Michael Drayton, Detective

Extry! Extry! Read Dead in His Tracks for Free!

2010-11-11T11:49:00.002-05:00

You can go to the Next in the Series Lit Blog and read Dead in His Tracks as it is published, chapter-by-chapter, absolutely gratis! Support the Arts without spending a dime! Read my book!

This post sponsored by the National Endowment for the Promotion of the Exclamation Point!

Final Revision Complete

2010-05-16T08:04:00.002-04:00

I finished going through the entire manuscript a couple of days ago and now have a PDF version available to well-wishers. There were problems with the e-pub version that will require different software to fix. We'll see what happens with that.

In the meantime, the true manuscript, which has been cleansed of typos and unnecessary sitcom-type jokes, is being marketed. The waiting is no fun, but what dlse is there to do?

It Never Ends

2010-05-04T14:57:00.002-04:00

I've been busy over the last couple of weeks in converting the Dead in His Tracks manuscript into a form that would be readable on e-readers and using the opportunity to correct errors as I came across them. I had actually just copied and pasted the first several chapters in an effort to make time, but then started reading through each one mostly to catch typos. It finally occurred to me last night that I should go back to the beginning and proof it from page 1.

Chapter 1 was in better shape than I had feared, and most of the corrections I made were just that: corrections. This was good. This was heartening. And then I got to Chapter 2.

Chapter 2, it turned out, was still weighed down with too much jokiness and cleverness and asides. I've started fixing it. Submissions will continue to roll off the assembly line while I do.

I can hardly wait for Chapter 3.

Plugging Along

2010-04-01T11:51:00.004-04:00

Dead in His Tracks has now been rejected by one agent and is awaiting the verdict of a second--one who seems to simply not reply if she doesn't like it, per the following stats:

But, those are the risks. She's on vacation, so the clock on her four-week evaluation period will start running on Monday.

I have to say that I don't quite get it. When you only take queries via email, why is it so difficult to send a form rejection once you decide you don't like something? Just as a courtesy. Just as I give her the courtesy of only querying one agent at a time (multiple submissions are done, but are frowned upon) and in following the limitations she sets out on her webpage. I know that she gets a lot of blind queries like mine, and that she will have a mountain to wade through come next week, but are those any reason not to have some standard text that you can copy and paste into a reply email? Maybe there's something that I don't understand here, and you can bet that I would gladly send her the entire manuscript if she requests it. It's obviously not a deal-breaker or an approach that makes me unwilling to submit. I just wonder why.

Why?

2010-03-24T13:59:00.002-04:00

Now that it is done, now that Dead in His Tracks is having to fight its way in the marketplace, I have begun to question the wisdom of having written it at all. As I have progressed as a writer, as I have gone from thinking of myself as being a comic writer to thinking of myself as being a serious one, I have also come to question whether this project, conceived in humor and dedicated to the proposition that all things are created absurd, was the best jumping off point for my new incarnation.

Conceived, originally, in a spirit of parody, there are elements of the plot that strike me as being too constructed, too manufactured. It seems too mannered to me. It also occurred to me earlier today that it is harder to go from genre novel, in terms of sales, to general fiction than it is the other way around. The people who represent genre authors and the firms that publish their work want different things from a mystery than what I can give them. They cherish and defend the cliches that I wish to subvert.

Given all my feelings about this, Dead in His Tracks will probably become a #1 international bestseller and then a movie--most likely in 3-D--starring some pretty boy who can't act. Or....

And So, To Market

2010-03-11T13:22:00.002-05:00

I finished the latest revision of DEAD IN HIS TRACKS this past Monday. I'm now working on the cover letter and that most dreaded of all marketing items, the synopsis.

I had an interesting run at the end of the rewrite of the novel. I went, very suddenly, from slaving over a single chapter for about a month to knocking out two or three chapters a day. Apparently they had gotten less lousy the further on I had gone.

Which is not to say that there were no changes or corrections. I actually added to the final paragraph, so I can quite truthfully claim to have rewritten it from one end to the other.

And now on to trying to sell it in some realistic manner. Wish me luck.

Chapter 7 Continues

2010-02-18T09:53:00.003-05:00

Since my previous post, I have been creating, from whole cloth, a new Chapter 7. The events leading up to this momentous event are as follows: When I started this revision way back in the distant past, I found that I needed to combine what had been Chapters 1 & 2. This meant that Chapter 3 became Chapter 2 and so forth along the line.

That is until I reached Chapter 7.

The new Chapter 6 (which was the old Chapter 7) included the mention of a character that I had not been aware of before then. It seemed reasonable that Drayton would speak with her. In order to do that, a new Chapter 7 would be necessary.

I've been working on this new chapter over the last month or so with some success. It's growing like a weed. Now, I might find that it will need to be taken apart and put back together again once the dust settles, but things are going along nicely thus far.

In a related turn of events, I've decided that it's time for me to maintain this blog a bit more steadily. The progress of this manuscript matters--to me, if not to anyone else--and the record should be noted.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

2010-01-22T15:30:00.003-05:00

As I've worked at revising my book, it has taken an increasingly serious turn. What started out as a comic mystery has turned into a literary mystery, and the title Michael Drayton, Detective Guy has become increasingly anachronistic. I'm at a point where I'm starting to sense that the difficult, smash-it-to-pieces-and-put-it-together-again portion of this current revision is coming to its end, and so the imperative to find a new and better title has made itself known.

The new title of the book will be Dead in His Tracks, which I am putting my thumbprint on as of the date of this post. I have a brand new chapter to write and then one more that is going to need a lot of attention. After that, the quality of the work improves dramatically, and the task of revising should get exponentially easier.

I am very excited at the possibility of having a manuscript that I can submit places in the not-too-distant future.

From the Beginning

2009-08-31T13:17:00.003-04:00

I've started work on revising Chapter 1 in order to bring it into line, stylistically with the later chapters. Most of the first third of the book will end up undergoing such a revision. To give you an idea of how much it is changing, take a look at this screen shot of the work done so far:

In other words, the work is significant. And necessary. When the manuscript was most recently rejected, I had to face the nagging concern that had been eating at me for quite some time. I was afraid, and now think it was true, that there was too much of the parody left in the early chapters, too many self-consciously bright lines. I had gone through and taken out a load of jokes a couple of years ago, but I hadn't done what really needed to be done, which was thoroughly rewriting that part.

The end result of this process should be a much stronger manuscript.

The Latest but Not Greatest

2009-08-27T08:53:00.002-04:00

I heard back from the independent publisher last evening, and Michael Drayton, Detective Guy was rejected yet again. that's life, although they could have chosen another day besides my anniversary to tell me.

Anyway, I am considering at this point the self-publishing option. ("The self-publishing option." Doesn't that sound important and almost dangerous? "mr. President, what shall we do?" "We have no choice. This time it's the self-publishing option.") I've never been very good at playing the game or being a cog in the machine, and maybe now is no time to start. It's worth some investigation, anyway.

If there are any better ideas, I'm open to them.

The Next One

2009-08-22T09:42:00.002-04:00

Ever since I finished Michael Drayton, Detective Guy, I've been thinking about what sort of follow-up that book should have. It's not that I lack for ideas for stories--I have several of those--it's that Drayton doesn't seem to lend himself easily to the longer form of the novel. And his adventures are too complicated for short stories. He's a novella kind of guy. And I hate the idea of padding something out just to make it a more publishable length.

So, this morning, I had the thought that I might try pitching a follow-up that was a collection of three novellas rather than one novel. That way, I can just tell the three stories I have in mind and let them each spin out as they will without having to worry about reaching somebody else's idea of a publishable length. Had I had this idea a couple of years ago, I probably would have just written a Drayton omnibus that would tell all the stories I have to relay for him in one fat volume. Maybe some day I will.

No word yet from the independent publisher. Ten months today. That's fine. I'd rather that they took their time and accepted it than rushed and rejected it. I'm just fine with being patient.

For Their Consideration

2008-10-22T09:54:00.002-04:00

Well, I went and done it. I have submitted the entire manuscript of Michael Drayton, Detective Guy to an independent publisher. Since they wisely give no guidelines on how long it takes them to get through the slush pile, I have no true idea how long I'll have to wait to hear back. And that's fine.

Now I can put it aside in my mind and let the Fates take up the load.

In the meantime, I will be concentrating on my non-Drayton novel, Such Is Life. And I've started seriously thinking about the second Drayton tome. As pertinent thoughts occur to me about that, I'll post them here.

And now we wait.

Retrenching

2008-10-15T11:19:00.003-04:00

I wrote yesterday's post in the midst of many strains, including work on a chapter of Drayton that, while working well in some regards, didn't have the right feel. What bothered me about the revised Chapter One wasn't that the work was bad as much as that it wasn't fitting in with the existing book as well as I had hoped. It was becoming apparent that, in order to make this one chapter work, the whole book would have to be revised extensively, and I was not yet comfortable with that notion.

It's not that the book as a whole doesn't needed revision. I'm sure it does. It's just that, whatever its value, whatever its weaknesses and strengths, it does not, I think, need to become an entirely different book. Any revisions should further explore the thing that it is, should iron out as many of the bumps and creases as my talent will allow, should shine light in the corners that are now dark.

And so, mostly on instinct, I have put that revision on hold.

However, I do have a new plan in place. I will continue to market the manuscript as it is, only I will stop sending it to agents and start sending it to independent publishers. The aspects of Drayton that turn off agents--the mixture of literary with genre fiction, the length, the humor--might actually turn out to be strengths when being read by an editor. The only way to find out for sure is to try.

And it is not the end of the fragment recently written. It strikes me that, with a few amendations, it would work as part of the second Drayton novel. That story will intertwine investigations that Drayton performs for a wealthy, reclusive eccentric, a certain C.F. Dudley, with work he performs for a local TV news vixen who is concerned about a stalker.

I think these are the right moves to make, although I have been wrong many times in the past, may be now, and most certainly will be again in the future. All you can do is stumble forward as best you can.

Blocked

2008-10-14T12:05:00.002-04:00

I've gotten stuck in the rewriting of Drayton, and I find myself lost. I have no idea what I'm doing or why. I suspect that I should hold off again, step back, and reconsider. Put it aside for a year or more and let it fester. See how it comes out once I've forgotten it.

I think I should almost certainly start over and rethink and refine every aspect of the book, every page, every paragraph, every sentence, every word.

But we'll see. Currently, I'm feeling pretty low and frustrated generally. that's not the proper time to make these sorts of decisions. However, I think I will put the project on hold while I sort myself out. That's only fair to the work. It's better to do nothing than to do it an injury.

The Beginning Is Begun

2008-09-25T09:52:00.002-04:00

For the first four days, the new version dragged. I had a couple of hundred words that I was fiddling with, but little real progress. And then, yesterday, the sluice opened. words started coming out in groups. You never know how long a good period like this will last, but I don't feel dry this morning. In fact, I've already added a couple of more word groups.

My current goal is to get through about 50 pages, which is the sample length most often requested by agents. I don't have a deadline in mind, other than getting it done as quickly as I can while doing a decent job of it. Once I have a big enough chunk to market the manuscript with, I can resume my sales effort. But we'll see what happens between now and when I get there.

A New Beginning

2008-09-19T10:18:00.002-04:00

There has been something nagging at me ever since I finished the current draft of Michael Drayton, Detective Guy. As the previous rewrite proceeded, I abandoned any pretense of trying to write a funny novel and started just writing a regular novel. And as I crept along, I discovered that the book I was writing was developing in literary terms, and while still readable as simply a story, it had also become a serious novel.

Which is all well and fine, except that this evolution of the book took place gradually. And that means that the first part of the book is written completely differently than the rest of it. The opening four or five chapters were still rooted in parody and comedy while the succeeding chapters, while occasionally amusing, were far more straight forward and real.

Therefore, I've started work on Drayton 4.0. the first paragraph of the first chapter came off the assembly line yesterday. I'm uncertain as to whether I'll continue marketing it while I rewrite or whether I'll just advise any agents I contact that it is receiving further revisions. I think I read somewhere that you can do that.

Anyway, this is a complete reimagining of the beginning. So much will be changed that it might not even seem to be the beginning of the same book. However, these new chapters will lead up to and link with the existing more serious chapters of the book, which also get a brush up over time. I am not expecting them to change this radically, though.

Some day I hope to be finished writing this book, but you never know until you get there.

High Notes

2008-09-16T09:43:00.002-04:00

So far, Drayton has been rejected by a handful of agents. That's not a big deal. All you can do is to keep shopping it until you find the agent or publisher who's on the right wave length, something which, I suspect, involves some level of luck. The right person has to come across it on the right day. And the more that you send your proposal out, the better the chances are that you'll come across the right person.

There's something to that "making your own luck" stuff.

Now, not all rejections are equal. Sometimes you get a form, if you mailed your submission, or some copy-and-pasted standard text, if you submitted electronically. And that's fine. That sort of rejection is not especially meaningful in any direction. You wrote something and they didn't want it. Fair enough.

On occasion--and it's an occasion that's becoming more and more frequent in my case--the rejection comes in the form of a personal note. This is a step up, first of all because you know that your stuff got some serious level of consideration. There had to be at least one glittering moment when the person evaluating the work thought "This might have possibilities." And, if you can get somebody to go that far, you just might be able to get the next person to go further.

At the least, it is encouraging.

I received just such a rejection from an agent this past weekend, and I took a chance and emailed him to thank him for his consideration and to ask him a couple of questions so that I could properly approach the rewrite I had started to realize was in order. In his response to that--and I really have to thank this guy some day--he noted "that the tone wasn't really hitting the high notes" in his opinion. Now, I had only sent him the first five chapters, and the high notes don't really start cropping up until Chapter Six.

I've thought it over, and three things occur to me. First, the opening chapters need a major rewrite in order to bring the tone in line with the rest of the manuscript. Second, while I'm at it, I might as well brush up the whole thing. And third, I have to approach this as being more than just a mystery. I need to turn Michael Drayton, Detective Guy into a great book.

Louis Armstrong used to get into challenges with other trumpeters at jam sessions, and he would rip off 200 high Cs in a row. I can do the same thing and need to.

What's holding this book back are the remnants of parody left from the early versions of the story. It's time to bury those for good. Right now, I'm ruminating. I'm hoping to start writing by the end of the week.

It's Out

2008-07-03T09:03:00.003-04:00

Well, yesterday, I put my new and improved proposal into the mail to an agent who specializes in crime fiction. I am cautiously optimistic.

It's a strange thing, sending manuscripts out. It's this endless, elongated version of qualifying for a loan. You make your presentation, try to beef up your qualifications as best you can, and wait for some stranger to pass judgment on your worth to society. If the answer is rejection, you try again elsewhere. Eventually, you just go to a relative to see if they have an extra twenty.

Not this time, though. I've been quietly accumulating more credits. The manuscript--the collateral, if you will--is in the best shape its been. My cover letter and synopsis are light years better than they were. And this is all you can do: hone. Small credits are better than no credits. They build into medium sized ones that become humongo ones if you have talent and luck.

I've also learned something about myself in recent months, recognized a flaw in my character. It is an old one, deeply embedded, and it has hindered me in many areas of my life over the years. My problem is this: I have a tendency to try too hard. It used to hold me back when I tried to woo women, and I only was able to lasso my dear sweet wife because I had pretty much given up on finding someone and because we got to know each other over a period of a few months without the pressure of possible romance impinging itself on us.

Well, getting ahead in a career such as writing is a lot like starting a romance, and I think that I was always the guy who tried too hard, who made too many grand gestures, who forgot how to relax and be himself. I was always trying to write The Greatest Cover Letter of All Time, riddled with jokes that I had tried too hard to think up. In fact, the desire to insert jokes by force when necessary held back the quality of my work as well. I wasn't writing to my true potential because I would spend entire days trying to come up with a single funny line. And the work always showed, I'm afraid.

Now, this is not to say that I'm not a funny writer. Funny things occur to me spontaneously all the time. And the spontaneous ones are usually better, funnier, and more original than the ones I spend days thinking up. And the non-joke that I put in place of the day-long effort works more fluently and smoothly and allows me to do little tricks with language and with character development and dialog. And by hiding these goodies amidst the humor, I can be literary without highlighting it with neon signs and a bright orange sticker on my forehead.

At least that's the hope.

In the end, I'd be happy just entertaining people. It matters not whether readers find any deeper depths or not. It only matters to me that I work. And that I not try too hard.

The Website Is Up (Officially)

2008-06-25T10:02:00.002-04:00

After much tinkering and a quick upgrade of the website to remove all ads, Michael Drayton, Detective Guy is now available as a web presence in your cyber neighborhood.

Let the marketing officially begin!

The Beginning

2008-06-20T14:16:00.002-04:00

Now the fun can begin. I just found out that I did not win the Emory Goes Novel contest, which is fine. I was a finalist, which is something. And now the true marketing can start.

I need to create a query letter, and I will do that over the weekend. The website is in development, and I hope to take care of some of the finishing details in the next few days. I even have the following video posted on youtube to show what a slick item I am in person.

This is going to happen. I know it in the still, small place at my core. Remember: You heard it here first.

Some Thoughts

2008-06-13T12:45:00.003-04:00

My wife has a concept concerning a certain level of literature that she calls "bridge books." (This comes not from some zany; she is a former battle-hardened bookseller with a degree in English.) Bridge books are not books about bridge or books about bridges, they are books that bridge the perceived gap between popular and literary fiction. They help people who read only crappy but popular books step up to more challenging, and ultimately, more interesting literature. This doesn't mean that reading one book by Jan Karon or Russell Banks will take every reader from Harlequin Romances to Tolstoy, but every little step helps.

Now, I bring all this up because it has occurred to me that Michael Drayton, Detective Guy might just be a fair example of just such a book. It starts in a manner almost lighthearted and ends in a far and distant place from that. However, and I did not plan it this way, it makes that transition slowly and almost imperceptibly throughout the book.

On the one hand, I think that mirrors Drayton's experience throughout the story. The change in mood of the story reflects the change in his mood. There is, however, another way of looking at it, I think. I think it also reflects my personal journey as a writer, that it starts out with me the comedy writer and ends with me the serious author. In that way, it is my own personal bridge book.

We'll see how it seems to the cold cruel world once it gets published though. Readers will take what they want from it, not what I intend for them. That's the game.

The Website Is Up (After a Fashion)

2008-06-06T14:58:00.002-04:00

Although it is still in rudimentary form, the website for Michael Drayton, Detective Guy is now open for business.

There is now a sample chapter available, as well as a few other tidbits. Visit often and bring a publishing contract.

Another Step

2008-06-05T10:37:00.002-04:00

The other bit of Drayton-related news is that I've acquired the domain name michaeldrayton.com and am in the beginning stages of assembling a website. My dear wife has provided me with a cascade of ideas, and I'm going to use my developing knowledge of web design to give it a try myself.

The website will link here, of course, and there will be a sample as well as a video clip of me reading a selection. I'm not sure what else right at the moment, but I have to start thinking of it from the perspective of the people who might come to visit it, such as agents, publishers, and well wishers.

I will post updates here as they occur.

What's Been Going on During the Silence

2008-06-04T11:41:00.004-04:00

The truth is that I've been waiting. At the end of Febraury or the beginning of March, I submitted Michael Drayton, Detective Guy to the Emory Goes Novel contest, which is a new thing that is being sponsored by the Creative Writing Program of Emory University's English Department, where I am employed. The contest is limited to those who are either Emory students, faculty, staff, or are members of the Friends of the Creative Writing Program, and it was supposed to close on February 1st, but that got pushed back a month.

In April, I got notified that Drayton had been selected as one of the 10 finalists and was asked to submit the complete manuscript. Since then, I've been occupying a fine set of tenterhooks that I keep on hand for just such contingencies. I am hoping to keep from going completely out of my mind until some time next week, although I have always been precocious.

Waiting is hell on earth. If there is a physical hell that isn't just everyday life, I would suggest that it is nothing more than the line to go to see God. And when you finally get to the front of the line, He's on his Lunch Break and you get sent back to the end of the line again.

I will post the results of the contest once I know anything, which is when I will start shopping it again. And if you need me for anything in the meantime, just look for the guy on the hooks.

Endnotes

2008-02-27T10:13:00.002-05:00

Well, it is done. I wrote another five pages of Michael Drayton, Detective Guy yesterday and thought I had it finished. Except that the last sentence kept nagging at me. I ended up writing another couple of paragraphs this morning, and now I think I can officially declare this novel over.

It stands at 234 pages, which works out, in publishing terms to about 58,000 words. Quite respectable.

It all started out as an idea for a parody short story in about 1979. I then thought of it as an idea for a movie for a while. I tried writing it as a novel in the mid-to-late ’80s, but the result really stunk up the place. I then wrote it as a teleplay for a TV movie in the early ’90s, and actually got some interest from an agent. That deal fell through when she wanted me to change every damn to darn, every God to gosh, and wanted to remove every instance in which alcohol was used, which was plenty.

I then decided to try writing it as a novel as part of Na-No-Wri-Mo (National Novel Writing Month) in 2004. That November, I churned out a decent portion of a draft. That got put it aside for a year-and-a-half while I worked on radio scripts. I then started revising the chunk I had written, then kept writing more. I finished the first draft on March 9, 2007, and entered it in an idiotic contest on Gather.com. It foundered there, and I started work on the second draft, which mostly entailed rewriting the second half of the previous manuscript.

I also found out something interesting along the way: The book improved the more I took out the jokes. I had always thought of myself as a comedy writer who worked with serious themes, but it turned out that I was more of a serious writer with a well-developed sense of humor. Live and learn, huh?

I’m sure that there are parts that still need work, pages that will come back from an editor some day awash in red. And that’s okay. I’m willing to do that work. Later. Right now, I need a break. There are some short stories I need to give my attention to and air to breathe and life to live.

Writing a novel is a huge endeavor, and it mostly feels like you’re trying to swim from the White Cliffs of Dover to Coney Island. You spend most of your time alone and at-sea, and all you can do is to follow the sun over the horizon. I have now arrived, exhausted and out of breath. And by early next week, I’ll be thinking of writing the next one.

(This post is a mirror of one on my main blog, Are You Happy Now, Norman Mailer.)

Endgame, Perhaps

2008-02-26T10:09:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, I started work on what I think will be the final chapter of Michael Drayton, Detective Guy, and the words came out in a torrent. At least, a torrent by my standards. I just pasted the verbiage into a Word document to get an idea of how much I actually did, and it came out to five pages. Now, you have to understand that, typically, one page of finished writing is a good day for me. Five page days come at rare intervals and are celebrated events.

The story itself is also taking an interesting turn. In the previous version, the last chapter wrapped things up in an ironic, almost actionless way. That is no longer the case. It’s in many ways a very traditional ending for a hardboiled tale and is kind of like the end of The Maltese Falcon and the chapter with Silver Wig near the end of The Big Sleep smashed together. At least that’s how it’s turning out. I honestly have no idea how it will end up.

(This post is a mirror of a post on my main blog, Are You Happy Now, Norman Mailer.)

Chapter 22 Complete

2008-02-22T10:07:00.000-05:00

It turned out that I was just making the end of Chapter 22 of Michael Drayton, Detective Guy harder than it needed to be. As soon as I lightened up and let the story speak to me, it all came together in ten minutes. This is why writing is like trying to find the staircase in the dark. You’re going to bump your shin or stub your toe, but it generally works out fine in the end.

And so on to Chapter 23, which may be the last chapter or may not. The problem I’m having is that I’m not really sure what the solution to the mystery is yet. I have some ideas. I think I know. I used to really think I knew. But now it’s more bumping around in the dark.

Now let’s just hope that I don’t fall over that ottoman.

(This is a mirror post from my main blog, Are You Happy Now, Norman Mailer?)

Words to Live By

2008-02-20T10:04:00.000-05:00

Authors have traditionally used epigraphs at the beginning of books or chapters to let the reader know what they had in mind while writing it. (There are exceptions. Max Shulman purposely misled his readers with his. In his book Barefoot Boy with Cheek, he gave a new epigraph for each chapter. The most memorable one is : “Mon oncle est mort.–Balzac.”) Well, I’ve finally dived in and joined the crowd.

Last week, while reading about the great dead French filmmaker, Jean Renoir, I came across the epigraph for my novel, Michael Drayton, Detective Guy. And I came across it with the posthumous help of Orson Welles. He had written an article for the Los Angeles Times back in 1979, right after Renoir died, and the one footnote in the Wikipedia article happened to link to Welles’s piece. I well remember when Renoir died. I watched his obituary on the evening news and was interested because he was the son of Pierre August Renoir, the Impressionist painter, and because Woody Allen kept mentioning him in his movies. (Grand Illusion is mentioned in Annie Hall in one of the scenes in LA and Renoir himself is mentioned in Manhattan. The look of both films is influenced heavily by Renoir.) A few months later, I took Film as Literature at the Community College of Rhode Island, and the professor screened Grand Illusion for us. It was brilliant. I was smitten.

So, there I was, reading Welles’s tribute to his friend and mentor, and suddenly Welles quotes a well-known line from Rules of the Game: “The terrible thing about life is this: Everyone has his reasons.” And an epigraph was born. Or, rather, nicked.

The rewriting of Drayton grinds on. I’m finishing up the next-to-last chapter and am preparing to begin the final installment. Only I realized today that this current chapter lays out some material that could be spun out even further. And yet, I need to finish this draft by April 2nd, just in case it gets picked as one of the ten finalists in a contest being sponsored by the Creative Writing department of the university I work at. And maybe it doesn’t need to be spun out any further at all anyway. But that’s how writing goes. You feel your way through.

(This is a mirror post from my main blog, Are You Happy Now, Norman Mailer?

The Thing About Writing

2008-01-15T10:17:00.000-05:00

I don’t know how it works for everybody, but I know how it works for me. I intend, with the completion of each chapter, to go bounding into the next, to keep the momentum going and to push right through to the end. It never seems to work that way, though. Instead, I approach each new chapter like a dog approaches a place to nap. I sidle up to it slowly, sniff it a few times, complete three circles, and then get to it.

That is exactly what’s happening with Chapter 22 of Michael Drayton, Detective Guy. Psychologically, I’m ready to go forward. I just haven’t come up with the right opening sentence yet. I actually put down a couple of sentences three days ago, but removed them yesterday. It didn’t sound right, didn’t hit me right. And then, a few minutes ago, I opened up the previous chapter and read the end, hoping that something in there would inspire me. I just ended up rewriting the last paragraph of Chapter 21 and coming up with nothing for Chapter 22.

But that’s the process. I’ll come up with something soon. I’ll be taking a shower or going for a walk or reading something that has nothing to do with the book, and it will all open up in a moment of rapturous insight. That’s the system, and you can’t fight city hall.

(This post is a mirror of one on my other blog, Are You Happy Now, Norman Mailer.)

Chapter 21 Complete

2008-01-11T08:53:00.000-05:00

I finally finished Chapter 21 yesterday, work on which was delayed by the holidays, the flu, a cold, and moving. Other than that, it couldn't have gone better.

I'm now contemplating the end of the novel, and I think it's going to be radically different than I had previously planned, and that there will probably be a confrontation with the killer or killers. I'm going to have to turn it around in the atomic wind machine of my mind for a day or two, I think.

There is a bit more information that I feel, in order to be fair to the reader, ought to be divulged. Because of this, I'm not certain whether I'm looking at just one more chapter or two, one long and one short. I suspect it will be the latter, but you never know until you actually start writing, an activity which should occur either today or over the weekend.

Provided I don't get sick or have to move again.

As of Today

2007-12-26T11:31:00.000-05:00

Christmas, an impending move, and the demands of the day job have all been impeding progress on the novel of late, but all that seems to have ended yesterday. I made myself a Christmas present of some time at work on Chapter 21 and found it going in a direction I had not anticipated. I don't know whether what I wrote was any good or not at this point, but at least it was coherent. Sometimes that's about all you can ask for.

What I was working on was a letter from the deceased that I had no idea he had written until Drayton opened the file it was in. Part of the fun was that I got to write in a voice different from Drayton's and could work in different rhythms and with different word choices. My concern in all this is that, since the letter gives a precis of Briarbrook's biography, that I might descend into mawkishness or sentimentality. Neither of those are typical ailments for me artistically, so I'd hate to start up at this late date. The prose, however, is spare and lean, and that helps keep the melodrama under wraps.

All I can do now is to write it and come back at some later date to see whether I want to burn those pages or not. That's the process.

The Forest

2007-12-12T14:31:00.000-05:00

I am getting to the point where the previous version won't be much help at all. As I'm working the entire ending of the book is changing and morphing, perhaps leading me to an entirely different conclusion than what I had before. It's a strange thing to be writing a mystery without being sure of what the denouement is, but that is exactly the fix I find myself in.

To some extent, it is a blessing. It is putting me more in Drayton's shoes than ever before, and I am getting the distinct sense of discovering the book rather than writing it. And that's a good thing.

There's so much to think through. Where will Drayton go next? Why will he go there and what will happen? I haven't the vaguest frickin' idea.

This ought to be fun.

A New Chapter

2007-11-29T09:14:00.001-05:00

I started work on Chapter 21 a few of days ago and it is coming along. I struggled along at first, rewriting a section of what had been Chapter 19 in the previous version. I'm still sawing away at that section.

I made some changes yesterday that seemed to help. All I can do is blunder forward.

The Story of Chapter 20

2007-11-23T12:20:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I've been rewriting and writing Chapter 20, and I pulled it up on Google Docs on Wednesday with an eye toward finishing it up. Anyway, I pull it up and scroll down to the last line line and think to myself, "What comes next? What comes next?" And then I looked at that line again and realized that it was finished.

Except that it isn't. It's still just a draft. It's a decent draft, but it needs polishing. It is also a tiny thing, barely more than a thousand words, and I suspect that the polishing will mostly involve spinning out some of the notions already extant in it at greater lengths. (This is something that is often true of my initial drafts. Most writers spend their time cutting. I end up expanding.)

The problem that I find myself faced with now is one of deciding whether to start this revision right away or perhaps soldiering on through the rest of the new ending first and going back to revise the whole section once that's done. I'm not sure. Both approaches have their plusses, and I have to assess which method will serve the book better. My guess would be that pressing on is the most likely winner, but I never know until I find myself at work on something.

Part of the fun is in the surprises.

I'd Rather Be a Percolator Than a Drip

2007-11-16T11:35:00.000-05:00

Chapter 19 is done. It took a little over a month. It came out a decent size and accomplished what I wanted to accomplish.

Now, on to Chapter 20, which is such a substantial rewrite of a portion of the previous draft that it will be like starting from scratch. I doubt I'll have time to start it until Monday, which gives me the weekend to ponder it and let it percolate.

My only regret in all of this is that I have to write on the sly, in moments both stolen and cribbed. It would be nice to be able to concentrate on it and to enjoy each small victory to its fullest. Writing well is difficult. This has become a truism among its practitioners. However, the counterbalance to that, the thing that encourages you to pull yourself off the mat after each time you've been decked, is the sublime satisfaction that comes from getting any part of it--a sentence, a phrase, a word--absolutely right.

I don't get much chance to savor the victories right now. Each one comes amidst a blizzard of other obligations and priorities. The satisfaction is still there, but it is truncated and worried. There's always one eye turned toward the next step, the next challenge.

And the only way to deal with that is to, from time-to-time, stop and ponder and let it percolate.

Westward Leading Still Proceeding

2007-11-13T10:33:00.000-05:00

Actually, I'm not headed westward at all. No, we're all headed east, spinning like a screwball across the strike zone of space. Or maybe not.

The point is that I am still making progress on Chapter 19. Patches of it come blurting out every few days, and I spend the days in between fixing that which gets blurted out. In other words, I'm rewriting as I go along.

It seems to me (and I haven't made too close a study of this) that I'm finishing chapters at about one per month. Given that trajectory, I should have a draft ready by Groundhogs Day, although such a deadline is not mandatory. The closest thing I have to a deadline is April, when the ten finalists for the contest sponsored by the Creative Writing Department at the university at which I work will be announced. Part of that step would be to submit a complete manuscript, which would mean having it done by then. Assuming that mine was one of the final ten.

In the meantime, all I can do is to continuing spinning eastward, always chasing the next morning.

You Gotta Have Faith

2007-11-07T16:15:00.000-05:00

The rewrite of Chapter 19 has been proceeding apace. This is not one that has gone ahead at a gallop, but instead vacillates between a cantor and a crawl. That's all well-and-fine, and just part of the game.

The writing itself, I think, is going well. There is a kind of music to the words and a literary quality as well. The endless refining--Google Docs has tracked 303 changes--are making it, slowly but surely, better.

A large portion of the chapter takes place in a Catholic cathedral during a funeral. The problem that this has raised is that I want it to be authentic, but only remember so much off the top of my head. Research on the Internet has provided some info, but not everything, so I'm left to guess most of the time.

So now I'm put in the position of either doing direct research by attending a funeral or two somewhere in the Atlanta archdiocese, which seems a little creepy, or contacting a priest or two that I knew back in a former life. The second option might seem like the better one on its face, but that would involve explaining why I've lapsed and getting into a whole going-back-to-church-it's-never-gonna-happen-my-friend kind of thing.

Damn research.

The First Step

2007-10-24T14:23:00.000-04:00

I came up with the first sentence to Chapter 19 12 minutes ago. I've been so productive that I am now up to six sentences. I may have to lie down soon.

The great thing to me is that this first paragraph is a clue to the reader about the solution, but is not overt in any way, shape, or form. It also links it to the end of the previous chapter and is just overall a pretty keen piece of work. I'll probably end up deleting it at some point.

Such is the life of a writer.

But First--

2007-10-23T10:39:00.000-04:00

Well, not only did I not getting any new sentences written yesterday, I actually deleted the one I had. It's time for some fresh thinking and a fresh start.

The first sentence of any piece of writing is important, whether it's the first sentence in a chapter, a story, an essay, or a confession. You want to entice the reader and lure them deeper into the chapter, story, essay, or confession until they reach the point of no return. (For great writers, that point is usually right up front. For the rest of us, it varies, with a large number never establishing such a point anywhere at any time.)

So that's my current assignment: Come up with the right opening sentence. Who knows? Maybe I'll come up with one or two more. Just another hundred or two after that, I'll move on to Chapter 20. I'll shoot up a flare when I get to it.

Occam's Razor™

2007-10-22T10:10:00.000-04:00

I got stuck on Chapter 19 for a number of days. I wasn't even writing any of it. I had down the grand sum of one sentence. Thirteen whole words. It was dead in the water, and I wasn't sure why.

I was being stopped by a feeling, a sense that I was about to make a wrong turn down a dark and dangerous street. I switched over to writing a non-Drayton short story to pass the time. Was this the end of zombie Shakespeare? Not quite.

In a time-tested tradition, this morning I came up with the answer to my problem while showering. It was, of course, the simplest answer possible.

You know, if Roger of Ockham had trademarked Occam's Razor™, he'd be a rich man today.

One Step Closer

2007-10-13T16:22:00.000-04:00

I finished Chapter 18 around lunchtime today and think it came out fairly well. This was a chapter that seemed to write itself, several times going in directions that I hadn't it considered going in. In fact, it actually ended differently than I had expected and put forward an important clue without coming across like an installment of Murder She Wrote.

Most surprisingly for me, it came out in a way that is going to mean that I can salvage great chunks of the next couple of chapters, at least in terms of the action and progress of the plot. The words you never know about until you're actually faced with the task of retyping them.

This is all encouraging, and while I doubt that I will be able to finish this draft by Halloween, I think there's some chance that I'll have it finished by some time in November. I doubt that it will be "done" done by then, but it should be good enough to shop around. Of course, it will never be completely done until some publisher forces me to stop with the revisions just so that they can get it to press.

Redirect

2007-10-10T09:31:00.000-04:00

I started work on Chapter 18 a few days ago and worked like a galley slave to come up with 200 words that I wasn't satisfied with. Late yesterday, I had to admit to myself that the chapter wasn't working and that I needed to reevaluate.

I realized that the scene I was writing was completely unnecessary and just needed to be jettisoned. So, late yesterday afternoon, I started fresh with a scene I'd never had a version of before and watched in astonishment as about 250 words poured out with seeming ease.

There are sometimes when you fight with the writing, when it is terribly hard and discouraging, but you keep on and persevere because something in you knows that what you're working on is the right thing. Sometimes not so much. Sometimes the words just seem to fall out of you, like sugar out of a punctured bag. Those are the good days. And it's kind of like golf, where you can play miserably except for one good shot and that one good shot hooks you and encourages you to try it again.

Now, we'll see how today goes.

Chapter 17 Done

2007-10-04T15:53:00.000-04:00

Okay, Chapter 17, another really short one, is done, and I think it's a distinct improvement over its antecedent. The funny thing is that it turned out to be an easier job of rewriting than Chapter 16, which started out in better shape but was torture to revise. You never know. You just never know.

The other thing that's come up is that the entire ending is changing shape on me as I revise it. New scenes, new approaches, new settings. It's exciting and disconcerting all at the same time. What I'm really doing is removing all the vestiges of the original TV movie version of it. It's still comic in spirit, but not a comedy anymore.

Rounding Up

2007-10-02T10:59:00.000-04:00

The chapter I am currently at work on what was originally the last half of Chapter 16. Chapter 16 1/2, really. As a practical matter, I decided to round it up to Chapter 17. Easier for the bookkeeping aspect of things.

After I got a cool three sentences down yesterday, I started to rethink the entire scene. It just wasn't convincing. It wasn't working. Drayton would have had to have been nearly psychic for the action to unfold as I had it. The set up is that he realizes that Federal agents are staking out his apartment, so he engages in a bit of misdirection as a way of avoiding them.

I turned over several possibilities in my mind before stumbling on the simplest: His pal Lt. Sidwell can tip him off via a phone call. Occam's razor, I think they call it.

And now the rewriting of the rewriting begins.

Plus ça Change

2007-10-01T10:24:00.000-04:00

Last night, I decided to look over the final chapter even though I am still some way from reaching it for revision. I'm glad I did.

I think it wasn't much of an ending, one more suited to a broad comedy than to the book it has become. I've got a few weeks to turn it over before I need to really deal with it, which is a plus, but the revision will ultimately be substantial enough that I think I might have to put that rewrite on hold for a while even then.

In the meantime, I have four chapter to rewrite, one of which (I think Chapter 17, which I am starting work on today) will include an entire scene that never existed before. That's a lot of work and all the while I'll be thinking about the damn ending.

It would be so much easier to do a crap job and probably more profitable, too. Unfortunately, I am stuck with the desire to write something worth writing and, with any luck, worth reading.

But that's the way it goes.

Chapter 16 Update

2007-09-25T15:57:00.000-04:00

Well, so far, I spent pretty much this entire month rewriting the part of the original Chapter 16 that I had thought was decent. Now I'm getting to the part that I thought was crap. Odds are that that will turn out to be somewhat easier.

One of the things I've noticed is that I want to put a chapter break between these two sections. That will make Chapter 16 a short one, but there is no dishonor in writing a short chapter. The only dishonor is in writing a bad one.

I'd really like to put Drayton to bed by the end of October so that it doesn't make it to a fourth National Novel Writing Month, but I don't know that I'll make it. It does give me a loose goal to shoot for, though, and anything I can do to keep myself focused is worth it.

Just to Clarify

2007-09-13T10:50:00.000-04:00

On my other blog, Next in the Series: The Blog, I mentioned that I had started work on a second novel, Such Is Life. This does not mean that I am putting Drayton aside even temporarily. Drayton is my first writing priority, and will be until this draft is done.

I'm just getting the ball rolling on Such Is Life so that I can really have some momentum going on it when I done with Drayton. I'm also going to be revising some short stories in my copious free time.

And let's not forget these fascinating blog posts. It's a full life.

The Process

2007-09-11T09:22:00.000-04:00

The following are the revisions I talked about yesterday, from Revision 3 (which was when I actually started to write something) to 86:

It ain't easy. Just worth it.

You Don't Call, You Don't Write

2007-09-10T16:15:00.000-04:00

Okay. I know I haven't added much to this blog since reviving it, but there is a simple reason for that: I haven't made much progress.

Except, of course, that I have. It's just that the writer often makes progress in the way that a stream makes progress on a rock or valley. You wear away at it bit-by-bit, always looking to improve it, always looking to strengthen it.

And that's what's been going on with the novel. I've been working on Chapter Sixteen and have, over the course of the last week or so, completed three paragraphs. Now, that accumulation involves a lot of backing up and reworking and rethinking and rewriting. Google documents has cataloged some 86 revisions so far, ranging from additions of text to complete reworkings of words, phrases, and sentences.

There have been more than a few deletions, as well.

And this is all on the part of Chapter 16 I thought was in good shape. It doesn't always come easily.

Like a Phoenix, Rising from the Ashes--Yech!

2007-08-30T11:34:00.000-04:00

In a lame attempt to conform to the social strictures currently expected of those of us in the writing game, I am reviving this blog. I am doing so in lieu of registering the domain name and building a real website. The time is not quite right for that. Yet.

I am getting there, though.

Since last I posted on the Next in the Series blog about the novel, I have completed the rewrite of Chapter 14. It is slightly shorter than it had been and much more to the point. I've also introduced another character who will recur in subsequent Drayton adventures, an attorney named John Dingle. (He is a principal in the law firm of Dingle & Berry.)

It was hard work, but the chapter came out much improved.

I then marked up a copy of Chapter 15 and was delighted to find that it was actually already in decent shape and only required minor touches. Those have been completed.

I started reading Chapter 16, and was beginning to think that I would be basically off the hook for Chapters 17 through 20, when the quality sloped off sharply. As I recall, the point at which the quality went directly into the sewage system was right about at the time that I decided to enter that contest. I worked more quickly than I usually do, and it showed. Everything after about halfway through Chapter 16 can only be considered rough drafts. Very rough drafts.

And now, thanks to information that came out in Chapters 13 and 14, I have to write a whole new chapter anyway. It just never ends with these novels.

Change of Venue

2007-05-22T09:33:00.001-04:00

From now on, all new posts having to do with the development of Michael Drayton, Detective Guy will appear on my main blog, Next in the Series: The Blog. There are already a couple of new posts, if you were so inclined.

Shading

2007-05-07T09:40:00.000-04:00

As winter has crossfaded into spring, a mural has taken shape on a retaining wall that holds up one corner of the track outside the athletic center at the university I'm employed by. I walk by it in the morning and evening five days-a-week, and I've watched it take shape over the course of the last several months. At first, it looked horrible and amateurish, closer to graffiti than art. However, over time, each portion has been slowly filled in and out, and the aesthetic value of the piece has increased with every change.

This is the metaphor I've hit upon for my method of working. I start out with what I call "an outline in draft form." The first version is usually weak, but I get it out. I get out what happens and who is involved. I get down the lines of it, the equivalent of an artist's rough sketch, and then go back, from the top, and fill it in and out. And that's where the interesting stuff happens.

There were those who thought, when I decided to enter the contest at gather.com, that I was making a huge mistake, but I still disagree. I needed that deadline to get me to stop diddling around with individual words and phrases and start roughing out the last quarter of the book. And I did that. Now, I can go back over each chapter that needs revision and redo it the right way, having taken some time away to give me some perspective as a whole. It brought me back to the method of working that suits me best. And I have a completed draft to shop while I'm revising.

On another topic, I worked on it on Saturday as well. The new, improved chapter 11 is coming along nicely.

How I Write

2007-05-04T15:58:00.000-04:00

I've continued to push on, making almost no use of the previous version. I've less than 600 words so far, but I think they're good ones. They're certainly better than the ones that preceded them.

What I've been able to put together is this: The method of composition that works best for me is to blat out a draft, put it aside for awhile, and then revise from scratch. I got lucky with a couple of chapters in the first half of Drayton, and only had to do some minor polishing on the first drafts, but those proved to be the exceptions. As I look back over the 33 years I've been writing seriously, that's always been the way. At least it has for the stuff that worked the best.

I think this method allows me to deal with all the mundane stuff--what happens next and where, who's there, what do they look and sound like--so that I don't have to later. On the second draft, I can concentrate on how the words sound coming off the page and provide the depth and shading that most likely were missing from the original version.

This is a method that is not well-suited to the digital age, but that's no matter. And, at the end of the day, I have to do things in a manner that makes sense to me and not to any other.

At 47, after 33 years, I'm still learning about how I do this. Maybe that's a clue as to why I can't ever give writing up.

He's Baaaack!

2007-05-03T09:25:00.000-04:00

Yesterday's work on Chapter 11 went well. I didn't get a lot of wordage--only about three paragraphs from yesterday morning until after 10 last night--but the quality was there. The voice of Drayton is back. After a long, lonely period, he's speaking to me again.

He went on vacation while I was writing the first draft, but is apparetly back, tanned and rested. Let me give you idea of the difference.

In the draft of Chapter 11, the first paragraph was :

I awoke the next morning to the music of someone pounding his fist on the door to my apartment. I had fallen asleep the night before in my recliner as I watched TV. The channel that had been playing “Green Acres” when I left consciousness was now showing an infomercial for exercise equipment. Times change.

That's all right, but it now reads:

I awoke the next morning to the music of someone pounding on the door of my apartment. I was asleep in the recliner in the living room when the sound stunned me awake. The TV was on. The channel that had been showing Green Acres seemingly moments before was now showing a bright, bubbly, and cheerless infomercial for a no-money-down real estate scam. A tanned man in a polo shirt and a pale woman in a sundress shilled themselves smugly in blistering seaside sunlight, and I wondered when Professor Marvel was going to appear with the patent medicine.

That's Drayton.

Revised Expectations

2007-05-02T10:05:00.000-04:00

I've started just this morning revising the chapters of the book that didn't get a thorough going over before. I'm starting with Chapter 11 and pushing on to the end.

This is the part of the writing process in which word processing programs are supposed to be the greatest help, but I find them to be the greatest hindrance. So I am actually retyping the entire chapter, sentence-by-sentence, and reworking it as thoroughly as I can.

In other news, I'm up to my third query of an agent. How many am I willing to query before I stop sending it out? I'm not sure, but it's a lot. But lets all hope that number three turns out to be the smart one.

The Latest

2007-04-07T12:01:00.000-04:00

I submitted an email query to an agent on Thursday and got back a rejection within an hour-and-a-half. (He promised fast service, and that's what I got.) That really didn't bother me. It was something of a practice run anyway, although I would have gladly signed a contract had one been offered.

Yesterday, I mailed a query with sample pages to another agent. I should hear back within the month.

More updates, as warranted, will be posted here, your one-stop shop for Drayton news.

The Contest Is Over--For Me at Least

2007-04-04T08:15:00.000-04:00

Michael Drayton, Detective Guy did not make the cut in the contest over at Gather.com. Twenty semi-finalists were chosen yesterday, leaving Drayton, I'm sure, at position 21 or maybe 27. So close and yet so far. I got the impression that all the semi-finalists are genre-friendly potboilers, something which Drayton certainly is not, and since the imprint that all this is directed toward, Touchstone/Fireside, specializes in genre-friendly potboilers, that is all well and good.

Be of good cheer, though. All is not lost. I have already sent a query to an agent. At the very least, this contest gave me a solid deadline to shoot for, and I made it with a reasonable draft left behind for my troubles. The current version isn't perfect--the last half needs a thorough rewrite--but the story is in place with enough good writing along the way to show that I can write somewhat. And whether this first agent bites or whether it takes 100 queries to find somebody, I'll keep on. It's really that good.

The First Round

2007-03-28T09:20:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the last day for the first chapter of Michael Drayton, Detective Guy to be open for comment and rating at the First Chapters contest at Gather.com, so now the waiting game really begins. I have no idea what my rating is or what comments were made. I don't really care. I never expected to win the popularity contest--I'd have to be a radically different kind of person to do that.

And while some people may think that reading the comments could be helpful, I really, truly doubt that. The thing about reading the comments is that they are irrelevant to what I do. The good, the bad, the indifferent, it makes no difference. Those comments are a discussion among readers--just as any reviews would be--and are none of my business.

My job is to write the thing as best I know how, which is what I did. I'm happy with it. Chapter One of Drayton accomplishes exactly what I wanted it to in the manner in which I wanted to do it. The prose is first-rate, and the exposition is laid out with a minimum of pain. Seeds are planted that won't bear fruit for many chapters to come. The folks who are reading it are reading one chapter out of 18 and 2,000 words out of over 40,000. They're judging a symphony on the basis of the first phrase, which is not the basis to go on.

It has been my experience that if you ask people what is wrong with something they will tell you whether there's something wrong with it or not. Their comments are meaningless because they are driven by the feeling that they ought to say something, preferably something negative because that can demonstrate their supposed insight. It's the mentality of a focus group, which is exactly the reason why our TV shows are so dreadful and our movies so cookie-cutter and lame. Listening to the comments is a case of the tail wagging the dog.

As you can tell from the length of this post, this is a complicated subject. I've only so far skimmed the surface. And as far as this contest goes, the only criterion that anyone should be applying to any of the entries is this: If you checked this book out from the library and read through Chapter One, would you go on to Chapter Two? And if so, how eagerly would you turn the page?

However, that is all now neither here nor there. There are five slots out of 20 in the next round that are picked by the Gather.com staff. Maybe I'll make that cut, maybe I won't. Either way, life will go on and so will Michael Drayton, Detective Guy.

If You Dare

2007-03-15T09:33:00.000-04:00

Read and vote on Chapter One of Michael Drayton, Detective Guy.

The Novel Competition Continued

2007-03-13T15:21:00.000-04:00

The first chapter is up on the Gather.com website. Be the first on your block to read it.

It's On

2007-03-11T15:31:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I wrote a brief biography of myself and a synopsis of the story of Michael Drayton, Detective Guy, and submitted the manuscript and everything else necessary to the First Chapters contest at Gather.com. Anyone who is interested is welcome to read the first chapters of manuscripts and rate them. You just have to sign up for a gather.com membership, which is free. Decisions concerning the first round will be announced on April 3rd.

My contribution will not be up for as many as three business days. I'll post a follow-up when it is. My advice to one and all is to vote your heart if you vote at all. I'm not going to check either my ratings or any comments, since the possibility of being terribly hurt far outweighs the chance that I won't.

The guidelines for voting read as follows:

All members who vote in the Competition as well as the Grand Prize judging panel must consider the following criteria equally when judging: 1) Quality of writing (including grammar and spelling); 2) Author’s ability to engage the reader; 3) Originality of the author's voice; 4) Potential of the finished book in the marketplace.

I think my story scores well on all four counts, but you can never tell how these things will work out.

Anyway, if you're interested, go take a look. You don't have to be a member to just read, only vote, so why not go and see what you think. It might turn out to be worth your while.

Let's Call It Adieu

2007-03-09T11:17:00.000-05:00

I just finished the first complete draft of "Michael Drayton, Detective Guy." It stands at 42,000 words over 18 chapters, and I will submit it to the First Chapters contest tomorrow. I'll post the details about the contest and how people can vote for their favorites. (I believe it involves signing up on Gather.com, but that's free.)

In the meantime, I'm just stunned. After that passes, I'm going to go to work on a non-Drayton short story in the hopes that I can forestall the plunge into depression that usually follows completion of such a task. I'm going to try, as best I can, to not think about Drayton for at least a month. Maybe by then I'll be ready to attack the rewrites.

that's the thing about this writing business: It never stops.

The Homestretch

2007-03-06T10:31:00.000-05:00

I did manage to finish the next-to-last chapter yesterday and carved out the beginning of the last chapter as well.

At the rate I've been going, I'll be done by the end of the week.

It's a Novel, But Not a Doo

2007-03-05T11:28:00.000-05:00

Back in an earlier life, I worked for a relatively small company, under 100 employees, and we had staff meetings for our entire department of 60 or so people every Wednesday. One Wednesday, one of the supervisors, a black guy named Charles, who was one of the nicest people I've ever met, led the meeting his only flub came right at the end when, instead of bidding us adieu, he said, "Let's call it a doo." Now, I called this a flub, but I actually thought and still think that it is inspired. Even though it's been almost 25 years since I heard it, I will still from time-to-time call it a doo, but only when appropriate to the circumstances.

Well, a few minutes ago, I crossed the 40,000-word threshold on Drayton, which means that even the most persnickety editor will have to consider it a full novel and not a novella. However, that being said, I am not done. I should have the chapter I am working on now done by the end of the day, leaving only the final chapter to write. I'm nearly there. But it's not a doo.

Closing in on Closing In

2007-03-02T13:50:00.001-05:00

I'm happy to report that the Drayton novel is now up over 39,000 words. I'm about a chapter-and-a-half from the end. And while this chapter is coming out with surprising fluidity, the final one might be a jumble and merely a cascade of revelations. I have 13 days to finish it.

This Day in Drayton History

2007-02-26T11:38:00.001-05:00

I've crossed the 38,000 word barrier just about a minute ago. The story's moving along toward its conclusion, but I can't guarantee that it will be done in time for the contest. Although it just might. For all I know, it'll be done tomorrow. At least in terms of this draft. There will be many hours of rewrites before it is somewhat to the point at which I can in good conscience offend the public with it. But it should be contest-good soon enough.

the shame of the whole thing is that I don't have the time to worry over each sentence and make sure the whole thing sounds right and feels right. The first two-thirds have received that level of attention and seem to show it. This last third may not reach those dizzying heights before March 15th. With any luck, somebody will pay me to fix that part later on.

At any rate, a boy can dream.

The Latest

2007-02-14T13:35:00.001-05:00

Michael Drayton, Detective Guy is now up over 36,000 words. In fact, I've added more than 4,000 in the last 34 days alone. If I hadn't gone back and cut and rewritten a couple of previous chapters, I'd be even further along. (All numbers I give are net, not gross.) In fact, I went back today and trimmed Chapter 14 yet again--getting rid of some references to two characters who will never show up in this version--which leaves me only 98 words up, as of this writing, rather than maybe 250. But it's not about the word count, really, and I am trying to do a halfway decent job of it, even with a deadline looming over me.

Regardless, I will have a draft done by the middle of next month. If I can manage to work every day instead of 3 days out of every 4, I may even finish early. although, knowing me, it will probably involve a crazed, last-minute dash to an improbable finish.

The Novel Grows

2007-02-08T10:34:00.000-05:00

I've just broken the 35,000 word barrier on Michael Drayton, Detective Guy. At the rate I'm going, I should have around 40,000 by the time I have to submit it for the contest. My plan is to continue writing somewhat carefully until March 1st. The last couple of chapters might turn out a bit sketchy, but they should get the point across.

All good wishes are gratefully accepted.

The Final Push

2007-01-13T14:01:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, courtesy of my friends at Baby Got Books, I found out about something called The First Chapters Writing Competition that is being held on a site called Gather.com. It has been rightly described as a kind of American Idol for novelists. Now, I am nothing if not a novelist. Okay. Maybe I'm nothing if not an aspiring novelist, but those are just the kind of jamokes they're looking for. The first prize is $5,000 and publication of the manuscript submitted by Touchstone/Fireside, which is an imprint of Simon & Schuster. I have decided to try to finish Drayton in time to enter. The deadline is March 15th.

Now, I'm probably about 2/3 of the way through on the manuscript, which, since I've got about 32,000 words written, leaves me somewhere between 10-and-20,000 short. The only way to accomplish this is to work on Drayton as close to every day as I can. (I have a wedding to go to in February; I might lose a day or two there.)

I've recently been tracking my progress in 40-day cycles, so I have some idea of whether I can pull this off. Since, in the most recent 40-day cycle, I worked on 16 of the last 18 days (88%), I think it is possible. Using Google Docs has made it easier for me to sneak in work sessions during the day, while I'm presumably getting paid to do something else. However, the thing is that I am employed in the office of the English Department of a prominent Southern University, my feeling is that should be paying me to do this. After all, should I win or at least be one of the five finalists, wouldn't the prestige of the department be increased? After all, it would be the English Department in which even the admins can write.

Anyway, I'm going to try to keep track of my progress here so that well-wishers can keep up with the process. For example, one of the quirks of the competition is that the entire manuscript needs to be submitted as well as separate documents representing the first three chapters. Since I was saving each chapter separately, I am now in the position of having to compile the whole thing in one long document.

Also, the first three chapters must be at least 2,000 words each. Well, my original Chapter One was about 1,600 words, so I've had to combine that with Chapter Two. The former Chapter Three is now Chapter Two. The new Chapter Three was cobbled together by conjoining the original Chapters Four and Five. It's very confusing.

Since I have tomorrow off, I'm hoping to really add some wordage. Wish me luck.

The First Week

2006-12-10T16:08:00.000-05:00

I've been working a full 75% of the time, which is a significant improvement over the percentage of time I worked on it during NaNoWriMo.

Having never been much of a joiner, it's not surprising.

The word total stands at 28,592. I'm adding, on average 220 words each day I write.

I had gotten out the teleplay script to see what would come up next, but the more I skimmed it, the more I came to realize how much the story had changed. The teleplay was fairly silly and a parody of the hard-boiled detective genre. The novel is neither of those. It has humor, but isn't silly, is a detective story without being a parody. I think it has some literary value, at least I hope it does.

It strikes me that one of the reasons why the detective genre works as fiction is because detectives presumably do the same thing that writers presumably do: Observe life and report on it. This in a way, makes it a shame that so many examples of the genre are written so poorly.

The Next 40

2006-12-07T09:02:00.000-05:00

I've redone my spreadsheet for another 40 day run. The idea now is to just motor on Drayton until it is done. If I work on it every day, that should happen in just over two months. That's how close I am. All I have to do is add less than 300 words per day every day and I can have a full novel drafted in 76 days.

By adding in the last three chapters of the previous version--the ones in which I started catching on to how to write a novel--I've upped the word total to 28,128. That's about 6,000 words basically overnight. Now, if I could keep that pace up, I'd be done sometime next week, but i wouldn't get any bets down in Vegas on that if I were you.

A Small Milestone

2006-12-05T13:49:00.000-05:00

I have surpassed 22,000 words today. I'm hoping to continue working on it, so I won't give a final total quite yet.

I am trying to improve both the percentage of days that I work on the novel and the number of words produced each time.I really want to finish this and not in a year-and-a-half. I'm not setting any deadlines, but am trying to make this my obsession. I'm trying to minimize the amount of time I spend writing other things--including blogs--so my other blogs might start to wither. that's what has to happen, though, for now.

Days 39-40

2006-11-30T22:03:00.000-05:00

It is at an end. Not the novel, just NaNoWriMo. No mo' NaNoWriMo.

The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write an entire 50,000-word novel in 30 days. I, of course, started early and managed a whopping 2732 words total, or about 5% of the NaNoWriMo goal. And that's fine.

I did some good work, including a final 180 words today. (Nothing yesterday, unfortunately. I doubt I would have written 47,268 words, but something would have been nice.) Chapter 10 is not quite done, but it's getting there.

Here's some statistics: I ended up averaging about 68 words per day over the entire 40, and a whopping 124 when only the days I actually worked are counted. I wrote on 22 out the 40 days or 55% of the time. My current word total is 21,588.

At the rate I'm going, I would have a 50,000-word draft done in about a year-and-a-half. If I worked on it daily, that time would shrink to about nine months.

If I had to come up with a resolution from this, it would be that I would like to work on the manuscript more than 55% of the time. I don't mind the low daily average of words simply because I don't have much time to devote to it each day, so being able to do anything is helpful. However, I should really be adding those 124 words 70% or 80% of the time.

I'm trying, though.

I wonder what the next 40 days will bring?

Day 38

2006-11-28T21:33:00.000-05:00

I added another 136 words today, bringing the total to 21,408. Chapter 10 is taking a quick turn for the surreal, which has been fun. And now for some more completely pointless statistics. (This is what happens to you once you start messing around with those evil spreadsheets.)

Over 38 days, I am averaging about 67 words per day. I've worked on the novel on 21 out of those 38 days and have added an average of about 122 on each of those days.

I could go on, but I need to save some materila for later.

Days 31-37

2006-11-27T20:38:00.000-05:00

I have not been idle these past seven days. Oh, no, friends! Look at the chart. I wrote on three out of those seven days and accumulated a hefty 356 words. That brings the current total is 21,272. Chapter 10 is coming along. With a strong wind at my back, I just might be able to finish it before November is through.

Keep an eye on your windsock.

Day 28-30

2006-11-20T21:39:00.000-05:00

17. That's all I managed today. 17 words. File this under "Something Is Better Than Nothing." The total so far is 20,916.

Nifty chart, though, huh?

Of course, I did spend some time trying to figure out why Ten Rod Road in North Kingstown, RI, is called Ten Rod Road, just in case I could work it into the narrative. It appears that the width originally was ten rods or about 165 feet. I don't think I'm going to be able to work that in.

Days 24-27

2006-11-18T09:49:00.000-05:00

As you can see from the trusty chart, work has proceeded, even if somewhat fitfully. I accumulated 117 words on Day 25 and another 96 on Day 27, raising the total by some 213 to 20,899. 21,000 is just over that next rise.

One of the things that I'm having the spreadsheet calculate for me is an average of how many words I write per day over the total 40 days of this experiment. If I stopped today, I'd be averaging about 51 words per day. The average for 27 days is about 76.

Instead of working yesterday afternoon, I futzed around in Wikipedia and came across a link that brought me to an interview that S.J. Perelman did in the Paris Review in 1963. He says many great and funny things in them, including this: "I used to know several eminent writers who were given to boasting of the speed with which they created. It's not a lovable attribute, to put it mildly, and I'm afraid our acquaintanceship has languished."

He also said, when asked if he reread his old stuff, "[L]et me assure you I don't sit in the chimney corner cackling over what I've written."

And, "I don't know whether I approve of the picture you suggest of me, lounging about admiring myself in a hand mirror."

And, "In my more pompous moments I like to think of myself as a writer rather than a humorist, but I suppose that's merely the vanity of advancing age."

And, on writing for TV and movies, "[W]hile it's ignominious to be an anonymous gagman, perhaps, eleven hundred dollars a week can be very emollient to the ego."

And, after being told that Hervey Allen, the author of Anthony Adverse, channelled his ancestors to help him write, "I fully believe it, judging from my memory of his work."

And, when asked how many drafts he did, "Thirty-seven. I once tried doing thirty-three, but something was lacking, a certain--how shall I say?--je ne sais quoi. On another occasion, I tried forty-two versions, but the final effect was too lapidary--you know what I mean, Jack?"

This is why I love Perelman. That's music, Jack.

Here's an copy of a manuscript page from a story Perelman wrote, proving that it's never as easy as it looks on the printed page:

Days 21-23

2006-11-13T22:02:00.000-05:00

The weekend, again, was a total bust, but I did get a whopping 24 words down today, raising the overall total to 20,686. They were a good 24 words, though, 24 that really moved things along.

Some interesting notes: The current chapter (10) and the previous chapter (9) are an expansion of a 71-word sequence at the end of what was Chapter 7 in the previous draft. I'm getting three chapters totalling, so far, over 5800 words from that one chapter from the previous version.

By the end of Chapter 7 in the previous draft, I had written 14,180 words. At not quite the same point in the story, I now have almost 21,000. Pretty good.

The next chapter is the one in the previous draft in which it all started to gel, so I have hopes that the pace will pick up significantly once I get past this chapter.

I think I had to stop where I did before and regroup. I've fixed so much this time around. Even my mistakes are closer to the mark than they were before. Now the challenge is to just stick with it and see the whole thing through.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Day 20

2006-11-11T08:04:00.000-05:00

I'm actually rather pleased despite adding only a paltry two words to the total, bringing it to 20,662. You see, I've been reworking a single paragraph for the past three days, and I was actually expecting to wind up with a negative number today. Anything in the positive makes me smile.

This is the thing that isn't mentioned in the pamphlet, "So, You Want to Be a Writer"; you can spend days on a paragraph, a sentence, or even a word, although that is an extreme case and may involve spending too much time watching reruns of "The Match Game" on GSN. But still.

Days 18 & 19

2006-11-09T20:27:00.000-05:00

Okay, so the last couple of days haven't been quite as productive as I would have liked, but at least yesterday I got a little bit done. I worked it and reworked it and came out at the end of the day with 59 new words. Today, I got bupkis. That leaves the total at 20,660.

I guess there's always tomorrow.

Day 17

2006-11-08T11:43:00.000-05:00

A better day yesterday with 228 words added, bringing the grand total to 20,601. I'm hoping to do as well today, if I get the chance.

Day 16

2006-11-06T21:57:00.000-05:00

Productivity picked up again today, and I added a whopping (by recent standards) 155 words to the manuscript, bringing the total to 20,373.

It was good work today, too. I enjoyed writing about the psychic meaning of the topography of East Greenwich and North Kingstown, Rhode Island. I did not manage, however, to mention the Del's Frozen Lemonade on Post road in North Kingstown, even though Drayton and Alan would have passed right by it and even though it is one of the great Del's stands. It just didn't fit.

I guess that's just the writing game.

Days 12-15

2006-11-05T17:23:00.000-05:00

There hasn't unfortunately, been much to report. I've written only 29 more words, but that puny total comes with an explanation. I spent most of the week copyediting a newsletter and couldn't steal as much time away for writing as I had hoped. Also, I'm having to think about the new chapter, and I'm adhering to the notion that it's better to be good than quick. I know that flies in the face of the whole NaNoWriMo ethic, but that's who I am.

In the meantime, I'm thinking, and, as Dick van Dyke pointed out in the episode in which Rob tries to finish his novel, thinking is writing. And I printined some stuff out, only not for Drayton, so maybe that doesn't count. But I'm thinking, and therefore, writing. At least according to Dick van Dyke.

Day 11

2006-11-01T22:15:00.000-05:00

Nothing today, except thinking. And the thinking is the hardest part. Other than the writing, which is no walk through the park. I've also been up to my knees in words at work lately, which seems to sap my ability to work on the novel while no one is watching.

But there's always tomorrow. Right?

Day 10

2006-10-31T22:25:00.000-05:00

I will post the chart tomorrow, but Halloween got in the way today.

The total today was just 31 words, bringing the total to 31 more than it was yesterday. (Organization is not my top skill at the moment.) Chapter 9 was completed with yesterday's work and Chapter 10 was begun today. I'm not expecting it to be a very long chapter, maybe 1500 words, which probably means that it will come out somewhere around 7000.

That's what we'll find out over the next several days.

Day 9

2006-10-30T18:44:00.000-05:00

In one sense, not so good today: I only wrote 37 words today, bringing the current total to 20,158.

In another sense, it went okay. Those 37 words finished off Chapter 9.

There will be a Chapter 10, and it will concern Drayton taking Alan home and then going home himself. I'll try to get at least 37 words on it tomorrow.

Days 7 & 8

2006-10-30T07:53:00.000-05:00

We went out-of-town on an overnight trip this past weekend, and I'm afraid that my word total was a big goose egg. Nada. Zilch. Zero.

That, of course, means that there's no point in posting the chart today, because it looks exactly the same. I'm hoping for a good week this week, though, so that I can make up for words lost.

In other news, I'm not completely certain at this moment, but I think I'm about to add yet another brand new chapter to the fold. The one I'm currently working on takes place in a restaurant in which Drayton and Alan have dinner. Originally, I was going to take it through Drayton dropping off Alan at home and heading home himself, but I feel that I should just make that part into its own chapter. The current chapter, nine, is giving off an "I want to be done with" vibe that I think I will honor. I should have a better sense of this by tonight.

Stay tuned for details as they develop.

Day Six

2006-10-27T21:11:00.000-04:00

Here's the chart, at long last:

Today, I added 193 words, bringing the new total to 20,121. That's right, I finally crossed the 20,000 word barrier. They said it couldn't be done, but I did it.

Day 5

2006-10-26T21:38:00.000-04:00

I had a good day today: 317 words. The grand total now stands at 19,928. This means I have now passed the total for the previous draft, which stood at 19,865. And I haven't quite reached the same point in the story yet, either. And they're 19,000 better words, too, arranged in a more pleasing and effective fashion.

But five days in a row. Not bad. I'm averaging just over 200 words per day, which was my goal.

Day 4

2006-10-25T22:44:00.000-04:00

The word total for today was 296 and the grand total is up to 19,611. And just for the record, yesterday's total should have been 28, not 25.

It went well today. I'm getting back the feel of the story, and I'm starting to think about it when I don't have to. I guess my real goal through this NaNoWriMo experiment is to get myself in the habit of adding a couple of hundred words, on average, every day until the draft is drafted. At that rate, I would be done in three or four months.

My first big test of this system is coming up this weekend because we'll be away from home overnight. However, I pledge that I will add a couple of hundred words, even if I am in an entirely different county.

Day 3

2006-10-25T06:52:00.000-04:00

I did write yesterday--a whopping 25 words--but I just forgot to post this monumental addition. But you just wait. Today will be better! Yeah! You just wait!

The streak continues. Only 53 days behind Joe DiMaggio.

Day 2

2006-10-23T21:05:00.000-04:00

Today I did 225 words bringing the grand total to 19,287.

Due to a series of circumstances beyond the control of anyone other than the DeKalb County School Department and the dunderheads at Comcast, it looked for a short time as though I would end up breaking my streak at one. However, rugged discipline won out over the vicissitudes of life, and I managed the 200 word minimum I've arbitrarily assigned myself.

Day 1

2006-10-22T16:09:00.000-04:00

Today's total was 206 words, bringing me to a total thus far of 19,062.

I'm still figuring out how to paste in the chart.

Stay tuned.

Good Intentions

2006-10-22T11:45:00.000-04:00

The dreaded NaNoWriMo month, November, is fast arriving. The point of this activity is supposedly to encourage writers to complete a full-length manuscript in 30 days. Well, this will be my third NaNoWriMo while working on Drayton. I think it's been worth the effort.

So, I won't be trying to write a novel from start-to-finish this year, however, I will try to participate in my own crummy little way.

It is my intention to try to work on the manuscript every day for all 30 days of the month of November. I'm not going to try to finish it in that time or anything like that. I'm just going to try to add a little to it every day. In fact, I'd be happy if I could finish a decent draft of Chapter 9 by then.

Anyway, I'm going to try to get a running start by beginning the streak either later today or sometime tomorrow. I will try to post updates, however brief, here as I do. I'll get my word count up-to-date and post that as I go along. Who knows, maybe I'll even do something mildly nifty with a bar graph. I mean, you know how rowdy those bar graphs can be.

Let the countdown begin.

Catching Up

2006-10-16T10:10:00.000-04:00

It has been much too long since I've kept up with this blog, and so I intend to remedy that with occassional updates starting with this one.

I am now working on Chapter 9 and have written over 18,000 words. The current chapter, in which Drayton gets taken out to dinner by Alan Worth, has not appeared in any previous version of the Drayton story, except by inference. This was previously something that happened offstage, like Medea poinoning her children or Oedipus performing do-it-yourself lasik surgery.

However, it seemed like a good idea to bring it out into the open and to find out just what did happen at dinner that evening. We'll see how it works out.

Also, I realized that there was another scene never previously considered that I ought to add to this version: I never had anybody going to Briarbrook's funeral, even though there must have been one. I'm going to let this one percolate for a couple of chapters before trying to work it in.

that's all for now, but I promise to be a better corresponent in these matters from here on out.

Not Much New

2006-07-18T08:40:00.000-04:00

I've been stuck on Chapter 8, mostly because I haven't had the time or energy to think about it clearly. Whenever I hear a famous writer talking about how they write every day, I suspect them of living some sort of sheltered, ivory-tower existence. I've never had the priviledge of subsidized living and consequently loathe it and deride it out of both jealousy and condescension. I've had times both good and bad and have had to spend too much of my time on things like surviving the current day to always get the chance to trot out a few more pages of brilliance.

I should be back on track soon, but first I have to clear about four inches of accumlated anxieties off my desk. The original manuscript is buried under there.

Since I Been Gone Away

2006-07-09T20:07:00.000-04:00

Because reality had to decide to stick its ugly puss in where it wasn't wanted, progress on the novel has been somewhat stunted as of late. It hadn't stopped completely, but was coming along in dribs and drabs (or maybe drabs and drabs). I've gotten a bit more done in the last couple of days and am now in the home stretch with Chapter 8. The total word count is up over 17,000.

This has been an interesting chapter to work on because I can spot the point in the original draft where the story changed from being a parody to being a novel. The first part of the chapter was pretty broad and had the tone of an early Woody Allen movie. About two-thirds of the way through, it suddenly changed and became about the characters instead of a string of comic ideas.

Maybe that's part of why it has been such slow going: It's all about the people now, and I let the jokes fall where they may. I've learned a lot about myself over these last several months, both as a person and as a writer. It's been good. In spite of reality.

The Wall

2006-06-27T09:05:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I hear about writers who build themselves underground bunkers or some other form of isolation booth in which to work, and then sequester themselves there for months on end while they spin their feeble magic. And, when I consider these folks, my tendency is to scoff. Oh, I might start out by merely snickering or raising a sardonic eyebrow, but I usually end up shaking my head in a knowing fashion and dismissing them as wimps and weenies. This is probably motivated by jealousy.

For there are other times in which I truly envy them their ivory towers. Times like the last several days, times when, just because of real life, I get next to no work done. In fact, I hardly even think of working because there are obligations to attend to and crises to avoid.

Which is just a longwinded way of saying that I haven't gotten much done over the last few days. And it is a shame, because the chapters I'm rewriting now need less work to get them where they belong. I just haven't had the time or the concentration. I am, however, hoping to remedy that today and in the next couple of days.

Unless, of course, life intrudes.

Another Finished

2006-06-21T15:14:00.000-04:00

One of the hardest jobs I have on this blog is coming up with new titles for each entry. I could probably get away without entering them, but I do enjoy the challenge.

Anyway.

I finished Chapter Seven yesterday afternoon and have begun Chapter Eight today. Chapter Seven was hard work, but I think it went well.

I'm closing in on 15,000 words, which might not seem like much unless you've had to type them.

And Signifying Nothing

2006-06-20T10:32:00.000-04:00

Due to a variety of circumstances that I'm going to claim were beyond my control, I got no writing done yesterday. This has been a rare occurance as of late, but one that will happen inevitably eventually.

I'm already a paragraph in today, so there's been progress. All is not lost.