I dropped all writing for a few days and focused on getting ready for a packing job, next week, as well as preliminary paperwork for the New York Book Fair next month. Not to mention I'm also moving in April, so...lots to do.
I finally came back to the printout of Carli's Kills with a clarity that helped me do another red pen edit. I expanded on a midnight motorcycle ride taken by Carli, Zeke and Loki, trying to make it as romantic and poetic as possible without actually waxing poetical. I also cut things that were superfluous -- like an underground cave where the Cantina stored beer -- and trimmed back some of the repetitiveness of Carli's inner musings. It's still long, but when I input these changes...well, I hope it will make sense.
The ending is still a bit too easy. Maybe too quick. Sort of ABC. But it works, so I'm not sure if the issue is that it's wrong or if I'm just being picky. I don't want to drag things out just to pad the action; I hate that. But I have been told in a couple of books I rushed the ending or didn't go deep enough, so I don't want that, either. Right now, I'm waiting till I get done inputting before I decide what to do.
Next week is a packing job, through Thursday or Friday, so not much will be done, writing wise. It'll be a physical job so I'm thinking I'll take some DVDs to watch, afterwards. The area's on the rural side; not a lot of places to have dinner, and I just can't handle theater-going, right now. Not because of Covid (tho' that is still a concern) but so damn many movies are over 2 hours long, not counting previews and ads, my bladder don't hold out. And I absolutely HATE leaving in the middle of a movie to take a piss...so I wait till I can stream it or get it at RedBox.
I just slammed into another brick wall with Carli's Kills, dealing with the timeline. What's happening during this time and why aren't they doing anything about it, kind of thing. This is just supposed to be a fun little story of female empowerment and non-moralistic murdering joy...and I'm locked in my usual BUT IT HAS TO MAKE PERFECT SENSE attitude and cannot get around it. Like an obsessive-compulsive quirk in my psyche or something.
I seriously wonder if I'm OCD. Because I cannot let go of this story until it's right, and I cannot just scoot past the parts that don't work for me but that no one else will probably give a damn about. That sort of attitude drives me crazy in films or TV shows I see...like it did with YOU, to the point I cannot watch the rest of that thing.
It may be something that's been developing slowly, since I remember even though I'd get irritated about films that ignore simple physics I could still enjoy them. But now? North by Northwest? How can a crop duster crash into an oil truck but not knock it off the road? Or in Foreign Correspondent, when a plane is crashing towards the ocean why does everyone rush to get the to back of the fuselage before it hits so they won't get crushed by the water? Both ignore the laws of centrifugal force and simple gravity.
It must be something that's been growing in me, because the first time I saw Vertigo I was swept away by its beauty and romantic suspense. Now the only way I can accept its ridiculous storyline is if I see it as a dead man's dream, because it does not make one damn bit of logical sense. So I guess I'm just falling into fanaticism and ridiculousness.
My schedule was killed, yesterday, by my toilet deciding to back up, last night. It would not flush and was clogged so the water was up to the rim...and that's after me going out to get a jug of Draino...and again to get Liquid Plumber, since the Draino didn't do the job...and not being able to get emergency maintenance to answer the phone. I wound up taking a dump at the grocery store, as I bought the LP, something I absolutely hate doing. But...it's good I did. It wasn't fixed till this morning.
I guess it's better that I'm moving to another apartment. This place is starting to feel like it's about ready to fall down.
So today was spent making up for lost time. I'm through 162 of 403 pages, and it's working better. After going through this latest draft with spell-check, I'm sending it out for editing and feedback. I want this done by the end of March because April is shaping up to be busy and in May I'm getting surgery on my eyelids. Guess I'm just a tired old man staggering his way through life.
The story seems to be staying at around 84,000 words, right now. That may change because I'm adding a section between the sheriff and a coroner's assistant in the hospital morgue. This being out in the middle of nowhere in Arizona, they usually have an undertaker pick up bodies and take them to the morgue, where the coroner does the autopsy. And Grady's will be a trip. He may wind up being transported to Tucson for further detailing.
So it's coming together, step by step. Who knows...I may actually get this dome, some day.
Taxes done. Oh, what fun. But it turned out good so I can't complain, except I'm beat up from worrying about it. Want to hit the sack, so much. Actually dozed off in my chair.
Tomorrow, I'll start inputting changes to CK. Should have it done by Sunday, at which time I've got a few people open to being Beta-readers. If anyone else is interested, message me.
I'm still arguing with myself about the ending. One tactic my inner moralist used has been to suggest I'm lazy for not wanting to do all the rewriting...but truth is, there wouldn't be all that much. A lot of trimming to do, sure, and one last revenge murder at the end before Carli rides off with Zeke's dog, Loki. But a tragic ending just does not feel right as the finale to the paperback version of this story.
Which then brings on the, It would work if you were a better writer, BS. To which I say, Maybe, but we'll never know. I just know I'm the writer I am now and that's all I can be.
I've also decided was to publish under my name. No hiding. If me being me writing the books I've written is a problem for people, it's their problem, not mine.
I had a long chat with an old friend, doing facetime. It was weird seeing him after so many years, but we had a lot to catch up on and I found out he's listed as an editor on a James Bond bibliography by Jon Gilbert. I sort of know Jon through Adrian Harrington, an antiquarian bookseller he worked for. It was a fun chat.
Carli's Kills is, once again, run through by my red pen and ready to input...and this time I'm getting feedback on it, once I'm done. I've spent enough time on this book. Trying to decide who lives and dies in it. How it should come together. Why it has to follow a certain path. All of the attendant nonsense, when all I wanted to write was a simple little summer read. Something to keep you occupied as you sunbathed by the pool or beach.
It amazes me I had such trouble with that. My plan to have this as non-moralistic and anti-puritanical as possible seems to have riled up all my inner being. I thought the Presbyterian in me was long dormant, but I guess it ain't. I had to all but beat it back with a paddle. It's still snarling at me...and it seems to be working its demands on my writer's psyche...but my characters are happy with this and I see no reason to change it into one where punishment prevails.
I did that in the script, had Carli punished and need to atone for her sins, and visually it would have been a beautiful catharsis. Zeke dies saving Carli and, in honor of his innocence, she gives him a form of the Viking burial he wanted while Romanza, the melody he picks out on his guitar, plays over it.
I pictured it so beautifully. Her not shedding a tear as she washes the blood from his face and tenderly arranges him on the table. Then lays wood under it, pours Tequila over the wood and sets the fire. Stands back to watch it catch and grow and consume Zeke's body. Beautiful and stoic in the flickering light.
Then she sees the police are arriving to back up the sheriff (since Carli has killed several people). She smiles and goes behind the bar and takes a box of bullets (established earlier) and drops them around the Cantina, all in time to the second bridge of the melody before splashing more Tequila everywhere.
With a last look at Zeke's pyre, she sneaks out through an underground cave (also established earlier) as the flames race up to the bullets...and the moment the music ends, they start to explode, making the cops think someone's firing at them from within.
I was happy with it. Proud. But it plays flat and condescending when you can only do it with words and not images and sounds and nicely paced editing. And seemed indulgent...so I changed it.
But still...guess I'll always be a film freak, at heart.
Everybody's playing well, together, so far. I'm 1/3 of the way through the manuscript on this pass, where Carli comes close to killing Zeke...but he's playing his guitar, trying to get over the fact that Grady's dead, and it stops her. Well...that and his dog, Loki, letting her know she's not to get any closer to him.
I'm trying to keep all the hyperbole out, and it's proving to be hard but it's also making it read better. I've changed the timeline a bit. Instead of having Grady's body found at noon, it's now more around dinnertime. Which means more deterioration in it and longer for the buzzards and coyotes to feast. Yum.
I was also spending much of the day online with the situation in Ukraine. Mainly because of two US Senators. Marco Rubio and Steve Daines were part of a group of Congresspeople on a secret conference call with Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the President of Ukraine and who's leading the resistance against the Russian invasion.
Before it started, everyone was specifically asked not to mention anything on social media during the call, but then both those bastards deliberately posted screencaptures of Zelenskiy on Twitter and Facebook, proclaiming they were talking with him...as the meeting was underway!
This put Zelenskiy's life in danger! Because Russian trolls could have triangulated the signal, located where he was and have Moscow send a missile in to kill him. Personally, I pretty much think it was deliberate...because Rubio took $1.5m from the Russians and Daines was in Moscow on July 4th, 2018, and both were on TFG's side with Russia and refused to hold that SOB accountable for trying to blackmail Zelenskiy into helping defeat Biden.
I am so sick of Republicans, so filled with anger and hate for them, that when I learn someone supports that party I back away and will have nothing more to do with them. I've ghosted friends and family members, for this, and I'm not sorry. I don't need that evil in my life.
Carli's Kills is coming along. I printed out the opening part that still worked and went through it with a red pen; now I'll dig back into the stuff I'd already edited and make it all correspond properly. I think the ending is going to change. I'll just say, right now, returning to Carli killing some of the guys works best. I just need to know whether or not she gets away with it.
That's been a huge issue...and was part of the reason things blew up. It may not seem so, but I was raised with a moral center and Carli getting away with murder bothers it. A lot. Too much Presbyterian still left in me. I don't believe in God, nor do I believe in our system of justice. But I also do not believe in allowing murder to go unpunished. It's weird, but it offends me at the core.
I'm hoping to find a middle ground for the ending, but not so sure what that will be, anymore. We'll see whaat happens, once I get there.
Watching the situation in Ukraine, and seeing how NATO and the US are doing as little as possible to help that country only reiterates my wariness regarding justice in this world. Putin's been allowed to get away with his bullying for nearly 15 years, so small wonder sanctions aren't deterring him. He's fairly certain once he's got control of Ukraine, Europe will forgive and forget and go back to doing business, as will US Companies. And he's probably right.
The only reason he isn't waltzing into Kyiv, right now, is Zelenskiy. The president of Ukraine is a lion, and his people are strong and stubborn and now hate Russia with a passion. They will have to be slaughtered in order for Moscow to win, and Putin will have no problem with that. He's just that much of a beast. I've done what I can, so far, including giving money to UNICEF and a local Ukrainian group, and I howl on Twitter.
I used to howl on Facebook, but they now get their little fee-fees hurted too damn easy and I'm banned, again. Apparently, it has no problem showing video of people blown to bits, but you can't call Putin a war criminal who needs to be hanged. That's just really mean.
I fought with Word, today, before it finally settled down, then I finished the formatting and uploaded the files for Porno Manifesto to Ingram. Now I'm waiting on a proof for approval, and I've set March 8th for the day it's available under the new cover. I'm debating going through the ebook to correct the typos. It won't cost me anything, but it's a lot of work, especially prepping it for Smashwords to align it, and I don't have a lot of spare time, right now.
I kept myself from rewriting any of PM, except for adding a word where I missed one and correcting my old grammatical mistakes. I also changed parts where I'd put phrases in quotation marks to italics, which is the way it's done, now. Overall, the story holds together nicely, and rereading it helped rebuild some of my confidence.
I'm back into a place where I can face Carli and Zeke, again. They've calmed down and I'm ready to finish CK. I committed to it, and I'm not letting go, again, till I have a draft I can accept. Too damn much fussing around with the story. I'll get back onto it, tomorrow.
I'll need to start preparing for moving, in April. I'm going into a senior high-rise not all that far from where I currently live, and I'm not taking any of the furniture I have here. I'll need to do it quickly, because the NY Book Fair is the third weekend of the month and I'll be working during some of it. Mainly the foreign dealers coming in, since some of the rules for exporting from the UK and the EU have changed. I'm still trying to brush up on all that.
I've also got a ton of reading to do for APoS. And I'm doing what little I can to back Ukraine against the Russian invasion...which isn't much. Hell, the Red Cross wouldn't even let me donate blood because I've got a case of eczema on my forearms. Went through the whole check-in process and was lying on the bench, ready for the needle when the technician called over someone...and they rejected me. Not one word or question about it till then.
Word decided to freak out on me in the middle of reformatting Porno Manifesto, so I had to shut it down and will reopen it, tomorrow, to see if it's willing to behave, again. It wasn't the text that was the problem; it was the header/footer stuff. It kept dumping my page numbers and would only put the header I wanted on even pages and not odd.
Technology drives me nuts. The more they do to make it work for you, the more it does to fuck you over. It's one reason I won't sell my '98 Honda. It runs well, has less than 110,000 miles on it, I'm its only owner, and it isn't so packed with chips and computers and electronics that I have to worry about it needing to be taken into the Genius Bar to reset the friggin' clock.
When I travel, I have to rent cars and deal with all that nonsense. I once couldn't figure out how to shut off the heated seats in a Chevy SUV, once, so dealt with it till I got to where I was going and could Google up the explanation. And people I know had an issue with their parking brake, in Canada; it wouldn't release because it's set electronically. And the Canadian dealership said they'd have to leave the car for a week so they could get in the right technician to handle it, since he was on vacation.
I've had electric windows freeze halfway open and cruise control refuse to come on, not to mention a tire sensor give a warning that a tire's low when it wasn't. On that last one, I bought an air pressure gauge, which said it was fine, but still wound up putting air in it...then letting it out...and the light went away.
So now it's my writing tool that's messing with me. And I've already figured a way around it if need be. That's how it works; it's often better just to not bother trying to fix something and do your stuff the manual way. More physical work but a lot less frustration and usually faster, in the long run.
Today I worked up the cover for the next edition of Porno Manifesto. It like it...though I did notice a couple of phrases I'd like to make certain are in the correct size font. But the mysterious feel and the model's cool gaze add to the sense of what the story is about.
Right now, I'm going through it to do some reformatting and correcting typos, as I see them. This makes it officially a 3rd edition. Price will be $9.95, which is cheap for a paperback, these days. I may even bump it to $10.95. It's worth it.
I'm tired of undervaluing my work. That's why I bumped my ebooks to $2.99 and charge $3.99 for Hunter. It's worth the money. They all are, dammit. In fact, as I'm going through PM I'm finding my treatment of the book has been unfair. It is well-written. I'm reminding myself I do know how to write. How to tell a story. I kept telling myself I'd rushed through it, but it's a nicely complex story that fit together without an outline.
In reality, all I did in the screenplay version was change a black gay man to a black lesbian, and add a bit more background to Alex's family history. I do sort of skate over that. But it's a fast read and is perfectly happy with itself.
Writer and self-involved artist out to change the world until it changes me...as has already happened in far too many ways. This blog is to talk about my writing projects and travels...
