Writing a Second Novel

Challenged by the Paul Graham essay quoted below, I’m going to use this place to put some rough ideas into words, in the hopes that doing so will bring clarity to things I’ve been thinking about recently.

I’ve been thinking a lot about writing. I’m searching for a good story to tell that’s unique, entertaining and won’t be depressing to work on. I finished writing my first novel three years ago and, feeling inspired, I started in on a second. I made a good ten-thousand word start on a mystery featuring a serial killer who injected his victims with drugs. I did research with an emergency ward specialist on things like how fast different drugs kicked in, how to “hide the entry mode” when injecting, and how difficult it would be for a coroner to determine the death wasn’t an overdose. I wrote an opening scene from the murderer’s point-of-view, describing a body “rasping and gurgling”, its “arms and legs splayed comically.” From my research, I included graphic details that amplified the horror. It was very hard to write, but identifying and tracking down this bad guy was to be the central mystery of the book.

I wrote steadily for five months without mentioning murder again. When it finally became impossible to avoid the fundamental premise of the story, and to describe the discovery of the first body, I couldn’t do it. It took a while for me to understand that I stopped writing because it wasn’t fun anymore. Fun is an important ingredient for me. The first book (Buddy Fucking Forever) was a joy to write - out of the gate and until the end. I want the second book to be the same. So I started again.

I’ve been collecting the bits and chunks that are slowly becoming the new story, but there’s a lot that’s still not done. I remind myself, and anyone who asks about my progress, that Donna Tartt, the author of the brilliant award winning books, The Secret History and The Goldfinch takes ten years between novels. I don’t want to step into the flow of writing until I have a good story to tell, so until I do, I’m accumulating notes and doing research. And throwing ideas against each other in the hopes that some kind of fission will result. There are a few overarching problems I need to come to terms with. I’ll probably try to work them out here.

Putting Ideas Into Words

“… If writing down your ideas always makes them more precise and more complete, then no one who hasn't written about a topic has fully formed ideas about it. And someone who never writes has no fully formed ideas about anything nontrivial.

It feels to them as if they do, especially if they're not in the habit of critically examining their own thinking. Ideas can feel complete. It's only when you try to put them into words that you discover they're not. So if you never subject your ideas to that test, you'll not only never have fully formed ideas, but also never realize it.

Putting ideas into words is certainly no guarantee that they'll be right. Far from it. But though it's not a sufficient condition, it is a necessary one.”

~ Paul Graham

Putting Ideas into Words

February 2022

Mr. Smith

We’re not supposed to call him Buddy, eh?  Only John can, but he’s the owner. Everyone else in the yard calls him Mr. Smith, but it’s a nod-and-a-wink kinda deal. 

He’s a good egg. Not pretentious at all. Keeps to himself but doesn’t mind chatting now and then. I see him in the Cafe, of course. He has his own table in there. He helps me out sometimes with the band, but doesn’t get all weird about it, like he’s the big expert, just cause he wrote, like, two hundred songs and had hit records and all that. 

When he went to Ottawa, things really seemed to change in the yard. I think Dave the Cook missed him a lot. They’re good friends. I used to hear them up there after the Cafe closed. Arguing, but not really, you know?

So, yeah, Mr. Smith. I’d say he was a friend of mine. 

                                                                              ~ Sandy Tymoshchuk - June 24th, 2008 

The First Time I Met Buddy Forever

Our job was to keep Blocker Peebles in the men’s washroom while the boss talked to Buddy Forever. There were two of us – Brother Elijah and I – so we were confident there would be no problems and the Lord’s will would be done. 

But Mr. Peebles turned out to be an unstoppable Goliath of a man, and even two David’s were unable to hold him back or even slow him down. When he finally lost his temper he launched us both into the air like we weighed nothing. I was the first to get up.

It was a lucky punch, he wasn’t paying attention. When he dropped, I ran for the door. Buddy Forever came after me. Out on the street, the Lord put the wind at my back. Also, Buddy, who must be around fifty, only made it a few blocks before he couldn’t run anymore. 

I stopped to watch him lower himself to the pavement. All by himself under a lamppost, the great Buddy Forever. 

That was the first time I met him. I’ll never forget it.

                                                                                       ~ Brother Jacob - August 3rd 2008

I First Met Buddy Forever ...

I first met Buddy Forever on the street one day. He was completely losing his shit. That’s not necessarily a criticism, since I, in my own way, was losing mine as well. I think it was woman troubles, and had something to do with a fight of some kind. With someone else, not the woman. Either way, I was yelling and shouting about it and folks were generally keeping their distance. It was all about me, which is a great situation if you can get it - and I find being half-to-fully off your head is how you get it. How I did that day. 

He was crumpled on the cement stairs going into the mall, looking like some one had let all his air out. I didn’t even see him till he spoke. 

“Fuck sake” is what he said. Funny I remember that but can’t remember a word of what I was yelling about. He wasn’t talking to me. Just like I wasn’t talking to anyone, other than maybe God. 

Anyway, that’s how I met Buddy Forever. I didn’t know he was famous at the time.

                                                                                       

                                                                                   ~ James Robinson - July 27th, 2008

SA4QE 2018

This morning I once again participated in SA4QE - the international conspiracy that celebrates the naming day of the brilliant Russell Hoban by leaving pieces of yellow paper - presenting quotes from his books - in odd places all over the world. Here’s what I submitted to the excellent Russell Hoban site (where you should check out the other yellow papers) this year:

A blustery but beautiful morning has turned grey, then black, as I watch from my home on the hill. By now the yellow paper I left overlooking the pier will have disintegrated. Appropriate, I say. Part of the bigger picture. Part of the moment beneath the moment. A ephemeral celebration of Russ’s naming day. 

Here’s the quote (also left in 2014) that I taped to the railing an hour ago:

“One assumes that the world simply is and is and is but it isn't, it is like music that we hear a moment at a time and put together in our heads. But this music, unlike other music, cannot be performed again.”
~ Pilgermann (p.99)

20180204 - SA4QE.wide.jpg

"The world is ..."

“The world is violent and mercurial — it will have its way with you. We are saved only by love — love for each other and the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share: being a parent; being a writer; being a painter; being a friend. We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love.”

- Tennessee Williams

 

Impossible

“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” ~ Muhammad Ali

On Bullshit

"If you have the truth, you know what reality is like. If you don't, you're ignorant of reality and I felt it was important to explain why reality is important - we live in the real world. We depend upon it. We need it. We need to know about it. We need to be able to find our way around in it, and if we don't have the truth, then we can't do those things. We don't really need bullshit. In fact bullshit, I find, is very offensive. It's insulting. It is offered to me as though it were an attempt to convey the truth but it's not, it's a substitute for the truth - and I don't want substitutes, I want the real thing as I think all of us should - all of us must. And that's why I think we should be on our guard against it and resist it and reject it, wherever we find it."

"I think a world without bullshit would be more interesting. It would be a world in which we would lack the creative flair of the bullshitter, but in which we would have the fascination and wonderment of reality. And in that way, I think the world would be much better off."

- Harry Frankfurt

From: On Bullshit and Donald Trump
 

UFO

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It was pouring rain, and dark. There was a gap in the driver's side wiper blade that messed the windshield in a way that forced me to squint a bit. Larry Carlton's "Room 335" was blasting on the car stereo - the perfect driving song in the early eighties. It was around nine, on a weeknight and I was on my way to play a club in the valley. There were no cars ahead of me on the freeway. There hadn't been for a while. No tail lights to follow through the downpour.

As I rounded a corner I saw moving lights in the sky up ahead. They were above an upcoming overpass - off to the side, not over the freeway. I slowed and saw that the lights seemed to be connected in a line and ... I pulled over.

An internet-procured photo of something similar to the thing I saw

An internet-procured photo of something similar to the thing I saw

I got out of the car and stood in the rain, staring.

When I was eleven years old I was the editor of a newsletter called "The UFOEO Reporter". It was printed on the mimeograph machine at James Douglas Elementary school, thanks to Mr. Capon, the kind-hearted principal there. UFOEO stood for "Unidentified Flying Objects Enthusiasts Organization". There were about 15 members of the group, and none of them were in Vancouver, where I lived. They were also UFO enthusiasts, from places all around the world, and most of them had newsletters of their own. The idea was to report UFO activity in our locals and share the accumulated news through the mail by way of these hand-made publications.

I was also the youngest member of the "Vancouver Area Flying Saucer Club". My Mom and Dad took turns driving me to meetings in Kits, and I was warmly welcomed by an eccentric group of truth-seekers who thought I was just the cutest thing - until the night I stood up and mockingly questioned a presentation about two Australian boys and their suspicious close encounter of the third kind. 

I was a curious kid and often drawn to themes that called from the fringes of accepted science. UFOs played a large role, but if the topic could be found in FATE Magazine (used copies of which were available at Ted's Book Bin, on nearby Fraser street) I was determined to remain open-minded about it. Open-mindedness was a badge of honour for me in those days.

The string of lights seemed to be circling around something, or to be attached to something that was circling around. The object floated, or "hovered" as UFO folks used to say, above the overpass - occasionally lilting slightly, as though suspended from a string. There was no sound. The rain soaked through my coat as I stood on the highway shoulder watching the lights going around, and the UFO going nowhere. It was about the size of a quarter held at arms length, but I couldn't sort out a dependable sense of scale. The rain didn't help. 

Despite my youthful immersion in UFO culture, my first thoughts focused on a terrestrial explanation. I tried to imagine a balloon with lights tracing around it, and how big it would have to be if it was tethered to, or controlled from, the overpass. I was surprised to realize that the theoretical balloon would be roughly the width of a car. If this was an elaborate prank involving a very large prop, I thought, why pull it on a night like this? It was past nine on a weeknight, there was no traffic to speak of and it was raining hard. 

Fate Magazine was a small format pulp magazine that dealt with UFOs, psychic abilities, ghosts and hauntings, cryptozoology, alternative medicine, life after death, mental telepathy, ancient astronauts, and, as Wikipedia goes on to say; "other paranormal topics". I was into all of that. My open mind was often strained, as it was at that final "Vancouver Area Flying Saucer Club" meeting (I'm sorry Mrs. Beaton), but I valiantly attempted to know the unknown and stay abreast of, or even a few steps beyond, an unfolding future. 

A car pulled to the shoulder behind me and the driver got out. 

"What is that?" he called to me. 

I grinned in the dark at the idea that he expected a useful answer. I had been thinking, when he arrived, that if it wasn't right above the overpass and actually further away, it was very large. If it was a mile away, it was huge.

"A UFO, I guess." I called back. 

The object began to move. Slowly it moved off to the south and, although it was hard to be sure, away from us. Soon it disappeared beyond the tree-line - either descending or getting further away - it's lights still tracing at the same speed. 

As the night seemed to darken, buddy laughed awkwardly, said goodnight and got back into his car. He pulled away. Maybe it lasted five minutes all together. Maybe longer, I don't know. 

Music began to overtake my interest in the paranormal. Alternate realities, real or unreal, were becoming increasingly inconsistent with the world I needed to live in. Also, some of it was starting to scare the shit out of me. I sold my paranormal library for $30. I bought forty-fives with the money. I started singing in a band. 

I always believed that in exploring the unknown and otherworldly, I was learning about unfolding truths that would soon become self-evident to the world at large, and that much of what was called fringe science would be proven out over time and become real science. In the sixties, I was sure that proof of the existence of UFOs would arrive soon, and that we'd find out what they were and where they came from. Science would connect the dots and track down the facts. 

But it never happened. The evidence failed to arrive. 

So my trust shifted over time. Eventually, I came to agree with Marcello Truzzi, the founding co-chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, who said: 

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Or, put another way by the inimitable Christopher Hitchens; “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.” 

I believe I still have an open mind. Where the truth is concerned, it's not over till it's over. 

I also believe I saw something hovering above a freeway overpass, out in the valley, one dark and rainy night many years ago. I'll just never be able to tell anyone, for sure, what it was. Which is OK with me. One last quote. My all-time hero; scientist, teacher, raconteur and musician Richard Feynman said this:
 
"I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong."
 
 
* I did not take a photo of the UFO. What I saw was similar to the internet-procured (and altered) shot above - only further away. About the size of a quarter, held at arm's length.

Cory Henry @ VCC

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It was an honour and a privilege. Connor and I were sitting so close - in the front row. He was so "there" in the room and so clearly creating as we watched. So completely connected to his instrument. I had expected to see the amazing keyboard player that we'd seen playing with Snarky Puppy last June, but I was not expecting the complete musical experience that Cory Henry and his two compatriots - Andreas Kapsalis and Oketo - brought to VCC last night.

And he sang! 

"It brings a tear ..." were the first words out of his mouth and I swear a tear appeared in my eye. 

I don't think he realizes what a great singer he is. He only sang three or four songs. But there was nothing missing from the rest of the set. He played his ass off. He was soulful, or funky, or CHURCH, or funny or just damn charming ... I don't think I've ever seen a more accomplished musician in person. Victor Wooten came to mind, but I still haven't seen him. 

In a Youtube video I watched today, he dropped the fact that he rehearsed 8 hours a day. Like Victor. You can see it. The keys jump up to his fingers. It seems like his hands sometimes go places that are a surprise to him - but you can also see that he trusts them completely. 

The band was over an hour late arriving for the show because of trouble crossing the border - but it was so worth the wait. It was one of the four or five best music shows I've ever seen.