John Reared From the Water

  • by jen— however bad a person you may think I am —
  • place on 53rd Street
  • “I tried to save her,”
  • the child’s umbrella
  • something from a Mary Shelley nightmare

Tune In Next Time Part 4                              Click Here for Earlier Installments

John reared from the water like something from a Mary Shelley nightmare, with a harpoon instead of the usual lightning rod. He waved the thing over his head like the child’s umbrella he stole in our first caper together, then flung it at the receding zodiac. Or maybe he was aiming for Tessa’s back. In either case, he missed. The harpoon lanced into the waves and struck bottom, then stood there quivering in the flashing neon and surf.

“I tried to save her,” John muttered, “from you and from herself. And this is the thanks I get?”

“She’s going to the place on 53rd Street,” I said. “You can’t let her get there John — however bad a person you may think I am — you can’t let her. You know how much trouble we’ll both be in if she gets her hands on it! How much trouble the world will be in!”

bonus points for using them in reverse order

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Writer’s Block? Our Ounce of Prevention = Stubs

r-avatarWe haven’t talked about the special sauce in our team-writing process lately. We still rely on stubs, and so should you. Besides curing warts and controlling the weather, stubs have another miraculous ability we’ve neglected to mention. If you use them, you’ll rid yourself of writer’s block forever! Okay, sometimes it might still be hard to get rolling, but we find our stubs help us keep on track and on task, and make the tyranny of the blank page almost a thing of the past.

Here’s how it works.

The stubs themselves are “burner” writing. You know you’re the only one who will ever see them, so you can give yourself permission for the prose to suck. That’s terrifically liberating, and paradoxically can lead to your best work. If the stub starts to get “too good,” that’s fine. You’ll be able to mine it for gold later on.

When it’s time to do the “real” writing, the stubs give you something to use as a jumping-off point. There might be gold in there, after all. Even if there’s not, the stub holds all the minutiae for you, so you don’t have to worry about it. This lets you apply your energies to crafting magical sentences and inhabiting the characters.

The next time you feel blocked, think of stubs as a way to get get unstuck. Optimally, they’re part of a system that begins with a thorough outline, but you can get a lot of bang out of them even without additional infrastructure. Maybe all you need from them is their disposability, so you can get out of your own way and start writing. Or maybe your stub will just be a list of the key details you need to keep track of in the scene. The important thing isn’t to use them right, it’s to use them to write.

My Brother Looks Like He Escaped

  • k-avataryour pisspot world’s sidereal shenanigans
  • Victory.
  • from a roadside zoo in Florida
  • governmental-seeming buildings
  • ten mile hike with a full backpack

My brother looks like he escaped from a roadside zoo in Florida, but it was actually a lab out in the desert someplace. No roads to it at all, just an airstrip and some governmental-seeming buildings and a whole lotta hot, gritty wind. My brother showed up there after a ten mile hike with a full backpack, thinking they’d offer him a job. Instead they put him in a cage. It didn’t hold him, of course. He even got his backpack back. Victory. Anyway, you’re lucky you didn’t put a scratch on either of us, because our mom gets pissed. She’d show up in the Obliteron and deorbit this sorry little rock, thus putting an end to your pisspot world’s sidereal shenanigans.

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I Dragged Myself Backwards

  • by jenlight pollution works in your favor
  • took a lengthened pull at the exhilarating liquid
  • recognize these assholes out in the wild
  • maps, engraving, money, photos, stamps
  • with slowness immeasurable

Tune In Next Time Part 3                               Click Here for Earlier Installments

I dragged myself backwards toward shore with slowness immeasurable, the cinderblocks chained to my ankles digging deep into the sandy ocean floor. The zodiac lurched forward with John in the bow, brandishing the harpoon. Tessa giggled maniacally.

“Run for it!” she shrieked again, mocking me, then guffawed.

Amongst the pilings I tried to find a shadow to hide in, but the boardwalk was awash with blinking neon and apparently light pollution works in your favor when you’re a psychopath. Tessa steered the boat straight at me and took a lengthened pull at the exhilarating liquid in the flask she kept tucked in her ample cleavage.

I thought of everything that had been in the safe: maps, engraving, money, photos, stamps, diamonds — John had all of it now. John and Tessa.

If I survived the night I’d need to learn to recognize these assholes out in the wild, save myself the trouble of partnering up with them. Or worse, falling in love.

The harpoon was mere feet from my chest when suddenly Tessa yanked hard on the tiller and John toppled into the sea with a salty splash.

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Writing Cave Mix Tape

r-avatarSome people prefer to work with no background music. We call those people “freaks.” They “enjoy” something they call “peace and quiet,” and say it helps them to concentrate.

Kent and Jen, like all right-thinking people, feel more productive with their favorite tunes serenading them.

When you’re working by yourself you can choose whatever music you like. Adding a writing partner to the equation complicates things, because chances are you won’t always agree on what constitutes good music. And the only thing worse than no music in the background is bad music in the background. It distracts like a motherfucker.

In addition to the challenge of finding music you can both agree on is the need to have that music also be conducive to writing. Some things, no matter how wonderful, just don’t work as background music, whether it’s because the lyrics are too awesome or too funny, or because the music itself is too kick-ass and all you want to do is dance or headbang. If you get too wrapped up in a song, it won’t work as a writing accompaniment.

We could of course wear headphones, and thus be free to both partake of whatever we want, but one of the most enjoyable parts of collaborating for us is the spontaneous conversations. We’d lose that if one or both of us busted out the Skullcandy.

Our current project presents its own challenges when it comes to choosing a soundtrack. We’re writing about musicians, and as we talked about last week, we like to set a mood with their music. If we’re trying to describe something dark and brooding while we’re listening to something bright and exciting, it’s just not going to work. And vice versa.

Our requirements for Writing Cave background music while working on Son-of-Music-Novel are:

  • is our son currently playing drums or piano? if not:
  • something we both like
  • that is generally conducive to writing
  • that does not set the wrong mood for the scene that either of us is working on
  • something that hasn’t been overplayed

What it boils down to is that we end up working in silence more often than we’d like :(

But what about when it’s not the Sound of Silence (a song which makes an appearance once in a blue moon)?

Classical music works in many situations because of the lack of vocals (we don’t do opera). We lean toward piano pieces, but Kent also has a really nice collection of classical guitar on his Mac. Full orchestration is a bit overwhelming we find, when we’re trying to work.

Non-classical stuff we’ve been into lately:

  • Royal Blood
  • Hanni El Khatib
  • The Kills
  • The Black Keys
  • Franz Ferdinand
  • Radiohead
  • Jack White and his various incarnations (but he tends to be distracting)
  • Fiona Apple
  • Portishead
  • The Cure
  • Bowie
  • The Doors
  • Nick Cave
  • Mike Doughty/Soul Coughing
  • Toadies (they were our first Twitter followers! True story)
  • Talking Heads
  • PJ Harvey
  • Police

Thank you, Sarah M, for giving us the nudge. (Sorry the Decemberists aren’t in our rotation. Perhaps we’ll check ’em out.)

What about you? What are you listening to?

 

Aren’t Ya Gonna Shoot Him?

  • Either way, I am quickly losing faith in the Deutschepost.k-avatar
  • wanted the reader to be kidnapped
  • “You appear to be astonished,”
  • I will deliver it by hand.
  • taken in by a pair of handsome con artists

Tune In Next Time Part 2                               Click Here for Earlier Installments

“Aren’t ya gonna shoot him?” Tessa asked.

John smirked harder, then turned a softer smile her way. “It’ll be more fun if I don’t, babe.” He kissed her.

I turned away, the sight of that smooch worse than my own imminent demise. I looked over at the old pilings, where the high-tide level was marked by the sudden absence of snaggletoothed masses of mussels and barnacles. That level was at least a foot over my head. Shit. Each lazy swell rode higher up my torso, soon they’d be lapping my chin like cold, fishy-smelling Saint Bernards.

“You appear to be astonished,” John said. “Didn’t you know what I was planning?”

“Tessa,” I said, “you don’t want to see this. Make him put you ashore.”

She shook her auburn head, smiling playfully and winking. Shit.

“John, this is stupid,” I tried. “It’s like sending a ransom note when you wanted the reader to be kidnapped. How are you going to pull this off without me?”

“I have the map, moron!” John called.

I shrugged. “Unless you don’t.” I always was the better poker player. “I knew you had the combination to that safe, so I took some precautions. Of course, now I don’t know if the original made it back to me, or if the phony was misdirected.” Another shrug. “Either way, I am quickly losing faith in the Deutschepost.”

John laughed. “Nice try,” he said.

Tessa huffed and folded her arms, buoying her cleavage like the inflatable speedboat she sat in. “Why’d I hafta get taken in by a pair of handsome con artists? It’s gettin’ cold out here, John, just shoot him already.”

John grumbled, but to my horror he raised the harpoon gun and took careful aim.

Click. The weapon didn’t fire.

“Run for it!” Tessa yelled.

I started hauling myself backwards, dragging the blocks chained to my feet, fighting the undertow. John tried the gun two more times, then snarled coldly, “I will deliver it by hand.” He slid the long projectile from the barrel and started the zodiac’s motor.

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I Wanted To Punch John’s Smirking Face

  • by jenagainst the shimmering water
  • Karma? What a crock of shit.
  • I had almost forgotten the treasure
  • as hilarious as you would expect
  • Yeah, this story is going exactly where you were hoping it wasn’t

Tune In Next Time Part 1

I wanted to punch John’s smirking face. He winked and said, “Yeah, this story is going exactly where you were hoping it wasn’t, and it’s about as hilarious as you would expect.”

He’d been talking so long I had almost forgotten the treasure that was supposed to be buried somewhere near the boardwalk pilings that stood out against the shimmering water like stiff dead fingers. The boardwalk was long gone, of course, along with the partnership John and I formed so many years ago, before he betrayed me and ran off with both my woman and the treasure map, leaving me for dead.

Karma? What a crock of shit. If karma existed, I’d be the one sitting in the zodiac with Tessa and a harpoon gun, and it would be John standing in water up to his chest with cinderblocks chained to his ankles as the tide came in.

He was leaving me for dead again, and it looked like this time it would stick.

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Like Music To Your Ears

r-avatarFunny thing about writing a story that contains a lot of music: sometimes that means you can’t have any music playing while you’re writing it. The right background music can be very helpful, might even be inspiring, but there’s also a potential for the music in the writing cave to clash with the music in the writing. Another danger is that whatever you happen to have on while working on a scene will influence the flavor or even the outcome of that passage.

In the music novel, and now in son-of-same, the goal is to put awesome music in readers’ heads. The conceit is that the band in the story is awesome, that they’re every reader’s favorite band, which, if you’ve ever talked about music with anyone, you can see would be impossible. So comparing the story’s music to any specific real-world bands is off the table. It would backfire at least as often as it worked, no matter which paragons of rock and roll we used as comps.

So, how then to put the magic music in anybody’s head? We use two techniques in combination (in harmony, one might say).

The first and most important thing is to lavish description on the feeling that the music creates, rather than just on the music itself. The proper device for this is the specific feels of a specific character. Showing the sadness Jackie feels when she hears the song is infinitely stronger than saying that it’s a sad song.

The second thing is, when describing the music itself, use metaphor and poetic license. Get across the energy of the sound. Try to describe it without naming any instruments, without using any musical jargon. Pretend you have no knowledge of how that torrent of sonic mayhem was created, you just know it’s a fire-breathing lizard dancing through a forest of giant mushrooms.

Advance readers of the music novel have universally said they want the albums, want to go to the concerts, despite the fact that their personal tastes are wildly different. Sounds like success to us!

The Cuisine of My Homeland

  • k-avatarthrows sufficient light into the deep darkness
  • took you long enough
  • Indeed, the brains of anteaters
  • four years later I was born
  • I admit, this got me a little teary-eyed

The cuisine of my homeland is most unusual. Indeed, the brains of anteaters are among the less-outrageous staple ingredients. Traditional kitchens are located underground, and slithering down the muddy tunnel entrance took you long enough to work up the necessary appetite. Electricity isn’t allowed, but the bioluminescent fungus throws sufficient light into the deep darkness. Ah, the heady stench of mother’s stew, I hadn’t thought about it in so long. I admit, this got me a little teary-eyed, recounting these details to you. The most important thing to remember when cooking was not to use excessive amounts of wasp venom. Mother ignored this advice once and added three nests’ worth to her cake frosting, and four years later I was born.

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I Don’t Know Where You Get Off

  • by jenyour conventional seventy-hour workweek
  • a garbage bag full of assorted sweatpants
  • swinging your hips
  • cooking is a perpetual source of evaporation and dampness
  • plenty of caterers have used them

I don’t know where you get off swinging your hips and wagging your finger at me. So you found a garbage bag full of assorted sweatpants in the kitchen. What of it? Plenty of caterers have used them to sop up spills and wipe brows and underarms. Cooking is a perpetual source of evaporation and dampness, for both the kitchen and those who toil in her steamy belly. Perhaps your conventional seventy-hour workweek leaves you fresh as a daisy, but we caterers suffer in the swamp for our art, the art that fills your bellies.

Did I ever tell you that I once won on Iron Chef?

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