As a graduating class, we decided to have Rebecca Brown as the master of ceremony during our commencement. During my time at Goddard College I never spent much time getting to know Rebecca, but over the course the program I became a bit of a wallflower groupie. What's a wallflower groupie? Good question. Of course, I was drawn to Rebecca. I don't know anyone who isn't. Even my parents, who came to my graduation ceremony and only knew her for her speech, were drawn to her. But during all my Goddard residencies, I went to any workshop she gave. I still think about her Coming Through Slaughter workshop. For those of you who don't know Michael Ondaatje's book, Coming Through Slaughter, perhaps you'll be inclined to put it on your reading list. I loved the book which is about Billy Bolden and the beginnings of jazz. The subject matter aside, Rebecca Brown was riveting. A short conversation with her, you know there's at least 10,000 books you have to read in order to see the world through proper eyes. The eyes of a reader, a writer and a thinker for our times. I digress.
At the graduation ceremony, she spoke of failure. Yeah, failure. She dared an entire class of graduating writers in front of their peers and families to go out into the world and fail. She used Herman Melville as an example. Moby Dick was an enigma in Melville's time that utter destroyed his career as a writer. I'm paraphrasing here, but in many ways, how true it was. Moby Dick. Can you believe it? We, as Americans, and I suspect we as writers the world over hold that book in incredibly high regard. I hold it in high regard. Why? Because I read it. And reading it, the tactile motion of rolling my eyes over the text and turning the pages really was a wonderful thing. I read it slowly, how could I not? It's dense. It's strange. I was right there with Ishmael, and Stubbs, and Starbuck and of course, Captain Ahab. I tell you this, it was a very rewarding process. There are classes and professors and literary criticism the planet over that will tell you the worth of this text. So, I'll spare you that. Suffice it to say, it was well worth putting the book on my list and reading it. I don't know how influential the book will be on my writing style, not yet anyway. As far as Rebecca's call to arms, her call to failure, I have no exact response. I'm still evolving as a writer, as I hope all of you are doing too. I'm also developing, constantly, as a reader.
Of all the books on my winter reading list, I read them all.
Murakami? The three that I read this season are three of the eleven of his novels I've read over the years. I love that his stories develop the way they do, the insights into the Tokyo psyche are intense. It makes me think about the American psyche, if that makes any sense. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, for instance, has so many stories from Japan's Manchurian campaign in WWII to the mystics seeking refuge in dried up wells and as outlandish as it all is, it makes sense in the confines of the story. Dance Dance Dance made me appreciate the narrative of an entire portfolio of work. I love that Murakami will often times have a detached middle-aged man, a teenage girl as a guide through the supernatural, the famous figures and an object of desire who vanishes. Startling, yes. Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World has a similar dual storyline. The higher praises of Murakami's work: you can learn to cook great meals just by following the recipes of the narrator as he cooks dinner. His work proves to be an excellent primer into music: classical, American Jazz, Blues and Pop. What I really gain from these novels is a sense of space and place. After some time with these novels you know the streets of Harajuku and hidden nooks of Sapporo as if you lived there your whole life.
He's very attracted to islands of the Mediterranean: Greece, Malta and Crete.
John McManus's book of short stories, Born on a Train? They're still with me. In my wanderings as a fiction editor at a literary magazine, I only wish that every short story I read feels like his stories do. It's great insight into the modern day south. He really has nailed the southern vernacular. He's got the child narrator down too. On top of the thematic aspects, John really is one hell of a writer. I am blessed to have studied under him at Goddard.
Selah Saterstrom's book, The Meat and Spirit Plan? Again, I'm blessed to have her in my life too. Her writing is so far away from anything I've ever read. Her work is lyrical, challenging and somehow simple in it's delivery. I found her words to haunt me days later, and of anything else, it's time for her to produce another book. I know she has the next installment of her canon. It will be a red letter day when I get my hands on it.
The reading list: all the selections I made were seasonally appropriate too, I think. The long nights and short gray days of Portland's winter really made reading necessary. Although most people do not have the benefit of unemployment, poverty and Portland as reading scenery, I did. It was a truly wonder way to pass the winter.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
The Novel, Guerrilla Style Part 6: The Role of Secondary Characters
When I was in my 20s, I still thought I could change the world. Aren't we all predisposed to such thinking at that age? I worked for the Boy Scouts, mostly because I believed in it, but part of the reason was that the Boy Scouts provided me with roam and board at summer camp. I feel like I could have stayed in the woods forever. Josh Zeigler and I used to pass the late hours laughing at our great fortune of Camp Dietler. If for no other reason than we always had a home from late May until mid-August. Josh spent his autumns in school and his winters on the ski slopes. We would concoct ways of living outside forever.
Camp Dietler made way for Camp Morrison and later Camp Cooper. Camp Cooper became wildly populated with old friends: Josh and David Jones from Camp Dietler, Roland ad Rachel and Jen from my neighborhood in Northwest Portland. The latter group were the people I spent days, or rather, nights with, walking the lights of bars along NW 21st Avenue. Roland, for a long spell was my only friend. He was a great friend to have, being the biggest, and often times, the gentlest creature I have ever known. A deep-voiced man formerly of Vermont, he was the bouncer at my favorite club. Rachel and Jen came to me during the haunts of places like the Gypsy and Anna Banana's. Rachel and I would often drink beer from brown paper bags clad cans along the railroad tracks talking literature, Haruki Murakami namely.
The wild progress of people in and out of my like, like the idea of changing the world, was very age appropriate. For that, the people, the times, I dearly loved the work I did with the Boy Scouts of America.
At the end of the century, I was preparing for a long and rainy winter. I spent Tuesday evenings with Emily, my dear friend who got out of work early on Tuesday nights. She worked the front of the house bistro called Blue Tango, since defunct, on NW 23rd. I spent Wednesdays with Roland, and Thursdays I was with Chris Otto. Otto and I drove the quiet streets of downtown Portland after dark theorizing the state of affairs in America. At the time it was the issue of gays in leadership roles within the Boy Scout system and the impending doom of Y2K. Obviously, we thought the issues of the day were nonsense. Plenty of gay people have children, and those children can benefit from the Boy Scout program too. There are only two sides of the issue as far as I was concerned: a person is either a good role model for a child, or they are not, and it has nothing to do with being gay. And Y2K? It seems even less stupid no than it was then.
Otto and I talked a lot about the future. Sadly, I was still hung up on the past. I was toying with the notion that I was selling out on my life as a writer by becoming a young executive. Otto was convinced I could be both. Years later, my attorney, Eric Driskill, would tell me the same thing. Reoccurring theme?
But back in the fall of 1999, I was certain the world would change. Y2K, no. The new century? Maybe, who knew?
At Thanksgiving, a whole group of us decided to spend the weekend in Vancouver, BC. One by one the group dwindled. Otto, decided to relax at home with his wife for the long weekend. He was the first one out. He had been working to grow his numbers at work since October. He was tired, and I knew it. Chris Howk was the second one out. We all worked together, and he was feeling a bit like Otto, I suspected. I mean, really, when we worked sixty plus hours a week, who wanted to run like wild banshees all weekend?
I went to Vancouver alone.
In the rainy drive up, I called Ellie in San Francisco. She was riding the failing wave of the dotcom debacle at the time. As I drove over the international border separating Washington State from British Columbia, she gave me real time directions to hotels she thought might appeal to me.
I found myself at a bar shortly thereafter and I was engaged in The Writer, and in particular, an article making a rather compelling argument about the use of secondary characters as a tool to push the plot along.
Like the bible, right? Each one of those soandso begot soandso is nothing more than secondary characters. True enough. Like Balzac too. Although all of Balzac's secondary characters eventually got their own book. Like Steinbeck, one character after another in Cannery Row. Like the vast interviews in part 2 of Roberto Bolaño's Savage Detectives.
All right, I remember thinking, I'll bite.
So, in the Guerrilla Novel, where does that leave us?
In my own experience, particularly with Dysphoric Notions, and a rather pathetic account of the Thanksgiving trip called 24 Hours in Vancouver, I used hundreds of secondary characters. Many of these characters get a paragraph or two for no other reason than to illustrate a point.
As the novel process progresses, ask yourself about your secondary characters. Do you have any? Too often we get so centered on the action at hand and it becomes too focused, too mechanical. Write out a little vignette involving a character not directly involved and then embed them in the story. For instance, if your central character had a fireman fetish, or a librarian fetish, you may want to write in the circumstance that developed that. Like a childhood thing. Now, this may function as a back story exposition, but it is a secondary character to do it for you.
Also, in your narrative, there may arise a situation when a secondary character does something, says something in order to change the idea or direction of events. How often in life do we have a brush encounter with a stranger that makes us think differently?
This week, your task: write a few vignettes with these secondary characters and apply it to your work.
As always, good luck and keep writing.
Camp Dietler made way for Camp Morrison and later Camp Cooper. Camp Cooper became wildly populated with old friends: Josh and David Jones from Camp Dietler, Roland ad Rachel and Jen from my neighborhood in Northwest Portland. The latter group were the people I spent days, or rather, nights with, walking the lights of bars along NW 21st Avenue. Roland, for a long spell was my only friend. He was a great friend to have, being the biggest, and often times, the gentlest creature I have ever known. A deep-voiced man formerly of Vermont, he was the bouncer at my favorite club. Rachel and Jen came to me during the haunts of places like the Gypsy and Anna Banana's. Rachel and I would often drink beer from brown paper bags clad cans along the railroad tracks talking literature, Haruki Murakami namely.
The wild progress of people in and out of my like, like the idea of changing the world, was very age appropriate. For that, the people, the times, I dearly loved the work I did with the Boy Scouts of America.
At the end of the century, I was preparing for a long and rainy winter. I spent Tuesday evenings with Emily, my dear friend who got out of work early on Tuesday nights. She worked the front of the house bistro called Blue Tango, since defunct, on NW 23rd. I spent Wednesdays with Roland, and Thursdays I was with Chris Otto. Otto and I drove the quiet streets of downtown Portland after dark theorizing the state of affairs in America. At the time it was the issue of gays in leadership roles within the Boy Scout system and the impending doom of Y2K. Obviously, we thought the issues of the day were nonsense. Plenty of gay people have children, and those children can benefit from the Boy Scout program too. There are only two sides of the issue as far as I was concerned: a person is either a good role model for a child, or they are not, and it has nothing to do with being gay. And Y2K? It seems even less stupid no than it was then.
Otto and I talked a lot about the future. Sadly, I was still hung up on the past. I was toying with the notion that I was selling out on my life as a writer by becoming a young executive. Otto was convinced I could be both. Years later, my attorney, Eric Driskill, would tell me the same thing. Reoccurring theme?
But back in the fall of 1999, I was certain the world would change. Y2K, no. The new century? Maybe, who knew?
At Thanksgiving, a whole group of us decided to spend the weekend in Vancouver, BC. One by one the group dwindled. Otto, decided to relax at home with his wife for the long weekend. He was the first one out. He had been working to grow his numbers at work since October. He was tired, and I knew it. Chris Howk was the second one out. We all worked together, and he was feeling a bit like Otto, I suspected. I mean, really, when we worked sixty plus hours a week, who wanted to run like wild banshees all weekend?
I went to Vancouver alone.
In the rainy drive up, I called Ellie in San Francisco. She was riding the failing wave of the dotcom debacle at the time. As I drove over the international border separating Washington State from British Columbia, she gave me real time directions to hotels she thought might appeal to me.
I found myself at a bar shortly thereafter and I was engaged in The Writer, and in particular, an article making a rather compelling argument about the use of secondary characters as a tool to push the plot along.
Like the bible, right? Each one of those soandso begot soandso is nothing more than secondary characters. True enough. Like Balzac too. Although all of Balzac's secondary characters eventually got their own book. Like Steinbeck, one character after another in Cannery Row. Like the vast interviews in part 2 of Roberto Bolaño's Savage Detectives.
All right, I remember thinking, I'll bite.
So, in the Guerrilla Novel, where does that leave us?
In my own experience, particularly with Dysphoric Notions, and a rather pathetic account of the Thanksgiving trip called 24 Hours in Vancouver, I used hundreds of secondary characters. Many of these characters get a paragraph or two for no other reason than to illustrate a point.
As the novel process progresses, ask yourself about your secondary characters. Do you have any? Too often we get so centered on the action at hand and it becomes too focused, too mechanical. Write out a little vignette involving a character not directly involved and then embed them in the story. For instance, if your central character had a fireman fetish, or a librarian fetish, you may want to write in the circumstance that developed that. Like a childhood thing. Now, this may function as a back story exposition, but it is a secondary character to do it for you.
Also, in your narrative, there may arise a situation when a secondary character does something, says something in order to change the idea or direction of events. How often in life do we have a brush encounter with a stranger that makes us think differently?
This week, your task: write a few vignettes with these secondary characters and apply it to your work.
As always, good luck and keep writing.
Monday, March 7, 2011
The Novel, Guerrilla Style Part 5: Anthony's three in one system
So, we've sat through some great topics: the novel descriptions and plot and that sort of thing. I would venture to guess that a few inspirational statements would go a long way after the interlude last week. I'm sure. But my biggest inspirational statement is: go and do it, you can do it and if you don't, then who will?
As we've discussed the whole guerrilla nature of this, we'll continue on with my method.
I suppose many books in the how-to section of the novel-writing department are nothing more than a writer's disclosure, so here's mine.
I made the claim that I can write a novel in anywhere between eight and fifteen weeks. The average being around twelve weeks. So, in that 12 weeks, I will draft a novel, create a second draft and work on and complete a third draft.
At this point in your project, I hope that you have started to figure out your mode of work. I hope you have learned to set the time aside and actually work, for this is the only way it gets completed.
So, I'm sure you can elegantly explain your process now. The best thing to do is to explain your process. Write your process down, and now you'll have a basis for your work as a guerrilla novel writer.
Here's my process:
I get up and tidy the kitchen and brew the coffee. The kitchen is always clean, but a few minutes putting dishes away gets my mind settled. The reason I do this is because I work at the kitchen table. Once the coffee's ready, I settle in and make a list. The list has a few notes, directions, or minutia on it.
From there, I turn on the computer and I start working on the second draft where I left off from the day before. As some of you know, I write everything long hand. The stupid cursive words, almost five words per line of the wide ruled 9 3/4 x 7 1/2 composition notebook pages are draft number one. We'll get back to that.
As I said, the second draft is typed in a transcription, after all, a word document is so much more workable than the pen and ink page. At this stage, I will rework things, add to and subtract from the initial draft. I will type on average 20-40 handwritten pages. That becomes 7 to 14 double spaced courier 12 pt font pages. Once I'm done with the daily second draft, I go back to where I left off on the third draft.
In the third draft, I'm generally dozens of pages back. I'll set hooks, rework things that comprise future events, stuff like that. This part of the drafting process takes the longest.
I try to get both of these drafts down before work (the place I go for paycheck earnings).
In the afternoon I retreat to the composition notebook. This is the original laptop, right?
Then with quick speed I begin to tell the story again from where I left off the first draft. The first draft is the best, of course. I love this step of the process. You should too, because here it doesn't have to make sense. You can diagram, use funny forms or sloppy structure. For me, I'll write for almost an hour. Once that's completed, I'm off to do other things. I have several hours to think about what I've written before the second draft begins again the next day.
And quite simply this is how I write three drafts in the prescribed time.
Whatever system works for you, learn it, define it, understand it and employ it.
Good luck and happy writing.
As we've discussed the whole guerrilla nature of this, we'll continue on with my method.
I suppose many books in the how-to section of the novel-writing department are nothing more than a writer's disclosure, so here's mine.
I made the claim that I can write a novel in anywhere between eight and fifteen weeks. The average being around twelve weeks. So, in that 12 weeks, I will draft a novel, create a second draft and work on and complete a third draft.
At this point in your project, I hope that you have started to figure out your mode of work. I hope you have learned to set the time aside and actually work, for this is the only way it gets completed.
So, I'm sure you can elegantly explain your process now. The best thing to do is to explain your process. Write your process down, and now you'll have a basis for your work as a guerrilla novel writer.
Here's my process:
I get up and tidy the kitchen and brew the coffee. The kitchen is always clean, but a few minutes putting dishes away gets my mind settled. The reason I do this is because I work at the kitchen table. Once the coffee's ready, I settle in and make a list. The list has a few notes, directions, or minutia on it.
From there, I turn on the computer and I start working on the second draft where I left off from the day before. As some of you know, I write everything long hand. The stupid cursive words, almost five words per line of the wide ruled 9 3/4 x 7 1/2 composition notebook pages are draft number one. We'll get back to that.
As I said, the second draft is typed in a transcription, after all, a word document is so much more workable than the pen and ink page. At this stage, I will rework things, add to and subtract from the initial draft. I will type on average 20-40 handwritten pages. That becomes 7 to 14 double spaced courier 12 pt font pages. Once I'm done with the daily second draft, I go back to where I left off on the third draft.
In the third draft, I'm generally dozens of pages back. I'll set hooks, rework things that comprise future events, stuff like that. This part of the drafting process takes the longest.
I try to get both of these drafts down before work (the place I go for paycheck earnings).
In the afternoon I retreat to the composition notebook. This is the original laptop, right?
Then with quick speed I begin to tell the story again from where I left off the first draft. The first draft is the best, of course. I love this step of the process. You should too, because here it doesn't have to make sense. You can diagram, use funny forms or sloppy structure. For me, I'll write for almost an hour. Once that's completed, I'm off to do other things. I have several hours to think about what I've written before the second draft begins again the next day.
And quite simply this is how I write three drafts in the prescribed time.
Whatever system works for you, learn it, define it, understand it and employ it.
Good luck and happy writing.
Monday, February 28, 2011
The Novel, Guerrilla Style Part 4: The Reprieve (First interlude)
Janice and I made our way out of the woods and headed downtown to see Corrie and Tor. They are good friends from Denver, and an outing is an outing. And it's good to be with good friends.
I felt inclined to introduce them to Anna Banana's. I still love the place, even after all these years. In a way, the place is rather like an old friend too.
We got our coffee and sat in the next room and started to catch up. I work with Corrie, and we have worked together on a few projects before the current one. We've worked on Umbrella Factory stuff, and she was the one who got me started on the blog. Currently, if you haven't seen Sand and Asbestos, I hope you do. She's publishing this novel in installments on her Sophia Ballou site. Needless to say, I know Corrie. Tor, however, I always feel like I should know him better. Have you ever had friends like that? I suppose Tor and I share a few common experiences: we've both traveled around, worked menial jobs, taught college composition. It's not enough.
So, as we were talking at the coffeehouse, our conversation moved over a few recent publications to the small press to the horrors of book distribution. We come to the point of Barnes and Noble and Borders. Before we go further, I do like Barnes and Noble. I always have. Admittedly, I buy almost all of my books used, I buy them at garage sales, thrift stores, used bookstores and when I can find him, I buy they from a man sitting on a piece of carpet on the street corner. If I'm not buying books in these ways, then I'll buy them new. A new book at a new bookstore happens rarely. In that hierarchical order, I like Barnes and Noble.
So the horrible idea? What will happen if Barnes and Noble consumes Borders? The idea is horrible to me for the obvious reason: variety and diversity decreases. Having one bookstore is like having one grocery store or one restaurant. It limits options.
Tor assures me this will never happen. He assures me that there will always be the small press. There will always be freedom with the little guys.
Then he tells me about Borders. He tells me about how he worked at one, long ago and in other place entirely. If I haven't said it before: Tor is one real cool cat. I admire him, and I enjoy his stories.
I was so taken with the Borders story that after Janice and I left our friends and began out long drive back to the east side, I suggested we stop at a Borders. She agreed, poor thing, to her, it was just another excursion to a bookstore. For me, I wanted to learn something. I went to a Borders once, years ago in Longmont, Colorado. I was with Janice then too.
I wandered over the shelves and rows of books checking over a thing or two. It was not too much different from any other bookstore I'd seen.
I picked up The Nymphos of Rocky Flats by Mario Acevedo. I haven't read it yet, but Mario Acevedo does have it right: an ex-combat soldier turned PI mixes with nymphomaniac vampires at Rocky Flats? Cool. This book has to be fun. It's got to be fun to read. And then it occurs to me that the book was probably fun to write.
It was fun to write.
Fun.
Write.
Well, we're here for some of those things, right? We're here to write. In the last few weeks, four weeks today in fact, we've been here to write a novel. Sorry I haven't brought up PIs, Rocky Flats and nymphos. Well, it is already written. I digress.
In the bookstore, a few steps later, I found the reference section. Janice and I looked at the girls on the language programs. The Japanese girl looks like the Chinese girl and for that matter they both look like the Italian and Spanish girls. “Put a pretty girl on anything, and you'll sell,” I said.
“Sure, who wouldn't want to learn a language to talk to a pretty girl?” she said. Janice is great. She put the Chinese language program back down and stepped away. I was already looking at calenders or some such thing. My mind was blanking out, a perfect thing for a bookstore excursion on a dark Portland afternoon in winter.
When I noticed Janice again, she stood blankly too and just stared at some generic looking book spines.
I saw Ray Bradbury's The Zen of Writing right away. I opened it and read a few paragraphs. We laughed at Poor Mr. Bradbury's experiences typing “The Fireman” and the comedy of plugging dimes into a typewriter. I love Ray Bradbury. He would probably understand the Guerrilla Novel.
And during this brief interlude on week four, I think you'll fully understand the Novel Guerrilla style too.
Back to Bradbury, when I shelved the book, I noticed the sheer volume of how-to writing books. There were at least sixty of them. “Look at this,” I said. I pointed to all of those how-to manuals.
“Look at these,” Janice said. Behind me on the aisle, the how-to manuals continued. In a range of $7.99 to $46.99, a person who desires to write a novel can purchase a manual and go. I've compared the novel writing process to an exercise regime. More so now, right?
So here we are. This is what we're doing:
1)the novel: we know what that is, it's already been defined.
2)the guerrilla: a member of a band of irregular soldiers that uses guerrilla warfare, harassing the enemy by surprise raids, sabotaging communication and supply lines, etc.
So? Waging war? Hell Yeah. Attack it. Do it. Write it down. Take no prisoners. Just write. We're in week four. If we wanted to write 50,000 in 16 weeks, then at week four we should have 12,500 words committed to the page. Isn't that tremendous? If we just write and learn a few tactics during the process, why would we bother reading a how-to? I don't know. It's nothing worth studying, it's not worth the deconstruction of it all, and I only say this because too much thought about anything can raise doubts and cause bad things.
Don't self-edit, self-censor, or self-stifle. I've said all this before. I still mean every word of it.
If you read these books, please shelf them during this guerrilla novel excursion. We have our own style. We know enough to get started and hopefully enough to make us dangerous.
I did not feel dangerous looking at all the how-tos. I felt nothing really. I was at Borders with Janice on a day we spent with old friends.
In my interlude week, I've thought about the novel, I always think about the novel. When writing, just write. Know that you can. Write it down, it's the only thing we can really do as writers and as humans. You really don't have to follow any formula. Leave the following up to the monkeys. When it comes to this: wouldn't you rather be a guerrilla than a gorilla?
I felt inclined to introduce them to Anna Banana's. I still love the place, even after all these years. In a way, the place is rather like an old friend too.
We got our coffee and sat in the next room and started to catch up. I work with Corrie, and we have worked together on a few projects before the current one. We've worked on Umbrella Factory stuff, and she was the one who got me started on the blog. Currently, if you haven't seen Sand and Asbestos, I hope you do. She's publishing this novel in installments on her Sophia Ballou site. Needless to say, I know Corrie. Tor, however, I always feel like I should know him better. Have you ever had friends like that? I suppose Tor and I share a few common experiences: we've both traveled around, worked menial jobs, taught college composition. It's not enough.
So, as we were talking at the coffeehouse, our conversation moved over a few recent publications to the small press to the horrors of book distribution. We come to the point of Barnes and Noble and Borders. Before we go further, I do like Barnes and Noble. I always have. Admittedly, I buy almost all of my books used, I buy them at garage sales, thrift stores, used bookstores and when I can find him, I buy they from a man sitting on a piece of carpet on the street corner. If I'm not buying books in these ways, then I'll buy them new. A new book at a new bookstore happens rarely. In that hierarchical order, I like Barnes and Noble.
So the horrible idea? What will happen if Barnes and Noble consumes Borders? The idea is horrible to me for the obvious reason: variety and diversity decreases. Having one bookstore is like having one grocery store or one restaurant. It limits options.
Tor assures me this will never happen. He assures me that there will always be the small press. There will always be freedom with the little guys.
Then he tells me about Borders. He tells me about how he worked at one, long ago and in other place entirely. If I haven't said it before: Tor is one real cool cat. I admire him, and I enjoy his stories.
I was so taken with the Borders story that after Janice and I left our friends and began out long drive back to the east side, I suggested we stop at a Borders. She agreed, poor thing, to her, it was just another excursion to a bookstore. For me, I wanted to learn something. I went to a Borders once, years ago in Longmont, Colorado. I was with Janice then too.
I wandered over the shelves and rows of books checking over a thing or two. It was not too much different from any other bookstore I'd seen.
I picked up The Nymphos of Rocky Flats by Mario Acevedo. I haven't read it yet, but Mario Acevedo does have it right: an ex-combat soldier turned PI mixes with nymphomaniac vampires at Rocky Flats? Cool. This book has to be fun. It's got to be fun to read. And then it occurs to me that the book was probably fun to write.
It was fun to write.
Fun.
Write.
Well, we're here for some of those things, right? We're here to write. In the last few weeks, four weeks today in fact, we've been here to write a novel. Sorry I haven't brought up PIs, Rocky Flats and nymphos. Well, it is already written. I digress.
In the bookstore, a few steps later, I found the reference section. Janice and I looked at the girls on the language programs. The Japanese girl looks like the Chinese girl and for that matter they both look like the Italian and Spanish girls. “Put a pretty girl on anything, and you'll sell,” I said.
“Sure, who wouldn't want to learn a language to talk to a pretty girl?” she said. Janice is great. She put the Chinese language program back down and stepped away. I was already looking at calenders or some such thing. My mind was blanking out, a perfect thing for a bookstore excursion on a dark Portland afternoon in winter.
When I noticed Janice again, she stood blankly too and just stared at some generic looking book spines.
I saw Ray Bradbury's The Zen of Writing right away. I opened it and read a few paragraphs. We laughed at Poor Mr. Bradbury's experiences typing “The Fireman” and the comedy of plugging dimes into a typewriter. I love Ray Bradbury. He would probably understand the Guerrilla Novel.
And during this brief interlude on week four, I think you'll fully understand the Novel Guerrilla style too.
Back to Bradbury, when I shelved the book, I noticed the sheer volume of how-to writing books. There were at least sixty of them. “Look at this,” I said. I pointed to all of those how-to manuals.
“Look at these,” Janice said. Behind me on the aisle, the how-to manuals continued. In a range of $7.99 to $46.99, a person who desires to write a novel can purchase a manual and go. I've compared the novel writing process to an exercise regime. More so now, right?
So here we are. This is what we're doing:
1)the novel: we know what that is, it's already been defined.
2)the guerrilla: a member of a band of irregular soldiers that uses guerrilla warfare, harassing the enemy by surprise raids, sabotaging communication and supply lines, etc.
So? Waging war? Hell Yeah. Attack it. Do it. Write it down. Take no prisoners. Just write. We're in week four. If we wanted to write 50,000 in 16 weeks, then at week four we should have 12,500 words committed to the page. Isn't that tremendous? If we just write and learn a few tactics during the process, why would we bother reading a how-to? I don't know. It's nothing worth studying, it's not worth the deconstruction of it all, and I only say this because too much thought about anything can raise doubts and cause bad things.
Don't self-edit, self-censor, or self-stifle. I've said all this before. I still mean every word of it.
If you read these books, please shelf them during this guerrilla novel excursion. We have our own style. We know enough to get started and hopefully enough to make us dangerous.
I did not feel dangerous looking at all the how-tos. I felt nothing really. I was at Borders with Janice on a day we spent with old friends.
In my interlude week, I've thought about the novel, I always think about the novel. When writing, just write. Know that you can. Write it down, it's the only thing we can really do as writers and as humans. You really don't have to follow any formula. Leave the following up to the monkeys. When it comes to this: wouldn't you rather be a guerrilla than a gorilla?
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