Eddie Whitlock's Blog: Reader and Writer - Posts Tagged "writing"

Do you have a book in you? I mean that question figuratively and not literally. If you literally have a book in you, please turn off your computer and seek medical help.

No, I am asking if you have within you the desire to write a book.

I did. I always have. Well, at least since I realized that the only job that really combined my love of lying with making an income was that of being a writer.

I worked on several books over the years.

One, called "Hell," was going to be about a race war in the United States. Yeah. I never had a central character. It was just vignettes about the horrors of a new Civil War. It was inspired by the riots after the Rodney King verdict and hearing Mike Bowers mention the riots in a speech he gave to the Griffin Kiwanis Club.

I worked on "Hell" for several years.

One day I had the epiphany-after hearing a news report-that the US was no longer divided between African-Americans and Caucasions. It was also divided between Asians, Hispanics and others. It was divided by sex, by gender and by sexual preference, by age and by generation.

After "Hell," I worked on a book about Franklin Roosevelt. I could never get the purpose of the novel straight. Was it alternate history? Was it horror? I struggled with it for years. Someday I may work on it again.

Last year I decided to try National Novel Writing Month. Basically, I set aside everything I had been working on and started a new story.

The inciting incident was based on something my grandfather had told me. Poppa Mack, Maxie McCullough, said that his father had taken him to see the last public hanging in Spalding County.

That incident became the starting point for a story that I called "Hanging" and that became "Evil is Always Human."

I was pleased with the final product. Here's why: the characters.

I have read about authors who plot out their stories with elaborate outlines. I cannot do that, apparently. I wrote my book as if I were following real people and merely telling what happened to them. They seemed real. When they would sometimes do something that did not seem real, I would let the character tell me the right action to put in.

The characters, particularly the mother, are paradoxes. They don't always do what I would expect them to do, but they do what people do. Sometimes, that is unexpected. Sometimes they are strong; sometimes they are weak, evil, lazy and even inattentive.

"Evil is Always Human" is a story that I am happy with as it stands. Some of the folks who have read it have specifically asked for a sequel. It is a story that I already know. It's not a pretty story. The characters who survived the first book don't become better people who recognize the errors of their ways. They just keep going like people do.

I humbly ask that you buy my book. Read it. Let me know what you think. Thanks.

I'm facing a change in the near future. I'm going to be giving up one of my jobs: teaching for Athens Technical College.

For the past couple of years, I have taught the College and Career Success class for them at their Monroe campus. The students are great, but with the rising price of gas, I no longer really profit financially - and I need to.

Giving up the class saddens me.

I was from a family that did not go to college. When I went, I didn't know what to expect and - because of that - I think I wasted some opportunities.

My daughter has been much more efficient.

I am hopeful that there will soon be more hours from my library job. I also hope that I can do more writing during the down-time. Although the class was only a couple of hours each week, a lot of prep time went into it.

I'm trying to look on the bright side of it all, but I am sure going to miss the class.

Coming up with character names is a fun part of writing for me. One of the best was when I was doing the "Biscuits & Bullets" plays for the Camelot Theatre Company of Griffin.

I wanted a character who would be the pompous county commission chairman as well as a foil for our Elvis-like sheriff. I came up with Colonel Harbinger Parker. Although the Col. Parker part was pretty obvious-and maybe a little libelous-the name "Harbinger" was a fun creation.

Usually, the names are less obvious. Most are just mixes of names appropriate to the time period. I went back to my grandparents' families to come up with the names for the characters in EVIL IS ALWAYS HUMAN.

By the way, the narrator did not have a name at all through the writing of the book. I now have decided to name him "Waymon" after my father's father. The character is nothing like him, but the name would be appropriate to the times and uncommon enough for current times to be unique.

I am working on a story right now that is set in the mid 70s. The characters there will need names common to my generation and my frame of reference. Since I am looking at this story as perhaps creating a character who will be used again, I'm taking my time naming that fellow.

I think back to names that stuck with me mentally, whether the person did or not. One is a fellow from my childhood church. The family's name was "Quick." There were a lot of them, cousins and siblings and "I-ain't-sure-how-we're-kin" folks.

The Wilsons were cousins to the Quicks, but I don't remember their names. The one name I remember is "John Wayne Quick."

You never called him "John" or even "John Quick." It was always all three names: "John Wayne Quick."

That, folks, is a great name. I cannot help but think his parents have stolen and made unusable for me one of the best names ever for a character.

I just love the idea of having a different character say, "Get me John Wayne Quick," only to have the response "John Wayne?" over and over through the story.

That's the kind of stuff you want to make up, but sometimes reality beats you to a good idea.

...and it's not pollen!

A young lady came up to the check-out desk yesterday and I asked her if she had ever considered writing a book.

Now, every now and then, I ask a patron this question. There's a certain look in the eye of some reader that is not pure enjoyment. It's judgement. They are reading with the hovering thought, "I think I could co this."

As is often the case, this young lady had indeed thought of writing a book. She had even written it. Wow!

It's an urban fantasy, she told me.

An urban fantasy.

A what?

Well. Long story short, an urban fantasy is a fantasy in an urban setting. Hers includes a dimwitted protagonist and flawed mythological creatures.

Cool.

I hope she gets it published and, yeah, I gave her my publisher's contact info. I'm encouraging like that.

So.

You ever thought about writing a book?

I saw it in your eyes.

I have begun - sort of and for the fourth or fifth time - writing my NaNoWriMo book for the year.

NaNoWriMo is NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth. You can sign up online to take part. It greatly helped give me structure (of time, not plotting) to get a book finished. The goal is to write a 50-thousand word book in 30 days. I did it, thanks to NaNoWriMo.

That book was tentatively titled HANGING. My editor, Vally Sharpe, suggested a change using the W. H. Auden quotation that opens the story and the book wound up as EVIL IS ALWAYS HUMAN.

This current work-in-progress is going under the name WORST MURDER MYSTERY EVER or WMME for short.

I am calling it the "worst" murder mystery ever because I plan to lay out whodunit at the very beginning. Yeah, the book starts by telling who killed whom.

When I planned to try to do this (I'm still not sure I can do it; I'm trying), I knew that most mysteries follow a typical pattern. I didn't want to follow that pattern. As I did a little research of real mysteries, I discovered that quite a few real-life mysteries are far more than just "whodunits."

The big questions, imho, are WHY? and WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ONES LEFT BEHIND?

I started writing the story from the beginning of the investigation, at the moment when investigators arrive on the scene. I came up with a pretty good (imho) plot twist or two for that scene.

Then I realized I didn't really have a good whodunit because I had not written the actual murder scene. So. I put it aside and thought about it.

I also did some research, reading a novel from 1955 called VANISHING LADIES (I think) by Ed McBain. That book was supposed to be a police procedural, but it's really more of a noir-ish tale of prostitutes and bad cops.

Now I am writing again. This time I've started drafting the murder as well as doing back stories on my two protagonists. I'm hoping it works out.

I am pretty sure that Stephen King gave me the idea of calling Kurt Vonnegut "Uncle Kurt." Vonnegut was a philosopher king for many of us, his writing opening our minds to ideas and concepts beyond the worlds we came from.

Vonnegut introduced me to the idea of "chemical imbalance in the brain" in his book Breakfast of Champions. It was phrased and described in such a simple way that even I could understand it. Over the years, I have seen it to be a hidden motivation behind almost everything: the trickster god in scientific form.

When I taught ninth grade, I would see chemical imbalances in the brain alter the behavior of my students. It would make some overly aggressive and others overly emotional.

Working with at-risk children, I came to see how those chemical imbalances hurt the poor much, much more than they hurt the affluent. A rich man can get away with being an asshole towards others; a poor man will go to jail.

I tried to get a mental health project going when I worked with the Hope Health Clinic, but we didn't have the money to pull it off. Progress in mental health takes time. It takes commitment. Rich men do not seem to understand this. Rich men make the rules.

I worked a couple of years with a mental health non-profit, but that was futile.

I am entirely out of the field these days, but chamical imbalances continue to impact me personally and you, too, whether you know it or not.

My efforts to write a sequel to Evil is Always Human has been impacted by my mood, which is driven by these brain chemicals. I write this on a Sunday morning, sitting on the sofa, being sad for no good reason and being thankful that I am rich enough to be sad here and not in a jail cell.

I haven't updated the blog here on GoodReads lately because I have spent most of my free writing time working on the sequel to Evil is Always Human .

So far, so good. The current rough rough rough draft is over sixty thousand words. The story is not finished. I have another one-forth to go, if my estimate is correct.

The tale is not in chronological order this time. It starts in 1951, jumps back to 1930ish, moves forward a few years and then - well. The plan is for it to jump as far forward as the 1970s before ending in 1952 or so.

My hero now has a name, though I may change it, and will be addressed by the name throughout. It was easy enough NOT to name him the first time around, but now I need to name him. He's a grown man, after all.

The story deviates greatly from the family tales that drove the first one. This one really incorporates some true-life stories along with some totally fictional ones.

I am writing this on Thursday, February 28, as I prepare to go to Winterville to do a presentation on "Urban Folklore." That comes to mind because urban folklore is a mix of beliefs and storytelling that yield fiction that people would rather fight for than deny. In writing this sequel, I have said some pretty negative things about humanity. Although I wouldn't fight anyone who disagreed with my cynicism - I'm a coward - shooting someone in the back is not beyond me.

At least not in a fictional setting.

“Well, why aren’t you excited?” Priscilla asked me.

“I am.”

“Well, you don’t act like it. If my book was up for an award, I’d be excited.”

“I’m happy about it. I’m not going to win because my book is such a downer.”

“Are the others upbeat?”

“I don’t really know, but I gotta figure some of them are.”

My book, Evil is Always Human, is a finalist in the General Adult Fiction category for the 2013 ForeWord Reviews contest. I told Priscilla about it because she has been supportive of my writing and her mother actually read the book. She expected me to be excited. I am pretty pleased with that fact, but there’s no point getting excited about it. I kind of think excitement is for suckers because ultimately nothing works out and you’re going to die anyhow. I mean, you can be pleased because something good happened, but by no means should you somehow think that the other shoe will hover in midair in perpetuity.

“Oh, look,” she said. “Here it is on their website.” She was online throughout this conversation and we only made eye contact twice and then briefly. That's how I like my conversations: brief and distracted.

“Yeah,” I said. “There’s not a picture of the cover because apparently I effed that part up.”

“Still, it’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah.”

“So when will they announce the winner?”

“I think it’s in June,” I said, but I really didn’t know. “It’s judged by people in the field in some way. I don’t remember exactly who judges, but I remember thinking it was a group of people who knew something about writing and reading and books and stuff.” There I went, being all eloquent with words and stuff.

“Uh-huh,” she said. “Well. My mom really liked it.” Priscilla still hasn’t read it. “You might win.”

“I’m working on the sequel.”

I don’t recall her reply to that. I think by then, she was surfing Pinterest for shoes or something.

“I have had a lot of people want me to write the sequel,” I told her. Then I did the math in my head and realized that “a lot of people” was probably twenty, max. Well. That was still twenty people who actually verbally told me that they wanted to know what happened next to my miserable main character.

I can go ahead right here and tell you: Nothing good. At least, not a lotta good. But it’s okay because he doesn’t get really excited about things either.

Last night, I deleted a passage because it just wasn't going to work. Here were three things against it:

(1) It introduced a character who was a stereotype more than a character,

(2) It took the plot in a direction that eliminated a motivation for one character and created an unlikely motivation for another and

(3) It negated the role played early on by a different character of the same profession.

Still, it was darned hard to delete twelve hundred words. It had taken several days to come up with them because I am struggling to give resolution to a certain plot strand in a way that is both realistic and satisfying. I felt like the fellow who is told he is going the wrong way and replies, "But I'm making such good time!"

So tonight - and particularly tomorrow night, my productive Wednesday Writing Night - I hope to get back on track. We are so close to the end of the rough draft that I can't wait.

I just want it to be worthy of my readers' time.