Tag: Annie Wilkes

Let Me Be The One

Well, yesterday’s crisis was that I couldn’t find my flash drive again.

The bad news is I’ve been incredibly lazy about backing it up, so the most recent back-up is from July. The good news is my lack of productivity means I didn’t really lose much–if anything–and due to the computer problems I’ve had since the Mojave update last year, I’d been having some trouble with moving files around, so I’d been moving things into the cloud in addition to emailing them back and forth to myself, so I was able to retrieve everything that’s currently in some sort of progress.

The one time my laziness has actually worked in my favor. Yay, I suppose?

I suppose that’s something.

I did do some writing yesterday, which is something. But frankly, the annoyance over the lost flash drive pretty much ruined the day for work for me, so instead I organized and cleaned. And yes, I am fully aware of how ridiculous that sounds. I did get started on revising Bury Me in Shadows yet again; I made a crucial decision about the story over the weekend (which is part of the reason losing the flash drive was so fucking annoying) and as such, have to go back to the beginning to pull it all together. Some of the decisions I made in the original texts of the manuscript weren’t working for me; which is what triggered the problems developing in the later chapters, and sadly, most of it had to do with the primary plot and the development of my main character. The more I thought about it the more contrived the entire set-up of the book was; and as an author, this is an absolutely horrible realization. While I don’t have a problem with having an unlikable main character, I do have a problem with an unrelatable one; there is no better literary legerdemain than having a main character who isn’t likable yet the readers can relate to, and understand, that character (Scarlett in Gone with the Wind is an excellent example of this, as is Amber in Forever Amber). Chanse was a really unlikable character, who does shitty things and reacts in shitty ways to situations, but he was relatable, which is why the series managed to last as long as it did–and it may continue again. But with my main character in Bury Me in Shadows, he has to be relatable otherwise the entire book fails; and I don’t think I was succeeding. I was trying to write the book in a distant first person; but that wasn’t working as a literary exercise and by keeping him at arm’s length from the reader, I was making it difficult for the reader to become vested in him. This means more work on the manuscript, of course–and there are some other plot points that simply didn’t work and didn’t make any sense. It’s very tempting to pitch the entire thing into a drawer and start writing something else entirely, quite frankly, but I really don’t need another manuscript in that fucking drawer already–not only because that feels like utter and complete defeat, but because that drawer is already overcrowded with about a hundred short stories and essays, as well as at least two novel manuscripts, and several novellas.

Heavy heaving sigh.

We watched the latest Castle Rock, and yeah, I think it’s safe to say the show has gone off the rails completely. This episode had nothing to do with Annie Wilkes, her daughter, or the predicament they’ve become involved with in Castle Rock since their arrival; and frankly, that story has been what has been driving the season thus far. There’s some other odd thing going on, involving the Marsten House in the neighboring town of ‘salem’s Lot, which kind of involves some weird kind of possession-type thing; this entire last episode did a deep dive into the strange goings-on at the Marsten House, and not only is it confusing; as Paul said, “it’s like there are two different shows being filmed as part of the same season.” I think this story–which reminds me a bit of the back story of American Horror Story: Roanoke–could have been interesting in a stand-alone season built around the curse on ‘salem’s Lot and the Marsten House; why it was grafted onto this season’s story about Annie Wilkes doesn’t make logical sense to me–but am vested enough in the season to stick with it and see if it does, indeed, all come together at the end. (I didn’t feel like the first season accomplished this, frankly; it was enjoyable and Sissy Spacek was fantastic, but didn’t, in the end, make a whole lot of sense.)

I do have some errands to run this morning–post office, grocery store–and I am hoping after that has been accomplished that i can come home and get to work on this manuscript again; it’s irritating me, like a sore tooth that I can’t leave alone.  There’s another proposal I need to get done, that I wanted to finish this week, and here it is Tuesday already  and I am nowhere near getting anything finished that I needed to get finished, which is, of course, highly annoying. But as I said, this current manuscript just can’t be left as it is, and maybe once I get the damned thing figured out, I can move forward with everything else. I think I have it figured out; I just need to get it down so I can say, with full confidence, that it works and I am satisfied….or at least as satisfied as I ever am.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines I go. Wish me luck!

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Mandolin Rain

Thursday, aka Friday Eve, has arrived and I have a purring kitty interfering with my computer usage this morning before I go to the office. Which is fine; he usually doesn’t want to sit in my lap when I’m at the computer and he seems to be okay with that this morning, which is lovely.

It’s been a week for the publishing world, let me tell you, Constant Reader. I am not going to talk about any of that here; I have another blog entry I am working on, where I talk about reading The Hunter by Richard Stark, which correlates with the crazy publishing week, so it’s best left to there.

Last night we watched perhaps the best episode of Castle Rock that has aired, either season, to date; as we learned about Annie Wilkes’ childhood and her relationship with her parents–and the two actors who played her mother and father were astonishingly good. It was riveting television, and I was truly sorry to see the episode end. It also seriously paid homage to Misery, and a lot of the things we are familiar with Annie saying were all learned from her parents. I know Castle Rock is theoretically set in an alternate universe to King’s novels, which enables them to use his characters, settings, and stories to create new versions–which is genius, really–and doing an entire season with Annie Wilkes as a younger woman was incredibly smart. Lizzy Kaplan is giving an Emmy worthy performance as young Annie, and watching this is making me want to reread Misery, which I still consider one of the best books of the last century.

Ironically, I wasn’t able to finish this entry yesterday; it’s the first blog day I’ve missed in quite a while. There’s been a lot of drama in two writing communities I belong to this week, and I’ve not been able to look away from either–one in particular I described to Paul as a slow-motion train wreck, and just when you think the last car has finally come off the tracks, here comes another train on the same line. Today, however, I am determined to ignore the train wreck as much as possible because I have too much to get done. I’ve not even been able to catch up on my emails, and the inbox just keeps filling up every damned day. So, today I am going to finish paying the bills, clean out my inbox, and do some goddamned writing. I’ll never finish this fucking book if I don’t focus, and I have some short stories that need to be reworked and revised and so forth as well.

Last night we watched the second-to-last episode of American Horror Story: 1984, and have just about decided that the only way one can watch a season of anything produced by Ryan Murphy is to simply not think about it, because once you start thinking about it you see all the holes in the plot and all the contrived behavior that makes no sense in terms of character–because the characters are only there to service the plot, which is the penultimate story-telling sin. But I can’t stop myself from watching–and somewhat enjoying–these shows. Some of the kids at work were streaming the Hotel season, which I’d stopped watching as it aired and never finished; and it seemed a bit more cohesive in a binge. I may go back and rewatch it, just to see if it works better as a binge show where you don’t have time to think about these things.

It certainly worked with The Politician.

I also want to finish reading The Ferguson Affair, which is making me think about some other issues with old works being read through the present-day lens (which also occurred with me reading The Hunter and, a few months back,  I the Jury)–and the age-old question of separating the artist from the art (not in Macdonald’s case; as far as I know he was never problematic, but the attitudes of the time, translated into fiction, are what I am talking about in this case–in particular, women and minorities and how they are represented on the pages of the book).

I am also slowly but surely making my way through Richard Campanella’s Bourbon Street, and enjoying the trip immensely. New Orleans history–dark and bloody as it is–is endlessly fascinating, and I am always finding inspiration for more stories and books the more of it I read.

I’m not really sure how much I am going to get done this weekend–the emotional drains of the LSU-Alabama game on Saturday, followed by the Saints-Falcons game on Sunday–is probably going to be prohibitive of doing any writing–unless I do it in the mornings–all weekend. So, mostly reading will be on the agenda this weekend, methinks.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me. I don’t have to head into the office until around noonish, so I have this morning free to write and answer emails and put away dishes and…sigh. I’m getting tired just thinking about it, so I better just do it.

Til tomorrow, Constant Reader.

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