Jim Tomlinson's Online Writing Journal

Jim Tomlinson

a writer's journal

Saturday, March 8, 2003

The hardest part of getting started with the writing again is just getting that first sentence down. With Dexter Chalk, I find that I'm having to simply write my way into him. I have some ideas about who he is, what his circumstances are. But he hasn't felt like a breathing being for all my thinking, contemplating, and note-taking. So I've started writing what may be text in his story (as always, editable first draft crap with revise-or-discard options kept wide open), and in doing so, Dex is becoming more palpable.

His story will interlace with LeAnn's story, "Things Kept." That part should be fun, seeing the same or closely related events from two points-of-view. If I control my 'urge to cuteness,' it could actually work out quite well.

Sunday, March 16, 2003

Arrived at Green River Writers annual Novels-in-Progress Workshop in Louisville this evening, ready for a week of classes, breakout sessions, guided writing exercises, and the companionship of others working on novels. Most participants have sent ahead excerpts from their novels for peer critiques and instructor reviews. With my two recent novels out in the world with agents and editors and my current project not far enough along for outside eyes, I won't participate in those sessions.

Monday, March 17, 2003

Morning session was Plotting Essentials led by Elaine Palencia. Memorable quote: "Be cruel to your characters. Don't let them have what they want. This forces change, forces growth." Imbalance and character desire should exist from page one. Don't do 'intro scenes' for author's sake. Introspective protagonists can very quickly become passive, and that kills conflict, drains off story tension. Create a crucible--put characters in conflict in a situation where they cannot get away from each other, physically constrained or compelled otherwise to confront each other.

In the afternoon session, I learned that one of the participants is "Ashling", an online acquaintance from Inkies. Small world!

In the evening 'hanging out' session, Liz Bevarly told war stories, experiences with agents, different imprints, etc. while building a paying career writing Romance novels.

Tuesdays, March 18, 2003

Making Your Writing More Intimate - morning session with Elaine Palencia. The exercise involved listing a character's greatest fears, secrets, wants, etc. Who or what would he/she kill for? Die for? How does he/she manage his interior? Learned some things about Dexter Chalk in the exercise.

Afternoon session with Sara Frommer - Research and the Novelist. Much focused on period research, WPA guides, oral histories, etc. On interesting idea in the non-history area - children's books on a subject to get a working overview. With Internet research, consider the source! Stick to reliable ones.

This evening, Elaine Palencia read poems from his new chapbook, The Dayliness of It, poetry inspired by her profoundly afflicted 25-year-old son.

Wednesday, March 19, 2003

Gary Devon talked about Structuring Your Novel. His advice--avoid flashbacks of more than five or six lines. No prologues. Give characters physical 'markers' so the reader remembers them when they reappear after being absent for dozens of pages. Resolve all subplots--the reader wants resolution.

Michael Siedman read the first ten pages of "Things Kept" and had few suggestions. One sentence was a bit convoluted. There were two typos. He thought it could use a bit more description. Otherwise, he read straight through. It held his interest.

In the afternoon session, Julianne Lee invited participants to talk about how they avoid writers block. Writers do like to talk about themselves. Lee has a verbal gimmick I may steal for a character--'for a reason.' As in--"They're editors, not writers for a reason," and "Milk, they pasteurize it for a reason." The trick is, it doesn't say what is meant. Instead it invites the other to deduce the reason, to fill in the blank. It throws an arguer off balance.

All week long, NCAA basketball and Iraq War battle for TV attention. Very few want to know about the war. Another few, JimT included, care about basketball.

Thursday, March 20, 2003

The morning session was Gary Devon talking about Channeling Personnel Experience into Fiction. In a beginners' class, 14 of 14 participants wanted to write about their lives. After several from this class talked about their family stories, Devon advised that writers expand their sights and write about things they don't know so well.

Keith Snyder conducted a guided writing exercise on dialogue. Part one: Write about an incident that happened to you at least ten years ago. Part two: What was important to the younger you before the event. Part three: Write a paragraph of today's you talking to that younger you about what is to come. What is learned? You will write sharp, intimate dialogue when you know both characters, what they want and need. Try to think of your characters as people, not characters who move through the plot.

Had supper this evening with Bob Hill, then watched basketball with Palencia, Cobb, and Frommer. When I dropped in on the evening 'hanging out' session, Keith Snyder (and Michael Siedman) were saying his spending time on promotion to increase sales was a waste of time. "Pocket the advance check and write the next book."

Friday, March 21, 2003

The faculty panel talked about The Business of Publishing - agents, editors, genres, etc, how their careers got started and progressed. Then I drove back to Berea to get some pages and synopses for the agents and editors tomorrow. Also picked up my old computer for a woman who needed one. Also kissed Gin.

Saturday, March 22, 2003

After the agents and editors panel in the morning, went to lunch with Paul Bresnick of the Carlisle Group. Then I pitched Tucson Winter to him. He left with eleven pages, synopsis, and author comments. Not sure if the interest was real or not. Afterwards, I pitched BJM to Linn Prentis of Victoria Kidd Agency. She wanted to see it. I told her that Jackson had recommended it to Lamb, who had it for about four weeks. She'd like to see it, if it comes back. Two concerns: they do YA, and this may be too young for them. Also, agency owner died in January, so ownership may soon change. Prentis is managing the business, may become owner when things get worked out.

Much good fellowship and laughs at this evening's agents and editors cocktail party. Also a bit more schmoozing.

Sunday, March 23, 2003

Checked out of the dorm, picked up a weeping redbud tree at Hidden Hill and headed home. All in all, the Green River Novels-in-Progress Workshop is a very good one. And if the writing on Dexter Chalk goes well in coming days, then we'll call it an excellent one.

Friday, March 28, 2003

Today I received notice that the Kentucky Arts Council approved a grant to cover half the cost for me to attend the Indiana University Writers Conference and Workshop this June! Hence, the logo above, and the one that will be carried forward on my journal page. The Commonwealth of Kentucky is incredibly supportive of its artists, craftsmen, performers, and writers!

Also finally managed to kick off the second storyline of the new novel today. The inspiration came from a DVD, "The Road to Perdition" - a small action in an unstable situation precipitates everything. While the seven page chapter reads as a quiet character piece, in fact it contains the small push that sets the plot ball to rolling. Third person point-of-view shifts from LeAnn to Dex Chalk in this chapter for the first time. House Writers critique it next Tuesday. I'll be interested in how they take to the narrative voice in this, Dex's chapter.

Friday, April 4, 2003

Dex's first chapter is finished. Some interesting input from House Writers, reading this excerpt at some distance from the prior chapters. And now Mahala Shelby's first (and possibly only) chapter also seems complete. Whether she gets p.o.v. in the next is still up for grabs.

I learned a lesson in the writers group this week: readers usually judge characters based on the first glimpses. Dex was seen in a positive light because the first view of him in this segment involved his earnest attempts at sobriety. Readers seemed ready to excuse his later bad behavior. LeAnn, on the other hand, annoyed them. Her first actions in this segment were were seen as anti-social, uncaring. That perception seemed to taint all that followed. In context with preceding chapters, reactions may be different. But it does reinforce a lesson, one written of in the May issue of "The Writer," which, coincidentally, arrived in the mail today.

In Elfreida Abbe's interview article, Alan Furst talks about the importance of making your main character likeable immediately. And he told an anecdote about what happens if things begin otherwise. He tells of a play directed by a man named Fred Little, who once directed a play about a king, a good king. And in one scene, the king had to play chess with his page. So the two of them were on stage with a chess board and chess pieces. At some point, the page left and the king sat there alone for a few minutes, perhaps he had a soliloquy. One night when the page got up and left, the actor playing the king noticed that one of the pieces was halfway on and halfway off one of the squares. So he reached out his hand, moved the piece, and destroyed the play, because from that moment the audience thought, "this king cheats." The whole character of the king was changed for the rest of the play, no matter what he did.

Furst says, "That's the story I use to remind myself that you can lose an audience immediately if you do the wrong thing with a main character. You don't have a long time to have the main character be liked by the reader; therefore it is best to show him in a situation when he's at his best in a situation with some tension in it."

Dex and LeAnn are flawed. They're distinctly fallible characters. Still, if the readers don't like them, doesn't pull for them on a gut level, this novel isn't going to work. I need to balance their traits more carefully, do a better job of controlling the light in which they are viewed.

Thursday, April 17, 2003

I've been working on the novel segment that I'll workshop at IU in June and at Hindman in late July-- same manuscript, two readings, one by regional authors, one by readers and writers from outside the region. Not that the novel--it's tentatively (very tentatively) titled Private Collections-- is particularly regional. But it is set in the region, and that will color perceptions, I'm sure. Anyway, it's in the mail.

I finished off two chapters from the mother's point-of-view. Those, plus the one from Dex Chalk's viewpoint, will be pages 24 through 46 of the manuscript. They're in pretty good shape, I think. Maybe a clunky transition or two. Maybe one mini-scene that doesn't quite pay-off. But not too bad. My main worry is still whether readers will want to be invested in LeAnn, or secondarily Dex. Tough balance, and I'm not at all certain I've got it right yet.

I plan two or three days away from the manuscript. I'll do some reading, catch up on emails, get outside. Then I'll go back to adding pages again.

Sunday, April 20, 2003

After enjoying the days away from the novel, I'm ready to get back at it. Reading The Last Girls by Lee Smith. I really enjoy her characterizations, which are vivid and somewhat extreme, but never to the point of being caricatures. And you can sense Smith's respect and affection (or empathy, at least) for her characters. That element seems to be missing from the novels of many others who write 'character fiction.'

So, here's the plan. Push forward with the novel, average three pages a day for five days a week. That should get me past page 100 by the KGAC Spring Fair in mid-May, and close to page 170 by the IU Workshop in June. What happens next will depend on how the writing is going and what feedback I get.

That's the plan--

Sunday, April 27, 2003

And so far, the plan is working. Sixteen pages for the week, three more or less per day, Monday through Friday. Saturday and Sunday went for sprinkling in a few descriptions some internalization, sharpening the images, making them more specific. The chapter brings LeAnn into clearer focus, establishes the applecart which will soon be upset.

Interesting thoughts about 'story' in the writer/director comments on the DVD for "Far From Heaven." The film is an homage to (a pastiche of?) the 1950's and 1960's films of Douglas Sirk, films that were social melodramas. He quoted Sirk extensively, quoted from a 1970 interview on stories for film that I'd love to find and read.

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Last updated 04/22/2010

Jim Tomlinson has been awarded an Al Smith Fellowship in recognition of artistic excellence for professional artists in Kentucky through the Kentucky Arts council, a state agency in the Commerce Cabinet, supported by state tax dollars and federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.

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