(Title Edited so that I can save the totally awesome title “Wordhammer” for a more awesome use later)

Spiraling around the issue of actually putting metaphorical pen to metaphorical paper, I want to take a bit of time today as practice banging out some words.

I’m very close to settling on Accidentally Inspired as the focus for my novel.  When I say very close, I frankly can’t think of what would shake me from it, but I did after all give myself until Monday to officially make that call, so my procrastinating half will happily allow me to put it off until that time or very nearly so.  After all, me from Monday certainly dropped a DonDraper anvil on future me’s head, or at least, will have done by the time he gets around to it.  I get around to it?  Future uses are Fargoers, especially when we refer to them (ourselves) in infuriating 3rd person.  Who would do that?  Your author is as puzzled as anybody.

At any rate, I want to kick around some ideas for AI in a span of about 20 minutes or so.  That will leave me time to prep for my next class coming in.

So, I realize that what the storyline lacks is a real villain.  Sure, the characters that Andy invents at the typermachine (yeah… that happened and I stuck with it) end up working against him, but they are not villains.  They’re not working against him so much as they’re simply working for themselves.  Of course, in noticing that I recall upon myself the notion that there is no good or bad but thinking makes it so; ergo, NO villain should be working against him in the strict sense of acting as an ANTI-Andy, that wouldn’t make sense.  However, the created characters are not operating at goals which stand at cross purposes to Andy.  They want their story to go one way, he wants his story to go another way, they may not agree or be particularly happy about the compromise, but they both WANT A STORY.  It works as a conflict, but the central conflict is an internal one.  His writer’s block.

Not to say that an internal conflict can’t carry the day; certainly it can.  But why not an extra external conflict to muddy the waters?  To spice up the soup?  Chuck would say, probably, if I knew him and were he reading this, why not 4 or 5 more conflicts?  Why not indeed?

So, a villain.  If there’s a villain in the story as it exists already, it’s Andy’s barely-mentioned nemesis Harold Green (or whatever his DonDraper name is; I can’t even remember, which is a testament to how long it’s been since I’ve written and also a testament to how forgettable he was, which is kind of the point – if he’s forgettable then why is he the Fargo there?) who exists outside the action of the play, writing the stories that Andy can’t write, scoring the bonuses Andy can’t score, presumably bedding all the models that Andy can’t bed.  He’s the measuring stick against which Andy measures his … prowess, we’ll say prowess.

So why not make him visible?  Why not bring him into the tangle and allow him to Fargo with Andy up close and personal-like?  Why not allow him to get in there and grab a hot handful of Andy’s scrotum and tack it to the floor?  Why, indeed, not?  (I’ve definitely been reading Chuck’s blog.)  There are moments for it.  It could even be built up to.  First, a taunting phone call as part of a good-natured pissing match between the two of them (good-natured, that is, in Harold’s eyes – Andy wouldn’t be able to stand it, I like that dichotomy).  Then a furious follow-up when he learns that Andy has an opportunity to snake the job from under him.  Then some honest to goodness Fargoery as he attempts to sabotage Andy in the writing of the project.  Making all kinds of crazy noise in the street outside?  Why not.  Planting radios in the air vents to play Hanson at all hours of the day?  Demented.  I love it.

Point is, I think I realized that he’s a perfect opportunity for the story to have a villain that can be reviled and hated and who I can also use as an avatar to give Andy some additional holy Haberdashery to deal with – and let’s face it, if I’m going to expand this thing into a novel, there needs to be more Haberdashery in Andy’s world to make it worth the price of admission.

There, that’s twenty minutes.  Or was it ten?  I think it was ten.  Nonetheless, a villain is a pretty good product for 800 words or so of musing and drivel.  Also a pretty good indicator that I can take hold of the ol’ wordhammer and bang out some stuff if I decide to do it.

Mark me, this is not self-serving wheel-spinning and procrastination.  Well, yes, it is, it’s exactly that.  But I think this idea needs just a bit of ground-laying to really take shape and I’m hoping to accomplish that to give myself a good chance at 1) actually writing and finishing the thing and 2) okay I really don’t have a list of objectives, I just wanted to perhaps lessen the magnitude of that first and only important point by giving it some cohorts on my to-do list.  If there’s just one thing it seems insurmountable.  If there are several things, it’s like a checklist.  Did that.  Working on that.  Gonna do that.  No problem.  Let me try again.

Give myself a good chance of

1) actually writing and finishing the thing

2) having a hot sandwich for lunch

3) pondering penguins in a parade

There.

Nick is two years old.  I forgot to mention that last time; In fact Feb 28 is his birthday.  It didn’t feel like his birthday, though, because we didn’t have anything going on for him on that day.  I suppose it would be more correct to say that I didn’t have anything going on for him that day.  Which is, I further suppose, indicative of one of the problematic ways I look at him.  A selfish way.  A me-oriented way.  Whether he’s two or not, his birthday is his birthday, regardless of what boring adult business I have going on.  He’s a kid.  It’s his job to throw things around and stick his fingers in his food and fling it at the walls and generally to act as a self-contained cell of entropy floating around the house, throwing into disarray everything it brushes up against.  My struggle against the entropy won’t stop it.  I can only contain it for a brief moment before he smashes something else or tosses another stack of bills all over the floor or somehow gets hold of a drink we left on the table and spreads it across the thrice-DonDrapered carpet in the living room.

I got distracted.  Anyway, I’m seeing him through my lens, not his lens.  I don’t know if that’s a bad thing or not, but I literally just this moment in writing these words made myself aware of it, and I can’t make myself unaware of it, so I’m going to try seeing things his way and see if that changes things for me (or him) any.  At any rate, he’s two now, and that’s pretty cool and exciting while also being laden with gravity and making me keenly aware of the fact that I’m not getting any younger over here, myself.

Weekend update, in other news:

Running is still in the ditch.  My heel feels strong enough to run again, but I am going to give it a few more days – probably until the weekend – to make doubly sure that it’s back up to speed before I get out there.  If I start up again and I start having this pain again, I’m afraid it’s going to be doctor time.  In fact, let that not be a fear – it WILL be doctor time.  This is past me shaking a finger at future me, if in fact that’s a future we arrive at.

Writing: I need to engross myself into a project rather than just dancing around the issue and writing inconsequential Sharknado that won’t matter.  Not that a little piece can’t have some good fallout, but it should be supplemental to something rather than trying to stand on its own.  Which is not to say that a side piece can’t stand… you know what I’m saying, don’t you, me?  I’m not going to do anything with the “small stuff” if I don’t have a “big stuff” to carry the day and help me start to build an audience.  So there are three options.

1) Accidentally Inspired.  It works as a book.  The problem: Do I know it too well to have it be a fresh writing experience?

2) Villainy (or whatever I end up calling the superhero thing).  It’s probably a cooler idea, and certainly one that I can expand.  The problem: Might it not be better saved until I’ve cut my teeth and have a bit more confidence?

3) Unknown new project that I haven’t conceived yet.  None of the drawbacks of the first two ideas; it’s perfect!  The problem:  What the hell is the idea?

They say that you have to put deadlines on your dreams, so here’s me setting one.  By next week at this time, I will choose a primary project.  In fact, I’ll go one step further.  Said primary project should be, at the very least, finished – first draft or beyond – by the time school starts back in the Fall.  Bold added for emphasis and so that future me can find this and remember it later, when he would rather slack off.

Ohhh, Sharknado.  I’m going to have to get to work.