Midway Point Novel Status Report

Today is the 16th of November. Yesterday was the halfway point in the 30 days, and I achieved getting past 25,000. At the end of the day yesterday, I was at 25,750 words.

This morning I wrote 917 words and I hope to write more later.

The writing continues to go well, obviously. There have been times when I felt too tired or too drained to write. A couple times recently I caught myself wasting time on internet browsing when I ought to have been writing. There have been a couple mornings where I stayed in bed later than I should. On these “reluctant” writing days, I’ve gone ahead a written eventually. Typically these were days when I had no idea what scene to write next. The best I could do was to ask myself, “Which character do I have the most interest in today?” I’d pick that character and write some kind of scene that was suited for that character. A few times the scenes didn’t advance the plot much, but at least helped with the word count. In a couple cases, I learned something new about the character that might come in as important later.

Dialogue seems to be going the easiest. I get two characters talking and it goes and goes and goes. Usually I try to have the characters at odds about something, so they’re not just being nice and sweet to each other. I know that in my earliest attempts at fiction writing my biggest problem was lack of tension and conflict. So even if the conflict is minor (someone is angry because the kitchen is messed up), I try to keep the characters in tension.

Lastly, my other successful option has been bringing in new characters. Whenever I introduce a new character to the mix, my writing takes off again. I realize that I can’t add characters all the way through. Being at the halfway point, I actually probably need to stop. So my last major character was introduced this week and he is a lot of fun. He’s comic but also crucial, and he’ll probably grow in the story to the point of being mature and highly valued. I think.

So that’s how it’s going!

The Blank Notebook

by Keith Badowski

This article originally appeared in the Georgia Poetry Society newsletter, Spring 2009.

Prior to my passion for poetry, it was comics—first Charlie Brown and then Spider-Man. I practiced drawing Snoopy as one continuous contour line, lifting the pen only when his leg met his distended belly, so I could darken his teardrop ear with scribbles and draw on his collar.

In childhood, I lost track of so many things: how many times I copied Charles Schultz, how many times I scanned the stationary isle while my parents shopped for groceries. How magnetized I was to the tablet of unlined paper and filled with the anticipation of comic strips I would draw, copying the Sunday comics in pencil, cramming in the speech and thought balloons, carefully putting the printed words inside, tracing overtop it all in black ballpoint ink. When Mom would agree to place the tablet of paper in the shopping cart, she’d make me promise to use it all up, every page, before asking for another. Most likely she knew I’d never use the entirety of any tablet I’d been granted.

Yes, as my wife knows, it’s the same story today; I buy a new notebook—a book of blankness, bursting with the untapped energy of potential: a novel might finally get written or a sequence of sonnets to put the Bard to shame, or the creation of an iconic character, the likes of Spider-Man or Sherlock Holmes.

I own four-hundred and forty notebooks, all of which have been written in, but still include some or even many blank pages. I have never completed a novel and never written a single sonnet with which I’ve been completely satisfied. Yet I bought this new notebook on which I am writing with the antsy hope that the freezer-box of my head might defrost, that the blank yet lined pages might absorb some words for me.

This notebook actually sat untouched in my junk mail pile in the kitchen for a week. Its red cover taunted me, as if to say, ‘Stop! Write, if you can.’ But none of it worked even though I’d felt that same childhood excitement in the checkout line, that inner mantra of ‘My notebook, mine! My notebook, mine!’ as I carried it to my car.

Late one night, while in bed, the notebook out of sight but yet in mind, I told my wife that it’s been ages since I’ve written anything, “My creativity has dried up.” In the dark, I heard her say, “Why don’t you go out and treat yourself to a brand new notebook, a fresh start.”

I snuggled up right against her and wrapped my arms around her and told her how much I loved her and how sweet it was that she would say that, especially when in our office there are so many unfinished notebooks. I confessed too that I’d already splurged on such a purchase, that this red notebook, lay awaiting my pen and how no new writing had yet occurred. I confessed that I’d wasted an hour in the morning on checking email and browsing the web for TV and movie gossip. And I told her of the boy I’d once been who had rejoiced at the fresh blank tablet, what a thrill it had been to receive that collection of potential.

The conversation between me and my wife happened last night, and my heart is still full from my wife’s generous suggestion. Sure, a notebook costs so little, but it seems extravagance when you’ve got shelves full in the other room. I’m grateful for her blessing upon my creative endeavor, even though she categorizes most of what I write as ‘so weird.’ This time it took her love to loose these words, to bless the moving of my pen. Her love ignited this—what I have written this morning.

Anne Sexton on Letting Out 'Some Extraordinary Animals'

Patricia Marx asks Anne Sexton what she means when she says, "The form is always important."

PM: Do you mean by form just the physical look of the poem?

Anne Sexton: Yes, sometimes, but also the sound. But I think of it as something you can hold. I think of it with my hands to begin with. I don’t know what the poem will be and I start out writing and it looks wrong. I start a long line and that looks wrong, and a short line, and I play around with rhyme, and then I sometimes make a kind of impossible syllabic count, and if I can get the first verse and it’s right, then I might keep on with that for four more verses, and then I might change it because I felt that it needed a new rhythm. It has as much to do with speech as it does with the way it will look on the page, because it will change speech—it’s a kind of compression. I used to describe it this way; that if you used form it was like letting a lot of wild animals out in the arena, but enclosing them in a cage, and you could let some extraordinary animals out if you had the right cage, and that cage would be form.

from “Interview with Anne Sexton” (1965)by Patricia Marx in Anne Sexton: The Artist and Her Critics edited by J.D. McClatchy (1978)

Anne Sexton seems to be saying that by using formal structure in poetry, the poet is liberated in terms of content. Sexton, at least, found form to be freeing instead of limiting. One way this might be characterized is that the form occupied the logical part of the brain, allowing the creative side to sneak out and go wild. --Keith Badowski

Dennis Lehane on The Given Day (novel)

You can watch this video for free at Amazon.com.  
Video:       Dennis Lehane on "The Given Day"  
Comment:     Here's a rare thing--an author interview where the novelist clearly shares his logic in constructing plot and character. Also comments on the gift of those characters that just "show up". Lehane is unquestionably one of my most admired novelists. --Keith Badowski

Watch this video at http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/mB850HYHBAVZY    

Quest for the Biggest and Badest Poetry Toolbox: Part 2-Cadence & Caesura

There's no telling who exactly convinced me to keep everything I have ever written. Vaguely I recall one of my English teachers counseling the whole class to never throw any writing away. The theory was that writing could always be rewritten, and if you had the proto-writing, you always had a place to begin again. There was also the hint of preserving your work for posterity, if you ever got good enough that anyone else would want to study your crappy, early writings . . . see how far you came. Suffice it to say, I bought the concept and have copies of just about everything I have ever written since middle school, with a few elementary school efforts still lingering in musty folders too.

As I set out to work on these exercises, suggested by Judson Jerome's The Poet's Handbook, it seemed a natural for me to recycle some of my old undergraduate poems. That way I did not have to start from scratch in the creative process. The proto-writing was there ready, willing, and able to serve. I could concentrate more on the skills that need work, like hearing accents and observing new structural possibilities. It saved me the material generating stage. I could re-use some old bricks.

Deep down there was another motivation for reworking old poems: the deep seeded belief that some of these poems actually deserve to grow up and move out some day. Perhaps by reworking them, I might find the inspiration to revise them to the point that I can send them out as more mature work. Perhaps that's a foolish idea. Perhaps I should burn everything and start anew.

Somehow I don't think that's going to happen. Let's see what actually DID happen . . .

Cadence & Caesura

caesura: "a pause in a line of poetry" (28)

balance: the relationship between "the concepts or images on one side of the caesura and those on the other." Sometimes the balance is "like" things, but could also be "contrast or antithesis". (28)

accent: a "strong stress" (28)

cadenced: "Poetry that is organized by balanced phrases and a loose regularity of strong stresses" (28)

Exercise (4-11-05): Lines with rhetorical breaks and definite cadence, using KJV of Psalms as the model.

Prey

The spider scrambles to surround the fly floundering for its freedom from wicked webs.
So comes the spider to spin its silk and with soundless ease it weakens the fly's wings.

The SPIder SCRAMbles to surROUND // the fly FLOUNDering for its freeDOM from wicKED webs.
So comes the SPIder to SPIN its SILK // and with SOUNDless ease it WEAKens the fly's WINGS.

--Keith Badowski, reworking lines from "The Prayer", circa 1988.

Note to myself: Reading these lines aloud to determine the accents, I already notice how there is a tendency to impose a metric rhythm overtop the cadence. The way I read the lines leans toward putting heavier stress on some words that should only be lightly stressed. For example, I am tempted to read the second line (above) with a steady regular beat, as follows:

So COMES the SPIder to SPIN its SILK // and with SOUNDless EASE it WEAKens the fly's WINGS.

A Wish for Breath

May you compose your songs out of wind as you soar into canyons and strain
to heights as you blow over cities less ancient then the idea of song
which was pushed into our tribe by mothers unable to wait for TV or sugar.

May your notes ever ping like gravel to beckon the buzzing crowds
to draw them into a hum or maybe a tap, anything to push around their plan for the day
to waft inside their air and be breathed but not consumed by lungs
or by speech so plain as to bore. May you wisp across the gleaming points,
may you spread across glowing hives and return my breath to sing.

May you comPOSE your SONGS out of WIND // as you SOAR into CANyons and STRAIN
to HEIGHTS as you BLOW over CITies // less ANCient then the iDEa of SONG
which was PUSHED into our TRIBE by MOthers // unable to WAIT for TeeVEE or suGAR.

May your NOTES ever PING like GRAVel // to BECKon the BUZZing CROWDS
to DRAW them into a HUM or maybe TAP // anything to PUSH around their PLAN for the DAY
to WAFT inside their AIR and be BREATHED // but NOT conSUMED by LUNGS
or by SPEECH so PLAIN as to BORE. // May you WISP across the GLEAMing POINTS,
may you SPREAD across GLOWing HIVES // and reTURN my BREATH to SING.

--Keith Badowski, entirely reworking "A Wish for Singing Breath", circa 1988.

Note to myself: I ought to do this exercise again, concentrating more on using "balance". A few of the lines in my experiment do seem to have balance, but in several instances I made no attempt to balance the concepts or images on either side of the caesura. The lines that seem most balanced to me are these:

The spider scrambles to surround // the fly floundering for its freedom from wicked webs.
(attacker // prey)

May your notes ever ping like gravel // to beckon the buzzing crowds
(sound // sound)

to waft inside their air and be breathed // but not consumed by lungs
(respiration // respiration)