The First Round

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

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

The Novel Competition Continued

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

It's On

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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: