When the thrill is gone

I haven't been in a good place lately.

No, I don't mean that I've been lurking in back alleyways or sinister bars. I'm talking more metaphorically. As we used to say back in the day, my head is in a bad place.

How so, you ask? Well. My personal life has been a bit, um, precarious the past couple of weeks. Kids and leaking roofs and bitter disappointments. Rinse and repeat. If there truly is a God, then He's been piling on of late.

But perhaps the biggest concern, for me anyway, is my recent reluctance to write. Be it this blog or my new book, I have been avoiding the keyboard like the plague. It's not even a reluctance, actually. More of an intense YAWN. Like, who the frick even cares?

Being an inquisitive little bugger, I've spent several days researching my dilemma and I believe I've stumbled upon the answer.

I am, in a word, paralyzed. (See? I'm a genius, aren't I?)

There's a reason for my nascent malaise, I believe. I suspect (or at least, I hope) some of you can relate. See, I spent so much time earnestly working on The Devil You Don't Know, naively believing that I would write my masterpiece and then, somehow, just get it published!

I mean, duh. Why would I not want to publish it? So, having no clue as to what I was doing, I rolled up my sleeves (as best I could, since I tend to write in tee-shirts) and wrote my book. Only after the two years it took me to write it did I learn enough of my craft to realize that it's JUST NOT THAT EASY.

While I'm not ready to say just yet that TDYDK will never be published, I admit I'm not as confident as I once was.

And now, I've sat down and started writing book two, Empty Spaces. It's a really awesome book, if I may say so myself. Really, really good. I've done my homework. It has pacing, snappy relevant dialogue, a smart plot and enough tension to string it between two electrical poles.

So what, you ask, is my problem?

To be honest, I sit and allow myself to look forward to another year or two of incredibly hard work, only to find myself right here again.

Look, I am a writer. I must write. Or die. It's that simple. But like most of us, I secretly want to succeed at it, to have others read it. To have an agent and ultimately a publisher love it as much as I do.

I want to -- let's be honest here -- make money at this thing called fiction writing.

I would give anything to go back in time, to that point when all I did was sit down and write, without worrying about all the crap that was to come.

So tell me, how do you soldier on when the thrill is gone?

ROLLER DERBY UPDATE: For those who care, my beloved Hard Knocks lost 134-109 Saturday night. It was a great bout and a tremendous success. The place was sold out, alternative rock and roll blared and the media was all over it. Very cool. And the wife took a teeth-jarring hit and bounced right up, although one girl on the other team was knocked unconscious for a few seconds.

It's bout time!

So, this week has been crazy busy with extreme family things (sigh) and roller derby mania. Consequently, I wasn't able to get nearly enough writing done.

I shall do better next week. I hope.

But. Peoria's debut roller derby exhibition bout is tomorrow and things are getting crazy for the ladies and those of us helping behind the scenes. In fact, I'm leaving in a few minutes to help move the floor to the East Peoria Convention Center, where we will then assemble and lay it. Yikes. By floor, I mean several hundred tiles of rubber-like material that will need to be laid and positioned just so. Then, we can stripe the floor and start setting up seats and everything tomorrow.

I'm also getting a bit nervous, mainly for my wife, the lovely Genghis Mom (seen at left in her new publicity shot for our team, the Hard Knocks). We've had several injuries in scrimmages the past few weeks and I worry about her. That said, I have to confess that I am utterly in awe of these women. Never have I seen athletes work as hard as they do (and I played a lot of sports in my younger days). We had several in Tuesday's scrimmage hit so hard they vomited.

A bit gross, but damned impressive. These ladies rock.

Oh, and the bout has sold out! That means countless folks will be on hand to watch tomorrow and we all feel the pressure. This bout will determine the sport's future in our city. So, we need to put a quality product out there to entertain the crowd.

I'm confident they will do it. As bench coach, I'm also a little worried about my performance. I'm still learning the ins and outs of the sport. It was relatively easy at practice. I suspect it will be far more difficult in front of hundreds of people (and possibly more).

I'll post the results of the bout between the Hard Knocks and the hated Polka Bots on Sunday. Then I promise to get back to more writerly posts for the foreseeable future.

Wish us luck. Until Sunday ...

Teaser Tuesday -- TDYDK

Last week, I used a selection from my work in progress, Empty Spaces, for Teaser Tuesday. Today, I'd like to reach into the vault and use a vignette from the first third of The Devil You Don't Know.

There's a lot going on in this scene, much of which the reader won't yet understand. But the young soldier and whether he is what he claims to be plays a large role in the developing plot.

Perry Dorian is a famous televangelist with more than a passing resemblance to the late Jerry Falwell. Dorian's assistant, Jim Shapiro, lurks in the background of this and all of the scenes in which he appears. Hey, you think maybe there's a reason for that? ;)

Enjoy.

* * * *

On Friday mornings, as it did each week, Freedom University’s sleepy campus awoke with a start. Three large network trucks, each its own little control facility, lined the shady street outside the Stephen A. Dorian Auditorium as the studio audience began arriving for the Hour of Freedom’s weekly filming.

Backstage, Perry Dorian scanned his script while a pretty young attendant blow dried his hair and another applied pancake makeup. Jim Shapiro, his personal assistant and the show’s director, knocked briskly on the dressing room door and entered.

“The young man we discussed earlier will be sitting in the front row,” Shapiro said, consulting his clipboard. “The storyline is that he was wounded recently in Iran and he’s in a wheelchair. The doctors at Walter Reed have told him he will probably never walk again.”

“That’s too bad,” Perry said, shutting his eyes as the attendant sprayed his hair.

“Yeah, well, his parents slipped me a note. They want you to bless him on the show.”

This wasn’t an unusual request. Each week, members of the audience came forward and allowed Perry to place his hands on them as he prayed. It was a moving and integral part of the broadcast.

“Be sure he’s in the front and out of the way of the cameras and cables,” Perry said, winking at the attendant as he admired himself in the mirror. “The last thing we need is some war hero toppling over in his wheelchair in front of the cameras. Okay?”

Shapiro nodded and hurried off. Perry again went over his script, mouthing the words and practicing the gestures he would use at the appropriate times during his monologue—eyes rolling upward, head tilting toward Heaven, arms raised. It was pure theater, and Perry was among its finest practitioners.

Today’s show focused on the miracles Christ performed along the road to Jerusalem on what would become known as Palm Sunday. Perry wanted to illustrate how Jesus, aware he was heading to his own death, unselfishly stopped to heal the sick and maimed lining the road into the Holy City.

The show went as scripted. As it wound down, Perry found himself standing at the lip of the stage, exultant in prayer as organ music swelled in the background. A dozen or so people rose from the audience and came forward, some limping or handicapped in one way or another. Among them was a very young man in uniform, being pushed in a wheelchair by his parents.

Perry had done this every Friday for years and while he always felt a degree of sympathy for those who sought his blessings during prayer time, he never looked them in the eye. Human hearts can only hold so much sorrow, he reasoned. Therefore, he thought it best to just do his job and avoid eye contact.

As Perry moved to his left down the stage, he came to the boy in the wheelchair. For reasons he would never fully understand, he looked down and straight into the eyes of the young man. Perry’s heart immediately ached for the boy, who in his infinite sadness reminded Perry of Stephen, his own son. Stephen had died tragically some years before, died before Perry could help him. Died before anyone could help him. Died alone, young and confused.

Only one other time in his life had Perry felt the power deep within his very soul. Now, he could feel the power pour from his aching heart and shoot to his fingertips. Leaning down, Perry gripped the blond head of the young soldier with his powerful hands and prayed mightily, eyes squeezed shut.

“Gawd-uh, heal this boy! Heal him at this moment!” he bellowed. Offstage, Jim Shapiro dropped his clipboard and made a violent slashing motion across his throat.

“Cut!” he yelled into his mouthpiece to the main control truck. “Right now, goddamn it!”

“Give me a second!” a voice in his headphones screamed back as technicians scrambled to cut off the taping process. The guys in the truck knew what Shapiro was doing. The last thing they needed was an unfulfilled miracle onstage. That would, of course, be bad for ratings and book sales. Very bad.

Onstage, Perry remained frozen above the wheelchair-bound soldier, his eyes closed and his face purple, contorted. The crowd was silent except for a few whispered prayers floating toward the rafters.

And then, slowly at first, the boy began to rise from his wheelchair.

“Gawd-uh, I beseech you! Heal this boy!” Perry shouted.

“Hold on a second,” Shapiro whispered into his mouthpiece. “Keep rolling.”

A murmur began in the crowd and grew to a roar. The boy stood up, swaying slightly, a look of shock and pure joy on his young face. His mother screamed and began to cry as she stroked her son’s hair. His father clutched his Bible and prayed aloud.

“Thank you, Heavenly Father,” Perry whispered, dramatically removing his hands from the boy’s head and stepping back with the grace of a bullfighter. The crowd, now standing and praying, broke into riotous applause. Perry blinked in the bright studio lights, smiled wanly and abruptly bolted offstage.

Shapiro caught up with him in the bathroom adjacent to the main dressing room. Perry was seated fully clothed on the toilet seat, his handsome face pale and sweating.

“You all right?” Shapiro asked, peering in at his boss. “Mind telling me what that was all about?”

“I’m not really sure, Jim,” Perry said, shaking his head. “I guess the spirit just moved me.”

“Well, whatever in the hell it was,” Shapiro said, grinning. “Be sure you do it again next week.”

Derby, writing and a new nickname

I know I've been AWOL lately, but it's been for a couple of good reasons.

See, our roller derby league's first exhibition bout is this coming Saturday. As bench coach of the Hard Knocks, we're busy getting ready to kick some Polka Bot ass. And that, my friends, has been fairly time consuming.

[The photo at left is my lovely wife, Jennifer, aka Genghis Mom of the fabulous Hard Knocks, doing what she does best.]

We had practice and team photos tonight and have a full-blown scrimmage with more photos tomorrow night. Then we start getting ready for the bout. Surprisingly (or not), we've nearly sold out the East Peoria Convention Center! Wow. It's going to be so very cool.

And, I'm pleased to announce, I have my new derby name! Yes, even us men have to come up with a weird name. Mine is (drum roll ...) Rusty Razor! It's appropriate, since I only shave a couple of times a months when I'm writing. (It's a weird superstition thing. Don't ask.)

On top of all that, I'm back hard at work on the new WIP, Empty Spaces. I did some major rewriting today and I'm ready to start moving the story forward again after a few weeks of spotty work. It feels good to be working again.

I'm also still hard at work querying for The Devil You Don't Know. I've heard nothing from any agents since my partial rejection last week, but I'm holding out hope. Of course, I still have about 200 agents yet to query, so this baby ain't over yet.

I just wanted to check in with everyone. How's your lives and writing coming along these days?

Hope conquers all

Well, it happened. It was bound to, of course. I received a thumbs down on my partial. My smart phone buzzed at 11:40 last night and, figuring it was junk mail, I impulsively checked it while watching Craig Ferguson's monologue.

Hi Terry,

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to look at this.

I don't think I'm the right agent for this project -- you're a fine writer, but my interest wasn't maintained for the length of the partial, and as a result, I didn't find myself invested enough in the lives of your characters to continue reading.

Considering the subjective nature of the business, I encourage you to query widely and I hope that you will find someone who thinks differently. Best of luck in your search for representation.

Cordially,

[redacted]

Ouch. This was no rejection of my query or even the first few pages. This was a rejection of the very foundation of my story. The idea. The plot. The characters. The work itself.

I'll be honest about my reaction, lying there in bed with my wife snoozing next to me: I was relieved. Numb but relieved. I don't know why, except maybe that knowing the answer -- to me, anyway -- is far better than waiting.

This morning, after sleeping surprisingly well, I experienced the more typical reactions: Anger, sadness, pity.

But not once did I consider giving up. For some reason, this has made me even more committed to getting TDYDK published. The agent was right, of course. This is a very subjective business. Hell, I needn't look beyond my wife to know that. We are very much alike, in many ways. And our reading tastes do overlap. But there are authors and books she loves that I loathe, and vice-versa. I couldn't tell you why. It's just so.

Sometimes, a story touches us because of something that happened in our lives. We can relate in a very subjective kind of way. Sometimes, the writing just clicks with us, and we're willing to follow the author anywhere. Who knows?

I'm convinced the perfect agent is out there somewhere right now, sipping coffee and reading queries and just waiting for my book. I really do believe this.

I think part of the reason I'm taking this so well (other than I know that rejections are the norm in this business, unfortunately) is that I was under no illusions. While some accuse me of negativity, I prefer to see myself as realistic. I expect rejection, and when it comes, I soldier on. No big deal.

Part of this comes from my recovery. I was taught long ago to "play the tape all the way through." That means that when I'm holding something shiny in my hands, whether it's a drink or a sent-out partial, I need to think things through. All the way through. If I allow my brain to caress it and want it bad enough, it's Katy bar the door.

So on the rare occasions when I think of a drink, I make myself see the entire process through -- until I see myself waking up the next morning hung over and wishing I was dead. It's a surprisingly effective way to avoid doing something stupid, I've found.

Same with querying. If I see myself at some point down the road, published and rich, I am setting myself up for misery. When the inevitable "no" comes, it can be devastating. But if I see myself getting rejected and then working even harder to succeed, well, it takes away the sting.

So, I am rolling up my sleeves and querying more. And I'm going to work on my new book, which I'm convinced will be better than the first (as they often are). If I don't get this one published, perhaps I'll get the next one there.

Hope, it turns out, is frighteningly persistent. And so am I.