Novel: The Dark Heart of the Sun

Tonight I have come up with a name for a novel I am thinking of writing:

The Dark Heart of the Sun

I like this name. It is much better than The Well, which was the original title. You need a good name. I need a good name to do anything. I can't write a story without knowing what it's going to be called first. The name serves as my base camp, the place I can always return and regroup.

The story is about a young monk who has left his monastery and returned home to live with his mother and father. As the story begins you do not know why he left, but later you will learn that he was disturbed by a scientific article which has found dark matter at the center of the sun. For whatever reason, he sees moral implications in this and therefore questions his belief in God.

At the story's beginning, the former monk has really begun to debauch himself. He frequents bars and hires a prostitute. Perhaps he should be trying to test the assumptions of his moral foundation in a deliberate way. That may provide the outward conflict that is missing so far.

During this time the man goes for walks in the woods behind an old college near his parent's house. Here he discovers an old well and becomes fascinated with it. He does research and learns it was built hundreds of years ago by the founders of the school, who had also founded Miskatonic University.

The central conflict should perhaps be not wanting to accept the world as it is. He resents the lifestyle of his family, particuarly his mother and father. He sees himself as opposed to the world and family life, and once he goes insane, ironically it is an old letter his mother wrote to him when he turned ten years old that brings him back sanity and then to God. At the end of the novel he returns to the monastery.

It should be established that the monastery for him is a place of peace and understanding.

Perhaps I should mention that this is going to be a horror story. The first horror is the old well and what he finds down there. Not sure yet, most of it's going to be exploring the mystery. Whatever is really down there ought to go unexplained or at least very indefinitely described, like in a Lovecraft story.

The second horror is after he returns to the surface, his change. Something has infected him and it is growing inside him.

This is what directly leads to his eventual breakdown and entering the hospital...etc, where you learn that the horror portion of the story never happened. The well is just a common well. He has been an unreliable narrator basically. But there should be some question of whether it was real.

This story, like Trinidad, should be mostly on the surface. I'm not interested in writing psychological stories. Continue the form you established with Trinidad, where we are kept outside of people's heads.

The book will be divided into three parts with a kind of play on words:

1) The Well
2) The Sick
3) The Well

I really enjoyed The Men Who Stare at Goats

I just watched this film and was impressed by it's fun tone with something to say. It reminded me in that way of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series of books, which is perhaps not that bizarre considering the filmmakers and author are English.

The lightness of touch with which the story is told is the most impressive thing to me. It's an effect I've only seen achieved a handful of times. I think of films like MASH, Annie Hall, and Three Kings (also with Clooney). To illustrate what I mean, I want to talk about one throwaway scene in the middle of the movie, but it requires a bit of set-up.

Lyn Cassady (George Clooney) is going through training to become a psychic soldier in an experimental branch of the US Army called the New Earth Army. This is basically a group of soldiers who are to be trained to fight with love and new age-y concepts instead of the typical violence and destruction. As nutty as that might sound, it's even nuttier. His drill seargent is Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), playing his role with just a hint of The Dude.

At one point Django has the men all free-style dancing in a big room. Everyone except Cassady is dancing. He's just standing there looking around until Django comes up to him and orders him to dance. "I don't like to dance," Cassady replies with a scowl. "Yes you do," Django answers, "you just forgot."

Then there is a flashback which shows Cassady as a kid doing a goofy dance to a record in his room. His father walks past (a stereotypically repressed businessman from the fifties), sees his son dancing, and throws a can of beer into the room, knocking the record off the player. "Stop dancing, you look like a queer!" His father says as the boy frowns and becomes still.

The flashback ends and, after a direct order from Django, Cassady joins the others and begins dancing in the same goofy way he did when he was a kid.

Fantastic film, you should watch it.

Writing Tips: How to Complete a Book

The hardest thing about writing a book is actually completing it. Ask anyone who's tried. Now when I say completed I mean completing a rough draft. It does not include the potentially endless revision process. But having that rough draft in hand really separates the men from the boys. At that point you no longer belong to the multitude of aspiring authors who say with a melancholy sigh, "I'd like to write a book someday." You've actually done it. It may not be good. It may only technically qualify as a book because its printed on paper and contains words in a certain order. But you've still done it, and it does give you a great sense of accomplishment. So how do you reach that point?

The way I see it there are two walls to climb when it comes to completing a book.

1) Procrastination
2) Perfectionism

First, let's discuss the procrastination problem. This trait is hardly limited to book-writing. In fact it permeates everything human beings do. We are always putting things off until the last minute...and then some. Don't be ashamed, but if you do want to complete that novel or how-to guide then you will have to take steps to remove procrastination from your work.

The first thing I did was to set a word quota for the duration of the project (about 40 days) This is a number of words I had to complete each day before I could quit. I actually had three numbers to go by:

• 1200 (minimum) : this is the lowest word count I would allow myself to write before I was allowed to quit for the day. If I never reached that number I could not quit. No exceptions.

• 1500 (target) : this was my goal each day, the number I was supposed to reach.

• 2000 (maximum) : this was the most I would allow myself to write in a single day.

Having a minimum and target quota is kind of obvious and seems logical, but I have gotten a few skeptical looks for having a maximum. After all, if you get on some inspired kick and want to spin out ten thousand words in one day, why should you stop? Well, knowing myself, I knew that if it did happen to me I would burn out very quickly and lose interest. So I put a cap on it and for me it turned out very well. There were only a few times in the month and a half I worked that I reached my max. But at those points I found a good stopping point, saved my work, and made a small note about what I was thinking for the next day.

Once my quota was reached I would try my best not to think at all about the book, writing, or storytelling for the rest of the day. I also did not read anything during this time. For entertainment I watched movies, played games, and rode my mountain bike. Again, knowing myself, I knew that if I read anything then I would unconsciously mimic that style when I returned to my work and I didn't want that to happen.

So, this method worked for me to avoid procrastination. I sat down each morning, worked for an average of 2-4 hours until I had reached my quota for the day. Then I made backups and forgot about it until the next morning.

The second wall of completing your book is somewhat related to procrastination, and that is perfectionism. It is a specific kind of procrastination that many, many writers have a problem with. I had a problem with it, and finally coming to terms with it allowed me to complete my novel.

Specifically the problem is this: As writers we read a lot and are inspired by other writers' work. We see beautifully and eloquently rendered prose for years and years and thereby come to understand what good writing is supposed to look like. And then we sit down to a blank screen and what comes out of our heads does not resemble at all that Hemingway short story or that Irving novel. It's ugly, clunky, and just plain sucks.

Then what do we do? We sit there for an hour pouring over one sentence, trying to get that one group of words just so. A lot of writers romanticize this kind of perfectionism, but you know, it's kind of bullshit. I know. I fell into that trap so many times before. I wanted my sentences and paragraphs to be as good (or better) than Hemingway's and by God I wasn't going to quit until they were. You can guess what happened. I worked and worked on that paragraph, and slowly, ever so slowly, my story did not get written.

This kind of perfectionism is murder when you're writing a book-length work. There is just too much content to be written to focus on minute details at the early draft phase. I have a feeling this is the number one reason books don't get written. Writers start on something and obsess over words, sentences, and paragraphs and forget the primary reason they are writing is to convey a story, feelings or ideas. Let's be perfectly honest, writers are in love with what they do and are ashamed that what's coming out doesn't resemble the masterpieces they have read.

What's the solution? That's easy. Just write. And keep writing. Don't worry one bit about the quality of what is coming out. Some of it will be good, most of it will be bad. And every once in awhile you will write something that is so awful it might crash your computer. But save often, and soon enough you will assemble a mass of words that you can call your book.

Introduction: My Favorite Paradox

Hi, welcome to my welcome to my paradox blog. Disclaimer: I'm not a huge blog reader, so I don't know the common way to approach writing a blog. One thing I don't want to do is write articles. I'm not interested in doing research or putting too much thought into what I say. But I am interested in writing a blog like a public diary of my thoughts. I want to document things I am thinking about, however random and disconnected they might be. I have a feeling the total effect of reading this will be like experiencing a paradox. Also it might be fun.

So this blog is not about paradoxes, but I was thinking it might be a good idea to tell you my favorite paradox, from Jesus of Nazareth:

Ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you...

Thanks for reading. - Daniel