So, I wrapped up the first five chapters of the book on Sunday, and I have no intent to look at them until I finish writing every chapter until the end.

Have a few events this week, so I won’t be writing again until Thursday.

Saw Davis Sedaris tonight, White Stripes Tuesday, and Annie Lennox on Wednesday, so I will return to the book on Thursday night.

That’s about it. feeling good to have those chapters behind me.

Jeff

So, tonight, the plan was to give the first five chapters a final read, a hint of polish, and then seal them off.

I was in only nine pages when I knew something was wrong. Again, I’d rather fix this stuff now rather than later, or realize it once the book is printed and unable to change, but still… continuing would be nice.

In the first chapter, the character undergoes a change (as characters in first chapters are wont to do), but this time I realized that the change isn’t pronounced, because he is also telling the story in a first-person narrative and we hear his thoughts up until that point.

So, I think we need to flesh it out a bit, and show the contrast between his innermost thoughts and his actual actions/dialogue, so that when the incident happens, it has impact. Now, it reads the same as the thoughts, it just has quotes around it. Seems too subtle.

I think I’ve always seen this scene visually in my head, so I’ve always pictured the character with almost a voiceover going on while the action happened, so that the incident is atcually one of the few times we actually hear him speak. But, even that isn’t enough in text, the contrast need to be pronounced. The character is having a breakdown, after all, they are not known to be subtle.

I remember once, walking to work, and some Asian guy just stopped his car in the middle of the road, jumped out of it, threw his briefcase across the road, and just sat on the curb and started crying, and his freaked out passenger/wife looked on, after pulling the car off to the side of the road and going to comfort him. He was just wailing, and you know, my job was to just keep walking. For a solid block, I could hear him cry.

That is the kind of change I need in the book, it has to be a pure change of direction, unquestionably pronounced, even if that means we need to work in more (evil) backstory up front, which I hate to do. (Of course, I have 40+ pages of backstory somewhere, if I dig it up, but something tells me none of that stuff need ever see the light of day or be resurrected).

Again, with any change like this, I usually have to think it through, so I’ve mainly just read chapter one a few times, and plotted out where the problems are. It’s like telling the story of a little weakling boy finally standing up for himself and punching the bully, but starting the scene with him throwing the punch. You lack all the context of who the kid is, whether he’s the one we’re even rotting for, and how monumental it was for him to finally thrown that punch. So, how to convey all that in as few words as possible… that’s the goal.

Tomorrow’s goal, I’m afraid…

I’m seriously considering dumping the post-work workout, since it is cutting into the writing time too severely. I really only have time to be in the zone, sitting down and writing, or else any little blip leaves me in the “not enough time to really work on something this big” zone, like tonight. If this had happened an hour ago, I wouldn’t be 30 minutes from my bed time.

Ack…

Jeff

Not a very productive night. Work is doing that thing where, like, I’m supposed to take it all seriously and work late and all this craziness. Now, for perspective, I had to work 25 minutes late. But, given I have a 2 hour writing window at best, that means, it becomes a 90 minute writing window before I crash at 10. Not amusing.

The goodnews is that Chapter 4 is complete, and unified into one document again. I tweaked it a bit tonight and seem to still like it. I ended up working on it every day this weekend, because I knew I wouldn’t be able to write Monday night.

“The Producers” is in town, and although I had no intention of seeing it (since I saw the original Nathan Lane/Matthew Broderick pairing on Broadway), I got sucked in… by more big names. Jason Alexander (George from Seinfeld) and Martin Short (from SNL) are taking over the lead roles when it hits Los angeles for an 8 month run, and they decided to let them hit the boards for a week up here to get ready. It was entirely sold out, but I scored a single ticket from the cast and crew row that wasn’t being used, which got my front and center for a great time. Even stayed late to get autographs, although I’m really getting bored with it. Tried to get Mel Brooks’ autograph as he left (as he is here to help tweak the show for them, or moral support, or something), and he’s like, “No, I don’t do that,” shook my hand, and never made eye contact and never altered the path to his waiting car.

Jason and Martin were just charming and humble, though. Personable, chatty, just really nice guys. Of course, it was their first time doing the roles in front of an audience, after the first two months in L.A., they may be beelining it to their limos, too.

Anyway, I wrote on Saturday to account for taking Monday off, so I’m not running behind, aside from the whole book taking too long, of course.

The goal is to seal these chapters up this week. I just rinted everything out, and tomorrow will be me reading them in my apartment all night, and tweaking them until they sound great, and are cohesive. then, they don’t get cracked open again until I write “The End.” (Actually, they won’t get cracked open for six weeks after i write The end, but once I finish the book, I do plan on taking a month and a half off for distance.)

So, might seal them up tomorrow or Thursday, we’ll see.

Feeling good about the process, though.

Jeff

I have become completely obsessed with The White Stripes. Bought their album on a whim, expected to dislike it, frankly, and fell in love with it. A few days later, I picked up White Blood Cells, their last CD, and loved that, too. I know I listened to it in the record store, but it didn’t click at all then. Now, it is just brilliant. Oh well, better late than never, although I do wish I wasn’t this late, since their upcoming shows in SF are sold out.

Jeff

Ok, so I’ve been neglectful of you, my online writing diary. Unfortunately, there’s not much I can do about that.

The writing is going good this week. The chapter that has plagued me is becoming a svelte champion before my eyes. Last night, I reduced 14 pages to 8. Tonight, it was 15 to 9, I think. It is just getting so tighter and I’m starting to build the character properly.

However, this week’s new gym routine doesn’t lend itself to the online diary. I forget how much detail i went into this last time, but I am now doing double cardio, which means I do 45 minutes of cario before work, and 45 minutes of cardio after work, five days a week. On Monday/Wednesday/Friday, I also weight train for an hour, so in the morning, that means I am doing an hour of training, 45 minutes of cardio, then my day job, then another 45 minutes of cardio (yes, 2.5 hours of gym time for the day, insane), and then coming home, eating, and working on the book. Most nights, the writing has been in the two and a half hour range, which gets me right to 9:30, with a 10 p.m. bedtime and, well, this just isn’t how I want to spend my only free half hour of the day.

Tonight, the bed time is slightly relaxed, so I will bang out an update.

I’m thinking of working all weekend on the book (meaning a little each day, no lockdowns or anything), so that on Sunday, I will actually finish Chapter 4. It feels so great to be liking what is coming out of your head, what is already on the page, and seeing them merge into something pretty cool.

I guess that is something that I still don’t convey well. I think a lot of people in my life think my writing frustrates me, and wonder why I put myself through it. I’m sure they get this impression from me. But it is really just that when I think ABOUT the writing, i don’t think of the feeling I just had for the last hour or more, where I was lost in the page, and just working on building something from nothing, and in some magical zone.

So, upon re-reading that, my options are to seem frustrated or sound like a space cadet hitting the bong. Not a lot ofoptions there.

Anyway, just wanted to jump in and say that my silence on these pages was not indicative of some larger “block.” Just the opposite.

Peace,

Jeff

Last week was… well, calling it unproductive isn’t quite fair, because I had kind of given up on productivity, so there was more goofing around and randomness. So, umm, last week is as unproductive as I had planned. There, that sounds better.

I kind of just decided that today would be the day where things got back on track. Tonight, I tackled the beast and took a way-to–academic approach to this chapter. I basically raked through what is currently chapter 4 and chapter 5, which will become the new chapter 4 in the near future. So, I wrote down all of the image systems, incidents, riffs, choruses, etc.

Once I had all of the building blocks sorted out, I then put each into categories by number. If something needs to be referred to in all four sections, it was coded 1-4, if stuff only appears in sections 2 and 3, it got coded 2-3, etc. Then I flowcharted all of the stuff on a one page piece of paper, and then made a pretty version in Word.

I think the mountain of text was just overwhelming and it shut me down, so I needed a way to make it all manageable. After i did this, I went and took the mountainout word document, and saved it with document names like “chapter4-1.doc” and then deleted the second through fourth sections of the chapter that was broken down in that manner.

After I had whittled these down, then I printed out the other chapter, and that is where we stand. Tomorrow, I will go through the “old chapter four” and chop it up using the flowchart and toss text into the various Word documents. After that, it is just playing with the words to make it into something cohesive.

I finally just have the sense that this chapter isn’t a mountain of text that needs to be tamed, because I have broken it down into manageable chunks. I was going to finish up the chapter four thing and just jump into the writing/reworking thing tomorrow, but I think I want to not force myself into jumping off the cliff tomorrow and jump right into words. So, a little management and monkeying around first, and then we can get to the good stuff. Saves me from dwelling on having to write all day, but since what i need to do is reading and parsing text, I will be in the mood by the time I need to.

So, I think I’m on the right path now.

Other new thing this week is a gym routine. Now, I’ve always had one, as I basically go six times a week, Sunday through Thursday. The issue has also been one of energy, as I was staying up later, going to the gym in the morning on less sleep, which made me tired of course for writing the novel in the evenings. But the post-gym buzz helped me at work, which of course is where I don’t care if my energy level is up.

I like working out in the morning, though, because it helps with weight loss, as you spike your metabolism early and that keeps it peaking longer throughout the day. But yet, a lot of my better writing days are when i go to the gym after work, which doesn’t play into my health, but helps the energy levels.

The solution is, of course, is that starting today, I go to the gym twice a day. All day yesterday, I knew i couldn’t write because I was tired out of my head, because I set my alarm for 7:30 a.m. on a Sunday, with the pure intention of just making sure that I would be tired by 9:30ish and in bed by 10. I dragged my tired self to bed at 9:55 p.m., and barely remember anything after that.

Monday morning, up at 6:15 a.m., and at the gym by 7:20 a.m. Did an hour of weight training, and 45 minutes of cardio (I decided to up my post weight training cardios to 45 from 30, too). In work shortly after 9, did all that nonsense until 5. Then another 45 minutes of cardio, and I was home by 6:30p.

So, I am giving myself an additional day off from the gym, only doing Mondays through Fridays, but I will do 10 45-minute cardio workouts a week, as well as three hours of weight training.

Hard to predict long-term results from day one, but I did feel really good when I got home to write. Energy was up, dove right in, etc.

We’ll see what happens.

As for now, I’m going to do some boring e-mails, web surfing, and unwind a bit, as I will be in bed in less than an hour.

So, that will be my new cardio-monk mode life for the time being.

Jeff

So, this evening, I fell asleep… watching the news. Which means that I didn’t write tonight, can’t sleep now when I should, will potentially mess up my gym time tomorrow morning, and can’t do it after work because I’m getting a haircut. This delicate ecosystem is driving me crazy.

That’s not to say that if I were awake, I would have made amazing progress. It’s not been a good week for that. In fact, I might be just as far ahead now if I had sat in front of the computer.

Actually, I just bought a book on Amazon, The Power of Full Engagement, which is basically how to manage your energy better and not your time. If time management were the key, I would be fine. I have that pretty well-nailed. But lately, the energy at work has changed, and I’m further from the “writing zone” when I arrive home. Getting there takes too long, and it’s just exhausting.

I am not giving the book the relentless focus is demands. If I wanted to write a half-ass book slapping cardboard characters into an interesting premise, I would be done by now. So, I guess my task is to find a pure place where I can give everyone the energy they deserve (work, the book, my gym routine, etc.) Thankfully, I have no social life, so I don’t have to factor that into the mix.

It’s nights like these when I am intrigued by all the people who tell me they want to write a novel. I dissected that sentence more, and now I understand the difference. I no longer want to write a novel. I have to write one. I actually think I have been doing good work lately, because a lot of decisions I’ve made all help the book in the long run. And every decision has meant scrapping work I have already done because I think the end result will be better. Whether cutting out 45 pages of unnecesary intro or merging two chapters into something more powerful, both require a lot of work on my part. There are a lot of good moments that die in the process, stuff that has no chance of being reborn in later drafts. So, removing the scaffolding that gets from from point A to point B, with enough insight to (eventually) see that it was scaffolding and remove it is good, just work.

But, I think it should be work. I like the work. It is a constant challenge between me and the words, the ones that don’t want to come out. The words have been winning lately, but don’t count me out yet. And this isn’t writer’s block. It’s more like passion block or zone block or something else. I know what I want to do, need to do, I just know that I am missing that last oomph that takes me from word jockey to craftsman, and word jockey won’t do right now. I’m not sure I ever want it to.

I have to keep telling myself that I don’t know what I’m doing. I mean, I’ve been paid professionally as a writer for more than a decade, and what I’m doing now is writing. But, I’ve been working out for quite some time, raising energy, building muscle, etc., but that doesn’t mean I could just use that same momentum and jump into a yoga class, which also raises energy and builds muscle. I have to learn how to do yoga first. And, on some level, I have to learn how to write a novel. And I am, but not at the pace at which i would like.

Honestly, if I don’t have anything substantial done by Friday, I will probably stay in all weekend and work on this chapter. I want it to be done next weekend, at a level at which I would gladly read it to anyone who asked and all of the words interlock magically with no gaffes.

I think that is one of the new things. My tolerance for “good enough” is dead. Basically, there is always emphasis in writing books, and classes, and such that if I wrote 5 good sentences today then they represent 5 more sentences of the book written, and five that are now behind me. But, i think when I look back on some of what I write, it is OK, and I see the point i was trying to make. But, it isn’t inspired, and I really need that to occur.

I want everything i write to be like stacking cans on the highest shelf of a pantry. I want to be standing on my toes, trying to make my finger stretch higher, and just barely able to get the can over the lip of the shelf. The can is either going to come crashing down on my head or slowly slide onto the shelf. And at that last moment, the can’s center of gravity shifts and it finds its place on the top shelf. That is how everything needs to be written. I need to be at the top of my game. I need to look back at what i write and wonder how it ever came from within me.

But, oftentimes, I see the lines. I see the fumbling transitions. The cute description. But it lacks the authority of a writer just grabbing the reader like a bored tour guide who know the tour so well at this point that they just jump rght into the spiel. I’m not in that world yet. Im still the tour guide with the note cards, using the canned jokes they gave us to use, because I haven’t done it enough to give it my own flavor.

To be fair, though, the current chapter is rather personal. And, more than most others, it is kind of representative of a lot of thigns I am still sorting out personally. Very broad strokes, big issues, ‘who am I as a person after this point in my life’ stuff. So, I also know that I’m not writing a detached narrative here. There is also a sense that I, personally, have made the choice that will negatively affect the protagonist. Not that it necessarily means I will be similarly affected, but I have to write his optimism and not my tenative pessimism, even though he will be pessimistic soon enough.

Is a blog a therapist that never tells you when the hour is up?

So, I guess moreso than progress on the book right now, I need to own the zone. I want to know what I need to do in my life, in my dreams, in my work, in my play, in my waking hours, whatever it takes, so that when I am home, I can make words flow onto the page and feel I am tapping into that thing that is larger than myself. How can I harness that energy and learn how to use it?

I see pieces of the novel where I am being inspired, and when I am simply being clever, and the clever stuff bores me. Clever doesn’t endure. I may as well write another horrible gay novel for the world if that’s all I want to do. Get a Bel Ami boy on the cover of some Castro story that is tired before it’s even finished.

If I want to be clever, I should just go do something temporal like stand-up comedy. That’s more in line with being clever. It’s like being a high school teacher who stays employed because he only has to stay one chapter ahead of the class.

So, clever needs to go. of course, the character can do clever things, say clever things, etc. It’s the places in-between, where I’m trying to be clever as a writer, or the recording angel passages get a bit too cute. (Recording angel is a minimalist term where information is presented within the writing without a point of view. Since minimalism uses first-person narratives, these chunks give you a little omniscient narrator wiggle room, but it’s challenging using them effectively).

So, I’m finally wearing myself out here, and refusing to shut off the alarm clock, so I will make an attempt to get up when Annie Lennox sings “Little Bird” at 6:20 a.m. and do a leg workout, but I may have to settle for another hour in bed, and only do cardio, which will be better than option three, of course.

So, after the hair appointment, we’ll see what happens. Hopefully some progress on the chapter. We shall see…

Jeff