Here we are at the end of July, and the new project continues to go well. It still only has a working title, but as time goes by that title is becoming more solidified for me, mostly because anything better has yet to present itself.
The standard length of a middle grade novel is somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 words. (For anyone interested in the conversion, 50,000 words translates to a book approximately 250 pages long, depending on a lot of factors.) I reached the 40,000-word benchmark a couple weeks ago. As far as drafting goes, I’m expecting the final product to end up somewhere in the range of 60,000 to 70,000 words. This is probably too long, but something Carrie said once about drafting stuck with me: “Write more than you think you need to. It’s easier to cut things out than add them in later.” So as far as drafting does, I’m not too concerned about word count for now. I know big chunks of what I’m working on won’t make it to the final draft.
I slowed my pace once I reached that 40,000 mark, instead looking back to review things I already knew needed to be addressed: Did I have enough mentions about the house flipping storyline yet? Do I still have that one kid driving a car when I know he’s going to need a pick-up truck in chapter 15 or 16? Which pair of siblings live in the house haunted by a little girl wearing a Halloween costume? How many unnecessary paragraphs (or even pages) can be completely cut?
New ideas, or clarifying ones, always come along while drafting, so sometimes, for me at least, it’s beneficial to pause the forward progress and go back to get those details lined up correctly. There will still be more revision to do later on, but it frees up my mind to move forward if I know those things have been generally straightened out.
Discovery isn’t as big of an issue anymore since so many of the big moments in the mental routine I’m following have already been developed and connected. That outline isn’t gospel strict, though; sometimes I’ll just keep pushing forward to see what ideas might happen, especially if I can feel one about to show up.
The energy is more directed now, though. It feels like a book coming together instead of just a collection of ideas and character sketches. In fact, I’ve reached the point where this week I followed through on a ritual I seem to have with each new project; even though I have all of the work automatically backing up nightly onto an external drive, I get paranoid about losing my files and will buy a new flash drive for a secondary back-up, just to be sure. I really can’t imagine my files being any safer than in the care of this guy.
At this stage the drafting becomes more deliberate, while still allowing for flexibility and discovery. For example, I’m currently working on a chapter that started so slowly I thought about trashing it altogether; I knew if I wasn’t enjoying it, I was probably parking a big boring lull right after what was meant to be an exciting moment. I kept at it though, since I saw chances to explore some dynamics between characters, which would be a good exercise even if I didn’t end up using any of it. Plus the seed of an idea was showing up, and I wanted a crack at it since there was always the chance it could turn into something important.
It eventually became a chapter that will influence how the story will end, at least once I prune it down. However, I wasn’t even halfway finished with it before I realized the events I’d packed in there needed to happen much earlier, so the whole chapter was in the wrong place. Even if I wasn’t feeling it at first, it was a good thing I kept at it. To a large degree, for me at least, that pretty much encapsulates what the drafting process is like.
August starts tomorrow, which gives me one more month to work on this before school begins. I’m far enough into it now that I feel confident about being able to finish the draft, unless Carrie sees things in the section she’s reviewing that set off fire alarms and we have to do some re-evaluating. I know there will be a lot of revision to work on either way, but that’s okay. You need to have a draft finished before you can revise it, and I plan on reaching that point by the time I have to officially show up for the first day of the 2017-18 school year.
Then it will be time for the big revisions, and that’s when the real work starts.
I first became aware of “Gilmore Girls” when it was on ABC Family in reruns. One of the TVs in front of the treadmills and ellipticals at the Y was always set to that network, so when my only other summertime midmorning choices were usually Fox News or one of the innumerable sports channels in the cable package, my blank treadmill stare was usually drawn to the one with Lauren Graham. Because, not hard to look at.
After weeks of trying to decipher the closed captioning with sweat in my eyes, I watched few episodes at home so I could also hear what was going on, and quickly discovered how incredibly well-written the show was. Soon after that I started it from the beginning, two Netflix DVDs at a time. I got through most of it before school started again, which usually signals a significant downgrade of my Netflix usage. I’d read online that the last season or two fell apart a little since the writers and show runners that had been responsible for the rapid fire, reference heavy dialogue weren’t involved anymore. There are few things in TV sadder than watching a once great show try to keep going without the voice that made it great (I point you to season 5 of The West Wing as example A). Ultimately I was okay with not seeing the decline.
When Netflix put together what amounted to four short Gilmore Girls movies and released them all at once last year, I knew I’d get around to watching them. However, other circumstances and an already backed-up queue meant it would take awhile. I was recently reminded these new episodes existed, and, being summer again, this seemed a perfect time to watch my way through them; what else am I going to do with all of this free time if not watch them and take notes on my reactions?
The following contains many, but not all, of the spoilers. Be warned.
WINTER
*I always forget that Yondu’s ravager sidekick from the “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies played Kirk on this show.
*Stars Hollow looks full-on snow globe, with all the lights and, of course, the troubadour, and everything on the streets and in the house is perfectly decorated.
*The dialogue is back, still rapid fire and soaked in pop culture references. It’s hard to tell if it works because the writing is so solid or because they found actors who can talk that fast and still make everything sound coherent. It sure would be nice to have people around you in life who would instantly understand your references and be able to build on them so quickly.
*Whoa! Did Lorelei just take a shot a Marvel movies?! Good thing Kirk wasn’t in the room.
*Rory’s boyfriend, Paul the Nice Guy, is everyone’s afterthought. I understand that poor bastard all too well.
*Kirk offering Lorelei water and than awkwardly handing her a partially filled Britta pitcher had me laughing until there were tears in my eyes.
*This is how Paris ended up? No. Not buying it. Seems like a too convenient way to give the actress a part and wedge the character into the story line.
*Sebastian Bach! I forgot he was in this! The band starts playing. Paris looks on with interest. Lane plays her drums, but, speaking as a drummer, she is absolutely NOT playing them. It bugs the hell out of my when TV shows do that.
*Emily’s mission to declutter her house reminds me of how many things I still want to get done this summer and haven’t even started.
*The episode closes with a Dolly Parton song. I would imagine someone I know at least let loose with a tiny squeal of joy the first time she heard that.
SPRING
*I must have missed a detail somewhere in the copious dialogue of Winter, because even though I know Rory is biographering for some British woman, but I don’t remember exactly who she is and why she is biography-worthy.
*Oh, wow. I just realized these Stars Hollow town meetings might have been the inspiration for the town meetings that take place in my new manuscript.
*Good line: “How do you accidentally join a vegetable cult?”
*Kirk shows up on stage for movie night in an Eraserhead wig, and I love it. I enjoy his character so much more now that he’s a Guardian of the Galaxy. He prohibits the crowd from bringing outside food to the movie, and right away some dude pulls out an entire chocolate cake. Awesome.
*Kirk’s short film was shot on actual film? The pig gets hit by a car and right away there’s some sad piano piece playing in the soundtrack. I recognize it because I’m pretty sure my older sister had the sheet music for it when we were kids and played it a lot, but for the life of my I can’t remember what it’s called.
*In the Dragonfly kitchen, and Rachel Ray is doing the cooking. Interesting cameo considering the context, but man, is she not an actress. You can see her visualizing the script to remember what her next line is supposed to be, much in the same way young Britney Spears pretended to be a dancer by struggling to stay one step ahead of her choreography.
*Richard leaves Luke some money to franchise his diner. Perfect characterization for him to be so generous, but with the condition that the gift has to be used in a way that would align with his own priorities instead of what Luke might want.
*And we’re back and Chilton for some alumni thing. A teacher sees Paris coming down the hall and quickly turns to run and hide. I totally get that guy.
*Oh, right. Tristan. That guy. At least he didn’t talk. I don’t remember if Peggy ever punched him in the head when he was a character on “Agent Carter,” but it seems like the kind of thing she would have done and something he would have deserved.
*The headmaster wants Rory to come back and teach? Sure. Because that’s how easy it is to get a teaching job — you talk to a class for five minutes, then someone says they have a spot reserved for you. At least the writers had the common sense to figure a prep school like Chilton would require their faculty members to have a Masters.
*Now Rory is interviewing with GQ, I think? All this talk about writing and her voice and so on…it’s a little overwhelming. Is that what people sound like when they talk about writing and writers when they’re doing it for a living? It makes me feel a little like a camp counselor sitting around a campfire or in the section of the library surrounded by decades-old stuffed animals, telling stories to little kids. My insecurity trigger, I guess. What are you gonna do….
*I’ve noticed several Netflix shows have moments that feel inserted only to fill for time. Rory interviewing all these people about why they wait in lines feels that way, and doesn’t really pay off to much except the part of her ending up sleeping with a Wookie. Good joke there, but they seem to really be playing up the whole “Rory in her early 30s and still hasn’t figured out her life yet.”
*There, with eight minutes left in the episode, Paul the Afterthought is finally mentioned. Even the writers forgot about him.
*After her website interview is a complete crash and burn, Rory ends up twisting her burner phone in half and throwing it away, like most of the characters on “Breaking Bad” did at one time or another. I still want to try doing that someday, just to see what it feels like.
I’m halfway done. This show is exhausting to watch without commercials.
SUMMER
*It starts with the two of them sitting by the pool, entertaining each other by complaining about everything to do with the pool and everyone there. Why did they even go?
*At least nineteen people comment on Rory being “back,” which she firmly denies is the case. Own it, girl.
*I really feel for Luke, having to watch all of these obscure movies and TV shows. He seems like a guy who’d be happier with some Doritos and a Transformers movie.
*Okay, three seasons in and I can’t get behind this Rory/Logan thing. THEY ARE BOTH CHEATING ON SOMEONE. Granted, neither of them is married, but still. There’s a dishonesty and selfishness thing happening here. Doesn’t put either of them in a great light, objectively. If they want to be together, they should just break it off with the others.
*Gypsy says “sweat like pigs” and Kirk’s pig runs down the aisle. Beautiful.
*Taylor wants to put on a show! His idea of community spirit: If you agree with what I want to and the way I want to do it, then you have community spirit. Too close to the truth for a lot of community movers and shakers.
*The Thirty Something Gang? How is Rory too good for this? I wouldn’t mind having a group of friends my age absent of commitments to hang out with.
*Michel is leaving? That’s sad. Even the sight gags that come with the secret bar don’t change that.
*Of course Rory takes over at the Gazette, and of course it doesn’t quite work out the way she planned. That delivery montage felt like another Netflix filler moment.
*And now, “Stars Hollow” The Musical.” Good Lord. Do I have to watch this whole thing? This scene would work so much better if it just focused on Lorelei going all Tom Servo on the play (I just threw in my own pop-culture reference there; I hope you can keep up). When is this going to end? Why did they drag out the gag of everyone else on the advisory board loving it? This is awful. Who in production thought this was a good idea? I’m never getting those twenty minutes back. I’m keeping this scene in mind after I finish drafting my new manuscript later and start on the serious revisions.
*Although the actress saying “Thanks for the doubts” at the end was a good line. I’m saving that one for use in real life.
*Rory’s at the Gazette, and Jess walks in. “I remember you…punk.” Esther’s got his number. Watching Jess here reminds me a lot of what it’s like to have a student who absolutely drives you nuts and you can’t wait to ship them out at the end of the year, but then you see them again later in life and they’ve grown up a lot and you just feel relief about that.
*“You’re a writer. Ruts are normal.” Y-y-y-y-y-e-p.
*Ray Wise is dating Emily? That would explain why he was there in the background of that scene from the last episode. Respectful of him to wait in the car after driving them all to the cemetery.
*Watching this immediately makes me think of how long it’s been since I’ve visited my sister’s gravesite, so I feel bad about that for a few minutes and have to rewind to see what I missed. Lorelei is not on board with Rory writing a book about them, and they have a weird, out-of-nowhere fight without her really articulating why. This feels manufactured.
*Then she fights with Luke? Something’s up.
*Now she tells Luke she’s going on walkabout, to clear her head or something. “It’s never or now.” Nice turn of a phrase there. “Never” makes me think of how many times I’m going to re-watch this episode. That play, ugh….
FALL
*I felt pretty confident Lorelei wasn’t going to ever really hike, and they really slapsticked up her backpack incompetence. She did have some good bonding moments with other Wild Ladies though. That was nice. One of the women said, “I hope this hike works. I need a new life so badly.” Been on that “too late for midlife crisis” path enough times myself to know how one hike, real or metaphor, isn’t going to do the trick.
*Of course Lorelei didn’t make it on the path because the characters need to interact with each other for the show to work, but she did get her epiphanal moment. The story she told her mother was very affecting. It made me suspect that during the performance Lauren Graham might have been thinking of her own relationship with Edward Hermann.
*Jess ripping the wifi out of the diner was one of the best things he ever did.
* Lorelei comes home, Luke gets to recite a speech full of verbal gymnastics, and they decide to get married. It fits perfectly here.
*Emily is up in Nantucket now. Ray Wise can’t stay, and she ships him out the door pretty quickly. What’s up with that?
*Back at the Gilmore mansion, Rory takes a little time to tour and revisit the ghosts of her grandfather. I like that this episode has been so much about him and his absence. A death that central to a family winds up driving a lot of what comes after. Throughout all four seasons, they’ve addressed this very well.
*Points for a good deep-dive reference to Katy Perry wanting to buy the house from the nuns.
*Rory presents Lorelei with what looks like a light manuscript, but turns out to just be the first three chapters. Wait: THAT’S WHAT THREE CHAPTERS LOOKS LIKE? HAS SHE EDITED YET?!?
*Emily’s exit from the DAR was truly excellent. Perfectly constructed, and a great resolution to everything about her character that had come before. Amy Sherman-Palladino is absolutely the better writer of the two showrunners.
*Rory has an unnecessary cameo moment with her father, to mirror the unnecessary cameo moment she later has with Dean.
*Of course Sooki would end up back in the kitchen. Still best friends. Time and distance doesn’t have to change that for people.
*Seeing Emily happy in her new home with her surrogate family explains why she was so ready to ship off Ray Wise, and downplay that part of her old life. Volunteering at the whale museum was perfect, even if she scared people while doing it.
*The house full of people and animals the night before the wedding felt exactly right. However, regarding competing flash mobs, Frankie Goes to Hollywood was the better choice. Though I stand by my assertion that flash mobs should be excised from society immediately.
*The whole night-before wedding montage was a much better ending to the show, and fit everything that had built to that.
*Paul breaking up with Rory over a text was perfect; even if she wasn’t completely bothered by it, she really deserved it. But her mom was right. It didn’t fit. And things that matter need to fit.
*As for the very, very last moment? Either a perfectly symmetrical ending, or a good cliffhanger. And I have my ideas about that leftover unanswered question....
I have somewhere in the ballpark of 20,000 songs in my music library, which translates to just shy of 2,000 albums. Earlier this year I wrote a blog post in which I came up with the definitive list of my 10 favorite albums:
4 - “A Thousand Suns” by Linkin Park. Percussive, aggressive electronic post-millennial rock. A masterpiece of the genre.
That’s #4. Out of about 2,000.
I wouldn’t call “A Thousand Suns” a true concept album in the sense of having characters and a plot line linking the songs together, but it’s definitely the kind of thematic work that is best appreciated as an entire continuous piece instead of a collection of individual songs. It was a huge departure for a band widely seen as one of the originators of the rap-metal genre. For this album, the metal side of the music had been downplayed in favor of a broader, heavily electronic sonic palette. It was hugely divisive throughout Linkin Park fandom when it came out, as either being a groundbreaking work or too much of a departure.
I firmly came down on the groundbreaking side.
The two frontmen of the band, Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda, had always been an incredible vocal tandem, whether they were alternating between singing and rapping or melodically complementing each other. Mike has always been the kind of frightfully gifted artist that forces people to look past the stigma of someone playing loud music in a rock band not having any talent. Chester’s vocal range could go all the way from melodic and lullaby-gentle to a scream of pure rage that would hurt your throat just to hear.
For me, favorite songs or albums, the real favorites that resonate in the core of my being, usually aren’t the ones I learn to love after months or years, but instead connect with me almost right away. From the beginning I could tell “A Thousand Suns” would be something different. I actually wrote a very short blog post about my reaction on the day it came out:
It was release day for Linkin Park's new album "A Thousand Suns." I downloaded it before going to school this morning, and have played through it twice now.
At the risk of falling into cliché territory, it's really next-level stuff for them. Not so much metal, more industrial but still melodic, and very dark and moody.
I can barely wait for the next time I feel depressed so I can put it on and really enjoy it in the way it seems to have been intended.
In another short post five months later, I added this:
Being there now I can honestly say...wow.
This was in the wake of my dog dying. Yeah, I was sad about that, but in retrospect losing the dog and the dark months that followed were ultimately less about losing him and more about other feelings being triggered. If you were around in those days and saw what I was going through and were concerned about how badly I was hurting…well, that concern was not misplaced.
Everyone has pain. Despite the facades we put forth on social media, or the smiles we use in real life to hide it, or the mindless, reflexive way we answer the questions “How are you?” or “How have you been?” with “Fine,” we all have something we keep hidden. The lucky ones, the people closest to being actually happy, are either fortunate enough to have less pain than most, or they’ve just found ways to manage their hurt.
We aren’t all there, though. Some of us need help. But help isn’t always going to take the same form. Sometimes we need something external to help articulate the pain, to translate what we feel. To show us we aren’t the only ones struggling. We need something that will give us a place to retreat while we heal that will also provide us with the extra strength needed to push our way out of whatever we’re enduring.
When you’re touched by the emotion an artist implants into their work, it stays with you. You feel connected to the artist that brought that into the world, since you know that, at some level, they understand what you’re going through.
After decades of being a fan, I finally saw Linkin Park perform live at the Minnesota State Fair a few years ago, while they were on tour to support their album “The Hunting Party.” It was a great outdoor show. A band I was barely aware of, AFI, opened, and played a few songs I liked from the album of theirs I had downloaded in preparation of the show. 30 Seconds to Mars played in the second spot. Jared Leto was a great frontman and they put on an energetic show; their album “This is War” is another favorite of mine, and I enjoyed hearing so many songs from it.
Linkin Park came out just as darkness was beginning to settle. It was a musically tight show with plenty of vocal superpowers on display from Chester and Mike. The lasting image that has stuck with me all this time has been from a vocal break during their performance of “Final Masquerade,” when Chester was spinning around on the stage, arms out, eyes closed, retreating into his music, maybe hiding from whatever pain brought on his suicide this past week.
Hopefully he was finding a moment of safety in the beauty and power of his song from whatever the pain was that plagued him. It's horrible to think that one of the people who had helped pull so many millions of people through their own hard times couldn't find a way to escape his own.
