Pay close attention to the man behind the curtain

The publication of @UGMAN is now less than two weeks away, and I wanted to take a moment to share this unexpectedly stellar Kirkus Review. Now, whenever I bring Jennifer tea or a meal, I tell her it is “flawlessly executed” …

There’s a certain pressure, as publication dates near, to get out there and talk about the book. Every writer I know hates this process, it feels so nakedly meretricious. I wasn’t going to do it; and then I had an idea that actually seemed fun. You be the judge.

I have long been obsessed (before that word became completely devalued by Instagram) with writers’ journals and letters. I have an entire bookcase dedicated to these collections. I’m fascinated by the behind-the-curtains look, the humanizing struggle of creation.

I’m a mostly regular journal keeper. I’ve been doing it for forty years, and as I prepared this newsletters, I realized that they constitute my longest sustained project. I have no illusions about their importance; but they are a useful working out ground for me. It’s full of all the usual stuff - relationships, money stress, what I’m reading or watching. Nothing earth shaking. Yet I continue most days. They live mostly on my computer now, though every few years I batch them and have them bound so I can shelve them. I still go back to them from time to time, especially when I’m trying to answer “when/how did this saga unfold?”

The other thing I write about, of course, is my own writing.

My nature is, essentially, private. I’m not a “live your life out loud on the internet” kind of person. Even in the blog days, I was circumspect about personal things. But I thought it might be fun to share some of my entries during the initial writing of @UGMAN, especially for my many former students who get this newsletter. I want to show anyone who is struggling through a first draft that, to use the word of an old boss, “I eat my own dog food.” Which is to say I am no less afflicted by uncertainty, doubt, self-loathing.

A little bit of context: Prior to @UGMAN, I was attempting to write a big-hearted comic novel (which is referenced). But this was during lockdown, and the election was coming, and I couldn’t sleep and I wasn’t feeling funny. I was feeling a lot of rage. (I was also enduring considerable personal turmoil as a parent.)

My personal life stuff is scrubbed from these entries; and there were many entries that were simply reporting a daily word count. I have omitted those and tried to select those that had something interesting to say.

The other thing worth knowing is that I had a view of myself as a slow writer - Memento Park took four years for a first draft. But I wrote @UGMAN with real speed, surprising myself. These entries show how quickly the conception came together. These entries take you through the first draft completion of Part Two.

I hope you find something illuminating or encouraging in here. Off we go!

11^th November 2020

Trump has lost. Biden has won. That’s something, though not as satisfying as seeing him jailed or torn apart by the mob. Will take what I can get.

No writing or even thought of writing lately. Though am reading Underground for the Rage book, yet another of the countless Sarvas projects that will likely come to naught. 

3^rd December 2020

I did optimistically block out some writing time today. Did not happen. Maybe I will try again. I’m scrappy.

5^th December 2020

A quiet few days. I wrote a little bit today on the rage book.

2^ndJanuary 2021

Will try to sit today, will try to spin, will try to write. I could make a limp joke about how trying things are but even that is beyond reach …

 Times of madness.

 (Update – 464 shitty words.)

3^rdJanuary 2021

Some paltry momentum on my book. “Momentum” might be overstating it but (a) I am writing and (b) I am assembling fragments into an opening and (c) I am getting new ideas and (d) I don’t wholly loathe every word I am setting down. Yet.

11^thJanuary 2021

471 words. They are, without doubt, garbage. But two things to note – first, a narrative shape is (almost grudgingly) starting to emerge, at least through Part One. Second, simply the realization that I must do what I tell my students to do – forge bravely ahead, without vanity. Don’t be halted by not knowing, by not liking, by not believing. Simply get the fucking words down and hope for the best.

So, as I said, 471 words. I do worry that this guy will be too off-putting for most readers. I think humor will be key, a certain lack of self-awareness. I can see slivers of humor popping in around this kind of Twitter grandiosity that people seem to experience.

Anyway, no idea – we will see. But got my words in.

12^thJanuary 2021

241 words. Some interesting turns. Maybe I am finding my way. Too soon to tell.

15^thJanuary 2021

181 words. Didn’t do actual writing yesterday BUT I did solve the question of how to get the Beatles in there by introducing the Hofner in his room, which not only brings in the Beatles but sets up a finale with his old mates. So that might work.

25^thJanuary 2021

Told [A WRITER FRIEND] I need to take more risk in my work, lose my fastidiousness and self-consciousness, which are rooted in fear. The rage book is probably a hopeless mess but there are sections of it that have more truthful energy in it than anything I’ve ever done, certainly than the very mannered NSA stuff. So we’ll see.

Update – 489 words.

14^th February 2021

Printed out all of UGMAN and read through it. So, it’s kind of funny, which shocks me but is also likely to be helpful. I think the first 30 pages are starting to clip along and feel coherent. I checked, and Grief [is the Thing With Feathers] is 35,000 words, so I’m aiming for around that, maybe 40,000. (Remember Gatsby is around 50,000.) The basic frame of the story, as I see it is: 

Part One – we meet ugman and his circumstance, everything up to his first like and the death of the Senator, which ends part one. 

Part Two – after Notes, focuses on three flashbacks, giving a sense of how he comes to be here. These flashbacks are interspersed with his attempts to learn more about Nevsky and sort of poke at him into action.

 Part Three – He goes to Beatlefest to confront Joe, who he has become convinced in Nevsky. Takes his Hofner along. Ready for a fight but (a) he’s wrong and (b) the music saves him.

I can, I think, squeeze out 40,000 words on this theme easily, and then return to the comic novel. I’m currently 5700 words in. It would be good to end the week of this retreat with, say, 15,000 words total or so. Maybe too ambitious, but we’ll see.

Main challenge right now, other than the brevity and the impact on marketability, is the consistency of the voice, making sure to keep that looser style of the opening pages and not always lapsing into my uptight stuffy formal Banville voice.

Back to read a little more Fyodor now, then to work.

17^th February 2021

247 words but most of my time spent on review and structure. Read the whole thing, did some edits throughout, arranging material. Feels like a thing is starting to emerge. Might be close to having a draft of Part One sooner rather than later, though I’m worrying about sustaining the rage. Here, I think the short form will help. And getting him outside in Part 3 will be critical.

Who knows? This might all be a wild pile of shit. The problem with fragments is it’s much harder to suss out what is essential. But in the end, not going for mimesis here, capturing instead an undone soul. That’s always the part to come back to – giving rage impulses free reign will finish us off.

18^th February 2021

511 words. Some new, important beats. Closing in on 8,000 words, about 1/5 of the way there.

No idea if any of this is working, but I must say that some of it amuses me.

19^th February 2021

819 words. 8700 words total. Rough pass of Part One complete.

22^nd February 2021

A day of research and planning. Close read the conclusion of Notes, read through the Frank [Dostoevsky biography] chapters in some detail, took notes, got some ideas (like including an Apollon character in Part 2.)

Also ran through and sketched out some broad beats in part two and three. A rough roadmap. I still need the thing of the first and third flashbacks, my soldier and my Liza. Will continue to mull.

Jennifer really loved it. So that was encouraging. Plus she likes the jokes. Waiting to hear from [WRITER FRIEND] but wrote Simon [MY AGENT] one of my long, hand-wringing emails letting him know about the book. Will send it to him when he replies, though I do want to add the Vienna elevator memory to Part One. (Also will need to make all of part one feel a bit more underground.)

24^th February 2021

352 words. Mostly planning things, laying the ground for Part Two. Figured out the first of the two flashbacks and have some thoughts toward the second. A lot of new ideas, additions. Continue to layer lots of crazy shit into this one. I honestly have no idea.

My main fear is how unlikeable he will be. I mean, the original UG Man is no peach. Today’s readers would never bear him. This is where the humor and pathos have to do their job. To take the edge off. Yet another unlikeable Sarvas character. I really do want to create someone wholly sympathetic at some point, probably Noah in the comic novel.

25^th February 2021

436 words. And I sent Part One to Simon. Gulp. But now I’m committed. Here’s what I told him about Part Two:

Part Two will follow a structure from Notes from Underground – there are three flashbacks in the original, from the narrator’s younger life. I will echo those three flashbacks in form and theme, and here, the style becomes a bit more linear/narrative (though not wholly abandoning the form of Part One); it just settles a little bit. In the original, the idea is that these flashbacks show how he became this angry solitary guy, and mostly is tied to his vanity. I want to do something a little bit different, where the three flashbacks do thematically echo the original but I want to juxtapose these three failures/humiliations against this narrative he is raised with, these promises that you can do anything in America if you just work hard enough. He feels chosen (so to speak) but events keep telling him otherwise.

Pressing into Part Two and still having (dare I say it) some fun. The flashbacks will be tricky to navigate but I will get to them. I still don’t really have the third one sorted yet, but I can run with the ones I have.

5^th March 2021

Report: 440 today/13,130 total. Decent progress, new ideas keep flooding in.

Need to keep taking risks, don’t back off. Here’s a story I read today from a 2019 Ian McEwan Q&A that seemed timely enough: 

9^th March 2021

Report: 484/13,863. Adding some new beats to Act Two, trying to tighten the narrative line amid the flashbacks. Doing some really weird shit and I have no idea what works and what doesn’t but the writing is happening. That is, I suppose, something. Simon hasn’t read it yet but promises to get to it soon.

11^th March 2021

Report: 613/14,467. Decent output. Less than an hour from my public Guild Hall appearance. I guess I really do have something to show from this residency. 

Nice email from Simon:

Started reading the new thing. Laughed out loud several times. Feels like you’re channeling Micky Sabbath as well as TUG. Love it. 

13^th March 2021

Nicer and longer response from Simon to what I am now calling Sabbath’s Twitter:

So I finished; I think there’s definitely a novel here.  I’d pitch it as Notes from Underground meets CHECKPOINT as narrated by Mickey Sabbath.  Which is a good pitch.  (And you’re obviously having great fun writing the book – and it’s coming through, which is a strange thing to say about such an angry piece of writing.)

Good reaction. He goes on to say he wants to talk to ensure that I do have a narrative arc amid all the fulminating, which I do and which I (mostly) shared with him except for the closing Beatles bit.

Now I just have to write the thing. To keep the momentum I got out of this residency. Long hike this morning with J so I’m a bit tired but time to jump in. 300 words at least, you pansyass.

Update: 918/15,342. Some good stuff, having fun.

22^nd March 2021

Appointment for vaccine one on Thursday.

Will try to write now. Not feeling any of it but 150 words, whether I want to or not.

Words from Roth today: 

DO NOT

JUDGE IT

DO NOT TRY

TO UNDERSTAND IT

DO NOT

CENSOR IT

29^thApril 2021

277 words. Things are moving briskly. I think I can finish up Part Two in a couple of weeks, though I need a return to some source material, a review of the Frank bio and a little time in the Liza chapters. But the roadway continues to be clear. And then into Part Three, the weirdest and hardest to pull off, but also the shortest, I think. Went back to Grief and was struck by how very short the last part is. I imagine this will come in right around 35,000 words or so. Who knows what that will do its viability? Though if its viability survives my being a middle-aged straight white guy, then I guess it can survive brevity.

It is entirely possible no one will want to publish this book.

8^thMay 2021

Part Two is complete. 28,885 to date. One part left to go.

Figured out the last hurdles and pressed through in a 1900 word day yesterday. Will read the whole thing through tomorrow and send it to Simon.

That’s it for today. If you liked this experiment, please do let me know and I can follow up with entries from Part 3 and even entries written during the revision process.

In meantime, please do pre-order @UGMAN or come to launch event on July 9, where I have great fortune of being in conversation with the incomparable Benjamin Dreyer. I would be thrilled to see you all.

Until then, I send peace, love, and wishes for the safety and good health of all my beloved ones in Los Angeles. I am there with in you in spirit.