From Negative Zero To Rip Orion: My Novel's Origin Story Pt. 2

Spoiler alert: There will be no further spoiler alerts. I’ve realized that I will have a difficult time writing about the evolution of Save Me, Rip Orion without exposing any plot details. At the risk of being less compelling in this series of blogs I will attempt to be vague concerning details of the novel.

If I remember correctly I began writing the first draft of my new version of the novel in early March in 2010. In order to exorcise the first manuscript completely I renamed the main character from Duncan to Bruce; renaming this character would become a theme in the subsequent drafts as I would reload the amnesia ray gun twice more. I redubbed Evelyn as well; she was now Marcy. Another reason I did this was because a friend of mine had written a novel called Changes in which the main character was named Eve (Changes is a well-crafted epic-type novel that I will tout when it’s released. Get to work Kirsti). My friend had been working on her novel for a few years already and sharing the name would feel a bit like literary robbery. Anyway, I had a new plot in mind although I still neglected to write an outline or have the story crafted, start to end, in scribbled fragments on wrinkled scrap paper. I basically had a treasure map with “You Are Here” next to an arrow and a far off X marking the end of the destination, but no dotted line through the forest, around the mountain and arched over the river.

I made another mistake from the onset; I chose to write the novel in first person. This would not have been a mistake in-and-of itself, but when the plot progression is hazy the narration quickly becomes tortuous. Imagine, as a reader, being ensnared in the mind of someone who inspires to tell a story but meanders in a thousand different directions en route to the climax. Or even better, remember that time you began reading that Wikipedia page about Pink Floyd (or whoever/whatever) and you clicked on every single text link for every single album title, session player on the ’87 American tour and Syd Barrett acid breakdown fun fact along the way until you finally got to the part of the page that read “and they all played together at the Live 8 concert and they’ll never play together again so keep dreaming, and that is that.”

I believe that a reader with a keen eye would have noticed the muffled screams of a potentially riveting story buried somewhere under Bruce’s drivel. Marcy, if not Bruce himself, had become a more defined character. She also had become more a mouthpiece for some of my own sensibilities. I gave her the best lines. I liked her. I wanted to hang out with her (but not for long; this chick was trouble). I also added a new character who would persevere until Save Me, Rip Orion—Bruce’s best friend Mitch. Mitch was so unformed in this draft that if he were made out of clay, he would have been a lump of clay. Furthermore, I had quickly become attached to a few of the scenes involving solely Bruce and Marcy, and especially their locales: a pine tree rooted in a boulder in the middle of the woods, a desolate high school football field and a putrid lake in the midst of a fish kill. I loved the concept of a fish kill. I think every novel should include a fish kill. Heck, even children’s’ book should include a fish kill. Let ‘em know at an early age that biological shit happens. Imagine Harold and the Purple Crayon if Harold drew a lake crammed with rotting fish carcasses instead of drawing his bedroom. Bernstein Bears Discover a Fish Kill?

I also abandoned any supernatural or science fiction components. God was out the window (for now). The Earth revolved in normal fashion this time. This version was much grittier. Marcy’s back story was beyond cheerless and involved notions that I was not comfortable treading as her creator. I would alter her back story for Save Me, Rip Orion so I could feel less ashamed breathing life into her, and because a refreshed back story fit the journey of all the characters much more profoundly.  However, the biggest difference between this draft and the previous was that the presence of the “The End” on the final page.

I understand that I simply can’t abandon the sub story of my wife and her emerging baby fever. I finished the second draft of my novel in November of the same year. Kait had subscribed to Parent magazine about this time in anticipation be becoming a mother. I found this endearing. However, around this time she also underwent a common minor procedure, mostly as a preventative measure. A few months later we realized that this procedure was fruitless. (At this juncture I should mention that her condition was not life threatening or anything. I don’t want to reveal too many details because I’m particularly afraid of two things: an angry Kait and HIPPA law violations).  

I named this draft Our Imagined Somewhere, which was a snippet of a quote, delivered by Marcy. My eye was on the traditional publishing route as this was the only outlet I thought was available. I edited the novel once and crafted a query letter and synopsis—a taxing process. I sent out my materials to about 10 agents. One agent bit and requested the entire novel. I sent it and waited. As the weeks crept by I gradually began to realize that my novel still has quite a ways to go. I realized it was half-baked at best. I knew what the agent’s answer would be. It’s amazing; as soon as time distances you from your creation you notice its warts, zits and unwieldy cranial protuberances.

I canned all my physical copies of the novel and erased the digital ones. I recall the moment I told myself I would start from chapter one again: I was driving home from work, but took a detour so I could stop at Barnes and Noble and buy the first of three instructional books about novel writing. In way I felt like I had just broken up with a girlfriend (is this a cliché?), but I knew I’d find someone better, someone prettier, sometime without an unwieldy protuberance.

From Negative Zero To Rip Orion: My Novel's Origin Story Pt. 1

I’m convinced that 9 out of 10 ideas are bad. Of course, one doesn’t know an idea is bad until he has acted on it and the consequences have developed to fruition. Want proof that 90% of all ideas are bad? Rifle though a history book. The consequences of bad ideas are scattered amongst the pages: ruined economies, dead armies and the cigarette umbrella (yes, it is what you think it is, and yes, it existed at one time). But bad ideas are what the make world go around, aren’t they? What if the history books were crammed with good ideas? There would be no Salem Witch Trials, no World War II and no James Buchanan.  BORING! We owe a lot to bad ideas—the fuel that powers the fun engine that puffs the carcinogenic smoke.

 My original idea for a novel was a bad idea. But surprise, I didn’t know it at the time. One night in June of ’09, while I was falling asleep, I had one of those thoughts that falls between a dream and an idea. (If I remember correctly, Keith Richards imagined the iconic guitar riff that adorns Satisfaction during one of these moments.) Anyway, during my half-conscious state, I imagined that the rotation of the world had stopped and mankind had begun to panic, but god himself, in the form of an owl, would intermittently come to a single person and guide him through the apocalypse. That, my friends, was the original idea. I wrote a brief synopsis at work the next day. I had made a few alternations but essentially my idea from the night before remained intact: The world stops turning. The moon, who is literally god, appears to a lowly file clerk named Duncan. The moon/god explains to Duncan why he has chosen to defy physics and allow civilization to destroy itself. Meanwhile, Duncan travels to save his gal pal, the jaunty deli aide Evelyn. The file clerk and the deli aide sleep together and when they awake they are the only two people on Earth, like a new Adam and Eve. 

 Salem Witch Trials, World War II…Matt’s first idea for a novel.

 I figured I could simply sit at my laptop and write the story day-by-day. Who needs an outline, or even hastily scribbled notes? I’d just develop the characters as I constructed one off-the-cuff plot detail after another. The first paragraph I wrote for my new high-drama story was an adjective-laden description of a skyscraper. Pretty arresting, huh? By the fourth or fifth paragraph, my main character was scrutinizing his puffy middle-aged self in a bathroom mirror. Good lord! Two pages into my first draft and any self-respecting reader, left alone a reasonably competent author, would have already been granted license to snatch the nearest blunt object and throttle me in the neck. Such a grisly attack might have thwarted me from continuing to invest time in the wretched mangled hunk of literature.

At the time that I decided to finally buckle down and commit a complete novel to hard drive my bodacious wife Kait began to express a desire to begin lugging an embryo. I told her bluntly “Let me have my baby first and then you can have yours.” I figured that I’d only be writing the novel for about 8 months, and I’d take another few months to edit. After that I’d divide my time between seeking a publisher and frequently sneaking off to the woodshed with Kait to steer nature our way. Little did I know that certain woman-type medical complications would thwart the baby plans for three years; little did I know that I would need every bit of those three years to complete my novel (which eventually became Save Me, Rip Orion).   

Although I ended up cutting the goofy moon/god component out of the manuscript altogether, I stopped writing about 35,000 words into my manuscript. Apparently 35,000 words are the approximate number of words it takes a neophyte author writing a first draft of a first novel to realize his idea is bunk. At least that’s how long it took me. My characters’ personalities were amorphous, my plot was meandering and my narrator was a rambling drunkard.

Although I had to hack off my novel midway and cauterize Duncan’s journey there were three aspects of the novel I figured were worth preserving.  Two were my main characters: the well-meaning schmuck Duncan and the bull-headed but endearing Evelyn. I wanted to imagine a new, more fascinating story for them. I thought they deserved it. During the four hour drive to Williampsort, PA for Thanksgiving that year I taxed myself with conjuring a new plot. By time I pulled into my parents’ driveway I had the seeds of an idea thanks to the third aspect I relished from the defunct novel: a scene in which Duncan wakes up in the dead of night and watches the house across the street burn.

Check out my novel Save Me, Rip Orion on Amazon, Smashwords and other ebook sellers.   

Product Review: Bumper Balls

Wow! No other truck testicles can hang with Bumper Balls™ ”

-Burt Webster (Paducah, KY)

I’ve gotta’ tell everyone how great Bumper Balls™  are for truck owners. Over the years I’ve owed many brands of testicles that attach underneath the back bumper of your vehicle: Truck’s Nuts, TruckNutz, TruqueNutts, TrucNuttss, Gnuts of the Trukk (Icelandic), you name it. However, after only a few thousand miles of wear the rubber tread in all those old scrotums had worn down to the veins.

Shame on those other cheap truck testes! Whereas Bumper Balls™ —there’s no other way to say it—are the best truck testicles on the market.

Do what I do. Hang a pair of Bumper Balls™  on your truck, put 30,000 miles on that bad boy, and then look me in the eye and tell me those Bumper Balls™  don’t still  look and feel as if they just descended yesterday. And if your driving’s like mine, a lot of those miles aren’t highway or “easy driving” citified blacktop miles neither.

I love to drive my truck off the beaten path—which means my Bumper Balls™  have probably smacked off of a thousand potholes and mud puddles. Once they even got snagged between two pointy rocks for 4 hours during a blizzard. After I got towed out…swear to God, there was not a single scratch or unsightly ding on these Bumper Balls™ . The next summer they even walloped a turtle that was crossing a rugged country road. The Bumper Balls™  remained unscathed while the turtle got fuuucked up.  That’s toughness!

The mechanism used to detach and reattach Bumper Balls™  is easy to master.  It’s just a sturdy pin protruding from the top of the sac that secures the whole unit to the rear bumper of the vehicle.  You can put ‘em on and take ‘em off blindfolded—which I’ve done, many times, just for fun.

In fact, my sixteen-year-old son got his first car last week and he begged me to let him borrow my Bumper Balls™  for his first night of “hittin’ the town”. How could I say no? I simply removed the Bumper Balls™  from my truck and reattached them to his hatchback. It took all of five minutes; just one tool required. As one can imagine, the nuts hang a lot lower to the ground off a hatchback, but no problemo! Your Bumper Balls™  can withstand tons of punishment. No surprise, my son is already ordering his own set of Bumper Balls™ . He can’t wait to “teabag the streets” every Friday night.

What’s more, Bumper Balls™  look totally badass dangling perfectly between my Make America Great Again bumper sticker and Jesus Rides Shotgun bumper sticker.  Hey, nowhere in Leviticus does it say “Thou shalt not hang testicles from thy bumper.” (Or maybe it does, actually. Leviticus says a lot of things) If only Bumper Balls™  came in camouflage they could match the gun rack in the back of my truck. A patriot can dream can’t he? But seriously, everything about Bumper Balls™  is great. I even like the choice of Sam Elliot to pitch them on television. “Bumper Balls™ …rugged like the American spirit. The brawny back sac.” Fuck yeah!!!

Now, if only I could get Bumper Balls™  as a hood ornament too. What better way to say “I’m about to pass you, pussy,” and 15 seconds later say “”I just passed you, pussy.”?  Goddamn right.

So seriously: accept no substitute. In fact, accept nothing, do nothing, buy nothing, until you’ve got a pair of Bumper Balls™  hangin’ and bangin’ off your vehicle. You’ll thank me and I’ll tell ya ahead of time: you’re welcome.

Lower the Jolly Roger

Remember back just a handful of weeks when Bucs’ fans were forming those Z signs with their hands in reverence of Zoltan, the space god from the dreadful film Dude, Where’s My Car?  Apparently, every time the Z sign was flashed, Zoltan was summoned to inhabit the body of a Pirate’s player and temporarily boost his talent in a key on-field situation, kind of like an office work taking a shot of 5 Hour Energy to push through a critical conference call. Well, the 5 hours ran out in early August. Perhaps Zoltan got sick of being disturbed from his intergalactic peace to bolt to PNC Park and add an extra 20 feet to what would normally be a routine fly ball. Now he’s extracting revenge by leaving a pregame turd in each of the players’ lockers.

I have a slightly different theory, however. It starts with placing the primary blame on should-be-beer-league catcher Rod Barajas for being the first to publically flashing the Z on May 8^th, after belting that walk-off home run. I believe that marks THE moment that the Pittsburgh Pirates sold their soul to Zoltan in exchange for three months of exceptional baseball. The problem is the Pirates didn’t have enough soul to sell in order to purchase the last two months of the regular season. (I’m surprised they had any soul to sell after first basemen Randall Simon clocked that racing sausage with a bat back on ’03.) I submit that Zoltan’s contract to the team expired on August 11^th, during the 5^th inning when James McDonalds gave up seven runs to the Padres.

Peek at the standings today—fourth place! Enraged Yinzer protestors are storming sports bars and burning the Jolly Roger. I saw a shaky YouTube video of an effigy of Eric Bedard being torn to shreds on Federal Street.  Barajas worshippers went from kneeing in the direction of PNC Park and chanting “Rod is good,” to loading their hotdog guns with the beheaded bobble heads of faded prospects and preparing to storm Bob Nutting’s panic room.

You know, if you make the Z sign, and turn the top backhand 45 degrees toward your body, the Z morphs into an L?

I think Bucs’ fans have learned an important lesson, besides realizing that hope is like a corked bat that is bound to crack in half in front of an umpire. Sports teams, regardless of their shortcomings or utter lack of marginal talent, should never invoke a god to boost their performance. First of all, it’s unsportsmanlike.  If Ryan Braun can’t inject HGH in his ass, the Pirates shouldn’t be injecting demigods in their bats, even if that deity has a minus 3 W.A.R.D. (wins above replacement deity). Perhaps poetic justice is being served by this late season collapse. I recommend that Major League baseball test for supernatural spirits in every clubhouse beginning next year. I’m pretty sure Lord Voldemort has been on the Yankees payroll for years.

Fear and Loathing Under My Nose, At the Corners of My Mouth and About My Jawline: The Great Vitiligo Hunt

We were somewhere around Swissvale on the edge of Frick Park when the vitamin B12 began to take hold.  Whereas most days the Squirrel Hill Tunnel constituted nothing more than an inconvenience thanks in part to the perpetual traffic jam, it had become a snarling jackal that swallowed vehicles whole and shit them out towards Pittsburgh.  We were already on the intestinal tract, but I drove onward. 

Dr. Stratos’ eyes nearly bolted from his skull when the creature’s gaping black lungs reflected in his irises.  (Dr. Stratos is the fictional name of the doctor who diagnosed my case of Vitiligo, and mentioned its unpredictable progress. “You are quite healthy, Matt.  It’s only a cosmetic problem.")   “Are you suicidal?” the doctor screamed.  “Think about the negative equity you have in your prefab home.  Your sobbing widow won’t forgive the financial burden.  Pull this wagon over.”

“Hold on to your snatch whackers,” I said, mashing the brakes.  The tires locked; the tiny claws of the asphalt peeled away layers of rubber as the sidewalk shreds a toddler's knees amid a tricycle wreck.  Then I heard the menace of a tommy gun as bullets diced the back windshield.  “For criminy’s sakes, those reckless patients of yours are shooting at us, doctor.  I told you to smile and wink when you said you had The Treatment. The hyenas are salivating.”

“Them ain’t bullets, you scatterbrained twit.  Those are your many thousands of tablets of folic acid shifting in their bottles.  Your mind is too drenched with substances that have not been evaluated by the food and drug administration.  Your bats have overrun your belfry.”

I had realized my flagrant miscalculation when the fender of my 03’ Ford Focus battered the guard rail.  By the grace of divine inaction, or simple blind luck as the natives say, I managed to subdue the steering wheel.  My Focus skidded against the corroded beam that separated me and the pale-crotched doctor from a forty foot drop unto an oblivious jogger who was likely listening to an ipod crammed with Nickleback and fantasizing about the spry sorority tits he’ll never taste. (I later learned that the jogger was indeed a fraternity pledge, at Krappa Delta Rho, in fact.  Apparently, his pledge name was Dolt.  That’s it, just plain old Dolt.  He majored in passing out on dust bunnies and minored in puking in his own chest hairs.)  My psyche gasped as the Focus halted.  The bottles of folic acid tumbled onto the floor mats.  “My treatments!” I yelled.  I flung open the car door, which nearly clipped one of those new “green” quasi-cars that was being powered by an ornate windmill bolted atop the sunroof. The car's bumper sticker proclaimed “LOVE: THE ONLY FUEL WORTH GUZZLING” adorned the car’s back bumper. 
“Screw you too,” I spit back at the driver.

Then I met the doctor at my trunk.  He looked a wreck; every pore on his body was yawning and sweat was gushing from them like broken inner city fire hydrants. 

“Get a hold of yourself you vitamin freak,” he said as he belted me in the kidneys.  “The B5 is kicking in.  Wait until the B7 and E3 blitz your brain, too.”

“You sunk my battleship, doc.”

“This is no time for your buffoonery. Open this trunk.”

Right then, Dr. Stratos looked like a hideous fiend, a pusher of the most heinous sort.  I knew the pills he prescribed wouldn’t overcome the white blotches on my face.  “I am a firefly in a jar to you. I'm a daddy-long-leg with pulled off legs.  I outta’ hogtie you with your own intestines, doctor.”

Dr. Stratos smiled and winked and said The Treatment was in the trunk.  He patted my forearm.  His fingers felt freezing cold. I imagined slurping a cherry snow cone amid a nuclear detonation.  What I mean to say is I felt okay, although my whole skin was melting from my bones. 

I yanked open the trunk with the ferocity of a medieval dentist extracting a dragon's fang.  Bottles of vitamins, herbs and other taunted tropical weeds from third world counties were scattered about.  A health nut, the kind who guzzles smoothies from a beer bong, would have creamed his spandex bike skivvies: gingko biloba, moringa oleifera, zinc, rose hips, vitamin c, pantothenic acid, copper, high potency vitamin b complex, daily multi-vitamin, and not to mention steroid crème and a host of lesser doses of whatever other vile remedies one might find traces of in Dr. Oz’s urine.  

“Consume.  Consume,” the doctor stressed.  ‘The Treatment is prescribed.  Time to overrun Vitligo and display the war booty above the fireplace.  Tell your grandchild you…were….there.”

I thrust my hand in the hole in my spare tire and scooped up what I could.  Then I gobbled the pills and tablets and capsules until the stitching in my stomach began to unravel and an all-out abdominal eruption was imminent.  Visions comsumed me. Within twenty seconds I was watching the Big Bang on a 3-D television; I was ducking as the particles of creation careened toward me; I saw everything in high definition from the cramped crawlspaces of god’s fallout shelter.  The Big Bang had reversed.  No one survived. 

Eventually I came to.  The B12 had coursed through my veins like putrid rainwater rushing down a city street after a downpour.  Dr. Stratos was at the wheel of the Focus, awaiting my arrival back to the actuality of Facebook and Fox News and some blithering dunce peddling some sort of robotic vacuum cleaner on channel 13 at 4 o’clock in the morning. 

The white blotches remained.  I rejoined Dr. Stratos in the Focus.  We pulled back onto the intestinal tract of the Squirrel Hill Beast.  Despite the traffic jam, I was going to be shit out toward the city.    

FOR SALE BY OWNER

Remodeled three-bedroom Cape Cod style house built in a flood zone, near a fault line, along a snow belt, in the vicinity of tornado alley, near mine subsidence, on the wrong side of the tracks, beside a rehab facility, neighboring an adult novelty store, adjacent to a slaughterhouse, not far from a nuclear power plant, a stone’s throw from a Muslim community center, in the bounds of solar flares, dangerously close to an asteroid belt, on the surface of a planet in which 98% of all documented species have already become extinct, within an unstable galaxy on a collision course with the Andromeda Galaxy in a godless universe.

Only 5 minutes from great shopping and dining. Call me if interested.