The Perfume Wafting Up

  • by jenfinished the baklava
  • I sneezed repeatedly
  • made my hair prickle
  • filthy looking meal in a rusty can
  • perfume wafting up

The perfume wafting up from the bottom bunk smelled almost as pungent as the filthy looking meal in a rusty can they served me for dinner last night. I sneezed repeatedly, which drew the guard’s attention. The malevolent look in his muddy eyes made my hair prickle on my arms and neck. If I had known it would end like this, in this wretched culinary prison, I would have finished the baklava for His Majesty on time!

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You Have a “Boss”

r-avatarOn being self-employed: “The hours are great, but my boss is a jerk.”

Writing fiction is a traditionally solitary activity. Being productive at it requires discipline, because it’s always easier to just mess around on Facebook or Netflix, or wherever you like to squander the scant moments we’re granted on this orb, than it is to devise clever scenarios for captivating characters and encode them evocatively through the maddeningly and beautifully deficient medium of language. No one will ever know. (Nor will they ever read your novel, if you don’t write it.)

When you’re writing with a partner, you have someone counting on you. Of course, one of the major draws of the writing life is that it’s not a nine-to-five grind; you don’t have some stuffed-shirt micromanager giving you a hard time. So, does having a partner mean writing becomes a job?

Firstly, no. Not if you have (and are) a good partner.

Secondly, even if you prefer to think of writing as a calling you need to take the work seriously. If you don’t do the work then no one else will take you seriously.

Your partner isn’t there just to make you feel guilty when your daily word count is low. Neither one of you should be “in charge” of the partnership. There will certainly be instances where one or the other of you will be better suited to take the lead, and that’s good. It means you have varied strengths to play to. In the Rune Skelley arrangement, Jen is more organized and so she handles project management. She likes doing it, and Kent is grateful for the structure.

To make a partnership work, you both have to be the boss sometimes. And to make it work well, you both have to try to be a good one.

Helen Had Almost Finished

  • k-avatar— and to a lesser extent the cat and the horse
  • “Exactly!” whispered the doctor
  • finished powdering her nose
  • a killer whale’s muzzle
  • felt a strange quiver
  • dark brown man

Helen had almost finished powdering her nose, which was a noteworthy accomplishment. It looked like nothing so much as a killer whale’s muzzle, broad yet graceful, and packed with needle-sharp teeth.

Lurking in the closet, and watching Helen’s reflection through a gap in the door, the dark brown man felt a strange quiver. He drew a deep breath.

“Be still!” hissed a nearly inaudible voice behind him. Hunkered below the hanging skirts and gowns were two more people, and it was the gawky northerner who’d shushed him. The other,  a savage beauty almost as dark as the dark brown man, rolled her exquisite eyes in a meaningful manner. “Exactly!” whispered the doctor, “— and to a lesser extent the cat and the horse!”

 

 

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Hand-Drawn and Pale-Colored

  • by jendrawn and pale
  • clay alien bust
  • that’s gotta come first
  • made my teeth sweat
  • leg had healed so well

Hand-drawn and pale-colored stars decorate the clay alien bust that is the centerpiece of the exhibit. Hieronymus Warhol describes the sculpting process like this: “Inspiration — that’s gotta come first, before the clay is ever touched. I had this idea and it was so good it made my teeth sweat, or maybe it was the pain medicine that made ’em sweat. My wife Fiona told me I should stop taking the medicine once my leg had healed so well, but I didn’t listen to her. And it’s a good thing I didn’t.”

bonus points for using them in order!

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Better Than Talking To Yourself

r-avatarFor once the timing worked out really well. Our critique group gave us their final feedback on Novel #5 (the Science Novel) just a few weeks ago, shortly before we finished nailing down the edits for the Music Novel. That means that we’re going back through their comments while everything is still fresh. It’s relatively easy to recall the conversations we had during our meetings as they lavished praise (and, admittedly, the occasional not-so-glowing remark) and we took notes. When we encountered a point we had a question about, the work was still clear enough in our group’s minds that they were able to clarify their original idea.

Before we looked at our critiquers’ comments, we read through the manuscript for ourselves, looking at it with fresh eyes. We were quite happy with what we saw. We talked along the way, and made some notes about plot points we want to strengthen and characterizations we want to clarify. Once our own thoughts were down on paper (or, in pixels), we spent a week reading through all of the notes we took during our critique group meetings, and reading all of the comments they wrote in the margins of their comment copies. We chose to disregard the diagram one member drew of the intersection where she had a showdown with a street sweeper, and likewise the lessons on how to write our characters’ names in Korean. Interesting as those were, they are irrelevant to the Science Novel.

The process of looking at a novel’s worth of critique all at once can be quite overwhelming, and it’s an excellent example of why having a writing partner can be a good thing. During group meetings, we all try very hard not to argue or answer back to the critiquer. Unless you’re planning the world’s most complicated and tedious book tour, the work needs to stand on its own. With a coauthor, you have someone to talk through each point with outside of that setting.

Some of it is fun, like when a reader asks a question that you know is answered in the next chapter, or when all of the readers get the “Hell yeah!” moment just like you intended. And some of it is not so fun, like when a reader stumbles over something you were sure you made quite clear. With a collaborator, you’re not stuck just talking to yourself. Your partner is there to help you make sense of the comments and decide which items are in legitimate need of extra work, and which ones can be chalked up to the readers only looking at one chapter a week.

 

She Jumped At the Forbidden

  • k-avatarbright cherry fruit
  • impossibly enormous
  • whirling on the kitchen floor
  • pushed the popcorn at her
  • or jump out of the car
  • illegal glass of wine

She jumped at the forbidden, bright cherry fruit of an illegal glass of wine, laughing and swooning through the elegant dinner at Le Gourmangerie before I led her stumblingly to my convertible for the short drive to the drive-in where High School Musical 7 was showing and where I thought she might scream or jump out of the car when I pushed the popcorn at her impossibly enormous breasts, but she kept her cool and shared the buttery exploded kernels with me and asked me in after the ride to her place and soon enough we were whirling on the kitchen floor like a punctured beer can dropped by a clumsy pledge.

 

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The “Lost” Episode of Tagalong Bub

  • by jenlatent potencies later in the program
  • you got so carried away
  • ignorance of the law is no excuse, Bub.
  • a betrothal my father renounced
  • chump on the dome

The “Lost” Episode of Tagalong Bub

“You got so carried away, but ignorance of the law is no excuse, Bub,” said Pappy.

“I know that now, Pappy, and I’m terribly sorry. I feel just like a chump on the dome.”

“Oh, sonny,” said Pappy, patting Tagalong Bub on the shoulder, “don’t beat yourself up. We’ll get this all straightened out. You’ll see.”

“She’s just so awful purty, Pappy,” said Bub, as a heart-shaped thought balloon image of the cartoon’s villainess RunAmok Sal hovered over his head. “I never dreamed I’d fall in love and wind up involved in a betrothal my father renounced.”

And so it seemed that Tagalong Bub had narrowly avoided RunAmok Sal’s trap, but the love potion Sal used was complicated and revealed its latent potencies later in the program when she sneaked into Bub’s bedroom and forcibly consummated their union.

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Scalpels and Machetes

r-avatarBreak out the champagne! We finished our edits on the music novel! Through the enthusiastic use of Weasel-Stomping Boots™ and a take-no-prisoners approach to line editing, we removed almost 17,000 words from our draft.

We mentioned in the past that one reason the word count on this novel is so high is the inclusion of copious side matter. I think the best way to describe the outcome is to say that we have a 150,000 word novel with a 20,000 word novella smeared along the bottom margin.

Jen began the line edits with a scalpel, razoring away a word here, a word there, aiming to remove just ten words per page. As she moved into sections of the manuscript that needed more work, Kent joined her and they broke out their machetes. The carnage was glorious to behold, many darlings were slaughtered, and the end result is much crisper and livelier prose. A writing partner makes the process faster and more bearable.

The official second draft has begun its journey through our critique group, and so far they like it. That means all the hard work was worth it. By removing the problems we know about, we clear away the clutter and allow our critiquers to see any deeper issues we haven’t noticed.

I Think Our Troublesome Renegade

  • k-avatarthe priest tucked her in
  • profusely awkward
  • our troublesome renegade
  • display her milk-heavy udders
  • you did it up brown!
  • they are also cannibals

“I think our troublesome renegade will like this room. It should make her feel at home.”

Sheila followed Stefan into the upstairs bedroom, eager to see the redecorating. “You did it up brown!” she squealed, knowing instantly that Tarantella would indeed like it. And without any curtains, it would be profusely awkward for the horny savage to display her milk-heavy udders to Father Shultz at naptime when the priest tucked her in.

“Oh, it’s perfect,” she murmured. “Stefan, you know so much about poor ‘Tella’s people, and their preference for earthtones. They are religiously attached to somber colors.”

“They are also cannibals, so tell Shultzy to be careful.”

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“Johnny? Johnny?”

  • by jena full partner
  • still facing the lighted rectangle
  • How will she face the wrath of god?
  • hours
  • Johnny? Johnny?

“Johnny? Johnny?” Minerva becomes more convinced by the minute that brother was right. Making Johnny a full partner in this endeavor was a mistake.

It has been hours since she cast the spell, and Johnny is still facing the lighted rectangle, immobile and unspeaking.

The attempt to create an oracle failed. Minerva wonders about her fate. How will she face the wrath of god? Anubis is notoriously stubborn about holding grudges, after all.

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