Thanks, now go away

            “Just write something,” Tim proclaimed.  This profound bit of advice was all he could offer to my disarray.  I was tempted to respond with the expected dismissiveness, but I realized he actually thought that was useful.  Like I’d never just sat down and wrote.

            Maybe he was right.  Nonetheless, it was dumb advice.  Like telling a cancer patient to “quit being sick” or a depressed person to “just cheer up.”  And yet, people continue to offer this sort of advice to one another, not for the sake of actually solving problems, but to just cap it off and move on to some other, less esoteric topic.  One cannot just pull art out of oneself as a dentist extracts a molar.  There has to be some goal, some truth, which compels it to leave the infinite interior of the soul and onto the language-restricted lines of the page.

            Why do that to a message?  The English language may be vast, but compared to infinity it’s just chicken scratch.  Lest you imagine this is an excuse in the making for not writing anything at all, I consider it an amusing challenge to take the universe and stuff it into a pocket.  And for writing’s sake alone, it can remain in my files forever untouched, or tossed into the trash, and the universe continues to unfold without a flinch.  A slant is placed on the product, however, when one writes for the sake of others.  When I write to entertain, do I approach with my own unfiltered voice, or with an approach I imagine appeals to a wider audience?  Is writing for others as much of a compromise as it is to write anything at all with the limits of language?

            We may read the biographies and writing tips from published, respected authors.  We hear them break down their methods, we hear their tips about going from a blank page to a best seller list placement.  They must know better than us, right?  Well, they have at least reached their goals and perhaps sit in a better place to advise than ourselves.  What seems consistent among them all is to read more.  And to write, always.

            So, Tim’s advice, coming from a non-writer, is both frustrating and correct.  And instead of writing, I spend most of that time just mentally listing all the reasons I can’t write.  I get all kinds of household chores done that I didn’t want to touch otherwise.  I get lots of television watching in.  Curiously, I find the time to advise my writer friend to “just write”.

            The years I spent feeling very inferior to my own life experience like to butt in, and while I appreciate their motive – to keep me from failing at my writing attempt – I have to thank them for accompanying me on the journey… and to leave, for good.  I no longer require their misguided protection.

            

Not murder... a lobotomy will be enough

The old adage - “murder your darlings” - means to take the characters you love and put them through the grinder.  This advice is usually inspired when a writer is having trouble creating interesting conflict for a character and often ends up at a creative brick wall.  You love these characters, you don’t want to hurt them.

Stories without conflict, in the vast majority of cases, are just plain uninteresting.  Taking your protagonist and contrasting them with an impact character is going to bring up conflict in some way, whether tangible, emotional, spiritual, or esoteric.  Whether that impact character is stereotypical evil, cartoonishly so, anti-hero, or misunderstood, they are an impact character because their ideas, presence, fortunes, or fate put them in a position that opposes the main character in some fashion.  Your protagonist is ultimately changed by the impact character, in most cases.

So, there must be some idea or reality your protagonist lives in, and some idea or reality your impact character has that begins to create, force — or fails to change the protagonist.

Detaching myself from my novel’s darlings, I find so many of the characters unmemorable.  The initial impact character, while certainly having an immediate impact on the protagonist, does little work to induce him to change.  Indeed, he is a bit tedious, and no one is likely to care if he changes at all.  What does he have to change?

I like him, and I can’t murder him.

But I can lobotomize him... somewhat.

I need to slice open the frontal lobe and run down the rabbit hole.  What is he?  What is he *really*?  Where are the frayed edges?  The callouses?  The tangled webs?  What switch resides within, waiting for the external person to turn on the light?  And why should anyone care?

So far, the narrative depicts a path that’s far too smooth.  A rumbling of carriage wheels below that lulls the reader to sleep rather than eagerly turning the next page.

The people I created at age 18 were caricatures.  Single-dimensional representations of the person I was still learning to be.  They haven’t grown with me.  I never learned to murder them.

But I must break them.  Put them through Hell.  And see who re-emerges at the end.

Fun City

So, it occurs to me that if I don’t want to vacation in my book’s world, why would anyone want to read about it?

I have to stop looking at it like a Google maps satellite view and switch, instead, to street view.

I have to revisit Greece in my mind.  That sense of how the land invokes the gods.  If I don’t see my world that clearly, it’s still not ready to hold stories. 

Ess Tee Eff You

9-18-18

The coffee is a little strong today.

If I were anything but a writer, that would be that; the coffee’s strong and I just move on.  But, as one can imply from context – and the existence of this text – I am a writer so I can’t just leave it there.  I have to wax poetic on why the coffee being too strong bothers me.

Perhaps an inordinate amount of my conscious time is spent in the past, particularly street cafes of Rome or Paris or Venice.  Ignoring the tried-and-true habits of the locals, I order my cappuccino after 11 am and marvel how much stronger its flavor is than the “robust” coffee of my hometown convenience store’s offering.  Real coffee has a delightful bitterness and I, as a “cultural chameleon” (Rick Steves’ words) enjoy the local delights easily when I am here.  At home, they’re not calling to me.  Yet here I am in this coffeehouse, trying once more to enjoy a good strong coffee, and it tastes *too* strong.  It bothers me this time, for some reason.

Part of the bitterness is the tides of life that have conspired to keep me from traveling so far anytime in the foreseeable future.  Part of that daydreaming I do is the freedom to move between this, the “rat race”, and the pseudo-exotica of Europe.  Not like a rich traveler, in the most modern of chain hotels and the fanciest dinner halls, buying countless unnecessary baubles and taking photographs of my bare feet in front of cartoonishly blue shores.  That’s cool for some, but it’s not the travel I want.

What I want, however, is a back burner concern – what I *need* to get to that place is at hand.  I fell (or rather, jumped headfirst) into the debt trap that cripples most average folk in this country.  Debt is reserved for the insignificant, who toil under unsatisfying professions and reap meager benefits to help finance the wealthy and the sociopathic.  Sucks, right?  Anyway, pondering what it takes to extract oneself from this pattern requires a worthy endgame.  My endgame is to have the option to visit this magical, mystical land of AnywhereElseville when I desire.  Nothing more.

What can a peasant like myself do toward this end?  A quick survey of my skills paints a damned miserable picture.  Oh, there’s some encouragement coming in from various directions.  Pep talks never did much for me, as most (though I appreciate their good intentions) are fairly generic in nature, akin to “you’re in my thoughts and prayers”.  They’re like a cry of “freedom” which is, supposedly by its nature, self-evident and requires no further explanation.  When someone tells me “You can do it!” I always reply (at least internally) that “yeah, I knew that.  But HOW?”  Positive affirmations, without meaningful context, are like the pennies of a dragon’s treasury.  They fill up space, but aren’t worth much.

I know I can do it.  But how?

I’ve had conversations that consisted of my asking questions about technique, where the repeated response is some rewording of “just do it.”  “You just have to sit down and do it.”  “Just…”. Just.  Just.  *Just* means that it is self-evident and I need merely to Ess Tee Eff You and watch as the magic flows.  Hate to break it to you, but this occurs to me as well.

I get quality advice about the process from people who do quality work – in the particular outlet that I choose.  Visual artists tell stories, but in a different method.  I would take the advice of those who make compelling stories.  The two talents don’t always come together, and I do not do fan-fiction (just not an area of interest).  Audio artists speak a whole other language, but their process is perhaps more akin to fiction writing than the visual artist.  And music has the same “slow burn” effect – you can’t take it all in quickly.  You have to let it build.  (Except, say, Mona Lisa who is a fairly simple painting that people continue to witness in awe centuries later). Just as one must hear the whole song for the whole picture, a book or story has to be taken in its full form to convey its whole message. So I feel that much more compelled to craft the narrative in such a way that a person reaching the end doesn’t regret the time they wasted.

Before the visual artists throw their angry words and hashtags at me, I am not saying that visual arts are somehow inferior or easier.  It is a meticulous process as well. In most cases, the work is taken in in a very immediate sense.  People often know very quickly if they like something they see.  There’s a very visceral effect that either inspires further study or a dismayed turn away.  Music, to some degree, has that same effect, but it often takes longer to decide if one likes it or not.  Movies are a mix of visuals and writing, and poor visuals can rob the effect of decent writing, just as poor writing can sabotage visuals.  My point, I suppose, is that the months or years I may put in to a story may hit all the wrong notes for a reader, but as the cliche goes… one (shouldn’t) judge it by the cover.  They have to invest a good deal of time to decide their opinion, and I have to appreciate that and work to ensure they don’t lose too many hours on a bad story.

The point to this ramble is that I want quality advice when I’m stuck, not a pep talk.  I know things will be okay.  I want to know *how* to speed that process along.  And people who know you best can offer this advice if they’re interested more in being legitimately helpful vs. offering a mere pick-me-up.

Actually, the coffee is pretty good.  As I vent, I float back to those coffee bars and reclaim my chameleonic nature, at least in spirit, while I plot my return to those well-worn streets.  Advice or not.

"ghosts." must die!

Currently, all five published books are available in some form on amazon.com ... it's a start.

While I have a general idea for "ghosts." I don't have a real solid concept for it.  There's no need for another guide to the towns themselves.  I would just be parroting information from other, better books.

I also do not have a great deal of photographs from my earliest trips, or journals of the visits, but rather general stories of the visits.  I have far more photography and therefore, far more story from the most recent excursions to these places.

And still, this is not a necessary book either... like the two travel books I've put out there, one is not going to pick it up if it just doesn't appeal to an interest one already has.  The ghost town book would be something for about 3 people I know, and would collect e-dust otherwise.  These things are a lot of work, and it is admittedly disappointing that my own excitement about them rarely translates to excitement for the reader base.  Vanity projects are often misleading like that for the author.  It's no fault of the readership.

In the case of ghost towns, the image of them vs. the reality often does not match up in the minds of the reader.  Some of them are just vague piles of rubble, devoid of any of the character that their written history might suggest.  Hell Street in Canyon Diablo, AZ, is largely a pile of rotten wood, rusty flattened cans, and crumbled/collapsed foundations quickly being picked clean by souvenir hunters and washed away by the sun and rain.  Ask someone who's read the stories, and you can try to imagine "Bill Duckin" and his fatal mistake one Sunday morning facing down a robber.  Or B.S. Mary with birdshot in her ample behind, delivered by the blazing barrels of a shotgun wielded by Clabberfoot Annie.  Or Keno Harry cut down by a bullet for the deed to his poker flat.  Or, twenty five years later, in the abandoned, forgotten graveyard south of the tracks, how a bunch of drunken cowboys dug up John Shaw's body, stiff in rigor mortis, and gave him the whiskey shot he paid for a couple nights before and didn't get - because he decided in the spur of the moment to rob the saloon instead, and lost in a gunfight with the sheriff over the affair at Canyon Diablo.  None of this is evident in the broken down ruins.  They're disappearing, and fast.

All of this information is told elsewhere, and in better words.  So, do I just approach it as a photo book?  I don't think so, for a couple reasons.

1) My photography is really not good enough to stand on its own this way.

2) Pictures of ruins without context?  Pretty things to see, yet meaningless.

So, for me to do this at all, I need to have both stories and pictures to tie to them.  Some of the townsites I have visited don't have compelling stories (at least none I have found to date) - such as Cerbat; Mineral Park (aside from the Midnight Raid bit); Harrisburg; Carrara; Walker; etc.  Interesting ruins, in their ways, without unusual stories to tell.  I have nice pictures of many of them, and that's all.  And historic picture use is generally out, as a profitless enterprise like this can't afford the use fees likely in such reproduction.


I think the ghost town book is a no-go, as the work involved vs. the returns is not promising, and the product itself will not be a unique addition to the collection of literature already available from more interesting writers and photographers.  If I come up with a viable concept, I may revisit the idea in the future.

Scrawl, volume 1

Scrawl

By Joseph Grumbo

Short story collection from 1995-2002, slightly edited, lovingly typeset, with no high-fructose corn syrup.

Definitely not for the kids or the prudes.

Look for it soon on amazon.com

Books available...

While the ever-in-progress novel does command some of my attention, I have also completed some other projects recently, and have others in the beginning stages as well.

1) Another Temporary Export - this book utilizes my 2011-2012 article series from "The Noise", detailing my March 2011 trip to Italy and Greece.  In the book, I make a few minor edits and add some new pics.

2) Last of the Angst - a "reprint" of an unpublished book of free-verse poetry I bubbled out between 1999-2000.  Upon a reread, I find, while I have moved beyond many of the themes within, they still resound as universal human themes and ideologies in some cases, pure neuroses in others.

3) The Stew - a second volume of these free-verse poems and babblings from the same timeframe as Last of the Angst.

I currently have two other books in the works:

4) Untitled 2013 trip journal - this is in the same vein as #1 (Another Temporary Export), detailing my trip to Europe in 2013.  It was never written up as an article series, but will likely follow the same pattern as the first book (and hopefully be as interesting!)

5) ghosts. - this book details my start into the odd pursuit of dead towns, my friends who joined me along the way, and some sights that disappeared into memory since I last witnessed them.


Anyone who wishes to purchase these books will be able to find them on Amazon.com in their physical form, on blurb.com in either hard copy or PDF, and at least one of them on the Apple iBook store in ebook form.

I appreciate all who have helped me to spread the word on these, and hope to crank out more interesting stuff in the future.  Keep an eye out here for any news on current/new projects.

New approach and old bullshit

The old project, which to date hasn't burgeoned as hoped (or at all, really), has been shelved in a sense.  Some players remain, while the game plan is up for complete redefinition.

Everyone is "very busy" -- i.e. surfing Facebook for self-empowerment memes and recipes for chocolate no-bakes and plugging their own half-baked projects for ever-valuable "likes".  A communal non-community, it doesn't encourage conversation with all, sporting instead an algorithm that separates people into small cliques like a global high-school.  A remote server's arithmetic processor decides whose input you'll see, and who will see you.  Never mind the fact that it is set up to discourage real discourse, instead formatting itself in a way that encourages small "sound bites".  The mobile interface, which is by far the main interface for most, does not make it easy to witness those topics/media that others post which may take the reader away from the Facebook newsfeed, so most quality content - what little there really is - always goes unnoticed.  Facebook is like baby food for the brain, easily consumed and flavorless.  Great nourishment for the infant, but sorely lacking in adult-level nutrition.

There are many well-meaning folks who use it for a bulletin board to spread useful information, but these articles almost always get ignored in favor of click-bait "EPIC AWESOME ULTIMATE TAKEDOWN OF..." blah blah blah.  Or middle-aged women trying to rediscover their self-worth after ending a long-term relationship, via you-are-worth-it memes and i-don't-need-no-man-or-whatever memes.  Or men posting up gun or beer pics and American flags and other supposedly manly things.  Or aging intellectuals talking about how "simple" the world used to be.  Or the fuck-you-I-won't-do-whatcha-tell-me crowd.  Or the facebook-sucks crowd (this writer included).  Or the forty-somethings who endlessly note how "crazy" they are on the weekends, which means two weak mixed drinks and a lot of bad karaoke.

Typing more than twenty words is done with the sole expectation that no one will read it, not really.  We're very busy eating, facebooking, netflixing, working multiple shitty service-industry jobs, sleeping off our bad blood sugar.  Passive-aggressively sniping at the reality we created (did I hit the bullseye?)  We turn our blind eyes to the rich folk raping our lands to line their overfilled pockets, posting up memes that verbalize our horror so we can imagine ourselves involved in a solution.  We mock each other for our political differences, justify our violent solutions, defend old and tired ideas because we've grown up with them unquestioningly.

We tie our notions of religion to identity and fail to speak through kindness, instead panicking and lashing out at anyone who holds a different view.  If we don't lash out with hateful words, we lash out with condescending ones.  We forget what it means to be a channel of peace, opting instead to be a victim (of our inflexible, untenable ideologies).  We use our concepts of a universal Source to condemn one another, or for some, the conviction that there is no creative source to mock those who envision one.

I'm just trying to create a fantasy world and some characters to walk through it.  To fiendishly use them as a conduit for my old ideas or questions or concerns.  But maybe I don't fear much of anything.  Maybe I know what my big, umbrella answer is to all of man's problems -- look at them from the moon.  Can't see a single one?  And just imagine how much farther the universe stretches.  From that perspective, man is very insignificant.  The earth will not be destroyed by man's carelessness; man will only alter nature to a point where human life is unsustainable.  And nature will move on from their in its own way, well rid of a problem.

So, with all this to consider, what story does one tell?  And, in my experience, how do I get one to read it anyway?  Enthusiasm for new material vs. Having to actually read the material, that's the usual (majority, not total) response.  So it can't be for them.  But do I need it for me?

A little at a time

My brain is (not) like a sieve.  Yet the story somehow makes its way out a little bit at a time.  At this rate I can't make a living as a writer. Unless I become JD Salinger 2.0... Did he make a living by it?  As things look it's either break the levee or win the lottery.  Either way, what fun!

I'm no Mozart

I don't have one and only one draft.  My story is redefining itself one agonizing page at a time.  And then there's my book - the same thing is happening, on a much smaller scale.

An interesting recent comment from Bryan Cranston got me thinking... the gist of it was that there are people who can transcend their pain and anger, but their art is no good - you need some degree of suffering to be creative in a way compelling to others.  I take from it that you may be able to communicate higher ideas, but they are often too dry for the common masses (which are often the very people one intends to reach/educate).  I placed this notion over many individuals I know or am familiar with, and found it rings true.

In the past decade, while trying to redefine my life and connection to the universe - to transcend the human "failings" as I saw them - I took charge of my emotions to the best of my degree.  I sought that higher plane.  During that same time, I found my creative output more and more difficult to sustain.  Now, as I attempt to reinvigorate that part of myself, I find it difficult to place myself in the shoes of my characters - I find my "higher self" attempting to direct them, rather than their own natures.  I've forgotten how to 'feel' anything else.

While I certainly would not trade my higher awareness away, I need also connect to my artistic side... so the conundrum then becomes how do I reconnect to those runaway, knee-jerk sensations that define much of common human interaction and reaction?  How do you revisit that lower level of being without doing so in a condescending/frivolous manner?  I don't seek to educate directly, as I have never learned things in this manner.  I would be in a false position if I attempted it.  So, if I am compelled to communicate an idea, I am compelled to do so through art.

It's said that enlightenment is a door that opens inward, and it's one-way.  There's no losing track of certain higher ideas once they've taken root in you.  I don't feel pain like I used to; I have replaced it with knowing.  But certainly for the sake of sharing my message - whatever that might be - I can at least connect to something I used to be.  Or can I?  The universe is infinite, so yes, of course.

I sieve the best for last

The brain sieve that activates when I sit in front of the terminal relaxed a bit last week and I can count a thousand or so extra words to my literary spill.  They'll need to be retouched and rearranged, of course, but like babies they had to come out, ugly or not.

This isn't to imply that the process of writing (creation in its purest sense, perhaps) is tedious for me.  I do find the story idea interesting, and have the absurd delusion that others will as well.  I just find it curious sometimes that it trickles out, sporadically, rather than the deluge that once flowed from my fingertips in my more brash days.  Experience would indeed seem to have placed a muzzle upon me.

But that's silly.  I'm just choosing better battles.  And when the bigger themes become obvious to me, the story won't be held back by any of this banal justification.

The flow

So I sat down to save the damsel.  The scene had been sitting in my mind for a while, refusing to budge from neuron to fingertips to keyboard.  I finally forced it out.

Of course, on initial reading, the scene will appear to be a cliche.  But I already know that is a misdirect.

All of this vague talk here about story and character for a work no one knows anything about - what is my purpose?  I don't know, perhaps this is just to remind myself that I'm still working at it.

On occasion I make the mistake of thinking about what I'll write next, should this ever become complete - and I haven't the foggiest idea.  It's foolish to think about Thursday's game when you're still playing Tuesday.  (Sports references don't suit me!  But you get the gist.)

Every time I approach the keyboard with the intention of being unique.... my brain rightfully stops me in my tracks.  It reminds me to listen to the heart, and the heart says nothing more than just "write what you have to... don't grab a motive and drag it along, let inspiration pull you."  Grand difference between the two.  Given an opportunity to work for money (a brain concern), I find myself more and more dismissive of this.  The world is replete with uninspired works.  I find myself disheartened in the idea I had to force the words out these last two days, but in saying that I did so, I really just mean that I forced the usual hindrances out of the way and let the words flow.  It may be a creek now, but if I keep out of my own way, there'll be a river once more.

Hovering

Been off the blog scene recently, as I decided to pick up and move to the other side of Mingus Mountain.  While I have found gainful employment (in the same field as before), the housing situation has not settled just yet.  Luckily I have some good family who's allowed me a room for the interim.

Naturally this minor disarray has caused me to neglect my writing, for which I am both appalled and appreciative.  Appalled, as I shouldn't let the minutiae of life get in the way of creativity; appreciative, in that it pulls me away from the product long enough that I'll be able to reread it with less enamored eyes.

I'm also somewhat uncertain about my general overall feeling - that there isn't a great urgency to get the work finished - and yet I know there is no time frame for completing it.  Should I create one?

Progresssss

Happy to report the work makes progress.  Less on the page than in my mind.  I understand its quirks a little more now.  I find the elements have begun to cohere.  I found a minor villain to act as a catalyst for the bigger story.  I found a way to honor a couple original characters while replacing them.

What remains is to clarify the ultimate struggle.  What is the motivation?  What is the outcome if no sabot is thrown into the machinery?  Oh, it's fairly big.  How will my tiny heroes prevent it?

That's the fun of the work for the reader.  The author should be clear on it from the onset.  Not quite there yet!  But there has been progress, and that is better than the alternative.

Ssssh - don't tell anyone - but I know who the first victim will be...

...so, in outlining the first few chapters, I decided to kill off one of my characters.  Not a major one, not yet.  But this represents a loosening of the hold on the initial crew.  The initial draft is so old at this point (and poorly done, I can now say without offending myself) that the characters have been comfortably safe in my mind far too long.  As this character exits, two more will take the place - two I recently designed who are far more interesting to me.  So this murder is not without merit.  I honor the veteran while embracing the newer vision.  As such, I have to remind myself of the great truth:

I'm not their buddy.

You can't be a writer

...if you're not going to be fearless.  The world has too much repetition, too much sanitized prose, too many cliches.  Take your character and tear a big hole in him/her.  Flaw them.  Then take words and flay them.  Beat them down and watch them as they stand.  Make epics out of molehills.

I'm still too timid.  Time to put blood in the inkwell.

Safe, for now.

Okay, I didn't kill him.  I thought about it, though, but a spark of a notion from a week ago reemerged and came to his rescue.

Protagonist gets another chance to redeem himself, because I changed him from vanilla to french vanilla.

No, not the sort of french vanilla with an outrageous accent, you silly king.  No, this is the kind where I took Mr. Boring and added a bit of the charming rogue to him.  The journey through the book will find him not only emerging from the bounds of his own making (familiar to me, I admit), but embracing and incorporating the bolder side of himself.

Yeah, when stated in this manner, it doesn't seem epic.  This change of character is a subplot, of course, and it's in its early stages.  I have only finished a basic outline for chapters one through three, so who knows what will happen?

And her, I see her and I need to keep my distance, lest I fear letting the story happen to her.  She's what I want for myself, which makes me perilously capable of protecting her when I should not.  Mr. French Vanilla has to take my place.  Whether or not I punish him for it along the way, I don't know.  Yet.

Still not excited about him.

...why fear a flaw?  Seems I may be too attached to introduce negatives now.

I'll not wax poetic about what the word "negative" constitutes, except to say that the tribal consciousness needs to back off and have some tea.  Whatever the case, my protagonist is fleshed out on a character sheet (this is the same protagonist I was considering for the chopping block) and, reading the details, I continue to yawn.

I used to find the notion of his "vanilla" nature to be something that would evolve over the course of the book, but now I view this as a cop-out.  It seems to be just me running from the hard work of designing these people fully before putting fingers to keyboard.  I need to know who they are and why they are prior to setting off on the story.

My first section of chapter one exists because I can see that new character clearly, or at least more clearly than the others.  I get a sense of who he would be in a crisis.  My heroine, I am closer to her completion as well.  Maybe she'll take over the main spot, if my protagonist doesn't get off his vanilla ass and get some persona.  Not that there's anything against a female protagonist: far from it.  It's just that I, like most men honest with themselves, know nothing about the complexities of feminine worldview.  So I default to my grunt-grunt-ooga-ooga, which is far easier to interpret on the page.

I jest, of course.  I don't know how the protagonist situation will play out.  I'm open to letting the book write itself, and on occasion I just add a note or two.  I do know that a boring man needs to become a little more interesting before even I will pay attention to him.

Character Sheets

So I found a "fiction writer's character sheet" online some time ago, which is your basic multi-page fill-in-the-blanks biography of your story's characters.  With such fields as "expletives" and "source of greatest embarrassment" in addition to the usual height/weight/etc., it makes it very clear that there's a lot more to your character than you might at first imagine.

My first section of chapter one features the first character I detailed from a vague sketch.  I couldn't write a word until I had done so, and even with this little biography, I was only able to manage 500 words.  Although I expect this will expand in further drafts, the fact is those 500 words flowed easily.

Section two of chapter one focused on the character I eluded to in my previous blog.  He's one I detailed a long time back, but even with a character sheet, I just can't seem to write well about him.

What I know now: he's not conflicted in some way that will be tested during the story.  He's plain vanilla.

So writing will cease until I know two things: who my protagonist really is, and who my main villain really is.  Some writers are capable of designing these two things as they go, but I am clearly at a roadblock.  I know, in general, who the bad guy is and what he seems to want.  I know who the basic hero is and what he wants to prevent.  But what hinders either of them?  The big conflict is the MacGuffin, so to speak.  The real story is in the characters - it's what we care about.  I have to know them, so that you can care about them.  And I can't charge into this book until I know them - not just the surface, but the tortured, neurotic chewy center.

Funeral day?

I suppose if you can't write freely about your main character, maybe it's time to nudge them into the garbage can and create someone new.  After all these years of floating these fictional people from back burner to front to back and front again, something should have clicked within me.

You can't write about someone you don't know well... and if we don't know each other by now... just like in real life... you either make time, or you make tracks.  He's not letting me in, so I think it may be time to visit another house entirely.

It worked once, so far.  My first new character pulled quite a few words from me.  He deserves worthy co-conspirators.