Book Three Archives - Page 2 of 2

July 9, 2023July 9, 2023

Hello, it’s summer

I’d like to enjoy myself this summer.

The city is alive, certainly this year more than last. I get the sense that this is the year people chose to figure out what “normal” was going to be. With the recent municipal election results, though I will admit I didn’t vote for Chow, it feels as if I can relax a little; at least one form of government has hope of improving things, depending chiefly upon Chow’s relationship with city council. I’m pragmatic. I’m not looking for magic wands, or accepting magic beans.

I’ve been working steadily on Book Three. It’s in a really good place, and if I’ve made progress over the last six months, a good part is thanks to feedback from a couple of early readers. This afternoon, I finished making revision notes based upon my reading of the latest draft, and I’m hoping — if stars align — I might have it completed for the autumnwinter. Feeling very good about it. It’s propulsive, well-plotted and, most of all, I gave myself license to write something that incorporated more satire. I wrote the first draft in the first eight months of the pandemic, and I needed an excuse to allow people to be amused. Being able to make people laugh is something I would love to do because laughter allows us to be so vulnerable. And because there were so many terrible things going on in the world, I wanted to spin a tale that, somewhere between the encroaching darkness of a movie like Brazil and the fantastical energy of a book like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, catches the reader off-guard with an certain amount satirical flair. It’s been a joy to work on (though I’d like to get it off my plate) and I appreciate the support from friends and loved ones as I keep at it.

January 22, 2023January 22, 2023

Greetings from somewhere cloudy

Hi all — I’m slowly getting back into the swing of providing regular updates here, but I should be honest with you that I’ve been battling exhaustion and burnout over the past couple of months. It’s not pretty: in-between forgetting a lot of things, tackling overdue quotidian tasks comes with frustration and resentment. My energy and focus have been more or less on my day job, with good reason. I was also somewhat ironically prolific over the Xmas break, having done a complete read-through of Book Three for revision notes, as well as putting together a very personal essay which ties the story together of my murdered uncle’s stolen guitar.

So yes, “productive”, but I’m paying for it currently, along with the dividends of the not-so-good things from 2022 (ie my mother was hospitalized for several months).

I’m going to leave you with a wonderful song from Jenny Hval that I have been trying not to mainline every moment I can, owing to the fact that the piece has a strong emotional impact on me. Perhaps it’s the reflective and speculative nature of the (gorgeous) lyrics. In any case, I hope to see you soon.

November 21, 2021November 21, 2021

Writing Life Update, Late-November Edition

I’ve been putting some of the final touches on Radioland, and while I’m still convinced it’s going to be one of those books that is ultimately ripped out of my hands by my publisher, I’m happy with how this second round of revisions is coming along. Part of me just wants to walk away from it. It’s been five years, and that is a long time to work on something that is as dark and introspective as Radioland is. I’m confident that I’ve pulled it off, but there’s another part of me that wants to make sure that every. single. section. works. Ugh.

Book Three is looking to be sent out to publishers in early 2022, and at that point I will publicly reveal the title, and spill a little bit about what it’s about. Keeping the title and details secret is just a bit of prudence on my part; I think it’s natural for any writer to want to protect their works-in-progress from the possibility of someone else riffing on their material before it’s released, and I realize that this is probably a little bit of paranoia on my part.

And there’s a Book Four, folks. Yes. I’ve barely sketched it out, but I can tell you that it has good bones. I look forward to falling into its hole come December.

October 2, 2021October 2, 2021

Book Three update

I have handed off Book Three to my faithful, patient agent, Kelvin. I (rightly) anticipated that the next round of Radioland editorial notes would be coming at the end of September so I spent last month making revisions to Book Three, and I am very pleased with it. For something written under less-than-ideal circumstances (ie 2020) it is surprisingly solid, with only minor improvements required. You know you’re in the clear when you’re just moving words around for the sake of clarity, and not — as is the case with some works — moving around ideas.

And sure enough, Radioland notes will be coming my way a week from now and my dance card will once again be full for the next few months. I’m happy I had a summer virtually free of writing projects. It was necessary.

As for Book Three, I’m hoping it will do the rounds of publishing houses in the new year (if not sooner). I am, as much as I hate the word’s overuse by the Wellness crowd, grateful to be where I am as a writer. I was recently bemoaning my concerns about the reception of Radioland with my partner the other day — I’ll get into that another time — and I realized after sharing this with her that there are worse problems in life to have. Writers are an ornery bunch. We get stuck in our heads and it can be hard to step back and understand the privileges we have. Although writing requires an inevitable amount of sacrifice and dedication, there are many who simply, because of life situations, do not even have the opportunity to be able to sacrifice or dedicate themselves to such an uncertain endeavour.

July 31, 2021July 31, 2021

Writing Adv*ce: Changing Things Up

Well over two months without a writing project to put my mind to, and I’m still alive and functioning, if sometimes feeling purposeless. I find myself asking what “normal” is after all. Last year, with all my writing haunts closed because of lockdowns, I was stuck writing from home, a 750 square ft shared condo w/ a terrace. I slapped on a pair of over-the-ear headphones, put my head down and pushed myself to lay at least 1,000 words down per weekend, which, given I had nowhere to go, ended up being a successful, if arbitrarily chosen, formula (prior to this, my formula was a little more haphazard: go out, sit somewhere and fucking write for a least two hours — no emphasis on word count or quantitative stuff. I have thoughts on this I’ll share later). By November of 2020 I had the the first draft of Book Three. It felt like I’d gone to a Writer’s Gym, if such a thing existed, and getting so much done in such a comparatively short period of time had a lot of implications on how I saw and approached my craft. In short, it became less magical / alchemical and more about persistence / stamina. I should qualify “magic / alchemical” as to be a figurative way of saying “having the elements and inspiration of your project more or less come to you through a more slacker-friendly means; organic but not undisciplined.”

In 2020 I found that less (choice in where I wrote) begat more (output, inspiration-by-diktat), and I’m happy to have some time to reflect on this now. When I’m lucky enough to be able to afford a week at a writing retreat it’s different — those times are purpose-built, so of course I’m going to be productive (and also I tend to use retreats for revising rather than creating raw material, though that inevitably happens in the process). The question is going to be how I approach writing now that my old haunts are opening up again, or at least the ones that haven’t shut down.

I’m careful to note that epiphanies generated under extraordinary circumstances sometimes only make sense under extraordinary circumstances. I know I can deliver the goods — quantitatively and qualitatively — in a single sitting whereas before I would’ve felt chuffed if I’d been able to do both. Speaking of being careful, I also want to remind myself that I didn’t have a life for over a year, on top of a full-time day job that became exacerbated by my own anxiety and the collective anxiety of clients and everyone around me. I’m not, in other words, championing or abandoning any particular approach, only noting what is possible under certain circumstances, some of which may be more doable and/or replicable than others. Let’s not forget there are also half-ways and acceptable compromises in any art form. I’m happy with what I was able to accomplish with Book Three, but I fear a top-down, capitalist you-should-obviously-write-a-book-a-year bullshit coming into my life. I’m not privately wealthy. I’m not a trust fund kid. I got bills. I need to think about what my life is going to look like in a decade, given that I have no pension, that I’m self-employed, and that any notion of being a Full-Time Author is more than a little naive.

I’m lucky and grateful for the opportunities I’ve been able to take advantage of, but making writing its own career is a bit of a pipe dream when you’re 50. That’s reality.

June 9, 2021July 31, 2021

Gap

I handed off the first substantive pass of Radioland a few weeks back to my editor and, lo and behold, two weekends ago found myself without a novel to work on, which was the first time (I’m not counting vacations, etc, obviously) I’ve not had a novel to work on in years. It was and is such a weird feeling.

I’ve been working on Radioland since about 2016, and last year, when it was being circulated to publishers, I was working on Book Three, which is currently simmering in a figurative pot as I wait to see if I can get any C/O/T Arts Council grants to be able to afford an editor for a substantive reading of it. I’ve never gotten a grant in my life, which is not to say that my previous applications have been sterling or anything — it’s just that I’m not hopeful. Windfalls are for other people, or so I tell myself. And yet it’s silly if I don’t try.

I’m not going to get notes from the editor on Radioland until August, and I’m trying not to reflexively fill in the intervening time with — surprise! — another writing project (though I wouldn’t put it past me). I’d like to give myself time to reflect.

I don’t like the literary world. I don’t feel I fit in, which is saying something considering writers are interloping creatures to begin with. There’s a lot of smarm, a lot of performative politics, a lot of preciousness, a lot of passive aggressive bullshit, and a lot of public ass-kissing. I don’t want to get caught up in any of it. I don’t want its insecure “loving” hypocrites, or its logrolling. All of this obscures the highlights: the truly deserving people (writers, publishers, editors, publicists, agents, reviewers, and readers) whose passion and support for others are unwavering.

I just want to write and find (let alone build) an audience. And I worry the day will come when I have to choose between belonging to the literary community (and potentially worsening my eyesight because of constant eye-rolling) or just walking away. Or I can just get off Twitter — ha.

I also want to think hard about the future projects I need to get off my chest, versus the ones that are “nice to have”. I’m over 50, and while my ability to churn out work is better than ever, I can see how it’s possible to have resentment build for projects I commit to that end up eating my weekends and spare moments. I suppose to some extent I don’t know what I want the next 50 years to look like. I know what I don’t want it to look like, let’s put it that way. Among other things, I don’t want to feel (or be made to feel) like I’m competing with people in their 20s, like in some fucked up Logan’s Run reboot, nor do I wish to see the landscape scooped by a literary version of Spotify, where we are asked to write faster for our rewards.

It’s been a long year.