Get to it Crumley

Reading, slogging, trying to get through James Crumley's Mexican Tree Duck. I think I've blogged about Crumley before, his novel the Last Good Kiss has been called the last great detective novel (a bit of hyperbolic praise, though the book is pretty damn fine.)

The MTD is another story. It was Crumley's return to his character C.W. Sughrue - “‘Shoog’ as in sugar, honey,” he explains the pronunciation of his name upon meeting a young woman, “and ‘rue’ as in rue the goddamned day.” There is a decade long gap between books, and it makes me wonder if he lost his way a bit in those ten years. Crumley has influenced a lot of crime-fiction, mystery writers, but never achieved any sort of big-time success. After Last Good Kiss, I wondered why. But books like MDT or Bordersnakes (couldnt' even finish that one) kind of explain it for me. A reader can put up with only so much wandering. Now, the wandering can be very fascinating at times, but it had me going, just get to the fucking story already! I don't mean descriptive writing, which I enjoy, but just an aimlessness, with scenes that are disjointed, and periods of drug and alcohol fueled meditative...um... wondering. Or maybe wandering. I don't know, I am lost.

Still, he is one to read in terms with how far you can push characters in a crime-fiction novel. There lives are a mess (sort of like the book they are in), and as I get into the last 75 pages, there is no sense of clarity on the horizon. Plus, I feel like I need to take a shower after living in this sort of world for 200+ pages. Maybe I'll read a Hardy Boys or the Three Investigators next.

LSD on Campus

Well, being that the only comment I got on my Change post was a spam (hey, anyone wanna buy a watch?), it might be that the change, or shifting of woofreakinhoo will garner any notice. If a blog dies in the forest, well, you know the rest.

But no worries - I am deep into revising my new novel, and loving it. It is one of those times where the adage, "write what you know" changes to "write what you want to know" - recent craft books lean toward the latter much more than the former.

And what do I want to know? Well, the history of LSD of course. There is a fascinating history to this drug, one with great characters, intrigue and conspiracy. Sounds like a novel idea - um, yep.

THe photo above is a great book my son found me (pays to have kids working in used bookstores). Written in 1966, the year LSD became illegal in the U.S., it is a remarkably measured look at the history, usage, and science behind LSD. It is full of quotes from Timothy Leary, Aldous Huxley and Dr. Humphrey Osmond.

Keeping this under wraps, but the hope is the manuscript is ready for September.

A possible change

I have been thinking a lot about integration these days - woofreakinhoo has existed on its own for some time, linked to my illustration site, but not really part of it.

I set it up to blog about the books I am reading and my writing career - as readers know, the results have been somewhat sporadic (!)

Coming up in the fall, I am moving towards integrating this blog into a new website design. What does this mean? Well, I will have some new and shiny, which is always exciting. But more importantly I can gather up all the pieces of social media, illustration, and fiction writing into one creative bucket.

Stay tuned for more news as it develops, or, um, as I develop. For one thing, I may be saying goodbye to this corner of the blogosphere. Or is that blogocube, I forget.

1952 was a year

I have always loved Flannery O'Connor's stories - last night I finished her first novel, first published book actually, Wise Blood.

It is complex, strange, beautifully written and so damn good it hurts.
I am also reading her biography by Brad Gooch. One thing that struck me, when wondering why maybe Wise Blood didn't stand out as a literary classic when first published in 1952 (reviews were mixed - though, some reviewers were prescient in naming the brilliance of it)... well it turns out that a few other notable books came out that year:

Old Man and the Sea (Hemingway)
East of Eden (Steinbeck)
Invisible Man (Ellison - won National Book Award)
and the year before a little book about Holden Caulfield came out.

What was in the water that year? Holy crap - talk about competition. I found that list in O Connor's bio, but I went and googled 1952 and also found:

Charlotte's Web
Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Waiting for Godot
The Power of Positive Thinking (!)
The Natural
Rashomon
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

To name a few of the more notables.
Again - wow.

Fall in One Day

And... done. The first draft anyway. I finished my first draft of my new novel, Fall in One Day. I am going to keep my head down, and into revision mode, for the next few months. My hope is to have something ready for submission this fall.

I don't feel elated, as I kind of expected - only that I need to work hard to make this the best book I can. Maybe the workmanlike attitude is best when trying to crack into the ever shrinking publishing world.

I won't be posting excerpts here at the blog - but I will, of course, post updates. Is the industry ready for a LSD + Watergate + growing up in the 70's book... why, yes, I hope it is.

Wish me luck.