Leap of Faith Writing

JOCK STEWART AND THE MISSING SEA OF FIRE, my new novel in progress, represents several exciting changes for me.

* Comedy with a splash of murder or muder with a splash of comedy.

* Relatively short, about half the length of THE SUN SINGER.

* Written using the VOICE OF THE MUSE techniques of Mark David Gerson.

Jock Stewart is an ass-kicking, hard-boiled investigative reporter straight
out of the film-noir era where shadows, Scotch and murder took center
stage before political correctness ruined the world for everyone.
In this caper, somebody has stolen the Mayor's racehorse Sea of Fire and somebody has riddled the newspaper publisher's girl friend with bullets one of which might have been intended for Jock.

Stewart prides himself in the fact that he has no respect for authority
whatsoever and admits that he does his best work when he's "acting like
an asshole." A mix of Don Rickles and Don Quixote, Stewart is the man
for the job when the skirts are up and the chips are down.

What's been a "real hoot" for me (as Stewart might say) has
been using Mark David Gerson's approach to fiction writing as outlined
in his wonderful book. In general, Mark asks authors to presume that
their story is already out there and that all they have to do is listen
to their muse and write what s/he downloads to them.

Traditionally, I write with tweezers and agonize over every
sentence for weeks. With this approach, I wrote THE SUN SINGER between
1983 and 2004, and GARDEN OF HEAVEN between 1993 and 2008.
I wrote the first draft of JOCK STEWART AND THE MISSING SEA OF FIRE in
30 days. How? I listened and I wrote--without stopping. En route, I
learned who stole the race horse and who murdered the publisher's girl
friend Bambi Hill. I had no clue who the bad guys were when I began the
novel. None thatsoever!

This has been a very liberating experience, one that I hope will one day appear on the shelves of a bookstore near you.

-

Note: The characters in the novel were drawn from my Morning Satirical News blog which I started in 2004. Some of the posts in that blog were collected into WORST OF JOCK STEWART published in 2006.

Malcolm,
sound interesting. A book I will definitely buy.

I can't wait to read it! It sounds like a winner. (No pun intended. *grin*) Get it? Racehorse. Winner.

I'm going to buy it too!

Very interesting.

I love writing like that. To me that is what it is all about, just putting your fingers on the keys and writing about whoever or whatever shows up. I've tried plot outlines and they never work because people appear and things keep happening that mess up the outline.

Writing can be so much fun when we just let it happen.

The other day I spent writing a letter to my granddaughter. Even then incidents began reappearing in my mind. I could have made a list of what I was going to write, but that would have gotten in the way of what my fingers remembered and wrote.

Well done, Malcolm.

Carol

When the skirts are up and the chips are down. Great line, so it should be a great book.

Thanks for the kind words, everyone.

The joke in our house is that when my wife and I are both writing at our desks during the evening, I might finish one paragraph while she'll finish multiple pages.

Both of us have worked in journalism, so we're used to deadlines and fast turn-arounds. But when I turn my attention to fiction, I write like a snail because I edit as I write and seldom move on until each sentence is as perfect as I know how to get it.

This time out, I tried what I always said I would never do: finish the book in one month. I feel like I just threw away chains that have been around me wrists for years.

Mark David Gerson "got it right" when he described how to write this way in his VOICE OF THE MUSE.

Malcolm

I would love to see this story in an old black & white movie.
I love the old fiction plots...
I'm with Dick...GREAT LINE....

When the skirts are up and the chips are down

I would use this for the title.

Thanks, Domenic!

I'm a fan of old black and white movies, especially those with the voice-over narrator.

For me, nothing beats a line like: "The fog was as thick as cold as hash-house oatmeal and twice as cold."

Malcolm