Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 3/29/17

I have started writing, but it occurred to me that I don't know all of the character's names yet. I was going to name all of the female characters after Shakespearean women, but that will not work. I don't want to use Juliet or Ophelia. That leaves a few good names – Rosalind, Viola, Beatrice, Katherina; a few names that you can't help but think of something else – Regan, Titania, Hermione, Portia; and a lot of names that just don't sound right – Goneril, Volumnia, Hippolyta, Gertrude.

I came up with a system for naming some of the interconnected characters. It's either clever or stupid. We will have to wait and see.


The Taming of the Shrew
Directed by Franco Zeffirelli
© 1967 Columbia Pictures

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 3/28/17

The first step in Untitled 2017 Novel is research. This book will require some. Maybe a lot. It takes place in Los Angeles. I have been there, but I don't know the city backward and forward. The easiest way around that is to have a character that does not know the city. The stranger in a strange land trope is common for a reason. But I still have to know what I'm talking about.

Today, I looked up parks. Specifically, Griffith Park, Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area, Malibu Creek State Park, Santa Susana Pass State Historic Park and Stoney Point. I'm amazed by how much green space there is in Los Angeles. I can't say that they will all end up in the book, but at least one of them will play an important role.


Planet of the Apes
Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner
© 1968 20th Century Fox


M*A*S*H
CBS/20th Century Fox


Short Cuts
Directed by Robert Altman
© 1993 Fine Line Features

Monday, March 27, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 3/27/17

Before I even face the blank page, I like to know what the story is about. I'm not Jack Kerouac. I can't just start typing random words and something comes out in the end. I want to know that I'm dealing with a complete story.

A woman walks into a grocery store and something happens.

That's not a story. You could easily get into a chapter or two and then get stuck.

A woman walks into a grocery store and finds a time portal in the wine aisle. She travels back in time, fixes the biggest mistakes of her life and becomes happy and successful. On a visit to her old home town, she stops into the local grocery store where she meets her former self, causing the universe to tear apart.

That could be a story. It does not sound like something I would write, but a science fiction writer could probably work with that.

Before I start typing, I want to know where the story goes and what happens. Does it have an ending and, more importantly, does it have a middle? Why does that thing happen? What were those people thinking? When she says this, does it mean that? I will not start until I can answer a few basic questions. I have written myself into corners before. I find that sort of thing annoying.


Sunday, March 26, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 3/26/17

More than a few people have asked me, “How do you write a book?” My standard reply is, “With a computer.”

I'm starting a new book. It's a novel, pure fiction, and I'm trying something new. Since I'm writing this book in a different way, I thought I would jot down a few notes about what I'm doing while I write it. That might sound highly egotistical, as if I think anyone cares about my writing process, but what about blogs, Facebook and Twitter is not egotistical? The whole point of this blog is for me to look back in the future on what I was thinking about in the past. There might come a day when I look back on this book and wonder what I was thinking.

I'm not doing it for posterity. I'm not expecting historians to pour over these words in two hundred years while analyzing one of the great works of world literature. I fully expect to be completely forgotten by then. Books can easily last a few centuries, but most are only remembered for a few years, if that. And no matter what happens with this book, I have no doubt that no one will have the faintest idea what a blog was 200 years from now.

I suppose a few caveats are in order. Since we are talking about a novel that has not yet been written, there is the very real possibility that it will never be completed. I try to finish what I start. That's one of those remnants of my upbringing. But sometimes you do something that maybe you should not have done. Some things were never meant to be finished.

Equally possible is that I will finish it, but it will never be published. There are a few people who can write absolutely anything and it is guaranteed to be published by someone somewhere. Those people have names you recognize. Even if you have never read any of their books, you have probably seen a movie based on one. I'm not one of those people. I'm not contractually guaranteed anything.

I could write a big chunk of the book and then change it. Maybe drastically. When you read the finished product, you never know what happened in between drafts. By documenting this book as it happens, I'm opening myself to a world of embarrassment. Fortunately, most of the world will never know that this blog exists. Anyone who reads both this blog and the novel, should it ever exist, might know how it all started out versus how it ended up. I don't have a problem with that.

The point of this little experiment is not to serialize the novel. I will probably not even talk much about the story. This is supposed to be a diary of sorts about the writing process. I can't say how successful it will be. I might be too busy to update it often enough, or I might just give up entirely. This is an experiment. It might be interesting, mildly amusing or completely pointless.

Let's see what happens.


Thursday, March 16, 2017

Blugger

I tried to upload some videos from Disneyland. There seems to be some kind of bug with Blogger. It is definitely not the first time. As soon as Google bought them out, pictures became more difficult. It only makes sense that videos would also be a problem.

Sometimes the videos are up, sometimes they are not. Sometimes they play, sometimes they don't. I have no idea why they all have the Youtube stamp. None of them were uploaded to Youtube, unless Blogger uploads them to Youtube without my permission. I know Google wants everyone to use Google Chrome, but I'm not going to. It's like signing into a website with Facebook. If I have to join them or else, I will simply go somewhere else. It may be a small world, but it is a pretty big internet.