Noveling

Not sure if that's a verb, but it should be. I've been digging into my new, yet unnamed, novel. Here's a chunk for your weekend reading. This is probably right near the beginning, so I'll call it:

ONE

Rows of men in dark suits sat uncomfortably at long tables. Some faced microphones, others with crossed arms leaned forward, wires from ear pieces ran down their necks and plugged into the black boxes perched on the tables.

"Why is the news on now?"

"Shh."

I'd lost track of the time sitting in the backyard reading the latest Green Arrow/Green Lantern issue that I'd bought at the Horizon. But when the sun dropped behind our house and the wind got colder all of a sudden, I figured it must be about time for Star Trek. Channel 2 had been running the whole series that I was too young to watch when it was first on T.V. I knew it was on everyday at four. The clock in the kitchen read about ten after.

"Is that the Prime Minister?"

"It's the States." My father said in a short way that meant shut up I'm listening.

The men were being asked questions by someone offscreen. I didn't really follow what they were talking about – but I could tell something wrong had happened.

"Did they kill someone?"

My father snorted. I couldn't tell if he found the question funny or was exasperated by my interruptions.

As the camera moved to each man, their names and what they did for a job appeared underneath, names I didn't recognize or couldn't remember my father talking about. Whenever his cronies, that's what called them, came over to play poker they would get talking about politics, the government and the assholes that were running the country, that's what he called them. Under the men's names were things like "undersecretary" or "special counsel" – they sounded like government. I wondered why the government in the U.S. was being shown on our TV.

"Why is this on now?"

My mom popped out of the kitchen, a cigarette dangled from her lips.

"Joseph, don't bother your father."

I listened some more. Everyone was choosing their words very carefully, pausing and coughing once in a while. It felt a bit like when Mr. Eiger explained a complicated math problem to the class. There was something else, something in the way they hesitated, the things they did with their hands, placing them on the table, crossing their arms, then undoing them and bringing them under the table.

"That guy's lying isn't he?"

My father looked over at me.

"How do you know that? You don't even know what this is about."

I shrugged. "Just a guess."

My father went back to the TV, leaning in even closer.

"I'll tell you this somebody is in a pile of shit."

"Roger!" my mother, back in the kitchen, yelled out to us.

"The boy's not in kindergarten any more."

wonders of communication

Since Friday my main email accounts (craig@terlson.com) has been down - the server that hosts my illustration site and that email melted, or fried, or parboiled, or exploded, or whatever cooking term they are using these days to say something is not working.

I have other accounts and I still have internet access, but what bugs me the most is that clients, or magazines trying to get a hold of me will get a message bounce (or worse, no response at all). In other words The New Yorker, finally deciding to give an unknown a shot will not get through. Too bad, I guess we will go with another Alice Munro story instead. Random House, ready to sing me to a three book deal and option on all film rights, will give up and decide that the manuscript must have been bogus. And of course, worst of all, I won't receive any of those emails from that nice Nigerian bankers or those folks that are always talking about extending things.

Hmmm, maybe it's not so bad.

(if you do want to reach me during this meltdown, please email craigterlson@yahoo.ca)

Nanowhato?

Those of you who think about such things will know that November is National Novel Writing Month, which spawned a great new term: nanowrimo - and a contest of sorts. I say of sorts as the challenge is all based on your honour, and no prizes are awarded, except for personal satisfaction and maybe complete exhaustion.
The challenge is to write 50,000 words in the month of November. In other words, a novel, albeit a short one.

This is the first year I have stepped up to the plate. I'll post my progress here at woofreakinhoo over the next month. Yesterday, day one, I logged in just over 800 words. Not a lot, but a start.

I'd post a link to the site but yesterday they got 139,000 visits and almost melted their servers. Supposedly things die down later in the month, as I guess the writers do.

Wish me luck.

Mr. Blue Sky

It's Monday and a comment on one of my posts has got me thinking. Just how many ways can you say, "the characters looked up and saw that the sky was blue?" By "characters" I mean the ones in your story, novel, screenplay, whatever.

Everyone likes to, and should, include some sort of setting, weather , atmospheric conditions to their fiction. It sets a mood, it puts things in place, on the ground (or the ocean, Mars, or deep underground with the mole people).

But sometimes I come to that point where you go, the sky is blue and big and... what the hell else can you say? I remember Chuck Palahniuk alluded to this in his book, The Fight Club. One of the characters is describing the moon, as I recall it. He says something like the moon was in the sky and blah blah blah. As if not just the writer is tired of describing but the very character who is doing the describing is bored with it. How Po-Mo can you get.

Then you read something that changes your mind. Last night I was reading Mordecai Richler's Solomon Gursky Was Here and there's a part where he talks about the sun rising and hanging in a blue sky like it was bolted there. Wow. I love that.

So maybe there's still a few ways left. Hmmm... the sun hung in the sky like someone had screwed it in? Needs work.

Fiction break

Just taking a break from blogging a couple of days. A fiction break - writing a bunch of it, a good thing right?
Working on another part of Lucille.

Back soon.