BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

It came screaming into the world with a -30-, Fin, The End, insert your favorite editorial mark here because some of the symbols don’t seem to want to show up in the blog, tagged on its rear, yesterday afternoon, right about 5:00 PM…

Yeah, that’s right. The latest manuscript is finished, submitted, and all that good stuff. Sent off to “college” with only a virtual suitcase and class schedule (read: date with an editor) as I waved goodbye from behind the keyboard.

One of my friends asked me what it is like to finish a manuscript– Elation, Relief, Joy, Sadness, what? So, I thought I would share the answer here, hence the title of the blog…

Uh-huh…Writing a manuscript for a book, especially one that is contracted and has a deadline, is a lot like giving “intellectual birth.” No, not birthing a really smart kid (although, the Evil One and I managed to do that somehow– Our daughter is brilliant and will probably take over the world by the time she’s thirty, but I’ll brag on her later)… What I mean is, by the time you get to the end of a 100K word manuscript, you are spent. Worn out. Ready to just collapse.

For example, I jump out of bed at 5:15-5:30 every morning. You can almost set your watch by me. Today…Not so much. My feet finally hit the floor around 8:00, and it’s not like I stayed up late celebrating or anything. My celebration took the form of the wife and kid taking me around the corner to the new Mexican place for dinner (so I didn’t have to cook)… That was nice. It was excellent. All was good. But, I went to bed at my regular hour. I was just plain exhausted…

Some may wonder how you can possibly be exhausted by sitting on your ass behind a keyboard and typing for hours on end. Well, I don’t just sit. I get up to go to the bathroom and refill my coffee or tea… (Actually, I do make sure to get activity in, but that’s a different story)…

The real deal is the exhaustion you experience is purely mental fatigue.

(Well, there is the stiffness from sitting in one position, hunching over some research looking up something, the itchy eyes from staring at the screen, the cramps in your hands from typing all day… but this blog is about the mental stuff…)

Remember, when you are writing you are pretty much living with this set of characters. I know that may sound insane, but trust me, that is how it works. You are walking around in a daze for the 4 to 6 months it takes you to tap out the story on your keyboard, and you have a whole host of folks bopping about in your head. Whispering in your ear. Telling you how THEY would do something that you are doing. Letting you know THEY would never eat a Braunschweiger sandwich because it’s yucky… Well, you get the picture.

These imaginary characters become a part of your family, and for a period of time, a good portion of your life. You can’t do anything without thinking, “How would XX respond to this?”… “What would YY do if she was in this situation?”…And, more often than not, they tell you in no uncertain terms. Of course, you are the only one who hears them and that makes you look like you are talking to yourself…So, you try to avoid doing so in public lest the men in white coats come to take you away… The point is, they are with you night and day. You cannot get away from them, and if you try, they chase you down and make your life a nightmare. Why? Because you are supposed to be paying attention to them while they tell their story, and if you ignore them they get pissed.

So, what it comes down to is the feeling when that -30- goes at the end of that last page…

Well, it’s all of them. You run through them just like you would the stages of grief….You feel accomplished, you are elated, you are ecstatic. You are ready for these folks to go back in their box and leave you alone for a while. Then you get worried. Things happened to them in this story. Are they handling it okay? Are they going to make it through without counseling? Are YOU going to make it through without counseling?… Then you are sad…. It’s like houseguests who have been staying with you forever who finally leave. You think you are happy they are gone, then you realize you have grown so accustomed to having them around that you miss them terribly and want them to come back…

So, name an emotion, I’ve probably felt it, or will over the next couple of days… That’s why I warned you in the last blog my brain would be like oatmeal for a while…

It’s a rollercoaster…And, I’m on it right now.

But, you know what? That’s okay… Because, last night I got to sit and have a normal conversation with my wife– That means not once did I stare off into space wondering how Rowan, Felicity, or any of the other characters would respond to the innocuous things being said.

Of course, in a couple of months when I start the next manuscript, I am sure they will be happy to fill me in on what they thought…They always do.

More to come…

Murv

Real questions, real answers (Note that I did NOT say real good answers…)

1) I want to say that your descriptions of paranormal experiences are amazing. How do you visualize the physical experiences so acutely?

I actually responded to this one via email a while back, but I fear I may have misunderstood the question. I went into some depth about my enlisting my wife in acting out various scenarios from the books as I write them. In particular, and I don’t want to give anything away, but for those of you who have read Love Is The Bond do you remember that scene with Rowan and Felicity on the convenience store parking lot? Well, let’s just say we raised a few eyebrows acting that out in our driveway. Why did we act out that scene in the first place? Simple– so I would know what Rowan could see from various positions, what Felicity could see and was capable of accomplishing, and exactly how to describe what was going on.

However, I digress as usual…

In retrospect the young lady may have wanted to know how I visualize the physical effects of the paranormal experiences my protagonist experiences. If that is the case, then she probably thinks I’m a big, flaming idiot at this point for not actually answering the question she asked.

So, if her question was the one I didn’t answer, here it is for all to see: I fake it.

Actually, I suppose I am serious about that to an extent. I pretty much just operate on a set of basic assumptions then extrapolate from there. At any rate, I guess it is working.

The next few questions actually came from a High School student who is doing a book report on Harm None. I emailed my responses to him, but was impressed with several of his questions and thought others might like to hear the answers as well, so I thought I would add them to the FAQ.

2) Was Harm None your first idea for a book? If not, what was your first idea?

Well, it wasn’t my first idea for a book, no. Like most authors I have a filing cabinet full of manuscripts that have never, and probably will never, see the light of day. When I was much younger– actually in High School younger– I wrote quite a large amount of science fiction and was fortunate enough to have a few short stories published in some small genre magazines of the day. To follow through with your question, my first idea for a book was a novella length “space opera” that I set to paper. Unfortunately, a lack of life experience and an overabundance of teenage angst (and hormones) made it an exercise in futility. However, I wouldn’t trade having done it for the world. The process of writing it– no matter how “bad” it turned out– taught me much.

3) Why did you choose to have the setting of the book to be the same as where you live?

That’s simple. We write that with which we are familiar, or can become easily familiar. While I do an enormous amount of research into such things as police procedure, forensics, alternative religions, psychology, etc, there are some things you just can’t get from a textbook. Setting my series in the city where I live allows me to go out, get in my truck, and drive to a location easily and cheaply (well, with gas prices the way they are…but still, it is cheaper than a plane ticket). In doing that I can then clearly describe the nuances of that setting, and be accurate about it as well. It also lends to what is known as “suspension of disbelief”. Remember, some of the elements of my books are slightly over the top, however, if I have lulled you into a world of false reality with my attention to true detail, then you will more readilly accept the oddities I slip in under the radar, so to speak.

Note: Like it says in the front of the books, I do take some liberties with the lay of the land in St. Louis. I actually have changed the names of several parks and municipalities just to be on the safe side. Also, one of the most notable “fictions” is the coffee shop across the street from police headquarters downtown. It doesn’t actually exist. However, I wanted one there in my books so I annexed (via Literary Eminent Domain) a portion of the City Hall parking lot and built a coffee shop there.

4) How long did it take you to write this book (Harm None)?

Start to finish, including research time (interviewing, reading texts, riding with local law enforcement, etc) I write, initially revise, and rewrite a 100k – 120K word Rowan Gant Novel in right around 6 months, give or take a few weeks. It usually takes another 30-60 days of me arguing and pitching fits with my editor (well, not really, but we don’t ALWAYS agree), in order to get any of the publisher mandated changes done or rewrites completed. After that it’s time to start another one (if I haven’t already.)

5) Where were you when you wrote the majority of this book (Harm None)? i.e. coffee house, home, poetry cafe…

The bulk of my writing is done in my office at home. Back then I was working a full time job (other than being an author) so my writing was done primarily on weekends and evenings. Now, I actually must set aside time from my touring schedule to write. However, if I happen to be running behind on a deadline, my notebook computer sees action on airplanes and in hotel rooms (even while I am waiting for my daughter to get out of her “College for Kids” classes.) Still, Harm None itself was written, in its entirety, in my office at home. (The computer it was written on, however, has long since gone to the electronics scrap heap in the sky.)

6) Do you have any advice for the students of my class?

“Wear sunscreen”

If you have not yet heard that song, ask your teacher as I am sure she or he has. If not, look it up on the Internet and listen to it, or read the lyrics (use the link above).

After you are done chuckling and saying “yeah, right, that won’t apply to me,” listen to/read it again and take it to heart. All of it. I couldn’t give any better advice if I tried for the rest of my life. Trust me, I’ve already lived much of what the man says.

Okay, that’s it for this go around. I have much more writing to do so I may be scarce for a bit!

MR / a.k.a. Murv