True story: I was in a bar a long time ago (I might’ve been 21 but I might not’ve been, too, I don’t remember exactly) and met a really nice woman from Texas. It was this time of year when false fall and summer were battling for hearts and minds and there’d been a couple really nice fall-like days followed by open heat vents from Hell and ridiculous curtains of humidity.

Anyway, we were hitting it off, having a lovely conversation as young drinkers do when the subject turned to the weather. Both of us were Team Winter (though that wasn’t the term we used) and hated the heat. We might’ve been pretty drunk when she put her hand on top of mine, leaned in, and — serious as a heart attack — asked me, “Why d’you all have weathermen here?”

I thought for a second and said, because we need to blame someone? Well, that made us both laugh. When we get False Spring or Fake Fall, I think of that lady. I hope she’s living a good life somewhere.

Hi, I’m Jason and I write fantastical stories you might enjoy. 

I Can Feel It

Despite some life things getting in the way (work stress, car troubles…) this revision continues to spellbind me even as I struggle to work on it every day. When I tell you this is the most favorite of all my writing so far, it’s not hyperbole. I’m sculpting the draft (number 7!) into something that resembles the vision I had in the beginning, carving away the marble, smoothing it. Realistically, there will be more revisions, but it’s looking like I’ve got something I’ll be proud to release into the wild.

Which is the point of editing and revision. It’s honing that craft, twisting that plot which engages the reader with every page turn. A lot of that happens in the revisions for me though your mileage may vary. Through each draft I kept trying to find the big block of story, every time understanding what was missing but only after I reached the end. All of that is informing the whittling and refining I’m doing now.

It’s the level of work and dedication to that work that makes the story sing. The author has to be determined and put in the time to realizing the vision they had at the beginning. I think that’s why so many who feel “writing is easy” and “I know I have a book in me” never quite get. to the point of having something to share with others. Writing is, indeed, work. There’s not much that’s easy about it. 

But damn if it isn’t actually fun a lot of the time!

The Sun, the Fields, the Sky

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You Are Not the One

Recently I’ve been thinking about the art of writing as it relates to other arts. The painter Rob Schamberger is a friend and talks about his process in his weekly newsletter. In particular, doing studies to work out how to approach the composition and working out color schemes. 

Up front, the thing I’ve learned to love about studies is that they’re not finished paintings and they shouldn’t be approached as if they are. Not a lot of fine-tuning or polishing is needed unless that’s the part of what is being studied.

Initially I did a rather straightforward approach, mostly so that I could work out the composition and let the subject matter tell me what was important to the piece.

(You can subscribe to Rob’s weekly email here.)

It seems to me that writing drafts are the same things. At least mine this time have been. 

The first few drafts were me discovering the main character, walking with him from teenager to middle-age success. I figured out what drove him and how he would react under stress by writing 45 – 60,000 word drafts and realizing that I didn’t need all that to tell the actual story. The next round was figuring out where to start and what to include from the early drafts. Boiling it down to the essentials. Fine-tuning and polishing weren’t things I was thinking about other than ensuring the words all connected in a sentence that communicated an idea. Then those sentences had to connect in paragraphs and chapters to communicate larger ideas. That’s what I was studying. The story was telling me what was important.

When I got to the latest draft, I knew so much more than when I’d begun that in every chapter I was building, layering on the colors of the story. Each draft, even the abandoned ones (there were a couple of them that I don’t count) taught me what I was looking for. I built processes that will help me with the next two books in the series and hopefully trim the production time on them. But art takes the time it takes to make it. You can’t rush these things. 

Especially when life rears its head.

YEAH! YEAH! YEAH!

I’m not a fan of generative AI. At all. I understand, it’s a tool that has some uses but it was trained unethically and it’s the kind of ‘easy button’ that many are looking for. You have to wonder who is going to really profit from this? The average bear? Likely not. 

I prefer to create art the old-fashioned way: with my brain and my hands. While inspiration can and does come from anywhere, doing the work myself is where the real creativity happens.

Creator unknown. Found on Facebook somewhere.Runnin’ Wild On the Beach

We started watching The Rainmaker this week. John Grisham’s stories have been a constant in my life whether printed or filmed because, let’s be honest, practicing law is fascinating for those of us who don’t do it. The ins and outs, the loopholes, the enforcement of The Rules… These are things that I comprehend from my own perspective and gaining some understanding of the process through dramatic situations and often heroic attorneys makes for compelling stories. We’re only three episodes in, but the cast is likeable, the writing is solid, and John Slattery being John Slattery with a side of Gene Hackman is fun. 

My favorite of DC’s Absolute line of monthly titles is Absolute Martian Manhunter. J’onn J’onzz has always intrigued me in every form I’ve experienced him in. But in this book by writer Deniz Camp and artist/colorist Javier Rodriguez (along with Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou on letters and editor Katie Kubert) I’m fascinated with the way they’re playing with our perceptions.  I’m fascinated with the sheer alien-ness of the approach. I can’t recommend this book highly enough because it is SO different from a lot of things in comic shops of late.

I also like where Absolute Green Lantern is going because it includes John Stewart and Sojourner Mullein, two favorite GLs. Absolute Wonder Woman and Absolute Superman are also top of the TBR pile when they drop.

Ranting and Raving This Beauty Away

I want to say here that I abhor gun violence and have for as long as I’ve been an adult and aware of the power of guns. This is sensible. I want people to handle them responsibly, but I also want school shootings to end. The trauma of these shootings visited on schoolchildren over the last thirty-plus years or so (Columbine High School was in 1999 and these things happened before then) is leaking across all of society now. And fomenting violence against enemies is not the way to live a good life. If you’ve hurt others to raise yourself up, I have little use for you and will not bemoan the fact of your death by gun violence except to note that it needn’t have happened. 

I think it’s important, too, if you’re a notable figure that your entire history is revisited upon the occasion of your death. We are complicated people who live complicated lives. That’s what should be celebrated, not just the significant achievements. It’s not speaking ill of the dead, it’s acknowledging their full life. Let’s normalize that instead of idolizing success.

At Capacity

So that’s what I have for you for now. This update is coming to you about two weeks after the last one and I promise this is a rare thing but I’m trying to get on some sort of schedule. There was also stuff to say and I wanted to get it out in the world sooner than later. I anticipate the next update arriving in four or five weeks being that I’ve completed the revision and will be refining and fine-tuning with intent.

The title of this post and the headers are pieces of lyrics from Live’s 1994 album Throwing Copper, still a favorite of mine.

I’ll see you when I see you.