The Ghost of Many Whales
So here's an intriguing idea for a comatose industry, one that's dear to many writers' hearts. It probably won't tell you anything that you haven't already heard but it's interesting nevertheless.First book authors are their own foils it seems. Makes you wonder why we do this but I know all too well why I continue down this road--continue even as I fall asleep trying to work on a project, literally nodding at my laptop. And it's not because what I'm talking about is so uninteresting and non-stimulation. It's just exhaustion because the world, goddamnit, is tiring.
All writing has rules. Stories have plots, they've got to string along a certain way or heaven forbid! the idiot sub-agent or associate editor won't get it because they're all conditioned to respond to some sort of Harry Potter or horny vampire story. (I wrote half of a horny vampire novel years ago and pitched it to an agent who said something to the effect of, "Is it on par with Anne Rice? People want Anne Rice." To which I replied, "It's better than Anne Rice because I'm a better writer than Anne Rice, damnit!" The agent didn't sign me.) So if you come at them with something that hints at literary, then duck under the desk, the heartless, gutless pussies.
Well, anyway, that's not how I write. I once read part of this monumental Tom Clancy book with which I struggled mightily because it was such crap and so boring that I just couldn't finish it. Robert Ludlum's early stuff, however, was fun--something I've thought since first looking at that stuff in high school. After Parsifal Mosaic he kind of loses me, though. It's good storytelling but the writing was what it was.
This is all low-brow critique, isn't it? I mean, does anyone really sit down to read cover-to-cover Sons and Lovers or Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man? Maybe, though unlikely. I haven't read either of these in years and I doubt I shall complete again; I've always relied on the weather to dictate the terms of my reading: Berlin Stories in the late fall; Revolutionary Road in the summer, along with On the Road and A Passage to India. Currently I'm enjoying The Rest of the Earth, an outstanding literary western by William Haywood Henderson. I heartily recommend this novel--shades of Faulkner and McCarthy.
But why the hell does a beach book have to be an excuse to be distracted? I read Empire of the Sun and Absalom! Absalom! whilst soaking up the rays one summer; these days I don't really hit the beach; I value my skin and anyway it's gonna be sunny tomorrow because this is California...
Dostoevsky and Tolstoy work well over the winter. In the spring I suppose you could divulge in Howards End and Rabbit, Run. Those are very "green" seeming books, all rich in language and heavy on story. They release you from winter. Try it out.
So what about Dryline Rhapsody and North of Here? The former was mostly written over a summer and fall, with a hiatus in the early winter and finally completed some mid February a few years ago. The latter has been written and rewritten over the period of many years that I'm not sure exactly when it was penned but the story is certainly is something for the winter since it's set in northern New Hampshire over a November-December time period. And it's a dark subject. I would recommend either one for the beach.
In fact, I would recommend Moby-Dick if, for no other reason than to remind readers that the novel is the greatest written in the English language and that the ghost of many whales haunts the waters over which the wind blows. And wouldn't you know the chapters are around five pages each?
**Project update**
Focusing and outlining. I'm happiest when I'm at work.
Peace.
T.A.M.





