouble falling asleep. I’d just picked up a new book, shortish; a scant 167 pages. I decided that rather than play phone games (against the rules after 11pm), I’d read a few more pages before trying again to fall asleep.

Though I watched 2am go by, I couldn’t bring myself to stop. There were no chapters, and the “hard breaks” were… not that hard. Finally, minutes after 4am, I finished the book.

Maybe ten pages before the end, I was thinking things like, “Okay, we’ve heard all this before; why are we going through this again; ugh, get out of your head already!” The “twist ending” that I had believed was the twist ending was visible almost from page one and it seemed to be getting more and more obvious as the book went on.

However.

I’m not going to spoil the book at all. I’m just going to say. I was surprised. I managed to fall asleep, and when I woke up this morning, the book was still with me. Solidly. I woke up with Branden at 7:30 and wasn’t able to nap at all, despite considerable exhaustion. And though the fog of the narrative has let me go, I just have to say. This book is one of the tightest I have ever read. It is reminiscent of Hemingway’s six-word story in its capability to pack a ton of punch into a pint of words. It. Is. Creepy. And powerful. And… shiver.

This morning I thought maybe I could still make it to the gym, but wisely I gave up on that idea fairly quickly and decided to tackle the internet instead, which I haven’t caught up on since Thursday. (That’s a lot of missed internet, folks.) I felt that it was probably a lost cause to try to write.

First thing’s first: the foster kitten needs to go in tomorrow for her spay surgery. Call and set that up, no big deal. Then, I decided that ordering my medication was probably a good idea. Which required me to call my pharmacy as usual, then not as-usual to call the neurology department at the hospital. That’s three phone calls for the anxiety of at least six! Have I mentioned that I hate making phone calls?

Then, at lunch, I grudgingly looked at the coupon I had that is expiring tomorrow for a free veterinary exam for my newly adopted kitten. No, I didn’t forget to do this before. I remembered it. I just didn’t want to. So I called and made him an appointment, just under the wire.

Then I emailed my Writers’ Group, to clarify our mission.

Hey, I’m usually a quarter this productive on my best day. WTF?

I was looking forward to playing Don’t Starve since before opening Tumblr, but now I’m feeling like I’ve done all that, plus blogging (plus reading an entire book last night)… maybe I should try to finish my outline. I mean, excessive italics don’t really matter much in an outline.

Today my rambles come in “short” or “ridiculous.” I guess you guys get “short.”

Still. Reading.

So, July has begun. My high hopes of having a third draft by now are flapping, shredded, in the wind. My hopes of having a third draft sometime this year are hiding behind things, hoping to not get stomped by hard-hearted reality as it thunders past.

I finished The Maltese Falcon (67,000 words, by the way). 179 pages (the other 10 were discussion questions) never took so long to read, ugh. The book is good, and tight, and I enjoyed it, but it would never have gotten published today. The book starts off with the physical description of the protagonist, followed immediately by the physical description of the secretary, followed immediately by the physical description of the femme fatale, followed immediately by the physical description of the protagonist’s business partner… there were step-by-step descriptions of how Sam Spade rolls a cigarette, how he sits up in bed, how he eats. I can’t imagine how long the book would have been if Hammett had been forced to cut those descriptions, like he would be if he were trying to get published now. The prose is utilitarian and without flourish. You can clearly hear the whisky-and-cigarrette-smoke-ruined voice reading the book; growling, begrudging, yet trying to hide the fact that he’s enjoying himself.

It was a relief to finish the book, and I immediately tried to check out The Big Sleep, but of course it was checked out of the library. Instead I checked out a copy of K Is For Killer, a book that was picked on by Hardboiled and High Heeled as dealing directly with women filling traditionally men’s roles, their independence, and the theme of the “wrong body” that pervades the female detective genre. I read it in about three days and found it highly enjoyable, and when I finished it, The Big Sleep was still checked out. What to do now?

I read for pleasure for a few days, but today I was just starting to get an itch in my britches to start writing again. Just in time, I got an email saying that The Big Sleep was back in stock—thank god! Who knows what may have happened if I had started writing, all willy-nilly. Perish the thought.

My third draft is going to be very different from the second; all in good ways. It’s not going to be quite the reinvention that happened between Cassidy0 and Cassidy1, and I’m very happy about that. It is in my nature to look at my experiences and average them, and make predictions based on them. Like, “The first time I ever wrote a second draft, I completely rewrote the whole book from the very ground up.” So, obviously, that’s what every subsequent draft will be… until I have a larger sample size to draw from. Now, I’m looking at keeping most or all of the same characters, tweaking their roles minimally, tweaking their personalities considerably, adding scenes aimed at developing characters and themes, and generally grab the steering wheel and aim the car back onto the more acceptable, less self-involved road (where the “self” is Cassidy). It’s fascinating to me how a book can be vehicles for themes and messages that aren’t visible to the naked eye; one must unwrap them, one thin layer at a time, like an onion, to arrive at the pungent nugget of truth underneath.

Maybe it’s just true that, when you’re writing, you see the jewel of the message you’re trying to convey. The words are the wrapping paper. Your finished product is never going to look like that jewel, but that’s okay, because if it did, it wouldn’t be interesting—it’d be a necklace with no neck; a mustache with no one to twirl it. The reader needs to arrive at the jewel on their own to grasp the full impact.

Anyway, I post this and I begin The Big Sleep, as one. Happy reading to us all!

Social reading

I grew up in a fortunate environment, surrounded by people who loved to read. My parents, my brothers, and all of my friends: all heavyweight readers. In elementary and middle school, I lacked close friends, so in high school, my newly-discovered joy was social reading. When someone recommends you read a book… or you reccomend they read a book… just so you can geek out about it together.

The first of these was probably the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. At the time that I first started reading him, I believe he had published book seven, Crown of Swords. All my new friends had already read to that point and some of them had had to re-read several as new ones came out. Each of them was impatient with the wait. I, newly exposed, was exuberant to be reading them. Most of my friends gave up on the series at about that point, saying they’d come back and read it when the series was complete, but I didn’t mind—gamely, I’d buy the next one and read it without a refresher, and I caught up.

I honestly didn’t understand why reading a book series you enjoyed was considered by so many to be work. I mean, you don’t go back and re-watch the first four seasons of a show when the fifth comes out, right? There’s a sixty-second blurb at the beginning of the first episode that explains where the last season ended, and we’re all back in the game.

At any rate, I read Wheel of Time, Ender’s Game, Ender’s Shadow, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Stranger in a Strange Land, The Dark is Rising series, and The Rook (the list goes on, but those are the ones I can remember off the top of my head) in the spirit of “OMG you have to read this book!” Since then, I have recommended books I’ve discovered to my friends with mixed results. The Time Traveler’s Wife, Her Fearful Symmetry, and Rant—all books I deeply enjoyed—didn’t go over as well as I expected among my friends. This is, of course, fine. Everyone is completely entitled to his or her own taste. But I feel I must have spent my “OMG you have to read this book” capital, because since 2010 or so, it seems like I can’t get anyone to read anything I recommend.

Mindful of the fact that my last series of recommendations were met with lukewarm responses, I’ve kept my finger off the trigger when it comes to recommending books. In fact, I’ve only recommended three—Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Days of Blood and Starlight, and Dreams of Gods and Monsters. I started with gentle nudging: “Hey, I think you might like these books.” I continued, weeks or months later, with equally gentle reminders. My volume got louder and louder until I finally offered to buy the first book for any of my friends who would read it. I succeeded in getting one of my friends to read the first book, and she absolutely loved it and couldn’t put it down, and we geeked out about it a little bit—but she never read the second book, or expressed any interest in doing so.

What the hell?

I know that everyone’s not only busy, but mentally and emotionally “occupied.” People are either not reading or they’re re-reading books they know they love, the same way you put on your favorite slippers.

I miss the days of social reading. I think that, like other things, when we’re stressed and tired we convince ourselves that reading is a chore. I wish I could re-show people that it’s really not; really, it’s an escape from the things that stress us out. Forget a chapter a night—a page a night is such a good winding down from the day. And, when we read the books our friends recommend, we have more things to talk about when we’re together; more lines of connection that are, frankly, becoming more and more scarce as the years go by and our roads diverge.

Just a thought. Happy reading, all!

Reading progress, with a side of exhaustion

I’ve finished reading UtToDIBT and HaHH as of yesterday. After finishing the former, the latter started out weak, but I got used to the differences and, side by side, both were extremely valuable resources. It gave me many pointers on how to strengthen my story, establish and reinforce themes, be aware of the literary power—and be a good feminist while doing so.

My current concern is that the hardboiled genre is unkind. In its original form, its conceptualization of women tends to be victim, villain, or virgin (and the “virgin” trope really doesn’t show up much); all that’s important is how they relate to the men in their world. The power of the woman lies in her sexuality. None of these women ever come out on top. The flip side of that, is that in noir, no one really comes out on top. The detective prioritizes his “code” above his personal life, and the book ends with the feeling that he does his best in a flawed world.

The problem lies in trying to have a hardboiled novel in which a woman is the investigator. It isn’t a problem if you don’t care about the underlying sexism of the genre, but since I do, I’m ending up with some problematic choices.

The premise of a detective novel is, of course, crime. In my case, murder. And yes, murder of women. I am once more transforming women into bodies. I think that the way to deamplify this is to make sure that there are women in the story who are more than bodies, and I think that I achieve this just fine (and am cultivating ideas on how to do this even better). But when you have a genre that makes a point of shitting on women, and you add to that the systemic sexism of the professions of law enforcement and private investigation, you possibly end up with a protagonist who reinforces the idea that doing this “man’s job” is wrong and will bring her nothing but pain. When the male investigator makes that choice, we can say, “He chose this; we know that he could have made a different choice and no one would have been surprised or judged him more harshly than any other man;” but for a woman, there’s an added layer of judgement and expectation of failure. If she prioritizes her professional code over a man, she’s unwomanly, possibly even inhuman; if she gives in to her given temptation, she’s pathetic. So, do you give your character the opportunity for a happy ending and flout the genre conventions in favor of a more empowering feminist work? Or do you stick to the genre conventions and run the risk of reinforcing the idea that women are doomed from the moment they step out from behind the stove?

Branden suggested I minimize the sexist aspects of the world. “It is near-future; maybe things aren’t so polarized anymore,” was his argument. It’s not a bad argument, but exploring the boy’s-club aspect of this was a thing that intrigued me and excited me, and to be honest, reinforces one of my themes. So, I consider it to be an important part of the story. And, in line with my themes… a happy ending just doesn’t seem to fit.

I hope that doesn’t make me a bad feminist.

Since June tenth, I’ve had some real issues with fatigue. I’ve been tired and sleepy from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to bed, and it doesn’t matter how much sleep I get or that I’m taking Adderall to help me be human. I don’t know if I’m thinking straight anymore. Some things seem insurmountable. When I think about my book, it seems like I have too many conflicting things going on and I can’t reason my way through to a solution. I try to keep in mind that exhaustion is a mind-altering drug and I shouldn’t make decisions while exhausted, and that definitely helps me not overthink things too much, but I worry that I’m never going to not be tired again. I have to make decisions again at some point, right? I can’t keep track of everything, and I’m going to screw up my book, I just know it.

So… on a lighter note, I started reading the Maltese Falcon. It’s 187 pages. Right at this minute I can’t do a word count, but I suspect that’s really short. It also starts with a physical description of the detective, followed immediately by a physical description of his secretary, followed immediately by a physical description of the femme fatale, followed immediately by a physical description of his partner… I’m fairly certain that if this book were written today, it wouldn’t have gotten published. That being said, it’s fully engaging. It’s extremely descriptive: every action explained in minute detail, every feature scrutinized. That is not something I have done in my book so far, and honestly I can’t see myself doing it. But that’s okay. It’s good to know the established tropes.

Well, my train of thought just derailed. Until next time, faithful viewers!

Well, this has been anticlimactic

Just as I embarked on my third draft journey, I received the feedback from my writers’ group that I had so craved. While it has been overwhelmingly positive, the things that got picked on surprised me, and to my surprise, stung me quite a bit. I don’t want to go into them at this point, since I haven’t even mustered the courage to finish reading all of it. I know that intentions matter little when writing inclusive fiction—just because you don’t realize you’re furthering a negative stereotype or trope doesn’t mean you shouldn’t correct it when it happens. Still. I feel a little picked on, which I know is something I need to get past.

I found myself reacting to some of the feedback with, “But... I feel like that’s true to the genre,” which made me realize that I’m actually not all that well-versed in the hard-boiled detective genre (previously mis-identified [by me] as noir, which is a whoopsie made by the film industry, check it out if you’re interested) despite reading many contemporary examples of same. As they say, you can’t break the rules until you know them.

I picked up a couple of academic-style books about the Hardboiled genre, Unless the Threat of Death is Behind Them by John T. Irwin and Hardboiled and High Heeled by Linda Mizejewski. So far, I’m about 82% of the way through UtToDiBT (that’s a fun acronym), and it’s really opened my eyes to what’s “important” about the genre. The tropes are fun, but they aren’t what makes it literary. It’s surprised me on many levels: one, how close I came to a lot of the marks without having been aware of them. Two, the fact that there are a lot of different ways to write correctly within this genre. Three, the best things about literature are present in the best Hardboiled and/or Noir novels.

Discovering this stuff has really raised the bar for me. I’m simultaneously invigorated and goddamned terrified. I have seriously considered straight giving up. I have reminded my writers’ group that wunderkinds are bullshit, but it seems like the inventers of the genre all wrote literary-level novels on their very first try. I have a hard time imagining juggling all those balls, to be totally honest. But, if I think through the process, I have realize that either, they actually got very lucky without realizing it (which actually is a thing that happens), or they had this in mind as they wrote, and possibly shoehorned some things in which might have felt very unnatural to them at the time in order to get that level of literary value. Dashiell Hammett may have had a notecard that said: “Theme: contrast the repetitive with the extraordinary with the singular” and then another notecard that said “parable: Flitcraft? Features: flying shrapnel, breaking machinery” and looked back at these notecards as he crafted the dialogue—certainly a final-draft problem. The Maltese Falcon didn’t spring forth from his forehead, fully formed. It was designed, and he took as much time writing it as it took to get it as close to right as he could. (And, to be fair, it wasn’t his first work in the genre.) Hammett, Chandler, Cain and other authors within the genre were all striving throughout their careers to master their craft—more than just telling stories, they were telling the Human Story, even if those who fancied themselves authorities in the world of literature considered detective novels to be pulp fiction.

Writing is a marathon, not a sprint.

I was reading UtToDiBT earlier and was suddenly overcome with the urge to fill out some notecards before I forgot all the brilliant things that had just occurred to me. So, instead of being OCD and forcing myself to keep reading, I went and got my notecards. I filled out six notecards with two character’s starting and ending points and the events that trigger the changes. I am happy that I did this. Now I’m done and am going to go back to reading. I’ll notecard again if the mood strikes me. If not, I’ll roll right into HaHH. After that, I’m going to be reading at least The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett and The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. And then I’ll feel at least a little more secure in asserting that something that may be considered a “bad” thing to do falls within my genre.

I may even feel empowered to do it differently.

Questions

I’m going to write this post, partially against my better judgement. I’m going to write it knowing that I’m coming from a position of ignorance, and I’m writing it in hopes that I can learn something. Not because I have anything to impart upon you, or because I have some great insight. Please know that I don’t mean to offend or show off my deep stupidity. Sometimes that happens whether I want to or not.

Here is the premise of my inquiry. The foundation upon which it is built. I am made psychically uncomfortable by fiction, particularly fanfiction (though other fictions can fall into this trap too, if they fulfill the parameters), written by straight girls or women, that puts two straight (or sexuality-irrelevant) male characters into a sexual relationship with each other.

It feels exploitative to me, and I don’t at all understand the appeal of writing these relationships. I’ve formed different theories about why so many girls seem to be writing gay erotic fiction, and none of them seem to hold up under scrutiny. But the common theme of these works that makes them feel exploitative is the miasma of “kawaiiiiiiii!!!!!” that seems to accompany them.

A fic I’ve read most recently that seems less exploitative than most others I’ve read specifically regards Sherlock and Watson from the BBC series (A River Without Banks). It’s extremely well-written and laudable in many ways, but I do think that it is a bit exploitative if only because it lingers so long on the sexual relationship that grows between the two. In most respects, the story is not at all erotic: Sherlock has to go back in time to alter the time stream to save the world. Not your typical porno opener. Having graphic sex scenes dominate multiple chapters diminishes the message and the weight of the story, in my opinion.

But, by and large, ARWoB treats the relationship with a level of seriousness and respect that elevates it above the sorts of stories that I’ve seen that can cause me such angst. I pointed a finger at ARWoB because I think it’s good, and people should read it if they want to. I’m not going to point fingers at the stories I consider to be bad. But I will give specific AU examples.

On deviantArt, depending on where you look, you see a lot of slash art for pretty much any video game, movie, show, or other IP you’re interested in. In my specific case, I really like Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. But the shipping between Phoenix and Edgeworth became so ubiquitous that I had to unfollow the group I belonged to.

For the most part, the art wasn’t gross, or graphic. It was usually really sweet, actually. It’s just that, throughout all of it, I definitely had the sense that they were being objectified for the pleasure of the artist. Their relationship was “so cute.” Like a little bunny rabbit or kitten. A thing to be marveled over, then put away.

I remember, back in high school, it seemed like anyone (usually girls) who would exclaim so much over a straight couple would do so primarily because they were insane jealous of one of the parties involved: i.e., she really wanted to be that girl. My point is, when it’s a straight couple, almost no one is running around, making art, and squealing about how cute they are. Because straight couples are real couples, and we know that that bitch is cray and that asshole’s just gonna do the same thing to her that he did to Jessica. But the shipping that happens in badly-written fanfics seems to believe that, once they realize how meant for each other they are, nothing will ever be wrong again.

A lot of these poorly-written fics also change the characters once the relationship begins, to be more affectionate or demonstrative or expressive or even jealous or insecure (in a cute way, of course!). I feel like that shows a lack of understanding of the people they’re attempting to portray; not just the specific characters, but the entire demographic of gay men. It’s bizarre, because I feel that straight girls (and women? Not sure) have idealized gay male relationships the way straight boys and men have idealized women’s bodies—possibly for different purposes, possibly not, I don’t know.

Anyway, I think maybe I did inject my own prejudices a little, whoops. Can anyone shed some light on why this seems to be a thing? Or does anyone care to shoot me in the face with an arrow? Or possibly debunk my premise? I definitely might just be making broad generalizations and simply need more exposure. Thanks!

Word count: 46,407 (땇)

Writers' Group: the unexpected joys

I really like getting feedback on my story. I like to know what everyone noticed, liked, didn’t like, etc. As I’ve written before, it’s not as helpful to get feedback on an incomplete story as it is to get feedback on a completed one, but it’s still rewarding as fuck to get kudos on something you worked really hard on, and nudges to keep you on the right track. It’s awesome, and my Writers’ Groupmates—who are also my friends—are really unbelievably good at giving even critical feedback in a very positive way. No one is overly harsh, but no one is afraid to point out weaknesses, either. We’re all here for the same thing, to get to be better writers; and that can’t happen without taking a nice, long, painful look at our weakest points.

But a thing I found, that for some reason I didn’t anticipate when my friend suggested we form the group, was that... I really like reading their work. Not a one among them has bored me, or made me face-palm, or caused me to do creative word ballet in order to make negative feedback sound positive, or, god forbid, made me lie. I rabidly anticipate each person’s next installment, and it’s never enough. I want more! Right now!

I pride myself on being a very critical reader. I had one of the best Lit classes in college, so that’s how you know I’m a professional. But seriously, I can enjoy a poorly-written book, but I know it’s a poorly-written book. And while not a single one of us is the next Edith Wharton or Herman Melville, I haven’t read any poorly-written books from them yet. And I’ve seen all of their styles and competencies evolve and mature, frequently by leaps and bounds, and I think that each one of them could be published one day, if that’s what they want.

It makes me a little sad when my friends are afraid to share their work; although I’m familiar with anxiety and depression and other mental potholes, it does (against my better judgement) make me wonder why? What did we do to make anyone think that they would get anything but accolades? I love reading their writing; it’s like a little, crystal-clear and fish-eye window into their souls, distilled through poetry and prose and stage-direction and dialogue. I never knew that my friends were such wordsmiths, and it’s like... it’s like seeing who or what they want to be, with all the chaff fallen aside. I see the things they think about, the things that interest them, undictated and undirected by any third party: designed entirely by them. The social issues that concern them float to the top, even if they don’t intend for them to. I long for their words to fly free, because we never get so clean and naked as when we find the right word for that one elusive emotion. I want each of my friends to feel that when they open the cage of their words in the midst of our group, the plumage will be a source of joy for all, and never a reason to cringe or cower.

Anyway, this post is an homage to my Writers’ Group. I want to link to each of them so that the love can be spread around, but I didn’t get their permissions in advance, so I will come back to that if they say it’s cool.

• Rachel Schoenbauer
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• Becky Munyon
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Enthusiasm wanes as capability increases

I received my corkboard and my index cards! I also started reading another mystery novel within the set of books that I would call my inspiration for my story. This one, Gun, With Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem is entirely different from Dennis Lehane in terms of... well, everything. Gun, With Occasional Music is a satirical science fiction detective novel that adheres faithfully to the more cliché tropes of the noir genre. While it is telling a story, it seems to me that the focus is more on the tone and the world that it builds than the story itself. I say this in part because I’ve read the book at least twice now, and I still can’t remember what the story was at all. But I can remember that I loved it, and that the world that it built was engrossing and entertaining, and the tone was engaging and usually hilarious.

In Gun, the protagonist is a disillusioned, mostly broken PI in a world where no one but private inquisitors and the police are even legally allowed to ask questions, not even the most basic ones like “what’s your name?” (I assume this gave Lethem fits trying to write.) I think this adheres more to the literary ‘definition’ of the noir trope in that we see the PI go from a state of jaded apathy about the client who walks through his door—knowing there’s little he can do to help and sending him on his way—to a grudging, ungenerous refusal to accept that anyone is beyond hope in a just world; refusing to let go of the idea that maybe, just maybe, the world is still just.

My favorite definition of a noir protagonist, and the one I’m calling the ‘literary definition,’ is this:

But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. I do not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things. He is a relatively poor man, or he would not be a detective at all. He is a common man or he could not go among common people. He has a sense of character, or he would not know his job. He will take no man’s money dishonestly and no man’s insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness. The story is his adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. He has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in.

If there were enough like him, I think the world would be a very safe place to live in, and yet not too dull to be worth living in.

—Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder

I’m trying to keep that definition in mind while writing my main character, Cassidy. I think much of my difficulty comes from the fact that I want her to be so much braver than I am.

My first draft came out very tame. While I believe that the mystery was interesting, no character was pushed to the point of desperation, and no real danger was ever encountered—because I have a hard time imagining a person actually taking the actions of a desperate man and sincerely intending to do bodily harm to another person.

When I read it in my mystery novels, it’s shocking because it’s not an action genre with bullets flying and punches punctuating every paragraph; it’s gritty and ugly and real and when someone gets shot, they don’t get back up and keep running. So while I don’t think I’d have a hard time writing the more exaggerated, unrealistic combat scenes that you might see in a Marvel movie or an episode of Buffy, I hesitate to broach the kind of violence that belongs in a noir book, because it needs to be grave, not glorified. It needs to be tense and terrifying, not inconvenient or irritating. In a noir book, the violence should be the thing that ends the book, because it ends either the good guy or the bad guy. It’s not an obstacle.

And then, when the protagonist does struggle to his or her feet, it seems all the more triumphant.

Anyway.

Now that I have my tools in hand, I am predictably hesitant to begin the process of rewriting. After all, I messed it up so bad the first time... of course, without my first try, this story wouldn’t exist at all. I need to start thinking of the words of my first draft as being the shell around the nut of the story. Crack it off and throw it away, and you’ve still got more than you had before. Sure it’s incorporeal, and the second draft may not be much better than the first... but it’s a lot more likely to be closer to the truth of the story than the first was.

So, I am now picking up my index cards and my sharpies and I’m writing things on them. For example:

Cassidy Byrne

Lonely. Brave. Realistic. Observant. Intuitive. Driven. Disadvantaged. Aloof. Curious. Honest. Snarky. Educated. Blunt. Careful. Self-assured. Self-alienated.

Puts ‘morally right’ in front of ‘legal’ in the alphabet, but operates within the confines of the law as often as possible. Desperately wants to know who she was before she ‘woke up,’ but not to the detriment of her clients. When presented with leads on her own case, has a hesitancy to follow them that she doesn’t understand.

Anyone out there struggling with their own re-writes, or first drafts, or inspirations?

What's the opposite of procrastination?

On Monday the 29th of December, I ordered a large corkboard and a pack of multicolored index cards. It’d been about a month since NaNoWriMo and I was itching to start revising my story. Of course, I didn’t really know where to start and I was super nervous. I’ve never revised anything before—in fact, I’ve rarely finished anything before. The sum total of my experience with revision is advice on NaNo boards and the show Stark Raving Mad, which had a gag in its first episode about multicolored index cards and a corkboard just to show how anal the editor was... so I figured that was probably a good place to start.

So I hemmed and hawed and discussed it with Branden (my inspiration and my support) and I wondered what I was going to write on my index cards, and once stuff was written on them, how I would stick them to the board. It was quite literally like owning paper and pencils and a ruler, but no textbooks. I was understandably confused and more than a little scared.

As part of my preparation I decided to reread some of my favorite books within my genre. As I progress (present tense!) through Darkness, Take My Hand, I can plainly see some places where I went very, very wrong. It is humbling but enlightening, and the things I believe I’ve learned through reading the book are extremely exciting to think about implementing. Of course, trying to do so will probably end up looking like a kid trying to fence based on watching a video of fencing... but I will give it my best effort, and practice will eventually make perfect. One hopes.

My goods were supposed to arrive on December 31st, fresh and waiting for me to begin work the next day—but they didn’t arrive. I was full of woe! How would I start revising if my revision materials weren’t here yet? I didn’t want to start anything on the computer, because it would lock me into a certain way of thinking and that way surely lies madness. As usual, I was allowing my black-and-white evaluations of things to block the creative process. Of course, it wasn’t even New Year’s Day yet, so my anxiety was premature.

New Year’s Day came and I discovered I was in no shape to begin revision anyway. I hadn’t had anything to drink the night before but I did stay up till after 3am, and woke up much too early. I was a zombie with a head full of sand, and was actually mostly relieved that my materials hadn’t arrived. Branden and I mercifully spent much of the day watching Supernatural with our friends, allowing someone else’s creativity wash over and inspire us.

Last night, as I settled into bed, I continued reading my book. I read late into the night, hoping that reading before bed would help me sleep better (as I’ve been getting extremely poor sleep of late), but woe, it was not to be. When I finally forced myself to put down the book, my brain was afire with tightly furled buds of ideas, and I couldn’t help myself but try to force them to bloom.

And bloom they did.

Sometime after 3am, I finally fell asleep, but every time Branden or I shifted in bed, or a cat stepped near me, or a fly sneezed somewhere in the house, I woke up again and my buzzing brain picked back up where it had left off, seemingly moments before.

In this fashion, I slept until about 7:15.

So I am here before you now with less than four hours of sleep, eagerly awaiting my corkboard and index cards, and I literally can’t wait to start. When I’m finished with my second draft, it will bear only a passing resemblance to my first, and I think that’s both amazing and wonderful, and slightly embarrassing.

Anyway, here is a line I thought up last night. In hopes to get you hooked:

A dog, fitted with electrodes behind his ears and a talk collar around his neck, shouted “hi” at me halfheartedly as I walked by.

“Hi,” I replied automatically, and immediately felt embarrassed and impotently resentful, as if I’d accidentally waved back at a pickle-costumed human advertisement.

Feels a bit tortured. Any suggestions for making it more streamlined?