Norman Green

HEAVY LIFTING

Sometimes writing is fun and sometimes it’s work, and like the lazy no-good slug that I am, I would much rather skip over the hard parts and get right to the stuff I like. I have done that in the past, and I’ve paid the price for it, too. I am at a critical juncture in my new project, which, for the time being, I’m calling ‘Benbow Street Hustle.’ I’ve written the opening and I’m pretty happy with what I’ve got so far. I have the next scene dancing in my head but instead of simply running with it, which would be the fun part, I am concentrating a little bit harder on plot.

Okay, a lot harder.

There are some writing teachers, Brenda Ueland for one, who advocate for the ‘let her rip’ approach. I like Ueland a lot, when I was writing my first book she dug me out of a deep funk and if you’re in need of a boost to get you going again Ueland would be a great place to start. She got me working again when what I needed, I guess, was to quit worrying and doubting myself and just pile up some pages. The thing is, I’m not sure that’s the correct approach for me at this point in time. Plus, when I’ve used this approach in the past I have been stuck with a lot of heavy lifting when it came to cleaning up the mess that is the first draft and trying to impose some order. And basically what that tells me is that you’ve got to do the work sooner or later, if I bail on it now I’m just gonna get stuck with it later on.

On the ‘Benbow Street’ project I’m trying to change my usual pattern. I think I have a decent idea of the destination, plot-wise, but I don’t want to simply settle for that, I would really like to do more of the heavy lifting beforehand. The problem is that I have never really worked this way, I’ve taken a stab at it once or twice but I don’t think I’ve ever really given it an honest shot. So, long story short, if I get stuck with a case of writer’s block for the next month, you’ll know why.

READING: I just finished ‘The Breach’ by Patrick Lee, which was terrific. I’m no reviewer but I know what I like, and Lee cost me a couple of late nights. If you like thrillers, check him out.

HOLY SHAMUS! I’VE BEEN NOMINATED!!!

I feel like a kid who just got his first bicycle…

Sometimes it’s hard to say, when you’re a writer, whether you are really an artist or just in the grip of some mono-mania for which there is not, as yet, any effective treatment. The criteria for success or failure are much more clear-cut in my day job: the thing either works or it doesn’t. No ambiguity, and a nice paycheck at the end of the week. As a writer, though, it’s much tougher to tell how you’re doing. Shelby Foote once said that no writer ever truly succeeds, he only achieves an acceptable level of failure. From that I infer that when undertake a writing project I imagine something like King Arthur’s castle complete with battlements, towers and a moat. When my finished manuscript finally goes off to the copy editor, how close did I come to my initial vision? Did I get my castle built or did I settle for a tin box on flat tires sitting in the back corner of a trailer park somewhere? Much of the time, unfortunately, I am in no position to give you a clear answer, by that point in the process I can see trees but no forest.

I have some friends who read drafts for me but I think it’s hard for your friends to be at all objective about your work. And sometimes, like a lot of things in life, you just ain’t gonna know. I have a poster of Van Gogh’s ‘Avenue of Poplars’ hanging on my wall. If I take the time to look it never fails to get to me. It is a stunning portrayal, in simple pencil on paper, of the loneliness and isolation of one human soul. Stark, brutally direct, it is truly a work of genius and if it says nothing to you, you are dead.

The man sold one painting.

In his life!!

I don’t know if I have written my Avenue of Poplars yet. I think I have written a page or two, here and there, that reach about as high as it is possible for me to go. If they happen to jump out at you when you read them you will probably know something about me and I will probably know something about you. But still, it is hard to know from those infrequent peaks how I am doing. Sam Johnson said I would ultimately have to answer for how well I have used my gifts. I don’t know if that’s true or not but it is a disquieting thought.

This is, I suppose, an over-long way of saying that I have been nominated for a Shamus award. These awards are handled by people who love good writing as much as I do and I feel honored by this nomination. Whether I win or not, I am in distinguished company.

COMMITTMENT

I am, all of a sudden, ten thousand words into my new writing project.  I guess that means I have to admit that we are past the fooling around stage.  I’m in.  And isn’t it funny how many of life’s decisions are made in that fashion, you wake up one day to the realization that you’re in deeper than you thought you were.  You missed your exit….  Okay, maybe it’s not that funny.  But I’m starting to like this story.  It has a couple of interesting characters in it, with a few more lurking in the shadows.

One of them is a thirteen year old Hispanic kid who lives with his mother in the Bronx.  In most respects he is an ordinary kid.  He is not a genius, he isn’t anyone’s prodigy, he’s small for his age, he isn’t a budding master thief or lion tamer.  He is, however, emblematic of the place where he lives.  They have a t-shirt in the Bronx which proclaims that borough to be the place where only the strong survive.  It isn’t true.  If you look around you will see all sorts of people who are not strong but who have clung to life regardless, but only just.  And from their example even a thirteen year old can infer that survival is not enough.

So this is an ordinary kid, but shaped by the neighborhood he lives in.  He is wary of strangers and new things, he is not easily scared, he keeps his own council and knows how to keep his mouth shut.  He is, perhaps, what you might be if you were thirteen and lived where he does: he is toughest where it counts the most, which is between the ears.  And oh, yeah, he lives to play baseball.  He is fiercely loyal to his Little League team and to the New York Yankees.

The other major character is a street kid from an earlier time and a different borough.  His is in his mid-thirties, freshly released from a long stretch in an upstate New York prison, where he has spent something more than half his life.  Like our baseball player, he has been fiercely loyal, but perhaps to the wrong people, and he has paid a heavy price.  He might be on the short track back to prison, or he could be in danger of becoming another lost soul who survives, barely, in the Bronx shadows.

Yeah, okay, I know I haven’t told you anything about the plot, and I resent the implication, sir.  I do too know where I’m going with this.