Prologues, or, The Hate That Would Not Die

So out there in the Twitterland, the unending debate — To Prologue or Not To Prologue? — has arisen like a glampire in all its insouciant glory. Turns out I have an opinion on this matter. Like everything else is fiction, there is no final right answer, but you can be sure that there are people out there who not only believe there is a right answer — theirs — but that if you disagree with them, you are an [expletive], [expletive] double-dumbass. In my experience, the debate is always one with much light and smoke, but in the manner of all intertube flame wars, little genuine heat.

My own feeling is a book begins on page one and ends at the end, and if the first word on page one is "Prologue," then that's what it is. Yet many readers proclaim they will not read a prologue. They will either jump right to chapter one, or skip the book altogether. A common argument is the prologue too often serves as a lazy writer's means of setting up the story when what they should be doing is getting into the action and artfully building the set up info into the thread of narrative.

In one sense, I don't disagree with that. You don't want anything in your finished work to be seen as superfluous or added-on. But that doesn't mean a prologue is inherently bad. It just means the prologue should be as critical to the story as every other chapter.

Structurally, prologues at their best seem to do exactly what some complain of: set up the foundation of the story. It's often presented around a scene, a POV, or a voice that isn't continued in the main body of the story (though not always). In crime fiction, it might show an inciting incident the POV of the victim, the perpetrator, or some omniscient viewpoint. It's likely to provide an essential piece of backstory. And, as with anything else, it can be done well or done poorly.

In my own writing life, I had a semi-interesting prologue experience. Lost Dog has a prologue, but as it happens, it's not really a prologue. It's Chapter One with the word Prologue at the top of the page, all because of the way I wrote the book. Originally, what is now Chapter One was the beginning of the story, the first thing I wrote. Then I wrote the last chapter. From there, I went worked my way forward from chapter one to chapter done.

At some point, I added a denouement called the "Epilogue." And after I did that, I decided to write a scene in a completely different POV which took place well before the action of the novel. I reasoned it would explain an event later in the story. Since it was in a different voice and POV, I called it the "Prologue" and stuck it before Chapter One.

As I worked through revisions, I decided I wanted to to introduce my antagonist before I introduced my protagonist. I also concluded my prologue wasn't necessary — the later event didn't need the help and POV difference didn't fit. So my new antagonist scene became the prologue, even though because of the way the novel is structured with alternating POVs, it probably should have just been chapter one. But (and here you get a little insight into my process!) if I made it chapter one, I would have to go through and increment all the other chapter numbers. If I just made it the prologue, I wouldn't have to mess with chapter numbering. Weird decision when you consider writing a novel takes months or even years, and changing the chapter numbering would have taken, oh, say, ten minutes. But there you are.

When the book was in editorial, I discovered this vehement opposition to the concept of prologues. Considering the mighty power of the internet hissy fit, I decided, hell, who needs the grief? I emailed my editor and said, "Can we just call them all chapters, and get rid of the words prologue and epilogue?" And he made an editorial decision, carefully reasoned as to the effect of this change on how the book would be read: "Eh, let's leave it. I don't want to have to ask the layout person to go through and change all the chapter headings at this point."

Well.

Ultimately, you should make every chapter matter. Whether the first one is called "Prologue" or "Chapter One" is less important than that it be a crucial element to the story.
 
 

Causing trouble around the internets

I have stirred from my lair and gone a visitin'. Come and see me over at the lovely Kaye Barley's home, Meanderings and Musings, wherein I dig down into my dark underbelly and discover, well, I'll leave it to Kaye's fine hostessing to drawing me out. Come and visit!
 
 

Wrapping Up '08

I don't post often, but it seems like the day to do a little catch-up. And what better way than to share a few highlights and lowlights, as well as a few hopes for next year. I'm going to start with the lowlights, and then finish with the good stuff. Years ago, in my first writing workshop in college, I learned the rule that if you're going to criticize, end on the positive as it helps temper the negative. But before I get to specific lows and highs, I want to talk about the one thing that is a little of both.

Chasing Smoke
Now, you might think the publication of my second novel is a highlight, and you'd be right. But it's not all rainbows and unicorns. I'm not sure how other writers feel about their work, but my relationship to my writing is probably too emotional, too tied up in existential angst. I am not a fast writer, and as the process drags out, my feelings about my work bounce all over the place. I know I'm not alone in the feeling that work-in-progress is terrible, unreadable, embarrassing. Many (if not all) writers share that feeling at some point in the process. I take it to the next level, where the work-in-progress gets bound up in my sense of who I am. This probably not a good thing, but there it is.

The writing of Chasing Smoke was different from my previous work, too, in that it came after my first book contract. My agent wanted it as quickly as possible, because she very sensibly wants to maintain forward momentum, without too big a delay between books. Of course, the assumption there was that I could write a second book, something I wasn't at all sure of during the writing of Chasing Smoke. As it was, however, I was able to do something I have never done before: keep track of how much time it took to write the book.

And here you go. Chasing Smoke took me twenty months to write from start to final submission draft that Alison and Ben at Bleak House took it on. But I can get more specific than that. Time in front of the keyboard came out somewhere between 1,450-1,500 hours. Of course it was even more than that, since I can't count how much time I spend in ruminations or making notes on scraps of paper and the backs of envelopes.

In one sense, that is too long, arguably way too long. It just happens to be how long it took me. I know plenty of writers work much faster, and produce cleaner, more engaging work. For myself, Chasing Smoke serves as the best work I've ever done. Some people will say that for all the time it took, it should have been better. I wish it was better, but it's done, it's in print, and so be it.

And yet, in a way, I wish I was still working on it. As satisfying as seeing my work in print is, there is something anti-climactic about it as well. While the writing is in progress, its potential outstrips its actuality. In draft, it can still be anything. In draft, I still have a chance to create something truly special. Once it is frozen in print, it is what it is, and all the nits and issues that remain stand out in sharp relief against the fading gleam of lost potential.

But I can't wallow in past work. If I'm going to make a go of this whole writing career thing, I have to keep moving forward, slow as that may be. I'm currently at work on my third novel, tentatively titled Blood Trail, and have reached about 80,000 words of the first draft. The completion date continues to be unknown, but I have to be honest and admit that I haven't come close to any date yet. First it was going to be last June. Then September. Then today. Now it might be next month, next summer, or even 2010. The book is, frankly, a mess right now, and I don't have any sense of when I will sort it all out. But, itis at that point where it is all bright potential, and that's what keeps me moving forward. There are moments which are among the best writing I've ever done. There are other moments which are so awful I can't see how they can be salvaged. But the potential, the fluid, shifting, just-beyond-my-reach potential remains.

Now on to 2008...

Lowlights
The economic world imploded. Every industry got hit, and publishing won't soon forget its own Black Wednesday. In my day job field, graphic design and its bastard child web development, the opportunities shrank as in every other field (except, perhaps, the field of bankruptcy law). Personally, it's hard to know exactly how hard I will be hit, both in the day job and in publishing my work. At least I know that whatever happens, I won't be alone.

Sales of Lost Dog have been very disappointing. The nature of the royalty report being what it is, it's very difficult to tell what's really going on, but when I got the last report and noodled the numbers, it looks like the book has sold under 1,000 copies. Ouch. My hope is I'm misinterpreting something and it's not that bad, but any way you look at it, it ain't great.

Chasing Smoke was released. Yes, this is a lowlight, as intimated above, but also see below, in Highlights.

Chasing Smoke takes it in the 'nads in Publishers Weekly. A bad review is part of the deal when you have a book out in the wild, and Lost Dog got its share. But the Publishers Weekly review really hurt, not the least because when you go to the various online book seller sites, it's the review that gets displayed. No need to rehash the details, but the PW reviewer hated Chasing Smoke with the fire of a thousand suns. And now anyone considering buying it online (go to your favorite local indie bookseller instead) will see, first thing, a review that can be summarized thus: "Chasing Smoke sucks the windy boner and Bill Cameron should be immediately killed for writing it." Oy vey.

Portland Wordstock Festival. Okay, for the record, Wordstock is far more a highlight than a lowlight, and I get into that in detail below. But there was one big disappointment, which was that the book booth didn't carry my books. Now, that happens, but the attitude of those working at the booth was particularly galling, expressing no interest in working with me to get books and offering the perfunctory apology of someone who doesn't feel sorry at all. Because of that I was left with such a bad taste in my mouth about the event that I probably won't do it again.

Highlights
I got to become friends with Alison Jannsen and Ben LeRoy of Bleak House. Win.

Chasing Smoke was released. Natch.

Starred review in Library Journal, and doubleplusgood review in Book List. As much as the PW review hurt, the reviews in Library Journal and Book List filled me with glee. The starred review in LJ was particularly wonderful, and one of the great side effects of that seems to be really nice library sales. Last time I checked Worldcat.org, the library count for Chasing Smoke was up to almost 200, as compared to only 50 or so for Lost Dog. That's moving in the right direction.

Got right with Sandra.

Lost Dog was a finalist for two different awards, the Rocky at Left Coast Crime 2008 and the 2008 Spotted Owl. Sweet.

Chasing Smoke inspired a number of sales of Lost Dog. Double sweet. (Of note was the library count in Worldcat.org for Lost Dog, which was stalled at 50 for about a year, but then started to rise again after the release of Chasing Smoke.)

"Slice of Pie," my contribution to the Killer Year anthology, is described as "an irony-filled gem" in the Chicago Tribune. My first mention in a major newspaper.

My story, "Coffee, Black," is accepted for Portland Noir, one of the Akashic Noir series anthologies. It's a story about Skin Kadash. The anthology will be out in June 2009.

My story, "Counterflow," took second place in the Press 53 2008 short short fiction contest, and was subsequently read by Alan Vogel on Lit 103.3: Fiction For the Ears.

Hanging out at Book Expo America with all kinds of fun people and good friends, not the least of whom are Brett Battles, Rob Browne, agent extraordinaire Janet Reid, the aforementioned Ben and Alison, and so many others.

Traveling the countryside with friends for my book tour, including Eric Stone, marvelous writer and great road companion, and Kelli Stanley and Tana Hall, wonderful hosts. Wonderful friends too, all of them.

Powell's at Cedar Hills Crossing. In Portland, Powell's is an institution, and its reach is far beyond the city. The main store downtown is so large you can spend a week inside and not see all the books. It also features nice satellite stores throughout greater Portland. My favorite by far is the store in Beaverton, where I have had the great good fortune to be hosted by Renee James and Ananda Yorty for not only a signing event for Chasing Smoke, but also at two marvelous group events called "Murder With Friends." Powell's is a destination for any book lover, but for my money, mystery and thriller readers need to go to Beaverton.

Wordstock Festival. I told you I'd get back to this one. And my experience in the book booth notwithstanding, this is a great event for readers. I had the marvelous opportunity to sit on a panel with Phillip Margolin and Robert Clark, as well as to do a reading and Q&A alongside Ed Goldberg. The best part was the chance to lead a workshop on character-driven mystery. My hope is the workshop attendees had as much fun as I did, and more importantly, that I was able to offer something of value to them.

My friends at various independent bookstores, both in Portland and around the country. I know I will forget some, but the list certainly must start with the fine folks at Portland's Murder by the Book. Jean, Barb, Carolyn, and Nick are my heroes. But that's not all. Kindness and support has been heaped on me by L.A.'s The Mystery Bookstore, M is for Mystery in San Mateo, Seattle Mystery Bookshop, Once Upon a Crime in Minneapolis, Mystery Mike's, Tea Party Bookshop in Salem, Oregon, Steve Lee at Heirloom Bookshop, and probably many, many more that I am neglecting.

Next Year
If you've gotten this far, thank you. This post does natter on, doesn't it? Almost done!

It's hard to know what to expect for 2009. Blood Trail has a long way to go, and so an uncertain future. We're all wondering which part of the economy will collapse next, and which of us will go with it. I can't decide whether to be hopeful or to quake in terror. Probably a little of both. Either way, I know I will keep chipping away at the novel, keep chatting with my friends on Twitter, keep gabbing in IMs with my pals from around the world, and hopefully, keep a little day job income flowing. Hell, I might even blog every now and then.

Whatever happens, I hope 2009 offers us all more than our fair share of bright spots.
 
 

Paper Fort

Literary Arts of Oregon recently started a news blog about Oregon Writers called Paper Fort. Edited by Susan Denning, Director of Programs & Events for Oregon Literary Arts, the blog so far has featured some marvelous author profiles, as well as news about Oregon writers and writing events.

Oregon has a rich writing community, and this looks to be a great resources to get to know some marvelous writers.
 
 

Forgotten Friday: The Mystery of the Witches Bridge

If it wasn't for standardized testing, I might have missed The Mystery of the Witches Bridge by Barbee Oliver Carleton. It was November 1972 and us fourth graders at Nathanael Greene Elementary, Pawtucket, found ourselves subjected to a week of endless Scantron sheets and NO TALKING. There was one small bit of good news, however. We were told that once we completed each test segment, we would be allowed to read quietly at our desks until time for the next test. We should plan on six to eight segments a day for most of the week.

Up to that point, my reading had been almost exclusively what was required for school. I wasn't opposed to reading — it just hadn't made it onto my radar screen yet. So I dutifully went to the library and poked around to look for something not too boring. I chose The Mystery of the Witches Bridge pretty much at random. Mystery of Something sounded maybe cool. I guess. A witch might be neat, and the cover was creepy.

The first test had a thirty-minute time limit, and I finished in about half the time. After turning in my Scantron, I pulled out the book and started reading. Not long after, when the second test started, I found myself rushing to get done so I could get back to the story. Later that first day I realized the best way to maximize my reading time was to simply ignore the questions and fill in the Scantron ovals at random. I could complete a forty-five minute test in under five and get back to reading.

My teachers were amazed. Them: "You're so fast! How do you do it?"

Me: (ignoring them, reading)

I can't say as I was a shining example of the dutiful student, but I discovered something truly wonderful: not just the first chapter book I read for pleasure, but a book that would stick with me throughout my life and which remains one of my all time favorites. It's a book that ultimately contributed to my desire to be a writer myself, and certainly influenced that kind of fiction that I seek to this day.

The Mystery of the Witches Bridge is the dark, yet stirring story of a young man caught up in a mystery stretching across three hundred years of his family's history. Set in coastal New England, the plot centers around the boy Dan Pride who has come to live with his reclusive uncle at the ancient family home, Pride's Point, after the death of his parents. The old house sits on an island in the midst of a fertile salt marsh and can be reached only by a long causeway, or over an old road that leads across the eponymous Witches Bridge.

Dan struggles with his grief and feelings of isolation, but he hopes he will find a new home with his uncle, Julian Pride. His hopes are quickly dashed. The old house is grim and forbidding, and his Uncle Julian aloof, haunted by bitter memories. He warns Dan to keep his place, to do as he's told, and specifically to avoid the Bishops, a rival family Uncle Julian blames for the mysterious death of his own father—Dan's grandfather—years before. Furthermore, the Prides are ostracized by the locals, who believe the ghost of Samuel Pride, founder of Pride's Point, haunts the salt marsh and lures the unwary to their deaths whenever a fog rises. Old Samuel was falsely accused of witchcraft back in the early years of the Massachusetts colony, but his example retains power even in the present, as he kept Pride's Point for his descendants only by standing mute in the face of prosecution and ultimately execution.

As Dan attempts to settle in to his new life, he discovers a few bright moments in the drear, including a friendship with a pair of siblings who live across the marsh. But he's unable to get out from beneath the shadow of his family's haunted past. The feud with the Bishops hovers like a spectre over him and his new friends. The Bishops were source of the original accusation against old Samuel Pride, and were subsequently connected, at least circumstantially, to the events surrounding the death of Dan's grandfather. Ultimately, Dan must solve not only the mystery of his grandfather's death but come to understand the choices of his long dead ancestor, the old witch himself, in order to save himself from the false accusations he faces, like his forebear, and make a place for himself at Pride's Point.

It's been over 35 years since I first read this marvelous book. I consider it to be brilliant, young adult noir—great characters, taut plot, sleep-interrupting suspense, and unexpected redemption yet with an enticing note of ambivalence and ambiguity. Today, I re-read my tattered, disintegrating copy every year or so. Several times I've had to order fresh copies, always used. The book is out-of-print, I'm sad to say, but fortunately enough copies are extant that I've always managed to land a copy that's more or less intact. Recently, the best source has been Amazon Marketplace, where the average price is 89¢, or nine dollars with shipping and handling. More than worth it.
 
 

It's the little things

As some may have noticed, I often wear a tan vest. It's an outdoorsy thing with lots of pockets and zipper and snaps, and typically gets me asked if I'm fisherman or a hunter. Alas, no, I explain -- I just like all the pockets, and wouldn't know a fishing pole from a thirty-aught-six if you goosed me with one. Or the other.

Continues at InkSpot...
 

The Obligatory Post About the New Year...

...or, My Work Here Is Done

The time has come to put this blog to bed. It's been a long time since I feel I had much to say, and with the New Year upon upon us, I've decided this is a good time to transition my blog into somnolence. Certainly I reserve the right to wake it back up again, but at this point I expect that to happen only if my writing career wakes up again as well.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, Lost Dog's publisher passed on the follow-up, and as of this writing so has everyone else. There are no prospects for that to change. What that means is difficult for me to assess. However, there are a few facts in evidence which indicate why things are going as they are. Lost Dog did not sell well. It didn't review all that well either, though there were one or two bright spots out there. Beyond that, Chasing Smoke, while a much better book if you ask me, isn't more of the same -- something the publishing world seems to crave. And, one thing I think I have to acknowledge is that, despite my own feelings about it, Chasing Smoke may simply not be very good. I'm not ready to admit that, but the thought does hover somewhere back over my shoulder.

My plans for the time being are to shift focus. During the last month or so, I've been working on a short story or two, and I have a couple more in the queue. I've never been much of a short story writer, but I'm discovering a new pleasure in the short form. I'm even submitting some stories I've recently finished.

I don't expect to be working on a new novel any time soon. That doesn't mean I'll never write another novel -- in fact, I'm sure I'll return to the long form sooner or later -- but my mind has been inside the world of Skin Kadash, Ruby Jane, and the others some of you may have met in Lost Dog for a long time. With no commercial viability for that world, I feel like my next novel needs to be very different. I've already set aside the third novel in the Lost Dog/Chasing Smoke milieu. My thought is that perhaps a focus on short stories will clear my palate, as it were. What will come next in the long fiction department, I have no idea, which I think is probably a good thing.

The other thing I need to do is get back to work. Real work. Paying work. For the last couple of years, I've let my day job take second place to writing. In the months before Lost Dog came out, I put an inordinate amount of energy into writing Chasing Smoke. I also put a lot of time into marketing, which included everything from travel to designing print items and to creating web sites for myself and the Killer Year. I cut short work hours to both write and to visit bookstores, and spent a lot of time and money traveling to conferences. And the simple fact is, all that set me back in a serious way. My income is way down over the last two years, my expenses way up, and I need to to something about it.

What that really means is that writing is moving back into the hobby column in my life. Work and other responsibilities are going to come first for the foreseeable future. I'm well aware of the timeworn adage that a successful writing career is built on determination, and I don't doubt it. For now, however, the focus of my determination needs to shift to keeping a roof over my head. That doesn't mean no writing, but it does mean much less writing. If Chasing Smoke had found a home and my career had a chance to build some momentum, I might feel differently. But, honestly, I have bills to pay.

I can't say this year hasn't been very disappointing. It opened with such hope: a book soon to be on bookstore shelves, a new, better novel waiting in the wings. As the year ends, my main feeling is one of relief that it's finally over at last. Still, there were bright spots, and I want to end this by acknowledging them.

To the members of the Killer Year, I want to say thank you for including me. This group features some amazing writers and some truly fine people. It was both humbling and uplifting to be a part of this endeavor. I encourage everyone to pick up the Killer Year anthology, and not because of my own contribution, but because of the others.

And to everyone who read Lost Dog, I offer thanks as well. I've deeply appreciated the messages I've received and greatly enjoyed chatting with folks. If the lights are going off here, my email address remains alive and well. I encourage anyone to drop me a line and say hello. It's been a pleasure to meet you all.

And finally, to those I had the opportunity to meet in person, whether at bookstores or at conferences, it was a joy. Whatever happens with my writing, at least I got to meet some wonderful people and make new friends. That I will always cherish.

Old News, New Beginnings

Last year this time, one of the big things that was on my mind was the forthcoming publication in Spinetingler of my story, "A Tall House." It was the first short story I'd finished in a very long time, and I remain very proud of it. Of course it was exciting that it won the Spinetingler Cozy Noir contest, but for me it was even more exciting that I finished it at all. You see, I started writing "A Tall House" during the winter of 1981-82. Twenty-five years this story took me.

I have Sandra Ruttan to thank for inspiring me to finish the story, though at the time she probably thought she was just encouraging me to write a little something for the contest. She didn't know that this story had been simmering in the back of my mind for decades, incomplete, rudderless. At various time I thought I'd finished it, but it was never quite right. The problem was that I didn't know what kind of story it was. Over the years it went through all sorts of permutations, from Eudora Weltyish or Faulkneresque to something that might have sprung from the mind of Harlan Ellison. The critical point was that I hadn't figured out how to make it my story, and so I was trying to make it someone else's story. And so it became no one's story.

"A Tall House" was born from a dream. The only problem is it wasn't my dream. One morning at breakfast, my freshman year in college, I was talking to some friends and one fellow described his dream from the night before. Joe Miller was his name. Great buy who I've lost track of over the years. Anyway, in the dream, he was in this house with many floors above, a very tall house, and his mother lived in a tower room at the top. In the dream, Joe's mother was an imperious authority figure who wouldn't let him come upstairs.

For some reason, the dream resonated with me and I asked him if he minded if I wrote a story based on it. He thought the idea was pretty funny, someone else writing about his dream, and said he was all for it.

So the writing began. I actually completed the first draft of the story the following spring, but at the time it was a sprawling sci-fi mini-epic that made absolutely no sense. The character of Else wasn't even in it, and the mother was -- yes, I admit it -- half-machine. It also weighed in at 12,000 words, either too long or too short, depending on how you look at such things. And so I sat on it.

The following year in a creative writing class, I went back to the idea. It still intrigued me, this imperious mother figure in a tower, and I knew I hadn't gotten a handle on the story. I rewrote it from scratch, de-aging the boy and adding the housekeeper as a benign guardian figure, sort of Gandalf in drag. The science-fiction elements drifted into the fantastical, the story got a little shorter, and in the end, it still made absolutely no sense. Of course the other students in my creative writing class loved it because after all, this was the early 80s, the era of fiction that makes no sense whatsoever.

Still, I knew something wasn't right. "A Tall House" went back into the file drawer.

Over the next few years, I dragged it out again and again, tinkered, diddled, fiddled and flopped. It went no where, though it did settle down a bit. Became more personal, more character-focused, and darker. But it still wasn't really a story. No focus, no point. Just sense impressions and introspection.

Years pass. At various points the story swells and shrinks. It never quite returned to the 12,000 words of that long ago first draft, but there were versions that were as long as ten grand, as short as two. And at one point, I lost them all. It was during a move, a box full of manuscripts vanished while being shipped across country and "A Tall House" vanished with it. Some might have taken that as a sign.

And maybe it was. Maybe the sign was, "forget all that crazy old stuff and start from scratch." You have a house, you have a boy and his mother. Why are they there? Why is she upstairs and him down below?

New drafts ensued. The story had finally settled into the here and now. No more robots or wizards. A boy, his mother, and a housekeeper in a strange house. But where was it going?

The Cozy Noir Contest provided me with focus. Suddenly I looked at what I had and thought about it in the context of its noir elements juxtaposed against the frumpy every day life of a family. An odd family, with dark secrets. Doilies and blunt objects. Domestic violence and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Sandra had given me what I needed to finish the story at last. I reset my thinking, and dove in. After more than twenty years it finally came together.

When I sent it off, I expected nothing. Whether it did well in the Cozy Noir Contest wasn't important. I'd finished it. I was happy with it. That was enough.

All that said, winning was pretty damn nice too.

Gonna get slower

I've hardly been a blogging fool the last few months, but I've decided to take a more formal break from the blog. Work has gotten very busy, leaving me with little enough time for any kind of writing at all, so I'm giving myself permission to not blog at all.

I suppose I could change my mind a week from now, but my sense is it will be a while before I have the breathing space to pontificate and bloviate on Blogger again. I will still stick my nose in other blogs to see what's what with folks, but if it's silent here let's hope it's because I'm writing a novel and not watching television.

On the plus side...

I am blogging today over at InkSpot about the unexpected fruits of having my car looted. If all goes well, I hope to milk this pathetic little trauma of mine for eons!

Heh heh heh.

Dead Hookers

Brett Battles and Rob Browne have teamed up to present Battles and Browne Talk Writing. Every coupla weeks they will post podcasts about writing and the writing world. Each podcast focuses on a different theme, and includes answers to reader questions, advice, and tips and tricks.

The latest podcast features lil' ole me talking with Rob and Brett about writing process, character, theme and Lost Dog. You can listen to here, or subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, RSS, m3u or xspf by clicking here.

(Once you listen, you'll understand the title of this post...)

Deep Time

Were you to ask me to name my desert island book, I'd be a pain in the ass and demand two, one fiction and one non-fiction. My fiction choice is One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. It's not necessarily my favorite book, which of course changes every five minutes (my list of my top ten favorite novels of all time has a couple hundred entries on it). But One Hundred Years of Solitude is, to me, the most lush, the most abundant of my many favorite books. I can read it a hundred times and find something new with each reading, or understand some aspect of the story in a new way. A gorgeous novel, alternately heartbreaking and inspirational, it possesses an abiding sense of time and history, and of our relationship as human beings to both.

But if you insist on just one book, that's it, no categorical weaseling, no one-of-each nonsense, well then I'm going to shift to non-fiction and choose Basin and Range by John McPhee. Basin and Range is the first in a series of four books in which McPhee tells of the development of the theory of plate tectonics.* But it's not just a science book. McPhee tracks his way across the United States roughly along the path of Interstate 80 in the company of a number of geologists, and along the way he tells not only the story of the rock beneath his feet but of the men and women with him who know the terrain—and terranes—like they know their own skins.

And if I got really stuck and you insisted I could only take one chapter out of one book on my desert island sojourn, I'd pick the chapter in Basin and Range in which McPhee describes the evolution of the geological time scale. McPhee doesn't title or number the chapters, so look for the one which starts "The Old Red Sandstone was put down by rivers flowing southward to a sea where marine strata were accumulating in the region that is now called Devon." No matter your interest or disinterest in geology, I urge you to take twenty minutes in the library one day to read that one chapter.

The story McPhee tells is as much poetry as science. Periods during prehistory named for Welsh tribes, geographic regions, philosophical conceits. Scientists bickering over the relationship between this or that fifty or hundred million years. Eons delineated by the appearance and disappearance of a particular type of mollusk or arthropod, by the flow of primordial rivers inferred in exposed sediments. When the science of geology came of age during the 1800s, much of the technology that would enable scientists to determine how far back events occurred didn't exist; vast chunks of time were identified and named decades before radiometric dating and similar tools would assign actual values to eons. There was in fact a certain geological quality to the development of the time scale, as new chunks of time were identified and named and divided in an accretatory and erosional manner. McPhee describes the process beautifully in what amounts to one of the most far-reaching yet intimate essays I've ever read. I can pick it up at any time and it will take my breath away.

In this essay, McPhee coined the phrase "deep time" to describe that vast weight of time before the present, the billions of years it took for the earth to reach its current state. It is a depth of time so great, McPhee notes, "With your arms spread wide to represent all time on earth . . . in a single stroke with a medium-grained nail file you could eradicate human history." And yet so much of it remains beyond knowledge. The nature of geology is that it deals with surfaces and shattered remains beneath which far more is hidden than revealed. Describing the first four billion years of Earth's lifespan, McPhee says, ". . . so little is known of this seven-eighths of all history that in a typical two-pound geology text book there are fourteen pages on Precambrian time." He goes on to note that the "Precambrian has attracted geologists of exceptional imagination."

This to me is the lure of geology in the picture painted by John McPhee. For all the measurements, for all the core samples and lab tests, the calculus and the piled collections of rocks there lives at the heart of the science that spark of imagination, not so different, I believe, from the spark that lives in the heart of writers—or any artist. The art of writing, like the science of geology, is like exploring a dream with a candle, illuminating more and more until at last a history is revealed, often in broken pieces, often incomplete. Yet also sparking a further drive toward exploration and revelation. To me, McPhee—master of analogy—is speaking only partly about geology and history, just as García Márquez in One Hundred Years of Solitude is speaking only partly of the town of Macondo and the Buendiá family. When I read about McPhee's deep time I find myself excavating my own sedimentary layers. He wakes me up and shows me how to look backward and forward in a single glance.

The chapter ends with McPhee sharing a number of comments made to him by geologists over the years as he traversed so many terrains in their company. "In the company of geologists," he says, "the least effect of time is that they think in two languages, think in two different scales." He ends with a quote from one geologist who says, "If you free yourself from the conventional reaction to a quantity like a million years, you free yourself a bit from the boundaries of human time. And then, in a way you do not live at all, but in another way you live forever."

It may be a comment about deep time, about the geological time scale, but for me it's an apt description of how I often feel when I write, and why this essay by McPhee is so important to me. When I write, I feel disconnected from ordinary time, freed from the constraints of day-to-day life. I can be anywhere, anywhen. It's a freedom, both exhiliarating and frightening, that I don't experience under any other circumstances. And so the best answer to the question "why do you write?" I can give is this: when I write, I feel like I am living forever.

* Note: The others in McPhee's geology series are In Suspect Terrain, Rising from the Plains, and Assembling California—and for true desert island book convenience, the series has been collected in a single volume entitled Annals of the Former World.

The Frito Truck

I've dreamed of being a writer for most of my life. I wrote my first story, "The Night of the Bats," in the fourth grade. Followed that up with a screenplay for an episode of the Daniel Boone TV series. By junior high school I was actually submitting stories, and when an editor from Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction magazine sent me a hand-written rejection, I was hooked. The dream had taken hold of me down in my belly and it wasn't letting go.

With the dream of writing came other dreams. Sub-dreams, perhaps. Meta dreams. In high school, I admit, I dreamed of a guest appearance on The Tonight Show, of a writing studio in Paris, of a spot on the New York Times bestseller list. Most of these meta dreams have faded over the years (well, maybe not the NYT one, entirely), but one dream has stuck with me. A dream that I hope to someday realize.

It's an old dream. Older than Paris, older than The Tonight Show. At least as old as the New York Times bestseller list. It's a dream I call The Frito Truck.

Here's how it works.

I buy one of those panel trucks that delivers tasty snacks to grocery stores. And I fix up the interior as a writing den. Inside the Frito truck!

Take a moment with me to think about that. To savor it.

There'll be a desk and a couple of comfortable chairs (in case someone stops by). I'll have bookcases for reference materials and other books I want to have on hand. Dark wood and soft carpeting. One wall is tricked out to lift up, exposing a bank of windows so I can have a view while I write. Meanwhile, on the exterior, it looks like a delivery truck, right down to the Frito-Lay logo painted on the sides.

In my Frito Truck, I can drive around until I find a good place to stop, open the windows and do some writing. But the rest of the time, I'm a "truck driver." In fact, maybe I'd even carry around a case of snacks and maybe give them away, like I was an extra nice potato chip delivery guy instead of an undercover writer. Bwa-ha-ha. And when people ask me about it, I'll say, "Well, I'm a writer, but someday I dream of delivering salty snacks to the people." (Fist held high!)

Surely I'm not the only one with a crazy dream. So tell me yours. C'mon. Let's hear it...

Interview with Chris Well

Chris Well has posted an interview he did with me in the spring. Chris has been interviewing Killer Year folks throughout the year, so be sure to check out the other interviews he's already posted, and look for further interviews in the months ahead.

The Hell of the Unrelenting Synopsis

One of my favorite movies is Big Trouble in Little China. Aside from one great line after another ("Oh. My. God. What is that? Don't tell me!!") and delectably perfect over-the-top acting (Kurt Russell is incredible), there are constant and valuable references to various Hells. The Hell Of Being Cut To Pieces or the Hell of Boiling Oil. The notion of hundreds of Hells of varying specificities makes perfect sense to me. It seems the most apt way of describing life so much of the time.

At the moment, I'm in the Hell of the Unrelenting Synopsis.

Last week, my agent asked for a synopsis for my next novel Chasing Smoke. 500-1,000 words she said. She also said, "I know they're so easy to write (ow! Ouch! Lightning!)" Yeah. Ouch.

So here's my question. Does anyone like writing synopses? Raise your hand.

Nobody?

Zzzzt.

That's so, er, hard to believe. Ahem.

My synopsis is currently sitting at 2,000 words, and I've only covered about a third of the novel. At this rate, it'll be six times longer than she wants, assuming I actually finish the damned thing ("the damned thing" being what I call it when I'm in a good mood, i.e. when I'm not actually working on it or thinking about it or remembering that it's still not done).

I was bemoaning the damned thing conundrum to my daughter, and she observed, "the author is probably the worst person to write the synopsis. You're too invested in the details of your story."

Exactly. If I wanted to write a short version of the story, I'd have written a short version of the story. In a synopsis, by necessity you have to leave a lot out, skim the surface, focus on the highlights. Assign varying degrees of importance to different aspects of the story. But here's the thing. If I didn't think it was important, I wouldn't have written it, and if I didn't feel like the best way to tell the story was to dramatize the events, I'd have written an essay. The lesson that gets beaten into writers over and over again is show, don't tell. The synopsis is the very essence of telling, not showing. It's anathema! Get thee down, Synopsis!

Of course, I know I can do it. I did it with Lost Dog. I wrote an elevator pitch, two sentences. And I wrote a short summary, about three paragraphs. And I wrote a full synopsis, about two-and-a-half pages long. So, sure, it's doable.

But it's hell, lemme tell ya.

The Hell of the Unrelenting Synopsis.

Psychic Distance

When Gwen first fell under Al's spell, she never would have thought she'd end the relationship, certainly not so abruptly after so many years. He arrived home, unexpected -- unexpected because normally he would have called from the airport, "I'm getting my bags, come pick me up. I'll be waiting." But today, today he just appeared at the door. A shadow. "I got a ride," he said, and she looked over his shoulder and saw the car pulling away, the drift of auburn hair through the driver's side window. No grey. That was the thing Gwen would remembered later, no grey at all. "I didn't want to bother you," he said, "since I got the ride, you know."

"Sure, I know. Thank you."

He stood there and for a moment neither knew what to say. Then he set down his bags beside the door and drew a breath. She smelled mint. "Are you hungry?" she said.

"I ate on the plane."

"Oh. Fine."

He went to the couch, dropped down heavily. "I have to go again tomorrow. They want me in Anaheim."

"Already?"

"Yeah, a new pitch." He hesitated, and she thought he felt unsure of himself. She expected him to say something right then, but he only shrugged a bit and said, "Cut my hair? It's been too long, and I need to make a good impression on these guys tomorrow."

The thought of his hair in her fingers made her hands shake. Lots of grey in his hair now, like hers. "Oh, I don't know," she said. Then she thought of the scissors, the smooth cool sensation of the metal in her hands. The crisp sound of blade against blade. "Of course," she said, thinking of auburn. "I'd love to cut your hair."

Getting technical with Avenir

I want to take a moment to talk a bit about my writing method, and to specifically talk about a tool I've been using for a couple years now. A couple of things first. I write on a Mac, and this tool is a software package that runs on a Mac. If you're a Windows-user, this won't interest you, of course. Now, I'm not a religious computer user. I use a Mac because it's what I use, not because I think it makes me a better person or something. I just really love this writing tool and I think it's worth letting folks know about it.

Avenir is an application specifically designed for writing fiction. Lost Dog was essentially done by the time I found Avenir, but my current WIP has been written entirely using Avenir. The developer, Todd Ransom, describes Avenir as:

Avenir is a new kind of software for writers. Part word processor, part database, completely focused on the creative process. Whether you are brainstorming for your first short story or putting the finishing touches on your latest best-seller Avenir provides the tools you need to manage the creative process from inception to publication.

There are plenty of word processors out there, and I know Microsoft Word dominates the pack on both Mac and Windows. I personally shy away from Word because it's bloated and intrusive -- it makes too many assumptions about what I'm doing and it's too slow. Of course, when it's time to send a manuscript off, it usually has to be in Word. That's what folks seem to want. Fortunately, Avenir exports to Word format without a hitch.

What Avenir does for me is get out of my way when I need it to, but provide a central location for everything I need for a project. It organizes information under a number of standard categories: Actors, Scenes, Chapters, Notes, Research, etc. You can create your own categories of information if you like as well.

For writing and editing, Avenir is a clean, speedy word processor. Below is a typical chapter edit window, including an annotation I created. This is my most typical working view, though Avenir also features a Full Screen mode in which your working chapter fills the screen -- no menus, buttons, widgets or gidgets to distract you from putting the words on the page. Full Screen mode is the closest you can get to the old feeling of putting paper in a typewriter while working on a computer.



Each category of information presents information in a list view. You can set flags for items if you like, draft status indicators, etc. Below you can see the chapter view for my current project.



Characters have their own category, as you can see below, with areas for notes and other information. In the Scenes view, you can link characters to scenes and scenes to chapters. You can assign timelines to scenes as well, and maintain notes.



You can also organize your research, maintain lists of action items or story fragments. Avenir is an incredibly versatile tool that you can easily adjust to your own work style.



Beyond all that I've mentioned, you can use tags and Smart Views to organize your project. There's a progress meter for managing your daily writing goals, word count, word frequency, and much more. I'm just barely scratching the surface.

So if you use a Mac to write, I highly recommend this app. Sure, you can do much of what Avenir does for you in other word processors, but the one stop shopping aspect of the app is what really makes it work for me. It's robust, yet not larded up with excessive, rarely used features -- a truly elegant piece of incredibly functional software that just keeps getting better. Check it out and see what you think.

Ruby Jane, I've Betrayed You!

I did something terrible. I hurt a friend, and I feel awful about it. Ruby Jane Whittaker runs a small coffee shop here in Portland and makes, by her own declaration the best coffee in Portland.

And on page 69 of Lost Dog, she takes Peter's latte back behind the counter and re-steams it, just to warm it up a bit.

Oh. My. God.

You coffee folk know what happened there. And it's all my fault. Ruby Jane would never do such a thing, but alas, for a brief moment she was in the control of an oafish puppeteer.

And here's what's worse. I know you just don't do that. I could have gotten that right. But way back when I wrote the very first draft of that scene, I didn't know it, and later when I'd learned more it didn't stand out because it's not crucial to the scene development. It's atmosphere, a moment when Ruby Jane is being hospitable. But I shoulda fixed it. She coulda been hospitable in a way that didn't shine a glaring spotlight on my ignorance at her expense.

Ruby Jane, I'm sorry.

Now, I learned about this awful betrayal yesterday afternoon when I read from Lost Dog at Murder by the Book here in Portland. My friend Donovan arrived and had marked the place for me! Then, during the Q&A time, I got a staredown from a couple of baristas in the audience (one of whom was my daughter). I deserved it. Of course, if I was gonna be busted on so egregious an error, I'm glad it was by them!

Naturally, I wish I could fix it, for her sake more than my own. But you know, we all make errors, and I doubt this is the only one in Lost Dog. In the end, it may turn out to be the one I feel the worst about because of my respect for Ruby Jane, but that just means I have to work that much harder next time to not make the same kind of mistake.

I do want to say thank you to Jean and Barb at Murder by the Book for doing such a lovely job hosting the event. I had a wonderful turn out from friends old and new, and I think I did okay. I realize now I never looked up while reading (Doh!) even though I had practiced exactly that ahead of time, and I meandered more than I meant to in my answers. But it was fun, and everyone was so gracious!

My Inkspot Debut

Today, I am posting over at Inkspot. Come have a look-see!

Boo!

Just sticking my nose up before the weekend. In case you're wondering why I took a break . . . day job work got VERY, VERY BUSY. Long days, short nights. I just suddenly went, "Gah! Need. To. Simplify!"

Plus, I am working on a new draft of Whatever It's Called, also known as Oblivion of Hummingbird, Chasing Smoke, or Skin. Depending on my mood that day. This draft includes some structural work that has occupied a lot of my non-day job thought processes. This weekend, I will be heading off to my friends' cabin in the woods for a hard push on the draft out of range of day job distrators! Down, Distractors! Stay!

Meanwhile, a friend sent me a gift, the Official Lost Dog Tour Hat!

In other news, I also hear Lost Dog has begun to ship from Amazon, though it's still a little ways off from brick-and-mortar stores. But I have seen actual books now, and they are so pretty they made me cry. I'm an old softy.

Posting will still be thin until I get through this new draft, but rumors of my demise, etc. etc. Also, very soon I will tell you about my participation in a brand-new group blog!