Adam’s 2009 Worldcon Schedule
Tuesday July 28th 2009, 6:39 pm
Wednesday
1020 Arrive Montreal-Trudeau Airport
1025 Find first Montreal bagel and inhale it
1200 Arrive Palais de Congres
1205 Find first Montreal smoked meat sandwich and inhale it
1300-Onward Engage in wild orgy of meals at Au Pied de Cochon, pints of Fin du Monde with old friends, maybe attend a few panels.
(I do very much want to see Melissa Auf Der Maur’s Out Of Our Minds on Friday night, and I know Jetse de Vries and Daryl Gregory will be holding forth on some Very Cool Stuff. But otherwise, I’m going to try and soak in as much of Montreal as I can while making sure Andrew Tisbert doesn’t destroy my liver.)
Saturday
1500 Leave Montreal-Trudeau
2100 Arrive LAX
Sunday
0745 Rock the Brentwood Grand Prix with the Triathletix 4/5s
0830 Collapse
Precipice
Friday July 24th 2009, 5:48 pm
There comes a point in any endeavor where you bump up against the upper limits of your abilities. It’s the last math class that’s easy, the last stack of weights that doesn’t crush you, the last time you can do that thing easily. There’s still room for improvement, of course, but it will take work, and that takes a decision: is it worth the leap?
A few weeks ago, I finished my first novel. The other day, I finally got Bach’s Minuet in G. Yesterday, with Ian pushing and Jamie and Paul pulling, I stuck with the main pack of the Riviera Ride for two out of three laps*.
All three of these things were right at the edge of my current upper limits. The first draft was about twice as long as anything I’d written before. The Minuet only has one little position shift**. I needed Ian literally pushing me up Amalfi, one hand on my back as I pedaled like hell to keep up. These are things I can do, and I can probably do them well at this level of intensity and focus.
But I want to do more.
I want to lead the Riviera Ride for a lap. I want to play Bach’s cello suites (and Piazzolla’s tangos and Paganini’s Caprice and Zappa’s symphonies and whatever else there is). I want to write novels that entertain and sing. And all of these things will take work, a kind of work that I’ve never thought I could (or would want to) do before.
Here’s a secret: college was the first time I bumped up against my natural limits, and I wasn’t willing to do the work, which is the reason my diploma is from Cal Poly and not Harvey Mudd. I never got promoted at any of my video game gigs because I didn’t want to spend my off-hours learning how to crunch vectors in my head. These aren’t things to be ashamed of; they’re just facts (and, to be honest, I don’t regret the vectors-in-the-head thing. When you get down to it, learning how to Lindy hop and talk to girls are much more fulfilling).
It’s not the risk of failing that’s kept me away. It’s inertia. It takes energy to overcome, to build, to surpass those limits and build new ones. Yes, there’s going to be a point where I hit a hard wall (ie, I’m not going to ride like Contador, write like Moore, or play like Casals), but that doesn’t mean I can’t do my damnedest to find out where those walls are or how well they’re built. Before yesterday’s ride, I really thought I was giving it my all, but, no, I found I could dig a little deeper. I’d never written as much as I did on Windswept. And I was pretty sure I’d never get that tricky bit with the triplet and the hand shift. I bloody well got them, and I want to get more.
You do something, and then you stand on the edge of a cliff. Sometimes you fall, sometimes you die. And sometimes, you fly. So what else can you do but jump?
Today, that’s what I’m going to do.
* The Riviera Ride is three laps down San Vicente Boulevard to the bottom of Amalfi, then up through the canyons to Sunset and back to 26th and SV. You do this three times, and you do it fast.
** Actually, this is pretty self-explanatory: your fingering hand has to move up and down the finger board to get all sorts of higher and lower notes.
Thank Christ that’s done
Tuesday July 07th 2009, 4:41 pm
Two years ago, I was sitting in the bar of a hotel in Waikiki, just noodling away on the keyboard while I drank overpriced pineapple juice. What started as a “Hey, this could be a fun little idea for a story” turned into a full-blown, come-hell-or-high-water goal: I was going to turn this thing into a novel. I worked at it off and on for a while, getting in a hundred words here, a hundred there. I worked on other stories when my brain ran dry. I made grandiose goals and promises (“100K by Christmas! A fourth draft by Worldcon!”) that went by the wayside.
When I joined the Glorious Leisure Class in April, I promised myself I would spend every day at my desk in our home office until I wrote one thousand words of fiction. Some days I outdid myself, and others were a struggle. I had some interruptions for travel and family business (including a blazing hot week repainting my grandparents’ house. Tip for you homeowners: if someone tries to talk you into sandblasting the paint off the wood siding on the eastern-facing part of your house and not doing anything to protect that wood afterwards, politely laugh in his face and walk away. Your grandchildren will thank you later), but, more often than not, I sat and wrote.
Yesterday, I finished my first draft.
It’s ugly, and it’s a mess, and, no, you can’t read it. I don’t even want to read it, not until I’ve given my brain time to forget about the world of Santee Anchorage and its politics, weather and delicious rum-and-favor-based economy. I’m going to let this thing sit until Labor Day, the day of the Giro di San Francisco, when I will start my edits and revisions on the drive home (and if the Giro di SF is canceled, then I’ll just pound the hell out of myself on Latigo that morning, then edit). I’d hoped to have something to hand around to friends at Montreal, but it’s way to early for that. The novel I started at that bar is nothing like the one I wrapped up in a blazing hot hotel room in Arkansas, and it would probably be a good idea to make sure the thing swings from beginning to end.
How do I feel? Relieved, honestly. First drafts hurt, especially when they’re for something this big. My promise to myself on the bike course at Taupo to spend more time writing was certainly helped by spending a year focusing on that race. I know I can go the distance; now I just have to get there faster.
So. The first draft of Windswept, started July 27, 2007 at whatever that bar was where we had dinner for Yuki and Ken’s wedding that first night, Waikiki, Oahu, Hawaii; completed July 6, 2009, Gaston’s White River Resort, Lakeview, Arkansas. 84,037 words. Thanks to everyone who had encouraging words along the way. Now it’s time to get better.
