BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

…is just a cigar.

Several years ago there was this great little sitcom called “Stark Raving Mad,” which starred Tony Shaloub (Wings, Monk) and Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howser, Dr. Horrible, How I Met Your Mother.)

The short lived series centered on best-selling (fictional) horror author, Ian Stark. I could go on and on about it, because I absolutely loved the show. Unfortunately, it lasted only one season, and oddly enough was canceled somewhere around one month prior to my own first novel, Harm None: A Rowan Gant Investigation, showing up in bookstores.

But, I’m not here to rant about stupid TV execs… Even though I’m known to do that from time to time. Firefly anyone? Drive anyone? But, I digress…

Nope, not here to rant on TV guys.  I’m here to talk about something else (as usual). However, we know how my brain works and it just so happens a particular episode of “Stark Raving Mad” popped into my head as an illustration of my point…

Episode 17 – THE GRADE: Quick synopsis – A regular character who is a friend of Ian’s, and who works at the bar on the ground floor below his apartment is going to night classes at the local college. She is working extra hours and in her lit class she needs to write an analysis of a book – as it happens, the book she has selected is one of Ian’s. Hilarity ensues, of course… However, the reason it ensues is that she is so busy she manages to talk Ian into writing the book report for her. Her professor, played by John Lithgow (another of my faves) gives her a B. Ian simply can’t stand it, since he wrote the report about a book he had written in the first place.  Upon Ian confronting the prof,  it is explained to him how “Maddie” (Ian’s friend) had completely missed the underlying meaning of the knife used in a murder. Ian tells the professor, “Sometimes a knife is just a knife.” What makes it funnier, however, is that even after the prof discovers that he is talking to Ian Stark himself, the author of the book as well as the paper, he continues to disagree (and if I recall correctly, even drops “Maddie” down to a C.)

And that, my friends, is “what I’m talkin’ about”…

Sometimes a knife is just a knife, a cigar just a cigar, and a redhead just a redhead – although I would prefer you not tell E K (or Felicity for that matter) that I made that last comment.

My point is, I write novels. And believe me, I dearly love the fact that there are people out there who become emotionally invested in the stories. I think we’ve already established in a previous blog entry that I do as well.

However (You saw that coming, correct?) based on some of the “fan mail” I receive I feel compelled to point out a few things…

They are stories. Works of fiction. Not instructional manuals for your Wiccan coven.

Just because you live on a street that has the same name as a street in one of my novels, that doesn’t mean I am writing about you. Really. Seriously. We’ve never even met, so how could I possibly be writing about you… Wait. Don’t answer that. I’m relatively certain I don’t want to know the convoluted logic…

Just because you have red hair it doesn’t mean you are Felicity.

You are not… I repeat NOT… the “reincarnation” of Rowan Gant. (Honestly, I don’t even begin to understand that one. He’s fictional, but even if we discount that fact, he’s not even dead.)

I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. Sometimes a cigar is just that… A cigar.

And a novel, no matter how entertaining, is still a novel…

More to come…

Murv

I recently rambled about the -30- at the end of manuscripts. If you happen to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, or any of the other social networks I have linked to my ping account, you are most likely well aware that I just finished a writing project. Hence the sudden interest in the number 30…

But, while typing that symbolic notification of “the end” draws my “work in progress” to a close, I’m never quite finished. There are tweaks, editing, final revisions, and all that jazz – not to mention hopping onto the promotional bandwagon and “selling” the book. However, those aren’t the things I am talking about either.

Anyone who has been around me when I am working on a manuscript knows that I go through phases. Simply for the sake of explaining my process, I’m going to try to break them down for you here. By the time you are finished reading this, you will likely believe I need to be living in a padded cell.

PHASE ONE: I start out by diving into whatever research is necessary for that particular work. For instance, when I started the Miranda Trilogy, I knew next to nothing about Vodoun and Hoodoo. While I’m still no expert by any stretch of the imagination, I came out on the other side of that first book in the trio with more than just a passing knowledge of both. Granted, there are times throughout the penning of a manuscript where the story will take a direction I hadn’t foreseen, and this will require me to stop and take a day to research something in order to be accurate. But, for the most part, the reading, interviewing, and info gathering generally comes at the beginning of a project.

PHASE TWO: Next, I move into the, “Gawd, this is like pulling hen’s teeth” phase. I’ve started writing and at about 10-15K (word count) I hit this imaginary wall. It’s a barrier that is built out of my own self-doubt and inner fears about whether or not the story is going to be worthwhile. Suddenly, squeezing out a thousand words in a day is laborious. Nothing has changed quality-wise, but I spend so much time doubting myself that the characters decide to go sit at the bar and wait until I get over my one man pity party. I have even gone so far as to say to E K, “I don’t know what made me think I could write in the first place.” This is usually greeted by a couple of slaps, followed by a stiletto heel to the head. She’s all about negative reinforcement, ya’know…

Then, we move into PHASE THREE. Words are flowing, the story is unfolding, and I look forward to sitting down at the keyboard each day. Oddly enough, Phase Three is the least stressful of them all. (Not that the stress is all bad, mind you. There are definitely good kinds of stress…)

PHASE FOUR hits at about 40-50K, and things change again. No longer do I  merely look forward to sitting down at the keyboard, I begin to dread having to leave it. The story has not only continued to unfold, but I am now sleeping on the couch in my character’s home(s). I’m sitting in the back seat of their vehicles whenever they go somewhere. I am standing right behind them when something happens. I am a part of their world, and I belong. This is generally the point where I become very hard to live with – not because I’m an asshole or anything, although you might want to check with E K on that just to be sure. The primary reason is that I am not here. Brainpan-wise, I am no longer a resident of the here and now. 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, I am living in a different world inside my head. I am seeing all of the things that are happening behind the scenes. What I mean by that is simply this: I see the manuscript happening in real time, and all of the stuff that never makes it to the page. The boring interludes where Rowan and Felicity might be sleeping, or Ben is fixing himself a grilled cheese sandwich using a folded sheet of aluminum foil and an iron.

I am an observer in their world, and even though only a small fraction of their time is chronicled on the pages of that particular novel, I am witnessing it all. Every last second…

When I come downstairs from my office I am told there is a vacancy in my eyes. It’s flat out noticeable. The lights are on, but Murv is long gone. E K will see it right away, and now that my daughter is older she sees it too. They both give me a wide berth, and talk to me only about what is absolutely necessary – again, not because I’ve turned into an ass, but because my brain is somewhere else entirely.

PHASE FIVE is even worse. Not only do I live with my characters, I form an empathic connection with them at the basest of levels. What happens to them, happens to me. I feel their pains – physical and emotional. I weep with them, I fear for them, and I even become physically exhausted with them. At this point there is usually only 25-30K left to write. Now, the relationship between the manuscript and me becomes pseudo-sexual. The “foreplay” as I like to call it, is hot and heavy. The “climax” is only a few short chapters away. Everything quickens, and my daily word count, which started at 1K, then progressed to 2K, is now in the 3K or better range. My wife comes home to someone she doesn’t know. A taciturn and at times almost catatonic individual who stares into space while moving through the motions of life in a purely mechanical fashion. I am like a junkie looking for a fix. All I can think about is getting back to the keyboard, and although I take notes on a constant basis through every phase, by now if I am not at the keyboard I am scribbling on anything viable with anything that will make a mark, just to be sure I remember. I begin to spend all of my time sequestered away, living the lives of my fictional “family.”

PHASE SIX arrives when the “literary orgasm” occurs. Everything has come together into an explosive, emotional ejaculation that leaves me tangled up in the proverbial sheets on a bed of my own making. I’m spent, as are the characters, but it’s not over.

PHASE SEVEN is the cigarette and cuddling. All of us – characters and me as well – have to debrief. We talk it out among ourselves, making sure we understand what it is we just experienced.

And then comes the -30-, the scotch, and the cigar…

But, like I said, it isn’t over. There is a PHASE EIGHT… For several days following that numerical end mark, I continue to sleep on their sofas. I dine with them, I walk the dogs with them, I watch them when they sleep, like some kind of nebulous, fictional stalker. Then, slowly, I begin to fade from their world. I feel myself being tugged back into reality by those who need me here. And eventually, my life with Rowan, Felicity, Ben, Constance, and all the others becomes a bittersweet memory, underscored by a longing for my next foray into their world.

And… There you have it.

I’m relatively certain some – if not all – of you will probably think I am insane now that you have read this, and to be honest, I wouldn’t blame you. E K did the first time I confided all this to her, but thankfully she didn’t have me committed. A year or so later she was reading a book by another author (she does that a lot) and discovered in the afterword that I was not alone. That other authors develop these deep seated relationships with their characters, and see them as very real – even if the “real” only lasts for a very short time.

Even so, I know it sounds nuts. I actually think all fiction writers – myself included – are by definition just a little bit insane. But, you know what? I think maybe I like it that way.

More to come…

Murv