Ever since I saw this movie “Where Eagles Dare” (as a tiny child of course, in 1968, starring Richard Burton, among others), I’ve been fascinated with the idea of writing a version of a gondola or cable car fight. When you set a novel in Palm Springs, well, you get your chance.
I’m reading a selection from my novel-in-progress “Kept” on Thursday night (7:30 p.m. May 21, Stories Books and Cafe, 1716 Sunset Boulevard, Echo Park) at Hank Henderson’s homo-centric reading series. So, you can see how I re-imagined this idea for 21st century denizens of the desert. Also reading that night are Albert Serna, Jr. and George Snyder. Hope to see you there!
(for some reason lost the cable car fight scene that was on youtube. Here’s the movie trailer, below)
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That’s right, once again I’m happy to be part of Hank Henderson’s homo-centric reading series, held every third Thursday at Stories (INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE!) in Echo Park, Los Angeles.
I’ll be reading from “Kept,” my novel in progress (close to done!). Writers Albert Serna Jr. and George Snyder will also be reading there. Check out the link to the homo-centric site (click on the picture to the left) and come on down to join us! discount cialis learningworksca.org So the regular treatment is killing the bacteria with antibiotics. Minimize your stress: It has been seen that those who goes though high stress full works are often prone towards erectile dysfunction. viagra uk So, before using this herb, take advice regarding this issue, viagra 100mg pills but men can use Bluze capsules to stop the problem of excessive vaginal discharge of women. Gupta if you want to get rid of erectile cialis generika 5mg http://www.learningworksca.org/a-golden-opportunity/ dysfunction in men.
Wish I had a beauty like this again. Photo copyright shordzi (Flickr)
So I find myself this week struggling with plot holes in my new book “Kept,” — still slated to be published this year, but not before it’s fixed, edited, prettied up and all worked out. It’s a story about sex and crime, and it’s very plot-driven, though I don’t think it conforms neatly either into a mystery or a thriller formula.
I meet with a writing group every few weeks, and recent meetings have had the other participants questioning characters’ timing and motivation on several issues, prompting me to go back to a timeline I made, as well as my character bios, in the process of clarifying and tightening the story.
While some plot holes (preferably tiny) might be inevitable, I’d rather have none. As the author, it’s excruciatingly difficult to see these sometimes. Hence, the writer group.
Mine is made up of former classmates in the UCLA Extension Writers Program. We meet every few weeks (sometimes every two weeks) and most often it’s four of us. Usually, we all present something, and then critique each other.
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Since constructive criticism is so valuable to a writer and so difficult to accomplish for a reader (or helpful with a framework) I’m going to republish some guidelines here, given to me by one of the best writing teachers anywhere, Claire Carmichael of the UCLA Writing Program.
Assessment of Colleague’s Work – from Claire Carmichael
Apart from the value of your response to each individual, the analysis and evaluation of other people’s writing can give you valuable insights into your own work.
When making your evaluation, always take context into account, including the writer’s overall purpose and intended audience.
Aim for constructive criticism when analyzing another student’s work. Constructive criticism is directed at the writing, not the writer. It uses the highest standards, praising where appropriate, but also focusing on specific problems and areas needing improvement. Constructive criticism provides detailed feedback that includes helpful observations and suggestions.
Points you might consider include:
the use and effectiveness of dialogue, description, tone
the reality of characters and their motivations
pacing and structure
Point of view (choice of POV and changes in POV)
the writer’s individual voice
elements in the writing that particularly engage you
anything that confuses or puzzles
your emotional response
your intellectual response
what stays with you after you have finished reading the extract
“Kept,” my upcoming novel, has a first draft in the bag. Or, should I say, in the binder — which is where I put it after I had it printed out.
The very first thing I do with drafts of completed works is read through them (making minimal marks on the manuscript, hard for someone who’s been an editor) to see if the work makes sense. As in, is it coherent? Does it have a beginning, a middle, a climax and a denouement? Because what would be more ghastly, really, that not making sense? Not much I can think of, at least in this realm.
So for you, dear person interested in the steps to self-publishing, this it the first step in editing. The read through. By the way, here is the logline I came up with for “Kept,” which I originally wrote as a spec screenplay:
“Kept” is a desert neo-noir about Jorge, a young illegal immigrant who becomes a target in a deadly real estate scam and must learn to survive a twisted world of double crosses and deception.
which, I’ll admit, only hints at the story but does give you the name of the major character, tells you where it’s set and that it involves crime and real estate. The point of that exercise is for interested parties (producers, actors, etc.) to say “tell me more” or “not for me.” For the novel, a small synopsis paragraph will be better, though I’m not quite at the marketing materials stage yet.
My next task in self-editing is to go through the manuscript editing for plot. Like I said, the read-though indicated coherence, but there are tweaks necessary and desirable. I’ll give you an update once I’m there and let you know what the next step will be.
Do you like this cover concept? (The image of the guy near the windmills?) I wish I owned it, but I may re-create it.
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Here’s a recommendation for the erstwhile progressive, a trio of books to get you thinking about the current state of affairs in the world and in particular, the United States. This list will scare you if you’re brave enough to read the books and internalize their messages, taking the unflinching look — which is pretty hard to do, I admit, since we’d like to think that the United States is different, it’s the best country, all of that. That’s how I was raised and what I was taught in school – you probably as well.
Those days are over, if they ever really existed. Here are the books, in no special order, along with my notes/impressions.
OK, this is a difficult book if you’re not interested in financial arcana. Much of it is very prosaic, and it doesn’t help that it’s written by someone whose first language is not English, but French. That said, there are a few chapters that are riveting.
I felt a lot of the book was restating the same thing over and over. However, I learned a great deal about the history of capitalism as practiced in the West, and found it fascinating to learn about such obscure things as the Cost Of Living in the 19th Century and the history of inflation, etc. He makes a very persuasive case that the return on capital will always outstrip other forms of income and that will always lead to greater inequality, unless governments manage wealth by taxation policy (that’s his main argument).
I look at it this way – there’s an easy way and then there’s a hard way to fight inequality. The easy way is through modified tax laws, which in the US should take us back to the rates existing in the 1950s and 60s, our most prosperous era. The hard way is to go back to 1789, (see Revolution, French) which I don’t think would be a plus for anyone – for the 1%, surely not, but also not for the 99%.
A smaller hippocampus has fewer serotonin receptors; serotonin is a neurotransmitter viagra properien that is vital in regulating emotions. – Brain Inflammation Inflammation, often present with autoimmune disorders such as diabetes, triggers the body’s immune system response. This will result purchase generic viagra in a much healthier erection, even when they are perfectly fine in the bed. Vegetables Pureed levitra from canadian pharmacy or mashed sweet potato, carrots, pumpkin, green peas, spinach etc. 3. Also make sure and try taking the 100mg pill of viagra generika 100mg an hour before love making session. Honestly, this is one of the most important books I’ve ever read on politics and economics. Klein lays out the entire sordid history of neoliberalism and the Chicago School of Economics, and America’s involvement in some of the most repressive movements of the late 20th century and early 21st century, all pretty shocking even if you had some kind of inkling “we” were not innocent in these conflicts. This really gave me a good understanding of the concepts and concrete results of such neoliberal policies, and was told in story/layman’s terms so it was very accessible even without a poly sci or economics degree.
The Shock Doctrine should be required reading for anyone participating in a representative democracy, that’s for sure. Highest Recommendation. It’s a lengthy book, and well worth the trouble.
and perhaps the most shocking of all —
No Place To Hide — Edward Snowden, the NSA and the U.S. Surveillance State — Glenn Greenwald
This is Greenwald’s account of the release of the Snowden NSA files to him and filmmaker Laura Poitras over a series of secret communiques and trips to various corners of the world. (The documentary film of this event/process is called CitizenFour and I highly recommend watching that as well – covers the same territory but obviously the book goes into more depth.)
Basically, your government is spying on you. All of your texts, emails, facebook postings, phone calls and any other kind of electronic communication you make is being logged and compiled. This, at present, is the basic idea of the Snowden revelations — that Americans are being spied upon in the name of “national security.” And not just people the government has probably cause to suspect of something, but all of us.
Critics of Snowden et al. will say that it’s only the metadata being tracked – things like phone numbers but not phone conversations, email headers but not the content of an email message. So the takeaway is that we have nothing to fear from that, that it’s not really spying. Tell me, what kind of picture of you would a good analyst have from knowing what phone numbers call you and that you call, and the content of your email headers? I think it would be a pretty good picture. If you have a mobile with GPS (and don’t we all) then they also track wherever you’ve “checked in” etc. So if they’re interested in finding out more, all they have to do is set a few parameters, and it’s like “24” or Jason Bourne right here and right now.
I was shocked that this is the world we live in now, not some sickening vision of an Orwellian future. It’s the United States of America, 2015. Welcome home. Read and know.
Hard to believe it, but a good first draft of my next novel “Kept” is just a few choice scenes away. I do find that since I started outlining chapters awhile back that they’re a) easier to write and b) require less editing (hopefully it’s because I got the idea down right the first time).
So when will this steaming slice of crime and sex in the hot desert nights of Palm Springs be published? Well, I’m hoping for a summer 2015 book.
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If everything goes well and according to plan, you’ll be able to bring “Kept” along to the beach or the coffeehouse or library or wherever it is you read.
Last night I went to see “Kill the Messenger,” a film about an investigative journalist starring Jeremy Renner as a writer vs. the CIA. I enjoyed it, particularly the details about writers and their lives. My current novel project “Kept” also has a (mostly) plucky reporter character, but let’s admit right here that she’s not going to be giving Woodward and Bernstein agita about their day jobs. So, returning to character bios from “Kept” (here is another and another). I give you:
Nancy Argento
Sex: yes, Female, and born that way.
Age: 31, 5-5, thin, blond (born in that direction but enhanced). Blue eyes.
Nancy tans easily.
Overall appearance – she’s good looking but not striking. A nice blond girl from the Midwest.
Someone like this, perhaps.
Physical defects: none apparent on inspection.
Heredity: well, she’s got allergies – which makes spring and fall in the desert challenging for her.
She drives a silver Ford Focus, and it’s a new model! Congrats on the wheels, you reporter you!
Social class: Middle class, college educated, bachelor’s degree.
Occupation: Newspaper reporter. Hungry for recognition and to land the scoop! She’s quite competitive.
Nancy’s home life: she is single, straight, dates guys in PS. She likes golf pros, it seems. Jocks. She’s found one named Ernst, who is German and often traveling. Originally, she’s from Cleveland. Nancy’s parents very straight-laced, Midwestern background, traditional values type people, the backbone of the old Democratic party in big cities. Nancy tries to pass herself off as a California girl with mixed results.
Religion: she’s Catholic, she goes to church on Sundays or Saturday afternoons at Our Lady of Solitude in Palm Springs.
Despite being a newcomer to town, Nancy is respected in the community.
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Politics: of course she doesn’t say, since she’s a reporter. Our hunch is that she’d lean more liberal in her personal views.
Amusements: She’s kind of bored in Palm Springs. Sometimes she golfs with her boyfriend; occasionally she might go to one of the outlying casinos or make the drive to L.A. or San Diego. She’s a voracious reader and spends a lot of time both physically at the library, and on the internet. She’s also a self-published mystery novelist, and had just done a reading when this story unfolds.
Professional ambition: she wants to get scoops so she can move on to a bigger market, the L.A. Times perhaps, she’d like to win awards. At the paper, she’s still referred to as the “new girl.”
Frustration: She hates it when people lie to her, and she doesn’t always know, but she’s getting better. But she still has some naivete, a real liability for a reporter.
Temperament: Nancy’s easygoing, again perhaps too much, it’s like she turned the “guarded” button to off.
She’s kind of an ambivert – she can force being extroverted when her job demands it but — she’s a writer.
Abilities: she’s fluent in Spanish; pretty much a requirement for her job.
Other qualities: She is poised, she has good judgment mostly, also has a vivid imagination about the motives of people and is always open to changing her mind on something, when presented with new evidence. She is very suggestible that way.
Something new from Kindle (yeah, I know it’s Amazon. The world is not perfect.) They’ve got a new promotion called Kindle Countdown Deals.
And The Deal is this:
Both titles will sell for just .99, that’s less than a buck, folks, from early Saturday, August 30 to Sunday noon PDT. Then, the price goes up to $1.99 (still super cheap!) till Monday, Labor Day September 1, till 11:00 p.m. PDT when the price reverts back to $4.99 (which is also pretty cheap if you ask me, but hey. . .)
We only work with the discount viagra india best suppliers. They have different duration to start the sildenafil buy in canada function and remain effective in the body. If you are not sure as well and as the disorder is related to the sexual health purchase cialis of the males. The pfizer viagra pharmacy oral pill will work in a hour of taking the medicine but the other jelly or chewing gum type work in 15inutes after taking the medicine and remains 4 to 6 hours of erection. It’s not really the end of summer, it’s the end of August. At least here in California, there’s at least a month more of great beach days needing beach reads. An easy way to help fill up that e-book pipeline. At any rate, I hope you enjoy the stories.
Top Ten locations in my upcoming novel “Kept.” With photos! You Betcha! One of the things I liked most about writing my other two books, Benediction and The Forest Dark, was that they (at least I think this) are inseparable from their locations, San Francisco and Los Angeles, respectively.
The project I’m working on now is set in the Palm Springs, California area. Some of these locations are real and some are just made up but set in the desert city. In those cases I looked for a photo which I feel captures the spirit of the story.
Greco & Greco — successful Palm Springs Real Estate Office, like the one I found here on North Palm Canyon Drive.
Desert Sun offices — This is the Palm Springs newspaper.
Spa Resort Casino — Native American casino in downtown Palm Springs.
Deepwell Home of the Grecos — Sy and Pilar Greco live in a house like this in the Deepwell neighborhood.
Trailer out in Mecca — Jorge Gomez, aka George Gomes, is from a poor trailer park like this in the east valley.
Empty house where George lives, in Southridge — once George hooks up with Connor Hurst, he starts living in an empty house like this, while it’s being remodeled.
the Res — part of the Agua Caliente reservation in Palm Springs, where Jacy Martin and Kaya Bellardo tryst.
the Dinosaurs — in Cabazon, just off the Interstate 10. These are really there.
O’Donnell Country Club — a real golf course and country club, where there’s a pivotal fundraising event.
More to come!
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Wish I had a beauty like this again. Photo copyright shordzi (Flickr)
Here’s more on why we write – cause like hell, it can’t be for the money. At least not for most creative writers.
This Guardian (UK) story talks about the dismal situation for novelists in the UK — and I’m sure it’s the same here or possibly worse. I have the assumption that the UK has more readers of things English, which is probably just a prejudice I have that their accent makes them smarter, thus more likely to be readers. I’m probably terribly wrong, and they’re all spending many leisure hours at the pub or the match or whatever it is they do over there when it’s raining.
Though the one thing we know they’re not doing is paying writers. So it’s sad, really, like most creative endeavors, from a monetary standpoint. And likely, getting worse than it’s been for some time.
I suppose the day may come when writers and artists will again look for wealthy patrons, maybe people like App developers in San Francisco, or hedge fund managers on Wall Street, though I suspect that works better for visual artists than for novelists. But who knows — you could auction off the right to have your name be used as a superhero protagonist in a novel series — which could mean immortality or it could mean absolutely nothing.
And that I think is why we persist, at some level. Because “it” could always happen. Your next book, story, part, song, etc., could be the one that takes the world by storm. Money and fame will follow.
But probably it won’t.
So we write because we either enjoy it or because it’s all we know how to do and can’t not write. I suspect that’s the truth for the vast majority of people who choose that lonely, often isolating existence, staring down that empty page.
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“Kept,” my upcoming novel, has a first draft in the bag. Or, should I say, in the binder — which is where I put it after I had it printed out.
Hard to believe it, but a good first draft of my next novel “Kept” is just a few choice scenes away. I do find that since I started outlining chapters awhile back that they’re a) easier to write and b) require less editing (hopefully it’s because I got the idea down right the first time).
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