Writing, Dammit!

Been a while, but I'm actually getting the work done. On my way into the dark heart of Chapter 4. And I'm gonna keep at it. Seems like a better idea than updating this thing. But, eventually, I'll start doing that regularly, too. Promise.

Like A Gargoyle

So I've started reading The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson, that publishing industry noise/newsmaker that sold for $1.25 million and has unfortunately already dropped off the NY Times bestseller list after a run of only a few weeks.

Anyway, it really is a wonderful book, deep and dark and masterfully written. I'd have given the Mr. Davidson that big check, too. Since I've been blabbering about writing so much lately, I found this passage at the beginning of Gargoyle quite apt, because the unnamed narrator sounds an awful like Aaron, our protagonist in Swallowed, who, coincidentally, is 35 himself:

The most difficult thing about writing, I'm discovering, is not the act of constructing the sentences themselves. It's deciding what to put in, and where, and what to leave out. I'm constantly second-guessing myself. I chose the accident, but I could just as easily have started with any point in my thirty-five years before that.

I mean, yeah. At the risk of sounding like Captain Obvious, that's it, exactly, for Aaron, and for me.

Farewell, David Foster Wallace

I am broken-hearted.

DFW offed himself Friday, and though I was not a major fan—let’s face it, the man’s work wasn’t for book tourists or the easily daunted, and it was often challenging to process his dense thickets of prose, at least in a novel like Infinite Jest—I was glad he was in the world, writing like writing was all that mattered.

Because it was to him, and it is to me.

He was fucking funny, too, if you were in on the joke.

He will be missed, and mourned.

Here’s an entirely apt passage from “Good Old Neon,” from his story collection Oblivion:

What goes on inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it at any given instant. The internal head-speed or whatever of these ideas, memories, realizations, emotions and so on is even faster, by the way – exponentially faster, unimaginably faster – when you're dying, meaning during that vanishingly tiny nanosecond between when you technically die and when the next thing happens, so that in reality the cliché about people's whole life flashing before their eyes as they're dying isn't all that far off – although the whole life here isn't really a sequential thing where first you're born and then you're in the crib and then you're up at the plate in Legion ball, etc., which it turns out that that's what people usually mean when they say 'my whole life,' meaning a discrete, chronological series of moments that they add up and call their lifetime. It's not really like that. The best way I can think of to try to say it is that it all happens at once, but that at once doesn't really mean a finite moment of sequential time the way we think of time while we're alive, plus that what turns out to be the meaning of the term my life isn't even close to what we think we're talking about when we say 'my life.' Words and chronological time create all these total misunderstandings of what's really going on at the most basic level. And yet at the same time English is all we have to try to understand it and try to form anything larger or more meaningful and true with anybody else, which is yet another paradox.

"…the whole my whole life flashed before me phenomenon at the end is more like being a whitecap on the surface of the ocean, meaning that it's only at the moment you subside and start sliding back in that you're really even aware there's an ocean at all. When you're up and out there as a whitecap you might talk and act as if you know you're just a whitecap on the ocean, but deep down you don't think there's really an ocean at all. It's almost impossible to."

Fuck You, Gustav. Thank You, Edna.

Thank God. Nothing major broke. The evacuation went smoothly. And the storm was not as bad as predicted. Now we can worry about other things, like 17-year-old unmarried mothers and Republicans in general.

And writing.

Shoulda gotten more done this weekend, didn't, as I was distracted by the hurricane and the Last Day Of Summer. I'm feeling good about the work, though, and I know I'll be cranking hard soon. I'm instituting a daily word quota, just to see if I can force myself to pile up a bunch of pages quickly. Like, a whole chapter's worth, stat. Should be easy-peesey, right? Since I have the whole book outlined and researched and everything.

Au contraire.

I much prefer rewriting to initial writing. Initial writing is way too much like real work, and I agonize over it far more than I need to. I always feel like I'm screwing up the story, or just plain sucking, and then the internal editor kicks in and I catch myself redoing the same paragraph seven times and then I stop in frustration.

Rewriting is much more fun and a bit easier, though agony often remains. 

Writing is not for sissies.

I happened across a quote from the great Edna Ferber, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of classics like Show Boat and Giant, which I thought perfectly conveyed that sentiment. The lady knows of what she speaks; she wrote a few dozen plays and novels and was a member of the Algonquin Round Table, matching wits with contemporaries like Dorothy Parker.

Anyway, this is something she wrote in A Peculiar Treasure:

“Only amateurs write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain climbing, treadmill and childbirth. It may be absorbing, racking, relieving, but amusing, never.”

Well said, Edna.

I am definitely not amused.

God Bless And Godspeed, NOLA

Such a beautiful, beautiful town.

The first chapter of Swallowed is set in New Orleans, and I have been going down for Mardi Gras for the last five years (including the ugly one post-Katrina). I have several dear friends there, one of whom, a doctor, is riding out Gustav at the Tulane Medical Center. 

My heart is with him, and with NOLA and all its citizens, during this difficult time.

It’s Got A Good Beat And You Can Read To It

From the start I imagined this as a book with a soundtrack. I even considered making an actual soundtrack recording, on a CD included inside the front cover, but think of it: the rights for dozens of songs would be expensive and time-consuming to obtain, unless I pulled a Girltalk. 

I struggled to find the best way to communicate the importance of music to the story. Initially I had the genius brainstorm to make Aaron, our protagonist, constantly reference the music playing in his head, which he pithily referred to as Radio A. In the first draft of Chapter One, I had Radio A breaking in every so often to very self-consciously blast a song or a lyric. I tried different ways of doing it, including using the graphic at the top of this post, but it proved to be a clunky and awkward device, and it was already annoying after the first chapter. 

I gave it up.

I rewrote and cut out all the Radio A references and just got out of the way of the story. But the soundtrack was still there, whether I put it in the book or not. So I made one for myself on iTunes.

I used only songs released on or before the year 2000, the timeframe of the story. Here’s what I came up with for the first several chapters:

“Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand”—Primitive Radio Gods

“Radiohead”—Talking Heads

“Rise”—Public Image Limited

“My Own Worst Enemy”—Lit

“Instant Karma”—John Lennon

“Say My name“—Destiny’s Child

“Girls”—Beastie Boys

“Love Will Tear Us Apart”—Joy Division

“I Try”—Macy Gray

“All The Small Things”—Blink 182

“No Surprises”—Radiohead

“Love Song”—The Cure

“Gett Off”—Prince & The New Power Generation

“Love Buzz”—Nirvana

“One”—U2

“Back In Black”—ACDC

“Sweet Child O’ Mine”—Guns ’N’ Roses

“Right Here, Right Now”—Jesus Jones

“Even Better Than The Real Thing”—U2

“Music”—Madonna

“Take A Picture”—Filter

“Bad Reputation”—Freedy Johnston

“Teardrop”—Massive Attack

“Semi-Charmed Life“—Third Eye Blind

“Here Comes A Regular”—Replacements

“Bohemian Like You”—Dandy Warhols

“Brand New Lover”—Dead Or Alive

“Speechless”—School Of Fish

“Single”—Everything But The Girl

“Perfect”—Smashing Pumpkins

“Swallowed”—Bush

A song notably missing here is the one Aaron writes in Chapter One, “New Orleans Again.” This is in fact an actual song, written by me, and as I get this book done I’m going to try to convince the members of East Is East, my band of twenty years, to do me a solid and record it. 

Maybe I can put it on the audiobook. According to Augusten Burroughs, whose latest audiobook, A Wolf At The Table, is completely over the top, with sound effects and so much drama in Augusten’s voice, the audiobook is the new frontier for modern authors. We shall see.

In the meantime, I tried to make an iMix on iTunes, which would effectively render moot all the rights issues, cuz if you wanted one of the songs in my soundtrack, you’d simply download it and the artist would be paid like always. 

Unfortunately not all the songs I listed above are available on iTunes. 

A bunch of them are, though, so I went ahead and made the mix, and here it is. 

RAWK!

Cart Before The Horse

Even though I’ve only got three chapters of my would-be novel completed, I was wondering how, exactly, one pitches a novel to a publisher. I happened upon the blog of Nathan Bransford, an agent for Curtis Brown, who besides lots of encouragement offers a straightforward assessment of the publishing world and loads of tips on how to navigate it.

Anyway, step one, write a book. A whole, complete book. Step two, sell it to an agent by means of a query letter, in which everything in your 90,000 word novel is summed up in two sentences. 

This is actually a very good exercise, and also an excellent way to create a quick thumbnail of the whole story. 

So, here’s my first attempt to sum up Swallowed in two sentences:

Aaron Adler’s got it all, for a guy nowhere close to middle age: the high-profile design job in Washington DC, the beautiful and bewitching Jazny Phelps as his lover, and a taste for dunken excess that may finally be catching up with him. When Aaron’s colleague Marnie Chrisfield drowns in the Potomac on the hazy, crazy night he realizes he’s actually in love with her, he must face some huge decisions about his future, or risk not having one.

So, that’s a start. I’ll keep working on it.

sex and sex and sex and sex and look at me!

OK, since the whole point of this is to flog Swallowed, the book I’m hard at work on, I’ll get right to it.

I’m thinking a sample might be a good way of beginning, to illustrate right up front that I can actually finish a sentence. And why not make it a sample containing a smokin' hot sex scene set in New Orleans? That would help to keep it interesting, hmmmm?

Anyway, before I even tell you what this Swallowed is about, here’s that sample, a scene from near the end of Chapter One, “New Orleans Again.” It features our protagonist, Aaron Adler, and the love of his life, Jazny Phelps, on vacation in the pre-Katrina Crescent City, enjoying their accommodations tremendously.

I hope you enjoy this, too.

Love,

Scott

I see the red ember exclamation point of her cigarette first. The door slams behind me and Jaz’s silhouette takes shape against the wall by the balcony. There is a tea candle burning on the nightstand, flickering in the breeze wafting in with the rain. She’s reclining on the bed.

“There you are,” she murmurs. “Why have you kept me waiting?”

I toss my filthy clothes in a corner and walk slowly toward her. She’s topless, in a pair of white cotton panties.

“Funny, darling, coming from you. Of course you realize I’ve scoured the entire city searching for you?”

“Yes, yes, mournfully calling my name.” She’s smirking. “I realize you’ve probably scoured every saloon in a 10-block radius. I can only guess what you were looking for.” She raises a wine glass to her lips. A half-empty bottle of white stands next to the candle. “I came back to the flat directly after Ian’s outburst.” She laughs and puts the glass back on the table. “I thought you’d realize that. I expected you’d turn up much sooner. I’ve been waiting since nearly half-one.” She pulls an exaggerated pout and I feel my remaining anger evaporating.

But I’m not giving in just yet.

“Amazing you’re still conscious.”

She gives a little “Huh!” and turns away.

“Look, last I heard I’d be enjoying this vacation solo.”

I bend down, pull her over and kiss her forehead. She arches her back and shivers. Even if I wanted a fight at that moment any thought of it takes wing out the balcony doors. Jaz opens her eyes.

“Nice towel rack,” she says, taking hold of my all-too-obvious hard-on beneath the terrycloth. “Remember what I promised you at Plank?” She tries to loosen the towel.

“Plank. Wow. Thanks for bringing that up, buzzkill.” I feel my forehead gingerly.

“Come on, Adler. We are far, far from home. And I’d like to make good on my earlier offer. If you don’t mind.”

I push her back into the pillows. “Uh-uh. Nope. Not yet. Your turn first. I insist.”

She holds her hands up in mock surrender. “Mmm. So assertive.”

I scoop her into my arms and kiss her stomach. She giggles again and I drop her on the other side of the bed, climbing in next to her. I keep the towel on.

Our lips brush, light, teasing, slow. Hers are sweet from the wine. I nibble the lower one, tug on it, flick it with my tongue. She meets me and flicks back, and when we touch sparks flutter across the inside of my eyelids. I push my mouth harder into hers, and she gives a little breath, a sigh, and pulls me in.

“I do love you Aaron. I do I do I do.”

I cover her mouth with mine. “Shut up. Shut up for a minute. I’m working here.”

I kiss her cheeks, now blazing, and that beautiful nose, and work my way up to her tightly closed eyelids. I kiss them softly and brush her hair aside to kiss the center of her forehead, blowing warm air on the moist skin. She’s done a lot of yoga and believes in that whole third eye thing, which I think is silly. But there is no denying the profound sense of calm I feel when I put my forehead on hers, eye to eye, as it were. I do it now, and the pain of my mangled brow disappears. Warmth floods into me.

I hold her there for a moment, her breath in my mouth and mine in hers, and I’m not sure I’ve ever been happier. With the rain and the breeze and the smell of her, I have everything I could possibly need, forever. She pushes against me and tries to kiss her way down my throat.

“Please?”

“No. I’m not done yet. I’ve hardly started.”

She falls back, eyes closed, smiling. I trace the outline of her ear with my tongue, slowly, and then move to her neck, taut against the pillow. I pay special attention to the crook of it, to the indentation where her neck meets her shoulder, lightly pecking it over and over. Her breath comes faster. She’s ticklish, especially there, especially kissed like that.

“You’re making me crazy,” she whispers, pulling my hair and mashing my face into her chest. “You have no idea the trouble you’re in.”

“Big talker,” I whisper, my lips drifting over her nipples. “Looks to me like you’re the one with trouble.”

“Oh yeah?” She pushes my chin up with one hand, but I take her fingers in my mouth, sucking them hard at first, then softly.

Before she has a chance to respond I grab her wrist and trace tiny circles around one of her nipples with a wet fingertip.

“Yeah,” I say. I cover the other nipple gently with my mouth, swirling my tongue. “What can you do?” Her breath is shallow and quick. She shivers when I kiss my way down to her stomach.

The candle flickers as the breeze picks up, and our shadows are thrown trembling against the open balcony doors. We are so beautiful. I pull her legs apart and ease between them, my lips never losing contact with the soft skin of her belly.

I’m skimming the edges of her panties with my tongue when I remember the half-empty bottle next to the candle. I work my way down her thighs and at the same time reach for the wine glass. Slowly, carefully, still teasing her thighs, I tilt the glass over her and let the wine dribble out. This is a surprise, and her eyes flicker.

“What are you doing?” she moans. “I’m drinking that!”

“Don’t worry. You’ll enjoy it more this way.”

I refill the glass.

She protests meekly as I trickle more of the sweet liquid over her. Her panties, damp even before I started with the wine, are now soaked through. I pour some into my free hand and reach up to cup a breast, massaging it lightly. I dump the rest on her stomach. She catches her breath. Then I take the panties in my mouth and begin tonguing the wine from them, slowly and deliberately.

“Nice,” she whispers. Her teeth are clenched. “Don’t stop. Don’t.”

I try to push the glass back onto the table but it falls over and breaks in pieces on the floor. I laugh and so does Jaz, her body shaking under my probing tongue.

“It’s good voodoo. Good juju,” I say, my voice muffled as she bucks into me. “Our luck is good.”

She mutters something I can’t understand. And then she’s beyond words.

I drink her in. I work my mouth around the fabric, devouring it, devouring her. I push my face against her hard as she thrashes against me, moaning. The sheets are soaked. When Jaz is almost sobbing, I pull the panties off. My tongue goes deep and she tenses and pushes against me with all her strength, vibrating, thrumming.

I force her legs back hard and send my tongue deeper, in time with her. We lock in sync and bear into each other, and the rest of the world goes away. There is only us, and there is nothing else.

Finally with a great juddering spasm she collapses back onto the bed, gasping for breath. She pulls a pillow over her face.

After a while she’s quiet, breathing heavily, and I put my cheek to her chest, listening.

How I love her then. It is pure and true and all-consuming, and it just radiates out of me. I envision us from above, me wrapped around her as the rain falls on the dirty streets and the dim light floods in through the balcony doors. I clutch her like a child, holding on desperately. I drift off that way, and so does she.

An hour later she wakes me up and keeps the promise she made at Plank.

Restart/Restate/Reboot/Reblog

Well, well, well. Where does the time go? 

Mostly disappeared down the rabbit hole of the day job and the writing and the day job and the procrastinating and the day job.

At least I was writing, some, although none of it was on here.

Yes, time has passed since last we blogged.

Also, Summer happened, and a short vacation, and the Olympics, which devoured entirely too much of my time (and from which I’m now suffering serious withdrawal), and every one of forty million other items that required my immediate attention. Did I mention I procrastinate?

Yeah.

Anyway, that's about to change. I’m sure every nascent blogger says & does the same thing, but I happen to be telling the truth. I’m going to write lots more, on here, chronicling whatever does or does not come of my first novel, Swallowed. I’ll excerpt some stuff from the book and put up links to pertinent info and annoy you with my taste in books, music, film & art. 

By the way, at the moment no one knows about Swallowed Whole, which might actually be a good thing. But if you’ve somehow stumbled across it and like what you see, please let me know.

Because I’m going to write more, here.

Consider this a warning.

U Street Writers Group

Mad props to my pals in U Street Writers Group. I’d like to think I’m a member in good standing, but they’d have to tell ya for sure. We meet every two weeks at Chi Cha Lounge near the corner of 17th and U in DC, and each and every one of them is talented in his or her own way. I am in their debt, for Swallowed would not be what it is becoming if not for them. They are my own Trusted Readers, and I salute them. 

Rock on with yer bad selves, USWG!

Ain't Born Typical

The Kills are the best band playing right now. They just are. No other currently operating group is as innovative, strange and absolutely, utterly cool as The Kills. And Jamie gets extra points for the whole Kate Moss thing, which is a distraction, but not a bad one. The music stands on its own.

They played DC last night, at The Black Cat, and I was there. Or at least I was until I got thrown out. For taking pictures. Like about 100 other people pressed against the stage, who did not get thrown out. Being tall and noticeable can be a disadvantage sometimes. 

Truthfully, some Black Cat worker-monkey warned me to stop. I argued that there were no signs detailing this alleged policy of the club, and those 100 other folks were flashing away. Puffed up with his pseudopower, he ignored my pleas and insisted that I stop. I did, for a minute. But when he turned his attention elsewhere, I pressed the button again. Sadly, he noticed. And kicked me out. Which sucked, since I have a major crush on Allison and the show was only halfway done. 

Though I missed some of my fave Kills tunes ("Last Day Of Magic," "Cheap And Cheerful"), I captured these pics, which I think are lovely compensation. I rule, Black Cat bitches!

Swallowed

Greetings, darlings. Welcomed to Swallowed Whole, my personal sandbox for venting, whining, bitching and throwing down. Ostensibly devoted to promoting my latest novel, Swallowed, this site will also prove quite handy for forcing my opinions on you re: music, art, literature, culture, and any damn thing I feel like typing about. Thanks for tuning in. I'll try not to disappoint.