Writing a Novel During Novel Times – Writer’s Block

Day 151 of Writing

We’ve all seen writer’s block depicted on television. It was a major plot element of a series we just watched on CBS All Access, Why Women Kill. It gives some very talented female actors the opportunity to really tear up the screen. It stars Kirby Howell-Baptiste (The Good Place), Lucy Liu (Elementary), and Ginnifer Goodwin (Once Upon a Time). It also has lots of twists and turns so you are never certain where it is going. Overall a very fun ride with strong writing and a great cast. It follows three different marriages in three different time periods in the same house. Yes, it ends in a lot of murder, but not in the ways you might expect.

Reid Scott (VEEP) plays a screenwriter who hits a wall on his latest screenplay. He finds a very destructive way to break through that wall. All writers hit points where we need to take a little time to think about the next steps in the story. I am at that point with The Relentless.

It is not writer’s block, though. I continue to write. In fact, I have been under pressure to finish another book that was mostly done, as it was felt that it might have a decent market under these trying times. Over the last few weeks I have been scrambling to finish the final edit, which I did, and it is now in an editor’s hands. The goal is to get it out as quickly as possible.

I basically write every day. Some projects do require you to take a brief break so that you can see them with fresh eyes. If there is something I just don’t feel like working on on a specific day, I have tons of other projects to work on in the meantime. Many times there is something that I want to write about, but there is also something that I am on deadline for and have to write about. Time management is important, and I often bribe myself by finishing writing a chapter or a set number of words before I can go on to writing what I really wanted to work on that day.

I used to do a lot of magazine features with really tight deadlines. You did not have the luxury of waiting for inspiration, nor did you have the time to make it perfect. You just had to get it written, and if you did that quickly enough you could polish it a bit more.

When on deadline, you can’t make excuses if you want to continue your working relationship with your editor. They want to work with people who can make their deadlines. Imagine an accountant telling his boss that he could not finish the month end close because he just wasn’t inspired. If you are a writer, you write. Some days my writing is not great, but it at least gives me a starting point and something to polish.

Writing a novel, as with writing a screenplay, is an art form that takes more time. Setting unrealistic deadlines is simply self-sabotage. No one has everything figured out in a novel when they start to write. I have never focused solely on writing a single book. I always had other things to write when I needed a break.

One of the top recommendations for beating writer’s block is to write. Write anything, just write. I don’t wait for inspiration. I get my inspiration from the process of writing, of manipulating the words, of looking at what I am writing trying to see how I can make it better. Now, if I can just get myself motivated enough to get back to The Relentless.

UPDATE: I take a break for awhile from working on The Relentless, and humbly am forced to admit that I too can suffer from writer’s block, as described in Getting Back in the Saddle.

 

What’s Up with Us

I am still not fully recovered. I don’t snap back quite as quickly as I used to. We want to try to find a way to be with friends socially but safely, but until I am 100% better, I’d rather not risk it.

We did go for a drive yesterday. We eventually arrived at what is the Covid era equivalent of the holy land. It was not our intent, but we were thrilled to get there.

We went down Topanga Canyon Blvd., which takes you all the way across the San Fernando Valley, along a twisty path over the Santa Monica Mountains, and ends up in Malibu. It is a pretty drive over the mountains.

We drove past the Theatricum Botanicum, an outdoor theater nestled in the lush greenery of Topanga Canyon. It is an outdoor summer theater and it has been planted with every plant mentioned in Shakespeare. It looked sad and forlorn, a place that needs people to make it come alive.

It was founded in 1951 by Will Geer of The Waltons fame. He was much more than just an actor. He was also a social activist and labor organizer. He was involved with the 1934 port strike that led to the unionization of all west coast ports. His activism led to his blacklisting, forcing him to move to the much less expensive Topanga Canyon, where he established his theater. Folk singer and close Geer friend Woody Guthrie had a small shack on the property.

It is claimed that Will Geer was bisexual and a lover of Henry Hay, founder of the first gay rights organization, the Mattachine Society. Geer never came out and never championed gay rights himself. Being gay was a career ender for an actor at the time. His daughter did say in an interview with Ed Rampell after his death that he was probably bisexual. Interestingly, Grandma Walton was gay. Ellen Corby had a 45 year long term relationship with Stella Luchetta, which lasted until her death.

When you hit Pacific Coast Highway (Highway 1, also known as PCH), turn left and right there is the Getty Villa, the amazing museum of Greek and Roman antiquities. We turned right, and followed Highway 1, which hugs the coast for many miles and offers some beautiful views of the Pacific Ocean. The drive reminded me once again of how much I love living in Southern California.

We drove past Leo Carillo State Park, named after the vaudevillian, political cartoonist, actor and conservationist who was best known for his role as Pancho in the 1950s series The Cisco Kid. You can spot the park from a large distinctive rock formation, below which is a small sea cave that has been featured in movies and television.

We continued on to Point Mugu. You can see Mugu Rock from miles away. This towering rock is not a natural formation. It was created when they cut through the promontory for PCH. It has also been featured in movies and television.

We drove past the sand dune (really a sand hill) across from Thornhill Broome Beach. It is a popular place for people to climb up and slide down. Climbing up the steep dune rewards you with a great view of the ocean and Mugu Rock about a mile in the distance.

We then turned inland towards Camarillo, past farmland that stretches on and on. By now it was eight in the evening, getting dark, and we were getting hungry. We pulled into a large strip mall, but most of the places that looked interesting to eat at (or in this case, eat near to in the car) were already closing. Then, at the end of the strip mall, as if enrobed in a halo of light, was a Trader Joes with no line. We used to buy a good percentage of our groceries there, but here in L.A., the lines just to get in have been incredibly long. We have not shopped there since February.

We entered the larger than usual and nearly empty store, giddy with excitement. We grabbed up our favorite and long missed items. All thought of eating in the car vanished. We would transport our treasures the 45 minutes back home and have a feast. That is exactly what we did. This counts for adventure in the Covid era.

Action!

Day 151 of Writing

The Relentless is a science fiction spy story, and inherent in that genre are action sequences. Trying to come up with new and different action sequences is challenging. What hasn’t already been done to death?

I have several action sequences that take place very high in the air. The risk of falling adds another element of danger. Each of these adds little twists to make them a little different. I also have a car chase, although it takes place on streets filled with self-driving cars.

Still, I have been looking for something really different, something that no one has done before. I think I may have stumbled upon it. I have to give it a lot more thought.

Just yesterday my wife mentioned that four people in Philadelphia had been struck by lightning and two of them died. We don’t get much lightning here in L.A., which may be why I find lightning so scary. The constant flashes and booming of a Chicago lightning storm was terrifying to me, and I was an adult at the time.

There is a place on Earth where lightning strikes almost constantly. It is not really a place you can safely go. What if global climate change makes it even worse and more dangerous? That is not so outlandish, as for every degree of global temperature increase, the number of lightning strikes increases by 6 percent.

What happens when you send a group of people into a storm of unrelenting lightning constantly striking all around them? I believe there are dramatic possibilities with that. What they are all yet I have not figured out, but that is the fun part.

The first step for me was to learn more about lightning. Lightning kills about 50 people a year in the United States, although those numbers have been trending downwards. Amazingly, about 9 out of 10 people struck by lightning survive. It is not pleasant though.

It can send life threatening current some 100 feet along the ground. It can travel through concrete floors and walls, as they often have metal embedded in them. Running inside a concrete building might be a fairly bad idea. In fact, one third of injuries from lightning occur indoors. This lightning stuff is sounding more and more like it has a lot of possibilities.

Being struck by lightning can cause major personality changes, mood swings and memory loss. That has potential. My characters go through a lot of struggles to keep their brains working normally, which they often don’t. This could fit in nicely with that.

So, my initial assessment is that this has potential, so I will continue working on it. The writing of the novel has slowed down a bit, as I am stuck on a number of issues I need to figure out. It is not really writer’s block. Some things just take time to think about.

The past month was difficult with all of the health challenges. I did finish final edit on another book that had been sitting waiting for me to do final edit. Not my favorite task, going through and catching the last remaining mistakes, awkward sentences, and in some cases, deleting what just does not fit or work. It is off for a final read from the editor and hopefully I should be able to get it out during the pandemic.

The Relentless will probably take a little over a year to write. I will continue to work on other books (I have a good start on another non-fiction book), plus I write a lot of stuff for online publication. I try to write every single day, but that is not always possible. Even with all of the other challenges, I think I can publish at least four books this year.

What’s Up with Us

My arm is better but I still can’t put weight on my elbow. Belle had to do much of the lifting, but we did finish the pond and waterfall over the weekend. There is still a little more to do, but it is functional and aesthetically pleasing.  Here is what it looks like:

The water flows from the spillway to the first level. It then splits and flows down the two sides. This breaks up the sound of the water and makes it a lot more complex and interesting.  We could just have had the water fall in a sheet directly into the water, but this creates a consistent swoosh sound rather than the bubbly gurgling I am looking for.

We have a palm tree in the background as well as a Plumeria that is the second of ours to start blooming. We have hidden pots with rocks so that some of the plants appear to be growing out of the rocks.  We have had good luck growing tropical plants outdoors, even in L.A. heat. The waterfall ups the humidity and they really like it.

This is a very small side yard that went largely unused except for the area around the barbecue. Now we go out and sit by the  pond and waterfall and it is profoundly relaxing and de-stressing.  It has completely transformed this section of the yard.

This is all free standing on what used to be just a corner of patio. We used no mortar with nothing holding it together other than gravity.

Here is what it looked like as we were working on it:

We found these decorative blocks that were angled in at the back making it much easier to create a curved front wall for the pond. The planter was just two bricks tall and wrapped around the yard. We added three bricks all the way along the back corner to increase the height to five bricks tall to equal the height of the decorative blocks.  

The planter at the back was cleared out, filled with sand, and then leveled. On top of this we added the five cinder blocks that provide the structure.  It is a good idea to use an underlining beneath your plastic liner to cushion it and help reduce punctures.  We had a bunch of old moving blankets and cut one to shape. The picture shows it before it is cut into shape and folded over to cover the top part of the waterfall.

The next step is to put in the liner and cut it to shape. When you have a spillway rather than just a straight fall, there are always leaks you have to track down. Water always finds a way.

To cover the plastic, we used a couple of hundred pounds of Utah Quartzite. It has flecks of quartz in it that glint in the light. It can have pinkish or reddish streaks from iron oxide, and sometimes other colors from different minerals. It just leans up against the sides of the pond and holds the sides of the liner in place.

The problem with all of these types of flat rock is that the edges can be sharp as a knife, which is not good for your plastic liner. We bought a bag of medium size smooth volcanic rock that covers the bottom of the pond. All we had to do is set the quartzite on those smooth rocks, which keeps the sharp edges up off of the plastic.

You might notice two lattice planting boxes that almost disappear in the finished version. These appeared in the 2011 movie Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer, along with the archway that leads to our front door.

 

Predicting the Future

Day 140 of Writing

I set my novel around 10 years into the future. A lot can change in a decade, but it is an entirely different world far into the future. If your setting is 200 years from now, the science will be so advanced that it needs to have less grounding in what is possible now. Our smart phones would seem like magic just a 100 years ago, let alone trying to explain quantum mechanics to someone from that time. If your book seems to have missed the mark accurately creating a distant future, odds are that your book will be forgotten by then. If it is still remembered, it will be for the great storytelling and not your Nostradamus-like ability to predict the future.

In just ten years, though, many things will be the same and some things will have changed. Guessing incorrectly which is which can go badly awry. There are also unexpected developments that can change the entire landscape.

If I had written this book in 2010, and set it in 2020, things have changed so much that I would have completely missed the mark no matter what I did. Who could have predicted an uprising against racism in the midst of the worst pandemic in a 100 years? Who could have predicted that the United States would have a president who completely rejects science as do many of his followers? Who could have predicted that so many would refuse to do even the simplest things used 100 years ago in the last major pandemic to hit us, such as wearing masks and social distancing to prevent spreading? Who could have predicted that of all the countries in the world, the United States would have the absolutely worst response to the pandemic, leading to the worst and most uncontrolled outbreak in the world? Who could have predicted that as the pandemic explodes out of control, the federal government would just give up? This is the astonishing place that we now live in.

My story is set in the early 2030s, but I never set a specific year. That gives me a little wiggle room. I try to extrapolate what the effects of global climate change will have, and so far this has expressed itself in the story in a slightly transformed San Francisco. The political landscape in my future has changed very little, although it is slightly more corrupt, which is to say, extremely corrupt. That turns out to be an important part of the book. Also, of course, there are tons of spy gadgets and tech, all within the realm of the probable.

It is even more difficult to create a proper future setting in a movie or television series. The 1982 film Blade Runner set the mark for envisioning a visually lush future, albeit a much more distant one. You have to be able to visually depict all of the technology in the background even when it is not part of the story. In most productions, the near distant future settings look almost the same as when they were made. Similar clothing, cars, even buildings. That is much cheaper but so creatively void.

A newer series on Amazon does an incredible job with the tech. It is brilliantly visually realized, with many clever extrapolations on today’s technology. It is a comedy titled Upload. Besides being funny, it tells a larger story abut economic inequality and touches on other modern issues as well. It is perhaps the best I have seen at realizing a near future world on a television series. It was created by Greg Daniels, whose background includes writing for The Simpsons, co-creating King of the Hill, and working on The Office and Parks and Recreation. I am very happy it has been renewed for a second season.

Another newer science fiction comedy on Netflix that I really enjoyed comes from the same person as Upload. Greg Daniels co-created it with Steve Carrell. Much to my bafflement, it did not get great reviews. I think it just went over a lot of people’s heads, but besides getting a few digs at an unnamed idiot president, it also seems to get the military and the bureaucracy of the industrial-military complex.

What’s Up with Us

I have been unable to write for several weeks since my left arm has been out of commission. Many great novels were written with just a quill pen and one hand, but I have yet to master the art of of one-handed typing.

In my last entry I wrote about getting a mosquito bite that got infected. The swelling went down, but the pain got worse. A lot worse. I had to put my arm in a sling. I had another phone consult with a doctor. He suggested that I go to the hospital emergency room. They wanted to aspirate my elbow, a procedure that could not be done at Urgent Care. Belle asked if there was a better time of day to go and the doctor said that we should go right now. Immediately. He was rather insistent on that.

A hospital was not somewhere I was inclined to go, but we went. Belle could not come in with me and had to wait outside the hospital in the heat. I was in the ED for 6 hours lying on a gurney. I had no idea what was going on. They were pumping me full of fluids. I heard a woman’s voice just outside a nearby room. “Hello, my name is Debbie and I am here to do your hospital intake.” I thought that I really did not want to meet Debbie. About an hour later, though, I did.

During the entire time I was in the hospital I really had no idea what was wrong with me. The final diagnosis was severe sepsis with acute organ dysfunction. That is not any better than it sounds. I also had a skin rash. Apparently, some bacteria from the mosquito got under my skin and really took off.

The ordeal was unpleasant but the doctors and nursing staff at Kaiser were excellent. I even had a private room. The nurses were amazing and they are all such heroes. Belle has been learning a lot about nurses through her job at Cedars Sinai, and it has only increased her admiration for them. Thankfully, I did not have to go into a hospital during a surge. They had enough beds.

Under normal circumstances Belle would have been with me. She would find out what was going on and get back to me, and be my advocate. Instead, I felt quite cut-off. I can’t imagine how awful it would be to be hospitalized with Covid and cut-off from loved ones. What I went through was nothing compared to that, but still bad enough. Yes, my situation was life threatening, but I did not know it while I was in the hospital, so I was never particularly concerned. Also, I was on a lot of drugs, so a bit out of it.

I have been out of the hospital for over a week now. I am still tired and depleted. Today has really been the first day when the pain was down enough that I could write. Not being able to write was the worst part of it for me. [Addendum: normally I write these entries in an hour or two. I have had problems with focus, exhaustion, and pain, so it took me five days to finish it. I hope my writing speed increases soon. At that rate of 320 words a day, It will take me a long time to finish the book. I normally average around 2,000 words a day.]

Going into the hospital was stressful, but few things can compare to the horror of three weeks ago when I came upon the skeletinized remains of my herb garden. Caterpillars left nothing but the ribs on many of the leaves. My lemon balm was decimated, and my mints and basils were badly damaged. We used a biological treatment and that is helping them all come back. We are also using a biological treatment to try and wipe out the mosquitoes.

My tomatoes continue to produce. I had been worried about squirrels getting to them. They usually cavort in the trees just outside my bedroom window. Oddly, I have not seen a single squirrel in months. There have also been reports of dead squirrels in people’s backyards near us. That does not seem good, although it has been good for my tomatoes as they have so far been left alone.

We used some tomatoes yesterday to make raita, which we stuffed in a pita along with leftover Smoked Rib Eye from the day before. We cut it up and sauteed it with some onions. It was delicious.

I continue to learn new things about food science. I usually lightly salted meat shortly before throwing it on the fire. That was incorrect. This time I did what I had read about but was skeptical of- using a larger amount of kosher salt many hours before cooking. I am generally not a fan of wet brining as it tends to makes the meat too mushy for my taste. Salting and fridging for a few hours acts as a dry brine. I put the kosher salt on about six hours ahead of cooking. Despite being large crystals, it completely disappeared into the Rib Eye. What I got out of the smoker was one of the best steaks I have ever eaten. It was tender and filled with flavor without being salty at all. The salt did its science magic.

Right before I went into the hospital we had everything we needed to finish the waterfall. It remains unfinished, waiting for me to get well enough. The pieces sit there in the sun mocking me.