Kiteanic.com

Really, it comes down to this: Do I plow through the rest of Macbeth tonight and tomorrow, spend a weekend working on the cover page and then submit #2 in the Shakespeare for Slackers, or, do I look at all the stuff I’ve managed to do this week and say to myself “Whew! I need a vacation!” before spending another glorious weekend sitting around relaxing?

Come to think of it, is there any point in trying to relax right now? I mean, I know what’s coming on Monday . . . it’ll be more of what I stopped doing on Friday, at approximately 5:00. Can I really shake off that sort of emotional trauma over a mere 2 days? Maybe there’s no point to even trying . . .

Or, to consider the other argument, maybe the only way I can remain sane is to blow off 2 whole days in preparation for the agony that will be Monday morning!

Decisions, decisions . . .

I know! It’s time to break out my trusty coin!  Heads, I give my poor aching head a rest for a couple of days, tails I work my tail off and finish Macbeth.

(Flip)

(Puts on party-hat, blows into unfurl-y paper party noisemaker)

Update: The Scottish Play – 90% done

As indicated above, I’m getting to the point where one big chunk of solid effort will put me over the top, and it’ll be done. Yes, number two in the series . . . done quicker than I was expecting. So, naturally I’m concerned that if I don’t slow down, I’ll blow a gasket or something. Thank goodness I’m not doing anything but relaxing this weekend.

Yeah, like that’ll happen. Pfffft!

There are some people who are really good at it, and there are some that aren’t. Some people get frustrated by their inability to convey what they mean, some people shrug it off. Some people use the wrong words and blame the listener for focusing on what they did say instead of understanding what they meant to say. Some people manage to get it out exactly right, but don’t believe it when other people say they understand what they mean, because they can’t understand . . . not really.

And despite all the different ways it can go wrong, all of the anxiety and heartache and frustration and anger we feel towards the act of communication, we continue to try. None of us can truly avoid it, or really want to.

The need to communicate with others is so powerful that they even found a way for a woman who was blind, deaf, and dumb to do it. Even hermits and recluses communicate – big, broad strokes of communication directed at the rest of society, large neon signs that say “I reject you, and want nothing to do with you. Go away!” Try as you might, you can’t create a scenario where you aren’t communicating something to someone.

It could be why I’m so attracted to art and writing. You’re spending a great deal of time communicating an idea, and when you’re done and you’re happy with what you’ve put together, the idea that you want to share is sitting right there, just waiting for someone. Who? Maybe you don’t exactly know who . . . maybe your idea won’t even get looked at, or won’t be understood properly because it’s the wrong kind of idea for the person who reads it. Doesn’t matter. The idea is there, intact and waiting for someone to stumble upon it, and it’s exactly the way that you wanted to present it.

Sometimes you can use help. Like when someone reads what you’ve written or drawn and says “I got this out of it,” where ‘this’ is entirely not what you were trying to communicate. Learning where you go wrong and honing your craft in order to better understand the act of communicating can be painful, yes . . . especially if you’re proud, or believe that you’re good enough to get it right the first try every time. If your whole point is to communicate, this pain is more like the pain you feel after a good workout – the grim satisfaction of knowing that you did something that will make you better in the long run.

I think that some people get into writing for the wrong sort of reasons. They think that it’s an activity that will make them a better communicator, or more popular, or rich and famous. They don’t see it as a process where you try to package an idea into the best container possible, the easiest way to get your point across to another human being, all for the express purpose of getting it done, putting it out there, and seeing how well it stands up.

Me? I have lots of ideas, and don’t know that many people. I think it’s pretty obvious why I write. In fact, I’m tempted to ask myself “Why don’t I write more?”

Shakespeare – The Scottish Play – Act 4 done

I think I’ve mentioned that I never took Macbeth in school, so examining this play has been a brand new sort of thing for me. I keep being struck by how odd it is in some places . . . like the conversation between Macduff (Duffy) and Malcolm in Act 4 Scene 3. Here’s a brief synopsis:

Macduff: Come on, let’s go to Scotland and kick Macbeth’s ass!
Malcolm: But then I’d be King instead, and I’d make a horrible king! I’m a sex addict!
Macduff: Well then, there’s nothing left to do but watch the world burn.
Malcolm: . . . Kidding! I’m not really a sex fiend, I just said that to see if you were working for Macbeth! Come on, let’s go kick his ass!
Macduff: . . . ???

Uhm, what?!? Seriously, who thinks like these people?

Don’t have much time to devote to things like updates and whatnot this week, as it’s crunch time at my 9-5 (8-5) job, and there’s a bunch of stuff that needs to get done in a hurry. It’s much like that time, back when I was at the bottle crushing plant, when we got this huge bag of green-

No, there’s no time. I can’t even engage in distracted anecdotes or other randomness from my life for the purposes of comparison. I tried that once, back when I was a merchant marines, with-

Ack! Do I really do this sort of thing that often? Can I not get through a post without making reference to some obscure moment in my past, like the time I was dressed as a nun at the airport, looking for a passenger with mismatched socks who-

Sonof! Okay, I’ll stick to the bare essentials. Can’t meander, can’t stay long. Brief update, cuz I have lots of work to do. And a deadline!

Like that one time in Saigon, when-  argh!

Hmmm. I may have a real problem here. I . . . I might be a reminiscaholic!

Shakespeare – The Scottish Play – Act 4 Scene 2 done (for real this time) Cover 60% done

Okay, so I thought I was going to be finished on Friday, but I ended up doing a good deal of work on the Shakespeare portrait instead, and by the time the post went up I hadn’t realized that I wasn’t quite finished Scene 2 after all. So, this time Scene 2 is finished, for real. At least, I hope it is . . . I’m planning on finishing it over lunch today. Who knows what other stuff might pop up at the last minute and mess with my plans?

Well, the week is over, and it’s been a long one. Hence the title.

This weekend sees me hooking up with someone I haven’t seen in a long while, one of the guys responsible for pushing me along the whole path of writing, getting me to look at the activity and figure things out, talk about it, open up.

So, we’re going to get good and drunk. Seems fitting.

It’s still early Friday as I type this, but hopefully today is the day my order of books arrive, so that I can see what a larger-than-normal order of books from my supplier looks like. That, and I kind of want to start handing out some of the Shakespeare stuff to the folks that want it.

**Update** Yaaaayyyyyy! Boooooooks!  Yaaaaaaayyyyyy!

Shakespeare – The Scottish Play – Act 4 Scene 2 done

Well lookie here . . . I’ve just realized that I’m probably going to have to start photoshopping soon, or as the people from Adobe would prefer you putting it, “Opening their program called PhotoShop ™”  They really don’t like the invented word ‘photoshopping’ for some reason, though I dunno why. It’s like Google saying “Uhm, could you please please pretty-please stop calling it ‘Googling’? We’ve worked very hard to get the word “Google” taken seriously.”

Another thing, just FYI – Lady Macduff is a total nut-job. A big wad of passive aggressive wrapped in a thin veneer of  hysterical parent. This play is messed up.

Quarry – High-level outline mostly done

Yeah, it took a while, but I muscled through, and while I’ve got a radically different story from what I originally envisioned (at least from the main character’s perspective) it’s now doable. I think after a quick drawing of the timeline, cementing some of the sub-plot and character quirks, I might just be ready to do the in-depth outlining. Ye gods . . . sometimes you start wondering if you’ll ever be read to just do the thing, instead of planning everything to the nth degree. . .

There’s times I want to be like Stephen King, though probably not in the way you might think. To understand what I mean, first imagine everyone looking at you and saying, “That guy’s crazy!”

I got that part down pat. . .

Now, imagine other writers looking at you and saying, “That guy’s crazy!” for a completely different reason.

I mean, sure, his ideas can get a little insane and strange, but the guy writes 10 pages every single day! Even on holidays! The guy’s version of a vacation is simply stopping work on what he’s struggling with, and spending a week working on something else instead! That’s kind of like saying “Wow, my legs need a rest from this cross-country biking marathon I’m on. I know! I should go jogging up a mountain!”

Crazy, man.

Still, there are times when I wish I could blow through that much word count in a single day. Or, you know what would be just as good? If I got some sort of weird contraption (like the kinds you find in a Stephen King novel) that just sort of froze time for everyone but you. Oh sure, some people might use something like that to rob a bank, or to play practical jokes, or other things like that . . . not me! I’d write a new novel every night. If anyone asked how I could write a novel that fast, I’d just say that I blacked out and woke up in a ditch 3 days later with a completed manuscript in my hands. They’d elevate me to suuuuuuuuuuuuper-genius!

Aaaaaanyway – I guess my point is that sometimes it sucks having 8 hours of your day spoken for, especially when you got so many exciting ideas crammed in your skull that some days you feel like trepanation might be the only option.

See that there? Trepanation. Good word, you should look it up.

Shakespeare – The Scottish Play – Act 3 Scene 6 done

In addition to a hefty chunk of Act 4 Scene 1 done as well! And of course, I mean ‘done’ in the sense that I’ll probably be going over it and everything else that is ‘done’ and edit it for a little something I like to call “teh funnay”. It can’t simply be a translation of his work, it needs to be wacky enough (and wrong enough) to make Shakespeare purists go “That’s just horrible! Why would you do such a thing to Shakespeare?”  That’s where the appeal is at.

Because I’ve learned that the best way to make a big splash is to get snobby high-and-mighty people angry at you.

Now, if only there were a way I could get the Vatican involved.

A friend of mine has a podcast called Get Published, which has had a fascinating list of guest appearances – authors, editors, publishers, agents and the like. On a recent episode, there was a discussion regarding how someone could go about promoting their work, and one of the ways that was brought up is something that I’ve believed for a long time.

Write lots.

Not just lots. Lots and lots.

For instance, let’s say that you’re introduced to a book by a friend, or because you happened to be passing by the bookstore and saw something in the Top 20 that grabbed your attention. So, you read the book . . . you like it. You become interested in reading other books by that author, and make a note of it.

If you’re anything like me, then you have a mere handful of authors that you find you really enjoy reading, and you seek out their books as if you were some sort of Indiana Jones, and they were some sort of chalice-looking thing that belongs in a museum somewhere. If there happens to be a whole bunch of books by an author you discover, you do a small dance of joy and pick out another book to buy. If you find that this was their first book, you feel a little glum, maybe even cheated that there weren’t more just waiting to be read and enjoyed.

What you’re doing as a writer sometimes is banking on the fact that what you’ve written is worth reading, and that all it really takes for someone to like it is to actually find it . . . to manage to get their hands on a copy. If your book is enjoyed by your reader, and if you are consistent, then you’ve created a built-in advertising campaign tailored to that precise individual who read your book, one more effective than a full-page ad in the New York Times. You’ve made an impression, and you’ve also introduced your name to their library, a fact that will return to them time and time again when they’re going over their books and wondering what they should read next.

I guess what I’m saying is this – there are so many people who approach writing a book as a “When I get this done, it’ll be published, and that’s when the magic will start happening!” sort of thing. Really, it’s not. If you’re a Stephen King fan, ask yourself which novel of his you started with. Was it “Carrie”? Was it “Salem’s Lot”? No? How about “The Shining”? You’re familiar with all of them, of course, but did you decide to approach them chronologically? Or (the more likely scenario) was a book of his recommended by a friend, or displayed prominently, or just happen to have a cool cover that struck you the right way as you were passing by? Were you at the library one day and think to yourself “Wow, that’s quite a number of books done by this ‘King’ fellow. I should find one that sounds like it’ll be good.”

See, let’s say you’ve got one story, one about a super-intelligent cat. There’s a limited number of people that will be able to find it and/or are interested in reading it, based on the description. Maybe the story just isn’t their cup of tea, and they don’t want to take a chance on being disappointed. I mean, I myself might look at that particular story and go ‘Hmmmmm. Nah.’ Now, let’s say that you have this story about a super-intelligent cat, and a story about a werewolf college professor who is desperately trying to find a cure for his condition. The two stories have nothing to do with each other, and would seem to appeal to two completely different types of readers.

Except, if someone reads your werewolf book and thinks “Wow, that was awesome!” they’ll maybe be tempted to give your super-intelligent cat story a try, even if they otherwise wouldn’t have given a crap about cats, or super-intelligence.

And if you just happen to have 20 other books to read, well . . . you get what I’m trying to say.

Shakespeare – The Scottish Play – Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Like I said, got no work done over the weekend, due to Jim-Butcher-ness. Finished his book within about 24 hours, and just sat there for a while in slack-jawed amazement. That dastard! How could he do something like that to me? How dare he!

*cough* Well, needless to say I’ll be buying the next book in the series, shaking my fist at the sky in the time between now and then. A whole year? You sonofa-

Okay, okay . . . focus. I must stay on target.

So, while I didn’t get any work done on the Scottish play over the weekend, I should be able to get a good solid hour or two in by the end of the day, so I’ll just carry over any work I do until Wednesday’s update. That way it’ll sound like I’ve been way busy come mid-week!

See? Smart like rock . . . that’s me.

Aaaaaaand now – we take a small weekend time-out to do a little reading.

I predict I will get nothing done, nothing at all, because I’ll be lying down on the couch (or in the library . . . geeze, is that what that room is for?) reading the newest book written by one of my favorite authors, Jim Butcher.

It’s quite rare to see a series go on for so long and still be this good – often times they end up becoming tired and formulaic. (ooooo, good word!)  If you’re not familiar with Jim’s work, I highly recommend you track down the novel “Storm Front”, follow it up with “Fool Moon”, at which point I suspect you’ll be hopelessly addicted and just buy every book he’s ever published.

Seriously. That wasn’t a joke – that’s how I see this whole thing playing out for you. Do it now, monkey!

(turns to leave)

Huh? Wha? Update? Oh geeze, I almost forgot!

Shakespeare – The Scottish Play – 50% done

Mostly it’s been lunches and occasional evenings, and I’m fairly surprised at how quickly it’s all come together. I haven’t yet had one of those epic 4-hour lose-track-of-time-and-sanity sessions, and I might just get the whole thing finished without one. Disappointed? Yeah, me too. Usually I’m at my best when totally insane. Still, I could try to eat two-dozen of the spiciest wings in the world (recipe courtesy of the Spanish Inquisition) and go on a spirit journey if I really wanted to do the 4 hours of insanity thing. Hmmmm.

Of course, doing the cover art will probably take 4 hours all on its own, so maybe I’ll wait for that. I can’t wait to see how Bill looks in that blue Braveheart makeup.

Finally hit that point, ‘the wall’ as it were. It’s when you start looking at what you’re working on and think thoughts like “Ack. Do I have to spend an hour plodding my way through that? Can’t I just chew on tin-foil while shaving my head with a cheese grater?”

I learned a long time ago that this is simply another aspect of the creative process – despair. At the beginning, everything is sparkly and new, and you’re thinking “Tee hee! This is sheer bliss! Who could think of a better activity?”  After the first few weeks, you’re thinking “Look at me go! I’m a writer! I write stuff – good stuff! See? Look what I’ve written so far!” When you’re halfway through, well . . .

Take a moment and imagine a guy sitting at a kitchen table, 5 days growth on his face, one eye shut, the other half-lidded. Hair’s a mess, hand is clutching a cup of coffee that has gone cold without him noticing. He stares at nothing. A toaster jams in the background and begins burning toast, and he doesn’t even notice it . . . he just wants to lie down and sleep.

When you’re halfway through, he looks exactly how you feel.

That’s when you have to knuckle down, get ‘er done. That’s what separates the wee from the not-so-wee.

Dear god, I’m even starting to post like a Scotsman. Well, you know what that means. . .

Shakespeare – The Scottish Play – Review

Been long enough that I can view the earlier paragraphs with a clean eye, and it’s been overdue. Managed to re-write some of the lines in a way that was funnier & less stunted. It’s a nice activity sometimes, editing. Especially if you’re already funny, and aiming for ‘hilarious’.

That being said, I *did* manage to get all the way to Act 3, Scene 2 complete.  Go me.

**Spoiler Alert**  Macbeth is having the chef prepare Banquo a haggis. If he doesn’t eat the haggis, he moves on to other forms of assassination. . .

The weekend was spent relaxing and getting some rest, since the previous week had been filled with such tales of unspeakable horror and a soul-crushing workload that can only properly be expressed through a Science-Fiction Trilogy, and uses words that I have yet to learn.

Once I was back to feeling more or less human, that is to say ‘once I regained consciousness’, I noticed that I had a seven-day growth of beard on my chin, had qualified for an imaginary PGA tour, and had sketched a quick note about a wrestler who died and willed his wrestling talent to a young boy.  Then, after attempting to go to sleep at 10:00, I noticed a strange sort of pain in my arm, one that I couldn’t un-notice until 2:00am, and only with the assistance of pain-killers.

So, this Monday = “Ugh”, as I may have just mentioned. Similarly, updates = “Ugh” as well.

Quarry – Outlining still 50% done

Ah, but I have spent a couple of hours sitting down and thinking about the story, pondering what sorts of encounters could be exciting, and how to make the existing ones even more interesting in an adrenaline-pumping sort of way.

Shakespeare – The Scottish Play – Act 3 Scene 1 50% Done

What is it with this guy?! I mean, who thinks like that?! Anyways, yeah . . . Macbeth is about to kill his war buddy. What a charming guy. “Oh noes, I have to kill Banquo because he might know! And then I have to kill his son! And the butler! And the ice-cream man! And . . . and . . . and the whole world!”

I’m sensing that Bill Shakespeare didn’t much care for the Scottish people.

New Idea! (Oh no, not again!) Untitled Future Memory Swap Project

See that note up there about the Wrestler who died? Yeah, it’s along those lines. Semi-complete story, with a nice Phillip K. Dick sort of premise inside of it. Gotta think for a while, mull things over, find out if it’s really a workable and unique sort of idea, or if I just had a flash of imagery that made me go “Hey, cool!”, but which was actually something I half-remembered from an episode of Mission Impossible.

Well, this week saw literally thousands of people read a portion of something I did and confirm that I’m a freaking funny guy. (See Monday’s update regarding how humble I am) It’s been a good week. Even that freak snowstorm can’t be called “bad” . . . merely “interesting.”

Work’s been tough – I may need to take a big of a breather this weekend, rest up. Perhaps just spend a few hours with my imagination and finalize the Quarry outline. Speaking of which:

Quarry – Outlining 50% done

Yup, still at the 50% mark, because I realized that something was bothering me. Brand new plot fork just kind of happened as a result of an odd interaction between the good guys and the bad guy. The good guys did something strange and unpredictable, and it was totally unexpected. It completely messed the bad guy up, because he figured they would react predictably. Well, now they’re doing something else totally strange and unexpected, because mister bad-guy has underestimated them . . . except that mister bad guy is smart, and realizes that he’s underestimated them, and is not taking anything for granted.

So now, I have a situation I wasn’t expecting that totally makes sense, and that messes with the original story arc, because the main character is the one in big trouble, and it’s the other characters that will need to step up and come to his aid. After that, I’m not sure what happens. I’m not even sure if the two action climax moments are even going to be workable anymore.

The unknown . . . isn’t it fun?!

(Update: I deleted two sub-scenes, and now he hasn’t been captured. Oooo, the suspense!)

Shakespeare – The Scottish Play – Act 2 Scene 4 done

Okay, a Shakespearean character comes out of nowhere as, literally, “Old Man” and starts talking about how he’s never seen anything so horrible in his seventy-one years of life, stopping short of actually saying “You know, back in my day. . .” How awesome is that?

Old Man: “You know, William could have given me a name, but he decided not to bother. That was okay though. Back in those days, not everybody got a name. Nope, you had to work, and scrimp, and save in order to afford a name . . . and if you didn’t work hard enough, you couldn’t get one of the really cool names, like ‘Brock’ or ‘Duke’. No, you had to settle for a cheap name, like Inglebert. One time, before the war, a friend of mine lost his name in a game of cards. Lost damn near everything, managed to leave the table with nothing but the shirt on his back and the name ‘Jacques’. He was never the same after that.”

On to Act 3 . . . Huzzah!