Sharks, Octopuses and Spiders

All my life I’ve had an inexplicable fear of octopuses. I saw one only once in my life — a rather small specimen, hard to make out in the murky water in an aging aquarium. I was thinking about my terror of octopuses the other day because I read an article in the local paper about great white sharks in San Francisco Bay.

As various experts discussed the presence of great whites in the bay, it was noted that contrary to the image in Hollywood films, attacks by great whites are rare. Far more people die each year from dog bites or hitting deer with cars. Yet, people are afraid. The ocean is scary place — it’s dark, cold and full of unfamiliar creatures, like octopuses. (I thought it was octopi, but apparently octopuses is now preferred. Who issues these decrees?)

I don’t know if my terror stems from the smothering aspect of eight arms or something more fundamental. Perhaps I can somehow see myself reflected in four-legged creatures, in mammals, but this thing with eight gooey arms and a big blob of a body and barely recognizable facial features makes me shiver even as I type these words. I feel the same way about spiders of any significant size.

As octopuses floated around my brain, I opened up the latest issue of The New Yorker and was assaulted with this: an article about a food reviewer — Jonathan Gold. The accompanying sketch of an octopus with a tentacle in the soup was bad enough, but then I read a terrifying description of a meal capped with san nak ji (live octopus). “…the proprietor produced the main event, a plate of slippery gray tentacles, wiggling anxiously. ‘It’ll try to climb up the chopstick,’ Gold said, dousing a tentacle in sesame oil to loosen the grip of its suckers.”

That ought to kick start any diet plan.

In researching octopuses (very briefly because the images creep me out), I learned they aren’t eight-legged or eight-armed, they have six arms and two legs. Whatever. I won’t be worrying about sharks when I stick my toes in the pacific ocean this weekend, and the octopuses are too deep in the ocean to be of concern.

The point is, I’m not posting any cocktail fiction today because I’m caught in the tentacles of my submission to a flash fiction contest, NaNoWriMo, and editing my nearly completed novel.

Bon Appetit & Sweet Dreams.

Peer Pressure

Part of the benefit of NaNoWriMo is the peer pressure. We show up at our day jobs every day, in part, because of peer pressure, paycheck pressure. With fiction writing, until we have a publisher, the deadlines have to be self-imposed. And I’ve seen many slip past as I “re do” my timeline, readjust my plans.

So in addition to the virtual peer pressure of NaNoWriMo — I’m at 5,651 words as of yesterday, about 650 words “ahead of schedule” — I’m using today’s post to create some additional peer pressure.

I’m targeting November 11 (2009!) as the completion date for the final re-write of my WIP. That means all research nits will be completed. All that will remain is the final read-through (out loud) to polish it to the brightest shine I can manage.

By posting the date, I’m telling myself that nothing will de-rail me. I want this novel done this year. I’m ready for something new and ready to run the agent-seeking gauntlet for my psychological suspense novel, set in Silicon Valley.

Deadline Junkie

It seems I’m a deadline junkie. Just when I think I’ve set a manageable goal of finishing the final edit on my novel by mid-November, I decide, well, that’s not quite enough.

For some reason, Linda’s thoughts on NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), in which 100,000 crazed individuals around the globe write a novel in thirty days, elicited some perverse reaction. Linda mentioned the compulsion to stop and edit. It might have been that line that pushed me to action.

I’ve been editing for a very long time now. In the editing process, I’ve found lots of opportunity for fresh creativity, but let’s face it, I’ve been with these characters and this story for a long time. (There was that one holiday where I went off to write a novel in a year, so why not a novel in a month?)

On a whim, I registered, looked through a list I keep of stories I want to pursue in future novels, picked one and immediately two characters popped up. So I’m off and running. 1,667 words a day to reach the goal of 50k words in a month. I’m at 3506 as of today, so slightly ahead, and I’ll try to build a back-log this week just in case, you know, LIFE, intervenes this month.

Although I never thought I’d consider NaNoWriMo, I like the concept — force yourself to write so fast that you don’t have time to stop and critique yourself, thus shutting off the inner critic and allowing the creative side, the right brain, the muse — whatever you want to call it — a chance to speak unhindered. Well, almost.

For some reason, tight deadlines get my adrenaline flowing. And already I’m having fun watching what flows out onto the screen. Of course, it’s psychological suspense, and of course, I’m ahead of schedule on the final edits for my WIP, so that project will get done. Wish me luck.

Painful Flight

It’s almost the cocktail hour on the west coast of the US, and it’s Friday, so here’s a new piece of flash fiction at Flash Fiction for the Cocktail Hour – Painful Flight.

Expanded Definitions

“Good”. “Talent”. These words were up for discussion at Nathan Bransford’s blog today.

Nathan gets reams of comments on every post, and I told myself in no uncertain terms — stop reading the comments! You don’t have time. You’re supposed to be WRITING A NOVEL. But what a lovely avoidance technique, just a comment or two. It’s like eating those evil Halloween treats — candy corn — just one, just one more, just two, soon I have an upset stomach, or in the case of blog comments, soon I’ve run out of time to write.

Today, reading all the comments was time well-spent. It was interesting to notice various definitions of “good” and “talent”, but those definitions aside, here are two excerpts that made my day, my week, possibly my year:

One commenter quoted Faulkner responding to a question on the elusive concept of “talent”. I only captured the bit that struck me: The most important thing is insight, that is to be–curiosity–to wonder, to mull, and to muse why it is that man does what he does, and if you have that, then I don’t think the talent makes much difference, whether you’ve got it or not. Isn’t that what drives us all to write? Isn’t that where stories bubble up and get their death grip on us, from that wondering: why?

The second comment that thrilled me is from Lydia Sharp of The Sharp Angle: I feel every writer has an audience out there somewhere, they just have to find it.

Doesn’t that keep you going? It does me.

Mystery Writers of America

Recently I was accepted into Mystery Writers of America. The only challenge is that I don’t write mysteries. OK, their website says they cover writers in the “crime/mystery/suspense” fields, which is what motivated me to join.

This weekend I went to a monthly meeting for my local chapter. It was a great experience — a room full of writers with books, not a book, but several books, a whole string of books, out in readers’ hot little hands. I listened to advice, watched them promote their work, and heard a speaker talk about working with chain bookstores on book promotion. This topic was hugely premature for un-agented me, but I’m in learning-about-the-industry mode, so I tucked her pointers away in my notebook.

I learned two things related to my WIFE (that’s Work In Final Edit):

1. My verbal pitch needs a LOT of work. I thought I’d given it some thought, but found myself saying – it’s the story of 3 suburban women and one of them “goes over the edge” when an unconventional stranger enters her life. Not exactly a hook. I have a hook, but it was interesting to see that when put on the spot, my  mind reverted immediately into the challenges that are uppermost in my thoughts.

2. When I say “psychological suspense”, most people hear “thriller”. After yet another genre melt-down yesterday, I’ve decided not to worry about it. I can’t waste any more time on this angst. There’s too much work to be done. When my novel is published, they’ll understand.

I was advised to join Sisters In Crime, advised to attend Left Coast Crime and invited to a critique group. I have a love-hate relationship with the social side of writing. Spending time with other writers is a thrill. When I was in a critique group, it was one of the highlights of my week. But I’m a writer! I enjoy writing, I love writing, writing takes a tremendous amount of time. I have the obligatory “day job”. I want to hang out with all these kindred spirits, I know I’d benefit from going back to a critique group, but where to find the time?

How do you manage the delicate balance of Life, Writing & Writerly Friends & Associations?

Favorite Writer

If I had to answer quickly, I’d say Joyce Carol Oates is my favorite writer. There are others I love equally, but she tops my lists for number of books read — I’ve devoured more than thirty of her novels and countless short stories.

A few nights ago I had a chance to hear her interviewed. In person. It was a surreal experience. I read a 500-odd page collection of her journals as well as all those novels, so after hearing her voice for so many years, seeing her mannerisms, listening to her speak was unnerving. Because she has such an immense depth in literature, I wasn’t prepared for her sense of humor and her very down-to-earth demeanor (although now that I write this, I have no idea why). She was charming, unassuming and, at 71, full of energy.

She was gracious when asked about “stars” in her fiction workshops. She said, yes, there are always one or two that shine, but she thinks all her students’ writing has value and people have varying kinds of talent.

Who are your favorite writers?

Rain

TGIF — it’s Friday, almost cocktail time in the US pacific time zone. This week’s piece is micro rather than flash fiction: Rain.

Melodramatic Crap

Monday morning I re-read chapter 17 of my WIP and dissolved into a puddle of despair — eight pages of melodramatic crap.

But I’m on draft 7!!! This was supposed to be the last “draft” before the final polish. I was in a funk all day. Tuesday I wasted my writing time surfing. Somewhere in the middle of the day I decided: time for a step back. I’ll kill more trees and re-read the first 100 pages without a pen — chapters 1-16. Maybe chapter 17 needs to go.

That night, I lamented the lack of suspense in my psychological suspense novel. I frothed at the mouth over my lack of progress, I whined and complained and moaned. It was pointed out that perhaps I’m too close to adequately judge the suspense. So along with my 100 page re-read, I made a list of the psychologically troubling elements in each chapter.

Relief. Joy. Happiness. There’s quite a lot of suspense and the first 100 pages are in decent shape. Yes, they need another minor edit before that miraculous final polish, but it’s definitely in very good shape. The bonus point is that suddenly the problem creating melodrama in chapter 17 became clear — out-of-character behavior. The fix was relatively simple.

On to chapter 18.

Tut

I didn’t go to see the King Tut exhibit because of the theory that won’t die — speculation that he was murdered. If he had been murdered, it would have made it more thrilling for me, fantasizing about a trip into the psyche of an ancient person and what drove her (or him) to murder.

I went because I’m in love with all things Egyptian. From the personalized file icons on my Mac (eye of Horus and Nefertiti) to a quilt my mother made for me, my life is littered with all things Egyptian. I’ve been fascinated, some would say obsessed, with Egypt most of my life. Mara, Daughter of the Nile, sparked my fascination when I read it as a child. I loved that book and read it several times. I re-read it as an adult.

For years, I longed to visit Egypt. A few years ago I read that thousands of people visit the pyramids daily. That dampened my enthusiasm considerably. Although, while researching that point for this post, I saw one site that noted only 300 people a day are allowed access to the pyramids. Maybe my desire to visit will see a re-birth. The thing is, I don’t really want to go to Egypt now, I want to go 3,000 years ago.

So when Tut came, I had to go. There were several interesting objects I’d never seen, a scepter and some exquisite medallions that made me marvel at the skill of ancient people — we haven’t come quite as far as we think we have.

In the end, I found myself a little disappointed. There wasn’t as much as I’d expected, and there wasn’t the sense I’d hoped for of disappearing into the past of my imagination. I live not far from an Egyptian Museum run by the Rosicrucians. More times than I can count, I’ve wandered through the replica of a tomb, studied the mummies and slipped myself into dioramas of Egyptian life. It has less gold, but for indulging my fantasy, the Egyptian Museum is far superior to the Tut exhibit.

I don’t write historical fiction, but sometimes I wonder … psychological suspense in Ancient Egypt. It feels like a match made in heaven.