Sudden St.

367th Snag

So, the new novel. Old question, many forms: what do you do when a character or his narrative becomes didactic?

Sub-Question: What if your two main characters are anthropology graduate students, whose thesis projects present a great deal of their character foundation? What if the second tier of main characters is made up of a controversial professor and a young man living with HIV, who is still coming to terms with the reality of his infection?

So, basically, when is didactic... not didactic? Or is it enough to simply expose your characters' academic beliefs in an entertaining way?

Here's the direction I'm leaning: if you have to do it to tell your story, then do it. Just sell it. If didacticism (a loathe reflex of junior writers) is what the story calls for, then didacticism is what you have to write.

Snag 368: What if nobody gets it?

Tunnels

Work is going well on the second novel. Sometimes, writing a book can be fun. Like it was the first time. The very first time.

Cha-CHING!

So I just received my quarterly royalties check from my "publisher". Feast your eyes:

I know, I know. You're all thinking that I'll be buying all the coke and hand jobs on our next outing. Then you realize: If you made exactly this amount, each hour of every work day, fifty weeks a year, after taxes-- you and your wife and your newborn son would all be comfortably below the poverty line.

And yes, I have received smaller checks. Once I got one for $1.97. I was going to frame it, but I ended up cashing it. Back then, I was a smoker, and you'd be surprised what a difference $1.97 can make between a "good" day and a "bad" one.

Texas Bound

On my last night at my parents' house, I discovered my mom has a pretty impressive collection of old books, including a first printing of Zane Grey's The Lone Star Ranger (1915).

72 Hours

I don't know if I'm going to do it this year. However, if I change my mind, and you're interested, I think they have group rates.

O.K., I think I get it now.

Is it just me, or has the truth been before us, each of us, from the start?

A. The reason you must read widely and study your craft is so you can recognize, understand, and ultimately reproduce good writing. Good writing follows the same general rules of form and content, and always has. There is nothing in its design that will allow fundamental change.

B. A great work, one that is both viscerally delightful and technically masterful contains a combination of two insanely subtle and simple elements, namely the ability to do A. (ie, write a good, traditional story by good, traditional form), while simultaneously injecting both form and content with something brand new and hopefully revolutionary, keeping mind, of course, not to upset the balance in the original design.

So, there's my theory for today: Perfection is an elusive zenith between two static points: 1. adventurous but failed, masturbatory experimentation, and 2. boring, quotidian, predictable hackneyed prose, where the plan is so ham-fisted, you can see it coming  a mile off.

Back to Square 0.0001

Okay, I WILL go back and WRITE my (next) novel, How to Clean Everything. Yes. It is the book I WILL write. It is the book I will have WRITTEN. Yes. No more 'side projects'. No screenplays. Bear witness. I spoke and stuff, and so it will definitely get done. This time. For sure.

It will be a complete disaster.

(...sorry for the pun)

Leave the Party Early

A Million Little Pieces of Crap

Well, it looks like James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces, is a big, fat fake. And, what's worse, he's a preppy frat boy. Ew. I feel dirty for liking his book.