If you're bummed that I haven't written a crazy-hot sex scene in awhile, here's The Platonic Blow by W.H. Auden.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Seriously, I've been writing.
Just not the next chapter -- more like portions of the final five chapters, and some sequences in between that I really like.
I mean, I don't want to oversell my stuff. I've got my own criticisms of aspects of the story, and the fact that I like where it goes doesn't necessarily mean that you will.
Anyway, as of now, the too-long-awaited Chapter 20 still has about 5,000 words down, which is long, but I have more to write before it all ties together. Time should free up after this weekend, so I'll have no excuse. By the time it goes live, we'll probably all be disappointed and mildly frustrated that it took so long for that, and it will seem a little anticlimactic. Thanks for your comments and e-mails and sticking around. And if Chapter 20 does, in fact, seem anticlimactic, further down the road we're going to have fireworks and special effects and we're all going to go kind of crazy, I think.
I mean, I don't want to oversell my stuff. I've got my own criticisms of aspects of the story, and the fact that I like where it goes doesn't necessarily mean that you will.
Anyway, as of now, the too-long-awaited Chapter 20 still has about 5,000 words down, which is long, but I have more to write before it all ties together. Time should free up after this weekend, so I'll have no excuse. By the time it goes live, we'll probably all be disappointed and mildly frustrated that it took so long for that, and it will seem a little anticlimactic. Thanks for your comments and e-mails and sticking around. And if Chapter 20 does, in fact, seem anticlimactic, further down the road we're going to have fireworks and special effects and we're all going to go kind of crazy, I think.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Enjoying expectation
Hopefully you guys aren't too frustrated by my failure to post a new chapter, or even give an update on here. No, I probably haven't replied to your incredibly thoughtful e-mail. Summer is busy; fall will be busy; life's just fucking busy and sometimes it's hard to write a massive story for the internet when there's so much other shit to do.
I was thinking about this today and feeling slightly guilty. But there's a time when this will end, and then I'll look back on this experience fondly, and wonder why I was in such a hurry to finish it.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Friday, April 1, 2011
On Dead Poets Society and writing Chapter 18
My relationship to Dead Poets Society is exactly what I attributed to Joe. I never cared for the movie. But I get restless late at night, and end up watching a lot of HBO, even when I'm trying to work on this project.
Dead Poets Society happened to be airing. It was probably ten years since I'd seen it. What struck me right away is that the Robert Sean Leonard seemed very plausibly gay, for all of the reasons that I put in the story. By the end, it seemed blazingly obviously, and the only coherent explanation for the movie.
It also hit me that this seemed like a movie that a person like Chris Riis would love. Chapter 18 was extremely difficult to construct. There were plenty of scenes that I'd been working through my head for at least a year -- Matt's embarrassing speech performance, Joe's walking away, the ensuing fallout, the farewell e-mail and Joe's reaction. The party with Kevin Berger: that actually was going to be its own chapter. At various points, I thought about constructing it like The Hangover, and for most the planning, I thought that Joe and Kevin would hook up. But that no longer seemed consistent with the characters' motivations, and you might have noticed that this story is a little protracted, so another long party sequence at this point in the story probably wouldn't have been a good use of our resources.
But for having mapped all of this out, writing it in a way that built tension, and where the characters' emotional peaks and valleys felt credible, was very, very difficult. I found myself omitting information and buildup because it was unwittingly taking the characters too far. As articulate as Joe and Matt are, they're not going to be at ease in confronting and talking about their emotions for each other. Trying to pull that off: extremely difficult.
I'd had in mind that I was going to alternate passages about The Divine Comedy with Joe's narrative, and then Dead Poets Society clicked. Poetry became the chapter's unifying thread. When I finally had a finished draft, I was watching James Franco's Howl, and threw in an Allen Ginsberg line. Did anyone catch it? Then it hit me: What I should have done is bury all kinds of lines by gay poets -- Michelangelo, Whitman, Frank O'Hara, Ginsberg, Auden -- throughout the chapter. If I weren't writing this in a serial format, I could have moved on to the next chapter, and over the course of months, tracked down and inserted suitable lines. Having waited so long to post a new chapter, though, a plan like that seemed self-indulgent.
I've floated my Dead Poets Society observation to a couple of friends (both gay) who immediately dismissed it. I'm going to guess that's only because they haven't watched it as adults. Here's a wonderful write-up on the theory, which goes beyond the movie to touch on how we're haunted and affected by the formative movies of our adolescence. I didn't grow up with that kind of connection to the movie, but I have something like it now.
Dead Poets Society happened to be airing. It was probably ten years since I'd seen it. What struck me right away is that the Robert Sean Leonard seemed very plausibly gay, for all of the reasons that I put in the story. By the end, it seemed blazingly obviously, and the only coherent explanation for the movie.
It also hit me that this seemed like a movie that a person like Chris Riis would love. Chapter 18 was extremely difficult to construct. There were plenty of scenes that I'd been working through my head for at least a year -- Matt's embarrassing speech performance, Joe's walking away, the ensuing fallout, the farewell e-mail and Joe's reaction. The party with Kevin Berger: that actually was going to be its own chapter. At various points, I thought about constructing it like The Hangover, and for most the planning, I thought that Joe and Kevin would hook up. But that no longer seemed consistent with the characters' motivations, and you might have noticed that this story is a little protracted, so another long party sequence at this point in the story probably wouldn't have been a good use of our resources.
But for having mapped all of this out, writing it in a way that built tension, and where the characters' emotional peaks and valleys felt credible, was very, very difficult. I found myself omitting information and buildup because it was unwittingly taking the characters too far. As articulate as Joe and Matt are, they're not going to be at ease in confronting and talking about their emotions for each other. Trying to pull that off: extremely difficult.
I'd had in mind that I was going to alternate passages about The Divine Comedy with Joe's narrative, and then Dead Poets Society clicked. Poetry became the chapter's unifying thread. When I finally had a finished draft, I was watching James Franco's Howl, and threw in an Allen Ginsberg line. Did anyone catch it? Then it hit me: What I should have done is bury all kinds of lines by gay poets -- Michelangelo, Whitman, Frank O'Hara, Ginsberg, Auden -- throughout the chapter. If I weren't writing this in a serial format, I could have moved on to the next chapter, and over the course of months, tracked down and inserted suitable lines. Having waited so long to post a new chapter, though, a plan like that seemed self-indulgent.
I've floated my Dead Poets Society observation to a couple of friends (both gay) who immediately dismissed it. I'm going to guess that's only because they haven't watched it as adults. Here's a wonderful write-up on the theory, which goes beyond the movie to touch on how we're haunted and affected by the formative movies of our adolescence. I didn't grow up with that kind of connection to the movie, but I have something like it now.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Chapter 18 is posted.
You can read it here.
I'll come back in a week or two with a little post-game analysis about writing it.
Note: The comments to this post have spoilers -- not quite in the way that "Lost" was vulnerable to spoilers, but they'll give away what happens. Proceed at your own risk.
I'll come back in a week or two with a little post-game analysis about writing it.
Note: The comments to this post have spoilers -- not quite in the way that "Lost" was vulnerable to spoilers, but they'll give away what happens. Proceed at your own risk.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
The weirdness of writing
It's been a couple of months since the last chapter, so I thought that it was time to update. Originally I thought that Chapter 18 was going to write itself, because I knew exactly what was going to happen. It would be a matter of carving out time to write. That was it.
Number one, the holidays intervened, and January has been socially eventful, so I haven't had much time.
Second, and more importantly, by posting as I go, I don't leave myself room for error. Once I post a section, I'm stuck with it. If someone acts out of character, or a moment doesn't live up to my expectations, I can't go back and fix it. There are continuity issues. I was writing at a good clip, and then when I re-read the chapter halfway drafted, it just wasn't working. When I re-read it this past weekend, I liked it. How do I know when something is done? Instinct, I guess. Deciding is hard.
Third, even though this is an anonymous story and I don't get any kid of compensation or ego gratification from it, I like the puzzle and the challenge of building it. I think I'm in love with my characters. There are times (not often) when I dream about them. It's enough that I don't want to force a scene just to finish a chapter. Sometimes, I need to let these guys have breathing room, and let their actions sink in.
The next month is going to be busy for me. I know the story that I want to tell in Chapter 18, but I'm not totally sure of how to tell it. I'll figure it out, but it takes time.
When will it come out? It could be 96 hours. It could be March; that's probably a better estimate, but I can't predict. I almost never know.
The comments and e-mails occasionally remind me to buckle down, but I'm learning to write as I do this, and one thing I'm learning is that I can't rush the finished product. Meanwhile, thanks for your patience. I know that I have readers, and I don't take that for granted.
Number one, the holidays intervened, and January has been socially eventful, so I haven't had much time.
Second, and more importantly, by posting as I go, I don't leave myself room for error. Once I post a section, I'm stuck with it. If someone acts out of character, or a moment doesn't live up to my expectations, I can't go back and fix it. There are continuity issues. I was writing at a good clip, and then when I re-read the chapter halfway drafted, it just wasn't working. When I re-read it this past weekend, I liked it. How do I know when something is done? Instinct, I guess. Deciding is hard.
Third, even though this is an anonymous story and I don't get any kid of compensation or ego gratification from it, I like the puzzle and the challenge of building it. I think I'm in love with my characters. There are times (not often) when I dream about them. It's enough that I don't want to force a scene just to finish a chapter. Sometimes, I need to let these guys have breathing room, and let their actions sink in.
The next month is going to be busy for me. I know the story that I want to tell in Chapter 18, but I'm not totally sure of how to tell it. I'll figure it out, but it takes time.
When will it come out? It could be 96 hours. It could be March; that's probably a better estimate, but I can't predict. I almost never know.
The comments and e-mails occasionally remind me to buckle down, but I'm learning to write as I do this, and one thing I'm learning is that I can't rush the finished product. Meanwhile, thanks for your patience. I know that I have readers, and I don't take that for granted.
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