Tuesday, June 23, 2009

The Boy


The spring and summer have been crazy. Much of my time has been taken up with daily filler. Now my family--all of them--is away at camp for the next four weeks. I get to balance out searching for a job with jump-starting the book project. Even driving home from dropping the kids at camp, I was worried about dividing the time. But now I know that it's possible. Had a good, yet tired, day working on the new plan. Quiet meal at Little Saigon. Tomorrow back to the Ice Chamber.

I can feel the tectonic plate shifting. The elements have been there, just dormant. Swimming. Holding pattern.

Today I drew a diagram of the primary and secondary chars. It's funny, the Spy keeps moving further away from the center. Today: the boy, Adara, el Patroncito. They represent the hub. I don't know if this is the right direction or not. I'd like to create an abstract logic right away in which nearly anything could be plausible while still maintaining a human character-ization.

The boy needs Adara. She tutors him. Why does he have to live with anyone? What if he lives on his own? You see. I bury myself with the details of life when the story is stronger parallel to life. Tangent.

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Strands of Lucky Dog




SECTION ONE - El Niño


The boy’s past and fate.

The boy’s relationship to El Patroncito. He is curious (more so than in previous text)

Dogs in Chamula. Cocodrillo, the colectivo driver.

The boy’s relationship to La Fuente.

La Fuente’s home.

The Anglo and his Pill.

The ruins of Hacienda La Fuente and a baobab stump. The job of the Anglo: broadcasting random numbers via low power transmitter. La Fuente calls him a spy. The Spy.

La Fuente’s religious angle: mayan mysticism from her old muchacha.

The Talking Cross. La Fuente tells the boy an old mayan cross talks to her in a field.

The boy and the Spy become closer.

The Spy teaches the boy about the use of an OTP (cryptographic one-time-pad).

The boy’s teacher (Adara).

FLASHBACK {The truth about Hacienda La Fuente. El Bisabuelo (El Patron de la Fuente), his GOLEM, his beautiful muchacha india, his spurned wife. A horrific event. The great house burned to its foundations. El Patron is killed in the fire. The arsonist is his son in law. The girl El Patron wronged, his own granddaughter, is left to live in the waterworks of the old estate. She lives there alone with her old mystical muchacha. The girl becomes La Fuente. Their illegitimate son goes to live in San Cristobal to fill in his bisabuelo’s footsteps. The footsteps of El Patron. The boy becomes known as El Patroncito. The GOLEM roams free, loose of his Patron’s intentions.}

The boy’s father, AKA the Spook.

The boy and Adara. He prays for protection from the GOLEM at the Talking Cross. A pistol appears at the foot of the cross.

SECTION TWO – El Espia


Assassination in San Cristobal by the GOLEM.

FLASHBACK {The Spy’s memories of Invasion of Panama. El Escogido, The Chosen One. Who is the chosen and for what? Rescued by the Spook (the boy’s father) in DF}

The job and historical, electrical innovations in Mexico and not in Mexico

The new transmitter and its usage. FLASHBACK {The rest of the story: the Spy’s job in Chamula }

El Patroncito’s relationship with the Spy {El Patroncito’s relationship to the Spook’s job for the Spy}

Cocodrillo drives boy to San Cristobal in his colectivo. El Patroncito’s visit with the boy. {Story of la muchacha india, her soul eaten by a dog. La Fuente searches for her soul and protects the dogs in Chamula.}

The Spook arrives in San Cristobal, presses for more from the Spy, into the job.

The Pill, return of.

Adara’s “molojov coctele.” She steers the Spy advertently away from finding the OTP, como los jovenes in the parks. Overt connections to Panama, obvious to Adara

El OTP presente. Inside a dog hit by car in San Cristobal’s central park. Boy finds it. Aided by Cocodrillo.

The Spy seeks the OTP. Clues lead him back to Chamula.

The revenge on la muchacha through the dogs is El Patroncito’s manipulation.

Dogs in Chamula, dead. (some torn up “OTP doggie style”) La Fuente is dying, she has poisoned her dogs. She gives the Spy the OTP from the boy.

FLASHBACK {uncover the reason for the work the Spook has the Spy do. Chamulans use Spy’s made up numbers for Loteria. “Find the OTP,” says the Talking Cross.}

Talking Cross tells the Spy “Slam Arc On It. E.” Helicopters hang in the Chamula sky.

FLASHBACK {El Chorillo, Panama City, 1989. Experimental weapons test. The Spy’s invention, Ice Cream Truck, draws out a young boy into courtyard. Unexpected (to the young Spy) Death Ray melts the boy’s rescuing mother.}

Spy returns to San Cristobal. {Why was the Spook’s call sign “E?”} Cryptogram: “Trade La Fuente for “some names”.

SECTION THREE - El Cliquero


Mexican military hunts El Cliquero: the GOLEM. Pay for the death of the boy.

FLASHBACK {The boy’s death in front of El Cliquero}

Adara helps El Cliquero (she reveals she works with EZLN) {“The world must end through you.”}

El Cliquero and Spook. Learns of the Spook’s role in Panama.

El Cliquero matches PSYOP patch on yeoman’s fatigues to the Spy.

FLASHBACK {Origin of El Cliquero. Panama. Helicopter. The Spy’s invention: Ice Cream Truck. The Spook’s invention: The Death Ray. El Cliquero brought under Ice Cream Truck’s audio mind control. His mother killed by death ray. His face burnt by her melted flesh.}

El Cliquero’s wrath, his destiny. If he is a GOLEM, he is an accidental GOLEM. He chases the Spy.

Spy returns from Chamula with the true OTP.

Helicopter rotors reveal the truth. Slam Arc On It. E. {Spy’s POV. How does knowing this reveal what is in the Spook’s head? All along he has wanted to make contact with Nikola Tesla and G. Marconi locked away in their subterranean city hideout. }

The Spook is dead. {The GOLEM?}

Countdown to the Spy.

Mexican NASCAR. Colectivo driver takes a bullet for the Spy.

The Spy is caught in El Cliquero’s sights. Clicker: 000.

The Spy’s mayan sermon. Adara observes in slo-motion.

Who is El Cliquero?

SECTION FOUR


The Spy’s replacement message and multiple targets {DF, La ciudad subteranea de los Andes, the boy}

The Spy’s proposed journey to the Andes.

FLASHBACK {Origin of the Spook}

The GOLEM




There are underlying stories and there is a process of revelation through the present day action.

What are the underlying stories?


The story of Hacienda La Fuente.
The story of the Death Ray in Operation Just Cause, 1989.

What are the overlying stories?


An American spy is hiding from his past, and in attempting to avoid it, involves himself in something far worse.
A spy, a young boy, and a Mexican teacher form a bond under the influence of a mystical old woman.
The motivations for a CIA spook’s terrible acts come to light—he is trying to contact Nikola Tesla and a subterranean city deep in the Andes.
An old man schemes to reclaim his place as rightful heir to an estate with a horrific past—by summoning the family’s long dormant golem.
And old woman struggles to find spiritual remnants of her loving muchacha

Ketchup




"Listening to you I get the music.
Gazing at you I get the heat.
Following you I climb the mountain.
I get excitement at your feet.
Right behind you I see the millions.
On you I see the glory.
From you I get opinions.
From you I get the story."

Cranked up The Who so loud on Friday that I had to turn down the subwoofer. It's funny when you stumble on a song that has been around for a long time and it hits you right between the eyes. An older song can affect you even more strongly. The sonic wave replays itself from the time it was released and played on buses and transistor radios and car radios with sweaty, fumbling fingers and budweiser mucus, cheap hops exchanging places from tongue to tongue. And there was the song. And the basement record shop. And the back of the notebook, written with circle-dotted Is about some junior high school crush that wouldn't amount to anything. And the gaps in time since then. Running the 800 yard dash. Dash. Throwing the discus. Shooting what would now be three pointers from the sidelines. The bus. Cold mornings flecked dark with Indiana corn stubble strobing past the dirty windows. Get a seat over the heater I hope. And the nowhere gaps, lost doing pushups in the basement in Athens Ohio. And the time spent watching birth. No Who there. It's when you're alone that The Who can span those gaps like Chuck Yeager in some pre-space bullet cockpit and pierce your skin, or at least frighten you with the sonic clap behind your back.

I too have overcome the gaps. I'm looking at the notes I've taken since May 4. The notes that have lead me to where I am right now. I have discovered how to make this novel into something that fits between a book's covers.

Where was I going wrong?

I didn't want to make this about Mexican culture. I can't really.
I dragged myself into unfamiliar territory.
The story often flowers and splits, requiring even more info, back story, research, etc.

I was too focused on the reality of an un-real narrative.

Unreal: Under the Volcano, 1984, Metamorphosis, Neuromancer. The more I think unreal, the ore I like writing. THe more I consider details of 1905 Chamula, the more I want to change stories. But isn't a good portion of the punch of this book its relationship to US? To make it a faceless, analog-less nation will weaken it, won't it?

Riding the line.

Can I make the foundation of the novel historical reality and still have the freedom to move? The freedom to move.

Looking at the outline, I cut so much continuity out of the Spy section. It no longer flows. It's more like a list made from memory of things that happened to whom? When? Gaps. What happened to the boy? From where does El Patroncito arise for the Spy? From where does Adara arise? I need to go through the same process I went through with the boy at the beginning of this project. I don't know the Spy.

Do I know the boy? Yes. And I can write the boy, too. I have more of the Spy in me, so he's easier to write, but as a real char, I don't know him.

He's shown an aptitude for audio, and fell into a seminar where he learned and later experimented with biological connection with audio (sub-aural freq). Frequencies and atomic weights. Music and the spheres.

For a moment, all spheres orbited in concert: galaxies, solar systems, planets and planetoids, moons, satellites, atmospheres, winds, jets, financial cycles, cicadas, menstruations, gestation, falling out of love, hunger and digestion, parasitic life, plankton swells, paramecium swimming laps, cells sloughing, the electron making its own year around a proton nucleus, a quark spins left, its left, and neutrinos seek love in their alternate universes.

An element (with its atomic weight) series as a model for galaxies and for systems not so large.

As I rewrote the outline for David I thought that I naturally know how to tell a story. I feel the pull and the tinkle and the lit keys for the writer to hit when I place a plot point that requires exposition or development--and I know where they need to go, I just don't have an interface that allows me to place the other points easily.

The project is huge.

I can feel the story starting to crystallize. Flakes form and swirl then break apart, but the solution is finally starting to could.

I highlighted (low-lighted) the flashbacks in the outline. I wanted to read through the present day only.

Layers

Time passes swiftly. Basketball with David Schweidel on Wednesday.

We shot around in the defunct Hillside School playground in the Berkeley Hills. Court is uneven, tree limbs overshadow one rim; it's post-apocalyptic.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to get out of the session. I think, mostly to shoot with David. I got a bit of feedback on the materials I sent him a week or so ago. But mostly we shot. And this was fine because I got quite a bit out of preparing for the talk.

Lucky Dog is going to shift once again.

I need to create a pathway for the reader to follow or criss cross. The reader needs to see the path.

As I described it to DS, I feel like I'm beating a field clear of its mice, scaring up bits of story with each swat of the broom, forcing the reader to pick and discover narrative strains on their own. It's no good. This is what I've been doing in film for years. I want to overcome that impulse this time.

I must.

Monday, May 4, 2009

A lot to catch up on


I'm way behind in transcribing my notes. I have over a month's worth of notes to transcribe. But should I? The last critique gave me some things to chew on. Now I am working on an overall outline, no, a summary that walks the reader through all four parts. I need this to get started on my summer's workshop.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

El Crit.

Notes from the Apr 2 crit.

Style fascinates. Distance from El Patroncito, the boy raise subtext questions, emotional distance.
Cinematic, visual.
Disequilibrium. Settings and points in time.
Great details: white leather car seats, Mexican juicy fruit, hup hup, hup, smell of the old man.
Bedroom, books, electricity.
Bedroom prose description is sharp (DS).
Juxtaposition: boy knows the dark. He had comfort with the awkward places.
Revision is more grounded. Allows more latitude with the prose.
Seemed clearer. Like Maestra scene.
The boy seems like he'll be better off with the abuela.
The confusion factor is gone.
Back story is woven in.
Narrative control.
Control of images and effects.

What could be better?
Chronology.
Motivation of backstory.
Blog is too rich!
Not comfortable with portrayal of the spanish language in work.
Willy nilly usage. (ouch)
Myra liked it. (yeah)
Shifting POV from the boy to ??whose?
Narrator is too distant.
What happens with the helicopter and the jungle?
Opacity is frustrating. Thinking v. acting.
Doesn't need to be frustrating.
Why make chap 3 come after? Why make chronology out of order?
Need more payoffs in narration. Progression.
How does the boy explain the fact that he's in Mexico to himself?
How old is the boy?

Hacienda for sale.

Today is the final crit for Lucky Dog in the spring workshop with David Schweidel. I think it will go well. I like the piece and--we'll see.

I spent some time looking at haciendas for sale yesterday. I want to make Hacienda La Fuente as ideal as I can.

Do I have everything I need to begin again? I know a lot more than I did a month ago. Hell of a lot more.

Now, take a look at the arc again and see if the action will flow yet.

The spy and la Fuente naturally compete as elements for the plan for the attention of the boy. As I build up the woman's history, she leans closer to the boy. As I build up the spy's, he does. I don't want either one too close.

The Son of a Weddingless Marriage: El Patroncito

La Fuente remained in the only part of the hacienda left standing--the servants' quarters. She stayed in the room over the water works. Her son was taken to the city, raised by la bisuela's family in San Cristobal. There the boy became old quick. He became el Patroncito, the lord of the burnt estate. At the same time his mother was cared for by the remaining servants at the estate. They are the descendants of la muchacha india (Guatemala). El Patroncito grows up twisted and avaricious. La Fuente sinks into her fertile primordial ooze and reforms herself. She is reborn, only cells at a time.

The dogs created each opportunity for the horrors of fate to compile. Those details I'll leave for the writing.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

LSPA at the moment he meets the boy



Questions: How long has he been at La Fuente?

It is the end of the summer; he and Laabuelita have made it through the heat together. He has undergone the training that Laabuelita provides. The training affects the spy and the boy differently.











LSPA durationsLSPALaabuelitathe pill
one monthstill new?try it
three monthsstrong in initial flowsome trust?
six monthsrearrangementtrust failed. conclusions?
one yearhis life has reformedpatterns. adapted?


Where does the Pill fit? How does it bend the pacing? Of course, it depends on the duration. Right?

It was a very formal goodbye.

Can I write to create the character of the spy or do I need to write about writing? I am full of writing and want to create, but it is so difficult to allow myself to write without a guide--even a loose guide.

>>I need to write about writing.

Protocol and Laabuelita; Training.
Why is Laabuelita opposed to the Pill?

Oh, come on. WHAT IS THE PILL?


LSPA in DF>>Found by the Spook>>Dispenser>>2 wks in DF>>DF to Chamula>>LaFuente



The Spook finds LSPA--fucked out of his mind--in DF's Chapultepec Woods (yet, nearly in touch with La Mescalina). Does the Spook realize? He gives LSPA a treatment, it will control anything, but it shaves of years. The Pill. Mechanical dispenser. What is the state of mind that the drug produces? It is related to FOCUS. LSPA is creative and useful (viz. Qiwi's father artist)

The Spook reveals only the most immediate aspects to LSPA.
Focus comes later.

What is the origin of the Pill?


CIA, but from what source? Natural. Viral. (Mind rot-"to focus you!"
"Saw the hand writing on the wall. No torture. No physical torture. Better info through chemistry. BIOCHEMISTRY."

"This won't hurt a bit. GUARANTEED. "

Detriment
Shaves years from life span (withers)
State of mind control
-- a relative of FOCUS (V. Vinge)
Stepped process, not immediate
Changes brain chemistry permanently

Benefit
Calmate!
Kicks other addictions
Achievements under influence can be impressive
Addiction can be comforting if you give yourself up to it

What causes La Fuente's disapproval?
The Pill interferes with the connection of the human to the earth. (Antaeus)

ANTAEUS


Anti-US
Auntie (like Uncle Sam) US
Ant y us
Anti American activities (AAA), House Committee on

La Fuente has a philosophical stance. What is it? This is the key to being able to write La Fuente.

La Fuente Family Tree




El Bisabuelo took the mystical housemaid as a concubine. She gave birth to la Fuente's mother, Ana Portilla, who married a half Italian, Martín Bachio. AP gave birth to the girl, la Fuente. The girl was raped by el Bisabuelo. This produced a boy, later to be known as el Patroncito. When Martín discovered this he burned down the famous Hacienda La Fuente, killing el Bisabuelo and much of his family. The servants quarters survived as the only remnants of Hacienda La Fuente. La muchacha india used to sleep in the room where la Fuente sleeps. Martín was hanged by los rurales, vigilante leftovers from Porfirio Diaz and the porfiriata.

La Fuente remained in the remnants of the hacienda, in the room over the water works (las obras hidraulicas). Her son was taken and raised by la Bisabuela's family in San Cristobal de las Casas. There the boy became old quickly. He became el Patroncito, the lord of the burnt estate. His mother was cared for by the remaining servants at the estate, themselves related to la muchacha india (Guatemala). El Patroncito grew up twisted and obsessed with his birth right. La Fuente sunk into her fertile, primordial ooze and reformed herself. She was reborn, just cells at a time.

The boy is the great grand nephew of el Patroncito. His grandmother was a cousin to el Patroncito.

The dogs created each opportunity for the horrors of fate to compile and intervene. These details I'll leave to the writing.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Take your meds Monday night at Cafe Med!

I recently delivered chaps 1-3 of Part One to David Schweidel's Spring Workshop. Crit this Thursday.

The blog has declined and slowed a bit from the pace of January. I don't want to take time to "figure out" the blog. I want it to support and not to detract.

The Spook as father. Need to create the new dramatic arc. Work to introduce the Anglo spy and the ideas of his father and of the Anglo's sponsor (the same person: the Spook). Of course, develop all this at the same time I am in the midst of illuminating the Laabuelita char.

How do I--?



What the hell is wrong? It is so difficult to make forward progress.

The problem is I don't know anything at all about the main character of this book. I need to spend some time in his skin. Late 40s. Safe in his "zero". The Pill. Lives in shed above Baobab stump. The job of Damocles is waiting for him. The old woman cares for him (what is his reaction to her?). His past in DF, Chapultepec Park, el Castillo.

What is his everyday in Part One?

(I want to explode.)

The Boy and his father (the Spook)


The Spook is a father. Cigar.

He's developed quite a bit from his initial appearance in the script version (2004). Has he mellowed with age (5 years)?

Now I need to re-view the outline with this change (or revelation) in mind.

The work of 20 Mar 2009.

Off the top of my head, here are the issues before I take a look at the outline.

Conflicts, Challenges


  • Manage a lot of details --map who knows what when

  • I will need to track his compartmentalizations

  • Wash DC is not a good place for him--too close to Langley

  • La Fuente needs to reveal that she knows his father. Can she?



Benefits


  • Tightens the story scope

  • Solves the coincidence problem

  • Steers the reader in a plausible direction, but off course

  • Boy's description of father does double duty



How does the boy's father factor into his narration?


  1. What does he know?

  2. The compartmentalization throws the reader off course

  3. The boy may actually see his father--narration must establish foundation

  4. Was there ever a slip made by (the Spook as) father in front of the boy?

  5. Needed to divorce wife to maintain cover




Here is the truth. The Spook is not his father, but the father character that the Spook has created is. It is necessary to create a father char and to use him for the boy--until there is overlap. And the gap closes (if that scene will exist) with a thunderclap.

What does the boy's father do? Western Union? I like the idea of something corporate to hide his travel.

Western Union, Lawrence Livermore Lab, Los Alamos, General Electric, Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil.

Cover job--but he may even work there rather than having to lie. He needs to lie as infrequently as possible so that he doesn't lose track.

Did the Spook take on the ID of a former student at St Parmenides? Someone who died in Panama? Was the helicopter crash a fabrication to create another identity? The boy (still) was in St Parm.

Before and after the Spook joined the CIA? No. The Spook was born that way. He had his wife artificially inseminated to cover his trail. This calls into question, how did he get married in the first place? Shit. Another day, another new timeline.

By making, molding the Spook into the role of the father, he has been pulled in to the most central position in the work. The most--perhaps more central than LSPA, since a familial bond implies much more beyond his actual words.

Beatriz


What does the boy remember of his mother? How did she die? According to the father?

How did she meet the Spook? What's her relationship to LSPA? To LaFuente and el Patroncito, to the Spook as father? To the boy? To the dogs?

At this point, I'll admit it. I know many details and I know nothing about the progression of any of these chars. Beyond the most obvious ones.

I need to take one naive pass at a map of reveral and recognition.

Reversal


The unspoken element is a buildup of expectation both within the char and from the narration to support a concrete direction the reader can believe in. Then when the direction is reversed it is felt by the reader.

Recognition


What does the character learn about his or her context? Whwat awareness does he develop? The narrational question becomes How? How does the reader become aware of the char's recognition?