Big Ed's Place

Fireworks marked the turn in the Holiday Series from light and fun to something with actual conflict. Ironically, by the time I’d written it out, it’s nearly as long as the rest of the series to date combined.

With this story, what I wanted to do was have our foursome hit the limits of exhibitionism. I wanted them to go from it all being fun and games to being something serious, just as Dave has thought it might be all along. I also thought that the transition from looking to touching was the one that would give these characters the most conflict. They’re all rational, mature adults who are good at communication and so most of the standard sources of conflict (which boil down to immature or idiot characters) didn’t exist. Thus, we have a story in which despite everyone’s best efforts, things blow up.

In laying this story out, I identified three key scenes. The men’s striptease just seemed to be fair payback. The women’s show was built around the silhouettes, an idea I got from the book Sex Games by Linda Sonntag. The final scene with the fireworks was stolen from an actual visit to that viewing site in the story many years ago. I didn’t have sex at the site, but I did notice how it would be possible, given a couple of accomplices to serve as lookouts.

The other fun part of this story was the music. ZZ Top’s Greatest Hits has a prominent place in my car’s CD library and just seemed to fit for the guys. The Joe Loss Orchestra classic is, of course, one that just about everyone has heard and summons up images of the old burlesque era. With that as the lead off song, the rest simply had to be Blues, which meant raiding my home music collection and spending a few hours engaged in ‘research’ while listening away.

One of the advantages of not doing a serial is that I can completely scrap the original plotline if so desired. I’m in the process of doing that with Love’s Labor Found. Basically, I’ve spent a lot of my writing time this past week thinking about where I wanted to go. I’ve also been formatting Fireworks for this site (it’ll be up soon–just have to work out an html issue) and it’s impossible to avoid rereading it as I do so. As a result, I realized that there was a much stronger way for the plot to go than what I had planned. Basically, it’ll be more consistent with the characters and do a better job of setting up the next story.

Now that said, I did take a pass at some rewrites of the current text, but I haven’t entered them into the Word file yet (I did them by hand). I know I’ll want to fiddle with them, because it’s going to be important to get them right if the rest of the story is to hold up. That requires uninterrupted concentration while on the computer, and I just haven’t carved out the time. So Love’s Labor Found remains at 1640 words, even with all the mental energy that’s gone into it.

To balance that out, One-Eyed Dick has been cooking. 5994 words, which means I added another 980 this week. It’s pretty clear I’m within a kilo-word of being done with the first draft, which feels good. In this case, I actually skipped ahead and wrote the ending, because it had been rattling around in my head for several days. So now I have to go back in and do the major sex scene, along with a smaller plot scene and the associated transitions. It feels good. Depending on how the week goes, I may even finish the draft this week. Here’s hoping.

In Dawn on the Third Day, Jen comments on Spider Robinson’s book Callahan’s Lady, and the concept of sex as Art. I happen to like the idea, though ultimately I think there’s a better analogy.

The main thing I like about the concept is that it captures what sex can be. Often, sex is a performance, yet because it is something that has been demonized in the Western cultural traditions (I can’t speak for the Eastern cultures), we don’t recognize or pay homage to the greatness that can be attained. Tantra, as adapted for the West (and possibly perverted, but more on that in another post sometime), does see the greatness, but tends to wrap it up in the mystical or religious. I don’t think greatness requires those overtones.

And of course, by greatness, I mean not just the ability to emotionally connect the participants, but the ability for sex to be something that connects period. We laugh at a good dirty joke. We roll our eyes, but often secretly admiring, the tales of sexual feats we hear about. Phil Foglio even managed a great cartoon about when sex is an Olympic event.

In essence, sex can do many or all the things that Art can do.

But I think the analogy has some major limits, and one of those is simply stroke porn. Let’s face it, a lot of sexual material is poor quality crap, but it still finds an audience. A lot of the times sex between two people can be pretty unconnecting, uninspiring, and not particularly fulfilling. There really isn’t a good “Art” equivalent.

Instead, I think the better analogy is that Sex is like Cuisine. A lot of the time, you just want something that’s reasonably good and can sustain you. At the same time, really great sex, like a really great meal, can go someplace deeper, into the realm of Art. Heck there are even aficionados of both, though there is no positive equivalent term to “foodie.”

And at the opposite end, there are times where you just want the greasiest, nastiest, most unhealthy fast food you can find and slide across your tongue (what, you don’t?  I certainly have those cravings from time to time).  It’s not good food.  It’s not particularly good for you food.  But it’s easy on the tongue, it pleases the senses, and it’s quick to get.  Just like good old Penthouse Letters and other stroke porn.

I like to think that I’m wiser and enough in control of my cravings to not stoop to a fast food equivalent sex diet.  Or a fast food equivalent porn diet.  But I gotta admit that I don’t want Art all the time.

Prior to Dawn on the Third Day, I’d pretty much established a ‘standard’ story length (4k to 6k words).  In my longer stories, that also ended up being the standard chapter length.  I pretty much think in chunks that big, which is why it’s a natural length for me  With Dawn on the Third Day, I wanted to emphasize the different times of day, without forcing each of those periods to be a full ‘chunk’ long.  The resulting story was about three times my normal length and I think the structure holds up well.

The holiday itself is subtle in this one.  It’s Easter, of course, but I didn’t want the story to have a strong religious focus.  The only deliberate religious allusion is the sharing of the cup on the morning of the third day.  It’s a bonding symbolism, much like sharing the cup on Good Friday was, but without the ‘this is my blood’ elements of Christianity.  For bonding is what I wanted to show–the friends drawing much closer together.

As for the storyline itself, the Japanese Spa in Santa Fe is really there, and a wonderful place to visit.  I left it unnamed because I wasn’t sure how they’d take a story that involved sexual activity on the premises.  All the other named locales exist as well.

The one major surprise for me in writing this one was the final sex scene.  I hadn’t intended the story to go that far when I’d laid out the plot, but the characters basically told me that that was how it had to end.  It’s not been the last time that a story took a turn I wasn’t expecting, but it was the first.

Well, once again, I made no progress on Love’s Labor Found. I’m stuck at 1640 words, and I’m beginning to have an inkling why. The scene I’m in isn’t working out right.

The problem is simple. I have a visual in my head of the opening of the scene, which would make a great illustration by Tzratzk. But I don’t have the rest of the scene. And plotwise, the scene is a difficult fit. As I continue to play the plot through my head, I think the right think to do is to shorten or dump the scene. However, I’m stubbornly hanging onto wanting to see how Tzratzk would illustrate it. Since I really only want him to illustrate major scenes–something that really grabs the gist of the story, I’m at an impasse with myself. Do I write for the picture, or do I find another picture?

I haven’t decided. But I realized that lack of decision is what has me stalled.

Fortunately, that’s not true for One-Eyed Dick. I ended up with a free hour Wednesday evening last week–off work, early for a social obligation, but not so early as to be worth heading home. So I found a bar, ordered a glass of Italian Red Wine, and wrote. Net result, another 793 words, bringing me to 5014. That puts me in the home stretch–this one is gonna wrap up around 7000 words. I basically have three scenes left, plus the usual transitions. We’ll see how it goes.

After I completed A New Year, the idea for an entire series of stories centered around exhibitionism and the holidays settled into my brain. It didn’t take long to sketch out the entire arc and pick the holidays that would be featured. Of course, I had foreshadowed a trip to Santa Fe in A New Year, but A Valentine’s Surprise was the story that really locked in the plan.

For this story, I wanted something brazenly exhibitionistic, but done by Jennifer instead of Jen. Of course Jen would help, but I wanted to show Dave appreciating his girlfriend and her ‘surprise.’ It didn’t take long to pick specifically what she was going to give him as a present–something different, unique, and in my opinion, hot. How many guys would love to have such a personalized DVD when they were on travel?

Dave’s surprise in return is stolen from real life incidents. I enjoyed writing it as much as I enjoyed my wife’s expression when she found her own necklace in a package of kettle corn.

The Shape of Things (2003 film, based on the play of the same name) aims to stir things up and provoke conversations about art, relationships, and morality. It does that, but with one major flaw. The characters just aren’t likeable. If you’re willing to watch past that…

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My wife and I just watched The Shape of Things, a movie based on a play that has a lot to do with people changing, but also with art. My review will be up on Friday, but I wanted to capture one part of the discussion my wife and I had afterward.

One of the characters, Evelyn, is a Masters of Fine Art candidate and she says near the end that Art is all that really matters. In many ways I agree, but I realized that I have a different spin on the morality of it.

Of course, the question starts with, what is Art? Capital A. My definition is that it’s a way of connecting to others. It’s a short cut to the heart and mind, as an old professor said about poetry. One can spin words and words and words, going through logic and rational argument, and in the end never connect with someone. Yet a simple touch of the hand, or a simple photograph, or the turn of a phrase, may convey more than words could ever do so.

Now I know that sometimes the Artist is trying to provoke. The Art works by connecting to the animal spine and stirring up outrage or the associated emotions. A play dramatizes the plight of holocaust victims. A ‘performance artist’ tries to call attention to the environment.

But provocation does not make a work of Art moral, and by that I mean morally good. After all, the morality of the cause is in the eye of the beholder or creator. The rabble rouser or political hack on talk radio makes a connection to their audience, after all. If Art stirs up a mob that kills people, can it truly be considered moral?

Nor, despite me often believing that Art is an act of channeling the Divine (a post on that some day), I do not believe that Art deserves any elevation to Godhood. Art is a path, a channel, a tool. Art is a mystical and powerful shortcut and an act, and Art done right is Big. But saying Art for Art’s sake justifies itself morally is like saying violence for violence’s sake justifies itself. It may be absolutely true in the boxing arena or football field, or in trying to stop genocide, but it just cannot be blanketly true or blanketly false.

So what shook out of my conversation with my wife is that Art, to be morally good, has to Serve. And by that I mean, it has to be based in Love in the Agape sense. The connection has to result in the audience being better off than they were before.

This is honestly not a tough bar to hurdle. We’re not talking ‘save the world and fix everyone’s problems here’–or at least I’m not, having given up that naivety even before college.  A simple comedy that makes people laugh can leave them better off than they were before. Or a painting of a field that helps instill a sense of peace. Provocation has its place, but provocation is not enough. Inspiration is mandatory. Compare King’s I have a Dream Speech to anything coming out of Fox News to see the difference. King saw his audience as brethren, and not just sheep to be manipulated.

Which brings the discussion full circle. Evelyn manipulates people for her Art, and does so without compassion. And that, I think makes all that she does immoral instead of something truly worthwhile.

It’s amusing to me to look at my weekly totals and see how low they are. There are of course the usual reasons or excuses and causes. But today I got to thinking–what’s slow? What’s fast?

Back when I wrote The Ugly One and Two Minute Penalties, I could basically produce 5-6kwords in 3-4 weeks. That’s about 1500-2000 words in a week. I considered the pace at the time to be extraordinarily slow. I’d see Nick Scipio or Frank Downey pounding out long stories at extraordinarily faster rates. Of course the irony of the fact that I’m now writing more than both of them combined is not lost on me.

These days, of course, my writing is slower. Except that I’m also doing a lot of webpage work, and does that count? Additionally, this post and the Wednesday Musings post are easily several hundred words. If I throw those into the writing count, am I writing slower or faster than I used to? And what other standards are there?

For this week, I feel like I made reasonable progress on One-Eyed Dick. I’m up to 4221 words, which means 1105 in the last week. No progress on Love’s Labor Found (still at 1640), but it still feels good.

And maybe that’s what matters? Not the speed but the sensation of having progressed?

Anyway, that’s the status this Sunday.

Two Minute Penalties was written in the spring of 2004 during the National Hockey League playoffs. It was inspired by Frank Downey’s Curse of the Bambino and I followed some pretty strict rules in writing it.

Specifically, the rule was that the story had to be written around an actual hockey playoff series as it was happening. Each chapter had to incorporate a game, and had to be posted (to storiesonline) within 24 hours of the completion of the game.

This turned into an interesting challenge. I had to lay out a story and plot, without knowing how each game would turn out, and therefore whether Liz would win or lose a particular bet. I also had no idea how many games the series would run, which is why there’s an overtime chapter. After Game 5, I decided that the odds were that either the Detroit or Colorado series would go to seven games, and so I laid out what would happen in the last two chapters. Then they both lost, leaving me with an extra chapter, that was posted a little later.

That said, it was a lot of fun. I’d write while watching the hockey game and then furiously after it was over. At the time, I was living alone (my now-wife and I were dating but hadn’t moved in together) and there’s no way I could have pulled it off if I’d had obligations in the evenings. It also helped that the games were spaced two days apart, giving me an evening to get a jump start on the next chapter and write up until the game needed to be included.

Unfortunately, the next year, the NHL players got locked out and there was no hockey. When it returned, the salary cap killed the Colorado Avalanche, forcing them to let go of many of their best players. They’ve struggled since, and the rivalry with Detroit just hasn’t been the same. So in many ways, this story is a snapshot of 2004, that is not likely to be repeated in the near future.