Post #1 Back BEFORE square one!

     To make this blog more than unread posts of pictures I've taken around Downtown L.A., with my inane commentary under each, let's help each other instead. 

     I'm writing another book.  This blog will report my thoughts along the way.  From before day one.  Preparation, the writing, and how to get the thing sold.    

     This is for all writers.  Those thinking about it.  Those who are reading over their first proof copy.  Even Those who are on book 15.  Seasoned writers can set me straight if I offer bad advice.  Please do. 

     That's the idea.

     I have a book selling right now on Amazon and Kindle, so I'm a step ahead of those struggling to get their first book together.  I've made mistakes.  And through this blog, we’ll discuss my solutions.  These posts will save you a lot of time.

     So, let's get started.

     Before we do anything else let’s ask the most important question of all:   Is this really what you want to do?

     This is basic.  You have to love to write.  Does it gets you up in the morning?  Do you think in terms of how do I get this down on paper?   "People need me to tell them how this went down."    

     We'd all like to be bestselling authors.  Who's your favorite author, "Oh, Maxwell LaSalle is good."  That's about all I ever wanted to hear.  Simple as that.  Impress people with my writing.

     Do you type for 15 minutes, then check what your Facebook friends are up to, then come back, then wander off over to the refrigerator, "We need more beer, I should get down to the 7Eleven," then, come back and, "I should exercises a little, this gut of mine, sheesh..." 

     An unfocused wanabee.

    Can you write for two hours straight, your pen moving continuously?  If that sounds like work, no fun, torture? again,

    An unfocused wanabee.

    You feel alone sitting at your word processor, itching to talk with somebody, thinking about your oncoming evening?   Movie?  Who will I take?  You can't wait to get away?  Far away?

     An unfocused wanabee. 

     We are judged by what we do, not by what we say we're going to do, or think we'd like to do, or, "Oh yeah, I'm thinking about writing a book."  Again Wannabe. 

      But if you'd rather spend your time typing, than hanging around on the internet? 

     Then there's hope.

     You can't wait to sit down and develop a character.  You can't wait to explain something you've just experienced.  You can't wait to get your feelings into words.

     Then there's hope.

     Take the rest of the day.  Think about it hard.  Is this really what you want to do? 

      I said yes.   I want my name on one of those adventure paperbacks on the shelf down at the Walgreen's.  That's all I've ever wanted.  That's my motivation even today.  My name 'in lights.'

     If you say YES, then meet me here next time.  We'll continue this discussion of things we need to do BEFORE we start writing anything down.        

     Together we can get this done!

     (My first book's for sale on Amazon and Kindle. Flower Street Melodramas.  12 short stories.  If you like them, I'd appreciate a good review,  Thanks)

     Later...

Mine's taller than yours!

     Tallest building west of Mississp.  Used to be the US BANK Building.  Downtown LA.
.

     It's on 5th Street right behind the Egyptian looking art deco brown Main LA Library, looking up Hope Street.
   
     Now it's this building, Air Korea Building under construction , 7th and Figueroa ( Fig-er-o-ah).

     I had to take it in four section.

     But what's this?  Not tall enough?  Did they have to attach a spire on top to make her the tallest?

     Certainly no observation area like the Empire State Building.  Will we have to shinny up the pole to look out.  Some engineer's miscalculation?  (Too many Coronas the night before?)  Can't be saying, "We're almost the highest building..."
  
     "Make it the tallest!  We already told everybody.  I want the tallest!"
   
     "You got the tallest."
   
     "What?  A spire?  Okay.  Do it.  Do it...and you're FIRED!"

I ain't climbing up there!

$205 Mil!

       7-Eleven down 7th from the coffee shop sells PowerBall.  Now over $200 million.  People drift past me in line for coffee.  They look up (annoyed ) from their cell phones when I ask, "What'd you do with $200 million dollars if you won?"
     "You wouldn't get that much.  Taxes."
     Okay, (Mr. TECHNICAL)  a hundred million?"
     He looks at me.  "Paaaar-Tay!!!   Wad ya think?"

     "Buy a helicopter...Fly to Mexico."  (Then what?)  "Hmmm, I done know...buy a house...I guess."
 
      "I'd buy this place, all the coffee I could drink."  (Then what?)  "I done know.  Buy the building maybe.  ( Still got 90 million left.)  "I done know...buy stuff I guess."
   
      "Buy a yacht, like Tiger Woods, and a crew,  (And?)  "Sail around... I guess."
   
     Tough question.  People thinking soooo small.  "Buy a car, a house, a boat?  Then what?  Get bored?  It's like a native from the wilds of the Amazon, hunting for food with a blow gun (are they still around?) suddenly walks into a brightly lit Whole Foods store.  He wouldn't know what to do.  No concept that a place like this exists.

      Same with big Lotto money.  No idea what that amount of money can do.  And would we know how to handle it, like the native, peanut butter in a jar, what the hell is this.  You eat this?
     
     Buy a city?  "Huh, a city?"  Sure, North Hollywood, Reseda, Belair, (well not Belair).   "Buy a city, you can do that?"  It's a hundred million.  Nothing happens without your OK.  If that's what you wanted to do.

     Could you trust anybody?  Will I get kidnapped for ransom?  Guys with machine guns for protection like drug lords?

     Open an orphanage?   Probably not your first response.  But how many do you open?
   
     Buy a business to make MO' MONEY.  How much more do you want?  You have so much money (is it ever enough?) you don't need to make anymore.  Do you?  Be the richest person on earth?  Put in that kind of effort?
 
     I'm getting a headache here.  Maybe the answer is simply our first response...

                                 PAAARRR...TAAAAY!

     Later...

     P.S.  Buy my book.  It's on Amazon.  You'll like it.  (5 stars?)

Almost sucked in!

     I stare at my mailbox in the lobby.  I check it two, three times a week.  It's either something I can't afford (a cruise ship booklet- I'm still on their mailing list after 30 years, OR no interest for six months if I buy over $299 @ Home Depot, a fridg, or dryer, or cord of lumber, some such, OR, New York Times weekend edition ONLY $2.99 (I live in LA guys).
OR BILLS.
I see a letter...from the bank.  Not again.  Didn't I just pay you guys?
But no, I've been granted a higher credit amount on my credit card!!!
Wow, that was nice of them.  For an instant I feel excited, proud of myself.

But...WAIT!  A bank being nice to me.  What am I thinking?  It's harder than hell to pay off the interest they charge now.  I pay $200 on it, they take off $30 from the principle.  (Pay the minimum I'll have it paid off 2032) So now they're encouraging me to spend MORE.  (We need a few months of no interest to pay some of this off...I do anyway.)
I think it's just a tease.  To grab more of my hard earned Social Security.   Like at the Globe up on Broadway.  There I don't have to pay for decades.  I get the pay off right away!!!

Screwed Again!

     My rent's going up, surer 'n hell.  This is what's going up right across the street from my loft.  It used to park over there.

    A whole lotsa construction is going on in my part of Dowtown L.A.  Around Grand, Hill, Spring, between  7th and 8th.  I asked my manager, when I signed up for another year's lease.  "Hey, rent increase?  30 story condo's going up across the street."
     "I don't know nothing about any increase.    Hey no problem.  No problem."
     Why am I suspicious?  Always question authority.  I'm still not 100% on the moon walk, (Sound stage at Langley?)  JFK assasination, (Lone gunman?)  9/11, (Trade Center buildings callapsed straight down as though they were detonated?)  Twinkees, (How could they be bad for us when they tasted soooo good?)

     I'm just waiting for the official looking notice to get taped up on my door.  'This property has been sold.  You've got 30 days to clear out, before we bring in ye 'ol wrecking ball.  We're REALLY sorry for any inconvenience.  Really!"

     Stay tuned.   My next place could be a cement bench in Pershing Squre.  Hell, it's free rent over there!  Lofts are hard to find in my price range.
     So, until next time (where's my Jim Beam and Ginger Ale?)  I thank you for your support.

 

When I knew I had potential (sorta)

I wish I really knew what the hell I was doing when I write. I think I'm mostly just winging it.   I know that sounds crazy, crazier to actually say it, but it's true.  I haven't had a writing class since high school.  And that was a class assignment, the teach telling us to write something about why staying out of trouble is a good thing.  I pretty much said to stay out of jail. (Duh!) C-minus, but I passed!  Something about no footnotes, and my atrocious spelling.  (This was way before Microsoft Word)

      Lucky for me, I've always had a book in my hand since college, so when I write something I get a feeling for it; ‘Does it sound 'right?"  Is it 'Clear?"  Does it 'Flow,' no hiccups?

     The challenge for me: creating characters from people I see every day, with enough bombs going off every few pages so the reader is saying, 'OMG!  You're kidding.'

     When did I know I had an aptitude?  When I asked my son, in the seventh grade,   "Hi, John.  How's school?"
     "It's OK.”
     "Let's see what you have to do."
      "Well...I got this paper I have to do about why education is a good thing.  It's kind of a contest for the entire school."
     "When's it due?"
     "Well...ah...tomorrow?"
     "WHAT?"  (Kid needed help, I could tell.)  "Well, we better get busy."
      Week later.  "Hey, John. How'd you make out on that paper you wrote?"
      "Dad, you're not going to believe... (a weak giggle)"  He whispered, "I won for the seventh grade."
     "You won!  You're kidding.  That's great."
      "Not really.  Now they want me do it in front of the Open House."
      "Upon stage. Like a speech?  Terrific!  You’ll do good.  When it going to be?"
      "Well...ah...tomorrow night."
      "John?  When were you going to tell us?"
      "I don't know."  His face was red.  (The apple didn't fall far...)

      I didn't write it for him, we simply sat at the table and discussed the possibilities.  We knew he could probably copy something from a back issue of Reader's Digest.  But I wanted him to do something original.  Not like today; a simple Google search, copy and paste, "Look I'm a writer!"

      Think outside the box.  We came up with two young boys walking home together, "Did you do that homework on the solar system?"
     The other, "Nah, I don't need that.   I ain't going to never need stuff like that.  I'm getting a job real soon."
     "You're not going to graduate?"
      "They need a dock guy down at Johnson's Hardware."
     "But..."
     and it goes on, how his competition for a job like that, without a high school diploma, would be enormous.  700 words later, written like a one act play, the boy decides he might need a diploma, and does the homework.

     Well, was his teacher pissed at me. Amazed at what John had written, all so suddenly!  Too suddenly for her, I guess.

     I got, in a nice way, the second degree.  "Your son really did a good job on...his...paper."  She didn't have to use 'air quotes,'  I heard it in her voice.

     "Well, all I can say is he showed me the assignment, and well we sat down and discussed it together, and he came up with it."
      I knew she didn't believe me.  "He has potential as a writer.  Maybe we'll get him into some other contests.  Almost like...night and day," as she wandered off.

      Okay, maybe I changed a few things in it...maybe...spelling, bad grammar, but that's it.
     That was the first  time I was ever praised for something I had a hand in writing.  I remember it today!

Maxwell who? Never heard of him.

     I'm Maxwell LaSalle: (Please insert pretentious crap about myself here.) Woops. Maxwell LaSalle: Seeking éclat, I drink coffee in the morning in a small coffee shop in Downtown L.A. and watch the passives aggressively pass me by. But, I'd surely give it all up to become a young handsome billionaire, a longtime dream of mine.  Had I begun writing fiction in my teens, I'd be gushing right here about my three Pulitzers, two National Book Awards, and all my Edgars. But alas.


      I did win a blue ribbon when I was six at the Venice Beach July Games, 10 and under backstroke.  But they told me some other kid said he'd won and had run off with the ribbon. My dad just rubbed my head.


      I read a lot, (not all that active on Facebook, or Twitter, so I have plenty of time). Some of the books I like, and have read a second time;  Guys and Dolls, by Damon Runyon. (Genius who created a whole city for his unforgettable characters stuck in the depression), Fast One by Paul Cain. (Hard nose noir.) Cain only reporting the action, not the thoughts of his characters.  Richard Stark's Spencer.  There are like 20 books withl him the main character.    (Again, all action, about a big time thief whose only focus is get the money and run, regardless! and he usually does.  Certainly the dark hero.)

     Music:  I worked my way through college working as a weekend Disc Jockey at a Big Band radio station, so anything by Benny Goodman, Chic Webb, Miller, Shaw, Berigan, Woody Herman, T and J Dorsey, the list goes on. I even like the crazy Spike Jones (the Spike Jones of the 1950s).  Stan Kenton not so much. Mellow sax, yes, cheeks exploding trumpet screams, (Dizzy Gillespi) no.


     Movies:  Man with the X-Ray Eyes (Ray Milland) TV-Breaking Bad (always something disastrous happening). Plus Better Call Saul. Treasure of Sierra Madre (H. Bogart) The Bourne (Whichevers), action movies that are total chase scenes. Not a fan of subtle. Jitterbug rather than the Viginia reel.


     Finally a plug for my book, (you knew this was coming), 'Flower Street Melodramas; Blades, Blonds, and Lotsa Bravado,' now out on Amazon.  It's 9 short stories, and 3 blog post from my sports blog, StiffLeftJab.com (I wrote that under the pen name: Brentwood Belair.)
   
     At this point l want me thank all of you who have read this far.  Take a breath.  Thanks.
     
     Now, since this is my first blog, I've come up with a Blog Mission Statement.  (Sounds a tad corporate, but, trust me, it'll be the last.  I spent way too many years in the corporate cubicle to go back, temps with clip boards standing over me, "Now how many calls did you make this morning, sir?"  I ain't going back!)   Anyway, here's what I want to do with this Blog:  I'm right now writing a novel entitled, Muscles in Red Wine.   It's a  story about a cage fighter who meets up with (you guessed it) Miss Sophistication, (Red hair, long legs, plays the piano), and together they conquer their personal challenges; he's way too physically aggressive, she's has way to foul a mouth, and in the end (I hope, since I haven't written that far yet,) they clean up their personal baggage, while they fight off the bad guys.

     Every couple of days I'll go through my thought process as I write the novel.  And every week or so I'll give you what I've written.  If you continue along with me you'll have read the entire book.  I hope this will entice you to continue reading my blog.  It's not for just writers, but for anyone interested in how the process works. (trail and error so far, but determination is the key.  My huge ego tells me you'll be checking in every so often.


     Sooo, until next time, (as I stir and sip my Jim Beam and Ginger Ale),  thank you for your support.

Macy's 2020?

     Across Flower Street they're working on the Macy's.  It's now close to two years and counting to upgrades their flagship store, and still they won't be completed until Christmas, if then.  I asked one of the construction workers, an older gentleman, who arrives at the coffee shop about the same time as I do (6a.m.) "When will you guys be done, 2020?"  trying for a laugh.  It's 6 am.  Loosen up his sense of humor?  Guess not.  Guy got mad.  He must have thought I was trying to be cute, degrading both him and his job.  "Oh, we’ll be done real soon.  2020, you’re kidding right?"  Like it was an affront to his work ethic.  Then mumbled something (blasphemous, no doubt, I heard the words  ‘total jerk’)  under his breath and moved up to the counter.

     He usually comes in, orders a small coffee, sits in one of the lounge chairs, for at least an hour, then saunters back across the street.  Supervisor of some sort, I guess.  Never takes off his plastic hard hat.  Six stand around and watch one guy with a jackhammer, while they eat their breakfast burritos off the nearby (I think I’m having a coronary) Taco Truck, parked in the red.  Paid by the hour, big surprise.

     On my way home this morning, I got thinking about;



     How many 'readers' do we lose every day, faces glued to cellphones/internet/ Facebook/ Twitter, etc.,  Before Bill Gates and Company didn't these people have newspapers in their hands, or maybe a paperback book?  The percentage drop of readers in the last forty years?  30-40%?   So the question I ask myself is whether what I'm doing;; writing  stories and doing my novel, as fast as I can before I shuffle off;  Is writing becoming a lost art, like handmade shoes?  Will fiction be available in the future?  Those in print simply yellowing unread on some bookshelf somewhere?  I write them because they're fun to do, creating characters, who do and say things I want to do and say.  I can be the hero in them on the page.  But is reading itself a lost art?

     I guess it's like just about anything we do in life, 100 years from now who will remember us?  Not many, unless you become President, and your name is in the  history books  (Oops, on the internet).   A pure guess, one tenth of one percent of one percent of us will be remembered 50 years from now.



   (This is depressing as hell. How did I get off on this?)



   Time to get back to my characters.   What will they be up to next?  Saving  the world from absolute and total annihilation.  What else?



     Sooooo, until next time, with happier thoughts, promise, (as I sir and sip my Jim Beam and Ginger Ale) thank you for your support.