Ohbalto Online Welcome to the new blog. Same as the old blog.

Iron BabyPosted by dhoffman on May 27th, 2010

I think the title says it all, really:

The Berlin ReunionPosted by dhoffman on May 25th, 2010

In celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (I’m trying not to do the math there and sort out how old that would make me), France’s Royal de Luxe street theater company put on a performance in the streets of Berlin, Germany entitled The Berlin Reunion.

It’s magnificent and magical and well worth sharing.  I don’t want to say anything more because it really is the kind of thing you should see with fresh eyes.

Mark Twain’s AutobiographyPosted by dhoffman on May 24th, 2010

100 years after he died, Mark Twain has a new book coming out: his autobiography.

It’s set to be released in November, 2010.

You can read all about it here, by way of The Independent and, if the idea of a new Mark Twain book — half a million words, by the way — doesn’t get you excited, well, you probably don’t need to bother clicking that link to learn more.

Monday, Tuesday & WednesdayPosted by dhoffman on May 20th, 2010

I’ve had this window, or one just like it, open on my desktop almost from the moment I came in this morning.  Aside from a kerfuffle with a recently-installed content-filter on the router (that really, really did not work — it was blocking email but not adult sites), I’ve been intending to blog just about all day.

Whoops.

At any rate, it’s been a somewhat busy day.  Continues to be a somewhat busy day.  Insists on being a somewhat busy day.

I had a couple bits, though, that I thought were worth posting.  I’m going to try and get my nights straight here, so bear with me:

Monday Night: I believe Monday night was good.  Maybe a thousand words, give or take.  It felt like work, but like good work.  I don’t even think I stayed up too late.

Tuesday Night: now, this was something.  I started out early and, though I deleted a bunch of stuff, I re-wrote it, possibly for the better, then I more or less wrote the entire next chapter in one awesome burst of creativity / productivity.  Which is a grand thing because, while this was a chapter I was very excited to be writing, I really had not the foggiest notion of how I was going to write it.  More to the point, the actions of this chapter will benefit from being written from start to finish as one continuous effort (if that makes any sense).

Tuesday was about 4,000 words, which is great, especially for a frigging weeknight.

Wednesday Night: ho boy.  The problem I had is, though this is the second draft, my “roadmap” for the MS only went as far as the chapter I wrote Tuesday night.  Not to say I don’t know what happens (I do) but there are finer details.  Think of it like the difference between saying, “I’m going to Detroit this weekend” and sitting down with a map of the country and saying, “alright, how the hell am I getting to Detroit this weekend?”

No, I’m not going to Detroit this weekend.  Move on.

The first thing I did, then, after opening up and saving the day’s version of the MS, was to open a blank file.

I typed my customary greeting, “Okay” and began summarizing things.  This happened, then this happened, then this happened.  There are patterns, you see, mirrors throughout the story.  So when this happens here, it’s meaningful for that happening there.

What I was looking for, then, was some sort of idea for what to use for the next mirror.  What’s the this to the upcoming that?  The car’s in the drive-way and Detroit is a hike but which way do I turn to get on the highway?

Boy oh boy.

I had a doozy of an idea.  More than that, I had an idea that was so solid it made me realize that the antagonist in our little story, yeah, they could actually win. That had never been a serious consideration before, but I had to sit back and consider it now.

I wrote some more, about 2,000 words of notes and thoughts for the “back forty” as it were.  When I got done I went and refilled my iced tea and then I got to working.

I wrote about two pages, basically one scene where a character goes up to a room and does something.  What was important, though, was the direction I had going here.  I might get home tonight and decide I hate it all but at the time I was really flying.  It felt solid and good, which is a great thing.

Some authors talk about hating the stuff you’re writing while you’re writing it, but that’s not the case with me.  Oh, I have no illusions about the amount of editing this MS is going to need to even be readable, much less entertaining.  But I can see through that.  I can see the story beats and the character beats and I’m liking the way this is going.

I also came up with some interesting ideas for Painted Ocean as well as for the new, untitled story.  Those are jotted down in my notes file, which I suppose I’ll organize one day.

These blog posts are funny because they never really have an ending per se. I wouldn’t say I’ve learned anything, or grown as a person.  I don’t even know how interesting it might be, oh theoretical blog reader(s), if you’re not the person who’s, you know, writing the damned book.

And now this post has gone on about five times longer than I’d intended and I’ve got some bills and change orders to go through for the day job.

Don’t Drunk-Dial FreedomWorksPosted by dhoffman on May 18th, 2010

Whatever your politics, this is funny as hell (though it’s probably a lot funnier if you’re not a Teabagger):

A New, Twisting IdeaPosted by dhoffman on May 17th, 2010

Thought I might try for a shorter blog entry today.  Maybe I’ll come back later with some more to say, and maybe not.

Didn’t get any writing done this weekend (well, Saturday and Sunday, at any rate) and that’s okay.  It’s okay because, um, well, er . . . I had an official BIG IDEA this weekend.

I don’t know how this works for other authors.  I barely know how this works for me.  The original “story” for Beautiful Handcrafted Animals was supposed to be a sort of Peter’s Friends affair, where a bunch of friends get together and act like asses until one of them — the ostensible main character — drops a bombshell which dwarfs all their crap and puts everything into perspective.

Hey, what?  It was supposed to be a “learning experience”.

Since that idea, the story has . . . changed.  It’s changed rather naturally, as I’ve written and thought and re-written and re-thought, and I feel it’s reached what may be its more or less final form.  The story, at any rate.  I had a great inspiration the other day about something to change which works rather better than the original something, but that’s that.

When I started writing, it was simpler.  It probably would have been easier to write if I’d left it there.

Painted Ocean started out with an interesting mental image.  Then I had some other cool ideas, a drop of inspiration brought on by (of all things) my iPod shuffling to this song instead of that song.  Somewhere along the line I realized my main character had legs and wanted to stretch them.  One book?  Pah, who writes only one book anymore?  How about NINE books (or maybe twelve)?

The point is, these started out as rather simple ideas.  Some friends get together.  A submarine accident.  Then they grew.

This story — and God only knows when I’ll get to write it — hit, fully-formed, like a bolt from the blue.

It’s a pretty great idea, if I may say so myself.  I took some notes and while I’d love to be writing it this moment, I know enough (now) to know that I need to let it germinate for a while.  At least six months.  Probably much longer.

The neat thing about this particular, nameless story, is that I think it would be a nice follow-up to Animals. This might be an odd way to think but, if I’m being realistic, if I were to get Animals out there onto the book shelves of the world, Painted Ocean might not be the follow-up to to please the folks who were into Animals.

Well, we’re in full-on author fantasy-wank here.  Go with it.

This new story is the sort of thing that could follow up Animals. Which is a nice feeling because (and again, I don’t know how this works for other authors, but this is how I think of it) while I might consider a theoretical reader for this book, it’s nice to think I’ve got something else they might enjoy wriggling away within me.

And look at that.  Not the longest blog-post in a while, but more than I think I’d intended.  I suppose there are worse things one can get on about.

Nuclear Zombie Attack!Posted by dhoffman on May 12th, 2010

We had a little bit of a flickering lights, power-maybe-going-out situation here a few minutes ago.  Nothing major, but it always sends my hand flying to the Ctrl-S key to make sure I don’t lose anything (yes, I am working).

A couple minutes in the wake of that, a LOT of sirens went wailing by.  Jessy stuck her head in and said something to the effect of; “we need to make sure we know the emergency procedures in case the nuclear power plant explodes, or something.”

My short response to her was; “I was more worried it was the zombie apocalypse.”

Which got me thinking about sirens and emergencies and what it might mean when the first thing she thinks about it our lingering death by radioactive fallout and the first thing I’m thinking is, okay, the best thing would be to load ourselves into the car straight away.  Don’t drive too fast — people in zombie movies always die when they panic and crash into something.

Possibly not a good sign.

The Z HoursPosted by dhoffman on May 12th, 2010

There are only twenty four (or so) hours in the day and, though I didn’t use to think it was so, I do need sleep occasionally.

Take those twenty-four and subtract X for sleeping, eating, bathing, exercising and other necessities, then subtract Y for work and what you’ve got left are the Z hours.

Z = everything else.

Now, in an ideal world, I’d be writing during Y and not parked at a computer or racing around the streets of Manhattan, dealing with day-job related stuff.

So it goes.

The way it works today is that Z is what I’ve got to work with.

Z mostly gets nights and weekends and the occasional afternoon or morning if I find myself not toiling away in the office.  Nights and weekends are tricky things, of course.  Other people want to talk to you about your nights and weekends.  Tuesday nights, for instance, are for gaming.  Sunday nights, seemingly — at least this time of year — is for getting together with and then recovering from my family.

When you chop your Z up into the tiny little bits it, by necessity, must be chopped into, you find a sad and small number.  Z = >0 approaching 0, if you can dig it.

I know I’ve written about this before, but it cracks me up when I see a professional writer telling aspiring folks to write four, six, eight, ten hours a day.  It’s a nice dream, is what I’m saying.  And I’m not even talking about sequestering oneself away four four hours at a time, puzzling over what to write and how to write it and does this work and maybe I’ll rewrite it four or eight or ten or fifty times . . .

I mean, hey, if I’m lucky and things are rolling, I’ll get a solid hour in in a night.  Actually, if I get a solid hour in, I’m ecstatic.  Most nights, getting a solid, productive hour is a gift.

If this sounds whiny or complainy, it’s not supposed to.  When I get that hour in, my Z is officially better than the entire 24 – (X + Y ) combined.  When you’re cooking, I’m not sure there’s anything better out there.

As I’m working on Animals, and when it’s good, it really doesn’t feel like work, I save the MS as a new file each day / night / afternoon / whatever, when I start working.  I didn’t used to do this, but I realized I might be interested in going back and checking back how things had progressed.  Plus, it was an easier way to hold onto stuff I deleted than saving it so outside files.

A consequence of this is, when I sit down Tuesday night, tired and beat, to write, and it’s May 11th, and I see the date on the most recent file is May 6th . . . I have to take a moment and sort out how that can be so.

Well, let’s see . . . the sixth was last Thursday and I wrote.

Friday was the seventh and Jessy and I tend to do stuff together Friday night.

Saturday was the eighth and we had folks over for gaming, including an internet-friend over for the first time who stayed late.  We beat the typically very punishing Witch of Salem with him, but once he’d gone, we basically called it a night.

Sunday was the ninth, and Mother’s day to boot.  We got up, got lunch and were out in Long Island — and when we came home, we were, once again, quite tuckered out.

Monday I should have written — I should have worked out, too — but it didn’t happen.  First we had a contractor over and then dinner was delayed and then suddenly it was midnight and I was tired and blech.

And then Tuesday was the eleventh.  Five days down the tube for five-plus perfectly good reasons.

So, today is the twelfth and when I save that file tonight it’s going to need to be early and I’m going to need to be fresh.  Right now, we don’t have anything earth-shaking on the books for more than a week, so the only excuse I can use if I’m not taking good advantage of my Z hours is my own laziness or lack of focus.

Sometimes I wonder if it’ll be easier when I’m writing Painted Ocean or some book or story other than Animals. I read some chapters back the other day and was very happy with what I had.  Long road to get there, though.  I’m hoping it’s worth it, that this story feels worth the trouble once it’s all finished and done.

I don’t think I had a choice; I had to write it, had to finish it.  And while it might be nice if Ocean flowed out of me like, well, water, I can’t help but also wonder if that fight, that uphill scramble, if that’s not what makes it all worthwhile.

A Big Catchup PostPosted by dhoffman on May 5th, 2010

I keep losing blog posts.

I begin writing them, embed a link or upload a picture, then the phone rings or something else starts happening.  A couple times Firefox has crashed (I’ve tried using dedicated blog-writing programs but almost universally I haven’t enjoyed them) and I’ve lost posts that way.  Yesterday I closed a window with a couple paragraphs in it accidentally.

Some people might take that as a sign.

Not me.

So, here I am.  Let’s see if we can’t mush a bunch of stuff into this one post and then maybe I’ll be better about my blogging (I’ve noticed I seem to exist in two states; either apologizing for not blogging and having just blogged).

I wrote last night, my, um, third stab at the start of Chapter Thirteen.  I’m closing in on it, though.  I’m thinking I might have sorted out what I want to be doing and how I want to be doing it.

Animals has been an absolute bitch to write.  Point of view keeps switching and every chapter feels like it’s its own entity.  I’m constantly hunting for the right angle, the right way to sneak into a scene and while it’s been interesting, it certainly hasn’t been easy.

I just hope the damned thing is entertaining when it’s done.

The next book, Painted Ocean, should be a more simply constructed book.  The issue with Animals is that (spoiler? nah) nothing really happens in the order I’m writing it.  Which is to say time is sort of . . . slippery in this book.  There is a definite timeline (I’ve got it written down somewhere), but presenting things like that wouldn’t be a bit of fun at all.

So it goes.  Ocean is much more straightforward, at least when you ignore the fact that it’s the first book in a nine to twelve book series.  And even then, things still go more or less in the order you’re reading them.  The order I’m writing them, too, come to that.

Which I suspect will be nice for writing.  One point of view.  One main character.  I haven’t sorted out if it’s going to be first person (like Animals) or third person, and whether or not it’s going to be present tense (sigh, like Animals) or past tense (like, um, almost every other book in existence).

It’s just possible I’ve aimed too high with this, my first “real” novel.  I figure, if you’re going to shoot for the stars, shoot for the ones that are far away, right?  It’s the hard road or no road for me.

Within Chapter Thirteen, I know what actions are taking place (some of my favorite scenes in the entire book, including probably my favorite single bit of imagery in the entire story), so it’s not the What that I’m wrestling with but the How. How can be very vexing and, sometimes, even more vital than that What. Oh, not at the expense of What, certainly, but it needs to be spot-on or what’s the damned point?

——————–

Okay, so I said I had some links I’d lost.  Let’s see, first is this pretty awesome trailer for Batman XXX: A Porn Parody.  It’s safe for work, true to the 1960′s Batman show and looks funny enough to watch even if everyone kept their clothes on:

Here’s another trailer, this time with a political slant.  Robert Rodriguez has a movie coming out, what he calls a “Mexploitation” film.  It started as one of the fake trailers in Rodriguez’s movie, Grindhouse, with Quentin Tarrantino, but it’s a real movie now, and due to be released relatively soon.

This trailer is Rodriguez’s and star Danny Trejo’s response to the recent insanity in Arizona over immigration reform:

Slightly less explosive but very interesting in spite of that are these Color Survey Results from XKCD.com.

Jessy and I have certainly had a couple mild disagreements over what to call certain colors.  Over 222,500 user sessions, the folks at XKCD have gathered some cool information about how men and women relate differently to color.

And because that sounds really, really dry, and uninteresting, here are a couple examples to pique your interests:

Five color names disproportionately popular among women:

1. Dusty Teal
2. Blush Pink
3. Dusty Lavendar
4. Butter Yellow
5. Dusky Rose

And, of course, from the opposite side of the spectrum, five names disproportionately popular with men:

1. Penis
2. Gay
3. WTF
4. Dunno
5. Baige (not a typo — and when you read the article you see it’s based on the number of unique people answering this way).

And, I just want to say, I know how to spell “Beige” even without the spell-checker.  Also, I’d like to know if folks associated a specific color with “WTF” or if that was just a generic answer then they, I don’t know, saw a color they were unfamiliar with?

Weird and fascinating.  Just the way we like it.