Jose Mendoza: Part III

Two uniformed officers appear. I discuss underwear, lamps, kitchen curtains. They nod and write things down. I give them a little tour, explaining the tape. At first I’m afraid they’ll think I’m nuts. In the end, I think they’re a little impressed with my scotch-tape trap.

Do I know who is doing it?

I have a suspicion. Guy who lives upstairs. I think his name is Mendoza.

Jose Mendoza: Part II

“I need to ask you a question,” I said.
“Shoot.”
“Did you take a little, um, memento of me out on the road with you?”
Silence on the other end of the phone.
“Eric?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“My pink bra is missing.”
“And you think I took it?”
“And the matching panties.”
“You’re losing your underwear? Sounds like I should ask what you’ve been doing.”
“Seriously, Eric. That’s the expensive stuff.”
“Seriously, Karen. Why would I do that?”
“Um—”
“Well, okay. I know why I might do that. But no, I don’t have it.”

Bird Poop on the Window and Jose Mendoza: Part I

I was feeling cosy and content last night, lying on the couch in my newly-remodeled living room, clicker in hand, when Annabel started going bonkers at the window. She'd been hanging out on her window seat, then she started jumping up and down, batting at the window.

Bug, I figured. She kept it up. But I couldn’t see a bug, then I noticed that there seemed to be a splotch on the window. Weird. So I dragged myself over there to look. Yep, bird poop. No way to clean it off, either. I live on the second floor. And it’s odd. Five years in this apartment and it's never happened before. So I looked out the window, and up, taking into consideration the gutters, then asked Annabel “How did that bird manage that, anyway?”

And I was suddenly having a flashback.

I had done a similar thing one spring night in 1988. I lived in a garden floor apartment in Des Plaines, Illinois. I was standing in the bedroom when I noticed some odd stains on the window. I went closer and looked at them, looked out, and up. Sheer brick wall. And I asked Charlie, my cat, who was sitting on the window sill, “How are those birds pooping on that window like that?”

The answer to my question was: Birds weren't. But I wouldn't know that for a couple of months. This was only the first odd thing that I noticed in a series of odd things that, together, add up to just about the scariest thing that's ever happened to me.

What is the Titicut Follies/Memoir Project, Anyway?

Since I talk about this now and then, and most people have no idea what the hell I’m talking about, I thought I’d ‘splain it. A little. For anyone who is interested.

First, it helps if you know something about the film Titicut Follies (1967), directed by Sam Wiseman. It’s much easier for you to click on the link, read a little about it, then come back here. Go on. I’ll wait.

You’re back already? Good. Well, my uncle was in that film. Pretty much anyone who has ever seen the film remembers him: He is the tall, thin, Russian dude. Vladimir. He is on the left in that photo, the psychiatrist is on the right.

Vladimir wages a sort-of quest in the film, to get the psychiatrist (and the committee) to send him back to Walpole, the prison from whence he came. In fact, in almost any discussion of Titticut Follies, especially on the Interwebs, people have stuff to say about him. Pretty much all of them are wrong in their suppositions. They assume that because Bridgewater housed notorious sexual predators (like the Boston Strangler), Vladmir must have been one too. They assume that he was mentally ill when he went there, or he wouldn't have landed there.

Thank you, Baby Cheeses

Yesterday, I sent an email to a client. This is the second book I’ve done with her, so I know by now how she responds to things. She was brave the first time around, with her first book, but some of it really stung, I could tell. She was never a tantrum pitcher or anything like that, but she tended to withdraw a bit, lick her wounds, then resist a little.

I know writers think editors like being mean, like ripping something apart. So not true. It sucks for us too. I really hate it when I have hard news to deliver to a writer. I mean, I love the challenge of improving a piece, or I wouldn't be doing this work. But there is a real downside, as well.

And in this case, she's already rewriting, based on an initial critique of the ms. So I am now editing the rewrite. I had to essentially say, sorry, but you missed. Again. I was a little worried.

And, appropriately enough for an editor, I worry about my language. It's never easy to say, "uh, we have a problem here." It's a tricky thing. As an editor, you can’t be so soft that the writer thinks it’s not that important. But you also can’t come on so strongly that it seems like you’re bossing them around, or just plain being mean. And in this case, I thought it was a critical problem, a crucial moment in the novel. If we didn’t get it right here, the rest of it wasn’t going to hang together, really.

So I drafted the email, as I usually do: First, going through and getting down my points, making the argument in the intellectual/technical sense, then going back through and softening the language, paying attention to the emotional side of it. Trying to be sensitive. For help, I turned on Barry Manilow’s Feelings. Ha, just kidding, but maybe I should. This is an area in which I sometimes feel unskilled.

(In an almost-completely unrelated note, I should say that I am learning that my tendency toward hoof-in-mouth disease—and to stampede over people’s feelings—may be innate. It is apparently the fault of my natal astrology. I am a Sagittarius. And I’ve been doing research, for an astrologer character I have in my own work, and so I’ve been studying my own chart. I found a description of Sagittarius the other day that explained its mythological symbol, half-Centaur (the back half, natch), half-Archer, with this lovely editorial gloss: “Any sign can make half-an-ass of itself, Saggie, but you’re the only one that’s born that way.” Ha! I’ve been giggling about that for days.)

Anyway, I finished the email—and with a glance at the heavens, asking for a little protection, perhaps a small Christmas miracle of my very own—I hit the send button.

Two hours later, the writer responded. I took a deep breath, and clicked open the email. And she said, essentially: "I knew you were going to pick on that chapter! You’re right. And I can’t believe how well I’m taking this, btw, but I am. I’m going to start rewriting next week. Don’t do anymore editing, I’ll rework it and send it back to you. Thank you! Merry Christmas!”

I feel like a proud parent, amazed at how quickly they grow up! She's a pro now. It's about the work, about getting it right, and getting it done. I love when this happens! It's also like being a teacher, and seeing the lightbulb go off over your student's head. Yes, thank you! And Happy Birthday, Baby Cheeses!

I See Said the Blind Man As He Picked Up the Hammer and Saw...

So, I didn’t think I would be doing any blog posting, well, maybe ever again. I keep forgetting about this thing. And I certainly didn’t think I’d be doing it during NaNoWriMo. For the uninitiated (perhaps the one out of my three regular blog readers who isn’t a writer), it is National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. (See http://www.nanowrimo.org/ for more information.)

This is my first year doing it. I’ve been meaning to do it for a couple of years, but I kept not remembering it existed until the middle of November. This year, I remembered in mid-October.

Anyway, the NaNoWriMo guidelines suggest that you do not pick up on a work in progress for this exercise. They are guidelines, not rules, because NaNoWriMo leads to nothing more than one's own satisfaction. It's not a contest, there are no prizes. It's more like a playgroup. A toddler playgroup: You sign on to play with your fellow writers, but you all play next to one another, independently, not cooperatively.

They explain their reasoning for not doing a work in progress, and I read that last month, and I ignored it. I decided to pick up on my Sophie and Marty thing (which, from this day forward shall be designated “MO” for magnum opus). I have about 120 pages of that story, and I love that story—though I keep getting bogged down in it—so I thought NaNoWriMo might be a good way to blow through the rest of the draft.

But: No. It appears that those folks know more than I do, which I really hate. They said that it’s too hard to get that word count when it’s a work in progress. (To get to 50,000 words in a month, you must average 1667 words per day. That is just over 6 pages of text PER DAY, which is no problem if you have no need to eat, sleep, earn a living, or goof off on Facebook.) The NaNoWriMo folks said you know your characters already, you are attached to them, you have something of an endpoint in mind, and you cannot really free yourself creatively, to just put one keystroke down after another, and get those numbers.

They are correct.

But, I’d been thinking a lot about the MO, and I'd just worked my way through a plot problem, and so I started the first day with a killer scene. Not literally, not the killer. A really great scene, I mean. But I realized, second and third days, that I just wasn’t going to be able to put up the numbers I needed on this project. It’s literary. It's too big, and yet too narrow, to just pound away on. I need more creative elbow room.

So, last night I started something brand new, with a minor character that I borrowed from yet another work in progress. I picked her up and I plunked her down three decades earlier and about 3000 miles east of where she was before. Now, obviously she is going to be different in this new time and place. But she was a minor character anyway, it’s not like I knew her that well to begin with.

I don’t want to say much more than that about it. I’m one of those people who can talk myself right out of a story. And I have an idea where this might end up, publication-ally. It is essentially a new challenge, one I thought of and accepted (in my own head) about two days ago.

One interesting thing about this is that the NaNo file is now schizoid. I’ve already done some bopping back and forth between the two stories. One MO scene, one new thing scene. (I really have to learn how to come up with provisional titles!) There are two stories going on in that Word file, and their only connection is that they are coming out of the same head.

We’ll see. I have no idea where I will be with this on November 30. But I am enjoying the freedom of the new story tremendously. And I believe what Jasper Fforde said in the pep-email he sent to NaNoers yesterday: You may end up throwing out these 50,000 words, but you will have learned something critical in the process, and you will be a better writer for it, and you will never regret the exercise.

And I’m happy to have finally joined in the true spirit of NaNo, the way it’s supposed to be done. AND I got a blog post out of it. Amazing!