My bedside table is stacked high with various books...nonfiction books on the writing process by Stephen King, short stories by Stephen king, short stories by Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House (the third best horror novel I've ever read...first best is Rosemary's Baby, second best is The Shining) by Shirley Jackson, The Happy Birthday of Death by Gregory Corso etc. etc. (!!!!!) Yesterday I wrote ten prose poems for a collection I'm calling True Blue Confessions. I'm not happy with the one about the lesbian "hair cutter" in Albuquerque. This is the second or third poem I've written about that particular character. That was the first and last time (I hope) I ever cried while getting my hair cut. I don't have a problem with lesbians...I might be one and just not know it yet...but I had a problem with the lesbian hair cutter in Albuquerque who made me cry. I am very tender headed. She yanked at my hair and told me I had too much hair more than once. She probably didn't hate me but I felt like she did.
The mother of the protagonist in Mordiscado is a lesbian. The protagonist in Mordiscado thinks she might be a lesbian because she has a crush on her husband's mother's ghost. Also...in Vegas she was so turned on by a topless dancer that she offered the topless dancer a thousand dollars to go back to the hotel with her and her husband, Alex. Insanity!
I wrote Mordiscado for NaNoWriMo in 2006. The inspiration behind Mordiscado: I was living in my husband's grandmother's old house in Albuquerque. There was a bad bad vibe to that house. The bathroom off the kitchen reminded me of Carrie. I don't know why. My psychic friend from California (she prophesied that I would have a son and that he would be hell on wheels...true dat) came to visit and she said she sensed a negative presence in the kitchen. I tried to exorcise the kitchen with Pine-Sol. Didn't work. So Mordiscado is about a young married couple, Zoe and Alex, who inherit a house from Alex's grandmother (she died of natural causes while sitting in her recliner watching a soap opera) and against Alex's wishes move in. Weird shit starts to happen but it only happens to Zoe. Alex is immune.
I'm now on page 43, chapter thirteen and I am struggling like a chipmunk in a tube sock (my son's newest favorite movie is that god awful Alvin and the Chipmunks movie starring Jason Lee...his favorite part is when Alvin screams "CHEESE BALLS!"). There is too much dialogue between Zoe and her mother. They haven't seen each other since Zoe was eight (Zoe's mother left Zoe and her father to be with her lesbian lover) but still. This problem crops up in all my novels: too much dialogue. I mean, my gawd, I even made the TOILET talk in Nova's Gone Potty. I'm trying to be all poetic and shit with my prose (HA) and I'm putting in tons of psychotic inner dialogue. But this novel might not make it. In the original Mordiscado I included e-mail messages from Jesus, blocks of text from the King James Bible (so I cheated, I guess...yeah, I definitely cheated...in the end, I only cheated myself) and this slam poet character named Conan and his poem...Pondering My Penis. I don't know what the radically revised Mordiscado will turn into. I feel compelled to include a therapist and a psychic who refuses to give Zoe a reading. That really happened to my mom's best friend in the early '80s...this was right after that monster F5 tornado ripped into Wichita Falls, Texas like a demon from hell...the week after, actually...and my mom and her best friend from Archer City (Texasville, home to one of my favorite writers, Larry McMurtry) went to Wichita Falls to see a psychic. The psychic refused to read Brenda's cards. Brenda died of leukemia a couple of years after that.
In the original Mordiscado the house burns down with Zoe in it. I'd like to keep that ending. Before the house burns down the haunting intensifies and Zoe just completely breaks down. I'm currently living in a huge two-story house that was built in the early 20th century...there is no central air-conditioning and I do my writing in the library, the darkest room in the house. So that adds to the horror.
When I was in college I would read Edgar Allan Poe by candlelight in my dorm.
When I was a little girl I would beg my babysitters to tell me scary stories.
When I was a little girl I enjoyed scaring the hell out of my siblings and cousins.
I have a wealth of horror to draw from...
thus. I was born to write horror novels. Watch out, Stephen King. Prepare to be dethroned.
P.S. I just Googled "Mordiscado" and found THIS REVIEW!!! I'd never read this before. Thanks, man! Hopefully you'll like the revision even more! Now I am bound and determined to revise and sell Mordiscado. Because of this one beautiful review. Thank you!!!
Friday, July 3, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Angel Soft Toilet Paper, Unrolled
Here is a sloppy synopsis of my thoroughly revised novel, Nova's Gone Potty
(is it commercial mainstream? is it chick lit? I really cannot say...):
The novel opens to Nova, constipated, sitting on her futon in her studio apartment in Albuquerque, New Mexico listening to "Killer Queen," watching the news with the sound turned down. Nova sits on her toilet. Nothing happens. Nova talks to her toilet. She talks to inanimate objects often. She is a loner. She has no friends, lovers or pets. She avoids her family. It sure takes Nova by surprise when her toilet starts speaking to her in Ozzy Osbourne's voice! Nova's potty is not nearly as friendly as Ozzy, alas...unlike the Oz Meister, the potty is not a Sagittarius! The toilet was manufactured on January 13, 1999, which makes the toilet a Capricorn. Capricorns have shit to teach us. Great shit. We should pay attention.
I don't go into the sun sign of the toilet in the novel but maybe I should. I thought I was done with this novel but maybe I'm not.
Nova works at the Sex on a Stick call center. Customers call in and order fun stuff from the Sex on a Stick catalogue...vibrators, lube, ass ticklers, what have you. Nova is not a shining example of corporate marionette done good. She is always in trouble at her job and is danger of losing her job. Eventually...she does. Perry lives across the hall from Nova. Perry is a sanguine extroverted bisexual man who always smells good. They start hanging out. Nova is glad to have someone to talk to who isn't made of porcelain. Then one night Perry has an intimate little party at his studio apartment and Nova meets John. John, a Sagittarius, turns out to be the man who will rock the hell out of Nova's tiny world. Nova, consequently, is an Aquarius. I've been an Aquarius/Aquarian for 36 years so I figure I know enough about 'em to make my protagonist one. Like me, Nova is a neurotic mess. She is afraid of shiny floors and most people. She falls in love with John right away, which has always been a horrible habit of mine. They have sex within one hour of meeting each other!
I've got to wrap this up. I've got to run to Wal-Mart and buy a birthday gift for my mom. My mom is a Gemini.
When Nova gets fired from her job at Sex on a Stick she gets a job at this topless bar. The name of the topless bar eludes me right now. I've got too much stuff crammed inside my head. But it's a really clever name, one that you won't hear in the Crue's "Girls, Girls, Girls" classic. Right away Nova snags a regular which I know from experience NEVER HAPPENS. Well, maybe it happens for fake baked chicks with long platinum hair and immaculate nails and beach ball tits and abs you can eat scrambled eggs off of but it does not happen for quirky chicks like me and Nova, the thinking man's Liv Tyler! So that isn't realistic but neither is a talking toilet but hey, we're all choked and stifled by the mundane so let's have some departure! Okay, so this regular gives Nova HUNDREDS of dollars right away. He can afford it. He created this hot shit video game called Drug Deals Gone Bad. He tips the cocktail waitress a hundred bucks! WoW. Eventually, Simon (the regular) offers Nova ten thousand bucks to spend one night with him. She tells him to make it fifteen and he's got a deal!
All this time Potty is still talking and Nova is still mooning over John Boy. I didn't mention that John is the drummer for a hot Albuquerque band called Idiot Robot. To pay rent and buy drugs he works in his uncle's toy shop, Gepetto's Toyz. One night Nova drags Perry with her to the Pineapple to watch Idiot Robot. Perry is being a good friend to Nova. It's dollar daiquiri night at Retro A Go Go and Perry prefers the Pet Shop Boys and Duran Duran to Idiot Robot. After Idiot Robot plays their set Nova walks up to John inebriated off her ass, which is the only way she could approach him because he is soooo hot and he's the DRUMMER, man! I've always had a thing for drummers. I married one.
A sexy girl with big tits (they're real) is sitting on John's lap. Nova compliments the chick on her tits and proceeds with cock blocking duties. On the way to the after party at John's house the big tit chick has had enough of Nova's drunken bullshit and tells John to drop her off at the Lightning Mart. Score! Cock block successful! So Nova and John snort speed at the party (Nova is scared but she trusts John) and have some hot sex. Then they road trip to El Paso, get a room, and take a taxi across the border to Juarez. They hang out in a bar called Pinata Spill. There's a stage with a microphone on it. Nova takes the stage and sings a Billie Holiday song. John starts to love her, a little.
Okay, need to wrap this up: Nova spends the night with Simon and makes 15 grand. She moves into an adobe rent house with Perry. They're just platonic roommates. Perry has a new boyfriend named Bob. Nova and Perry have a party. John shows up. Nova reads some lyrics she's written (she wants to start an all girl band) and the lyrics piss John off and he says, "What the hell do you want from me, baby?" And Nova tells him EXACTLY what she wants because she KNOWS (it's a great thing, knowing) and then he tells her to stop making him fall in love with her and then they have sex and it's good, as always. The next day Nova, Coral, Sage and Miranda road trip to L.A. where Nova and Sage (the drummer...their band is called Mr. Customer) get tattoos and sing karaoke and go to a party that isn't really a party. I'll tell you this...Nova's Gone Potty has a happy, romantic ending. Thus, it is probably chick lit.
(is it commercial mainstream? is it chick lit? I really cannot say...):
The novel opens to Nova, constipated, sitting on her futon in her studio apartment in Albuquerque, New Mexico listening to "Killer Queen," watching the news with the sound turned down. Nova sits on her toilet. Nothing happens. Nova talks to her toilet. She talks to inanimate objects often. She is a loner. She has no friends, lovers or pets. She avoids her family. It sure takes Nova by surprise when her toilet starts speaking to her in Ozzy Osbourne's voice! Nova's potty is not nearly as friendly as Ozzy, alas...unlike the Oz Meister, the potty is not a Sagittarius! The toilet was manufactured on January 13, 1999, which makes the toilet a Capricorn. Capricorns have shit to teach us. Great shit. We should pay attention.
I don't go into the sun sign of the toilet in the novel but maybe I should. I thought I was done with this novel but maybe I'm not.
Nova works at the Sex on a Stick call center. Customers call in and order fun stuff from the Sex on a Stick catalogue...vibrators, lube, ass ticklers, what have you. Nova is not a shining example of corporate marionette done good. She is always in trouble at her job and is danger of losing her job. Eventually...she does. Perry lives across the hall from Nova. Perry is a sanguine extroverted bisexual man who always smells good. They start hanging out. Nova is glad to have someone to talk to who isn't made of porcelain. Then one night Perry has an intimate little party at his studio apartment and Nova meets John. John, a Sagittarius, turns out to be the man who will rock the hell out of Nova's tiny world. Nova, consequently, is an Aquarius. I've been an Aquarius/Aquarian for 36 years so I figure I know enough about 'em to make my protagonist one. Like me, Nova is a neurotic mess. She is afraid of shiny floors and most people. She falls in love with John right away, which has always been a horrible habit of mine. They have sex within one hour of meeting each other!
I've got to wrap this up. I've got to run to Wal-Mart and buy a birthday gift for my mom. My mom is a Gemini.
When Nova gets fired from her job at Sex on a Stick she gets a job at this topless bar. The name of the topless bar eludes me right now. I've got too much stuff crammed inside my head. But it's a really clever name, one that you won't hear in the Crue's "Girls, Girls, Girls" classic. Right away Nova snags a regular which I know from experience NEVER HAPPENS. Well, maybe it happens for fake baked chicks with long platinum hair and immaculate nails and beach ball tits and abs you can eat scrambled eggs off of but it does not happen for quirky chicks like me and Nova, the thinking man's Liv Tyler! So that isn't realistic but neither is a talking toilet but hey, we're all choked and stifled by the mundane so let's have some departure! Okay, so this regular gives Nova HUNDREDS of dollars right away. He can afford it. He created this hot shit video game called Drug Deals Gone Bad. He tips the cocktail waitress a hundred bucks! WoW. Eventually, Simon (the regular) offers Nova ten thousand bucks to spend one night with him. She tells him to make it fifteen and he's got a deal!
All this time Potty is still talking and Nova is still mooning over John Boy. I didn't mention that John is the drummer for a hot Albuquerque band called Idiot Robot. To pay rent and buy drugs he works in his uncle's toy shop, Gepetto's Toyz. One night Nova drags Perry with her to the Pineapple to watch Idiot Robot. Perry is being a good friend to Nova. It's dollar daiquiri night at Retro A Go Go and Perry prefers the Pet Shop Boys and Duran Duran to Idiot Robot. After Idiot Robot plays their set Nova walks up to John inebriated off her ass, which is the only way she could approach him because he is soooo hot and he's the DRUMMER, man! I've always had a thing for drummers. I married one.
A sexy girl with big tits (they're real) is sitting on John's lap. Nova compliments the chick on her tits and proceeds with cock blocking duties. On the way to the after party at John's house the big tit chick has had enough of Nova's drunken bullshit and tells John to drop her off at the Lightning Mart. Score! Cock block successful! So Nova and John snort speed at the party (Nova is scared but she trusts John) and have some hot sex. Then they road trip to El Paso, get a room, and take a taxi across the border to Juarez. They hang out in a bar called Pinata Spill. There's a stage with a microphone on it. Nova takes the stage and sings a Billie Holiday song. John starts to love her, a little.
Okay, need to wrap this up: Nova spends the night with Simon and makes 15 grand. She moves into an adobe rent house with Perry. They're just platonic roommates. Perry has a new boyfriend named Bob. Nova and Perry have a party. John shows up. Nova reads some lyrics she's written (she wants to start an all girl band) and the lyrics piss John off and he says, "What the hell do you want from me, baby?" And Nova tells him EXACTLY what she wants because she KNOWS (it's a great thing, knowing) and then he tells her to stop making him fall in love with her and then they have sex and it's good, as always. The next day Nova, Coral, Sage and Miranda road trip to L.A. where Nova and Sage (the drummer...their band is called Mr. Customer) get tattoos and sing karaoke and go to a party that isn't really a party. I'll tell you this...Nova's Gone Potty has a happy, romantic ending. Thus, it is probably chick lit.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
54, 737
IT IS FINISHED. Nothin' at all wrong with novellas but Nova's Gone Potty is a novel. Damn it. I'm now writing Strong Blood, revising Thick Lazy Tongue and Mordiscado, putting together a full-length collection of prose poems entitled Rock Bottom Vernacular and writing flash fiction for a collection entitled Cooter Shorts. I am not on drugs. I am on mommy time. I'm trying to use my brain to full advantage in between repeat viewings of my son's Elmo, Barney, Wiggles and Clifford dvds. Oh, I've recently discovered Sponge Bob Square Pants. I'd known of his existence before, of course, but not until recently have I discovered that yes, we really are spiritual kin. When I was wasting hours of my life at MySpazz I would take these ridiculous tests...Which Fruit Are You...Which Orgasm Are You...Which Fart Are You...Which Cartoon Character Are You. And I was always Sponge Bob. Now I know why.
p.s. I highly recommend this poetry collection!!!
p.s. I highly recommend this poetry collection!!!
Friday, June 12, 2009
Shit Fuck Piss Damn
Larry from "Three's Company"! Dog diarrhea! John Boy Walton's Big Chief writing tablet! Runners in the pink fishnets. Broken nails. Lice. Genital warts. Austin traffic. Albuquerque traffic. Chewing gum that has lost its flavor. Corsicana, Texas.
...so now I'm actually sending out query letters to literary agents for a novel I wrote four years ago but have recently radically revised and I'm learning that a novel should be 70K. Okay. Fuck me. My word count is currently 52K plus. Don't have the exact word count memorized. A small press editor expressed interest in Nova's Gone Potty but it has to be a novella. I cannot make Nova's Gone Potty a novella. That would rip my heart out. My heart has been ripped out countless times before during hurricane evacuations and in food stamps waiting rooms. I will not have my heart ripped out over Nova's Gone Potty. It must be a novel. It is a novel. But 70K? That's a lot of padding. I've told what needs to be told. I'm now revising Mordiscado and brainstorming Strong Blood. How much more time do I need to devote to a novel I wrote in three weeks in 2005??? Do I love my novel too much to try to sell it??? Probing questions. Anal probing questions. My fingers are frantically flying over a Navarro Community College library keyboard as I have no internet at home. And you can't insert old school floppy disks in this computer! What's up with THAT shit? This world has trampled my fingers and toes one time too many. There's a potato chip factory down the road. Guess I'll apply there.
Leftover Splooge,
Misti
...so now I'm actually sending out query letters to literary agents for a novel I wrote four years ago but have recently radically revised and I'm learning that a novel should be 70K. Okay. Fuck me. My word count is currently 52K plus. Don't have the exact word count memorized. A small press editor expressed interest in Nova's Gone Potty but it has to be a novella. I cannot make Nova's Gone Potty a novella. That would rip my heart out. My heart has been ripped out countless times before during hurricane evacuations and in food stamps waiting rooms. I will not have my heart ripped out over Nova's Gone Potty. It must be a novel. It is a novel. But 70K? That's a lot of padding. I've told what needs to be told. I'm now revising Mordiscado and brainstorming Strong Blood. How much more time do I need to devote to a novel I wrote in three weeks in 2005??? Do I love my novel too much to try to sell it??? Probing questions. Anal probing questions. My fingers are frantically flying over a Navarro Community College library keyboard as I have no internet at home. And you can't insert old school floppy disks in this computer! What's up with THAT shit? This world has trampled my fingers and toes one time too many. There's a potato chip factory down the road. Guess I'll apply there.
Leftover Splooge,
Misti
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Nothin' Goin' on But The Wiggles
After roughly a hundred viewings of my son's favorite Wiggles dvd, I am madly in love with the one in the bright blue shirt. Anthony Field. He reminds me of my husband. He's crazy and cute, bursting with enthusiasm for the most mundane tasks. I also admire Anthony's Australian accent and the way he winks at the camera while dancing.
In other news: just received a rejection for a query I sent out regarding Nova's Gone Potty. Nova's Gone Potty has been radically revised and polished to a brilliant gleam. If you missed Nova's Gone Potty the first time around when it was available at lulu.com, do not despair. The new improved Nova's Gone Potty will hit Barnes & Noble and Borders well before the apocalypse. I believe in Nova and her talking potty and her sidekick Perry and her love interest John and her trick Simon and her crazy friend Sage and her much too sane friends Coral and Miranda. Fifty is the magic number. If NGP is rejected by forty-nine more agents, at that point I will publish it at lulu.com, buy an ISBN and promote all hell outta my little literary gem my goddamn self. I just wrote down a kick ass Henry Miller quote from Nexus but I don't have it memorized yet. It's tacked to the bulletin board at home.
How many chick lit books and apologetic books on promiscuity/drugs/cutting does America need? Do we really need more vampire books? More rich white teenagers with daddy's credit card books? More books on singing caffeine addled retarded bisexual cowboys who fancy themselves 21st century Ed Abbeys? Nay! Nay, I say!
I'm now writing the story of my life. Strong Blood. In the vein of Henry Miller and Charles Bukowski, it is not an autobiography and it is not a memoir. It is literary fiction...my blood and guts and throbbing clitoris and ebullient vomit with names changed to protect the guilty and the freedom to invent what needs to be invented for the purpose of oh gee whiz that's fascinatin', ma.
I also endeavor to write a collection of short stories. Yesterday an idea zinged into my pretty little head...what if a "mentally challenged" (hell, aren't we all?) person won an inheritance or the lottery? How would those millions be spent?
Speakin' strictly for myself...if I won an inheritance (couldn't win the lottery, don't play it...bad Texan!!!) I would spend it on a used but reliable emerald green pick-up truck, artwork for my left upper arm, a musical potty chair for my son, clothes for my son, myself and my husband, a pair of Dia de los Muertos cowboy boots for myself, an adobe casa in Albuquerque, an art gallery in Madrid (New Mexico, not Spain), a lifetime supply of Chef Boyardee pizza, a trip to Vegas, a trip to NYC, a trip to San Francisco, a trip to Rio, a trip to Fiji, a trip to Dublin, a trip to Rome, a new car for my mom, a house for my mother-in-law and a big aquarium filled with dragon fish.
Gotta Google Comanche surnames now. Buh bye.
In other news: just received a rejection for a query I sent out regarding Nova's Gone Potty. Nova's Gone Potty has been radically revised and polished to a brilliant gleam. If you missed Nova's Gone Potty the first time around when it was available at lulu.com, do not despair. The new improved Nova's Gone Potty will hit Barnes & Noble and Borders well before the apocalypse. I believe in Nova and her talking potty and her sidekick Perry and her love interest John and her trick Simon and her crazy friend Sage and her much too sane friends Coral and Miranda. Fifty is the magic number. If NGP is rejected by forty-nine more agents, at that point I will publish it at lulu.com, buy an ISBN and promote all hell outta my little literary gem my goddamn self. I just wrote down a kick ass Henry Miller quote from Nexus but I don't have it memorized yet. It's tacked to the bulletin board at home.
How many chick lit books and apologetic books on promiscuity/drugs/cutting does America need? Do we really need more vampire books? More rich white teenagers with daddy's credit card books? More books on singing caffeine addled retarded bisexual cowboys who fancy themselves 21st century Ed Abbeys? Nay! Nay, I say!
I'm now writing the story of my life. Strong Blood. In the vein of Henry Miller and Charles Bukowski, it is not an autobiography and it is not a memoir. It is literary fiction...my blood and guts and throbbing clitoris and ebullient vomit with names changed to protect the guilty and the freedom to invent what needs to be invented for the purpose of oh gee whiz that's fascinatin', ma.
I also endeavor to write a collection of short stories. Yesterday an idea zinged into my pretty little head...what if a "mentally challenged" (hell, aren't we all?) person won an inheritance or the lottery? How would those millions be spent?
Speakin' strictly for myself...if I won an inheritance (couldn't win the lottery, don't play it...bad Texan!!!) I would spend it on a used but reliable emerald green pick-up truck, artwork for my left upper arm, a musical potty chair for my son, clothes for my son, myself and my husband, a pair of Dia de los Muertos cowboy boots for myself, an adobe casa in Albuquerque, an art gallery in Madrid (New Mexico, not Spain), a lifetime supply of Chef Boyardee pizza, a trip to Vegas, a trip to NYC, a trip to San Francisco, a trip to Rio, a trip to Fiji, a trip to Dublin, a trip to Rome, a new car for my mom, a house for my mother-in-law and a big aquarium filled with dragon fish.
Gotta Google Comanche surnames now. Buh bye.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Heaven is a Giant Pawn Shop
Received and devoured Heaven is a Giant Pawn Shop by Melanie Browne last night. I read several of the poems aloud to my husband in bed. We laughed our asses off. There should be more poems on this planet that make you laugh your ass off. Most of the poems on this planet make me want to unlearn the English language and take up duck hunting.
That Erbacce Press sho nuff puts out some kick ass chaps...
That Erbacce Press sho nuff puts out some kick ass chaps...
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Nova's Gone Potty
I've completed my radical revision of Nova's Gone Potty, not the first novel I ever wrote but the first novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo in 2005 and the first novel I published at lulu.com. The word count is 52K and change. Now I'm tweaking the radical revision and researching the market. I'm seeking an agent! Bye.
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