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Sunday, August 31, 2003

Finished!

Final Word Count: 52,000 +

The first draft of Baby and Winky is complete after eleven intense days of writing. Going to put everything aside for forty-eight hours and then re-read the manuscript before I make notes for the second draft.

Thursday, August 28, 2003

Baby, Winky, and the $1 Blowjob appears in the current issue of Truckin'. That is the fifth story from the Baby and Winky series. Will it be the last? I am thinking about sending them on hiatus for a while...

Here's a sample: "Baby and I didn’t have regular jobs but we scratched together enough cash for our hefty cocaine habit. We ripped off drunk college kids in bars."

Without a doubt Baby and WInky are the two most popular characters in my Truckin' stories. The majority of the feedback I got from the last three and four issues of Truckin' all involved Baby and Winky.

Wednesday, August 27, 2003

Since I started this project my most productive day topped out at 8,000 words. That might be the most I wrote in one session this year.

Current Word Count: 35,400 +

From my past experiences with huge projects like this one (Charlie's Goldfish & JTSMD) I understand that right now I am at past the mid-way point. This is a crucial part of the project. And if this attempt fails, it will be beacuse I fucked up at the mid-point. I have to push ahead to the end at all costs. And the ending is all I seem to be thinking about. Which is bad because I should be focusing on Pages 61-70, not on pages 120 and onward. All I want to do is finish and go to sleep. But I have at least a week to go.

The first ten pages are crucial. They have to be well written and be like fly paper or a glue trap. I have to get the reader stuck on the characters and the story. My theme is simple: Love. My story is simple: Boy meets girl. That's it. The characters are complex, diverse, and interesting and that is what I hope will be the appeal of Baby and Winky: the Novel.

The next ten pages are the toughest to write. The bridge from the opening to the middle of Act One is where a lot of readers get lost, and where a lot of writers lose their focus. I'm afraid that parts of the novel slow down too much for the reader. Baby and Winky short stories pack a lot of punch into a two or three page package. I found that is hard to maintain over thirty, forty, and fifty pages. Alas, that's why the back story is as important as the main plotline. And why the secondary characters are vital to keeping the dialouge fresh and the situations different.

Right now I hit the wall. This project has consumed me and all my thinking in the last week. I need a break and probably will just re-read everything I wrote and attempt to edit Act One. More to come.




Bone Fragment #2

What was I going to tell her? The truth?

"Baby, she's a nut. She's gotten me involved in a scam where we steal food from McDonald's. And she had one fucked up childhood let me tell you. It makes the craziest trailer park episode of Jerry Springer look like a feel good episode of Leave it to Beaver. And there's that one girl Amy. I still haven't met her. She does crystal meth all day and all night with her skinhead biker boyfriend from Idaho. Then there's Chester, he drinks and smokes cigarettes all the time on the porch. I forgot about Lucy, she's a stuck-up flake, and I don't like her too much. Your old house manager, I only met her once, but she had really nasty words about you and your body odor. And then of course there's Stu, or Crackhead Stu as the house calls him. He's all over the place, constantly looking for things to steal so he can pawn it for crack dollars. Oh and I forgot to tell you about Craig, the cyber geeky guy that lives next door to me. All he does is download gay porn and takes forty minute showers, doing what to his genitals, I don't know. I think that sums it up."


© 2003, Tenzin McGrupp

Monday, August 25, 2003

Bone Fragment #1

Alas, I'm tossing die hard Baby and Winky fans a bone with a special excerpt from the new novel. Enjoy!

"I’m looking for Baby."

He flung the door open and I walked in.

"Close the fucking door!" someone shouted.

The lights were out and three other people sat on the floor. I glanced around Baby’s smoky room which was a mess. A huge tapestry covered up the front window and that made her room very dark except for the glimmer of light from a couple of small candles. Dirty clothes, empty beer and soda cans cluttered the floor space. There was a small couch off to the side with a few folding chairs. In the corner I saw an old Safeway shopping cart that apparently served as Baby’s closet. It was filled with more clothes and personal items. She had a mattress sprawled out on the floor without any sheets and pillows. Several empty McDonald’s bags and dozens of cigarette butts completed her undecorated room.

"Which one of you is Baby?" I asked as I looked at two young girls and two wasted guys.

"Are you a cop?", a skinny girl with pink dreadlocks slowly answered in a southern drawl.

"No. But I play one on TV."

She laughed.


© 2003, Tenzin McGrupp


Saturday, August 23, 2003

I started writing the first draft of the Baby and Winky novel last weeked. I decided that I wanted to write a screenplay and two novels in one year (Sept. 2002 to Sept. 2003). Jack Tripper Stole My Dog was a local hit and has beome a cult favorite. I got some things going on in that novel that I am proud of. My writing skills reached their highest peaks at the completion of JTSMD. But that was nine months ago. Recently I discovered that I have the energy and confidence to attempt to write something fresh and new, but familiar at the same time. That's why now is the time for Baby and Winky to shine.

Alas, I got off to a slow start. The first twenty pages are always the toughest. I had to dedicate time to work on the latest issue of Truckin'. Also, I prepared for a trip to the casinos to play in a poker tournament. That took up a lot of my time. I got sidetracked for a few days. Since then I have made some limited progress. I have a solid first two chapters. And that's all I wrote...
Where It All Begins...

Baby and Winky started out as a short story for my blog-zine Truckin'. I had a tremendous amount of fun writing those new characters. I never envisioned the reaction that I got from the readers. Not only did they enjoy the first story... they loved it! And of course every month they asked for more. Over the next few issues of Truckin', I expanded the characters as well as the hijinks. When I asked the readers to select their favorite Truckin' story, the results were overwhelming. Baby's Steak Knife and Winky's Salad won in a landslide.

Here is a list of the four original Baby and Winky stories:

1. Baby, $2000, and the Dork Brothers
2. Baby's Steak Knife and Winky's Salad
3. Sexual Chocolate: Another Baby and Winky Adevnture
4. Baby, Winky, and Van Gogh's Ear

All works are © 2003, Tenzin McGrupp

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