Okay, Okay...

GW wants an excerpt from the novel, and since I have been planning on writing about my life as an aspiring New Wave superstar, I thought I would offer this snippet from the book where Grace, the main character, tells her new friend Stuart about her experience as a Sugar Pop:

“So, you were in a band, huh? What was your name?”

“Don’t tell me you never heard of the Sugar Pops!” Grace affected outrage.

“Sorry, can’t say that I have. Should I?”

“Nah. We used to play weekend gigs on the Thruway circuit every month or so. We were all in college, so we couldn’t go on the road all that much. And, well, it’s hard to get decent gigs in Manhattan. Lots of dives, too much competition for the good rooms. We did okay, though—five girls in short skirts, bopping and playing our own sixties-type pop songs, singing angelic harmonies. That was a good angle.”

“You played... let’s see. Bass.”

“Nope. Rhythm guitar. And I sang the high harmonies and arranged most of the vocals. I still have some demo tapes. That is, I think I do. I wouldn’t be surprised if they went south, too. You’re welcome to listen to them, if I can find them.”

“I’d love to hear them.” Stuart took his eyes off the road for a moment to study Grace. “You’re just full of surprises.”

“I am?” Grace was actually flirting.

“Well, I always thought of you as so serious, so studious. You don’t seem the type to run off to join the circus, if you know what I mean.”

“You’ve formed quite an opinion, for someone who never spoke to me before yesterday.”

“I’m sorry. I just meant that, oh, you seemed so intense back then. In high school. I don’t know.” Stuart was suddenly flustered, shy.

Grace decided to let him off the hook. “I never expected to join a band, either.” She smiled and shook her head. “I was serious. I had no idea what I was going to do when I went up to NYU, only that it was going to be something intellectual and New Yorky. Philosophy, maybe. I hooked up with Maeve and Sarah in an English class. One night we went to CBGB’s to see what all the fuss was about. Maeve was a huge Beatles fan, and she had a bunch of old dolly girl dresses and go-go boots, so we dressed up and headed out. It caused such a stir in this dive of a club that we started to go back every weekend. Pretty soon, we noticed a couple of other girls dressed kind of like us, Gretchen and Maggie. Gretchen’s boyfriend was in a band and he had an extra guitar. And Maggie was learning bass. We decided we had to be able to play as well as some of the guy bands, so I went to a pawn shop and bought a little three-quarter-neck Rickenbacker. Sarah told her parents that she needed extra money for books and bought a sparkly silver drum kit. Maeve decided she’d be the singer. Two weeks later, we were playing loft parties, doing Shirelles and Beatles covers and one or two originals. Then we started playing bars. East Village dives, basements mostly. Suddenly, we had a manager who booked those upstate weekends for us. He even got some record labels interested—well, quite a few, actually—but we never got to sign on anyone’s dotted line.”

“And what about school?”

“Oh, Sarah dropped out to practice full-time, but she never told her parents. Maeve and I became English majors. We were always reading, anyway. Might as well get credit for it. School didn’t seem all that important anymore, but my folks were shelling out the money, so I kept at it. Good thing, too. By the time Brandon showed up, the band was self-destructing—the stress of almost getting contract after contract was tearing us apart, and we only had about six good months left in us.

“The end was spectacular, though. Sarah’s dad was a Miami probate attorney, a very stern and humorless man. Her parents came to a conference in New York and decided to visit her. Now, although she hadn’t told them about dropping out, she had told them something about the band, and I guess her dad saw a poster for a gig while they were trying to find Sarah on campus. They showed up at the club, which was bad enough. But that particular night we’d decided not to wear our usual sixties gear. We advertised the gig as a pajama party and wore baby-dolls. Instead of our usual tights, we painted big splashy daisies on our legs, like they used to do on Laugh In. You should have seen Sarah’s parents! Her dad tried to get on stage and pull her right off the drums, but the bouncers tossed him out. The next thing you know, Sarah’s on her way back to Miami. Last we heard she’d married a doctor.

“We tried auditioning other drummers, and almost everyone who showed up was a better drummer than Sarah. To be honest, Sarah had always been kind of the weak link, although none of us could play as well as we could sing and write. But without Sarah, the chemistry was gone. We ended up sniping at each other—no one could agree on anything. Pretty soon we weren’t really speaking to each other. You know—the standard story.

“Gretchen and Maggie started another band with their boyfriends. Maeve dropped out and got a gig singing torch songs in a piano bar. I hung out with Brandon and finished my degree and started writing about the Village scene for teen magazines. Just a fluke, really—met an editor for Ingenue at a party and left with an assignment. Then Brandon decided his career would blossom if only he could get to San Francisco, and off we went."

So... that's the fictional account of a band very much like the Poptarts. And just as a teaser for the real thing... we really did appear at a gig wearing baby doll pajamas (although I think we wore tights rather than painted our legs a la Laugh-In). We only did one other gig where we didn't wear minis, and that was at this gig in Cleveland where for some reason we wore leotards, tights, and hot-pants:

Here It Is!

This is what almost 400 pages looks like. And really, it may end up being more than 400, since this has kind of narrow margins, and I'll need to format it properly if I want to submit it to agents, etc. Also, I'm going to add a short, "hooky" prologue (or chapter 1, whatever I decide to call it) and pare back other bits here and there... but this is draft 1! I guess I should start working on honing it... I don't want to end up with a decade of resolution lists that start with "finish draft 2 of novel"!

And...

Here It Is!



The new range!

Isn't it pretty?

Done!

109,207 words. 394 manuscript pages. The first draft of Half a Mountain is safely nestled on my thumb drive, just in case anything should happen to my trusty Mac.

It seems strange, knowing that I have finally written that last line, placed that last end mark.

Oh, I know the REAL work starts now--going back and reworking and puzzling over why in the world I thought this scene would work here or how I could have possibly thought that THAT scene belonged anywhere at all. But for right now, I'm going to pour a glass of wine and put my feet up and revel in the glow of this milestone.

Whoo hoo!

Quick Update

I know, I know. I've been neglecting the blog of late.

It's not that I don't have anything to say... it's that I'm trying to finish the novel and get that draft to Jeff by the first of next month. And to that end, I've been writing diligently.

In fact, this evening I passed the 100,000 word mark.

Now, with only slightly more than two chapters left to write, it stands at 361 manuscript pages and 100,125 words. And it's only taken about 14.5 years! (Well, not ALL, or even MOST of that time actually was devoted to writing. I'm not THAT pokey.)

Of course, once it is finished, I have to show it to people.

And that's scarier than writing it could ever be.

Don't worry--I'll let you know when it's done!

Twelfth Night...

And Christmas is officially over. Time to take down the tree and the other decorations. Time to return the sunroom to its usual state as a place to sit and relax. And to work out on the Nordic Track. Sigh... it always makes me a bit blue, taking down the tree. It's so pretty. But it's also really depressing to keep the tree up too long after Christmas is over, so take it down we must and turn our attention to the new year.

So, Happy New Year!



This is what greeted us on New Year's morning, so my first official act of 2008 was shoveling snow. It wasn't all THAT deep or heavy, though, so I can't complain too much. It sure was pretty!

So, what has been occupying me this first week of the year? Writing, some. I have (as far as I can tell) four chapters left to write on the novel. I'm going to try to finish it in a week/week and a half. Then I'm going to read back through it and tweak. I'm reasonably sure I can get it to Jeff for his feedback as promised.

I've also been busy repopulating my iTunes library and iPod playlist (one only--so I can shuffle it to work out to). I finally figured out (with Jeff's help) why my iPod was full to the brim with less than 200 songs, when it is supposed to be able to hold at least three times that number. I had been uploading songs as huge files! Duh! So I got rid of those huge files, and I'm now uploading what I had again and more. It's exciting to know I'll have so many songs to work out to, but it's taking a while to replace and add.

I also bought us our own copy of Veganomicon. I bought Rachel a copy for Christmas and before I sent it to her, I browsed through it a bit. The recipes look fairly easy and they seem as if they would be tasty, but it was the breezy, engaging writing that made me want a copy for myself. We're going to try to make one of the recipes each week. Neither one of us can commit to veganism, or even to a constant vegetarian diet (go without bacon? I do not THINK so!), but we both think we could do with healthier dietary options.

So... that's about it for now. Although I have to recommend that if you have NOT seen Ratatouille yet, do yourself a favor and do. It is one of the best films I've seen in a long, long time.

Updates on Various Stuff

I know everyone is on pins and needles as to how I'm coming along with all those typical New Year's resolutions. Well, comme ci, comme ca.

I haven't done much writing on the novel, but I have been reading back through it and tweaking stuff here and there. It had been so long since I'd worked on it that I forgot the last name of one of the characters and made him up a new one, which I like better. I didn't think I'd used his last name much in the first part, but I misremembered. After I changed it for the twelfth time, I suddenly remembered the find and replace feature. Oh well, it's been a useful exercise. I think I may get back to some actual writing sometime next week. Jeff expects to see a draft on April 1 (Go Fools!), so I really should get crackin'.

On the getting in shape front, well, I've been less than completely conscientious. However, I have not been a slug, either. I start out the week with every good intention, and I follow up. But then other things intervene, I lose motivation, and shirk my workouts on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays. I'll try to do better. And I've set a goal: I want to be in much, much better shape by the time I get my braces off (due around mid-August, if all goes according to plan)--and I want to run the Ricky Byrdsong 5K again this spring--knees permitting.

No, I haven't picked up the guitar yet.

Yes, I have picked up the knitting needles--I'm working on this:



I have two other projects in that same magazine that I want to tackle.

I think that takes care of the resolutions... now for an orthodontia update.

I'm still not used to having a honking big wire attached to my upper teeth, but a whole world of dental hygiene has opened up to me. Who knew there were such things as floss threaders? Or interproximal brushes? I mean, this is my second go-round with braces, and all this stuff is news to me! Keeping my teeth clean takes much longer than it did pre-braces (the floss threading alone is your whoreson devourer of time... and if I do take up the guitar again and cut my fingernails, it will take that much longer--one needs fingernails to get a purchase on the end of that threader, believe me). But I have a wonderful new device to aid in the cause: a SonicCare electric toothbrush. That baby is something! It scrubs like crazy, massages your gums, scours between teeth and around brackets, and even shuts off automatically after two minutes. To get the proper cleaning experience, just keep brushing until it stops and voila! Clean, clean, clean teeth!

Of course, there is the pain problem. It's not too bad, but since the goal is to close that obnoxious gap between my middle two incisors, one of them has constant pressure on it via some elastic thread stuff to move it toward the other. And that one tooth is always pretty tender. Which means that I use my molars way more than my incisors nowadays... and that's not always easy. Or comfortable. Or sightly. But hey--I can see the gap narrowing a little more each couple of days... yea!

Then there is the lower retainer, which I was sure would keep me up all night the first time I wore it. It didn't. I got used to it pretty fast. But it's amazing how well it appears to fit each morning and how tight it is each night. Oh well, it's all for a good cause, huh? My vanity. Heh.