Writing: The Prequel

First, can I just say to all the Firefly fans out there that I hope you got to see this week's episode of Castle? The rumors were true. So gloriously true.

Castle is a fun show anyway. Yes, I said it. Get in there and watch it so it will stay on the air so I can keep watching it. It's brilliant. Imagine Nathan Fillion saying lines such as "He didn't just murder [so and so], he also murdered the English language." Balm to the English Literature major in my soul.

Speaking of writing and writers, November is lurching up from behind the dark side of Halloween, and with it comes the burden/challenge/opportunity/death trap of writing a 50000 word novella with some sort of coherence and meaning.

I won the first year, then fell short by a few thousand (or ten thousand) adjectives, nouns, plot twists, feasible characters with dynamic motivations, etc., etc., each of the last two years. So I'm trying to prepare by doing some writing exercises and reading a book about screenwriting for tips on character development. And so far, no coherent ideas are grasping me by the brain, but I'm hopeful.

Here's the interesting first exercise I tried: the point was to take eight questions from the book and write down the first responses that came to mind.

1) When was your main character happiest?
Drinking in the pubs in a rainy seaside town in Wales with fellow students, or walking along the shore, when everything was simple and sheltered

2) What talent would your main character most like to have?
Ninja skills, or the ability to play beautiful music

3) If your main character could change one thing about him or herself, what would it be?
His nose

4) What does your main character consider to be his or her greatest achievement?
Publishing a poem on the Internet about a parade of Aryan sympathizers

5) What is your main character’s most treasured possession?
Pristine copy of The Beatles’ The White Album

6) What is your main character’s greatest extravagance?
DVD collections

7) When does your main character lie?
When he is thinking thoughts that he thinks should not be popular.

8) What is your main character’s greatest regret?
Failed friendship with someone in rough straits, whom he left behind.

I looked at these answers and thought, "Hmm." Then I turned the page in the book, and it asked, "Did anything surprise you?"

No, nothing really surprised me, except the part about the nose. I don't know where that came from. But all the others, even the ones that aren't true, per se, come from my real life, so that, according to the book, means that I am trying to control the character too much.

My first reaction was What character? I didn't actually have anyone in mind. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe I was supposed to picture someone first. Anyway, I tried it twice more, with mixed results. I'll keep doing stuff like this, and hopefully something will bubble to the surface by November 1st.

I can always write 'the' 50000 times and call it avant-garde, I suppose.

Sing

Last night we went to Bimbo's, the North Beach club from the 30's that I have written about before. You know, the one with the bathroom attendants that make you confront the specter of the past and serving classes and slavery, etc. I made sure to use the restroom at home, because I like my live music without a garnish of middle-class guilt.

We were there to listen to a new project by Ben Gibbard from Death Cab For Cutie and Jay Farrar from Son Volt, an album of songs based on Jack Kerouac's novel Big Sur. The show was sold out, so we were randomly seated next to an IT consultant from Tulsa who works four days out of every week in San Francisco, and his wife who had flown in for a weekend visit; the IT consultant told us 90% of the lyrics were taken directly from Kerouac's text. We didn't ask them their names, nor did they ask ours, but we had interesting conversations about bands we had or had not seen, Oklahoma--not as impacted by the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression as you might think, because it was the capital of the oil industry at the time--old Highway 66, and music venues in Tulsa where Marcy Playground fell over backwards and kept playing to much applause.

The opening act was a funny and talented musician from Seattle named John Roderick. I'd never heard of him before, but, true to the beautiful quality of the indie rock circuit, he had enough fans in the crowd to keep him busy with taking requests. He was suffering from a cold, but he dealt with it with poise, turning it into humor by cadging Theraflu from audience members. He played with a great deal of passion, which resulted in broken glasses, which lead to a tech worker named Jesse becoming a hero of the night when he fashioned a hinge for the glasses out of guitar wire before the end of Roderick's set.

Then things really got cranked up with Gibbard and Farrar and their band that had "been a band for about a week," according to Jay. The show was really quite terrific, great lyrics, great singing, great vibe in the crowd. They sang, sometimes together, sometimes with solos, but the songs, "These Roads Don't Move" in particular, really evoked the feel of Big Sur and a lonely drive to nowhere.


How cool must it be to be successful at music and to have the opportunity to find this other musician who shares with you a fascination with Jack Kerouac, and for the two of you to put together a side project that really works?


I want to see more shows. I totally get the addiction to live music that some people acquire. It's vulnerability from the performers, putting these words and notes out in the world, and we all get to ride along.

It's incredibly simple to sing, and simply incredible when someone can sing well, especially when combined with playing an instrument, and when they have the confidence to perform in front of an audience, well, that becomes inspiring, very ceremonial in an age that is becoming less and less ceremonial as religion's influence wanes for more and more people. Festivals, concerts, live performances, these are when we can feel connected to other people, regardless of our position on the existence of a deity, mystical energy, or simple evolutionary process.

Juliet, Juliet, Wherefore Art Thou Naked?

It was a cold and foggy holiday afternoon, a sharp wind from off-shore nudging Vaughn and me bit by bit, over and over, up the side of the dunes as we walked along Ocean Beach, white mocha and pumpkin spice latte in hands, gusts of sand sweeping over and into our shoes, waiting to be deposited in large mounds on the floor of the N Judah, much as the seeds of flowers propagate themselves by coating the legs of bees. Every so often, we would notice that we were walking at a distinct tilt and regain the flat sand, only to once more be guided by fate, or the wind, rather. Fate and the wind are rather similar to the naked eye, you see.

The sun made occasional stabs at breaking through the off-shore cloud banks, angling shafts of light down to the wind-capped and much-ruffled Pacific, the water chasing and luring the sanderlings in turn.

It was the sort of day in San Francisco where I saw a house at 19th and Judah flying a Jolly Roger at half-mast, apparently in mourning for some pirate who has recently walked the plank, and where the Muni driver on the N Judah, while on break before starting his next run, advised Vaughn and me and two British tourists that we couldn't board the N from the otherwise-deserted ramp where we were standing, because that was an accessible-fare-only ramp, but instead we must walk one block west and wait for him there.

It was a day in which we conversed about the various ways in which real life has slapped us in the face of late, sometimes a gentle affectionate pat to make us pay attention, at other times a great big smack. It's been a time of contemplation for us both. Which brings me to the latest novel I've been reading, Nick Hornby's Juliet, Naked.

If you're going to review a book, the world expects you to have something profound to say about it. Well, that's just so expected that I feel obliged to buck the trend, so all I'm going to say specifically about the book is that I am enjoying it quite a bit, which is not unusual because I really like Nick Hornby's perspective on the world. Plus, it is hard to go wrong with a book that has the word 'naked' in the title. Such a great word, you know?

So what I'm going to write about instead is what reading this novel is making me think about myself. That's something I'm much more qualified to write about.

I think what I like best about Hornby's novels is how well he does at creating characters to whom I can relate. In High Fidelity, About A Boy, and in the new novel, the characters seem real, flaws and all, but all coming from the same sort of perspective on the world that I have.

In other words, he writes about pop culture and what people like and how they relate to the things they like. And I like things, so it's like he's writing the novels just for me, which is quite flattering, frankly.

This book in particular is making me look at the development of characters in fiction. I've been thinking for months about fiction writing, because National Novel Writing Month is almost upon us, and because I keep telling my girlfriend that I want to write fiction. Yet I keep not writing fiction, because I don't trust my ideas. And I don't take a fiction writing class, because, well, I'm not sure why.

Here's the thing that I seem to be realizing now, some realization triggered by the book, even though I already knew it intellectually: to make a character seem real and interesting for a story, you have to put that character in an uncomfortable situation, where they might not be completely sympathetic. And I think this might be the root of my writer's block. Most of my characters tend to come from my own experiences, and therefore tend to look a lot like me. I'm naturally disinclined to write about a version of me with certain flaws, especially because it might make me realize that I actually have some flaws in real life. I want to make a completely controlled world that ends well for my avatar, which I am aware would make for a dull and insipid story.

But this can't be a real excuse for not writing if I really want to write. I can find much better excuses from somewhere else.

Anyway, the point is, you have to put a character in crisis. I've always been operating on the theory that you have to develop characters first and then let them play, as it were. The trouble is finding a good crisis for a character that isn't lifted directly out of my own life. And that's where I run into trouble, and where I feel like I am working with a narrow perspective on the writing process. Is it better to define a crisis and then develop characters out of that crisis? Is it better to come up with a great technological or social change and then breed characters from that world?

At this point, I have no idea and just need to brainstorm. But Nick Hornby gives me hope, because the problems and characters he create seem to be characters that I could theoretically know in real life. Plus, the book is just a damned fun and quick read.

Life, Hardly Strictly Limited In Topic

I'm home sick from work today, itchy eyes, congestion, a symphony of sneezes, a stiff back. Maybe I have a cold; maybe I'm just allergic to people. After waking up from a doze, I thought to stimulate my brain by venturing into the intellectual discourse, the respectful give-and-take of differing opinions to be found on the comment forums on the San Francisco Chronicle's website.

Now I feel even worse.

But I'm not going to talk about that here. You can read my thoughts about the strange world of sports fans on the Internet here.

All I will say is that the anonymity of the Internet does not always breed civil, respectful debate.

Speaking of anonymity, though, the world is not bereft of signs of hope among strangers. On Saturday, Marina and I went to Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, the free festival in Golden Gate Park that attracted musicians such as Robert Stanley, Emmylou Harris, Neko Case, Lyle Lovett, Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin), and others. And something pretty cool happened that wasn't related to the music.

Saturday was not the best of days. It was dusty, too crowded. We couldn't get anywhere near to getting in to see Steve Martin play the banjo, and we were both getting a bit fed up. We were sitting on a hillside, talking about taking off.

At that moment, a guy came up and asked if this was my wallet that he had picked up. He recognized me from the driver's license. In the crowd, he certainly could have pocketed it and walked off, and I would never have realized it was gone until later.

Just when you are considering becoming a professional misanthrope--even though that could be kind of a fun job--something like this happens and you realize that people can be smart, inventive, creative, compassionate, and capable of doing the right thing.

We left the park for the day not long after that, and went to the AMC Van Ness to watch the new Ricky Gervais movie, The Invention Of Lying, which I really must recommend.

Sunday night, we had a much better time at the Festival, finding spaces to sit to listen to Robert Stanley and Neko Case, music echoing through the sunlit meadows of the park with the towering eucalyptus trees and the tens of thousands of bouncing, dancing people. We packed food: bread, salami, peppered turkey slices, cheese, cookies, milk and water. And then the closing show, Amadou and Mariam, talented musicians from Mali, an amazing story, the pair having met at an institute for the blind in Mali. I had not heard of them before, but thousands of other people must have done so, because there was a passionate crowd standing and dancing to their energetic music as night fell, the lights from the stage transforming a tall eucalyptus tree in the background into what looked like a pair of saxophones standing back to back, flashing red and blue and green in sequence.

Music, the fundamental spiritual celebration that unites us all, atheists and theists and agnostics alike. A good festival, a good live concert, is always a transcendent experience, because you can taste this collective energy that is creative and substantial. It kind of makes more palatable all the annoyances of being around all these other people, except for teenagers who feel the need to affix stickers all over the inside of buses; they are just tacky and boring.

It makes you think that despite all the bad news in the world, we might just be okay in the long run.