Jim Tomlinson's Online Writing Journal

Jim Tomlinson

a writer's journal

Saturday, November 2, 2002

No writing today. We went to Frankfort, KY, for the Kentucky Book Fair. Saw several friends, some signing and selling their books, others browsing and buying. I came home with a second copy of Silas House's A Parchment of Leaves (a gift for someone come Christmas), Bobbie Ann Mason's Zigzagging Down a Wild Trail, Charlie Hughes's collected poems, Shifting for Myself, Crystal Wilkinson's Water Street and Lynn Pruett's debut novel, Ruby River. Between writing and promoting Seven Days in December, I wonder when I'll find time to dig into the tall stack of books I'm eager to read.

Tuesday, November 5, 2002

I'll drive back to Lexington this evening to catch Lee Smith reading from The Last Girls. She was very helpful with critique comments on Things Kept, a short story I worked on at The Appalachian Writers Workshop at Hindman Settlement School this past summer. And on Friday, I'd like to catch Lynn Pruett reading from Ruby River at The Carnegie Center. And then Silas House will be here in Berea next Tuesday. Am I becoming more an author-groupie than a writer? Based on recent page output, you just might think so.

Someone said (George Ella Lyon, perhaps?) that even the dead spots in the writing, even the non-writing days are part of the process of getting it written, that that aspect should be embraced, not fought, examined for its source, and used as guidance for resuming the writing. And I'm sure my memory has botched some of her message and meaning. But even mangled, I like what it says--as long as I don't use it as permission to procrastinate even longer.

Now to write--

Wednesday, November 6, 2002

I'm nearing the end of one very long scene, a scene that I'm fairly certain will need to be repackaged during revision into smaller scenes. One problem I've run into with present tense narration is making time pass. My scenes tend to flow from one into another. I need to be certain to leave readers some breathing room, some reflection time away from the onslaught of action and dialogue. I'd like to do it in this first draft. But I'll let scenes run together for now, and sharpen my scalpels for surgery come revision time.

I'm reading Ruby River by Lynn Pruett. The novel is off to a fast start. She's switched point of view frequently, every five or six pages so far. It's early yet, page 35. Still, I hope she settles into one p.o.v for a longer span, and soon.

Monday, November 11, 2002

Some progress on the novel manuscript today, although it goes slowly as I make that end-of-second-act turn toward home. I don't want to rush it, to jump to it, and yet I don't want to drag act two interminably. I'll write it just letting the words fall at their own pace, and trust the distance gained before revision to show me the middle road.

I watched a DVD movie last evening, John Q. I usually chose DVD movies that have a screenwriter (or, second choice, director) audio tract that plays along with the movie. It's interesting to hear why certain scenes are included or deleted, what standard devices the screenwriter is employing, the function of certain characters in realizing the story, etc. They are sometimes quite forthcoming on these matters. The result can be most instructive.

Anyway, in the John Q. DVD, the screenwriter concluded, over the final credits, that, at some point in the writing, you need to step back and examine what the story is trying to become. And then you must set aside your plans and intentions, and follow the story's lead. You must dare to let the story be what it will and trust that your viewer (reader) will follow willingly. Hey, it made sense when he said it.

Friday, November 15, 2002

Good day of writing on the novel, the first good one this week. Copies of Seven Days in December have shipped from Imago Press, and I'm guessing that's part of the reason. Another part may be that I started out with some 'morning words,' in answer to an email from Steve Lyon asking about smoking as a teenager. I rambled at some length, and that seemed to jump-start my word motor.

Or maybe it was the book I finished reading this morning, Dennis Palumbo's Writing from the Inside Out. The book's main messages are 'writing is hard,' and 'accept the hard stuff as a part of it all.' Maybe that helped me push forward.

Or maybe it was something else. Or maybe it was nothing but the whims of the fates, some butterfly flutters in Bolivia, and I find words for a few hours.

And maybe it's not important that I know why a good day of writing arrives. Maybe. Still, the inner engineer would really like to know.

Saturday, November 23, 2002

It's been a full week, but only a small part involved writing forward on the young reader's novel. What got in the way? Mostly good stuff! Best part? I drove to New Jersey to visit my daughter, her husband and my year-old grandson. Runner-up? Seven Days in December shipped from Imago Press, due here momentarily. And the editor of Appalachian Heritage requested a review copy. See? Good stuff.

And of great tangential interest, this item: on Wednesday, the National Book Award for young people's fiction went to The House of the Scorpion, a book carrying the Richard Jackson Books imprint. How is that for a reminder of where my writing focus ought to be? So these past two days I've pushed the story forward. This writing in spurts is making it difficult to tell how the story pace will read. That's definitely an aspect that will deserve attention, come revision time. Right now, the main goal is to get to The End the first time. Then revisions can begin.

Saturday, November 30, 2002

Copies of Seven Days in December arrived this past week. A few were sold and a few given away. No real reactions to the book yet, so it's hard to know what we've got. Time will tell.

Meanwhile, work continues of the young readers novel. I've passed thirty thousand words of first draft manuscript. As I write toward the final action scenes, I sense that I've finally discovered, or maybe uncovered, what this book is really about. Now I'm eager to get to THE END of this draft. Then I can start to revise, to focus better on the theme that's just now appeared, and to deepen the story around that now-visible center. The trick will be to avoid any semblance of adult preachiness, to let the story simply tell itself, to offer the reader no noticeable interpretations by author, by narrator, or by wise old character.

Saturday, December 7, 2002

Most of my writing this week was rewriting. The two most recent scenes, both dialogue filled, are key to the story. I want them to be extremely tight and well-wrapped. They must stand up for the whole thing to work, but in a casual way if that makes sense.

I'm at the point in the story where it is tempting to do something other than push through to the climactic scenes. I want to shovel snow, rewrite earlier scenes, post to my online journal, or watch a good movie, to do anything but keep going, even thought the end is not that far off. And I think I know why.

This story has always seemed to have great potential, great possibilities. It teeters at the point where some of that potential, many of those possibilities must be discarded, where choices must be made. Choices that are wrong, right choices poorly realized, opportunities to reach certain levels of complexity and story depth, these failings all lay in wait. To write forward is to wedge this story from the realm of golden potential to some kind of tarnished realization. So I've delayed. Until now.

Thursday, December 12, 2002

Productive day today. The central dialogue scene was tweaked and shaped and finally rounded off to a shapely end. What comes next is action. Elements previously set up begin to move, to adjust, to fall and collide. Conflict creates dilemma, which begets still more conflict and dilemma. Right now, I feel as if I can pull this off. Tomorrow, I may be very scared.

Meanwhile, the story flow seems to need a brief segue of sorts, a little riff to separate this from what I've just written. A dream, a reflection, a memory--something of that sort.

Sunday, December 15, 2002

Interesting writing article it the New York Times recently by James Lee Burke. One line in particular caught my attention:

"A real writer is driven both by obsession and a secret vanity, namely that he has a perfect vision of the truth, in the same way that the camera lens can close perfectly on a piece of the external world."

Writing as obsession and secret vanity, that part resonates for me. Burke continues with:

"If the writer does not convey that vision to someone else, his talent turns to a self-consuming bitterness.

Hmmm. Okay, there is an obsession of sorts to 'convey the vision,' but isn't Burke way overboard here? What's his point? All unpublished writers end up bitter? Sorry, James Lee. I know talented, unpublished writers who are anything but bitter. Or does he mean that it's possible to be a talented writer, but somehow produce fiction that doesn't convey your vision? Can't be. Talent and 'conveying the vision' are the same thing. Yes? No?

Tuesday, December 24, 2002

The story is moving forward now, speeding up, possibilities rapidly narrowing. I'm at the point in this novel where it begins losing its great potential, where it starts becoming whatever it will be. Each time I've felt myself hold back at this point, not wanting to give up all that distant, golden promise, feeling somehow reluctant to move on, even though a real manuscript, a complete one lies only weeks ahead. So we push past it. We finish.

Friday, December 27, 2002

Bad writing is so easy! Temporarily invisible, too, especially if you're the one writing it.

Yesterday I went back three or four scenes to seed some information and take a snip out, all of which was necessary for later scenes to develop. No big deal, I do it all the time. Only this time, I found a primary character behaving quite unlike herself--the 'herself' of two scenes later, that is. Fifteen pages intervene, two hours of story-time, during which nothing accounts for a transformation. But there it is on the page--bad writing, done confidently.

I know. Such things sometimes wind up in published fiction. The bad kind. What I didn't know was that I can stumble like that. Downright humbling.

It's fixed now. Took a day and a half to repair. Here's hoping the seams don't show.

Tuesday, December 31, 2002

The mid-year plan was to have the young reader novel finished by year end. Right now, I'll guess I missed by three weeks. Not bad, all things considered. In the past three days, I got the major action sequence written. What's left is a quick resolution (or suggestion of future resolution) for secondary storylines, then opening night for The Jericho Mize Saga, where Lake faces her fears. Then I'll seed bits and stuff into the text, and do a quick second draft. Three weeks. Four tops.

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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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