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PLUS: David Gives Advice to Aspiring Writers

Update

This, my friends, is my favorite time.

No, not just because the weather’s warming, my sailboat rides high and waiting, the flowers are in blossom and the patios are open so I can smoke a cigar with a Guinness at hand.

Understand that while these are some of my most cherished pastimes, that’s not why I’m so pleased. Actually, the calendar has little to do with my good mood. The clouds could sock me in, rain soak the daylight hours, and frigid air lock me indoors.

I’m happy because I’m approaching the halfway mark in my next novel.

Over the years, I’ve tried to make this Web site somewhat of a mirror onto what has been called The Writing Life. I’ve not shied from demarking my disappointments and my relative successes, the challenges alongside the downhill gallops. So now, I will describe for you the utter joy of getting All Your Characters In Place.

You see, this is the main task for the first portion of any good novel. Set the time, place and characters. Depict their jeopardy, their talents and lacks, select the teams. Who wants what, and who’s trying to stop them? How will the environment and time of the book inform the action, the dialogue, the mechanics of the story? All this has to be in place in the first 100 pages of any manuscript. Think of it as cruising altitude, escape velocity. Once you reach it, the book can roll on ahead, with your reader fully aware of the desires of the story. Ah, I tell you, it’s like finally sending the kid off to kindergarten, training that puppy, learning those first five chords on your guitar. Now, you think, we can get down to it!

In my new novel, Broken Jewel, set in an internment camp in the Philippines in the dangerous waning days of WWII, I have reached the ‘get down to it’ point. Tal, his father Remy, and the comfort woman Carmen are each well described at this point, their mutual goal of survival is adequately jeopardized by the wicked Kagashi, I have portrayed the layout of the camp, looming Mount Makiling, the humidity, starvation, bedbugs, the Japanese guards. Action and plot can now take over, and the book can, as I said, cruise.

Yes, I know, I’m writing in the summer. It’s not my preferred timing, but one takes it as it comes in this business. This was the timing that worked out once all the business of switching publishers was concluded. I would complain, but to whom? And, really, why? I have a book to write. Simon & Schuster has me scheduled for summer ’09.

That’s right where I want to be.

Oh, and the material? I do not lie or exaggerate when I say this may be my best raw clay of a story I have ever dealt with. Some books require a whip to get to the finish line, some you just hold on and try not to screw up. Broken Jewel falls in the latter category, in the extreme.

Just to whet your appetite, here’s where the title of the book comes from. These are the two epigraphs at the opening of the novel:

gyokusai - broken jewel

The word comes from the sixth-century Chinese history, Chronicles of Northern Ch’i, stating that a man of moral superiority should die as a shattered jewel rather than live as an intact tile. In other words, choose to die heroically in battle rather than surrender, death over dishonor.

and:

Atrocities follow war as the jackal follows a wounded beast.

John W. Dower, War Without Mercy

Like I said, fabulous material. I hope to have a first draft completed in October. I expect the book to stretch to about 135,000 words.

To accommodate the fact that I have to go sailing once in a while, I’ve set myself the arbitrary goal of writing 5,000 words before I can take a day off. At the pace I work, this ends up taking about 8 days. Then I head for the Chesapeake Bay. I wrote 10,000 in a sprint and took off Memorial Day weekend. Ho-pa!

On other fronts, I have retired from the James River Writers. The organization I founded is in excellent hands, and I have enough confidence in the new board to walk away. Not too far, though, as I’m on the executive board and a member of the strategic planning committee. But my new non-profit passion is something called the Podium Foundation. With the Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office, I’m going to start a literary magazine for the five area high schools. These kids are creative, intelligent, caring, and frankly, misunderstood in my city. I want to help give them a voice, to introduce themselves as they really are, stingingly smart and capable. The magazine will be called Podium. The tagline is: Where Kids Take A Stand. If you live in Richmond, Va., and want to help, please contact me. Also, to be honest, things like this cost money (printing, teacher stipends, computers, etc.), so if you’re inclined to donate, also let me know.

I keep my health up with running and resistance training. I’m a lousy gardener, so I limit myself to geraniums and verbena. I love the south in summer, the heat, weeds in the sidewalk cracks, cicadas croaking in the dusk, an outing to the beach, the Bay, a bandana for my jogs. My friends are all prospering, my brother just bought a house, I have charitable work to do, a potentially wonderful novel to take my best efforts. I still play classical guitar with brio but little else.

The photos along the margin are from my trip to the site of the Los Baños internment camp in the Philippines. I also visited my friend Tom Donnelly in Australia. I love Down Under. There’s hardly anyone there, and it is stunning. I’ll go back.

Also (I am bragging here), I’ve just concluded my one-year appointment as writer-in-residence at William and Mary. My students signed a petition to bring me back. I will teach again in the fall.

That’s all for now. Thanks for checking in, and reading my work. If you’ve enjoyed something I’ve penned, I’d appreciate a kind word on Amazon.com. It’s silly, but that sort of thing helps; think of it as online word-of-mouth.

Be well this warm season. In the run-up to this year’s pivotal election, keep in mind that we have a rare choice this time around between two quality candidates. I will keep my politics to myself, but be sure to read, watch, discern, and decide. It’s your duty as a citizen.

Take care, and let me hear from you.

David R.

—Posted 6.04.08