Blog?

Blog? Blog? ... I'm sure I know what that is. Oh, right. This thing that I'm writing in. Dagnabbit, I am so lax when it comes to these things. Well, whatever.

I've been busy with poetry and screenplays. Fort Stone revisions are slow going, but that was to be expected. I'm in no rush for novels. Here are few other book covers I've made over the past few weeks. I'll never have anyone else's cover for my book. I've decided that. Call me stingy.

Book Covers

These are the tentative covers for Fort Stone, a novel, and It is of endings..., a book of verse. Just going for visual impact right now. Would like to know reactions.

The Fort Stone is this big door because a big door figures into the story, and it comments on the real nature of this Fort Stone, which is in fact made of wood.

Streetcar

He watches close that streetcar named Desire
and all those therein.
He watches it conjure up damp black streets,
then vanish into the stale hissing steam,
hover above the clamor and squawk,
in between the rubber and oil,
and land, unnoticed, amongst a thousand hands
pressing and plucking and prying.

He listens to that streetcar sound against the soft
erratic whispers of night-bar sooths.
He listens to it land like a thousand birds
descending the shore, that super-metallic screech—
so familiar—of wheels on long parallel lines
going straight into the
heart of everything dark and hot.

He sees what that streetcar has brought back
in refrain:
a man playing cards,
all cheaped-up on cigars,
and smells of thick tars—
a liquor so black
that night envies back.

He keeps a close eye on that streetcar,
because no one else will.
He keeps quite close so that one day he
might help the man off,
or join him.

Return from Noveland

There and Back Again, a tale by Andrew Riley.
No! shit! Already been done.

I try to stray from what others have done, although plot lines, themes, and archetypes are quite difficult to stray from. As Keats might have said, There are no new themes, just thinking of new ways to work them.

From Sept. 29th to Oct 3rd I wrote. Well, not all the time. It started off well enough. 16 pages the first day. Then 4 the next. And it wasn't from a lack of enthusiasm, either. It was... Sickness! A damn cold. Thank you very much, Couldn't have happened at a better time, Why don't you leave me alone, Don't you know the stock exchange is falling from the sky! In all I wrote 40 pages (70 book pages), and I managed to flesh out the major themes, establish a hefty, (almost) plausible plot line, and develop many of my characters to the point where I'm beginning to care what happens to them. God, I hate that. So when one dies, I tear up. I'm very cinematic in my visualizing of scenes, so I got music going in my head, accompanying all this. Lets just say, when you're writing the raw bones of your work, it gets a little weird. I can't wait to shape all this into something believable, poignant, adventurous, and, possibly, lasting.

I lost some sleep, coughed, my head ached, my chest throbbed, I barely wrote anything on Friday (just summaries for the chapters of the fourth and final part). Whatever. It was exactly what I needed to get something down on the page, practically from beginning to end so that I understand the arc, the flow--to an extent. You'll all get a taste of it after I revise the first chapter for a writing contest (Narrative magazine: http://narrativemagazine.com/30-below-story-contest).

I'd give a synopsis, but I don't feel like it. I'd rather you wait till I've further developed the story, and posted excerpts from the first chapter. The deadline for the contest is Nov. 30th, so expect an excerpt just prior.

To anyone else who wishes to take on a blitz-write (as I am going to call it from now on), make sure you have nothing else to do. That doesn't mean you can't do anything else, but no work, no engagements, no appointments, nothing external is going to pull you from the keyboard, the pad of paper. I watched a few movies, even went to my girlfriend's house one night. Yes, that's external but it was Wednesday, I was feeling slightly better, and I had written that entire day anyways (12 pages). I needed a break, and her house was as good a place as any. Take breaks. Don't write from dawn till dusk, or Midnight to midnight, unless you're an insomniac. Some days are better than others. Even if you go in with guns blazing, following days you may find yourself out of ammo. Recharge, charge back in, and let it flow. Don't revise. That comes later. It's all about getting the beautiful, fragmented, floating idea onto the paper... it will read like shit. Cheers.