Editor person called and they won’t be ready for today’s session. Since they’re out of town Thursday and Friday, we’re meeting on Saturday afternoon this week. That means no updates on the fourth draft, version two until then.
That’s not to say nothing is going on. I’ve been working on the outline and character sketches for the second book Again, another forward looking visualization. Sure, they’ll want part II! Why not? Selling part I is a forgone conclusion. Right? Right?????
The second book ( I’m still hashing out possible titles) will involve all the key characters from the first one, plus a brand new character, new guy. I see new guy as a sidekick for my hero, because every great hero has a sidekick.
The sidekick has to complement the hero, but also serve as a ready source of conflict. I need enough tension between hero and sidekick that it’s interesting, but not so much that it leads to one of them sleeping with the fishes. New guy needs a level of sophistication but he has to be able to kick butt.
There’s a lot of great sidekicks out there, and I want mine to be up to snuff, so I’m taking my time developing him, using some of the down time to research a number of far reaching topics such as the history of the Philippines, US Special Forces, star based sea navigation and the swallows of San Juan Capistrano.
On other fronts, it looks like my wife, the professor and myself are going to meet up for dinner this Friday. The professor is just that, a full tenured doctor of English at a major university. Long before editor person, the professor suffered through my writing, when I was a student back in college. I want to emphasize the suffering part. Despite this, the professor agreed to give me some feedback on the screenplay I wrote this past August. Any comments are good and I’m looking forward to hearing what they have to say.
I have a separate plan and set of goals for the screenplay – but that’s all for now.
Author: Writer guy
Love Actually
Let me frame this review by stating that I’m not huge fan of Hugh Grant. It has nothing to do with the fact that he is rich, great looking, has a good sense of comic timing and everyone likes him. No, those are admirable features. My issue with Hugh is that he ALWAYS plays the same proper, quick witted English gentleman, which come to think of it, he probably is in real life. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. I wish I were a lot more proper and good looking myself. I’ll take a pass on the English part.
It’s probably his agent who’s to blame, or his manager. Maybe the people that bankroll movies don’t want to risk tainting his image – it’s worked very well for them so far.
I took my mom, stepfather and wife to this movie to celebrate my mom’s birthday. Mom loves Hugh Grant. Mom would like me to be a whole lot more like Hugh Grant.
This movie starts out with a wedding. Sure Hugh Grant has never done that before. But it gets better very quickly. The premise is that it follows a number of interconnected characters as they wrestle with love in it’s many stages against the backdrop of the Xmas season. Everything from a fresh crush to love worn down by years of a loathsome marriage. This film runs the gamut.
All the actors are terrific and the story is tight. One of my new favorite actresses is Martine McCutcheon who is paired with Hugh Grant. Note that she looks suspiciously like Elizabeth Hurley. Hugh Grant has never done that. Well, he doesn’t do that anymore.
The direction is good, the timing and pacing serve the movie very well. Guys, take note, you could probably win some points with your significant other if you take her to see this. If you don’t take her while it’s still in the theaters, rent it. Odds are good you’ll recognize some version of your own relationship in one of the stories. And you can laugh at the characters who crash and burn, and/or celebrate the winners.
Overall this is a nice light, comedy with a simple message and lots of screen time for Hugh Grant. Yep, Hugh Grant never does that.
The eye of the tiger
I worked nonstop this weekend and made all the edits to the book suggested by the editor person. In a little while I’ll print out the revised fourth draft. Because of the brief turnaround time it doesn’t feel like a full revision cycle, so I’m calling this go round the fourth draft, version two. Tonight I’ll drop the pages off at the editor person’s place and hope for the best. They promised a one week turnaround. That means I have some dead time, so I’ll probably add some more content to the site and finish up the outline for the second book. And blog.
I’m very happy about the last round of changes. At the same time, I’m well, terrified. This is almost it with the edits, showtime is coming fast. I gotta get ready to let my baby fly out there and mingle amongst the wolves. My love affair with the possibilities of what the book could be, must end. Whatever it is next week, is how it is. I have to move on to the next step.
The possibility of rejection is starting to feel pretty real. It’s on the horizon. When it comes down to it, writing a book is one of the few things you can do with such megalomaniacal overtones. The bet the writer makes is that someone will care about their book, but until they submit it and find out, they’re a minority of one. It’s a pretty isolating feeling. Really isolating. Still something pushes the writer to submit. What else could that be but some latent streak of megalomania or masochism? Of course they want my book! Yes, my chances of success are 100 percent. Law of averages? Doesn’t apply to me. I’m exempt you see. So like every writer who has ever tried to sell a book probably has done, I too must reassure myself. Anyway, I need to get my daily dose of caffeine…
Wax on, wax off…
Saturday afternoon I started on the edits, implementing this round of revisions and it brought me back to a recurring question I’ve had through this entire process of writing the book. How do the big time authors handle rewriting? Do they do their own revisions? Is there a round table deal between them and the editor, where they toss ideas back and forth? Are screaming matches involved when they have opposing opinions? Who pays for lunch? The editor person tells me it’s a little bit of all three, and lunch is up for grabs.
At the start of this, I didn’t like rewriting very much at all. Yeah, I knew there were issues with the book. In the state it was unreadable, and by extension, unsellable. I could be wrong, but my high level assessment of the first and second drafts were; good idea, absolutely miserable execution. There were serious structural problems that needed addressing. The longer I looked at it the worse it seemed. There were more things wrong than there were things right. Where should I begin? Should I begin at all? Perhaps there were irreconcilable differences between myself and the manuscript. Could I sue for divorce?
There was a point I was convinced that the sum of the problems were so severe, that it was better to forget about the book altogether. I thought about lighting the manuscript up and chucking the whole thing in the nearest river. Play a little Mahler on a portable turntable while I fired up the pages at the shore of the Navesink, then chuck six months of my life into the murky, muddy water. Drinking as a hobby started to look like a good idea.
Instead of going Hemingway, I decided I needed to give myself a little time away from the problem and write something else. I put the draft aside and wrote a screenplay with the proviso that it must have nothing to do with the book whatsoever. I’ll blog about that whole experience sometime. Writing that screenplay gave me some perspective on the novel, and got my mind off the overwhelming task waiting for me. And it gave me time. I needed time to make a decision. Should I be using my time to write? Was writing even something I was any good at?
Somehow from the moment I sat down, everything about that screenplay just clicked. The best way I can think of to describe it is that it was like I was watching the movie, and was writing down the scenes as I saw them play before me. I wrote it in 21 days, 23 if you count the outline and character sketches. By the end I was smiling again and I had a screenplay. I had solid characters and real conflict that crackled on the page. And I was ready to battle the novel again. I wanted to rewrite, and was ready to make it work.
So maybe the answer to many of my writing problems, like not liking to revise, is just more writing. Even if it’s writing about things that aren’t driving me crazy. And when I get stuck, it’s OK to to give myself time to think them through.