I just looked at the last post and realized that I haven't written anything for most of October.
Obviously I'm a little depressed. Not only did the Yankees collapse in the first round of the playoffs--AGAIN. But it ultimately cost Joe Torre his job. I remember the time before Joe Torre took the reins at Yankee Stadium. It can be summed up in one word: CHAOS. I'm not looking forward to next season.
Plus, the Indians, the team from my new hometown, also blew it. They couldn't get any quality innings from their top two starters and their DH turned into a human wind-making machine.
And if that wasn't bad enough, the Red Sox are going to the World Series. Again.
Oh yeah, and I turned 35 a few days ago.
Also, my last few weeks and almost my entire last weekend were consumed with preparing for a trial (in my regular life as a criminal defense attorney). Without going into too much detail, my client was facing an indictment with 40 counts of rape and 10 lesser sex offenses, which all added up to something like 850 years of prison time. The facts were against us, the evidence was against us and both my co-counsel and I felt that just about any jury would be against us.
Today the guy took a plea on the day of trial and agreed to 10 years, but it was a pretty taxing case. Emotionally draining.
And did I mention that the girl I thought I was crazy about broke up with me last month? In the car. After pretending she was tired and just "wanted to go home early." She thinks I'm "really a great guy," though, so that softens the blow.
Anyway it's been a sub-par last month or so.
I think Orson Welles said that the worst thing for an artist to be is comfortable. I'm not calling myself any kind of artist. I write fantasy books. But at the moment, I'm anything but comfortable. Now we'll have to see if I can finish this damn book.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Monday, October 8, 2007
Good Guys 2 - Other Good Guys 1
This has been a tough weekend for me. Not quite my dog just died or my girlfriend just broke up with me tough, but hard in its own way. Cleveland vs. New York. That's a hard series for me.
It wasn't always this way. I moved to the Cleveland area in the summer of 1998, originally just for law school. In those days the Yankees were in the middle of their best run in decades, only one World Series win into a four-out-of-five-year stretch. Then, I had no qualms about rooting against the Indians, and mercilessly taunting their fans when they inevitably choked. I had no loyalty to the Tribe or to its supporters, and quite frankly I was still a little miffed at the way they said things like "pop" instead of "soda" and pronounced the word "have" as though it were spelled "haeve" (and let's not even start on the fact that in Ohio, "merry, Mary and marry" are all pronounced the same).
I should pause to remind any Yankee-haters out there (and I know there are many of you) that in the mid 90s, unlike today, the Yankees were not quite the monster they've been since. For one, they'd only won a single World Series since the glory days of the late 70s, and they did that as underdogs against a heavily favored Atlanta team. The year before that, if anyone cares to remember, they dropped a 5 game series to the Mariners in the ALDS -- a Seattle team that was beaten by Cleveland in the next round that year.
From my perspective then, in the summer of '98, I had suffered through some very lean years in the 80s when Don Mattingly's individual stats (and eventually the length of his hair--long story) were the only things worth rooting for in the Bronx. After that, I lived through four years in Boston, when the Sox were by far a better team than the Bombers.
To me, the Yankees were not the Evil Empire. They were the team that taught me to love baseball, the team that I watched with my grandfather and my uncle and my Dad on hot summer days in the Bronx when I was too young to understand why the fans appeared to be booing whenever Lou Piniella came up to bat.
Yes, they had some great teams in those days. The Reggie years. But I didn't really watch in the 70s. The first year of baseball that I actually remember was 1981, when I was 9 and the Yankees lost the Series to the Dodgers. After that, they didn't even make the playoffs until I was a year out of college. The point? When I moved to Cleveland there was no "Yankee guilt" like there is today -- with $200 million-something payrolls and all that. My experience as a Yankee fan had been mostly on the losing end of things, and it was only just beginning to turn around.
Fast forward to this weekend. Now I've lived through four Yankee World Series victories, one over the Mets, which was sweeter than all the chocolate in Hershey, PA. Plus, I've seen them go to the Fall Classic two other times, both of which were enjoyable for their own reasons, even though they ultimately lost. The first was in 2001 when NYC was literally still smoldering, and the other was against the Marlins, which quite honestly felt like an afterthought following Aaron f**kin' Boone's homerun against the bean-eaters. Nothing makes me happier than seeing the heart get cut out of Red Sox Nation with a dull knife. That will never get old.
Anyway, over that same time-frame I've also seen the Indians go from a perenniel contender to a farm team for actual contenders. After feeding the rest of the league with talent like Bartolo Colon, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome and Richie Sexson, among others, they completely collapsed into a classic small-market team. Coming from NYC I was stunned that the Tribe front office promised their fans, a number of seasons back, that they would contend in a few years, and asked them if they could extend a little patience their way while they tried to rebuild the entire franchise.
And you know what? The fans did it. Oh sure, they complained, they stopped selling out the Jake every night, and they complained some more (who wouldn't?), but when push came to shove, they were always there for their team. They were loyal.
These are the same fans, you have to remember, who saw their beloved football team stolen from them in the 90s, who waited patiently for a replacement and have now supported the new pseudo-Browns with rabid devotion despite the fact that they've proven themselves to be quite happy to act as the NFL's unofficial doormat every year.
These are loyal people. These are good fans. And genuinely nice folks, too.
I love New York, but no one in Cleveland ever threw a battery at an opposing player. At least not that I know of. Yes, they threw beer bottles on the field a few years ago, and they once forfeited a game because of five cent beer night (or was it ten cents?). But they haven't won a World Series since 1948, and the city hasn't won anything (other than indoor soccer) since the early sixties. I'd be questioning their passion if they weren't throwing a thing or two at the field every now and then.
Bottom line? I respect the Cleveland fans, I respect the Indians as a team and I want to see them win. In fact, I've actually gotten used to rooting for them. And how could you not? This current team is going out there with a $67 million payroll and taking on everyone. How can you root against Travis Hafner? Any guy who wears an "I may not be smart but I can lift heavy things" T-shirt is ok in my book.
So, the Yankees taught me to love baseball, and I still say "forest" and "orange" as if they were "far-est" and "AR-inge" (and I still say "soda", damn it) but I consider myself an unofficial Clevelander. I just CAN'T root against Cleveland. Of course, I'll never root against the Yankees either. And there is the rub.
When the Indians were in control during game one I wanted the Yanks to come back. Last night, when the Yankees finally woke up, I wanted the Tribe to come back. And let's just agree not to discuss game two. No professional sporting event should be decided by the intervention of insects. Shame on you Bruce Froemming. The game deserved better than that. The teams deserved better and so did the fans. 'Nuff said.
Game Four is tonight. One of these teams has to lose, and either way I'll be disappointed. But there is a silver lining. Whichever team wins will have my full and fanatical support against the Red Sox.
Last note: Obviously this post had nothing whatsoever to do with writing or dark fiction. But there are two things that will put a hold on my writing. One of them I mentioned in the very first paragraph of this post, and hopefully that interruption has now passed, the second is baseball, and that isn't going away any time soon.
It wasn't always this way. I moved to the Cleveland area in the summer of 1998, originally just for law school. In those days the Yankees were in the middle of their best run in decades, only one World Series win into a four-out-of-five-year stretch. Then, I had no qualms about rooting against the Indians, and mercilessly taunting their fans when they inevitably choked. I had no loyalty to the Tribe or to its supporters, and quite frankly I was still a little miffed at the way they said things like "pop" instead of "soda" and pronounced the word "have" as though it were spelled "haeve" (and let's not even start on the fact that in Ohio, "merry, Mary and marry" are all pronounced the same).
I should pause to remind any Yankee-haters out there (and I know there are many of you) that in the mid 90s, unlike today, the Yankees were not quite the monster they've been since. For one, they'd only won a single World Series since the glory days of the late 70s, and they did that as underdogs against a heavily favored Atlanta team. The year before that, if anyone cares to remember, they dropped a 5 game series to the Mariners in the ALDS -- a Seattle team that was beaten by Cleveland in the next round that year.
From my perspective then, in the summer of '98, I had suffered through some very lean years in the 80s when Don Mattingly's individual stats (and eventually the length of his hair--long story) were the only things worth rooting for in the Bronx. After that, I lived through four years in Boston, when the Sox were by far a better team than the Bombers.
To me, the Yankees were not the Evil Empire. They were the team that taught me to love baseball, the team that I watched with my grandfather and my uncle and my Dad on hot summer days in the Bronx when I was too young to understand why the fans appeared to be booing whenever Lou Piniella came up to bat.
Yes, they had some great teams in those days. The Reggie years. But I didn't really watch in the 70s. The first year of baseball that I actually remember was 1981, when I was 9 and the Yankees lost the Series to the Dodgers. After that, they didn't even make the playoffs until I was a year out of college. The point? When I moved to Cleveland there was no "Yankee guilt" like there is today -- with $200 million-something payrolls and all that. My experience as a Yankee fan had been mostly on the losing end of things, and it was only just beginning to turn around.
Fast forward to this weekend. Now I've lived through four Yankee World Series victories, one over the Mets, which was sweeter than all the chocolate in Hershey, PA. Plus, I've seen them go to the Fall Classic two other times, both of which were enjoyable for their own reasons, even though they ultimately lost. The first was in 2001 when NYC was literally still smoldering, and the other was against the Marlins, which quite honestly felt like an afterthought following Aaron f**kin' Boone's homerun against the bean-eaters. Nothing makes me happier than seeing the heart get cut out of Red Sox Nation with a dull knife. That will never get old.
Anyway, over that same time-frame I've also seen the Indians go from a perenniel contender to a farm team for actual contenders. After feeding the rest of the league with talent like Bartolo Colon, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome and Richie Sexson, among others, they completely collapsed into a classic small-market team. Coming from NYC I was stunned that the Tribe front office promised their fans, a number of seasons back, that they would contend in a few years, and asked them if they could extend a little patience their way while they tried to rebuild the entire franchise.
And you know what? The fans did it. Oh sure, they complained, they stopped selling out the Jake every night, and they complained some more (who wouldn't?), but when push came to shove, they were always there for their team. They were loyal.
These are the same fans, you have to remember, who saw their beloved football team stolen from them in the 90s, who waited patiently for a replacement and have now supported the new pseudo-Browns with rabid devotion despite the fact that they've proven themselves to be quite happy to act as the NFL's unofficial doormat every year.
These are loyal people. These are good fans. And genuinely nice folks, too.
I love New York, but no one in Cleveland ever threw a battery at an opposing player. At least not that I know of. Yes, they threw beer bottles on the field a few years ago, and they once forfeited a game because of five cent beer night (or was it ten cents?). But they haven't won a World Series since 1948, and the city hasn't won anything (other than indoor soccer) since the early sixties. I'd be questioning their passion if they weren't throwing a thing or two at the field every now and then.
Bottom line? I respect the Cleveland fans, I respect the Indians as a team and I want to see them win. In fact, I've actually gotten used to rooting for them. And how could you not? This current team is going out there with a $67 million payroll and taking on everyone. How can you root against Travis Hafner? Any guy who wears an "I may not be smart but I can lift heavy things" T-shirt is ok in my book.
So, the Yankees taught me to love baseball, and I still say "forest" and "orange" as if they were "far-est" and "AR-inge" (and I still say "soda", damn it) but I consider myself an unofficial Clevelander. I just CAN'T root against Cleveland. Of course, I'll never root against the Yankees either. And there is the rub.
When the Indians were in control during game one I wanted the Yanks to come back. Last night, when the Yankees finally woke up, I wanted the Tribe to come back. And let's just agree not to discuss game two. No professional sporting event should be decided by the intervention of insects. Shame on you Bruce Froemming. The game deserved better than that. The teams deserved better and so did the fans. 'Nuff said.
Game Four is tonight. One of these teams has to lose, and either way I'll be disappointed. But there is a silver lining. Whichever team wins will have my full and fanatical support against the Red Sox.
Last note: Obviously this post had nothing whatsoever to do with writing or dark fiction. But there are two things that will put a hold on my writing. One of them I mentioned in the very first paragraph of this post, and hopefully that interruption has now passed, the second is baseball, and that isn't going away any time soon.
Friday, October 5, 2007
The Final Push
The battle of the adverbs has come to a close. I think.
I went through the latest draft last night, after the Indians destroyed the Yankees in Game 1 of the ALDS, and I took another look through it after the Tribe squeaked out a second victory in a game that, quite frankly, the Yankees didn't deserve to win anyway.
At this point, I think I've excised every adverb that doesn't need to be in the book. Now I have one final task ahead.
I have to finish the damn thing.
I've been stalled on the last two chapters for some time now, since the end of the summer, in fact. Getting hung up on some particular spot in the story is not unusual for me, and I suspect it isn't uncommon for most writers. At one time or another over the last year and a half, I've hit snags of all kinds in writing this book.
What I've found is that when I get to a spot where I just can't write, where the story just seems to stop on me, it usually means one thing. I took a wrong turn somewhere. And I think this current roadblock might have its root there.
I don't really know how other people write. I've met quite a few other authors since my first book came out, but I've never asked, and no one has ever told me how they do it. There's a book by Stephen King called "On Writing" which gives some insight into how he works through a story, and there was a movie a few years ago with Luke Wilson and Kate Hudson about a writer dictating his novel that kind of explored how the author thought his way through the process.
I recognized things in both, but neither one was dead-on, at least from my perspective.
If anyone is interested, here's what I do: I wing it.
I don't outline a thing. Ever. Instead, I start with some kind of idea, a premise or a group of one or two characters that I think might be interesting for some reason (they're self-loathing, ageless changelings, for example). Then I try to figure out what those characters might do, where'd they go from day to day, how they'd see the world, and what their problems might be. Some kind of a story usually comes out of that, and I go from there.
Most of the time, I write the whole first section of a book with absolutely no idea how it's going to end. Every so often, I stop and look at where I am, where the characters are, and try to figure out what they'd do next. I like to think they tell me, but I know that sounds kind of flaky. It does feel like that, though. They kind of dictate where the story goes, and I fill in the details.
Anyway, for the current manuscript, I've got all the characters in the final scene, about to make the decision that will define the ending of the book -- and they won't do it. Or, at least, I can't quite figure out what they do next. I know what I think they're going to do, and where I think that will ultimately take the story, but I'm not at all sure how to get them there.
So that means that I have to spend the weekend back-tracking. I have to back up about 100 pages, read a little and try to figure out where I went off course. Or, where I left out something that needs to be there to make the ending come together.
I have some ideas. For example, one of the main characters is in an ill-advised romantic relationship with a co-worker that was probably doomed from the start, although only one of them realizes it -- until it's too late, and that's the point where I need to focus.
As luck would have it, I have recently gathered a bit of real-world experience in exactly that department, so I just might get this thing done pretty soon, after all.
I went through the latest draft last night, after the Indians destroyed the Yankees in Game 1 of the ALDS, and I took another look through it after the Tribe squeaked out a second victory in a game that, quite frankly, the Yankees didn't deserve to win anyway.
At this point, I think I've excised every adverb that doesn't need to be in the book. Now I have one final task ahead.
I have to finish the damn thing.
I've been stalled on the last two chapters for some time now, since the end of the summer, in fact. Getting hung up on some particular spot in the story is not unusual for me, and I suspect it isn't uncommon for most writers. At one time or another over the last year and a half, I've hit snags of all kinds in writing this book.
What I've found is that when I get to a spot where I just can't write, where the story just seems to stop on me, it usually means one thing. I took a wrong turn somewhere. And I think this current roadblock might have its root there.
I don't really know how other people write. I've met quite a few other authors since my first book came out, but I've never asked, and no one has ever told me how they do it. There's a book by Stephen King called "On Writing" which gives some insight into how he works through a story, and there was a movie a few years ago with Luke Wilson and Kate Hudson about a writer dictating his novel that kind of explored how the author thought his way through the process.
I recognized things in both, but neither one was dead-on, at least from my perspective.
If anyone is interested, here's what I do: I wing it.
I don't outline a thing. Ever. Instead, I start with some kind of idea, a premise or a group of one or two characters that I think might be interesting for some reason (they're self-loathing, ageless changelings, for example). Then I try to figure out what those characters might do, where'd they go from day to day, how they'd see the world, and what their problems might be. Some kind of a story usually comes out of that, and I go from there.
Most of the time, I write the whole first section of a book with absolutely no idea how it's going to end. Every so often, I stop and look at where I am, where the characters are, and try to figure out what they'd do next. I like to think they tell me, but I know that sounds kind of flaky. It does feel like that, though. They kind of dictate where the story goes, and I fill in the details.
Anyway, for the current manuscript, I've got all the characters in the final scene, about to make the decision that will define the ending of the book -- and they won't do it. Or, at least, I can't quite figure out what they do next. I know what I think they're going to do, and where I think that will ultimately take the story, but I'm not at all sure how to get them there.
So that means that I have to spend the weekend back-tracking. I have to back up about 100 pages, read a little and try to figure out where I went off course. Or, where I left out something that needs to be there to make the ending come together.
I have some ideas. For example, one of the main characters is in an ill-advised romantic relationship with a co-worker that was probably doomed from the start, although only one of them realizes it -- until it's too late, and that's the point where I need to focus.
As luck would have it, I have recently gathered a bit of real-world experience in exactly that department, so I just might get this thing done pretty soon, after all.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Progress, I think
I got back to editing my manuscript this weekend -- after a very unscheduled "break" that lasted about two weeks. As I noted in an earlier post, my greatest foe in this process is the adverb. I used to think of these words as friendly little helpers. Schoolhouse Rock is probably to blame for that. "Lolly, Lolly, Lolly get your adverbs here" was always one of my favorites. I can still see Father, Son and Lolly selling adverbs, asking people to "bring in their old, worn out adjectives" so that they could be fitted with Lolly's "special -ly attachment" to convert them into brand new adverbs.
Turns out, far from making a sentence better, they tend to weaken a statement.
I still hold to my previous statement that there is still a place for them, though. I won't get rid of every adverb in my book. Problem is, I'm not at all sure which ones to keep.
After a weekend of combing through 500 pages of text, deleting most of the little modifiers as I came across them, I took a look at the final product.
They were still there.
Thing is, I can't help myself. Looking at them one-at-a-time, I got rid of as many as I thought I could, but I kept quite a few, too. Not that many, I figured, just the ones that needed to be there. Really needed to be there.
Then I go back and check, thinking I must have left in seven or eight in the entire manuscript -- at most. And what did I find? Well, let's just say I stopped counting after 20. Now I have to start the process all over again, and this time I have to be merciless.
In other news, I broke my own vow yesterday. I went out and bought a copy of "Swann's Way" -- the first volume of Marcel Proust's giant master-work -- approximately 5 years and two weeks ahead of schedule. Of course, the damn thing is so long I'll probably be working on it well past my 40th birthday anyway, so I'm just getting an early start.
Turns out, far from making a sentence better, they tend to weaken a statement.
I still hold to my previous statement that there is still a place for them, though. I won't get rid of every adverb in my book. Problem is, I'm not at all sure which ones to keep.
After a weekend of combing through 500 pages of text, deleting most of the little modifiers as I came across them, I took a look at the final product.
They were still there.
Thing is, I can't help myself. Looking at them one-at-a-time, I got rid of as many as I thought I could, but I kept quite a few, too. Not that many, I figured, just the ones that needed to be there. Really needed to be there.
Then I go back and check, thinking I must have left in seven or eight in the entire manuscript -- at most. And what did I find? Well, let's just say I stopped counting after 20. Now I have to start the process all over again, and this time I have to be merciless.
In other news, I broke my own vow yesterday. I went out and bought a copy of "Swann's Way" -- the first volume of Marcel Proust's giant master-work -- approximately 5 years and two weeks ahead of schedule. Of course, the damn thing is so long I'll probably be working on it well past my 40th birthday anyway, so I'm just getting an early start.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Little Miss Sunshine
I saw this movie in the theater when it came out last year. Big Steve Carell fan. He plays "America's Leading Marcel Proust Scholar" (or maybe America's #2 Proust scholar). I have not read more than a few pages of Proust, and only in English at that, so I know very little about him or his work.
Christopher Hitchens, who is kind of a mini-idol to me, once wrote that Proust should not be attempted until one is at least forty. His reasoning being that "The Search for Lost Time" is a book that can only be truly appreciated after you've experienced life -- the ups and the downs and everything in between. Based on that recommendation alone, I have both held off reading any more of Proust, and also resolved to make a date with him on October 17th, 2012.
Back to "Little Miss Sunshine." It's funny how you see things in a movie the second time that you missed on the first viewing. I watched this on HBO today and this time it was the scene on the pier outside the hotel that stuck with me.
Steve Carell's character is talking to his nephew about Proust. Here's a bit of the exchange:
Frank: "Y'ever hear of Marcel Proust?"
Dwayne: "He's the guy you teach?"
Frank: "Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love
affairs. Gay. Spent twenty years writing a book almost no one reads. But he
was also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he gets down
to the end of his life, he looks back and he decides that all the years he suffered
-- those were the best years of his life. Because they made him who he was.
They forced him to think and grow, and to feel very deeply. And the years he
was happy? Total waste. Didn't learn anything."
Small comfort maybe, when things don't seem to be going your way. But it does sound essentially ... right.
“...and love has such a need to find some justification for itself, some guarantee of duration, in pleasures which without it would have no existence and must cease with its passing.”
-Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way
Christopher Hitchens, who is kind of a mini-idol to me, once wrote that Proust should not be attempted until one is at least forty. His reasoning being that "The Search for Lost Time" is a book that can only be truly appreciated after you've experienced life -- the ups and the downs and everything in between. Based on that recommendation alone, I have both held off reading any more of Proust, and also resolved to make a date with him on October 17th, 2012.
Back to "Little Miss Sunshine." It's funny how you see things in a movie the second time that you missed on the first viewing. I watched this on HBO today and this time it was the scene on the pier outside the hotel that stuck with me.
Steve Carell's character is talking to his nephew about Proust. Here's a bit of the exchange:
Frank: "Y'ever hear of Marcel Proust?"
Dwayne: "He's the guy you teach?"
Frank: "Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love
affairs. Gay. Spent twenty years writing a book almost no one reads. But he
was also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he gets down
to the end of his life, he looks back and he decides that all the years he suffered
-- those were the best years of his life. Because they made him who he was.
They forced him to think and grow, and to feel very deeply. And the years he
was happy? Total waste. Didn't learn anything."
Small comfort maybe, when things don't seem to be going your way. But it does sound essentially ... right.
“...and love has such a need to find some justification for itself, some guarantee of duration, in pleasures which without it would have no existence and must cease with its passing.”
-Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way
Thursday, September 13, 2007
My Enemy, the Adverb
I'm in the process of working through revisions on my current manuscript. Mostly this means that my agent (who is generally the first person who sees anything I write) goes through the entire thing and sends me back suggestions on how to improve it. I don't imagine any writer enjoys this, and I'm no exception. It needs to be done, but it's possibly the worst part of writing a book.
I hate almost everything I write anyway. Most of it is, I generally suspect, utter crap. The best rule of thumb I've ever heard is this: four-fifths of everything you write will be shit. Complete, unredeemable excrement. But if you have any skill at all, that last twenty percent will make the whole process worthwhile.
That's what I keep hoping, anyway.
Knowing that, the task of editing is rendered only slightly less painful than the average root canal. Essentially it means combing through every line of the manuscript to expose every possible flaw, every poor choice of words or awkward turn of phrase, and every typo or mistake that Spellcheck doesn't pick up. For someone who is already suspicious that almost everything he writes may turn out to be garbage, this process seems designed to do nothing more than confirm just that.
Fortunately it hasn't been all that awful -- so far. Except for one thing. My tireless grammatical nemesis: the adverb. I used to have several of these personal demons. My struggle to conquer the run-on-sentence, for example, lasted from third grade until late into high school. My love affairs with the multiple adjective description and the dependent clause were long and turbulent. The dissolution of those dysfunctional relationships was not easy. But I overcame them. I'm no Hemingway, I do still lapse into my own florid and occasionally turgid, prose. But the years of struggling to keep those monsters at bay has turned into a kind of habit. I can usually write with no fear of them popping up.
Not so my most resilient and nefarious foe, the mighty modifier, the old -ly.
I hate them. But for some damn reason I keep using them. A lot.
Now, my agent and I differ somewhat on just how evil these little buggers actually are. She sees almost no use for them whatsoever, and I think she would be happy if they were excised from the English language once and for all. Not me. I think the judicious use of one of these little fellas can be appropriate.
I agree that they weaken the narrative. Almost anything can be stated better without them. They're lazy and they really don't convey much, for the most part. My manuscript is almost always better for having removed them.
That having been said, my use of them is never anything close to judicious. And so I find myself flipping through hundreds of pages of text, trying to figure out ways to say what I want to say without resorting to the use of the adverb.
Other than that though, the editing process is going well, for the moment.
I hate almost everything I write anyway. Most of it is, I generally suspect, utter crap. The best rule of thumb I've ever heard is this: four-fifths of everything you write will be shit. Complete, unredeemable excrement. But if you have any skill at all, that last twenty percent will make the whole process worthwhile.
That's what I keep hoping, anyway.
Knowing that, the task of editing is rendered only slightly less painful than the average root canal. Essentially it means combing through every line of the manuscript to expose every possible flaw, every poor choice of words or awkward turn of phrase, and every typo or mistake that Spellcheck doesn't pick up. For someone who is already suspicious that almost everything he writes may turn out to be garbage, this process seems designed to do nothing more than confirm just that.
Fortunately it hasn't been all that awful -- so far. Except for one thing. My tireless grammatical nemesis: the adverb. I used to have several of these personal demons. My struggle to conquer the run-on-sentence, for example, lasted from third grade until late into high school. My love affairs with the multiple adjective description and the dependent clause were long and turbulent. The dissolution of those dysfunctional relationships was not easy. But I overcame them. I'm no Hemingway, I do still lapse into my own florid and occasionally turgid, prose. But the years of struggling to keep those monsters at bay has turned into a kind of habit. I can usually write with no fear of them popping up.
Not so my most resilient and nefarious foe, the mighty modifier, the old -ly.
I hate them. But for some damn reason I keep using them. A lot.
Now, my agent and I differ somewhat on just how evil these little buggers actually are. She sees almost no use for them whatsoever, and I think she would be happy if they were excised from the English language once and for all. Not me. I think the judicious use of one of these little fellas can be appropriate.
I agree that they weaken the narrative. Almost anything can be stated better without them. They're lazy and they really don't convey much, for the most part. My manuscript is almost always better for having removed them.
That having been said, my use of them is never anything close to judicious. And so I find myself flipping through hundreds of pages of text, trying to figure out ways to say what I want to say without resorting to the use of the adverb.
Other than that though, the editing process is going well, for the moment.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Review: The Devil's Rose
I finished Brom's book the other night. "Always leave them wanting more" is the saying that comes to mind, which is both good and bad.
On the down side, The Devil's Rose is just too short. Calling it a novel is even a bit of a stretch. Much of the book feels like a sketch of a much longer story, and one that should have been told. Reading it I came away with the feeling that the story had been written for the art, and not the other way around. This may not have been the case, but the impression bothered me. All of the characters could have been fleshed out more, only the main character, Cole the undead Texas Ranger, had any real motivation. The others were there to give him something to do. The "bad guy" a quasi-villian named Rath came across as a fascinating idea -- a lesser god once worshipped and now forgotten -- but an idea that the story just wasn't long enough, or deep enough to explore in any real detail.
Also, the story ends without any real conclusion. That may be in order to leave it open for future installments, which would be fine. I'd pay $25 for another one of these, despite the prior paragraph. Nonetheless, the story seems to end just as it should be picking up, so that was frustrating.
As I said, I wanted more.
Which brings me to the "up" side of that saying.
Everything in this book (as much of it as there is) is fantastic. The art is creepy and slightly surreal, and perfectly in keeping with the story. And there's a lot of it. This isn't a novel with the occasional picture here and there. This is more like a story told in pictures with some text to fill in the gaps.
The writing is crisp and concise, but effective. None of the self-indulgent descriptions and florid prose that you find in a lot of fantasy literature. I just wish there was more of all of it. More art, more writing, more everything.
All in all though, I recommend "The Devil's Rose". It's a tad pricey for a 110-something page book, but the art makes up for it.
On the down side, The Devil's Rose is just too short. Calling it a novel is even a bit of a stretch. Much of the book feels like a sketch of a much longer story, and one that should have been told. Reading it I came away with the feeling that the story had been written for the art, and not the other way around. This may not have been the case, but the impression bothered me. All of the characters could have been fleshed out more, only the main character, Cole the undead Texas Ranger, had any real motivation. The others were there to give him something to do. The "bad guy" a quasi-villian named Rath came across as a fascinating idea -- a lesser god once worshipped and now forgotten -- but an idea that the story just wasn't long enough, or deep enough to explore in any real detail.
Also, the story ends without any real conclusion. That may be in order to leave it open for future installments, which would be fine. I'd pay $25 for another one of these, despite the prior paragraph. Nonetheless, the story seems to end just as it should be picking up, so that was frustrating.
As I said, I wanted more.
Which brings me to the "up" side of that saying.
Everything in this book (as much of it as there is) is fantastic. The art is creepy and slightly surreal, and perfectly in keeping with the story. And there's a lot of it. This isn't a novel with the occasional picture here and there. This is more like a story told in pictures with some text to fill in the gaps.
The writing is crisp and concise, but effective. None of the self-indulgent descriptions and florid prose that you find in a lot of fantasy literature. I just wish there was more of all of it. More art, more writing, more everything.
All in all though, I recommend "The Devil's Rose". It's a tad pricey for a 110-something page book, but the art makes up for it.
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