January 12, 2011

Onward And Sideways! Sorta...


Though it still might be too early to tell, by now you may/may not have gathered a new take on the blog these days. Moving to a weekly post format, and then only when there's something to really say. I have always felt that less is more. Hopefully quality will trump quantity. In any case I've got too many entries where I look back and say... what the hell was I thinking?

It's a product of trying to be more productive and helped me finalize that "book with no name." At last.

And now, I've gone on to the next one - ideas for which began swimming around my head even last month. But I hesitate to say what it is because if I were to look at where I started with the last one and compare it to where I ended up they are two completely different things. Allow me to demonstrate...

The notion for this new one came while I was watching something or other on TV about ancient Egypt. The story was about the occasional pharaoh who was erased from the record or the actions of one pharaoh to erase the memory of one in the past. And I said to myself (I says, says I) "wouldn't it be funny if there was a President we don't know about because all record of him was erased" I says.

And immediately I envision this minor clerk in some government record office finding a document signed with the name of a President nobody ever heard of - the first document found to prove *they* didn't get ALL the evidence destroyed. And it bounds on to cover-ups of cover-ups and is fed by all the weird-o conspiracy theories running rampant out in the real (cough... coughcoughcough) world.

I even began looking through the list of Presidents we've had to see where I could squeeze him in and the most likely place is that bit of weirdness with President Cleveland serving two non-consecutive terms. Not sure exactly how, but something about there.

And from there it went down a side street into a whole dystopian thing. And this - mind you - all in a matter of a week or two and I'm sitting here with an opening scene I stole from something else I wrote and set aside where a guy is sitting at a bar and is literally, physically, falling apart in front of the friend (narrator) he demanded to meet to *tell him something* he's known for years.

And suddenly I'm three miles away from where I started and now if by some chance somebody reads this and steals the idea what can I say? Point being that in two years, maybe three, when I'm done with this one there's really no telling if any part of what I just said will even remotely play a role in what it ends up being.

So there you have it. I'm a nutcase.

And I probably just broke the very rule I started off talking about (re: blogging when there's actually something to say instead of just blithering) by boring you to tears with this latest bit of garbage lightning that goes through my head all the time and may not ever come to anything.

Well, rules were made to be broken. And people with blogs are goofy.

16 comments:

flask said...

i'm sorry to be contrarian, darlin',

but what the eff are you not talking about? i love reading you. really i do. that's why i'm here. because whatever it is you're saying or not saying, you tear it off with some flair.

so say something or don't. but this waffling has got to stop.

outgrep.

RW said...

um, no.

Pushing this down to one entry a week helps me be more productive where I need to be. I'm not saying there are a finite number of words a person can use in a given time period, I'm saying there are priorities.

So this wasn't a waffle, it's basically a pancake.

Candy's daily Dandy said...

I agree with both you and Flask.

I also understand what you are saying about productivity and putting out a quality product. I struggle with that myself.

I have the makings of my divorce memior...probably about 35 pages and just as I'm getting into the really painful stuff, I stopped writing. That was like 3 years ago. Things have changed drastically since then. You think its possible to resume and still write with as much conviction??

RW said...

Candy sometimes time = perspective. Works for me anyhow.

Dave2 said...

Was it Gerald Ford?

RW said...

And Dave takes the lead by a length!

Gino said...

how about a president that was elected, yet never existed...

fake birth certificate, a digitally created human form that gave speeches on TV broadcasts that were controlled by the secret world govt.

RW said...

gino I actually think that's been done. No see there is one lone survivor of the family that still has the documents and he hands them off to a reporter before he croaks and... and... well who knows, the whole thing will be different by the fourth rewrite anyway!

Kaye Waller said...

How about a woman who passed herself as a man in order to become president. She could suddenly give birth during a rally or something. Kind of like Pope Joan. Yeah, and then you could have the Tea Party assassinate her on the spot, right there in the street.

RW said...

ouch....

sybil law said...

I think I like the idea of the character you took from another story, and having him in this book, too. It could be something you do - reintroduce some seemingly unimportant character from one book into another. It says that everyone has a story. Also, that they might all be simultaneous things is cool.
Bah.
Anyway, just do it.
Haha

Brian said...

RW--I really like the premise. Go forth and write it.

Sybil--ever read David Mitchell? His books are radically different from each other, and yet he always manages to include at least one character from another book of his in every one.

RW said...

sybil - well I suppose, but as Brian points out it's been done. It's kind of a gimmick and kind of an inside joke so that's cool, but I have a hard enough time keeping the characters straight as it is...

Brian - Believe it or not over 2000 words came out of me tonight for it. And yet I'm not certain it will look anything like it does now in two years or whatever.

Verdant Earl said...

I actually fascinated by the idea (never mind the reality) of history erasing individuals or accomplishments or what have you. I believe that there has been a lot of that going on all through human life on this planet.

Just take a peek at a history book in Texas sometime...

Verdant Earl said...

"I actually fascinated"???

I really suck sometimes.

RW said...

Earl, you wuz REALLY fascinated...