Blog
* Title comes from Arrested Development. Team GOB: Taste The Happy.
Writing
* Here's a conversation I've had several times about my book, with the few people I've allowed to read snippets:
'What happens next?'
'I'm not really sure.'
'Come on, tell me!'
'No, I'm serious. I don't know. There are a few things that could happen.'
'But you're writing it. Don't you know how the story ends?'
And I do, sort of. But I'm being honest when I say I don't know what's going to happen. Because characters surprise me. It's like reading a book for the first time. I have ideas, but sometimes characters have their own. And when the writing is going well, everything they do makes sense.
Here's an example. I knew that my characters were going to end up in two groups, and one group would be looking for the other. But I didn't know where the two groups would go, or which would encounter vampires. And I didn't know that one group would be attacked. Or that two characters would have a fight. Or that one of my main characters had a drinking problem, until he told me.
I know that may sound pretentious, but I'm not trying to be. And I do know the ending, sort of. I have ideas on who will live and who will die. I know where the final showdown occurs, and when. I know who's involved. I knew one character would die when he did, and I was fairly accurate in how the other characters would react. But I love the unknown. I love discovering things, realizing them. I love that moment of 'Of Course!' that happens sometimes. It makes the writing all worth it.
The one time I tried to diagram a book before I wrote it (I've attempted three books. The first I gave up on for the reason I'm about to explain, the second I finished but has serious problems, which I'm slowly working on. This is the third.) it ended up being a hideous mess, and dissolved into tedious monologuing because I'd spent more time worrying about an elaborate plot than the characters themselves. The first chapter, which I didn't outline, was OK, and I may one day turn it into a short story. The rest was a disaster, and deserves its place in the Graveyard of Lost Books.
My next book (which I'm not allowing myself to write until I finish this one, but is already being written in my head, but that doesn't COUNT) has a more concrete outline, a more direct plot. But I don't know how it ends. And I like that.
As always, I don't know if what I'm writing is any good. I like it, but that doesn't mean much. I liked my last book until I finished it, and then realized that large parts needed to be completely retooled. But I remain hopeful. I would love to make a living writing, to sell books and have a career and be rich and famous and not have to worry about car payments. I admit that.
But ultimately, I write because I love it. Because it's what I do, and what I've always done. Even if everyone told me I was shit, that Paris Hilton's works were Shakespeare compared to mine, I'd keep writing. I just wouldn't show it to anybody, out of kindness.
I don't know where this story is going. It's become much more complicated. I wanted to write a funny, scary vampire novel, a sort of middle finger to Twilight and even my beloved Angel, which made vampires much more cuddly than they really have any right to be. But then the characters started in, and suddenly we're dealing with love and death and addiction and loneliness and the nature of family and life in small towns. And that's not how this started. But in the end, all I hope for my book is that it makes people laugh and creeps them out a little bit. If they crack a smile or experience one tingle of dread from my book, I will have no complaints.
OK, that's a lie, I complain constantly. But you know what I mean.
And for those of you who actually read all that, as a reward, here is a picture of Walter Kovacs and his Magical Gloves:
It's a rainy Saturday. I've written seven pages. Back to work.
- LV
* Title comes from Arrested Development. Team GOB: Taste The Happy.
Writing
* Here's a conversation I've had several times about my book, with the few people I've allowed to read snippets:
'What happens next?'
'I'm not really sure.'
'Come on, tell me!'
'No, I'm serious. I don't know. There are a few things that could happen.'
'But you're writing it. Don't you know how the story ends?'
And I do, sort of. But I'm being honest when I say I don't know what's going to happen. Because characters surprise me. It's like reading a book for the first time. I have ideas, but sometimes characters have their own. And when the writing is going well, everything they do makes sense.
Here's an example. I knew that my characters were going to end up in two groups, and one group would be looking for the other. But I didn't know where the two groups would go, or which would encounter vampires. And I didn't know that one group would be attacked. Or that two characters would have a fight. Or that one of my main characters had a drinking problem, until he told me.
I know that may sound pretentious, but I'm not trying to be. And I do know the ending, sort of. I have ideas on who will live and who will die. I know where the final showdown occurs, and when. I know who's involved. I knew one character would die when he did, and I was fairly accurate in how the other characters would react. But I love the unknown. I love discovering things, realizing them. I love that moment of 'Of Course!' that happens sometimes. It makes the writing all worth it.
The one time I tried to diagram a book before I wrote it (I've attempted three books. The first I gave up on for the reason I'm about to explain, the second I finished but has serious problems, which I'm slowly working on. This is the third.) it ended up being a hideous mess, and dissolved into tedious monologuing because I'd spent more time worrying about an elaborate plot than the characters themselves. The first chapter, which I didn't outline, was OK, and I may one day turn it into a short story. The rest was a disaster, and deserves its place in the Graveyard of Lost Books.
My next book (which I'm not allowing myself to write until I finish this one, but is already being written in my head, but that doesn't COUNT) has a more concrete outline, a more direct plot. But I don't know how it ends. And I like that.
As always, I don't know if what I'm writing is any good. I like it, but that doesn't mean much. I liked my last book until I finished it, and then realized that large parts needed to be completely retooled. But I remain hopeful. I would love to make a living writing, to sell books and have a career and be rich and famous and not have to worry about car payments. I admit that.
But ultimately, I write because I love it. Because it's what I do, and what I've always done. Even if everyone told me I was shit, that Paris Hilton's works were Shakespeare compared to mine, I'd keep writing. I just wouldn't show it to anybody, out of kindness.
I don't know where this story is going. It's become much more complicated. I wanted to write a funny, scary vampire novel, a sort of middle finger to Twilight and even my beloved Angel, which made vampires much more cuddly than they really have any right to be. But then the characters started in, and suddenly we're dealing with love and death and addiction and loneliness and the nature of family and life in small towns. And that's not how this started. But in the end, all I hope for my book is that it makes people laugh and creeps them out a little bit. If they crack a smile or experience one tingle of dread from my book, I will have no complaints.
OK, that's a lie, I complain constantly. But you know what I mean.
And for those of you who actually read all that, as a reward, here is a picture of Walter Kovacs and his Magical Gloves:
It's a rainy Saturday. I've written seven pages. Back to work.
- LV
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