Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

"Where are these so-called novels by... Brizolxkszzio?"

George Orwell once said something to the effect (which is why I won't put quotes around it, but I need to attribute it to him) that, ahem, deciding to write a novel is to deliberately undergo a prolonged illness, un-ahem. This strikes me as very true and puts me in the odd position of having been in touch with an editor who tells me, "I like it so far. I need to see more, completed if possible," which is like hearing the doctor say, "Great outbreak of psoriasis. See me when it gets worse, kills you, or damn near anyway." You've got to do it because this guy is one of the best at your type of disease. You'd normally never get an appointment with him if yours weren't a particularly interesting set of symptoms. So, to get my effects in order...forget financially; that way will always lay chaos and never stopped me before. The fact that I already have a (mostly) full-time job is not a drawback either; again, it didn't stop me the first four times. Actually, make that three times. The third novel was my only paying job at the time. "Oh, really?" I can hear certain readers; "Where are these so-called novels by...(peering at the byline on this column) 'Brizolxkszzio? I didn't see them by the Dean Grishams and the James Mitchums and the Henry Mailers, and, oh yeah, the Stephen King section." That's because they were all into and out of print during the big Halley's Comet hubbub and got lost in all the excitement. But they did get written and one way or another got out there.

Raymond Chandler had a method for self-discipline that involved sitting in front of the typewriter for an hour (I believe it was) every day; and while he did not have to work on his fiction, he forbade himself from doing anything else. He could not write a check or a letter, could not pare his nails, etc. I assume he allowed himself to smoke and -- during certain periods of his life -- to drink. Well, I have to sit here anyway by virtue of job #2 (or it could be considered job #2b) and during downtime from that task (about 45 minutes out of the hour), if I do not write a column or something else for the paper, I must work on the novel. When this sounds like asking a lot from myself, I think of my friend Chano, a Tijuana resident and La Jolla restaurant worker who does more every day by noon than most people do in a week. In fact, if I were to use Chano as a protagonist in a novel (which is not a bad idea), I can just hear the editor say, "I don't know. Is the reader going to believe somebody actually does all this stuff even before he gets to work?"

Sponsored
Sponsored

Budgeting time has given way to the next order of difficulty, which Colin Wilson calls the Paradoxical Nature of Freedom, and I will butcher if I try to paraphrase here (Wilson has filled volumes with similes, metaphors, analogies) but it has to do with that buoyant, first-day-of-a-holiday feeling turning to boredom and a sense of futility. Also, there is Wilson's radical suggestion (somewhat differently put than other existentialists) that the ordinary state of human consciousness is a kind of depression. You see, I have amassed an ingenious arsenal of obstacles, antipersonnel weapons to prevent me from doing anything as pretentiously fancy-pants as writing a novel. I have my mother's long generations of Calvinist moral objections to it and my Chicago upbringing telling me that writing novels is a gateway activity to drinking beer out of a glass and then styling the hair of my male friends while wearing hot pants.

There is one powerful antidote for all of this, however, and that is a story. I must tell a story to myself that I hunger for and is simply not available anywhere else. Finding that hunger is where the intellectual minefields are, and here it is best to just close your eyes and use the force. If when you open your eyes, you find you have written Clone Jedi of Tatooine, well then, there you go.

Someone -- Norman Mailer? No, Mario Puzo -- once compared novel-writing to safecracking. The idea was that you could spend years with your ear to the tumbler, then one day crack that combination, the door swings open, and you are allowed to type -- only it's nothing anyone wants to read, maybe not even you.

A story consists of a series of what-happens-next reactions in the person to whom you're telling the story, and at first that's you. So as I hold out an imagined event to myself like a carrot on a fishing line just a few paces before me, instead of asking me, "How's the novel going?" Please, God, not that. Ask, instead: "Catch anything today?"

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Top Websites To Buy Instagram Likes + Bonus Tip!

George Orwell once said something to the effect (which is why I won't put quotes around it, but I need to attribute it to him) that, ahem, deciding to write a novel is to deliberately undergo a prolonged illness, un-ahem. This strikes me as very true and puts me in the odd position of having been in touch with an editor who tells me, "I like it so far. I need to see more, completed if possible," which is like hearing the doctor say, "Great outbreak of psoriasis. See me when it gets worse, kills you, or damn near anyway." You've got to do it because this guy is one of the best at your type of disease. You'd normally never get an appointment with him if yours weren't a particularly interesting set of symptoms. So, to get my effects in order...forget financially; that way will always lay chaos and never stopped me before. The fact that I already have a (mostly) full-time job is not a drawback either; again, it didn't stop me the first four times. Actually, make that three times. The third novel was my only paying job at the time. "Oh, really?" I can hear certain readers; "Where are these so-called novels by...(peering at the byline on this column) 'Brizolxkszzio? I didn't see them by the Dean Grishams and the James Mitchums and the Henry Mailers, and, oh yeah, the Stephen King section." That's because they were all into and out of print during the big Halley's Comet hubbub and got lost in all the excitement. But they did get written and one way or another got out there.

Raymond Chandler had a method for self-discipline that involved sitting in front of the typewriter for an hour (I believe it was) every day; and while he did not have to work on his fiction, he forbade himself from doing anything else. He could not write a check or a letter, could not pare his nails, etc. I assume he allowed himself to smoke and -- during certain periods of his life -- to drink. Well, I have to sit here anyway by virtue of job #2 (or it could be considered job #2b) and during downtime from that task (about 45 minutes out of the hour), if I do not write a column or something else for the paper, I must work on the novel. When this sounds like asking a lot from myself, I think of my friend Chano, a Tijuana resident and La Jolla restaurant worker who does more every day by noon than most people do in a week. In fact, if I were to use Chano as a protagonist in a novel (which is not a bad idea), I can just hear the editor say, "I don't know. Is the reader going to believe somebody actually does all this stuff even before he gets to work?"

Sponsored
Sponsored

Budgeting time has given way to the next order of difficulty, which Colin Wilson calls the Paradoxical Nature of Freedom, and I will butcher if I try to paraphrase here (Wilson has filled volumes with similes, metaphors, analogies) but it has to do with that buoyant, first-day-of-a-holiday feeling turning to boredom and a sense of futility. Also, there is Wilson's radical suggestion (somewhat differently put than other existentialists) that the ordinary state of human consciousness is a kind of depression. You see, I have amassed an ingenious arsenal of obstacles, antipersonnel weapons to prevent me from doing anything as pretentiously fancy-pants as writing a novel. I have my mother's long generations of Calvinist moral objections to it and my Chicago upbringing telling me that writing novels is a gateway activity to drinking beer out of a glass and then styling the hair of my male friends while wearing hot pants.

There is one powerful antidote for all of this, however, and that is a story. I must tell a story to myself that I hunger for and is simply not available anywhere else. Finding that hunger is where the intellectual minefields are, and here it is best to just close your eyes and use the force. If when you open your eyes, you find you have written Clone Jedi of Tatooine, well then, there you go.

Someone -- Norman Mailer? No, Mario Puzo -- once compared novel-writing to safecracking. The idea was that you could spend years with your ear to the tumbler, then one day crack that combination, the door swings open, and you are allowed to type -- only it's nothing anyone wants to read, maybe not even you.

A story consists of a series of what-happens-next reactions in the person to whom you're telling the story, and at first that's you. So as I hold out an imagined event to myself like a carrot on a fishing line just a few paces before me, instead of asking me, "How's the novel going?" Please, God, not that. Ask, instead: "Catch anything today?"

Comments
Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Summit Fellowship wants to be a home of belonging

Unitarian Universalism allows you to be exactly who you are in the moment
Next Article

Seals hook up with Beaver

Salty’s Escape is a Mexican-Style cerveza brewed with corn and puffed Jasmine rice
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.