Month: August 2005

Writer guy goes to the beach

Writer guy

Shattering a proud tradition as a couple, the Wife and I hit the Shore for the first time ever, and my feet resemble twice baked Lobsters. Due to a rather unfortunate mishap with sunscreen and limited experience with tropical blasts, I applied lotion to some body parts more thoroughly than others. Mostly my face is intact. It’s my own fault really. I have a negative tan base. Like if tan was a credit line, I’d owe money on goods I can’t even afford to charge.

By nature I resist direct sunlight. Resistance is an understatement, it’s more like categorically avoid intentional or indirect exposure. As a rough guide, the thermometer must breach ninety-five degrees before shorts replace jeans, and t-shirts sub for long sleeves jerseys. At that point I hover around the A/C until nightfall. However, during this brief fit of enlightenment, or misplaced reason, even the – gasp – swim trunks saw daylight.

The white orb that blinded several children at the ocean’s end was light reflecting off my pasty frame.

Perhaps I’ll try this beach thing again soon. Right after the welts heal.

NOTE: There are no actual welts, only random patches of redness. This is what some call a comic device. You can laugh at me now.

Blend me, shape me

Writer guy

In the course of the Atkins diet, I craft a number of food substitutions, replacing high carb foods with low carbohydrate equivalents. One of my favorites substitutes for mashed potatoes, a little dish named mashed cauliflower. The recipe is as the title sounds. Blend two cups of cooked cauliflower and two tablespoons of heavy cream, and onward to low carb goodness.

Only on my first attempt, there was a slight mishap. I hit the button and…nothing happened.

Now imagine the horror when the cauliflower holds it’s given form, despite the razor blades grinding. And then imagine when the chef loses his patience and uses a plastic spoon to push the cauliflower closer to the blades.

After the cauliflower spackled the ceiling, walls, and my face, the Wife appeared. “Next time try the food processor attachment.”

“Oh.” At last the root of my failure became clear. “So the food processor button on the blender won’t work.”

Lies and statistics

Writer guy

Math is not my strongest skill, so when anything more complicated than a balanced checkbook comes along, I reach for a calculator and reach fast.

However, reviewing statistics about law enforcement participation in a gang activity survey conducted by an arm of the Justice Department required no cheat sheet. More than 20,000 agencies were asked to respond. From information the local agencies provided, the Justice Department calculated gang membership at 700,000. OK, a big number and a large problem that needs management, but maybe not all that surprising.

What shocked and awed was that membership number was derived from a low response rate. Out of 20,000 surveyed, 455 replied. For those that like specific numbers, I cite my calculator: more than 97 percent of those asked did not reply. Assuming they did so for fear of unsettling their community – this implies gang activity was kept on the down low. Or the opposite case might be the culprit; there may have been nothing to report. But really, if no news is good news, why did the abstainers not send the survey back with a long column of goose eggs?

The lack of compliance suggests an issue between these agencies and the Justice Department. If 97 percent plus of law enforcement agencies are comfortable not providing data to the Justice Department, is it possible that this sentiment runs in the opposite direction, and that the Justice Department withholds information requested by local agencies?

Whatever it means, based on that turnout rate, I believe the number published is conservative. Maybe the Justice Department will sanction a do-over.

Enough?

Writer guy

What the most effective amount of writing per day might be is a question that bothered me for the last three years. Too much focus on page count and the work seems forced and needs heavy, if not complete, revisions. Too few pages and the manuscript takes forever.

As for the first method – maybe revisions aren’t so bad, and are a necessary part of the process, but top down rewrites really goad. For me, that’s a surefire route to frustration. If a manuscript is written with the intent that ninety percent is bound for the ashcan anyway, why bother? I never liked redoing work because my boss agreed to something stupid or broke something that worked; I’d rather not spin my wheels by my own design.

Enter the opposite argument, a more exacting, and in my opinion, maintainable level of production. Since October 2004 that’s the method used for the book formerly known as Velocity. After dealing with endless revisions on the Ridge Runner, I realized there was little hope for improvements in my present state of mind, so I started from scratch on a new project. With the Ridge Runner no longer a weight, I focused on less on output, more on quality. That meant reading a chapter out loud ten to twenty times, revising it on each pass until the biggest problem was a dropped word or misspelling.

Basically, I drop a word or two on every page, it’s very difficult for me to catch, and less so for a fresh pair of eyes. Therefore I assume I drop words, catch what I can and let Editor person beat up the holdouts. And as for spelling, auto correct is far from infallible. By thy way, the chapter reviews doesn’t include all the in place edits. Once new content reaches the page mark, it’s open season.

OK, so now there is one true draft, and it reads better from the word go, but that brings me to another problem, which is the drastic falloff in output. Even writing six days out of seven, the weekly page count seems pathetic. It’s been bugging me a lot lately, as I near the one year mark of working this way.

While reading Chris Moore’s most recent blog entry, at last I found comfort. He mentions that his output averages five hundred words a day, or less than one and one-half pages. So a manuscript takes him a year and change. Or maybe longer, but let’s say a year. He’s worked this way for each of his nine books for the last fourteen years. I can live with that level of productivity. If a writing life is thirty to fifty years, at that rate that means twenty to thirty books. Not too shabby. Not to shabby at all.