The smell of gunpowder in the morning.

We had one employee available for the 4th of July and I kept telling Linda to ask him to work for her and she didn't do it -- so I did.  Then I felt guilty, so I went to work with Linda for a couple of hours.  I like roaming her store filing books.  I love books and it's very relaxing.  But not a whole lot of people came in.

I think next year we'll know it isn't worth being open for her, but is very much worth being open for me.

We've had a pretty good summer so far at Pegasus -- knock wood.  I'm more and more feeling like having the young guys as my representatives --the faces of Pegasus -- not only isn't hurting, but is probably even helping.  I can work the behind the scenes stuff.  I still need a day or two with the public -- both to keep me socialized and for me to get a sense of what's going on.

Both Cameron and Jasper implied that the Bite of Bend set-up wasn't ideal.  I didn't inquire further, because it would just get me upset for no purpose. I can't change what the downtowners do.  I can say that sales were mediocre at best -- surrounded by days that were better.

I think -- I hope -- that August won't have many events.  The bike race is one of the worst for us -- doesn't bring in sales at all, that I can see.  The car rally is even worse.

Whereas the 4th of July parade is perfect -- a fun event that gets people downtown on a day they might not usually be there, and then OPENS the streets for the rest of the day.  Of course, that wasn't designed by the geniuses who organize most of the modern events -- which is probably why it works so well.

Like I said, I've given up.

I mean, it seems like every time I pick up the Bulletin there's another foot race somewhere in town where people show up like lemming to run for some reason or another.  Baffling.

Meanwhile, this town can't support a single independent bookstore?  Baffling.

Finished plotting.

I mean, I diagrammed a dozen chapters.  I was thinking about this for a week or so, especially yesterday, but today I felt like taking a stab at it and it just rolled out.

Not only that, but I've come up with a goodly part of the third book.  At least the premise and the themes.  (I've been starting to set up the third book over the last few written chapters, when I realized it was going to happen.)

My general rule of thumb is that I will double the number of chapters in actually writing them, so I've got about 24 chapters to go.  Which will make the book about 70K words, or right in my comfort zone.

I used to think I enjoyed discovering the plot in the actual writing -- and I did -- but it also led me into traps, or became too predictable (writing the plot in advance means I can tweak it), or I had to go back a lot and fix it. 

But I think I had a couple of instances where I plotted the book and then didn't write them, so I came to the wrong conclusion.  I think that might still be true if you do the whole book that way, but if you start off fresh and then do some course corrections along the way, at some point it becomes necessary and beneficial to try to work out the rest of the plot.  In this case, about 65% of the way in.  By then, you've so into the book that knowing the ending won't demotivate you.

I still get a creative charge in seeing HOW the plot plays out, all the surprising connections and details.

The end book is never the same as the outline, but the outline gets you to the end of the book.

Let the creative subconscious go to work.

I wrote a single chapter yesterday, which for me is really slowing down.  I wasn't totally satisfied about where the chapter ended.   I woke up this morning with a new ending completely written in my mind.  That is, the words just sort of washed over me as if already written -- which means the subconscious was working on it all night.

When I talk about writing at the store, and if I dare venture to give advice to other writers, it's this:  Trust your subconscious.  Let it go to work.  Create the conditions that lets the subconscious feel free.


I spent most of yesterday-- and intend to do the same today -- planning the ending of the book.  

One of the things that most mess up a book is contradictory or confusing motivations on the parts of the characters.

So far in Rule of Vampires, I've got.

1.) Old vampires who like the New Rules.
2.) Old vampires who hate the New Rules.
3.) New vampires who like the New Rules.
4.) New vampires who hate the New Rules.

And there is sort of a fifth group who don't even know about the New Rules, which I'm sort of calling The Wilderings.

What I find most useful in working out plot is to just start writing down my thoughts about it.  Talking out loud also works, but for some reason writing works even better.  So I work out the problems and sometimes a solution occurs to me.

So I have partial solutions so far to the ending, but I'm not all the way there.  So that's what today will mostly be about.  Working out the ending of the plot to my satisfaction.

I think there is a third book here, which I probably will immediately start writing.  

Anyway, for the plot to work, I've got to have everyone doing what makes sense, or explain why not. It's gotten complicated.  So the thing to do is cut through the complications as much as possible and make everyone's stance very clear.

I want to be pretty clear and satisfied with where the book ends before I proceed.

More than halfway through -- yes, already.

I'm more than halfway through the first draft of Rule of Vampire -- yes, already.

About halfway through, a new character entered the picture, a vicious little nerd vampire named Hoss, who is giving me ideas for the ending of the book.  I love it when a character takes over.

The other thing that happened is that by deciding on Rule of Vampire as my title, the "rules" became important to the plot, shaping the theme and the story.   I've never understood people who just sort of tack on a title.  For me the title often ends up directing the book.  The theme is implicit in the title.

I need to take time over the next few days to shape up the ending.  I'm thinking of a third book -- yes, a third book -- which means to huge blowout ending will be saved for another day.  This will be a small drama ending -- that is, the major love stories will be concluded, and the characters will be temporarily safe.

Then all goes to hell in the next book, and the entire human and vampire universe goes to war.

Nothing if not ambitious.

Writing in big gulps.

With Led to the Slaughter, I purposely wrote at a more measured pace, after the feverish writing pace of Wolflander.

I'm not sure if it helped or hurt.  On one hand, when I'm totally immersed in a book I tend to remember all the threads and know where I am and where I want to go.  But the creative well always threatens to run dry and I was afraid that I was maybe pushing it, using B grade creative material whereas if I waited I might have a chance to think and let the well refill with A grade.

I don't think that's true, though.  I didn't feel what I was coming up with in Wolflander was B at all.  But I wanted to see what would happen if I took a slower approach.  It was still a fast pace by most standards, but slower than I'd been writing.

Plus, I tried to fit in some other activities while I wrote Led to the Slaughter.

I thought the result was great, but I think that was the material more than my approach.  I felt a little more disconnected letting more time pass between sessions, but I also think I had time to think and plan a little more.  It was probably a wash.

With Rule of Vampire, I'm back to writing in big gulps.  As long as the muse provides, I'm writing.  I'm literally writing faster than readers can read and editors can edit, but then it's pretty much all I'm doing. 

I won't be going on any more writing trips, though.  Too expensive.  Besides, I write just as well in my own bedroom. 

I'm just wary of "pushing" it.  Anything I come up with has to "feel" right.  I try to have a chapter more or less thought out before I start, and usually what happens is I think and plan until a beginning phrase trickles into my brain and then I start writing.

Yesterday, I was writing a scene with some secondary characters and they meet a brand new character, who immediately took over the chapter and the next chapter and may end up taking over the book.

I love it when that happens.

Ebook versus paper book. A writer's dilemma.

One of the questions I've been asking myself is whether what I write is different for an ebook than what I might write if I was trying for a good old traditional published book.

What the question comes down to, is the book different if it is written for the end-user, by way of ebook; or for the gatekeeper -- agent, editor, publisher.

I've decided the differences are actually small.

First of all, I write what I write and I write the best I can.

I think if I'm writing for ebooks, I might take a few more chances, whereas if I'm writing for a gatekeeper, I'd probably eliminate most experimental choices as an unnecessary risk.  But I'm not an experimental writer, in most cases.  I write a traditional novel, the kind I'd like to read.

I might be inclined to put out an ebook that isn't ready -- after all, there is no one to tell me nay.  But the very fact that it is up to me to decided has made me much more careful, more careful ironically than if I sent it off to a publisher.  That is, I might think an idea is so good that a publisher will work with me and might send it off before it is really ready.  Stupid, but I've done it in the past.

But because what I put out as an ebook is up to me and me alone, I'm actually taking much more time to make sure I'm happy with it.

So, basically, the differences are small and mostly cancel each other out.

What really matters with ebooks versus traditional books turns out to be:

How Many books I write.

And What Kind of books I write.

I'm writing a lot of books, and I'm not trying to pace myself.  There is no way this many books could be put into the traditional channels.  I mean, it could happen, but it's extremely unlikely, especially for an unproven author.

So ebooks may be the only way I can write as much as I want to write and have an outlet.

The Kind of book is also affected.  I'm conscious that certain types of books are being published -- in fact this is a huge reason I was published in my first career -- I happened to write the kind of genre the publisher was looking for.

So you have to be aware of the commercial potential of what you write -- be aware that maybe vampires are out and zombies are in, for instance.

Or, for example, commercial publishers sort of want to market series, as much as possible.  Books set in the same world, with almost formulaic setups.

Nothing wrong with that, many of my favorite authors do that.

But I don't.  My subconscious goes off in any direction it pleases, whether it makes commercial sense or not.

Like I said, I write what I write.  So putting out ebooks will just reflect that.  Going through traditional channels will require tying myself in knots.

I think it might be possible to do both.  That is, take the commercial ideas and try the traditional route.

Of course, then the question becomes, what is commercial?  I'm not sure anyone knows that until it starts selling...

The book souffle.

Wrote a ton of words yesterday.  Feel like all the characters are jelling, the plot is still going in interesting and occasionally surprising directions.  The writing is coming relatively easy. 

I've begun to think that writing is like cooking.  Not that I cook.  But, you know, the popular image of cooking where the master chef mixes in a dash of this and a pinch of that.  Some of it is conscious  -- needs more meat.   Some of it is instinct -- needs more spice.  Some of it is art -- adding the unexpected ingredient.

So the constant ongoing question is -- what does the book need more of?  What does it need less of?

I'm convinced that the more I write, the more I know how to do it.  I know what I did last time, I know what I want to do next time. 

The ongoing quality of the writing becomes almost moot.  It is what it is, and only by doing more of it does it get better.

So one souffle is a failure, with too much of something, the next souffle has fallen in on itself but is still edible, the next souffle is tasty.  The souflle I cook next will take the lessons I learned from the previous attempts and hopefully make it better.

The more time I spend in the kitchen, the better I'll get.

Not all books are written the same.

The Rule of Vampire story keeps coming and I see no reason to deny it because it's easy.

I seem to have different levels of complexity that I work at.  (More complex not necessarily being better.)

Level One are the books that I write for the pure fun of it, but which I realize very few people will ever read.  I intend these books to be good, I hope people will like them, but I put them out with no expectation.  My cyberpunk Hobbit takeoff, Freedy Filkins: International Jewell Thief, is an example of that.  I put this book online with little fanfare.  It isn't that I don't think the book is good, it's just that it is so unusual that it doesn't fit any known prototype.

Level Two are the books that come easy, and I enjoy writing and telling the story, but which I feel have some substance and are accessible.  Death of an Immortal and Rule of Vampire are examples of that.  Again, I mean these books to be as good as I can make them, but I don't bend myself out of shape.  I find the story and just write it.

Level Three are usually books that I have difficulty with, for some reason.  The plot goes off the rails, the themes seem too complex, I'm not sure if they are easily accessible.  But they have some good ideas, and I'm challenging myself to try to make the ideas work, and so I'm holding back putting them out until I've made that mix of things work.  Nearly Human and Wolflander are examples of that.

Level Four is a book I'm writing for myself, but for which I'm kind of ambitious.  Like, I'll keep working on it until I think it's become something extraordinary, at least to me.  Sometimes a Dragon is that book, so far.  For some reason, I have an image that this book can be really good but needs to be deepened and enriched over time.

Level Five is the fantasy trilogy (The Lore Trilogy) I want to write, of which I've written the first leg, The Reluctant Wizard, but which needs to be fleshed out completely.  Lots of world building required, for which I want to take lots of time.  A long-term project.  (Though the problem with that is I keep putting it off because others things are coming easier.)

Then there are incompleted stories in my files, which I could pick up someday.  Deviltree is an outlier.  An older book that isn't bad, and probably at least should see the light of day, but which I want to precede with stronger books.  

I intend to keep writing the books that come to me as long as they keep coming to me.  When I get bogged down, I'll work on the books that require more work.

Where there are vampires, there are vampire hunters.

About to cloister myself in the bedroom -- which is the only air-conditioned room in the house -- to write for five days.

I wrote about 15,000 words last week, which is a ton.  I want to write a similar number this week.

I am literally writing faster than my editor can keep up with.

I was sort of at a cross roads when I wrapped up last week's writing and started driving home to Bend from Crescent City.  I have good vampires and bad vampires and the innocent and not so innocent humans who interact with them.

"I need something more," I said to Linda.  "Some outside element that will add to the book."

"Vampire - hunters," she said.

Well, that's just too easy, I thought.  Way too predictable.  But the more I thought about it....

So I woke up yesterday and wrote down a scene of vampire- hunters entering the story...

And off I go.

Bookstores in small towns.

The bookstore we used to visit in Crescent City was gone, which didn't surprise me none.  The magic store across the street was also gone, which also didn't surprise me none.

Anyway, there was a new bookstore in the place of the old one.  The space was smaller and fixed up, the inventory a little on the light side.  I wandered around the place trying to make sense of it.  It had a very odd inventory mix.

"Do you read much fiction?" I finally asked.

"Not much."

Well, that was apparent.  Very small selection.  But the non-fiction was also sort of limited in its scope.

"What did you do before you opened the store?"

"I worked in a state park bookstore."

Ah.  That clicked.  Lots of natural history and environmental books.  The more I looked, the more I saw that was his focus.

Now, I always make the case that a store should be unique, and reflect to some extent the owner's interests.  But I also think you need to have a broader and more varied selection to attract as many customers as possible.

He was selling most of his books at a discount, which I questioned him on, since his books are so unique that if someone was inclined to buy them, they'd probably be just as likely to buy them at full price.  He also had multiple copies of the same books, but not a huge variety, which in a world when you can replace books in one day seems like a waste of money to me.  (Though every bookstore I've ever been in does this, which mystifies me.  Are you going to sell more than two copies in one day?  If not, then sell one and order another and still have one in stock.) He also seemed focused on ordering direct from publishers to save a few percentage points on his profit margin.

He didn't want any advice.  Of course.  No one ever does.  I try to give advice by asking questions, but of course I know he won't listen.  If I was him, I would preserve what I was doing for about a third of the store, I would increase fiction to at least a third of the store, I would put my books at full price, and I would have one wall of used books.  If I was him, which I'm not.

I wish him luck, but having a bookstore in as small a town and with the demographics that Crescent City has is going to be hard even if you have the widest selection possible.  The smaller the town, the more general the store needs to be.  (The bigger the city, the more likely you can get away with being a specialty store.)

It was obvious that this owner had his interests and that was that.  Maybe he's so focused that he can make it work.  Maybe he can pull people in from out of the area.  Maybe he's just in the process of building his inventory.

I wish all these bookstores would make it.

Wednesday wats.

Dreamed that I wrote a book last night, called the Age of Meaning, staring John Oliver of the Daily Show.

I have no idea what it was about, but it was really good.

*****

More likely, it was called the Meaning of Age.  Was sitting in a Burger King in Grants Pass looking at all the old and unhealthy people, (go figure), and said outloud to Linda.  "I don't think I'm ready for this.  I don't think I'm ready to be old."

A little old lady in the table next to us perked right up and answered and we had a nice duffer conversation, thus confirming the very thing I was saying....

 *****

I read 3 chapters at writer's group last night, not the usual 2, because I'm pushing it.  I'd like to read as much of the story out loud to others as possible before I finish it.

It seemed to pass muster with the readers, but enough time has passed since I wrote it, that it seemed kind of weak to me, as always happens, as is necessary.

*****

Trying to find the best version of the title for my newest book.

Rules for Vampire.

Rules for Vampires. (Seems like a self-help book for Vampires.)

Rules of Vampire, is what I'm going with now.

Rules of Vampires.

Or even, Rule of Vampire.  Which puts a different, more ominous meaning and can be a double play.  I may go with this.

Nook can't find a nook.

I think the book industry overreacted.  They saw what happened to the music industry and decided such a thing wouldn't happen to them.  But books aren't music.

Barnes and Noble, particularly, seemed to decide that slow books were doomed and that digital was the future.

I have felt that slow books aren't going anywhere, that the surge in ebook and ereaders would fade as some readers come back and others kept buying both platforms.   In fact, books sales haven't really declined as much as people seem to think, and some independent bookstores are actually doing well.

Barnes and Noble bet on the wrong horse.   Worse, they pretty much told everyone that. 

Surprise, surprise, people believed them.

But Kindle is out there, and Ipads and -- I believe -- cheaper knockoffs are coming.  You don't want to be the second or third choice and it seemed to me that Barnes and Noble was never going to be anything but the second or third or fourth choice.

They've given up on their color readers, making arrangements with others to make them instead.  This is the first in a long line of downward spiral decisions, I'm believe.

I think bookstores are still viable, done right.  Like any small business, they are difficult under any circumstances, but where there are challenges there are also opportunities. 

Barnes and Noble has some real challenges -- Amazon has a bigger selection, cheaper, which is exactly the features that B & N used to kill off independents.  They are a big box, and I think big box stores depend too much on expansion, whereas B & N is planning to close a third of their stores. 

But pushing digital at the expense of physical was going to have consequences.  Putting your digital booth front and center is giving off the wrong message. 

I would have doubled down on books, but the conventional wisdom -- based on what happened to music -- was that this was suicidal.   Barnes and Noble bought into the conventional wisdom.

So fundamentally, they just went the wrong direction.

Zombies who sound like birds.

Linda and I were in Crescent City for four days.  Sun shining the first day, cool and wet the rest of the time, which was just as well because I dove into Rules for Vampire, my new book.  Most of the setting is in Crescent City, so I was just soaking up the atmosphere.

Linda has been trying to sell a piece of land down here for her niece who lives in Minnesota.  We thought about buying it, but it a very odd piece of land and would need to be logged (redwoods!) and so on and then our vacation spot would HAVE to be Crescent City.  Which is sort of a sad sack of a town.  I mean, I love the terrain and I love the beach, so I could hack it.   But for the same money as buying and developing the land, we could stay in motel rooms the rest of our lives anywhere we choose to go.  (Same goes for a decent motor home or trailer.)

Finally went to a movie yesterday, WWZ.

SPOILERS!

Even without knowing that they had severely recut the movie, I think the third act would have been kind of soft.  It was like the huge movie that was building and building and then suddenly turns into a little drama inside a building.  Somehow OK but not Great.

I'd like to see the Russian battle scenes they cut someday.

At the end of the movie Linda started making zombies noises -- she's really good at it.  "No, no" she says, when I try, "you do it on the inhale."  We started clicking our teeth together.

We always sit through the credits, and there were just two young men near the front of the theater so we ran down the isle making loud zombie noises and they jumped out of the seats and screamed --

No, not really.  I wish we'd had the guts to do it.

Making good progress.

Making fast progress on RULES FOR VAMPIRES.

I'll be a third of the way through by the end of the week.  Unlike the last few books, I really don't know where it goes from there.  But I'm trusting that my subconscious is working on it in the meantime.

If you were to ask what I think my biggest weakness is, it's that I don't flesh out my stories enough.  I don't know if this is true, it's just a feeling I have.  Maybe I don't know my own weaknesses, maybe I'm all wet and I have bigger weaknesses I'm not seeing.

But that is the weakness that I'm usually concerned with.  So I try hard to put flesh on my stories which comes with the rewriting.  So that affects pacing and characterization and backgrounds and so on.

I've been reading a James Lee Burke mystery while I'm writing this latest book and there is a pretty big contrast.  He really ruminates and philosophizes a whole lot.  I tend to stick to the story.

I was writing a boy meets girl chapter last night and the lines just kept coming to me and they felt right and authentic and clever and real.   However, I don't describe the bar or the waitress or -- you get the picture.  (You don't get the picture.)  I'll go back and dress up the set, if you will.

It occurred to me that maybe the way to get past my perceived weakness is to just keep writing what I write and get better at it.  Instead of trying to change what is natural to me.

I suppose this might just be intellectual laziness.  But it also may just be a stylistic difference and what I need to do is follow my own style to it's best execution.  I feel like I'm making better use of the way I write and it compensates somewhat for the perceived weakness.

In other words, go with it.  Do my thing.  Keep doing my thing.

I can't explain why I think I'm getting better -- it feels like the smoother I write the better it feels and the better I feel the smoother I write.

Off I go again, another book.

Off I go again.  Another book.

RULES OF VAMPIRES

I'm embarrassingly prolific.  You would think that writing so much would mean the quality would diminish, but I don't think that is happening.  If anything, it seems to me like the more I write the better the writing. I feel more confident.

I probably should stop talking about it.  But I just love doing it.  I'm sitting in a darkened room and I'm anticipating a day of writing and it is good.

I had no intention of writing a second vampire book.  But the sequel Death of an Immortal was always implied, and the beginning just seemed to come to me, so I just started writing.   I find that writing sequels are fun, because I already know the characters and the setting.

My vampires have blue blood, so I'm thinking of taking the exact same cover I used for Death of an Immortal, a mirror on a wall with blood dripping off it, and turning the color of the blood from red to dark blue.  Simple, elegant. So this is going to be an ebook, for sure.

It's going to be a good month before I get Led to the Slaughter back.  I could spend that time working on some of my completed books, but I'd rather do that after my editor has seen them first.  So that leaves me with time.

As it turns out, the Rules of Vampires are becoming more and more important and central to the story.  The first book was about redemption, I think maybe this second book is about saving loved ones.

The chapters are coming easily.

Five chapters so far, with four more chapters completely plotted out.  So as long as that keeps happening, I'll keep writing.

I guess I feel as long as the words keep coming, who am I to deny them?

I set out on this without a plan, which is a little worrying.  I swore I wasn't going to do that anymore, but the words are flowing so easily that I'm trusting that my subconscious knows what it is doing.  I think I'm going to keep in mind a minimum number of words per day, but let myself go beyond that if doesn't mean stretching myself out shape.  If the words come, I'll write them without artificial limits.

While I may not have a plot, what I do have is a sort of architecture.  I'm doing something over the last few books that I never used to do.  I'm think in terms of parts -- that is, I need a bit of this and a bit of that and also a bit of that.  A bit of suger a bit of spice.  I don't know what the bits will be made up of, just that I need them.

The plot follows.

So off I go again, as soon as I feel sufficiently awake.

The Gift of No-Doubt.

There is a really interesting article in the New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell,  "The Gift of Doubt."

It talks about risk-taking and creativity as a combination that is a little counter-intuitive but really makes sense to me.

In both writing and in opening new business, I tend to think it will be "easy."  It is only after I get started that I realize what I've gotten myself into.  Then it's a matter of seeing it through.

The article is about the economist, Albert Hirschman, who makes the case that mistakes are often the root of creativity -- that it is when it doesn't go smoothly that we have to figure out ways to make it work, and that sometimes those solutions are better than the original goal.

People  "would not consciously engage upon tasks whose success clearly requires that creativity be forthcoming. Hence, the only way in which we can bring our creative resources fully into play is by misjudging the nature of the task, by presenting it to ourselves as more routine, simple, undemanding of genuine creativity than it will turn out to be."


"They are “apt to take on and plunge into new tasks because of the erroneously presumed absence of a challenge—because the task looks easier and more manageable than it will turn out to be.” (Albert Hirschman) This was the Hiding Hand principle—a play on Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand. The entrepreneur takes risks but does not see himself as a risk-taker, because he operates under the useful delusion that what he’s attempting is not risky. Then, trapped in mid-mountain, people discover the truth—and, because it is too late to turn back, they’re forced to finish the job."

Sadly, I've somewhat lost these "useful delusions" because of experience.  I've opened five different businesses and closed three of them.  I've completely renovated the shop downtown twice, and done major changes dozens of times.

Every time they have proven harder, been more expensive and time-consuming than I expected.

I've thought lately of doing a new bookstore, but every time I come back to that hard-won knowledge of how difficult and risky it really would be -- and whenever a customer puts back a perfectly good book because it's retail priced that just reinforces my doubt.  I'm too old for that shit.

Frankly, I'm pretty sure that I might not have started writing again if I had realized how hard Nearly Human was going to be.  But by finishing that book, I arrived at methods to keep writing and now I'm perfectly happy with it.

Whenever I start a book I think it's going to be easy.  Whenever I finish I draft, I think I'm done.  Whenever I finish a rewrite, I think I'm done.  Each step of the way I convince myself that I can do it.
The article is called The Gift of Doubt -- but the more useful title is The Gift of No-Doubt.

Texting piece of shit.

Linda has been getting more and more texts.  (I never get any -- I don't want any.)  What's more, her ringtone is this incredibly annoying horror sound.

So lately, every time we're having a heart to heart, or I'm trying to tell her something about a beautiful story I just read, or I'm reading something to her -- or just asking how her day is, right at the moment where normally the deepest connection might be made, the point of the story, the dramatic conclusion -- along comes this horror sound and completely stomps on it.

For instance.  Sometimes you read a story so good you just have to share it.  I read one this morning that sent shivers down my spine. I mean, go read it!

 I just had to tell Linda:

The article was on the Big Picture blog;  It is about an Italian fabric maker whose company failed because of globalization, and the guy tells a story about a famous designer who asked for a special periwinkle color from a photograph from the sixties that he wanted reproduced and how his workers told him it was impossible but he told them it was for this designer and they agreed and they toiled and toiled to get it right and finally they delivered and they waited anxiously for the answer and the answer was  --  the designer wanted to wait to see it in sunlight.  So then the owner was afraid to tell his workers, thinking they would roll their eyes or be upset but when he did, they all nodded as if to say they were glad to be working for a master and one of the workers comes up to the narrator and tugs him on the sleeve and says....


ERRREERRERERRREEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

"What the fuck!  Where's that fucking phone!  I'm throwing it out the window, dammit!"

I swear, I'm not talking to my wife again unless she gets rid of the texting piece of shit.

Glimmer.

I get what I call "glimmers" of a story -- especially at the beginning.  In fact, I don't start a book unless I have a vague notion of what I'm trying to accomplish.

I purposely don't explore these "glimmers" when they come to me until the day comes when I sit down and write them.  Every book needs a strong glimmer, and every chapter needs at least a small glimmer.

Anyway, as I've been saying, I've been a loose ends for three whole days.  I want to write a sequel to Death of an Immortal, but I wasn't getting anything.

Then I decided I would place the main character in Crescent City California, where Linda and I often go for vacation.  (She grew up there.)  And this morning, I got a very strong glimmer of how I want the story to start.

So, subconscious, you had to wander in the wilderness for all of three days...



Later, I got another idea, but after letting it glimmer for awhile, it started to fade.  It wasn't the right approach -- it felt wrong.  Maybe later in the story.

When I wrote Death of an Immortal, the theme was very much about redemption, and the plot was constructed in a way to explore that theme.

So I'd like to have an equally strong theme for the next book.

Thursday thuds.

Accidentally let my subscription to the Bulletin lapse for a week.  It was surprisingly OK.  I thought I'd miss it, but I didn't.  Just one more thing I didn't have to do in the morning.

I reupped the sub, though.  I do like getting the local information.

*****

I know, I probably say it every year, but it does seem like summer is taking longer than usual to get here in Bend.

*****

I'm suddenly getting Linda's emails on my iphone though neither one of us did anything different.  Stuff like this seems to happen to us all the time, without us asking. 

Who's in charge, here?

Not me.

*****

I really do feel at loose ends without a current writing project, even though it's only been three days. 

It just feels wrong.

*****

It's weird how every TV show we watch is on Sunday, now.  Especially in the summer.  So I'm just not watching TV the rest of the week.  I could care less than zero about reality shows.  Yawn.

*****

My garden is acceptable, even though I put only two days work into it this year.  Probably needs a couple more days to really get up to snuff.  But I wanted this to be a maintenance year -- not move any plants around and see how they do.  Next year, or later this season, I may subdivide some of the healthier plants.

*****

Visited Sunriver books on Monday.  It's really nice bookstore and I can't help but transpose it into downtown Bend.

Everyone realizes that Bend doesn't have a full-time independent bookstore, right?

Disgraceful.  Just another example of Bend's weird demographics -- of thousands of spandex wearers show up for obscure races, but not enough show up to buy a book.

This shit is going to happen.

For years I convinced myself that I didn't need to write.  The world is full of writers, and the last thing it needs is another book.

This wasn't a bad thing to tell myself, because in truth I couldn't write while I was struggling to keep my store alive.  I had to earn a living.

But now that I'm back to writing, it's like I'm addicted to it.  I really like doing it, I feel like it's what I should be doing, it's very fulfilling.  When I'm not writing, I feel like I'm at loose ends.

Even if it goes nowhere, even if it meets universal rejection, this shit is going to happen.

I can see the road ahead very clearly, and the road is full of words.

I doubt at this point anything could pull me away from writing, even if the old "have to make a living" situation returns.  I've put off this creative thing for too long. 

I'm fascinated by it.  How it works, why it works. 

I'm also sort of closing in.  Things are getting shed.  I'm making time for writing by not watching as much television or going to the movies or traveling or reading books or keeping up with the news, etc. etc.

Thank god I have an understanding wife, who is also a writer.  She told someone the other day -- "Writing is our retirement."  But it's more than that.  That description feels like a kind of doddering goal.  I have every ambition to try to get good, to create something people want to read.

I'm not looking for outside input anymore, even on my writing.  (This is not to say, I don't want input on What I'm Writing, if you catch the difference.)   I've spent the last thirty years taking in input, information on a constant basis, and now I'm sort of putting blinders on and concentrating on what's in my head.

There feels like there is a lot of stuff inside me that wants to get out, stories I want to tell, characters I want to invent. 

The flow of words just feels natural and right.  I hope it just keeps coming. 

This shit is going to happen.