Tag Archives: character

Enter the Green Pen

Posted on by

First Draft and Celebratory Champagne

Late in the evening on Labor Day, I finally wrapped up the first draft of Project Kingdom. I popped the champagne, invited over some close friends and threw some steaks on the grill, and promptly put the printed beast onto the shelf with all of my other work.

It wasn’t easy. I wanted to jump right into editing, to maintain the momentum I had built up in August and early September to carry me through the writing period most easily described as “hell.”

But I gave the story some time to breathe and myself some time to recover. Like a cooling off in a relationship, I tried to occupy my time.

I made up for all those late nights drinking and writing by going out, drinking and not writing.

I started playing golf, poorly.

And I got back to reading. I had forgotten how much I enjoy reading, and I put down at least 6 books in the last two months.

But, in the back of my mind, there was always that nagging voice complaining, “Hey man, don’t you have a book to edit?”

You can only shoo that voice away with whiskey for so long (but be damned if I didn’t try.)

So, as November crept into existence, I made up my mind to get back into the process.

I took my manuscript out of the cube shelf it was resting on and moved it to the steamer-trunk-cum-coffee-table. I let it taunt me there for a few days.

I took the cover off the first volume and reverse it, so I could pull printed chapters off individually without unseating the entire work.

And I told myself, repeatedly, “I’ll start editing…right after I finish this television show/movie/book.”

Saturday turned out to be blissfully quiet. I cleaned the house, started the laundry, and did some grocery shopping. Following that, I picked up Project Kingdom and realized just what a mountain I had in front of me.

It has quite literally been years since I read the prologue (which was way too long at 1500 words) and the first few chapters (which failed to introduce the characters and set up the motivations for the remainder of the book…oh and foreshadowing, I needz it).

So, after getting jacked up on coffee, I grabbed my green pen and started carving.

Mighter than a nerdy double entendre

I trimmed and rewrote the prologue, taking it from a bloated and unnecessary 1569 words down to a tight and cracking 400.

It wasn’t so bad, this rewriting thing.

I then immediately jumped into chapter 1, completely rewriting the beast. The rewrite successfully defined the protagonist (and changing the spelling of his name), painted a clearer picture of the initial setting and amplified the violence.

I also used the F word on the first page, which may or may not survive further edits.

I’m hoping to move through Green Pen edits – fixing plot wholes, characterization, mechanical errors and shitty writing – by the end of the year, end of January at the latest. From there, I’ll pick up the red pen and push through heavy copy edits – fixing grammar and cutting down on the word count – and I’ll hopefully be submitting this bad boy to agents in the Spring.

You know, as long as the publishing industry doesn’t collapse by then.

Old Green Blankets

Posted on by

Virginia, like much of the country, was recently hit with a cold spike that had many cigarettes dying half smoked on the front porch and whiskey serving as a cheaper alternative to high heating bills. However, as the weather reported the nightly lows dipping into the single digits, adding another blank to the bed seemed like a wise alternative to the previous nights inexplicable and cruel blanket theft.

Comfort Only a Soldier Could Love

Comfort Only a Soldier Could Love

Though I came to this decision earlier in the day, it was both dark and late by the time I pushed open the closet door and fished around the floor for the familiar feeling of wool. Like so many others in my generation, I have an extensive collection of military-issued materials littering my apartment, despite having received my honorable discharge over four years prior. There is a certain sense of practicality that is imbued through service, especially service during wartime. Call it a sense of spend-thrift, call it being a packrat, but a perfectly good blanket or duffle has a use, even if at the time it’s not obvious.

In the late hour I stripped back the comforter and heavy over-blanket from the bed, exposing the mess of thinly striped sheets below. With a practiced flip of my arms, an expanse of green wool shot out to cover those sheets. I paused. It didn’t matter that the dark olive drab would clash terribly with the pale beige or yellow of the sheets. It didn’t matter that Army-issue blankets are renowned for their scratchy demeanor. No, what gave me reason to pause was the hollow, black, san-serif US which was staring up at me.

In the very first day of basic training, you’re told to make your bed. Failure is expected, as you have yet to be taught how to do so. Later that day your bunks are all tossed, blankets and unfitted sheets, pillows which are purposefully uncomfortable, end up in chaotic rough messes. All the effort spent in a vain attempt to prove that you could make a bed is suddenly undone.

But, it’s to prove a point. Later that day you’re instructed on how Uncle Sam makes a bed. How to properly craft a hospital corner. How to situate a pillow. How to fashion a pillow cover out of a blanket. And what seemed to stick with everyone, why the US-side of the blanket always go down. Every drill Sergeant seems to tell the story differently, but the lesson is always the same. It’s US side down when the bed’s occupant is alive.

At the time, the stories of Vietnam still circulated readily amongst the Army. The image of showing up at a unit and replacing a fallen soldier, of having to turn over that blanket and hide the US side of the blanket, it struck a sense of mortality in the new privates there in the first day of Basic Training.

Apparently it struck a nerve in me too. I knew the blanket wouldn’t be seen. I knew that no one was going to assume that I’d fallen. But, without hesitation, I flipped the blanket over. I guess, with some things, you never do stop being a soldier.

In the end, I was warm.