You're A Good Girl, Patty Hayes

So the sub-zero crap continues with impunity. You know it's cold when you step outside and in less than five seconds the inside of your nose freezes over. Ah, Iowa. I stood in Wal Mart today (because it's almost safer to stand still) and looked at a bunch of new DVD's that came out. I contemplated how wanting so many films are it seems lately, even good ones. I contemplated fiscal insolvency. And I contemplated girls who ride the kinds of bulls that don't throw you. If ever you are in the market for a girl, you should hope for one that isn't thrown by bull.

I don't know what to do with myself when I'm not writing. That much is obvious now. It all just wants to get out of me, regardless of how tired or bored I am. Like it has a deadline it has to meet or something. I was jotting down some notes for the third book in the sci-fi trilogy last night, when suddenly what was the broad strokes of a scene that was getting too big to keep in my head turned into what is probably the first chapter. And then I went back at it tonight.

It makes me kind of happy, actually, playing in my little sandbox again. I was thinking about the new King Kong movie, and one of the running gags in the trilogy is Kong references. Why Kong and not Star Wars I've wondered, but in each of the three books there's one explicit Kong homage and the third one features the best one, right at the top. For now, the third book is very very embryonic, but I like how it so far seems to lay down lots of foundation for what promises to be a fat book at the same time it moves with a ferocity I didn't expect. I'm not really hip to plunge into it right now (or anytime soon), so I'll see what comes of this first chapter and then see if I like it before doing any more.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mirror, Mirror

Image
Recently I bought a copy of a pretty well reviewed and promoted speculative fiction novel.  About two chapters in, the main character looks in a mirror and describes themself.  I literally closed the book and stopped reading.  The novel had other issues, but this put me right out of the story.  This technique - being generous here - occurs a lot in first person narratives, about as often as a story beginning with the main character waking up from a dream.  The mirror device is best avoided, but not necessarily because it's so overused - it's best avoided because simply put, it's so easy.  A character, especially a protagonist, should never be described; they should be imagined.
Read more

Conversations With: Dr. Daniel Dahlquist

Here's what I hope is the start of a new weekly (or so) feature on the blog: a mini-interview with writers about the craft. My good friend and teacher Dr. Daniel Dahlquist inaugurates the series. Dr. Dahlquist is a wonderful poet; his poetry has appeared in respected literary journals such as Prairie Schooner, New Virginia Review, River Styx, Kentucky Poetry Review, and the Louisville Review. He graduated from the University of Iowa's storied Writer's Workshop and holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Southern Illinois University. His first book, SPEECH TO THE DEAD PEOPLE, was published in 1997 by Cedar Creek Press. You can read an excerpt from the book (and my favorite of his poems) here . Without further adieu: Q: What poets or other writers do you consider influences? A: The apocalyptic poets appealed to me when I was very young. I started writing poems at age sixteen, on my grandfather's 1928 L.C. Smith typewriter, largely to impress my English teacher.
Read more

My Advice For Writers

More and more I get asked for advice from aspiring writers. Mostly this is because I have a book, not because I really know anything. I'm not good at giving advice. Actually, I'm pretty good at it, just not very good at following it myself. So take all of this with a grain of salt. Actually, you should probably just click away to some other website right now. If you're still here, or have just reached the end of the internet, seriously: I've given a lot of thought to what I say to a serious writer who is asking me for serious perspective, and in so much as I can give it, I usually speak to these things: Find your faults . You have them. We all do. One thing my day job has taught me is to actively seek out process improvement. Usually we wait for problems to come to us - it's how we know they're problems - but most often in business, this can get you in trouble. The same applies to your art. It is a process; you should actively seek to impro
Read more