All posts by Russ Colchamiro

In the Writer’s Chair – Taking a Novel from Almost Done to Actually Done

RussThere’s a strange feeling that comes with almost being done with a novel.

Almost.

I’m having that sensation now.

The sequel to Finders KeepersGenius de Milo — is just about done.

The manuscript is written. I printed it out, doubled spaced, and have been reading the pages for the last few weeks.

I’ve read every word on every page, twice, and I’m down to the last 20 pages on the third and final read-through. Some pages are perfectly clean, others have lots of hand-written notes, and the rest are somewhere in between.

In addition, the Genius de Milo manuscript is in the hands of three trusted friends who I’ve worked with before, who will be sending back their notes within the next month.

There’s an excitement to being almost finished. A flutter of anticipation.

There’s also a sense of … ooooh, this book is going to be great, but I’m basically done, so … let’s ease up.

And there’s even a middling sense of … I want to be done already. I’ve been at this a long time. I’m ready to move on.

But mostly … I’m feeling good.

Yes, the fatigue can set in, but this time around I’m coming to the finish line with energy, focus, and enthusiasm.

I’ll be done reading pages within a day or so.

Then I need to get back to the computer, and start transferring all of my hand-written notes to the electronic file. In most cases we’re talking minor technical edits — a spelling mistake, a misplaced comma, the wrong character name!

But there are cases where a sentence or paragraphs needs to be re-written, and one section I’m going to cut entirely because it doesn’t serve the story. There’s some character development that I liked, but not enough to warrant slowing down the plot. So that’s gone.

I’ll have to fill in some details through Web searches, and fact check a few items.

I figure it’ll take me 2-3 weeks to input all of my changes, by which time I should be getting notes from my reader crew. What comes next will depend on their notes. They might have minor notes, or perhaps they’ll be more extensive. And then I’ll have to think on them, and decide which ones to incorporate into what by then should be a ‘clean’ manuscript.

But getting back to being almost done …

This is the time to really focus. To appreciate that being almost done isn’t the same as being actually done. It’s those final edits, those little tweaks that can clean up a mistake, take a passage from good to great, and even elevate the tenor of the entire novel.

The finishing touches are vital. At least that’s been the case for me.

Yet getting those final touches across with nuance and sophistication, while fighting off the fatigue of just wanting to be done, is critical. It’s where the mental discipline comes in. The focus.

So here I go, ready to finish another novel, one that I’m awfully excited about.

Genius de Milo has been a lot of fun to write. I’m curious as to what you all will think. Hopefully you’ll enjoy it.

Now it’s a matter from getting this book from almost done to actually done.

Wish me luck.

My Favorite Child — Sticking it to the Man

FKfrontcoverSometimes I just want to stick it to the man.

With the super awesome power of my books, that is.

Sometimes it’s a hoot, poking fun, or just calling out the absurdities of life by going over the top with some goofy character or hyped-up scenario.

And sometimes it just doesn’t fit. I’ll explain:

In FINDERS KEEPERS, I crafted a scene with the character of Donald — a 40ish, balding worker-bee called into the CEO’s office; an office in Eternity, the realm that oversees the construction of all celestial bodies in the Universe.

In this scene, the CEO was in the process of humiliating his secretary, yet again, simply because he could.

The elevators had gone out in the building, yet the CEO was forcing his secretary to walk down some 40 flights of stairs to retrieve his lunch order. And, of course, the CEO did all this through an intercom, adding to the humiliation.

Donald, who happened to walk into this scene, volunteered to do the grunt work, sparing the secretary this mortifying task. Ultimately, it did not go well for anyone.

The reason I crafted this scene to begin with — hey, it was fun to write and it helped with Donald’s character development — is that it’s based on a true story, as amazing as that may sound.

I hate bullies and weasels, and saw this as a perfect opportunity to ‘stick it to the man’ with what I thought was a well-crafted scene.

Only one problem.

As far as FINDERS KEEPERS went, the scene — while effective unto itself — was not critical to advancing the overall plot of the novel, and slowed down the pace.

So even though I spent the better part of two weeks fine-tuning the action, and as much as I hated to do so, I cut it from the manuscript.

I still have hopes that I’ll find another place for this scene; it may yet show up in the third and final book of the first FINDERS KEEPERS trilogy, or perhaps I’ll use it in one of the spin-off books I have in mind. Or maybe I’ll never find the right spot. Tough to tell.

In any case, as an author, it’s sometimes tough to take one of your favorite children and slip them into a drawer.

Then again, that’s the beauty of there being so many pinheads in the world. There’s always another chance to stick it to the man.

 

Slipping Through an Open Window – The Thief in the Night

Russ photo 2An open window. Moonlight. That’s how it came to me.

This is going back almost 25 years ago now. I kept seeing the scene. Two hands perched on a windowsill as a breeze blew the curtains in. And then the story took shape.

A single burglar sneaks in through a second story window, to rob the place. Yet while he’s in a supposedly empty house, he encounters, well…I don’t want to say too much, but what was intended to be a quick in-and-out job turns out to be so much more.

Essentially, I had a one-act play in mind, in three parts. It was a fun situation; it made me laugh. And yet…I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.

Fast forward to Shore Leave 2013, sitting at a local diner, and our Crazy 8 Press man behind the engine Bob Greenberger directed us all to do an anthology, The Tales of the Crimson Keep,so get your ideas together.

While I nodded and said okay, sure, anything you need, Bob, I’m in…on the inside I’m thinking oh, crud. I’m lousy at short stories. I have no idea how I’m going to pull this off.

And then it came to me. The Thief in the Night.

I had the scenario, I just needed the set up.

And now, in just over a month, this goofy comedy of errors I envisioned 25 years ago finally has a shape and a place to land.

It’s still fun, and funny, and maintains the integrity I always had in mind. But as often happens while clacking the keys, this story of mine started in one direction, and through its own momentum took me down some surprising corners, which is what happens when you write a tale about The Crimson Keep.

The world of wizards and demons doesn’t quite work like the one you and I know. It has its own rules, its own logic, and its own way revealing trap doors when you least suspect them.

Which is exactly what I wanted for The Thief in the Night. Because when you slip in through windows when the moon is full, you should never think that what you’re looking for is exactly what you’ll find.

Tales of the Crimson Keep will be available in print and digital editions on August 1.

The Dark Returns – Stepping Outside with Frank Miller

batman-vs-superman-frank-millerSuperheroes — and their creators — lurk in all corners of the globe.

In this case it was Bethesda, Maryland, at the SPX (Small Press Expo) comic book convention, around 1997 or so.

After hours — maybe 1 a.m. or so — I was hanging out at a party in one of the hotel rooms with my pal and comic book fan extraordinaire Tom Peters, putting back a few beers. And who should wander over but Frank Miller.

Dark Knight Returns. Sin City. Daredevil. Elektra Assassin. Ronin.

Yep. That Frank Miller.

Having known Tom for many years at that point I knew his love of comics and the various encounters he’d had, so I turned to the famed creator and said, “I’ve got a Frank Miller story for you.”

Slightly amused, Frank Miller indulged me as I queued up the scenario for Tom. For the record, I don’t remember Tom’s original Frank Miller anecdote, but I sure as heck remember what happened next.

MillerAs background … Tom is more than a comic fan. He’s a comic book aficionado. Even 20 years ago he saw comic books as a true art form, and is in a very real way a comic books scholar. He wasn’t your typical comic book ‘nerd.’

Nevertheless … as comic book fans are prone to do if they meet the creators they have come to enjoy (or even worship), Tom got into a conversation with Frank Miller about The Dark Knight Returns — and it’s inherent flaw.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

For those who haven’t read Miller’s tale, a 55-year-old Batman, in a supped-up exoskeleton, goes toe-to-toe with Superman. And Batman — being the clever and industrious crime fighter that we’ve come to know — ultimately bests an already weakened Superman using some well-timed Kryptonite (there’s far more to the plot, but I don’t want to get off track).

Tom’s contention, and one he relayed to Frank Miller, was that under any logical circumstances, Superman would crush Batman — simple physics — and the only reason Batman essentially defeated Superman was that, as the writer, Frank Miller made that choice. Miller decided that Batman would win, even though it would seem implausible, at least in theory.

(Yes, as we comic book nerds know, these conversations really do happen; not just on The Big Bang Theory).

Anyway, Frank Miller politely accepted Tom’s thesis, but explained that under the circumstances within the story, his plotting not only made sense, but paid off on multiple levels, giving the finale an epic send-off.

Tom wasn’t buying it, and finally said — in front of a room full of comic book nerds — “Okay. That’s it, Miller. You and me. Outside.”

Now … I’ve known Tom a long time. To know Tom is to love him, and also accept that he has a VERY dry sense of humor. It does take some adjusting to, but once you understand it, Tom is quite funny.

At that moment in time and space, I knew that, and Tom knew that.

But Frank Miller …?

Not so much.

So Tom’s standing there with fake fists, ready to go, the room unsure as to what’s going to happen next. Miller surveys the scene. He looks to his left. He looks to his right. He looks straight ahead. He looks to side.

Aaaaaaaand … he leaves.

My one and only time hanging out, drinking beers and talking comic books with Frank Miller, and Tom, the biggest and most sophisticated comic book fan I ever met, chased him away.

Just goes to show that even if you plot the story out perfectly in your head … sometimes it goes the other way.

The One That Got Away

Russ Farpoint 2014My latest novel, Crossline, is a scifi adventure about two men — a civilian space pilot forced through a wormhole and into a war-torn parallel Earth, and the CEO of the corporation who launched the pilot to begin with — and how their journeys intersect.

But underneath the scifi elements lies a more personal story– a trilogy, in fact — that I wrote in high school. It was my first real attempt at fiction, and, all things considered, it wasn’t half bad.

It was based on the ‘troubles’ in Ireland, which, of course, I knew absolutely nothing about, but when you’re trying to impress a girl, well … you make stuff up and hope for the best. The girl, in question, did like the stories, and she was impressed. But not so much that things went the way I wanted.

And in terms of the written material itself, here’s the real problem:

I lost them.

Or, I should say, I lost parts two and three. I wrote those stories by hand, and then typed them up, because this was back in the mid 1980s, before everything we did was on computers and saved on a hard drive. And, because, I was a putz.

I don’t remember if passed the printed pages onto to someone or I simply left them lying around somewhere, but I didn’t have the mental wattage to make copies or keep track of them. I still have the original — with the truly awful title Skies of Green — but the others are long gone.

For several years after that I tried to recreate them, to expand on that trilogy, but that original magic, even back then, was lost to me.

The core story stuck with me — I always felt I had something there — but I was never able to recapture the nuance, and improve upon it. To write a new version.

So they drifted into the ether for the better part of 20 years.

And then … I had the inspiration for Crossline — the scifi part of it anyway — and suddenly my original story had a new life.

Bringing that story full circle gave me real satisfaction, and a sense of closure.

Yet as pleased as I am with how Crossline turned out, and the excellent response I’ve been getting to it … those original missing pages are still out there somewhere.

And like the girl I was trying to impress, in some ways, those pages – and the words they contained — are the ones that got away.

Agent Ambush

Russ Farpoint 2014My Darkest Night? Agent Ambush

My memory is hazy on the some of the details.

But that’s what happens when you get pulverized. Shock overtakes your system.

In the fall of 2008 I attended a Backspace writer’s event in New York City. What particularly drew me to the event was a session wherein new authors submit a portion of their work, to have it read aloud in front of a group, and a panel of agents gives commentary.

If things go well, you just might find yourself with an agent, and, even better, a book deal.

At the time I was polishing up my debut novel Finders Keepers, feeling it was just about ready for prime time. So I submitted a page from the prologue — not the version I ultimately published — but a page of manuscript that I was certain was going to absolutely kill.

It killed all right. It killed me.

There I was, sitting in a NYC hotel conference room, listening to various passages from other emerging writers, and thinking that some were actually half-way decent, and others were, well … less so. But either way it didn’t matter to me, because I knew — absolutely knew — that nobody had anything as clever and inventive as what I had with Finders Keepers. There was simply nothing like it out there.

About a dozen authors had been presented, and finally, I heard my name.

The butterflies came, and I semi puffed out my chest with pride, semi slunk in my chair, because it was show time after all, and no matter how good you feel going in, adrenaline does funny things to a person. But still. I was feeling good. I was excited, I was having visions of wild applause and the beginning of a huge career. This was my time. This was my time. This was my time.

Only…not so much.

As soon as the ‘reader’ began, I knew I was sunk. Her cadence was wrong. She brushed passed the humor, she fumbled some words. But more so … the passage I submitted … which was still pretty good, wasn’t quite where I finally got it to.

The “expert” agents on the panel had a slightly different assessment. One agent in particular.

Again, my memory is hazy, so I forget the specifics, but essentially her critique was this:

You suck. You suck big, you suck in every way. You suck, you suck, you suck. And more so, you really really suck. You have no skill, your story makes no sense, it’s not funny, and it’s wildly derivative of several other stories done far better (that one was a real head scratcher).

And the agent delivered this critique with glee, with an American Idol-esque look-at-me I’m-the-real-star-here moment, and, essentially used my words as toilet paper. In front of everyone.

So rather than stand up for my ovation, I sunk between my shoulders, and used every ounce of restraint I had from bursting out of the room and breaking things. Was I humiliated? Oh yes. Did I have elaborate plans to find this “agent” in a dark alley and unveil a critique of my own, using a lead pipe and motorcycle chain? Thought crossed my mind.

But instead a slunk off into the Manhattan night, devastated.  I won’t go so far as to say tears filled my eyes, but I was pretty close.

And if you’re wondering if I thought about quitting my dreams of being an author?

Yes. Yes, I did.

But only for a moment. Because I knew that I still had a unique story on my hands that I thought people would really enjoy, and with just a few minor tweaks, it would be right where I wanted it.

And that’s essentially what happened.

I spent a day revising the opening sequence, subsequently landed an agent, and was close to three different book deals – which all went sideways because the economy crashed. But I ultimately published Finders Keepers, to acclaim from Publisher’s Weekly, and on my own landed a national distribution contract, which included Finders Keepers landing in 25 or so Barnes & Nobles throughout the U.S.

You bet I had a dark night, but rather than allow that little troll of an ‘agent’ derail me, I worked my way through it to enjoy much brighter days indeed. So much so that the sequel to Finders Keepers is on its way. With a third book in the series coming right after that.

My memory might be hazy, but my author mojo is better than ever.