Ryne Douglas Pearson's Blog, page 18

Beautifully done.

Below is a picture of my father, who served in WW II in the Pacific. He never talked much about his time 'in the service', as he always put it, and when he died in 1984 I doubted I'd ever know much about that time in his life as his service records were destroyed in a fire that consumed millions of military records in the 70's.

When my mother passed away this summer, while going through her possessions several items turned up. My father's original discharge papers revealed information we never knew. And his wallet, which she had saved, contained the photo below, tucked away behind others.

He was trained as an interpreter to speak German, but was instead sent to the Pacific and served in New Guinea, the Philippines, and other locations. He left the Army a corporal after the war, unscathed it appears, in any physical way. Still, he never talked about it. I think this photo (which I have edited to remove the graphic content) might explain why.

My father is the one not wearing a hat.

 

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No words needed.

Some days suck.

I have them. Likely you do as well if you're a writer. You crank out two pages, three, four, and as it's flowing you're thinking, 'Hey, this is pretty good.'

Then you look back at it and want to punch yourself in the throat. It's dreck. Worse than dreck. It's the stuff dreck scrapes off the bottom of its flip flops.

Why the hell does this happen? How can one minute things feel soooooo good, and the next...not.

Is it some speed-induced euphoria? Is the rapid tapping of fingertips to keyboard releasing some endorphin that clouds the ability to judge one's self critically? Does speed actually kill creativity when writing?

I think not. The reality is, sometimes you just write crap. Occasionally that crap leads somewhere non-crappy, but often it's just a steaming pile of literary poo.

So how do you overcome this?

You don't. You write. Probably more crap. Then write some more. I've said before I don't believe in writer's block. To me that's just an excuse to excuse one's self from the fear of writing crap.

Just write the crap and get on with it.

In California people often refer to heatwaves as 'earthquake weather'. The belief still exists that hot weather can trigger an earthquake. I don't buy it. Never have.

But I do hold with the concept of 'writing weather'. For me it's when the days turn cold, dropping down to a near life-threatening low 60's here. In the early morning, the mercury might even drop to a truly dangerous upper 40's. At that temperature you're risking a bad shiver if you step outside in shorts.

Was that digressing? Because, if so, I get to say 'but I digress'.

Anyway, yes, I love writing in cold weather. Especially in the chilly morning. I'm not one for cranking up the heater, so socks, sweats, and my old LL Bean flannel shirt keep me toasty and allow me to focus.

And maybe that's it--the ability to focus. The icy low 70's in my office forces me to conserve energy and zero in on what's on the screen. It must be like falling into an icy river, and your body draws all the blood to your vital organs. In this case, as a writer, all the blood flows to your brain and your fingertips.

Physiologically absurd? Maybe. But Stephen King wrote some of his best work in Maine. In the winter. So, I'd say Writerthermia is a theory yet to be disproved.

From 1999, Michael Crichton looks ahead. What does he get right, and what does he get wrong?

Today, it's a very special recommendation. Something Ed Wood would envy. It's Killer Klowns From Outer Space. Pure, unadulterated schlock. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll stare at the screen dumbfounded. Just do it. Own this masterpiece of outlandish cinema.



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This is a spoof. Really. Honestly. Only a spoof. Trust me. No industry would operate this way. Really.

National Novel Writing Month is in full swing, with the goal for participants to complete a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. It's a great idea. A worthy exercise.

But what about December 1st? The day after. Do you collapse if you've been a slave to the keyboard for a month and now need to see the sun? Or do you need to avoid the sun because your face is burned from the LCD glow of your monitor? Do you congratulate yourself and say, whew, can't wait for next year?

If you're a writer you realize that every month is NaNaWriMo (possibly the worst abbreviation of any event ever). And every day is National Novel Writing Day. Or it should be.

Because writers write. They don't need a gimmick to do so every day. Breaks come naturally when you are a writer. Stepping away from the keyboard when necessary for a day off or a vacation is no different than for any other profession. Because that's what you want, right? For it to be your profession?

Yes, the 'j' word. Job. Meaning you're doing it for money. To be paid. If not, and NaNoWriMo can get you through the next eleven months, more power to you.

But if you want to be a working writer, think like one, even if you're not being paid for it yet. If all you can manage is one page a day because you have a non-writing job and two kids and hockey to coach, then one page it is (for a post on what pages add up to see THIS POST) every day.

The key is to not let NaNoWriMo be a sprint to a finish line. Let it be the first lap in a long, long race.

I'm plagued by ideas. They tumble from my brain like gum balls from a machine. I jot them down, e-mail them to myself, save them, shred them, and sometimes share them with my agents and managers to see if I'm onto something or out of my mind.

Even with a list of dozens culled to maybe five or six or ten viable ideas, what do I write? How do I choose what to work on at this moment? And, in what format will I realize this idea? Novel? Short story? Screenplay?

For me, deciding format is the first step, and it's also the easiest. Some ideas are just that--ideas. Kernels. A snippet of a whole that I do not yet see. If that's the case--short story. I focus on that and embrace the contained nature of the format, cramming those 2 or 5 or 12 thousand words with as much story as possible until what emerges is like a bomb with a lit fuse, ready to go off, waiting only for someone to start reading.

Now it gets harder, because it's easy to confuse the applicability of either novel or screenplay to certain ideas. You might think that an idea can be fully realized as both. But that's not the decision to be made. You have to look at what will best serve the idea. Will it satisfy its audience more fully on the page, or on the screen? When considering this, don't get caught up in the reality that an idea can end up as both, usually finding its audience as a novel before being interpreted for the screen. That's not the choice to be made.

To decide between novel and film I ask myself a very simple question: how much do I need to be in the main characters' heads to make this work? If the answer is more than 'very little', then it's a novel. Screenplays are about showing, not telling. Novels allow more introspection by your characters. The key here is being honest with yourself. You may imagine your idea as being painted on the beautiful canvas of a cinema screen, but if your characters are going all 'My Dinner With Andre' in order to explain to the audience why a certain vampire must be killed, I'd lean toward novel.

So now I've made my choice. Or you have. I forget if I'm talking about me or giving you advice here. No matter, I/we have chosen our format. Or format. Each viable idea has been branded a short story, or novel, or screenplay.

Which one to write?

Here you have to exercise the honesty gene again and ask yourself if you want to fulfill yourself or your bank account. The two choices aren't always mutually exclusive, but there is almost always an idea which rises to the top of the 'what will entertain others' pile as compared to the 'what will make me feel warm and fuzzy' pile. And here you have to ask yourself why you write? If it's to write things you'll love, have at the novel about how Aunt Judy stumbled upon the peach pie recipe her great great grandmother used to feed Union soldiers during the civil war. But if your motivation is to write what others will love and want to pay for, the choice may be how Uncle Frank ignored orders and led a squad of soldiers across the border during the second gulf war to rescue a comrade snatched by Iranian commandos.

I like peach pie a lot, and I still know which one I'd write.