the random muse

Would you sell out for a six-figure book deal?

I work in advertising. I write for clients on a daily basis. I spin words that make them look good, that make people want to buy whatever it is they’re hawking.

But even I have to draw the line somewhere.

Unlike these people, who were offered a six-figure sum by Big Pharma to write a fictional thriller — The Karasik Conspiracy — in which a group of shadowy terrorists conspires to murder thousands of Americans by poisoning the medicine they’re importing from Canada to beat U.S. drug prices. (If this plot sounds familiar, it’s because Big Pharma has tried to scare state legislatures and Congress out of giving Americans access to cheap Canadian drugs by warning that terrorists might poison the imports.)

Oh, and the book also had to contain lots of “frilly female stuff.”

The authors apparently produced the novel in 45 days, at which point Big Pharma decided maybe the book wasn’t such a good idea and tried to buy off the authors to keep quiet. To which the authors promptly replied, “Suck it, Big Pharma.”

I’m not sure what troubles me more about this:

• Writers selling their creative souls to Big Pharma
• Actually completing a novel in 45 days
• The tired, cliche plot and characters

Regardless, I can be sure about one thing: thoughts of a serious writing career are pretty much over for those two writers. They’ll forever be known as “those Pharma writers.”

I guess the six-figure advance helps soften that blow.

NANOWRIMO

Tomorrow is November 1.

Which means that some radio stations will start playing Christmas music 24-7.

It also marks the start of the National Novel Writing Month (NANOWRIMO) challenge, in which I am a participant. The idea is to pen a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, or about 1667 words a day. As I write, this works out to be about 5 single-spaced typewritten pages each day (including a double-space between paragraphs). So by the end of the month, I will theoretically have the first draft of a 180-page novel written.

This is pretty much going to be an impossible task for me, because this is how I write:

I hem and haw. I agonize over the choice of a single word. I write a sentence, rewrite the sentence, rewrite the sentence again. And then I delete the sentence and start over. I find something to distract me — a book about plot and character, checking my email, going to the local pharmacy to buy orange Tic-Tacs and check my blood pressure on that little 25-cent machine they have in the back corner.

I come back and reread what I’ve written, decide that only about 5 percent of it is worth keeping, and rewrite again. My internal editor tells me that my main character is boring, so I drop a drunk relative into the scene. But the drunk relative doesn’t want to behave on the page so I replace him with a more cooperative character. I notice that there are three typos, one incorrect use of the present perfect tense, and four instances of inconsistent point-of-view. I correct these errors immediately.

It has been four hours. I have three paragraphs written. I give up, because the idea was stupid to begin with.

But in the NANOWRIMO challenge, there is no time to sit around dissecting grammar and strategizing your plot like a chess game.

The rule is: just write. One word after the other, until the little word counter at the bottom of your MS Word document reaches 1,667. Yes, it will be crap. Yes, there will be plot holes and flat characters and totally lame dialogue that goes like this:

“Hey. What’s up?”
“Nothing. What’s up with you?
“Not much. Wanna go grocery shopping with me?”
“Um, ok. Can we get some asparagus? Because I like asparagus.”
“Sure.”

According to NANOWRIMO, those are good things. Because after all, you’re writing…you’ll have raw content to go back and revise into a work of art when you’re done…and c’mon, how many English teachers ever gave you permission to write crap?

I think the late, great Ernest Hemmingway said it best: “The first draft of anything is shit.”

And I’m about to get knee-deep in it.