Surprise Yourself With a Staycation

I never thought I'd say these words in such a happy tone:

This sure wasn't what I'd planned. For almost half a year I'd planned on a new cross-country train trip with my arriving Sunday in a town I'd never seen. But for a number of reasons that wasn't meant to be. Not yet.

So, here I was with my time off work request approved...but not the bucks to travel.

I might have canceled the time off from work. But I decided to keep the five days (including my regular weekend). I could get ahead of schedule on my work in progress and see a few things in the city I've never had the time for.

In the first three of five days off, I've logged in three marathon writing sessions and tackled some narrative issues I hadn't known how to fix. I've slept in shamelessly until 7 a.m. each morning. I've taken long walks, exploring my new neighborhood. (Capitol Hill turns out to be much closer than I'd thought: no need at all to take a bus when I can walk there in only ten minutes.) Nights belong to Netflix or Amazon Prime and a little research reading.

Just halfway through my staycation, I feel more rested, recharged and refreshed than I have from a lifetime of travels at home and abroad. There was nothing that special about it. Lord Byron would not have approved.

Not would Hemingway:

Or Jack London:

Oh, I've had my own past adventures and I look forward to more still to come. And some may match, but none will surpass, the quiet joys of an unrushed staycation...and bringing a challenging new book to life.

Tomorrow, as a special treat, I'll take a cross-city trip to an independent bookstore said to be Seattle's best: Third Place Books/Ravenna.

So, remember, if you're in between jaunts to Cairo, Rome, or Katmandu...or if you simply need a break from wrestling alligators or hunting wild boar with a pencil, no gun...consider the alternative.

On Writers and Stylistic Nudist Camps

I came up croppers in my search for a leading photo: something that would prove my point that some writers should be banned from attempting stripped-down writing...just as some nude bodies should steer clear of public beaches. Or at least the internet.

Oh, there was no shortage of nudist photos. And, though none were shocking, some were far more graphic than I want to display on this blog: men and women playing with genitalia too common to call even average. I salute their lack of inhibitions. I salute their respect for what their bodies have become. But I flip the bird at the notion that all bodies become lovelier when they are shown in the buff.

Nudism may be a wonderful thing. But I'm no friend of the phenomenon when it comes to writers who disguise a lack of talent in a style that's stripped to the bone.

Let me perfectly clear here. I don't care if writers pose in the nude or semi-nude--though I'd really rather not have seen this shot of Ray Bradbury:



Or this one of Ernest Hemingway:



My sights are firmly fixed on stylistic nudists, those who march buck-talent talent under banners emblazoned with idiots' rules:

Avoid all adjectives.
Avoid all adverbs.
Avoid anything resembling fine writing. 

And so on and so on and so forth. Just as skinny high school girls ridicule the curvy Prom Queens ('Her boobs aren't real.'...'She must be an idiot if she's got a body like that.'..), so writers lacking a stylistic wardrobe insist--as they must--that it's best to go nude. After all, they'll tell you, it's more honest to go nude than parade in a stylistic wardrobe like this:



Or this:



Or one that reads like this:

"Once in the hands of Duncan Nicol it was translated, as by consecration in the name of a divinity more benevolent than all others, into pisco punch, the wonder and glory of San Francisco’s heady youth, the balm and solace of fevered generations, a drink so endearing and inspired that although its prototype has vanished, its legend lingers on, one with the Grail, the unicorn, and the music of the spheres.”
(Columnist Lucius Beebe, Gourmet magazine, 1957; quoted by M. Carrie Allan in "Spirits: Pisco Punch, a San Francisco Classic Cocktail With Official Aspirations." The Washington Post, October 3, 2014)


The answer, though, may lie between the purple and the overwrought. As Paul West said in his essay 'In Defense of Purple':

A writer who can't do purple is missing a trick. A writer who does purple all the time ought to have more tricks.


A great writer's style may wear a white suit. Pristine and bold, but with the jazz of the pocket square and tie.



Or his style may show in muted colors and classical lines with counterpoints of texture:



His style may blend the quietly formal with the laid-back casual:




I'm open to almost any style as long as it's simple, with class and pizzazz. My favorite writer, Lawrence Sanders, had the style down to perfection:

Some days lasted forever; some were never born. She awoke in a fury of expectation, gone as soon as felt; the world closed about. Once again life became a succession of swan pecks.


Join me in my plaintive plea to all writers of buck-naked books:

PUT YOUR FREAKING CLOTHES ON, DUDES!

Second Thoughts On Second Drafts

I'd gotten that part down well enough that I no longer anguished even when I knew something wasn't working in my first 'pass' through a novel.  Let's raise our cups to Hemingway who put it with more pith:



At the same time, let's remember that many pros refer to the first draft as the Vomit Draft:





And Ernie Mears has given what I regard as the best definition:

vomit draft: (n)  1. writing draft in which the author spews words on the page in a chaotic outpouring of ideas, characters, plot, passion, and quite possibly last week’s dinner; 2. the art form of funneling the maelstrom of inspiration in one’s brain into a porcelain throne of paper; 3. in which a writer commits a story to paper for the first time, therein relating it to herself.  synonyms:  first draft, rough draft.  antonyms:  polished piece, final draft, completed manuscript.

That said, at the very least, we've got ourselves a book--right?  Wrong. Whether you see it as vomit or as very raw material, you have something that may become very important...with work. But what you don't have is a book.

Well, okay, okay, okay. But, hey, at least the hard part's done--right? Wrong. The second draft, for me, has always been the hardest. Daily, I have to face the reeking stylistic mess. Daily, I see again that almost every page contains twice the needed word count. The pacing is off. I'm telling and not showing. Characters still aren't developed enough. The fact is, almost everything that could go wrong with a good novel lies before the writer in a reeking puddle of vomit. And this is an excellent time to reflect: with every pass through a novel it grows harder to spot what is wrong--try to spot the Biggies now.

Still, something cool happened in the second draft of Caesar's Ghost, my WIP. I abandoned all thoughts of perfection in this pass. I squeezed every drop of defeatism and shame from my soul. If the second draft still sucked, so what? So what if took me three more drafts...or five? No one would see the book until I ready to show it. So why not enjoy this pass, working with humbler goals:
--Work calmly, daily, without stress--from a hard copy of the text.
--Cut only verbiage that is obviously excessive.
--Focus on pacing, logistics and clarity.
--Don't think about stylistic razzmatazz. But do accomplish in this pass a professional level of prose.
--Make notes for any challenge that can't be resolved at this time.





Well, okay, okay. But then the second draft's done. And, relatively speaking, the third draft should be a cake walk--right? Maybe right...but maybe wrong. Depends on what your values are and how good a writer you hope to become.

Three drafts will be enough for some and one too many for others. Still others may need four or five. But if you do decide on a third, let the third be extra-special. With all that has been cleared away, you may spy new opportunities--for a plot twist or a character or a turn of phrase. Nothing is final until you sign off. So allow yourself at least one more pass...with a world of potential before you.