Category: Writing

So, who would’ve thought that Kurt Vonnegut would be taken from us by a brain injury instead of some respiratory ailment brought on by his decades-long habit of smoking Tarreytons?

After seeing Vonnegut talk to John Stewart on The Daily Show in 2005 (follow the link here–Crooks and Liars has the video), I bought his book A Man Without a Country. It was a bracing series of polemics that boiled down our current problems to pure Vonnegut. It was a great read, well worth checking out. In clear, disarming,seemingly naive words, he forces the reader to examine what we often shrug off–the power of corporations, the ineptitude of government, the indignities foisted on the weaker segments of society, the poisoning of the planet–and asks why we allow such things to be. It’s not that long a book–give the old guy a break–so I won’t summarize any of it. Go find a copy and read it yourself.

And read another book or two while you’re at it. His books certainly don’t take long. In fact, I picked up Cat’s Cradle tonight, which I haven’t read in 30 years.

There were plenty of web tributes today. I especially liked this observation from RJ Eskow at Huffington Post:

I mean no slight to the depth or profundity of Vonnegut’s work when I say that I, like many others, was most struck by his novels between the ages of 13 and 15. That doesn’t mean he wrote young people’s books. It means he wrote books that dealt with issues that were big, deep, and profound. And for some reason, in our warped culture it’s mostly young people who choose to deal with those big issues. “Adults” (as they’re commonly known) seem to stop caring about them after a certain age.

Perhaps the finest way Vonnegut influenced me was by encouraging me to keep on thinking about those big issues as I moved through adulthood. And I mean the big ones: Why are we here? How will our race die? Can we be a good species?

That’s a pretty damn nice thing to say about a writer.

Frankly, I was beginning to doubt the whole enterprise. I haven’t received a book contract for Recut Madness, let alone get paid an advance. I’d only seen an electronic version of the cover. The page proofs were nice to look at, but that’s really only two steps removed from manuscript pages, in my mind. Was this book deal some kind of elaborate practical joke? Was someone going to call me up and tell me, “Sorry, we changed our minds–no book for you!” These are the thoughts that go through my mind at crunch times. That’s the kind of crazy optimist I am. It makes me a joy to live with.

But Friday afternoon, just before we were all piling into the station wagon for a few snow-drenched days in western Michigan, the UPS truck rumbles up. The driver brings us a heavy box about 12 inches on all sides. The return label says Virginia, which doesn’t tell me anything.

I sliced open the box, and inside were 25 shiny new copies of Recut Madness. Real, proper, find em on the shelf copies. Yahoooo! I didn’t really read them through (I think I know the pieces by heart now), but I flipped through, trying to imagine what the casual shopper of modern satire might be looking for in a title. Something to while away the doldrums, to add some spice to life, to keep the absinthe bottle in the cupboard for just a little time more. Baby, this book has got it. Getting the copies before the Easter holiday was extra nice, because I could hand-deliver a few copies to relatives.

The books are here. Now, one worry is gone. Time to wait for the other worries to come pounding on the door in the middle of the night.

I’ve made some teasing references in the past weeks to a book coming out in the near future. Well, that near future is finally almost here. The cover art was sent to me this week for my final approval (with the caveat as usual that it was too late to make any changes), and if I could figure out how to manage pdf files, I could try to post a copy of it. But that will probably come some time in the future.

“Recut Madness” is a book of vignettes from famous films that imagine what they might be like if they were written from a partisan point of view–if the Jews really ran Hollywood, say, or if Bill O’Reilly and Jerry Falwell did. Laptop technology exists now to re-edit films to a consumer’s own tastes , right? Well, if that consumer had a bias toward the extreme right or left, these are the scenes that would emerge. In a way, it’s like Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, but this time I’m rewriting familiar stories to make fun of both sides of the aisle. (Of course, many right wingers read my previous books and assume that they have found a compadre in arms who will share their screeds about feminists, liberals, vegans and everything else they hate. And they’re perfectly entitled to their reading of those stories, no matter how much of a caricature it makes them seem.)

“Recut Madness” emerged from a version of “The Wizard of OZ” I was working on last year, that imagined the story as a Republican dystopia–incompetent leader, terrorized populace, a scarecrow who wouldn’t come out of the closet, that sort of thing. After a few conversations with my agent, we decided it might be a good idea to expand the book to include other movies, just in case someone hated OZ or actually liked the president (I’m not sure I’ve ever met a whole lot of either one, but it’s good to listen to your agent if you want them to work hard for you). I was skeptical at first, but after three months’ work, I had a pretty big collection of recuts. It came out much better than I expected, and I’m damn glad to be back with a book to sell. It’s good to be back in the game again. Maybe this time I can spin the experience out as long or longer than last time.

One of the great things about working on the book is that I got to watch many great movies again to verify that scenes were as I remembered them. I didn’t have time to watch most of them in their entirety, but I have a nice list now of movies to put on my watch list. I did get to watch “Triumph of the Will” for the first time, but I didn’t have to take many notes, as I found numerous neo-nazi websites that transcribe the movie scene by loving scene. When time permits, “A League of Their Own” and “High Noon” are two I’ll be queuing up.

So if I’m lucky, during Sunday’s telecast of the Oscars, someone receiving an award will pipe up with some stupid remark about how Hollywood really reflects America’s values, and up yours George Bush, and movies really serve a positive role in society, or some other self-aggrandizing claptrap. Such preening self-importance can only serve to piss off a good portion of the audience, and that can only be good for sales.

…and I can turn it off. Since last Thursday, I’ve been slaving over the page proofs of my new book, looking to milk every last laugh out of every last situation. And even after the 30th time reading some of the selections, rewrites still jump out at me. There’s no way to be a writer and not have a hidden (or blatant) streak of anal retentiveness when rewriting. And since the page proofs are the last chance to make any kind of changes, the pressure is there to get it right.

And in all modesty, I stood up to the pressure and did it right. My only regret is that I had to cut an image from my parody of “The Wizard of Oz” that speculated about Dorothy, after being kidnapped by the flying monkeys, living a life like Sheena the Jungle Queen, living by her own laws outside society in a leather tunic. It may not sound funny now, but it was great in context, but often one must smother one’s babies for the sake of the larger story.

Working feverishly again today, as my publisher sent me the proposed jacket copy for the book. Weeell, doggies. It was about as exciting as a bowl of spit. Besides that, they got the names of my previous books wrong, and failed to mention that my #1 best-seller status was on the New York Times list, and not Elle Decor’s. So, I can either give my stamp of approval, or I can rewrite the whole thing so that someone with a passing interest might pick the damn thing up in the bookstore. My wife thinks that that’s what they had in mind all along.

I’ve been toying with the idea of publishing via print on demand for a while. On my shelf sit two novels and another book that the NY publishing industry has failed to take interest in. Which is their prerogative, of course, because their taste is impeccable and track record unblemished by failure. But after this current book, for which I lined up the cover artist, wrote the jacket copy, handled the copy edit, and undoubtedly will do a bunch of PR, marketing and outreach to bookstores on my own, I’m starting to think: I’m doing all this work anyway, why not just put them out myself? What’s the downside, except that regular newspapers won’t review the books (for now)?

But now I’m burned out. This eight-week long congestion in my chest is just wearing me down, and I need to save my energy for a camping trip this weekend, inside a cave in Wisconsin. My next book might be something like: “Fun with Mucous: The Bright Side of Life-Threatening Bouts of Pneumonia.” Then I’ll have a full week to rest up for the Super Bowl and whatever drinking that will involve.

So, things are quiet around the basement for a few weeks. Finally some time to catch up on everything that wasn’t done in 2006. And many of the years before that. Then on Wednesday, WHAM! My publisher sends me page proofs for my new book, AND the art director from the same place sends me a sketch of the proposed cover art looking for my input. Hotcha!

Man, it is hard to say how good it feels to have these things in my hands. Now the book seems real. It will be in people’s hands before long, and I’ll get to wave it around like a calling card. It was exciting to have the contract (not that I’ve seen the paperwork yet, or received my pathetic advance), and gratifyingly bracing to have the assignment to crank out. But now it feels like something that will someday sit in a person’s hand and keep them company, with amusement I hope. The type, the headings, the alignment bullseyes on the side–it’s the real deal.

The pile of pages was a little intimidating at first. I’ve got four working days to read this through and make any last changes. Four days in which to shine this thing to its uttermost brilliance (because man, a clinker sentence or a misspelled word is going to bug me once it goes to press, and a comic situation that I don’t milk to the high heavens will chew away at my psyche every time I pick the book up). Since it came about 3 pm, I was already too caffeinated to dare approach it. No editorial changes that late in the day are worth spit. I just skimmed the whole thing, noting that they failed to italicize any word that had been marked for it, and waiting for the next morning. And today, I chewed it up for a solid five hours, and can feel the strain in my head already. But it’s a good kind of tired. (Can one say that unironically anymore? Is Letterman done with it?)

It can take so long between getting an idea and actually seeing it in book form that creators understandably shy away from it. You could literally shoot, edit and release a couple movies in the time I’ve been working on this. But the delay of gratification doesn’t bother me. My only regret is that during the long months of writing and rewriting, I simply have no confidence that what I’m doing is worthwhile. Every other human endeavor seems more important than what I’m working on. Daytime commercials about starting my own business from home start to look tempting. I toy with the idea of going to grad school to study volcanoes. I wonder if the neighbors would object to a small chinchilla ranch in the back yard.

But then, the book starts to materialize, and I get that feeling that I’m doing exactly what I should be with my time. Not only that, but all my other ideas seem to be plausible too, and I start to look through old files to find projects to be revived. I’m betting the feeling won’t last very long, but it does feel very nice.

Next week, after I’ve sent all the pages back, I’ll describe more about the book here.

Again I say unto thee, HOTCHA!

I was ready with a couple posts for this week. Or ideas for posts, really. Or just notions. Yeah. Probably notions. Notions to post.

But anyway, can’t work on it now. I just had a conversation with my editor in New York, and we agreed to some changes in my manuscript. So it’s time to put on my hunkering pants and get down to it. So I’ve got to turn off the DSL and get to work.

But don’t forget. National Monkey Day is coming in two weeks, so get your shopping done now.

Okay, now I find out that November is actually something called National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo, kemosabe). So here I’m patting myself on the back for settling down to blog writing again, and I’m told that it’s time to start scribbling a novel. Lay off, willya? Isn’t the world choked with enough bad novels as it is? To say nothing of airport bookstores.

Speaking for all us slow writers, John Green has launched “NAtional Finish A Draft Of Your Book I Mean Seriously Come On Month” , or NAFADOYBIMSCOM.

Instead of writing an entirely new novel in a month, all you have to do is finish one you’ve, say, been working on for many months.

Thanks, John, but I’m more at the stage where National Finish That Mad-Lib Sitting On Your Desk Month (or NaFiTMaLiSitOnYDe) is more doable.

The perils of Dav Pilkey’s heroic hero Captain Underpants continue. Oh, who will protect our citizenry?

Captain Underpants has battled talking toilets and Professor Poopypants but he was no match for a Long Island high school principal who banned students from dressing up as the children’s book character.

There’s so many things I want to write in this blog…

...and that sentence makes me sound just so diligent about things, doesn’t it?…

But they are going to have to wait for a while. Shock on shock, I have a new book deal. Well, six weeks old, but new enough, and the publisher wants it as of yesterday. So my apologies to those of you who want my salient opinions on circuses and CIA secret prisons, but my nose must be affixed to the handy grindstone for the foreseeable future.

Don’t want to say here what the book is about, but in researching it, I came across this movie quote that I’d never heard before. Clifton Webb delivers it in “The Razor’s Edge”:

You know, I’ve never been able to understand why, when there’s so much space in the world, people should deliberately choose to live in the Middle West.

Ha!

PS:THere was a crazy thing on the Huffington Post this morning about a strange sea beastie that washed ashore in Siberia. It’s probably a hoax, but there are some cool pictures. Looks kind of like one of the Muppets used during the early years of SNL.