The SoCal Exile Journal Day 3: NorCal?
Did you know that San Francisco has hills? I mean, I've watched a significant portion of the fifth season of Full House so I thought I knew what I was getting myself into, but apparently I had not. The hills of SF, not unlike the hit MTV television series of the same name, are sudden, difficult to traverse and filled with beautiful people that want to hook up. But we're not here to discuss the topography of major NorCal cities (Are we?). We're here to talk about my writing progress. And progress it was, friends. To the tune of a major shake up in the middle of the book. After having sorted out something yesterday that made my book readable, I had only to connect the other literary dots in order to put the middle to sleep and get my end on.
I also was able to utilize something (name drop!!) Tom Perrotta said to me when I interviewed him last year as we both ate Cuban sandwiches: "Just skip the boring parts." This is sound advice for me because I have a hard time not keeping everything in these very linear blocks that go from one scene to what would be the next logical place. So say my main character was in the mall shopping at Forever 21 for a coral sequined halter top (for his lady friend!). The next logical scene (in my mind) would be him driving back from the mall with said halter top and possibly a new vanilla Frosty from Wendy's. But that's pointless. No one needs to see him driving. It doesn't push the plot forward, it doesn't develop his character, and even though he probably would've had clever things to say about his vanilla Frosty, you can't build a book relying solely on cleverness, well timed bon mots and boring parts. This is something I've only recently learned.
The Father-Son Relationship Quote of the Day: "I'm not driving you to the airport."
I'm currently sitting at a Starbucks on Stanford's campus waiting for my friend to get out of his business school class so he can buy me some Stanford Men's Distressed Print Sweatpants (Size Large) and I need to get some writing done so I'm going to disengage myself from the Internets. But I feel really good about where we are in our relationship. Good talk.
