Archive for the ‘dog’ category
After Politics – Going to the Dogs
August 1, 2011Escapism (With Agatha, Dog, Pepper Jack)
July 28, 2011Opportunity Knocks (For an Animated Pearl!)
July 21, 2011After A Long Summer Weekend (With Elephants)
July 5, 2011
Back to the circus….
An Old Dog On An Old Cushion
June 27, 2011
Is a contented dog on a flowery bed.
Blocking Writer’s Block – Tired of Editing? Next Step (If You Dare.)
June 20, 2011
Pearl is really really tired of editing.
I am still working on finishing the manuscript of a novel that I thought was just about finished ages ago.
By finishing, I mean editing, and re-editing. Cutting and cutting more, adding teeny bits.
I am not changing the plot at this point, even though it’s a bit silly. I am just honing. This needn’t be such a long process, except that, unfortunately, I am not somewhat who carves, but rather, someone who whittles. Meaning that I have to go over the same surface again and again and again, smoothing and chipping rather than making decisive definitive cuts.
The big problem with whittling is that it feels endless. (If every time you go through the manuscript, you find more to change, it’s hard to ever feel “finished.”)
Though I am quite sure that at a certain point, I’ll feel pretty certain that I am finished. This will undoubtedly be before I truly am finished. It will still feel good.
I am not there yet.
My next step is to read the whole thing aloud. I shudder at the thought, but reading aloud is truly a great way to edit, especially when you are sick and tired of editing. When you read a manuscript aloud, all of the habitual acceptance disappears, and you immediately understand that that part you always liked is simply boring, or redundant, or run-on, or (if you are lucky), pretty good.
You can see why I shudder!
Pearl just wants me to get on with it.
(For more on writer’s block, see multiple other posts in this category.)
Pearl Moves Up In the World
June 17, 2011
“But all the food falls UNDER the table.”
Dog in the Clouds – Blogger Not In Damascus
June 13, 2011
Please don’t be alarmed. The above painting/picture of a dog in clouds is part of my ongoing experiment with iPad Apps and, although it depicts my sixteen year old dog Pearl, is no sign of Pearl’s past or upcoming demise. (At least, I hope not.) I just like painting Pearl and I thought she’d look cool in clouds.
The spectral quality of Pearl in this painting came to mind today when I was reading about Tom MacMaster, a male graduate student blogger, who has, for the last four months, been posing/posting as “Gay Girl in Damascus.” Recent posts, which implied the detainment of the “girl” by Syrian authorities, had led to increased alarm and activism among followers. This, plus some detection work by more suspicious readers, led to MacMaster’s confession and posted apology.
It’s a long, weird story and cautionary tale: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/gay-girl-in-damascus-blogger-admits-to-writing-fiction-disguised-as-fact/?scp=1&sq=Gay%20gal&st=cse
MacMaster insists he did not intend to harm anyone but rather to “illuminate” the story of the Syrian uprising. He ended up not only writing 137 posts, but hundreds of emails “in character” to sympathetic followers (a few of whom now feel considerably harmed.)
Hard to know quite what motivated MacMaster. (Hopes of a book deal?)
My point here is assure all that Pearl, above, really is Pearl, and that Manicddaily really is me, manic-d-daily (but not, as sometimes depicted, an elephant.)
Country Nights (With Dog and Elephant)
June 12, 2011
Finishing Manuscript/Formatting/Pains of Self-Publishing/Pearl Gets Bored
June 5, 2011
Pearl Doesn't Really Like Formatting Either
I trying today to finish a novel. Unfortunately, I am not working on the fun part of finishing a novel–i.e. coming up with the last sentence and going “ah” at the end.
No, I’m in the ‘trying to fix all the formatting’ stage of finishing a novel. This stage has a lot more ‘dammits” than ‘ahs.’
I like to think that my curses are directed at glitches in computer software, but the fact is that most of the glitches are being made by me personally; that is me pressing the wrong key and suddenly undoing everything I’ve done in the previous five minutes.
These glitches bring me to the wonders and head-aches of self-publishing.
I am planning to self-publish this novel. I will use my own little publishing company, BackStroke Books. (Yes, it even has a fledgling website–http://backstrokebooks.com/.)
The novel will be called Nose Dive. It may not be a great novel, but it’s pretty good–funny, cute, readable. And it will have some really great illustrations, done by a fledgling but wonderful illustrator, named Jonathan Segal.
Now, I could (and should) send the novel around and around to independent agents and publishers instead of publishing it through BackStroke Books.
The problem is that route just feels impossible these days. Especially for a funny, cute, readable–but possibly not absolutely great or super-commercial–novel that is written by someone (i.e. me,) who is not a film star, fashion model, or reality show denizen, who does not have a billionaire politician father, and who has not been able to fabricate a history of drug addiction.
The up-side of self-publishing is that there is something very satisfying about ‘taking the bull by the horns,’ ‘not waiting for the machine,’ ‘plowing ahead.’
The bad side is, well… true publishers have distribution networks, publicity people, etc. etc. And, of course, staff that know about formatting.
I have, thankfully, managed to commandeer some extremely good help in the copy-editing area. But, still, I have to be somewhat involved, especially at this hopefully near-final stage. (Dammit.)
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