04/16/13

My Second Office

Writing full-time is a lonely enterprise.

Especially in the winter, and especially if you live in the boondocks, have only one car, and the closest semblance of civilization is a mile away.

I used to be content working alone from home all day long, but in the past year the silence has become oppressive. My only company where I live are the woodpeckers that gather out at the suet feeder. Unfortunately they’re not very good conversationalists.

Which is why, in recent months, I’ve been hiking into the Millbrook Diner every day.

Often before I even get inside, Kenny, Randi or Alex sees me coming from across the street, pours me a cup of coffee, and places it with the crossword puzzle at my regular seat. A small act that, more than anything, makes this writer feel a lot less lonely.

I always exchange hellos with Thanasi—the gracious owner—and sometimes I visit with other regulars—people whom I know only by first name, and with whom I interact only at the diner. Regulars like Bill, who, at close to 80 years old, walks five miles with his wife every day. Or Wayne, a fascinating, semi-retired man who flies planes and trains horses. Or Helen, an erudite Greek woman with a thousand stories to tell.

The Millbrook Diner. Best coffee in the county.

The Millbrook Diner. Best coffee in the county.

I like to read in the diner, but mostly I drink a lot of coffee there, and I write. (Popular definition of a writer: “a device that converts caffeine into words.”)

Over the years I’ve written and edited thousands of words in the Millbrook Diner. Stories. Journal entries. Executive speeches. Video scripts. Plays. And the Dakota novels (see ads to right). Most recently was a 10-minute play for an upcoming play festival.

Whatever I’ve been writing, I’ve found the mild noise of the diner to be creatively stimulating. Also, the familiarity of the people and the surroundings gives me a sense of community, of connection, that I need so I don’t feel so isolated.

Who would have thought that a diner could do all that?

The Millbrook Diner is my second office, and I thank Thanasi, his wife, and his staff for always making me feel so welcome.

—Chris

12/12/12

Two Ideas to Get You Through (The 1st Draft)

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you already know that I began writing the third installment in the Dakota Stevens Mystery Series last Monday, and that I’ve written about 18,000 words so far.

What you don’t know, because I haven’t spoken about it at all, is what a bitch this first draft has been.

The tension of not knowing exactly where the story is going is killing me.

It’s been a while, you see, since I had to write a Dakota novel from scratch. The last time I sat down and started a first draft was seven years ago.

Seven years.

Obviously, I’ve written first drafts of other work since then—stories, essays and speeches mostly—but nothing compares to the intricacy of a novel.

Which is why I’ve recently taken great solace in two quotes on writing by two masters: E.L. Doctorow and Bernard Malamud.

Doctorow compared writing—particularly writing a novel—to driving at night through fog. “You can only see as far as your headlights,”  he said, “but you can make the whole trip that way.”

Whenever I’ve found myself getting frustrated with not being able to see the story more than a chapter or so ahead, I’ve thought of Doctorow’s quote: “You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

The second quote, by Bernard Malamud, was directed to writers in general: “Teach yourself to work in uncertainty.”

This is especially apropos to the writing of a first draft—the very definition of uncertainty.

Learning to be comfortable with uncertainty is imperative for a writer. Uncertainty about where the story is going. Uncertainty about how it will be received. Uncertainty about finances. Uncertainty of all kinds.

These two ideas—uncertainty, and seeing as far as your headlights—are getting me through the first draft, and they’ll get you through, too.

—Chris

 

11/28/12

Dakota Novels Get 5 Stars from IndieReader

IndieReader, the popular and informative web-zine about self-published books, reviewed A Real Piece of Work back in February and gave the novel 5 stars.

So when I published The Rich Are Different over the summer, I submitted the novel to them for a possible review. They were swamped at the time, but I followed up with them last week, and today, less than a week later, they published a review of the second book.

Another 5-star review.

Read the review of A Real Piece of Work.

Read the review of The Rich Are Different.

The reviewer of both books, Maya Fleischmann, creates some nice turns of phrase in her reviews. She writes, “Action, lust, danger, style and witty repartee, Orcutt’s A Real Piece of Work is a work of art.” And of The Rich Are Different she writes, “Dakota Stevens is thoroughly likeable and appealing with his rich mix of chivalry and clever mischief.” There are several other examples, but I’ll let you read them for yourself.

Besides promoting the reviews, there is no larger point of this blog entry, except perhaps to acknowledge that like all writers, I want my work to be liked and accepted. Certainly reviews from regular readers mean just as much to me as IndieReader’s, but there is something especially nice about having a professional stamp of approval. They even sent me a “sticker,” shown here.

Thank you for putting up with this rambling, gloating entry. Sometimes, though, you have to stop and savor the small successes, and this is one of them.

 

11/26/12

Dakota Stevens #3: Starting from Scratch

While writing the first two books in the Dakota Stevens Mystery Series—A Real Piece of Work and The Rich Are Different—I kept notebooks of other plot ideas, titles, scenes, characters and anything else that occurred to me for future installments.

As a result of these notebooks, I had begun two more Dakota novels and created outlines for 3–4 others.

However, when I opened these notebooks recently with the intent of continuing one of the stories I’d started, I didn’t like what I found.

I’d written this material (including the first hundred pages of a Dakota & Svetlana prequel) between 5 and 7 years ago, and I’d matured as a writer since then.

I no longer liked the direction I’d sketched out for the character and the series.

A realization soon followed that made me sick to my stomach:

I needed to dump all of that work and start over.

When you’ve created a series character, starting from scratch is a scary thought. For the first time since I invented Dakota & Svetlana, I won’t have drafts of work to build on. I’ll be facing a blank Page One and all of the paralyzing dread that accompanies it.

But I’m doing it. I’m starting from scratch, mainly because a novel is a hell of a lot of work, and you have to start with a story, a vision, that you really want to tell. It’s the only thing that carries you through.

Ultimately, the task before me now is to figure out what excites me about Dakota & Svetlana, and to ask myself, “What is the Dakota story I would most like to read?”

I know that’s the question I need to be asking because it’s the same one I asked myself before writing the first two novels, and I’m pleased with the results.

Allegedly, J.R.R. Tolkien was partly inspired to write his Lord of the Rings series for this very reason. He thought about the books that he would most like to read, realized they didn’t exist yet, and set out to write them.

He wrote the books he most wanted to read. This is a great lesson for all of us writers.

Over the coming months, I’ll be writing the first draft of Dakota 3. I have no idea what kind of story it will be or where it will take me; all I know is, I want it to be a fresh take on my vision for the series, and I want it to be as well written as I can possibly make it. We’ll see if I can pull it off.

Wish me luck, Dear Reader. I’m going to need it.