The film, as it stands, is winging its way to the suits who have become the arbiters of good and bad independent and semi-independent cinema, for better or worse. Now our commitment to finishing the film before the middle of December has been made a bit more firm and round. The good news is I have upped my involvement from just plain Editor to full on Producer, which means added responsibility and commitment, but also increased glory in the afterlife, along with a bevvy of high quality snacks and drinks on every Jet Blue flight from here on in. I just have to flash my Producer card and they’ll click their heels, say, “Yes sir” and bring out the ranch dressing hose. We are trying to raise funds for the post processing, which includes buying off paying a sound designer and composer.
I’ve finally acknowledged to myself that the great overarching plot that I had conceived about halfway through writing Book 1 of my novel The Cold Goodbye somehow got lost in the thematic elements I was trying to convey. Technology as a dark aspect of humanity’s psyche…cool idea, but not that novel or interesting on its own. So I tried to wrap it around a supporting column, which winds up being a disaster scenario. Again, not that novel, but with good fodder for human emotion and reactions. So I watched as slowly, but inevitably, the disaster fell away into the background, and the compulsory techno-babble I had tried to avoid slowly crept into the narrative. Looking back, after a week of back and forth edits on the manuscript, I can see where I tried to correct, only to fall back into it immediately. So fair warning, the second part of the novel delves deeper into actual mechanics of the futuristic circumstances. It’s not straight up techno-porn, but it might be considered erautoma, if I may coin the term.
I just hope that the mere hint of sex might convince people to buy the book. Trust me, it’s there. (Just not that interesting.) Reading about sex, I suspect, rarely lives up to expectations. I’ve always been curious about writers who “do” erotic literature. Do they get turned on by it, or is it like everyday carpentry? Screw in this, hammer that, put the rivet into that hole, connect the trim like so…
Then again, if you love what you do…
That said, I’m not an author of erotic lit, though if I was, I imagine I would pepper it with snarky commentary and wry, subtle satire. I just can’t help it. Plus it would disguise the fact that I don’t actually know what I’m talking about. I understand the mechanics of sex, but that isn’t enough. Tell me the last time you read a really good technical manual.
I’m usually pretty good with endings, but I imagine erotic story endings would be difficult to do well without feeling like you’ve already written the exact same thing in the previous story. You could shake things up a bit occasionally with a chase scene or a shootout, but it would feel fake, just like most porn. So there’s that.
By the way, that’s not a subtle hint that I secretly do write erotic literature–it’s not like it’s a “I have this friend…” situation. But if you’re a writer, and you’ve got sex in your book, and you’ve got your parents reading it, then these thoughts are a natural progression, the final being, of course, is figuring out how to explain to anyone who asks how you know about all this stuff in the first place, being a virgin and all. I always use the homicide response. I’ve never killed a man just to watch him die, but I did it with impunity in The Cold Goodbye.
So within the next couple of days I’ll be posting a link to purchase the second volume, along with a revamped edition of the first volume. Then a few days later, once I get some cover art together, I will post for purchase a single volume edition containing both books in one convenient and easy-to-read package. Consider this advance marketing. Buy it! Read it! Tell your friends!
See you tomorrow.