When the Whole World Mumbles

File under "novel" research...

I haven't been working much on my book either, though it's as present in my mind as ever. There are so many stumbling blocks, I think I am just as usual overwhelmed by the enormity of my task, and the precious little time I can devote to it.

Right now I am stuck on my rewrite of chapter one (well, let's face it, rewrite of everything), which will be much better once it's done. I can see how it will play out, but because I'm not writing, I see it the way one sees a dream the next morning, and struggles to describe it in words and sentences, coherently and interestingly.

It starts in a sunny kitchen, late in the morning on the first day of summer, and the protagonist is sitting there watching a hummingbird outside the window as it travels across a blackberry bramble. She's thinking about walking downtown to get a cup of coffee. As she gathers her sunglasses and flip flops, her roommate arrives and says: everyone is going swimming, do you want to go?

etc.

that's about as far as I've gotten.

It is Simon's fourteenth birthday today. He was a very good boy all day and we let him walk around outside on the leash for a while. Brian used our awesome camera to make a movie of that adventure, which will be put online soon.

We met the little black puppy today also. She was so cute and bouncy and adorable. And sweet and affectionate and curious. She's also quite skinny -- she was rescued from the streets of Taiwan -- but will bulk up soon enough. As far as her size and breed, she has a very small lean body, big pointy ears and a curled tail, smooth black coat, kind of like an African wild dog. She will probably grow up to be mid-sized, maybe 40 pounds tops.

We have not made a final decision yet, but we have time. Her appt to be spayed is in a week. Her foster mom will hopefully come visit our house tomorrow, to make sure we aren't living in squalor or hoarding animals, I guess.

Brian and I talked about names in the car on the way home. He actually suggested Juneau, which I love, as long as it is spelled like the city, of course. It also fits the two syllables, ends in a vowel rule. I also like the name Angie, because I am fond of giving people names to pets.

So what do you think?

Poll #1197268
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7

which name do you prefer?

In other news: this was my first ever trip to Bremerton, which is the place where the main character in my book is supposed to come from. As has happened a few other times since I started writing this thing and visited Alaska, etc, Bremerton was much like I imagined it to be, at least his neighborhood; very drab and filled with bleak, nondescript ramblers with overgrown lawns and old faded curtains in the windows and peeling paint. Almost exactly the way I pictured it, in fact.

Sometimes I wonder if I would make progress on my book if someone was literally holding a gun to my head. You know, like in Misery, which I read when I was like 13.

Lately I *think* about it a lot. My book, that is. I think about the story, the characters, the scenes, the dialogue. It all feels very complete and vivid in my mind. So why isn't it being typed?

I've had good excuses for a while now: new job, new house, etc etc. But those aren't so new anymore.

Where is my number one fan when I need her?

All week I've been thinking about the house we looked at on Sunday. The half-moon shape of the master bedroom window. The high wainscoting in one of the smaller bedrooms. The neutral paint on the walls, well-chosen colors, but not too bland. High ceilings in the front room, skylight in the hall bathroom, backyard full of trees. I think we really do want it. We should make an offer. We have the down payment and we're pre-approved. It's scary, it's glorious, it's exciting, and it's scary. I am still looking for full-time work, but Brian is as stable and steady as ever.

It's another very quiet and gray day. I worked on the book this morning, continuing a rewrite I started last night at the coffee shop with pen and paper. I asked myself if I am holding something back in this story, if it could be more compelling in the visceral details. I really don't know. I don't know anything. So I took one of the earliest chapters, written in the third person, and from memory only, rewrote it in the first person. I loved how it turned out, but I don't think it would work throughout the whole book. Or would it? That's what I mean about not knowing anything.

Here's a fun writing exercise: create a livejournal or other blog for a fictional character, and write a journal in that person's voice. I decided to do that today and just see where it takes me. I know a lot of people on LJ have "side" journals that are anonymous where they are more free to be big ol exhibitionists/perverts (heh). And that there are also numerous fictional journals too -- people playing a character. I look at it as a writing exercise though. I'm not going to publicize it, but if someone stumbles upon it, hopefully they will also stumble upon the fine print disclaimer.

I had vivid dreams this morning. In one, I got out of bed, and was fully aware that I was dreaming. I walked into the kitchen and looked at the back door, which was covered with plywood. Again, totally lucid, which made me realize the control I had, that I could bring whatever I wanted to life. I opened the door and decided there would be horses outside. But then I woke up goddammit.

Once again, no nanowrimo for me, for you see, I am 140,000 words into my stupid novel already, therefore am overly qualified.

But hey, maybe I'll take it as an invitation to use this coming month as a time to get a shitload of my book goals accomplished.

I made yummy sloppy joe filling and it's currently sitting in a pot on the stove, flavorizing. Meaning that the more it sits there, the more yummy it becomes.

No Halloween for us tonight, aside from our facilitating diabetes and tooth decay in local children. I am just not into Halloween. I will be when we have a kid of our own, I guess, though the thought of pumping 5000 sugary calories into a tiny growing body in one sitting makes me a little sick.

It was so deliciously gray and chilly today. Our street is absolutely littered with dead leaves. I got to wear my brown tweed jacket and a cashmere scarf today, and we went downtown for a little while, where I enjoyed my first eggnog latte of the year. Must try to keep self reined in in that department.

As the rectangle of sun travels over the carpet, right to left, Simon follows. He is a slave to direct sunlight. OMG I THINK I SAW THAT IN A GARFIELD CARTOON ONCE.

I wrote last night:

"The only thing he remembered, before it all came back to him, was a dream he had while lying on the operating table. Floating on his back down a dark and bottomless river. A swarm of mosquitoes diving toward his ears. The keening of their diaphanous wings, needle-shaped mouths salivating, searching for a place to land so they could drain him dry."

I hate mosquitoes and I hate when they invade my dreams with their whiny wings just before they feast on my blood. Bitches.

Leaves in the back yard have turned a pale orange color. The pot of marigolds on the porch turned black. I'll have to throw them out. But everything else in the yard should be fine through the winter, as far as I can tell. Oh shit except I bet we'll have to rake those leaves up once they fall.

We're going to West Seattle tomorrow! And it's going to be sunny!

I dreamed that I was riding in a car on a twisty, climbing road. There were trees on both sides. I was lost, and my friend and I looked for a road sign. Finally I saw one, it read "FELL". I figured if we went that way, we would eventually get back downtown.

We turned and followed Fell, but the road narrowed and suddenly we found ourselves turning the car into a deserted parking garage. The road had ended. I cursed and got out. I walked over some rocks and was surrounded by groups of people, kids and parents, all heading toward the viewing area for a waterfall. I could see the water splashing down over a huge flat rock, high up on a mountain. It was twilight, and very dim.

I was searching for Alex. I told my friend I had to find him before it got dark. I couldn't call out to him; he is deaf and wouldn't be able to hear me. I threaded through the crowd, searching for an unrecognizable face. I figured I would know him when I saw him. But I never did, and then I woke up.

I just packed four more boxes of books. I now have six total. I figured out it's half as cheap to mail them book rate than to put them on the moving truck, so that will be a fun day at the post office.

As I went through my bookcase I found my collection of "Murder Can Be Fun" fanzines. This was a great zine from the 1990s, based here in SF, and full of nothing but stories of freak accidents, bizarre murders, and other true crime, all of it written from a comedic angle. Loved that zine. Glad I still have them all. "Death at Disneyland" was a good issue.

Anyway, hidden within this stack was a copy of "Hex" #4, yes, my own zine. This one came out in spring of 1996. It was fantastically printed with a full color cover and extremely high-quality black and white pages within. This was the period when I had my Kinko's graveyard shift hookup -- my old friend Lisa. I would drive over the bridge at midnight and stay until dawn working on this thing.

This was a good issue, short and sweet. But I am still amazed at how candid I was, almost daring someone to accuse me of talking shit. This was right after I made a trip back to Olympia for a visit, and so there is a whole story within about how much I fuckin hated that place. I never named any names, of course, but I basically said the town was full of hipsters and assholes. Which it was, but still. Ballsy of me, no?

This was also a period when I was heavy into Britpop and was about to leave the US for the first time for my first trip to England. I had been fetishizing the place since high school so this was a pretty big deal. But all that is discussed in issue five.

Here is some stuff I wrote when I was twenty-three:

"I remember walking across the roof of the State Theater some May day ages ago at dusk, drinking hot chocolate and picking up sea shells... Wandering the frosty streets of Olympia in the middle of the night with a paper bag of beer, sitting in a cavernous parking garage, typing on my Royal just to hear the hollow hammer of the keys on paper. And looking across the pavement to see him facing me doing the same thing on the typewriter we found behind the thrift shop. If I don't think about him breaking my heart a few weeks later, things like this stay as sweet as candy."

I think reading this old issue has solidified something that has been on my mind this week with regard to the novel I am writing.

I can't use a made-up, fictionalized town. That is the coward's way; a lie. I have to be truthful, which ironically is one of the more important things about writing fiction. So, Olympia it is. Damn the torpedoes.