When Spirits Sag

When I made the decision to concentrate on nothing but my writing, I set a goal of finishing my novel, We’re For Smoke, by the end of October. Now, in mid August, that self imposed deadline is looming. Halloween will be here in two shakes of a lambs tail and I still have approximately 15 to 20 thousand words to write.

Sitting down at me desk has become as inviting as crawling into the dentist’s chair. I keep telling myself it won’t hurt, but I don’t believe it. The words have been slow, the dialog seems stilted, I haven’t been hitting my word count, but I have been getting words on the page.

This installment of the blog is a day late. I have a guest blog written by an extremely talented writer friend of my waiting in the wings for just such an emergency but I didn’t publish it yesterday because I didn’t miss the deadline because of an emergency, I missed it because I didn’t force my tail to sit in the chair and write.

But here it is, such as it is. I’m calling it a blog post.

The story arc I am writing for Smoke is about a mentally handicapped woman named Mary Rea. In 1915 people with mental diseases were treated a might differently than they are today. I understand that in 1915 cowboys did not have electric cattle prods. That will be changed.

Mare about Mary later, when I get my gumption back.

  Mary Rea lay in her bed like a corpse. She slept very, very, little but when her mind did let go it fell into the inky abyss of sleep like a granite boulder falling off the cliffs of the Trinity. She did not dream, she did not toss nor turn. The sheets and blanket were strewn and twisted but strewn and twisted from before she fell asleep. Once she was under, Mary Rea lay in her bed like a corpse.

When conscious, Mary’s mind and body were tortured by emotions. They were not her emotions for she did not control them. Quite the opposite, in truth, they poked and jabbed her thoughts and body like a sadistic cowboy wielding a high voltage electric cattle prod. Most nights she prowled her home, Mary always looked as if she were either prowling or running, for she was either attempting to flee the emotions or doing their bidding. Always in haste, Mary was always in haste.

When she did succumb to bed she did so begrudgingly and with a look of dread and terror in her eyes. Sometimes, as she tossed and twisted, she cried. Loneliness and fear where the only emotions Mary owned.

Cold comfort for Mary Rea.

If You Don’t Sh*t a Little, You Aren’t Doing It Right

Last week I discussed the important role of naps to the writer’s act of creation. This week I’ll address the need to embrace and trust fear. 
That’s right. Fear is good for you, if you have put in the work. 

Athletes put in hours and hours of repetitious work and drills in order to develop muscle memory. The payoff comes in game time when the body simply reacts, no need to think, just perform. It is called muscle memory. 

Writers need to develop the same type of muscle memory with their writing. When you are starting out, read everything you can, and then read some more. Study what you read. Break it down. Learn the structure of storytelling. Practice what you learn. Write stories; be structured in your writing.

Then, eventually, let it go. Forget about structure. Concentrate on character, plot, and developing your own voice. That is when the fear comes in. Sometimes when I’m writing I feel like I’m walking a tightrope with no net. I honestly do not know where the story will end up, I just trust that it will end in a good place. 

I have written several stories this year based on personal experiences. Eastern Shore was about the death of my father, Out of the blue was about a family dog. I just finished one about my first kiss. A few months back I set out to write about my favorite uncle and it took a bizarre turn I never imagined. This little voice in the back of my head kept telling me to write things that seemingly had nothing to do with the story at hand. I’ll often get an idea, different from what I’m writing about. When that happens I open a new document and jot it down, save it and get back to the task at hand. This time was different. They were not separate ideas, the voice told me they belonged in the story about my Uncle Paul. I decided to listen to the voice. I wrote down the disjointed scenes and tangents. Over the course of the few days it took to write the story, a structure and plot began to come together. It was actually very exciting when everything fell into place. It was a story unlike anything I had ever written. It is my favorite, so far, this year.

Your subconscious is always working for you. Learning to tap into it and trust it can be scary. If you aren’t a little scared, if you don’t feel a little trepidation about what you’re working on, you are probably not stretching your imagination far enough. You have to trust that your subconscious will lead you to safety.  Don’t be afraid to follow your subconscious down the dark alley, it will be alright… most of the time. And if the alley turns out to be a dead end, well, that is what the delete button is for. 

Here is an excerpt from The Man in Dick Van Dyke’s Hat:

The Man in Dick Van Dyke’s Hat

The man leaned against the Knights of Pythias Building in downtown Fort Worth and seemed oblivious and invisible to the bustle about him.

Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t invisible, he was there all right. It’s just he and each and everyone else walking by was encased in their own personal bubble. All unaware of each other.

The man was in bad need of a shave and his clothes had seen a lot of miles. He wasn’t dirty so much as unkempt. He was dressed like he had two part time jobs, one as a circus ringmaster and the other a maître d’ at a restaurant where the prices are not printed on the menu. He wore a tattered, battered and torn straw hat that once belonged to Dick Van Dyke. Everyone’s seen it. It was the one Van Dyke wore in Mary Poppins. Not one like it, the very same hat. The man and Van Dyke had been friends at one time.

But that is a different story.

This is my Uncle Paul’s story. Great Uncle Paul to be genealogically precise. He was my maternal grandmother’s brother in law.

Uncle Paul was my favorite uncle. He looked out for me. He was about the only male relative I had who spent much time with me. It was Uncle Paul who taught me how to tie my shoes. He showed me how to kick a ball. Most importantly, he answered my boyhood questions.

My father was absent most of my childhood and my grandfather, I called him Da-dad, was, well, a man of few words. Da-dad spoke in concise, blunt sentences, most of which were either declarative or imperative.

Uncle Paul was career Army and did four tours in Vietnam. The first two tours he was ordered to go. The last two tours he volunteered.

On the day before Uncle Paul was to leave for his fourth tour. Aunt Nita was pissed. For weeks I had heard her and my mom talking about Uncle Paul leaving. Aunt Nita was worried and scared. She did not want him to go. She did not understand why he kept volunteering to go back.

It was 1967 and young men were avoiding the draft by heading over the border to Canada in droves and most career Army personnel were hunting cushy, safe deployments stateside. Meanwhile, Uncle Paul had already been in combat three times and returned from each tour without a scratch. Aunt Nita felt Uncle Paul was pressing his luck.  

Napping and Other Writing Secrets

I have been given a ton of grief over the years from telling my children and significant other, “I’ll be working on the couch, so keep it quiet please.” To the untrained eye it appears I am napping, nodding off into Lala land, but to other writers, it is recognized as work, a necessary and important part of the writing process.

I sometimes think the subconscious is where the real work gets done. It is for me where the originality, if I have any, and uniqueness of my work emerges. Every artist I know has experienced ideas seemingly appearing out of the ether. Sometimes a line, melody, or idea just pops in their head as a gift from the gods. I say it isn’t a gift at all, but rather the fully formed work of the subconscious bubbling up to the conscious. Who knows how long they have been working down there, hours, days, weeks, months? Bottom line it is still a product of the artists mind, just on a deeper level. I think an artist’s real talent isn’t necessarily their ability to write, paint, sculpt or whatever their discipline, but rather their ability or openness to tap the subconscious.

A few months ago I was doing some editing on a legal brief for a lawyer friend of mind and came across the practice of soring a horse.

Soring Definition: 

Soring involves the intentional infliction of pain to a horse's legs or hooves in order to force the horse to perform an artificial, exaggerated gait. Caustic chemicals—blistering agents like mustard oil, diesel fuel and kerosene—are applied to the horse's limbs, causing extreme pain and suffering.

I was at first repulsed by the practice then fascinated. A day or two later I thought a super villain with skin like sandpaper would be interesting. The image of a big brute attacking people and rubbing them raw between the thighs or under the armpit would be repulsive and funny. So, I started writing. I had no plan, no characters, except the villain and no plot. I just started typing, almost reading as I went along. I knew it had to be noir, then it fell more into hardboiled pulp. I pulled some Fredric Brown off my shelf and reread some of his work. I researched hardboiled pulp slang.

The words just kept coming out. Characters developed and started doing things. I just followed along. My short stories usually run about 3,500 to 4.500 words but this story blew by that word count with no ending in sight. It actually began to get annoying. There are very few publications that accept stories longer than 4,500 words. Finally, the ending showed itself and I wrapped up The Soring at around 6,500 words. Even at that it felt truncated. I plan, at some point, on going back and letting it loose, maybe see if I can get a novella out of the idea.

My point is I didn’t really try and force a plot on the story, I just let my subconscious lead the way. As a teenager and into my early twenties I loved pulp science fiction and detective fiction. I had read tons and tons of the genre. Fredric Brown is an idol to me. The rhythm, pacing and style was still in my brain, just buried. When it was triggered and let loose it bubbled up and wanted, until I choked it off, to keep going for who knows how many more thousands of words.  

So, open yourself up, get to work and take a nap.

Here is an excerpt from “The Soring.”

     By 11pm the alley rats began to scurry behind the Major and the streets were completely empty. Only three people had entered the building on the Major’s watch. Two women and one man. They all had keys; no one had to be buzzed up and no one had exited. 

     The Major began to fidget. He had neglected to bring a flask or buy an extra bottle at the package store. Without a few pulls of whiskey the tremors would begin to set in soon.

     Sudden movement caught his eyes as the suspect walked in front of the left window shade. His gait was jerky and when only half in the frame he collapsed and fell. The Major stood straighter. The shades on both windows shook. Apparently the suspect was rolling violently on the floor, hitting the wall periodically. The subject was down, out of frame for a full fifteen seconds, then, a second figure, much larger than the suspect, rose from the floor and passed, unsteadily, by the right window shade. 

     “What the hell…” thought the Major. 

     This unexpected action brought the tremors on full force. The Major cursed. He knew the location of most every liquor store in LA but had no mental map of Compton. While he contemplated leaving his post in search of a bar or package store, the hulking figure passed, from right to left, by both window shades, a few seconds later the lights in the apartment went dark.

     The Major was now in a pickle. 

#

"The Soring" will be published in the new pulp magazine Crimson Streets in October or November. 

The Writing Relationship

Heading into August and just over half the year is already gone. The dog days of another Texas summer is in full blister mode and the schedule of writing three weeks a month on the historical novel, We’re for Smoke, and one week devoted to a short story has now become routine.

While I am proud not to have missed a month turning out a short story, I have fallen behind on my page output on the novel. Research has slowed me down a little and one of the short stories ate up more than its allotted week but the main reason is I simply got bogged down on one of the story lines in Smoke.

The best thing about writing historical fiction is the plot line is laid out for you. The worst thing about writing historical fiction is, yep, I’m going there, the plot line is laid out for you. Writing affects your personality; at least it affects my personality. Two months ago I tried my hand at writing hardboiled pulp fiction and researched the slang and lingo. I walked around for two weeks saying things like ‘eat a peach’ and ‘that’s Jake!’

The fiction world sometime drips into reality and sometimes that causes the checkout person at the grocery store to look at you sideways because weird words slip out of your mouth. Don’t get your beezer in a bunch when I’m just bumping gums, I say.  

Most of the storylines in Smoke involve death and some degree of violence. A few of the storylines involve a ton of violence. The past few months have been brutal. A lot of senseless, brutal, wanton death and destruction. It wore me down. It made me avoid the butt in the seat, words on paper, writing.

I think I have bulled my way through. Writing is a relationship. Sometimes you don’t always like the person you love, but you don’t give up on them. You work it out, sometimes you just work through it until you come out on the other side. 

Tom Lee was a black man in Fort Worth who snapped under the burdens of racism. He may have just become fed up. He most assuredly suffered from some severe mental illness. I found him to be sympathetic.  

Sons of Ham

Tom Lee

Tom Lee awoke with blood boiling. Most mornings Tom Lee awoke pissed at one thing or another, but today he aimed to do something about the anger. Today Tom Lee decided not to drink to forget the humiliation of being less than a man; today Tom Lee would drink to bolster the courage to be a man. A man of action.

Tom Lee spent six days a week, twelve to fourteen hours a day on his knees at the feet of Fort Worth’s elite, shining and polishing boots and shoes at the Congress Barber Shop. Tom Lee was, according to the Congress’s owner, S.I. Rodick, a ‘good nigger,’ which meant he did what he was told, when he was told to do it and acted happy about it all the time. There was, however, nothing about Tom Lee’s life that made him happy or proud.

He spent most evening in the Acre, drinking rotgut whiskey and gambling.  He drank to numb the humiliation and he gambled because sometimes he won. A man needs to win every once in a while.  Most times he lost but the maybe one time in ten that Tom Lee won, it made him feel whole, even a little human.

Last night Tom Lee joined a craps game in an alley behind McGar’s saloon. On this night Lee lost badly. He had been foolish to leave his brother’s house with his entire bankroll but he had and within an hour it was gone. He had rolled dice with Pete Soles and Walter Moore. Lee had shot pool with Moore on a few occasions but had never laid eyes on Soles. Lee knew Moore never played straight in pool and hustled drunks and young men, too inexperienced to know they were being taken. Lee offered that Moore and Soles had cheated him out of nearly $100 and he aimed to take it back in hide.

Tom Lee left the lean to in back of his brother’s house where he laid his head and crossed into his neighbor’s yard. He knocked softly on the back door. Mrs. Heath walked over to the screen and the two exchanged pleasantries. Lee was polite and jovial, there was no hint of his real mood. Every black man that lived past the age of thirty knew how to laugh, joke and act pleasant, no matter the true emotions roiling in the pit of their stomach.

“I’s going bird hunting, Mrs. Health or I would like to,” Lee said. “Do you think Jim would mind me borrowing his shotgun? I’ll gladly drop off two quail for dinner when I return it, if I’m lucky enough to shoot three or more.”

“Of course, Tom,” said Mrs. Heath. “I’m sure Jim won’t mind a bit.” She opened the screen door and Tom entered. A few minutes later he left out the front door with the 12 gauge, double barrel shotgun and turned towards town, his pockets, front and back, loaded with bird shot.

Tom Lee walked with a single purpose down East Eighth Street, he drew a few stares from the white men on the street as they looked uneasily at the black man carrying a shotgun down the center of the street. The few carriages and cars on the road gave him a fair berth. When he was dead center of McCampbell’s Barbeque he turned and eyed Pete Soles who was standing at the street side counter eating a plate of chicken, his back to the street.

Jack finally had a moment to step back the grill and wipe the sweat from his face. The lunch rush was easing up and he finally had a chance to step away from the heat of the grill and collected his thoughts and right now he was thinking he needed a long draw of water.

 “Would you look at the no account pig sloppin’ down on a plate of chicken,” Lee said to Soles.

Soles looked around and saw Lee addressing him. “Unless your carrying more money to lose shooting craps, take that shotgun, stick it up your ass and walk back home,” Soles responded with a smile across his lips.

Jack looked out from behind the counter and quickly sized up the situation. It was not good, he surmised. The man in the street toting the shotgun had a blank, cold stare, like he had already pulled the trigger and cared not of the consequences.