Trouble in River City (it's raiing here again ... we flood) etc.

I have a knack for getting into trouble - what I prefer to call "issues." I spent several weeks trying to get information on a license for the music to "Somewhere in Time" to include it on my video. The music industry, despite iTunes, is still mired in antiquated ways of doing business. If anyone had the cash, you could reinvent commercial access rights in an iTunes format and destroy the existing multi-tiered and inefficient commercial music industry - worth billions. A thought for another day ...

I gave up and posted it. Guess what? They found me ... real quick(ly). Pretty funny. The video now is without the soundtrack, but I have 10 (yes, 10) different brokers, agents, and 'consultants' all asking me what my budget for the music is. NOT 'it'll cost you $XXX for that' but how much I can spend.

Imagine going to the Wal-Mart and when you go to check out, they say "How much can you give us".

We'll see how this plays out. In the meantime, the second draft of Clan of the Black Sun (notice the title change) is completed, and the fun part starts - rereading until my eyes drop out of my head.

Music video for Book 3 - The Black Sun at YouTube

Ariéle Farewell is the music video for the ending of book 3 of The Juno Letters - The Black Sun. I am about a month away from publishing, but I wanted to give you a sneak preview. If you have not read books 1 or 2, Ariéle is the main character whose life journey is the background for The Juno Letters. A child when the saga starts, she ends the series by saying goodbye to her love, Richard Soullant who has passed away decades back, and meets her long-lost friend, Lanval, now that they are both in their final years.

I hope you like it. It is to the theme music of "Somewhere in Time" by John Barry (used under Creative Common license). See junoletters.com/movie for credits.

Holes ... part trois

In a fit of writing fury, I wrote the entire attack/retreat/escape scene today - 20+ pages. It actually turned out great for a rough draft.

However, Captain Charest was written into the attack scene in Muizon - 90 minutes away from Paris. The ending has him at the chateau and being killed there, as all really bad guys should be. So ... I simply tracked back through the story and eliminated his participation in the Muizon raid. After all, Les Police Nacionale's jurisdiction is the major French cities - not the countryside, sort of.

Never write anything cut in stone until you are done, finis! Like Steve Jobs said, if you are not willing to kill your cash cow, someone else will ... or something like that.

Lanval, the wanna-be boyfriend in the very sweet and innocent love triangle, is at police HQ, not at the chateau where he is the only who actually kills Charest. So, I wrote in a small scene where he overhears Charest (in Paris ... good thing I changed that) say he is kidnapping the lovely Ariele. He then finds where the maquis will meet before the attack and braves being killed himself to warn his rival, Richard. Brave guy ... he becomes in the eyes of Ariele the man he wants her to know. Important for the ending!

That leaves the venerable Paris security forces garrison. They need to be gone, but NOT at Muizon, one of the deceptions. I reverted back to Book 2's story and have them raiding the transport company (read the book!) to get them out of the way, leaving room for the maquis to attack ... EXCEPT, Charest leads the police force instead into the fray ... SO I wrote a scene where the communist maquis called the FTP ( a real group) join the attack to balance out the numbers and ensure they get guns and ammunition from the armory ... which is NOT the objective of Richard's attack.

Confused? Good. The point is, all these details can be changed as long as you have the courage in your own work to write an ending that makes no sense - then make it make sense. And then edit like crazy!

Read the book - it all makes sense now (I hope).

The value of a snippet in digging out of a hole

I have said a few times that I write in 'snippets'- small sections of a story that fit into the general idea but do not necessarily connect either in front (going forward) or from behind. Often, I free-write ideas and collect an entire folder of them just to see what sticks. I often write a snippet as a means of climbing out of one of my infamous story holes.

Here it is, again: 'He' goes for his gun, at that very moment there is an explosion, knocking him senseless. So 'she' fires twice at him ... where did 'she' get the gun? Then you realize that 'he' is supposed to be 90 miles away at the other attack site. When the young man who dreams only of her bursts into the room to save her ... 'the other he (him?)' is supposed to be at the police communications room 10 blocks away.

The first thing I did was write the scene - independently; meaning, not connected fore or aft to anything, yet. Captain Charest (the evil Captain Charest) charges into Colonel Reiniger's office and shoots him (a long story, from Book 2); Mme Bourait and Ariéle are in the office, and he turns, planning to shoot Mme Bourait and kidnap the beautiful Ariéle. The explosion - the resistance needs to blow up the communications capability of the chateau (district German HQ), so I simply move the comm office from the first floor (the open German HQ) to the secure second floor - offices of the Colonel and the 'Grand Foyer' - also from book 2. This gives me a good reason to have an explosion at the right moment.

The explosion knocks Ariéle and Mme Bourait down, and disables Captain Charest. Ariéle grabs the dead colonel's gun, laying on the floor.

Richard barges in (who is Richard? - gotta read the story), collects the dazed Mme Bourait, The Black Sun, and readies them to leave by the back door when ... Charest gets up and is going to shoot Richard, so Ariéle shoots him (not dead - important).

Lanval meets the desperate Charest in the hall (again, gotta read the story), and Charest thinks he is there to help him. He is going to shoot Richard by barging through the hallway back door into the garage, but Lanval (Police Corporal Lanval Morisot) kills him, unbeknownst to Richard or Ariéle, or obviously to the surprise of Captain Charest.

Whew! Problem is ... some of these players are NOT really in the chateau according to the story as it is written... more of the solution tomorrow.

Deconstructing a story

One of the few things guaranteed to fuel a sleepless night is a hole in a story. I am almost there, 3/4s away from finishing the first draft (brillilant, of course), the final dramatic scene clearly in mind. 'He' goes for his gun, at that very moment there is an explosion, knocking him senseless. So 'she' fires twice at him ... where did 'she' get the gun? Then you realize that 'he' is supposed to be 90 miles away at the other attack site. When the young man who dreams only of her bursts into the room to save her ... 'the other he (him?)' is supposed to be at the police communications room 10 blocks away.

This just happened to me, and I spent all last night tossing and turning - my wife will attest to it! My story had a hole and I plunged headlong into it.

I write in fits of brilliant inspiration. That's what I like to call it, anyway. I am an advocate of "free writing" then assembling and editing to put a story together. That style suites me better than outlining a story to the Nth degree first. But it leads me to these holes, and I have created some unique solutions to climbing back out.

Rather than bore you with a long-winded rant, I am going to publish a series of "holes" I created for myself in writing "The Black Sun" and discuss how I worked my way out of them. The first one will be my action scene above, but there are a lot of them in this book, and the manner and discipline needed to rectify the problem makes for some serious book editing illustrations - I hope these will be of help to others.

Next blog: How I get 'him' to the chateau, how 'she' gets a gun, and how 'the other him' can be in two places at the same time.