Novel silence

This has been a novel silence. A "novel" silence.
Still going at it. Still with my writing-partner.
(Have I mentioned she's brilliant?)
She has such gift of pointing out the crap in my writing--the occasional cliche we all succumb to once in a while, all the gaps and holes, and the best of all, the potential! All the things, people, events I should be writing about but I haven't thought about it. (Duh!)

Me? I'm great with endings! My endings are always dramatic. My beginnings? Not so much! I like to warm up, my "runway" tends to stretch long. (Then I forget to cut the beginning all together). But once pointed out to me, oh boy, could I rewrite the hell out of it! And make it into a gem it's meant to be. (Oh yes.)

So, this is why I haven't been writing my blog lately, while I have been reading more (God bless me), watching less TV (I love Breaking Bad, so shoot me), and rewriting my whole book!
It's looking good, my future-readers, it's looking good!
I still have two mountains and a hill to climb over but my deadline is October 15, and I think by then, I will actually have a kick-ass Balkan family saga novel-in-stories, that would scare the hell out of you.
(Just finished reading Junot Diaz's Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and boy, was I wowed! He made me sad but I still love him. This is what I'm going for! Making you miserable!)
So today, ahead of the storm, I'm rewriting my Angela story into a chapter, based on my partner's extensive, painful feedback. (Have I mentioned she's brilliant? And has a top-secret identity).
So, sails away!
Here we go.
Here we.
Here....

The capital of Chechnya isn't Prague!

There is something to be said about approaching the world thinking (or believing) that most people are idiots.

So, when some (a lot of ) people called the Czech Embassy after the Boston marathon bombings, to threaten Czechs, the Slavs, a famous tourist destination with the beer we (Americans) import and gulp down, I, as one of the people who goes through life assuming most people are idiots,was not so surprised. Or disappointed. Or embarrassed. But I was. All three.
(Imagine poor people had to write a statement on their Web site. We're Czech Republic, not Chechnya, a former Soviet Union Republic. Sigh. That's your proof there's more than one belligerent idiot out there. Scary.)

This idiot-ism, (I know, most of you have moved on, but I can't) immediately transported me to 2004, when I immigrated to the United States, and wasn't an American I am now, and when asked around, I would say I was from Serbia, and got a blank stare, then when elaborated with "Former Yugoslavia," I was finally able to see that little light of recognition in their eyes. Sometimes.

Then the questions: "Is it very cold out there? " (Siberia)
"Is that in Germany?"
"Is that in Australia?"

I kid you not!

I'll grant you, I don't know everything either. But I do not ask stupid questions if I don't know. I shut up, listen, go home and google. And I certainly don't call an Embassy or write e-mails to threaten people based on my (not my, but theirs) ignorance and inability to distinguish between countries and nations. Hell, even continents! Totally different cultures!

My advice? Travel a little! Read a book! Get out a bit out of your football/baseball/basketball/anyball watching/ domestic-vacationing frame of mind.
Or go back to school. Learn geography. Learn another language.
Stop blaming the wrong country for something two monsters did.

Play a Writer

I have finally joined the corporate world. After years of bitchin' about it.
I walk to work. I work 9 to 5 (or 10 to 6). I have my own office with my name by the door. I go to the gym at 530pm.
Life is good.
Except that it isn't.
I can't travel when I want, and I haven't written a word in three weeks.
So what do I want? I have no idea.
All my dreams of going to Caribbean at the end of the month, then to Martha's Vineyard for my birthday in August, then in September to London and Downton Abbey, and to Serbia and Istanbul (or Constantinople if you prefer) are slowly fading.
But, the worst is the fact that I was just on the right path to my novel, and now that might be gone as well.

Sigh.

But I do have a nice, full-time job that makes me feel...useful? It's good to make money! Makes you feel...like you're doing what you're suppose to do? Contributing? Blah blah?

I guess freelancing ain't so bad?

I don't know, something's gotta give. I guess I'm trying this out, to see if it fits.
It's too early to say if I'm cut out for it.
But I do miss my book. I miss it a lot. I miss my characters, I miss the world I live in with them when my nose is pinned into the page.

And of course, I haven't written this blog FOR-EVER!

But, don't despair! I'm still meeting with my writing-partner (for now.) I'm signing up for a writer's conference next weekend.
I'm still gonna play a writer...
For as long as I should live...

Deal with the Devil...

OK, I just have to blog about this meeting I just had.

I just met with my brilliant writing-partner, who always knows the right things to say.

So, I say to her:

"You know that I have just about 50,000 good words, and another 10,000 or weak ones I have discarded in December. And I need 80,000 words to enter the competition we agree on. And I won't quit. So I'm a little panicky right now, and a little depressed about it."

And she says: "You already have 20-30,000 words of a novel that needs to be written. You already have a novel between the lines. You can easily write those by September."

And then I take her feedback on two stories-two chapters, and get back into my "perpetual latte-making" office, and the words pour down! She was right. With a little bit of guidance on what's missing in the novel, I'm expanding on chapters pretty quickly actually.

Now, it's tiring. It's intense. But what job worth anything isn't?!

I also love her telling me that "I have chosen to go for the Boston marathon, not the Cherry Blossom 5K," by picking to work on my book to expand it in every direction over picking to publish it the way it is.
"You want a million-dollar book deal," she says. "So do I."

And there's nothing wrong with that. Right?

And only now am I realizing that I made a deal with "the devil." I can't really focus on anything else but this book for the next six, seven months.
Not if I want to do it right this time.
It's now or never, it really is.

Not only has my writing-partner given me ideas on how to expand my chapters, but also what new chapters to write.

So, I sat down a few hours ago, with this Golden-Grip gun chapter I have been working on for the last couple of weeks, and it's like a puzzle I MUST solve, it MUST be perfect, it just has to be.
And all of a sudden, I'm researching World War I, and the battles between Serbs and Croats in it, and the gun ends up being a gift to my character's great grandfather from the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand just before he was killed by the Black Hand. And, oh, history blends with fiction, and politics, and superstition, and magical realism...
It's just blowing my mind, where it's going, and it only needed a gentle push...

It's gonna be a great book, I promise you, no false modesty here needed. I can already see it. It will kill me to create it but once it's born, it's gonna be a great read.

Grannies and Frogs

It's Sunday.
And what Sunday means to me is freedom. Yoga. Writing. Lattes.
But my body or brain doesn't necessarily agree with my plans.
So, I barely survived an hour of Vinyasa Flow class, and I have no idea why. I was just so low energy, cramping and inflexible.
But I did it.
Then I showered up, got ready and walked to my favorite cafe, ordered an exquisite latte (yummy) aaaaand...nothing.
I don't know what to do.
I mean I know what to do, but....I don't know where to begin.
Let me elaborate (I love that word!)
I need about 30,000 to 35,000 words of excellent quality by September.
It might not sound like a lot, especially since I did manage to write over 50,000 in one month in November, but we are talking here about apples and oranges, or, as Serbs would say "grannies and frogs."
It's one thing writing every day for a month in order to reach a goal, it's totally another writing an excellent literary novel, a family saga, a novel-in-stories, where every fact has to match, and every story-chapter has to have a purpose.
Out of those, let's say, 35,000, I have 10,000 that are weak and I have discarded in December.
So, I either need to rewrite those, or write a whole new 35,000....
Why do I need 80,000 words, you ask? (Or you couldn't care less. Either way, I'll tell you.)
That's the minimum to send to the big competition in October. The deadline me and my writing-partner (who, by the way, already has a 450-page novel) have set for ourselves.
And I don't get out of deadlines or deals. Ever? Well, yeah, I think, never. Unless my life is in danger...
So, I'm just slightly depressed right now, despite the sun and all.
Not even the sight of a guy in front of me right now with a very, very,very high red shorts (hello butt cheeks) and a leather jacket, can't make me feel better.
But in order to write a good story, a good chapter, I need an inspiration, an idea, and those don't come along that often.
Sigh.
The best idea I have right now is to start rewriting, hoping it will lead to more writing, new writing, more stories.
And I hope to God my writing-partner will have a resolution to my problem tomorrow.
I need to tell her how skimpy my book is.
Tomorrow morning.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time...."

Writing-Partner

I have recently acquired myself a writing partner.
And I'm allowed to write here about her since she's not on Facebook because "it would take from her writing time." (See now why we're a perfect match?)
How did this happen? What's a "writing partner?"
It's not as naughty as it sounds. Let me elaborate...

Do you remember me writing, once upon a time, about a class I took at the Writer's Center. One of them? (Of course not, cause you probably have a life. Good for you!)
Well, there was one very talented woman there, taking it with me.
Then she invited me to read at her reading last June, as her guest.
We stayed in touch, and one thing led to another and...we exchanged work!
(Is Facebook gonna block me for this?)
So, she is everything I'm not and a lot of what I am.
She's an excellent writer and a perfectionist. She's been working on her novel for six years, had refused agents a couple of years ago since her novel didn't have "sufficient depth." She said "I only have one debut novel, and I want it to be the best it can be." (Not a problem or concern for many novelists out there right now....)
And the best thing of all?
She's helping me structure my novel, i.e. make it into a novel out of a collection of interwoven short stories.
The problem is, this immensely exciting process in which my baby is growing, changing forms, reaching maturity is also very painful for me and sooooo much work!
I have to write tones more, rewrite and discard a lot.
All the while sustaining one Arc.
And we are on a schedule, meeting every ten days, reading each others work, critiquing, writing, rewriting, editing...
And the cherry on top?
We have a deadline--end of September since we are submitting it to some Big Shot Novel Competition on October 1!

For the first time since two NYC agents told me that "the writing is wonderful but it needs to be novel-in-stories in order to sell it" I think I have a grip on what I'm doing with it.
And I have a family tree! In which male characters are not important (try explaining that to my Serbian father who, I am sure, is part Turkish).
So, at this point, my future readers, we are looking at a Balkan family saga with a family curse, an heirloom gun with old Slavonic writings on the handle, and lots of mystery and secrets.
How does that sound to you?

Greetings from Hollywood....

Just got back to Washington, DC from Hollywood. Florida. Hollywood, Florida.
"How was it," people been asking me.
My students (yes, I'm teaching again), my new writing-partner (brilliant, genius, I must add) etc.
"Well, I brought my laptop in hope that I would find a cafe and write with the view of the ocean...except there are no cafes in Hollywood, Florida...."

Let's see, that was my fourth or fifth time in Florida.
A few times in Saint Petersburg, once in Miami and now Hollywood, and I have to say, it makes me appreciate even the DC culture. Don't even know how people from NYC or Europe can stand it.
To be fair, it had some perks. The Ocean, for one. Except, in February, I can't swim in it. So, it's a big, wavy tease. But I did get my feet wet. Is that worth a two and a half hour flight?
(Whenever I say "two and a half hour flight," I automatically think of the Belgrade-London flight. But DC-Ft. Lauderdale and Belgrade-London? Two different planets in two and a half hours, I swear. Would take the European flight over the other one any time....)
What else?
Warm pools?
Well, you can, to be fair, read a book with a Strawberry Daiquiri by a warm, nice pool, I'll give you that. Which was the highlight of my trip. (Aren't you pitying me right now?)
A water taxi from Hollywood to Ft. Lauderdale where they have actually heard of a cafe, an Italian cafe (Yay!), is kind of fun, but it takes hours and hours to make a 15-minutes car ride, and the waiting time, and transfers...Too much time, too much effort.
And Ft. Lauderdale is kind of nice. Reminds me of Rodeo Drive in L.A. just slightly less expensive.

Food?
I'm sorry to say, I wasn't impressed by food. As a matter a fact, my first night there, I ordered a guacamole in a Mexican restaurant on the boardwalk, and after coming back from washing my hands in the bathroom, I prayed not to get food poisoning. I never before let guacamole go to waste. (it's my favorite thing to eat!) The one in Trader Joe's tastes better, that's all I'll say.
Fish tacos were good though, but with the side of a dirty bathroom I have seen just minutes before...

So, I know, I know, I'm complaining about four days of 80-degree weather and the ocean breeze.
But would it kill you to have a cafe on the boardwalk? A tiny Starbucks at least, if not something independent?
And if I see one more old, "pregnant" man with a leathery-tan skin and no shirt...