Literary Journal
May. 7th, 2004 07:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraI need to start writing again. For the sake of my sanity.
Have made the executive decision to go back to the Monterey crime novel. Sense of place, go with what you know, yada yada yada.
Here’s the first 3 paragraphs:
Problemo: “international set” does not work in that first sentence. It makes you think jet-setters alighting momentarily on yachts floating just off shore of the Teorema harbor. Monterey has a disproportionately large population of foreign nationals but they’re working class, and that’s the information that needs to be conveyed.
Line edits are ridiculous at early stages in the game but this misdirection is so glaring that all I can do is sit in front of my computer, wringing my hands together, trying to correct it.
In other news SLOW Burn got approved for both the Farmers Market and the Monterey County Fair, my ancient digital camera finally broke beyond repair and I’ve imposed an embargo on Serious Thought. Instead I’m reading a wacko archeology book called Lost Cities of China, Central Asia and India which is all about how Zoroaster came down in a flying saucer in the seventh century B.C. and led the Atalantans on a terraforming project to dig tunnels from Turkistan to Peru. Highly entertaining. Particularly the descriptions of the giant Buddhas of Bamian, now rubble thanks to Taliban crusades.
Have made the executive decision to go back to the Monterey crime novel. Sense of place, go with what you know, yada yada yada.
Here’s the first 3 paragraphs:
Among the international set in Monterey – a quaint tourist town on California's scenic central coast – the number one attraction was not the famous aquarium, or the Pebble Beach golf courses, or even the ghost of John Steinbeck stalking camera-toting vacationers along Cannery Row, but Costco, a discount shopping depot, whose aisles were stacked twenty feet high with toilet paper and giant tubs of laundry detergent.
On Sundays when Jessie Morasca dragged her kids shopping, she often felt as though she'd ditched the car in a lot outside the Tower of Babel.
Overhead in the blue sky, white clouds floated on balmy breezes. They drifted toward Big Sur, Mexican beaches, the coast of Costa Rico, places this parking lot had once looked very much like until land developers realized people much preferred cheap electronics to natural landscapes. The seagulls were still behind the curve. They circled shoppers menacingly, looking for food. A Chinese couple clutched pouches of frozen pot-stickers nervously to their hearts. Nearby, an Indian family in turbans and saris engaged in jolly wrangle over the best way to cram a leather couch into the back of a Mercedes SUV. Costco was more fun than Disneyland. Jessie could relate. These people had not spent their formative years in the midst of consumer plenty. Unlike her own sullen offspring.
Problemo: “international set” does not work in that first sentence. It makes you think jet-setters alighting momentarily on yachts floating just off shore of the Teorema harbor. Monterey has a disproportionately large population of foreign nationals but they’re working class, and that’s the information that needs to be conveyed.
Line edits are ridiculous at early stages in the game but this misdirection is so glaring that all I can do is sit in front of my computer, wringing my hands together, trying to correct it.
In other news SLOW Burn got approved for both the Farmers Market and the Monterey County Fair, my ancient digital camera finally broke beyond repair and I’ve imposed an embargo on Serious Thought. Instead I’m reading a wacko archeology book called Lost Cities of China, Central Asia and India which is all about how Zoroaster came down in a flying saucer in the seventh century B.C. and led the Atalantans on a terraforming project to dig tunnels from Turkistan to Peru. Highly entertaining. Particularly the descriptions of the giant Buddhas of Bamian, now rubble thanks to Taliban crusades.
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My 2 cents, if you want them --
Date: 2004-05-07 09:55 pm (UTC)Also, and this is more of a personal pet peeve: wouldn't 'Jessie' be sufficient at this point, instead of her full name? I always think that it shows a bit more class in a writer to introduce information within the course of the action/diologue, rather than give things away through narration. If this Costco scene takes her all the way through to check out, maybe have the check out person address her as 'Mrs/Ms Morasca' once she's handed her membership card over. Like I said, though, more of a pet peeve than anything else.
And don't worry, I do the same thing, stop and review myself to death within the opening page of a story/idea.
Re: My 2 cents, if you want them --
Date: 2004-05-11 05:14 am (UTC)Excellent start!
Date: 2004-05-08 08:23 pm (UTC)I agree with Mr. Hip's comments, too.
Ken L.
Re: Excellent start!
Date: 2004-05-11 05:15 am (UTC)