Well, I went and did it. As you may or may not be aware, there is a website site out there which is encouraging people to write a novel in the month of November. It has the unlikely handle of NaNoWriMo. The idea is to try to get 50,000 words of novel written between the first of November and the last. I have signed up to be part of this plague of literature.
In connection with this, Blogger.com is encouraging people who want to participate to do so through a blog devoted to their novel. In honor of this, I have created another blog called Michael Drayton, Detective Guy on which the novel will be written. (In theory.)
One and all are invited to keep tabs on the work-in-progress and to offer comments and encouragement.
In order to do this, I'm going to have to concentrate on finishing the third and final episode of "Plant Your Wagon" in the next seven days. I think that's possible. Then I will take a month off from writing radio scripts, although I do hope to keep up with both this blog and my contributions to Phil Austin's Blog of the Unknown.
5 comments:
I’ve never been one for outlines and index cards and all that stuff. I try to get a feeling for it and try to listen to the characters and see where they want to go. I often find my precious plans are dashed on the rocks while the thought that I hadn’t known was there darts out into open waters.
That being said, I am basing this on a teleplay (unproduced, of course) that I wrote in the early ‘90s, so I will have a structure to work from. And still, the above formula will come into play.
I give myself about a one-in-a-million chance of actually coming up with 50,000 words in one month, but it will be interesting to try. Whatever, I’ll end up with a bigger chunk of novel than what I have now.
Although it is not compulsory, I am planning to write the thing directly on the blog, just like you are doing with “Chester Psalms” and you also did with the “Trouble Town” series last year. I did the same thing with some bits of what would be the sequel to the book I’m about to write. I quite enjoyed it. But you got there first and it did inspire me.
It’s interesting that you mentioned “jazz writing,” because that’s exactly how I think of The Blog of the Unknown. We go there to improvise and when it’s going well, it’s like sitting in with Diz and Bird. Sometimes it’s not. But I’ve been posting there for over two years, so there’s got to be something to it.
I, too, responded to the post in which Phil said that he looked at his blog as being a writing experiment. I read that and I thought, “That sounds like fun, like a good idea.” And I immediately devoted myself to lowering the quality of that experiment.
Phil, throughout the experiment, has shown himself to be a real, honest-to-God mensch. He’s also been advising me, from time-to-time, on the show biz aspects of my radio project, and he has never failed to be helpful, courteous, and thoughtful.
I agree entirely on the attractiveness of the noir detective voice. Hammett and Chandler are two of my favorite writers. (Chandler in particular.) The novel I’m going to be blogging will be told in that sort of voice, in fact. And clearly Phil is fascinated by it as well.
I ought to re-read “The Big Sleep” and “Farewell, My Lovely,” but I’ve got too much reading backing up the drain of my brain at the moment. It’s been a long time, though. Too long.
That's the strange thing about stories. They have lives of their own and cannot be controlled in the way that people like to control things. That's why I leave the outlines and synopses and the index cards to the hacks and the no-talents (not necessarily the same group). I find that I do better when I listen rather than decide. The characters know. The story knows. Who am I to deny them?
I'm afraid I'm woefully ignorant of Spanish-language literature. I think my relationship with that rich world is like the relationship that Murray in "A Thousand Clowns" describes having with his sister: "We keep in touch mainly through rumor." Or, in my case, by reading the occasional article about Borges or Garcia Lorca. I read a selection from Garcia Marquez's recent memoir and would love to read the whole thing, but I haven't made time yet.
It is a shame that Phil isn’t being heard at the moment. I think that at NPR he’s way too hip for the room, but there ought to be space for him on PRI, perhaps even on one of their existing shows. In fact, there’s a show called “This American Life” which sounds like it would be a good fit for him. I set a reminder to listen this Sunday, but since it’s Halloween and since I have a six-year-old (coincidentally, so does my wife), that may be tricky.
I really don’t know of any reason for this absence. Judging from the things he’s posted on the Blog of the Unknown and the Firesign Blog and the stuff the Four or Five did on “All Things Considered,” the creative urge burns bright. I’ve still getting over the Nick Danger piece he posted on the Blog about a year ago. It was a brilliant piece of audio theatre that should have been on the air, not the Blog.
Which brings us back to the noir voice again.
Phil and the other Firesigns work as poets in prose forms. And, Robert, having just read the most recent chapter of "Chhester Psalms," I have to say that you work in the same mode. (I'm the compliment to that. always prose. Even--perhaps especially--in my verse.)
This is why the execs at NPR found "Pass the Indian, Please" incomprehensible. It is a poem and what they are used to is quaint essays about "My Grandfather's Socks" and David Sedaris passing himself off as an elf. Poetic ways of putting things are beyond their humble abilities to comprehend. In other words, it's not that "Pass the Indian, Please" is incomprehensible; it's not. The execs simply lack the subtlety or poetic imagination to be up to the task of comprehending it. Which is sad, because I'm pretty sure my six-year-old has both the subtlety and poetic imagination to be up to the task.
I don't have the kind of talent that it takes to write that or "Chester Psalms." I think I have what Eugene O'Neill called "A Touch of the Poet," though. Every now and then something poetic slips out and I'm very pleased with myself indeed. Otherwise, I am content with my prosaic approach (and I mean prosaic in the best sense possible) and my one-liners and my actor's ability to get into the characters. I'm happy with my gifts, such as they are.
Now, I'm not saying that either gift is better than the other. They are compliments. Each needs and feeds the other. Which is why we need "Pass the Indian, Please" and "Chester Psalms."
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