Writing Wrongs (and Rites)

When the act of writing is at its pernicious worst, I try desperately to gain some perspective by imagining that I could be, instead, cleaning out bedpans, toiling in a coal mine, or making solicitation calls (like I did right out of college). But, after doing so, I sink deeper into my tar pit of pity: after all, a candy striper—after administering a barium enema—doesn’t have her handiwork savaged on Amazon by some idiot named ReedM&weep@aol.com.

Sometimes all of the planets are aligned and writing can be enjoyable and perhaps even productive, akin to cracking open a piñata and feasting on the candy (unfortunately for this metaphor, the piñata is one’s head). And—these wondrous, fleeting moments of inspirational twinkle—make all of the slogging, procrastinating, doubting, and palpitating primal fear worth it.

My process involves poring through notes, grafting together shreds of ideas and hoping that some will play nice together, and researching the topic at hand (in the case of the Heck books, usually this has me sifting through lists of dead historical figures to find potential teachers best suited for the particular circle of Heck I’m fashioning).  At this point, some ridiculous plot-driven chain of events will avail itself and I’ll capture them within a synopsis.

I am both cursed and blessed that my subject matter—the Underworld—is so fertile and I have a lot of conceptual toys to play with. With Rapacia, my sandbox was greed, and—fortunately—research merely involved heading to the local mall. Oh, wait…it seems that one of you has a question. Yes, you. No, the guy with the dueling scar, seersucker suit, and glass briefcase handcuffed to his wrist.

Question: What were the events that affected you writing Rapacia?

Answer: That’s a great question, fabricated figment of my imagination. Most every event in my life led to the physical writing of the book, if you think about it. But I’m sure you mean the events that affected the plot line, specifically. Growing up, the only thing to really do was to hang out at the mall. Even though we never had any money, it’s what we all did, which is rather pointless since we either were wasting our time surrounded by things we didn’t want or torturing ourselves drooling over things we couldn’t afford! So this conundrum probably formed the basis of Mallvana: a place so wonderful and glittering and perfect and awesome that it is either Heaven to some, or Heck to others, depending on your particular circumstances (and credit limit). And, like Marlo Fauster (the just-teen kleptomaniac anti-heroine of the Heck books), I have—as an adolescent—run into a few sticky situations in which certain material items found in a store somehow made it to my backpack. But only a couple and—on both occasions—I did an even more daring act of returning the items. In fact, sometimes my friends and I would commit acts of reverse shoplifting, where we would smuggle stuff that we didn’t want into a store—weird stuff—and put it on the shelves. And also, like the first book, most of the turmoil and horror come from my experiences in middle school, a place that isn’t full of fun and laughter like elementary school, but without the responsibilities, empowerment and promise-of-impending-freedom that high school provides. A place that feels like eternity—and actually is—at least for a little while.

Lightning Round in which I psychically take unformed questions from the collective unconsciousness of my invisible audience

• What am I working on? I’m dusting off an older manuscript and—after doing so—may actually revisit it, if it will have me. In addition, I am working on the fourth Heck: Where the Bad Kids go book, Fibble (honest).

• None of your business, mom. Why do you always, always do this to me?!

• I am currently reading the writing on the wall, while my wife reads me the riot act. My favorite new author is the author that is really good but not too good. That just pisses me off. My favorite book of the year is Kelly Link’s Pretty Monsters. My favorite book of all time is whatever book buys me a summer home.

• My favorite food is sweet, hard, wrapped in foil, brown (sometimes white), occasionally has nuts or raisins in it, and gives me a little “lift” just when I need it the most. No, it’s not chocolate…I forget the name, though.

• The writers that have influenced me the most are, in no particular order, Kurt Vonnegut, Roald Dahl, Tom Robbins, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and whoever wrote the “Do not open hatch while aircraft is in flight” sign, which has saved my butt on more than one occasion.

• No, that sound was my thighs rubbing against the Naugahyde chair.

Thank U Wordstock, Thank U India, Thank U Silence

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who showed up at my reading yesterday at Wordstock: the penultimate celebration of all things “book”! That said, I would also like to officially castigate all those who didn’t show—billions of you. You really let me down, especially you sheepherders in the Tibetan village of Xiahe (you know who you are). I shared the stage with the brilliant David Michael Slater (an audience member asked if we were related and, in a sense, we are all brothers—except the women—they would be our sisters, which is weird when I think of my mother and wife both being my sisters…never mind). The audience was supportive and engaged (maybe they’ll get married some day) and several lucky children won OFFICIAL Heck buttons. After a brisk book signing, I led a workshop on marketing to young folks—a subject that no one can ever really master as kids are too smart for such things—but the adults in the group asked great questions and oozed integrity (I trust that’s all they oozed) and seemed to enjoy themselves (one attendee even brought me French fries!). Anyway, Wordstock is an amazing resource for authors and readers alike and I look forward to embarrassing myself next year!

It’s weird…

Adding Rapacia to the ever-growing Heck library…OK, just two now, but eventually more and more and way too much.

…weird cool, but still weird. I just got my big, beautiful box of fresh Rapacia: The Second Circle of Heck books in the mail, saw Bob Dob’s freakin’ gorgeous cover for the next book, Blimpo: The Third Circle of Heck, and just turned in my first draft of Fibble: The Fourth Circle of Heck, which will be out Spring/Summer 2011!

It’s like I’m living three lives simultaneously.

And, you would think—after toiling several months over Fibble—I’d take a moment to relax. But no. I was at the dentist, and as he was trying to cram as much steel, cardboard, and whatever he had strewn around his office into my mouth, I started thinking about all these cool ideas for Snivel: The Fifth Circle of Heck. Geez…brain, give me a break!

Oh well…it’s time to dress my dogs in their little dinner jackets. We like a formal dinner around here.

More Music

OK, I guess when I mentioned posting music in the weeks to come, I really meant in the minutes to come. Like, now. So here is another song that I like to call Damian’s Song (No No No). It’s a bad song about a bad kid whose life turned out badly. It’s also a bad song by a bad guitarist whose solo turned out badly. Maybe I mean bad in the way that used to mean good (but I probably don’t).
damians-song-no-no-no

The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music

…which is a terrifying thought. It begs the question “what music would endow land mass with unnatural life?” Is this even morally sound? Not the sound of music, per se, but the ability to animate rocks and dirt? It’s just creepy. Speaking of which, here is one of a series of Heck-based musical numbers I will be posting in the weeks to come. This first song is a little ditty called Christmas at Grizzy Mall which, to the best of my knowledge, is about Christmas at Grizzly Mall. Enjoy, or at least grudgingly tolerate.

grizzly-mall

Heck on the Radio

Radio—the transmission and reception of electromagnetic waves of radio frequency, especially those carrying sound messages—is a medium you don’t hear about much anymore, unless you have a metal plate in your head and can pick up KRAP, that new all rap station in Kalamazoo. In any case, Steve Lindsley of Portland’s KEX Radio called me to chat a bit about Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go. Listen to it: IF YOU DARE. dale-basye4

The Devil Went Down to Texas

This just in from perhaps Heck’s biggest fan, Dawn Cline: teacher and librarian at Timberwood Middle School.

“Timberwood Middle School is in Humble, Texas (oxymoron!). It’s named after Humble Oil, which is now Exxon. We’re about 30 miles northeast of Houston. We’re still picking pine needles out of our back sides due to Hurricane Ike. The students pictured are sixth and eighth graders. The eighth graders are some of my amazing student assistants.”

This makes it official: Timberwood Middle School is most DEFINITELY near the top of my list of favorite Texas children’s learning institutions northeast of Houston!
Congratulations! I am, however, rather jealous of the poster. I didn’t even get a Heck poster! Man…

The Letter

The moment you send the first draft of your novel to your editor, it ceases to be a book and becomes, instead, a boomerang. It announces its return with a dull, thunderous thud on the doorstep as the UPS man bids a hasty retreat. It’s as if he/she had placed a bomb or a flaming turd at your door. Or, worse still, a manuscript gored with an editor’s red pen.

You stare at the bulging envelope all morning. Anticipation and trepidation do battle in your chest cavity for control of your palpitating heart while perspiration claims your shirt. Suddenly, like ripping off a Band-Aid while simultaneously diving into a freezing lake, you rush toward the package, slice it open, thrust your hand into the gaping wound and emerge with The Letter. It’s the summary of all the work you need to do to take your manuscript to the next rev.

The whole experience isn’t actually that bad. It simply depends on whether I’m feeling fragile, insecure or merely defensive.

My editor is swell. She let me know, from the very beginning, that if she had to write everything that she loved about my writing, that there wouldn’t be any room for any edits. This particular situation sounded like heaven to me. But that said, she respects me enough so that she doesn’t feel she has to couch every criticism or smother every suggestion. Her feedback is keen, and she knows all of my tricks. It’s unnerving. It’s also the blessing of my professional career.

Firstly, editors don’t want you to follow their edits to the letter (unless they do). They want you to be the writer and take their suggestions, put them in your mad, bad brain, and come up with some solutions to bridge the lapses in logic mining your first draft, or to breathe life into flat characters, or tie up the numerous loose ends fraying your secondary plots. Secondly, your editor is your co-pilot, and if she says dive, you dive. Or at least think about how your character, the hypoglycemic airline marshal who left his candy bar back at O’Hare and must summon the courage deep within himself to deal with the situation brewing in Coach before he crashes.

The Letter is your road map. You will refer to it often. It will seem like a Shopping List for the impossible, at first, but any writer worth his or her weight in legal bond paper will have themselves musing, after the first wave of nausea has passed, “Well, I suppose I don’t need the stewardess character to bridge the luggage carousel scene and the protagonists’ high-altitude sugar coma.” Whatever you do, don’t try to have all the answers posed by this disturbing letter upon reading. You won’t. But later that day or after a fitful night’s sleep, ideas will pop into your head. You’ll actually find yourself excited about the possibilities for improvement. And that’s what it comes down to: feedback from your editor doesn’t mean that you’re a failure. It means that someone is nearly as invested in your work as you. They believe in you enough to be straight with you. After all, at the end of the day, would you rather have a nice letter from your editor, or the best book you could have written?

Stark, Raving Mad Magazine

Though its been close to thirty years since I’ve actually purchased an issue of Mad Magazine (though I habitually flip through it at hipper dentists’ offices), I was floored to see a full-page ad for Heck in the latest issue! It was like a dream realized (not the dream where I am in a bathtub full of maraschino cherries, Vienna sausages, and slowly setting Tropical Fusion JELL-O, but a dream in the sense of a heretofore unachieved goal). The issue, ad not withstanding, is pretty good too. It even managed to drill down deep and find some chuckles in the frozen humor tundra that is our current election year.

What, me worry about reaching my demographic? Heck, no!

Heck is Real…No Seriously

I’d like to interrupt this blog to bring you a very special announcement from Kevin Sotomayor, Principal of Heck Middle School:

“I’m actually the Principal at Heck….. L. Thomas Heck Middle School to be exact!

The school, which will open for the 2009-2010 school year, was named after our recently retired superintendent, Dr. Heck. The school is located just outside of Phoenix, AZ in Litchfield Park Arizona.

We all were very excited and have had a lot of fun with the release of this book, and it’s premise. While the staff isn’t as ‘colorful’ as the one in the book, they do share the same desire to teach what they know.

Hopefully there will be more ‘happenings’ from Heck to share with my staff and students at Heck.

Kevin Sotomayor
Principal, Heck Middle School”

How weird is that?

L. Thomas Heck Middle School will occupy 20 acres and house 750 students in sixth through eighth grades. Tom Heck, who was superintendent for almost two decades until he retired in 2007, said it is an “incredible honor” to have the school named after him. He said he has high hopes for the middle school.

“It’s the Litchfield way to include the community so that parents and kids feel like it’s theirs,” Heck said. Heck handpicked Kevin Sotomayor, principal at Palm Valley Elementary, to be the new school’s principal.

“It’s an exciting opportunity,” Sotomayor said. “We get to work from Day 1 to make this something special. We get to shape its identity and make it a community school.”

This is a far cry from the position of Bea “Elsa” Bubb, Heck’s Principal of Darkness, who views her dominion as a colossal burden, and would sooner suck rancid platypus eggs than make Heck anything remotely “community” based, unless that community was one comprised of venomous spiders and booby-trapped Parcheesi games. Here are some other differences:

Sotomayor said he wants parent and student involvement.

“My philosophy as an administrator is to have an open-door policy and take in everyone’s opinions,” he said.

Principal Bubb wants parent and student disembowelment.

“My philosophy as a badministrator is to have an open-door policy…there’s the door…now why don’t you run along before I sic Cerberus on you? I’d love to take in your opinion, but I don’t take in the deluded ramblings of lobotomized monkeys,” she said.

Sotomayor is energetic, has a great sense of humor and is dedicated to bringing high academic standards to Heck.

Bubb, on the other claw, is bitter, sarcastic, and dedicated to bringing high-caloric hamsters into her gaping, fang-rimmed maw.

Here is a picture of various Arizonans breaking ground for the new school.

Fortunately, I couldn’t upload a picture of Bea “Elsa” Bubb breaking wind in her terrible, terrible school.