"The Ratman Forgive You, this Time."

Read a Book

That's right, we're reviewing Stephen King's The Stand! So dust off your Blue Oyster Cult CD, and give Kareem Abdule Jabbar some serious consideration for a Golden Globe, because we're kicking it back to 1994 with The Stand TV miniseries!

No, I'm kidding. My thoughts on the very long book instead:

I first read The Stand in high school. For a slow reader I think I read it into my freshman year of college. Probably not, but I'm sure it took me a while. The book gave me nightmares about dead people. At the time, dead people were still a scary thing, probably because I hadn't been to too many funerals, and I was still somewhat scarred from watching Stand by Me at an age much younger than whatever the appropriate age for watching Stand by Me is. Dead body's were scary shit for a little kid and I'm still a little unnerved by them even today. 

I made the mistake of watching the 4-part miniseries before reading the book, so character development took a back seat to the Girl from the Breakfast Club, the dude who would later go on to have no legs in Forest Gump, and the former basketball star who received top billing and a spot on the cover for his portrayal of the 'king of the minor characters'. 

The re-read presented an aspect of The Stand that my still-developing teenage mind would have scarcely grasped.

Everyone dies. Sorry if I just ruined the book for you. The world is wiped out by a flu-like virus doctored up in a government lab. Spoiler Alert!

King is known for his pop-culture references. It's part of his style that makes him so widely read. He throws in these nuances and the reader is ushered into his world by the connection to real life events. Simply by playing David Bowie on a character's radio, King has put your into his world, which is not unlike our own.

In The Stand, King does something diabolical with this use of pop-culture. Simply by referencing George H.W. Bush, Madonna, the Rolling Stones, and others, -putting the reader into this all-to-similar world- conjures up a much darker, deeper level of horror. Without explicitly saying it, the reader infers that these people, these famous, well-known people have all died of the plague. Tragedy always hits the hardest when it happens to someone you know, and the band, the politician, and the, whatever the hell Madonna is, are all known enough by the masses to bring the tragedy right to the doorstep of the mind. It makes for great writing when you can pull the reader into your world.

I'm glad I was able to appreciate The Stand now that I'm older and hopefully a little bit wise. 

Write a Book

Taking a break from the writing to gain some perspective on the story as a whole. Working on a rough outline and figuring out pacing. As one who does not like to outline, this was a discouraging process. But I think I've found what works best for me. And that's the great thing about this whole writing thing: there isn't a magic formula or set of steps that must be followed to the letter in order to make this work.

I've started scribbling out the main points, not chapter-by-chapter but in a rough mix between scenes and changes to the settings. I'm keeping myself from getting hung up on details and just sticking to character development and major events, and how they connect to one another as the story unfolds. I've also thrown out some ideas that turned into obstacles as things progressed.

I'm sure one day this writing section will be exciting, maybe even enthralling to read. For now, well, you'll just have to settle for the mundane. 

There was one exciting bit of writing news that I can add here. Daniel O'Malley, author of The Rook heard about me awarding him with Best Read of 2014 from my last post. He had this to say:

So I think that makes me an official member of the fan club. I'm going to have to learn the secret handshake, and hope the rites of initiation don't involve paddles.

Hey Dan, I'm honored to have a place in  your pool room!

Finding the Momentum

Writing Books:

The character of Aryel Lessard should have been one to come easy for me. Anyone how has gamed with me, from MMOs to pen&paper RPGs would know that a version of this character has been lurking in the echo chamber of my mind for close to a decade. But maybe since she had been around for so long that I stopped actually thinking about her. By 'thinking' I mean, putting some analytic thought behind who she is, and not staring dreamily into space, occasionally letting out carefree sighs while sucking down chocolate-covered strawberries.

I had to actually do some thinking when it came to creating the Basilisk because up until the start of this project, his formidable presence had not set foot into the hallways of my mind. What he wanted in this life I had thrown him in, and how far he would go to get those things were established, and written down. I had answered the questions that needed answering. By the time I started writing him into the story, I knew what made him tick.

With Ary, I'm still sort of finding that out. Which sucks when you've written an entire first draft and are just realizing one of your principal characters needs to go back to character development school. It feels kinda like a soldier being sent off to war when the commander realizes that he never learned how to shoot. I don't know. Maybe it's different. 

But Ary is a far better character now than she had been a week ago. And, until the beta-readers tell me otherwise, I think she's come a long way sicne the 1st draft of the story. It's not been easy, but it's been an experience I'm glad to have gone through because I've learned a great deal by going through this process. I used to write a 1st draft of a chapter, revise it, and then call it good. But it's not good. There are a lot of questions that need asking. I've written more revisions of just the beginning portion of Chapter 2 than I care to count. But it's important. I need to see what works and what doesn't. Yes, it's discouraging to not have all the answers when I sit down to write. Sometimes sessions feel as though I'm just spinning my wheels, but it's all important. It's all necessary. In the end I think it makes for better characters and hopefully a better story.

And it's important to keep even what you don't use. Because you never know when I scene might come in handy elsewhere. 

Reviewing Books:

Not going to write a review this week because I'm just under the 5-hour mark on finishing 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. I want to see how it ends before I put my thoughts into words on the screen.

I used my 2 credits from Audible to get John Dies at the End by David Wong, and The Rook by Daniel O'Malley. Chris Samson recommended John Dies to me. Though I forget if he said to read the book first or see the movie. I remember him saying that the two complemented each other.

The main character of The Rook is a woman who is a high-level operative of a secret clandestine agency that protects the world from supernatural threats. My hope is that she is an example of a strong female character that I can hopeful gain insight from. We'll see. Dan O'Malley's only written one book according to Amazon and he may very well be as bad at writing woman as I am. But he's published and I'm not so he's probably doing something right.