With the pueblo in sight, it would take another hour to get to it. The boy didn't know this. To him it seemed as if at the next turn the road would finally take a decisive, business like cut down to the blue smoke chimneys and tall white steeple of the groggy town. He was groggy himself.
The boy's eyes shot open. The scream had felt like a sharp shovel edge against his spine. Had it been the old man? It had sounded more like a young woman. El Patroncito had his eyes focused on the road. He had not been startled at all. The boy's ears rang with the echoing metallic aftertaste of the scream.
"Tres balazos..." the old man sang to himself.
The words added to his vibrating head made him want to vomit.
"Close your eyes," he told himself as he cracked the passenger window.
He could feel the evidence of the scream--in the ball on top of his spine at the base of his neck. The vibrations came from there. His two shoulder blades were pushing him away from his seat and toward the windshield. They ratcheted his shoulders back, back with shallow breaths. The wind howled like a WWII fighter plane forever diving, out of control, preparing to crash, I can't hold it, I'm going down, no response from the stick, I'm going...until the diving wind is flecked with old British ambulance sirens and this plane begins to level off. Sixteen other planes are still going down or leveling off alternately. There is a bell or is it the thump of a mallet deep in a rusted ship's belly?
He felt powerful and powerless as if he were breaking his own back and unable to choose to stop. And suddenly it all stopped on its own.
"How did you sleep?"
"Bien, gracias."
San Juan Chamula tilted in front of the car like a conquistador's map.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
How will I write plot in novel form?
This is such a lame question to pose, but it's there and needs to be answered.
I feel lashed to the lean and opinion-less straight-forward descriptions of the screenplay. And now with the gates to the opportunities of narration thrown open my experience still lies in the simple lines and simple descriptions of the script.
Why am I holding back? Turn it loose. This is what I need to do: WRITE THE FUCKING THING. The rest will follow from the writing of the thing. This is true. There is a twisting that happens during the writing of the thing--the twisting keeps the strands together long enough to progress.
I feel lashed to the lean and opinion-less straight-forward descriptions of the screenplay. And now with the gates to the opportunities of narration thrown open my experience still lies in the simple lines and simple descriptions of the script.
Why am I holding back? Turn it loose. This is what I need to do: WRITE THE FUCKING THING. The rest will follow from the writing of the thing. This is true. There is a twisting that happens during the writing of the thing--the twisting keeps the strands together long enough to progress.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Turning point.
This Thursday comes early, the point at which I am laid off from my post at Western Union San Francisco (with the remainder of the office of 50). I've known about it since June, it's no surprise. I get flecks of anger from the situation--it's a long story without many interesting turns. I've learned a great deal in the last three years. Most of this learning--on the topic of how to proceed from this point. How not to proceed.
Although I thought I'd be able to use the situation to better advantage, I could not. I never could write at work. Too midwestern for that. Perhaps I was able to make some notes at Cafe Francisco or before my salmon scramble arrived at Pat's Cafe, but shit, the circumstances wound me into a ball of rubber bands.
The next two months, with the exception of ferrying the kids to school and back and time out for holiday fun, will be devoted to writing as much as I possibly can write.
My workspace is completely out of hand. I will bring in one more desk to the space. A desk that allows my head to stay out from between the joists.
Although I thought I'd be able to use the situation to better advantage, I could not. I never could write at work. Too midwestern for that. Perhaps I was able to make some notes at Cafe Francisco or before my salmon scramble arrived at Pat's Cafe, but shit, the circumstances wound me into a ball of rubber bands.
The next two months, with the exception of ferrying the kids to school and back and time out for holiday fun, will be devoted to writing as much as I possibly can write.
My workspace is completely out of hand. I will bring in one more desk to the space. A desk that allows my head to stay out from between the joists.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
The Old Gringo
Reading The Old Gringo (Fuentes), an essay about the entwined relationship of Mexico and US at its most basic level of intimacy.
I retreat from using an essayist approach of writing the meanings of characters' inner lives. Each argument is simply the forthright declarative statement of character on the subject of another character, but it takes on the weight of essay. Clear and thick.
There is so little plot for the weighty essay. The structure of, eh, not really flashbacks, but memories becomes a device of plot, given the narrative coatings of the memories. Perfect example is Harriet's memories of her father and the negress in Cuba--or was it in Washington DC? Her un-clarified memories regarding her father's relationship with another woman create the foundation for the dialog she speaks to the old man later in the novel.
The style of narration is consistent from one character's memories to the next. It's easy to confuse the narrator/author with the memory of the character.
I retreat from using an essayist approach of writing the meanings of characters' inner lives. Each argument is simply the forthright declarative statement of character on the subject of another character, but it takes on the weight of essay. Clear and thick.
There is so little plot for the weighty essay. The structure of, eh, not really flashbacks, but memories becomes a device of plot, given the narrative coatings of the memories. Perfect example is Harriet's memories of her father and the negress in Cuba--or was it in Washington DC? Her un-clarified memories regarding her father's relationship with another woman create the foundation for the dialog she speaks to the old man later in the novel.
The style of narration is consistent from one character's memories to the next. It's easy to confuse the narrator/author with the memory of the character.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Must FOCUS.
Reading Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky. At page 450+ it's gaining some much needed momentum. I'm fascinated by his concept, focus, that creates mental slaves of unwitting persons. The book really dances the same line on which pre-abolitionist new worlders must have danced. If they could just ignore the humanist issues, focus slavery would be good for the peddlers' business. The nuts and bolts of how it's done and how it works were worth the price of the book alone.
Another mental puzzle that occupies me: the ellipsis of space travel. The travelers refer to it as cold sleep. From what I glean, it's a suspended animation--sounds like it involves some cryo-element. Sometimes they refer to the chambers as coffins. Whatever cold sleep is, it allows humans to traverse vast distances without dying before they reach their destinations. To be sure, they have methods for extending human life through other technology like artificial hearts, etc., but cold sleep is what extends life furthest. Dreaming, waking, the process of engaging sleep. There are many details that are hazy for me, but this is what makes the concept interesting--and makes it applicable to the concepts of Ice Cream Truck and the Death Ray.
Another mental puzzle that occupies me: the ellipsis of space travel. The travelers refer to it as cold sleep. From what I glean, it's a suspended animation--sounds like it involves some cryo-element. Sometimes they refer to the chambers as coffins. Whatever cold sleep is, it allows humans to traverse vast distances without dying before they reach their destinations. To be sure, they have methods for extending human life through other technology like artificial hearts, etc., but cold sleep is what extends life furthest. Dreaming, waking, the process of engaging sleep. There are many details that are hazy for me, but this is what makes the concept interesting--and makes it applicable to the concepts of Ice Cream Truck and the Death Ray.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Those who came before
Where did this writing urge come from? Why am I doing this? What precedes the actions, the pain and the self-discipline? Well, let's take a look.
Just this past week, on Facebook, I ran into an old friend of mine from Indiana University. She used to live over my apartment on College Av. in Bloomington when I was 24 and stupid and strong and as naive as anyone should ever get. I was living with my girlfriend from college, someone I cared for very much, but the beginning of the four year end had already begun. My friend from upstairs was lithe and literary, a poetry MFA student with a great laugh. A chemical laugh. There must have been some frequency in her voice that resonated deep in my sinuses, created smells, triggered memories or generated false ones. Here's the funny thing: I can't remember where we were when we talked. My living-room-desk-closet-bookshelf? Kitchen? Waffle House? I don't think I ever saw her apartment the entire time I lived below her. I do remember a great conversation about Japanese novelists--Kawabata, Mishima, else who? I had been writing an adaptation of Citizen Kane that I called "American, A Renga", something that eventually got me into film school, and she picked upon my circumstantial interest in newer Japanese work. My main character was a half-Japanese man. But, given all these twists of the current paragraph, this lovely woman injected me with a hit of the narrative virus. And it's one of the strongest I have had. Were there others?
Another friend from Indiana. This one, my mom's best from school days. Wonderful woman who taught me to dance before my first middle school dance, taught me to laugh hard, and showed me the value of skepticism. She always gave me books as gifts. I remember All the King's Men, Confederacy of Dunces, what else? Here's where part of a confession comes in. I never allowed myself to enjoy reading. I think it was a symbol of solidarity with my mother. She claimed to hate reading--and perhaps it was to hide the same weakness that I was working to hide. I probably had a visual impairment to coincide with my stuttering tongue. It takes me too long to read. I'm slow. I still read out loud to myself, only quietly. Part of the confession is that I never read any of the books that she gave me. Why didn't I? Well, Penn Warren's book could have been about chess and how could that be interesting? How could that have ever been interesting. Then later I found out it was about a Louisiana politician. Would chess have been better? About the same, at that point in my life. And Confederacy of Dunces... John Kennedy Toole. What a loaded name that was. And Ignatius, some slob with a Fat Albert hat and muffler. Let's admit. The cover art killed the book for me. For the first twenty eight years of my life I didn't read anything she had given me. My reading activity consisted solely of something akin to interpretive dance with Philosophical texts of Ancient Greek city states and the Existentialists. And biographies.
My thesis advisor from Ohio University. Appalachia threw me for such a loop when I arrived that I didn't know if this guy was a man or a woman. He quickly grew on me, after showing a film he'd made with the xrays doctors had used to diagnose his leaky heart valve. Ultimately he was the first person to tell me he liked my written work. He gave me a screenwriting class of my own one quarter into my MFA. He liked "America, a Renga". I was confused. I couldn't tell why he liked it and I was afraid to find out the reasons. Teaching that course taught me more than any writing class I had ever taken. To be truthful, I'd only taken one creative writing class. First quarter screenwriting with thesis advisor. Right, here's the remainder of the CV on that topic. Started and edited newspaper in 5th grade. Pissed off classmates by editing their work. Took years of english classes in HS. Was forced to get serious fast in senior year, AP english class. Ended up writing series of poems for end project. Tested out of any intro to writing classes at Indiana Univ. Even the Intro to Philosophy (though that was really stupid to skip). Took two poetry classes: one reading, one writing (wasn't that the gist of the second one?). Did a number on a few of my papers for Comp Lit film studies classes. Took a Classics class and wrote a play instead of a paper. Looking back, mostly quite horrible output, but rec'd good grades for it all. That brought me up to graduate level screenwriting. Christ.
What did I have? Some pointers from Syd Field on the 3 act structure. A deep study of Citizen Kane. Bible readings. And an impulse-driven creative streak that got a lot of positive feedback from people who should have kept their mouths shut. Even about the films I made. I needed my ass kicked, in a nice way, and to be shown a rough outline of what I didn't and should have known. It could have been the start of a beautiful literary career. If I'd only. I'll never know what I could have done before and it doesn't matter. I wanted to make films--I wanted to generate narratives naturally with not much training. Like a too old Rimbaud. A youngish Reverend Finster. I've been too good at things too soon and thought that it would continue like that.
In 2004, Oaxaca, Mexico. Some twisted coincidence lead me to travel to Oaxaca City to write a screenplay at the exact same time another tall writer was making some space between himself and the US state of affairs. The other guy ended up having one major feature under his belt, other LA writing gigs, a real Communist pedigree, a full complement of Spanish verbs, a deal in the wings to remake Salt of the Earth, and a joy for life that made for great interviews. I met him when he came to work at the same cafe where I worked. No, what are the odds for that being coincidental? Come on. Well, we kept each other company. Me: slowly leeching information I wanted to substitute for experience from him. Him: getting some sort of competitive surge from hearing that I was racking up pages. After the end of it all, he agreed to read and did read with all his integrity all 240 pp of my script (hey, I thought I could make it into a 3 part series!) twice. Yes, two times. And subsequently he talked me through his analysis over the phone from Nevada where he was hoping to work on Salt of the Earth II. By the time I got his call I had heard from several people already. I had heard enough to be fairly well discouraged. Some of my discouragement came from what I didn't hear from people who hadn't read it and were avoiding me. Others struggled valiantly toward page 100 and ground to a halt. My former cafe compatriot gave me the compliment of taking the thing seriously, and with it me. Bless him. Yet, the feedback came on top of my entombed ambitions. I was no screenwriter. Or I was. This script was not going to show me the way to a career in film. My friend didn't tell me this, but he started me considering what it means to put all that time into creating a document that is not the end product. I had felt I was in the midst of creating the end product, or something that would be my ticket to creating it. The best part of our working relationship was his recommendation to read more Graham Greene and an introduction to B. Traven. Fifteen years after talking about Kawabata in the Waffle House as my girlfriend slept, I was talking about literature again.
The switch wasn't immediate. I fought it like a large sailfish that had been landed by an old man. I remember reworking the outline for Lucky Dog until it made sense as a screenplay again. Then continuing until I was sure that the novel form was still better for the story. After many switchbacks, I had to cut myself loose. Of course, that's when I agreed to the 2010 timeframe. No more films or scripts until 2010.
To put an end to this Sunday's musings, I still haven't taken a writing class. I read All the King's Men and about 20 other novels to teach me how to write. I have been trying to peel away self-protection in the form of deception and fantasy. I just bought Confederacy of Dunces with the same cover from Half Priced Books. I'll read that some time after I finish The Old Gringo.
And, my friend from Indiana Univ, the one I finally found through Facebook, she's writing a novel, too.
Just this past week, on Facebook, I ran into an old friend of mine from Indiana University. She used to live over my apartment on College Av. in Bloomington when I was 24 and stupid and strong and as naive as anyone should ever get. I was living with my girlfriend from college, someone I cared for very much, but the beginning of the four year end had already begun. My friend from upstairs was lithe and literary, a poetry MFA student with a great laugh. A chemical laugh. There must have been some frequency in her voice that resonated deep in my sinuses, created smells, triggered memories or generated false ones. Here's the funny thing: I can't remember where we were when we talked. My living-room-desk-closet-bookshelf? Kitchen? Waffle House? I don't think I ever saw her apartment the entire time I lived below her. I do remember a great conversation about Japanese novelists--Kawabata, Mishima, else who? I had been writing an adaptation of Citizen Kane that I called "American, A Renga", something that eventually got me into film school, and she picked upon my circumstantial interest in newer Japanese work. My main character was a half-Japanese man. But, given all these twists of the current paragraph, this lovely woman injected me with a hit of the narrative virus. And it's one of the strongest I have had. Were there others?
Another friend from Indiana. This one, my mom's best from school days. Wonderful woman who taught me to dance before my first middle school dance, taught me to laugh hard, and showed me the value of skepticism. She always gave me books as gifts. I remember All the King's Men, Confederacy of Dunces, what else? Here's where part of a confession comes in. I never allowed myself to enjoy reading. I think it was a symbol of solidarity with my mother. She claimed to hate reading--and perhaps it was to hide the same weakness that I was working to hide. I probably had a visual impairment to coincide with my stuttering tongue. It takes me too long to read. I'm slow. I still read out loud to myself, only quietly. Part of the confession is that I never read any of the books that she gave me. Why didn't I? Well, Penn Warren's book could have been about chess and how could that be interesting? How could that have ever been interesting. Then later I found out it was about a Louisiana politician. Would chess have been better? About the same, at that point in my life. And Confederacy of Dunces... John Kennedy Toole. What a loaded name that was. And Ignatius, some slob with a Fat Albert hat and muffler. Let's admit. The cover art killed the book for me. For the first twenty eight years of my life I didn't read anything she had given me. My reading activity consisted solely of something akin to interpretive dance with Philosophical texts of Ancient Greek city states and the Existentialists. And biographies.
My thesis advisor from Ohio University. Appalachia threw me for such a loop when I arrived that I didn't know if this guy was a man or a woman. He quickly grew on me, after showing a film he'd made with the xrays doctors had used to diagnose his leaky heart valve. Ultimately he was the first person to tell me he liked my written work. He gave me a screenwriting class of my own one quarter into my MFA. He liked "America, a Renga". I was confused. I couldn't tell why he liked it and I was afraid to find out the reasons. Teaching that course taught me more than any writing class I had ever taken. To be truthful, I'd only taken one creative writing class. First quarter screenwriting with thesis advisor. Right, here's the remainder of the CV on that topic. Started and edited newspaper in 5th grade. Pissed off classmates by editing their work. Took years of english classes in HS. Was forced to get serious fast in senior year, AP english class. Ended up writing series of poems for end project. Tested out of any intro to writing classes at Indiana Univ. Even the Intro to Philosophy (though that was really stupid to skip). Took two poetry classes: one reading, one writing (wasn't that the gist of the second one?). Did a number on a few of my papers for Comp Lit film studies classes. Took a Classics class and wrote a play instead of a paper. Looking back, mostly quite horrible output, but rec'd good grades for it all. That brought me up to graduate level screenwriting. Christ.
What did I have? Some pointers from Syd Field on the 3 act structure. A deep study of Citizen Kane. Bible readings. And an impulse-driven creative streak that got a lot of positive feedback from people who should have kept their mouths shut. Even about the films I made. I needed my ass kicked, in a nice way, and to be shown a rough outline of what I didn't and should have known. It could have been the start of a beautiful literary career. If I'd only. I'll never know what I could have done before and it doesn't matter. I wanted to make films--I wanted to generate narratives naturally with not much training. Like a too old Rimbaud. A youngish Reverend Finster. I've been too good at things too soon and thought that it would continue like that.
In 2004, Oaxaca, Mexico. Some twisted coincidence lead me to travel to Oaxaca City to write a screenplay at the exact same time another tall writer was making some space between himself and the US state of affairs. The other guy ended up having one major feature under his belt, other LA writing gigs, a real Communist pedigree, a full complement of Spanish verbs, a deal in the wings to remake Salt of the Earth, and a joy for life that made for great interviews. I met him when he came to work at the same cafe where I worked. No, what are the odds for that being coincidental? Come on. Well, we kept each other company. Me: slowly leeching information I wanted to substitute for experience from him. Him: getting some sort of competitive surge from hearing that I was racking up pages. After the end of it all, he agreed to read and did read with all his integrity all 240 pp of my script (hey, I thought I could make it into a 3 part series!) twice. Yes, two times. And subsequently he talked me through his analysis over the phone from Nevada where he was hoping to work on Salt of the Earth II. By the time I got his call I had heard from several people already. I had heard enough to be fairly well discouraged. Some of my discouragement came from what I didn't hear from people who hadn't read it and were avoiding me. Others struggled valiantly toward page 100 and ground to a halt. My former cafe compatriot gave me the compliment of taking the thing seriously, and with it me. Bless him. Yet, the feedback came on top of my entombed ambitions. I was no screenwriter. Or I was. This script was not going to show me the way to a career in film. My friend didn't tell me this, but he started me considering what it means to put all that time into creating a document that is not the end product. I had felt I was in the midst of creating the end product, or something that would be my ticket to creating it. The best part of our working relationship was his recommendation to read more Graham Greene and an introduction to B. Traven. Fifteen years after talking about Kawabata in the Waffle House as my girlfriend slept, I was talking about literature again.
The switch wasn't immediate. I fought it like a large sailfish that had been landed by an old man. I remember reworking the outline for Lucky Dog until it made sense as a screenplay again. Then continuing until I was sure that the novel form was still better for the story. After many switchbacks, I had to cut myself loose. Of course, that's when I agreed to the 2010 timeframe. No more films or scripts until 2010.
To put an end to this Sunday's musings, I still haven't taken a writing class. I read All the King's Men and about 20 other novels to teach me how to write. I have been trying to peel away self-protection in the form of deception and fantasy. I just bought Confederacy of Dunces with the same cover from Half Priced Books. I'll read that some time after I finish The Old Gringo.
And, my friend from Indiana Univ, the one I finally found through Facebook, she's writing a novel, too.
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