Novel – Page 6 – Teel McClanahan

Cheating, Death – chapter 11

Only one chapter, again, today. Still on track to finish the book this week, but it’s slower than I’d expected. I think most of the resistance I’m running into at this point comes from something I’ve had trouble with for as long as I can recall: I know the story. I know the story, so it’s harder to write the story.

When I just sit down and write, when I don’t know what’s coming next or where things are headed or even, in some cases, anything about what I’m going to write at all, it often flows quite freely. Even with the Untrue Tales… where I know the basic character/story/universe arcs as well as I know my own past, I don’t know how it’s all going to come together on the page, and it comes pretty easily. With Forget What You Can’t Remember, the most difficult parts to write came after I’d realized how it was all going to come together at the end, because then I had to push these characters through those situations and lead them to be at the right places at the right times … and that’s less like watching the story unfold as it is hammering cold iron into shackles. And it’s always felt less like creative expression to me and more like work.

I’ve been doing somewhat better with this book than I expected, considering I’d had the bulk of the story outlined months ahead of time. In fact, the parts of the story I knew the best, toward the beginning, were some of the easiest to write. This may have had to do with the extent to which they were unconstrained; I knew what had to happen, and I knew what the last scenes of the book would be, but everything in between was unknown. And until I’d reached the middle of the book, I didn’t even know how long it was going to be or how much more time/space/words/chapters I’d have available to get Melvin and Stacy and Frances to where they needed to be, when they needed to be there.

It was after that I slowed down, I guess. After I’d more thoroughly outlined the remainder of the book. After I’d created a bit more of a financial plan for the book. Something vital happened in chapter 11, and getting everyone and everything in place for it has been a challenge. Then, writing it was a challenge. Now I’ve only got two chapters left: Chapter 12, in which I have to get everyone in place for chapter 13, in which Melvin has one more important place in the story to be, and Stacy’s final fate (in this book) is revealed. I expect the core of chapter 13 to be technically exacting, but easy to write; this is my favorite moment, the brilliant thing that makes me love the book (and that I think will lead many to despise it/me). I expect the vignette that closes out the novel to be reasonably easy to write and, in case I haven’t mentioned it, I plan to write a new short story to include in a 2nd Edition of More Lost Memories that expands on something that happens in that vignette. ((Actually, I plan to write two more stories for MLM; one based on that something in ch.13, one written from a zombie’s POV in the Denver outbreak.))

Ooh. I’ve just had an idea about the length of Cheating, Death. I could add a 2nd appendix which includes all these blog posts. (I’m already planning on writing an “Appendix Z – About the Zombies” where I detail what the zombies are and are not in my book. ie: they are dumb and slow, they don’t use tools or language, and they are spread by infection/bites, so the uninfected dead are just dead, and no one is coming up out of graves (Contrary to the cover image. Hah!)) They seem like they might be an interesting/relevant addition to the book. I’ll look them over and consider it when I get to doing the layout. Tell me what you think of the idea, in the comments.

Go read Cheating, Death now.

Cheating, Death – chapter 10

Go read Cheating, Death now.

This was another difficult one to write, actually. I seem to have spent the last 9 hours working on it. Not all of that time was spent writing or, as it were, staring at the bottom of the document, trying to figure out what to write next. Some of the time was spent on Twitter, quite a few times I stopped to eat and/or to cook. I’d meant to write chapter 10 in a couple/few hours, then write an essay about the price of books, and then work on writing chapter 11 today, as well. I’ve only just finished writing the even-more-difficult paragraphs featuring Frances at the end of chapter 10.

It shouldn’t have been this difficult, I’d thought, since there were multiple people in this chapter. And at the beginning and end of the main part of the chapter, that was reasonably true. I spent some time here and there making sure my characters’ wanderings around downtown Denver were both plausible and accurate. Google Maps and Street View make this a lot easier and more accurate than simply relying on my memories of my one visit to the city. I mean, the story was designed and developed and laid out in the Denver I remembered, and I haven’t had to re-arrange anything or even change the directions people drove/wandered, but all the street names, driving directions, walking durations, et cetera are accurate/verified. It was really neat when, after having described that that’s what Melvin would be seeing, I walked through on Street View and discovered that they’d driven that road at the same time of day/year and the sun was in the sky directly over the road in front of him.

Then there was the middle of the chapter, a long, introspective section where Melvin is walking around alone again, thinking. And then there’s the vignette with Frances at the end. She’s so far beyond real speech, surrounded only by the walking dead and the dead dead, operating beyond conscious thought or motivation, that trying to come up with 500 words to describe her situation was a challenge. So right now chapter 10 is the shortest of the chapters, by a few dozen words. And chapter 11 will be difficult for … other reasons. Someone dies. Someone else gets bitten. And then I have to explain why Max and Stacy didn’t notice the Sergeant’s people when they drove right through Civic Center park – they must not have been there, yet. Right?

Sigh. And I’ve just corrected the spelling of the word “awesome” toward the end. Let me know if you find other things that need correction. I need a nap, and I’ve already waited for the Smashwords conversion queue twice (since I forgot to give chapter 10 a subtitle, at first). I’m into my 3rd litre of Diet Mountain Dew today; I shouldn’t need a nap.

Go read Cheating, Death now.

Cheating, Death – chapters 8 & 9

Go read Cheating, Death now.

Chapter 8 took me a long time. Writing it involved a lot of procrastination. I first sat down to write it at least an hour before midnight, Sept. 29/30 – and immediately spent an hour and a half re-writing the end of chapter 7. (If you read the version that’s been on Smashwords since 9/29, which ends with Chapter 7, be sure you re-read the end of 7; I turned 2 paragraphs into a 900-word vignette.) Then I stopped for food, watched a movie, and otherwise procrastinated & stalled, writing only ~600 words in the next 6 hours. By 10PM on the 30th, having had only 3 hours of sleep, I’d read dozens of articles about Google Wave, started a blog post on Self Publishing, posted an episode of the Modern Evil Podcast, and only managed to get about 1500 words of chapter 8 written. Then stayed up until almost 3AM on the 1st, adding only a couple of paragraphs in the next 5 hours.

Why was I procrastinating so much? In a tweet I put it this way: “It feels like I’ve been avoiding an actual argument with someone I care about, rather than an argument between 2 of my characters in a book.” – If that’s not clear, I’m saying that I had become emotionally involved with the characters in my book, and I was avoiding writing the argument in a way similar to how one might attempt to avoid an argument they knew was coming with someone they care about in their real life. But the argument was important. I’m not sure I’ve got it right, either; I’ve been avoiding re-reading it in the same way I was avoiding writing it.

October 2nd I didn’t get any writing done. I tried a couple of times, wrote a sentence or two at most, but it was a struggle. And then it was the Art Walk, downtown. And then it was the weekend (spending time with my wife seems to supplant getting work done – I realized recently that this probably represents an unconscious but real prioritization where my wife & my marriage are more important to me than my work/art/writing, which seems like a reasonable prioritization), and then… well, then last night I woke up at 11PM and … after checking my emails and eating breakfast and a watching an episode of Dexter, at around 3AM I was ready to get to work. Monday morning, as it were. In about an hour and a half, I wrote the final ~750 words of chapter 8, and updated it on Smashwords.

Ouch, that was a long one. One hour shy of six days between updates, after having taken only five and a half days to write the first 7 chapters (over half of the book!). Then, I spent the rest of today writing chapter 9. Twelve hours is a lot better than six days, though it’s nowhere near as fast as I wrote the first half of the book. There was plenty of stopping to think instead of writing right through. It was a struggle. It even required a change of venue (I wrote the 2nd half of chapter 9 at the library).

But Stacy is back in the picture for a while, now. It’s a lot easier to write when there’s more than one living person present in the scene. Heck, even one living person and some specific zombies is easier to write than one person and a nonspecific zombie infestation they’re effectively avoiding significant contact with. I’m trying to keep this book from getting to be too introspective. I mean, it’s still introspeculative fiction, but leaning toward action and somewhat away from contemplation. With Stacy in all the remaining chapters (in one way or another), I’m thinking they’ll flow somewhat smoother.

If sleep goes okay tonight and I’m able to concentrate tomorrow, I should be able to finish at least chapters 10 & 11. Maybe more, if I’m really on a roll. Still on track for 13 chapters. Maybe I’ll hit the end of the first draft by Wednesday afternoon. That would be nice. If you haven’t started reading, yet, the first four chapters are still free, or you can buy access to the full text (including all future updates and the final eBook edition), currently priced at $2.99. Remember, the price you pay is all you need to pay, so the sooner you buy in, the better for you. Feel free to wait & buy the paperback from me, currently estimated to be ~$10. 😉

Go read Cheating, Death now.

Cheating, Death – chapters 6 & 7

Go read Cheating, Death now.

Whew, that was a hard one. Well, a hard two, I suppose. I kept having to stop writing, take a break, and try to remember how it happened. I wanted to get it just right, get things in the right order. Causes, effects, surprises, and zombies, all in the right sequence. I had to re-jigger my outline a tiny bit. I even shifted one of the chapter-opening vignettes from chapter 6 to chapter 7, and wrote a fresh one for chapter 6, because of how the story was unfolding & lining up.

The major event of chapter 7 is still the same; the book still has the same chewy emotional center, right in the middle of the book. The next 6 chapters, they’re all downhill. And if you’ve been reading what’s in the first 7, that’s pretty bad news. I mean…. Well, what do I mean? let me excerpt a couple paragraphs for you (Yes, this contains spoilers, but it’s a zombie book; you knew everyone was going to die, right?), from chapter 7:

Even in the dark, he could see it was too late. In the low light, the scene was like something out of an old black and white movie, Madeline’s blood dark like chocolate syrup or motor oil as it gushed from her neck. Whether she hadn’t heard it approaching or had been too afraid to get out of the cart and run, Madeline had still been sitting there hugging the number ten can of peaches to her chest when the undead monster had torn her throat out with its teeth. As the zombie languorously munched away at Madeline’s soft flesh, her blood gushed out in an unbelievable torrent of darkness that consumed her clothes, the peaches, and which seemed to be opening a dark portal in the floor under the cart.

Melvin took in all this in an instant, and in another instant he was shoving the zombie one way and pulling the cart another. Without a thought, Melvin discovered that he was perched over the laid-out body of the monster, repeatedly bringing the heavy can of cling peaches in heavy syrup down onto the remains of its long-since ruptured skull, smashing it again and again into smaller and smaller chunks. Frances didn’t stop him, she simply stood by the blood-soaked body of her last living child, too shocked to shed tears and too grief-stricken not to weep. After what seemed like a long time, Melvin’s arms stopped moving, and Frances caught her breath. Then Madeline’s mutilated form began moving, and Frances’ breath caught in her throat.

Yeah. Fun. It’s all downhill from here. Things falling apart, as it were. I think I’ve got the sample % right so that the first 4 chapters are still free.

Go read Cheating, Death now.

Cheating, Death – chapter 5

Go read Cheating, Death now.

Chapter 5 took me a little longer to write than the others. This has something to do with the weekend; I actually took some time off to play Beatles Rock Band (my birthday gift) and to spend time with my wife. It also has something to do with money. F_cking money.

There’s a bit of a story about this story, you see. I’ve been thinking about writing this book for quite some time. At some point, many moons ago, I realized what the story was, and who it was about. I wrote a quick pseudo-outline of the basic story… well, actually I just made some notes about it in the mind-mapping software I’ve been using on my iPhone (Headspace – worth a look; I went from the free version to the paid version, its icon moved to my first page and, this week, to my ‘dock’ – I use it that much), but the character arcs were all there. Then I spent several months reading popular modern zombie fiction, as ‘research’. Now I’m actually writing the thing.

After a few relatively easy-to-write chapters, I started looking forward. Wondering what the next chapter was supposed to encompass. Thinking about length. How long a book did I want, how many chapters (at their current, relatively stable, length) would I need for that, and so on. And it occurred to me this weekend that … the story I have to tell isn’t of traditional “book length.” Not without a lot of padding and filler and … and I don’t know what. Actually, going by my outline, my mind map, my initial notes, if I’d just written the rest of it without thinking about structure at all, it’d probably be over in twenty thousand words. And I’d probably have missed some of the story. And it would be almost unpublishable as anything but the eBook it already is.

I stressed out, for a while, thinking about money, about what length book people expect, and how writing a shorter book would impact sales. About how if the book were short enough, maybe I could price it at $10 and I could make a lot more impulse sales than I do at $13 and $14. About my current trade discount of 50%, which effectively sets my cover price for me, and is based on the idea of being palatable to book stores. About giving up on the ridiculous idea that book stores will ever stock my books, about reducing the trade discount to 20%-30%, which will keep it listed online at Amazon/bn.com & give me more pricing flexibility (& potentially more profit per copy sold). About rethinking the premises on which I make decisions for my publishing company, looking at what my current realities are, and looking to the future & potential of storytelling in all its forms.

Then, finally, I ended up where I’d started. Which is that I run my own publishing company so that I can write the books I want to write, the way I want to write them. So that I can tell the stories I have in me to tell, in whatever way is best for each story, and then put it out there as though the industry has no business telling me how and how-not to be. Because they don’t. All they know is what’s made money for them recently. Which isn’t the point, for me. Realizing which, I spent some time working on writing a closer-to-proper outline (on paper, but moreso in Headspace) of the story the way it wants to be told and the way I want to present it.

I’m open to following Cheating, Death wherever it takes me, so if things here or there go longer along the way, so be it. But with the basic structure of the story laid out, it looks like 13 chapters total. With the average chapter length I’ve been finding so far, it looks like about 33k words total. The paper book for a story that long will probably be around 124pp, which I can sell for $10. (I have 2 poetry collections available that are this size, already.) Which makes the final (estimated) eBook price $4.99, the current eBook price $0.99, with an expected $0.50 increase with each additional chapter. So go get Cheating, Death now for $0.99 and read it as I write it. Or wait until it’s done, pay $4.99 for the eBook or $10 for the paperback.

Hmm… I think it’s early enough yet that I’ll try to write Chapter 6 before I go to bed. I’m right in the heart of the emotional center of the book, right now. This is Act II, chapters 5-8, where Melvin is confronted by his wife about his cheating, before things really start to go downhill.

Go read Cheating, Death now.