Eccentric Flower:199911/Empty briefcases and early returns

Today, among other things, I cleaned out my closet. "My" closet is really the closet in the guest room, as one of the failings of this apartment is that there is no closet in the main bedroom. Nonelvis keeps her clothes in the hall closet.

When I first moved in here, six years ago, I put a lot of things in the closet that I didn't know what to do with. In retrospect, they probably shouldn't have come up to Boston with me, but it wasn't as if I didn't have plenty of extra space in the moving truck, so I was fairly lenient with the triage.

Each time I've cleaned out the closet - I think this is the third time - I've lost a little more of that cruft. Most of the things I put in that closet originally (barring actual clothing) have only left it to go to the garbage. Today I got almost the last of it.

One of the items that left the closet today is a large, clunky, square-cornered brown briefcase, very battered. I opened it, just in case, even though I knew it hadn't been opened since before I left Baton Rouge.

In it I found:

1. Several sheets of microperforated business-card stock - you put the sheets in your laser printer, print the cards, then the sheets come apart into business cards. Nothing printed on them.

2. A headline torn from The Greater Baton Rouge Business Report: "Fifth Generation Systems Sold To Software Giant."

3. Two business cards for the people at Symantec who were doing the "placement and relocation" services for Fifth's employees - which, in many cases, amounted to handing them severance pay and showing them the door.

4. A piece of junk mail, still in the original envelope, for a dating service.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where I was six years ago. No one in my life, no job, no prospects, just a couple of thousand in severance money and no place to go.

I still believe that deciding to pack up and move to Boston - without anything waiting for me up here, no job, no place to live - was probably the most foolish of the many foolish things I've ever done in my life.

It's also probably the smartest thing I've ever done. Paradox, eh?

Coincidentally - or not - tonight Nonelvis and I celebrated six years together; I hadn't been her roommate a month before our friendship stopped being platonic, and became something else entirely.

We have our ups and downs, as does everyone, but we do pretty well, all told. Knock wood.

A few brave volunteers have read Quarter Moon on their own initiative - I haven't asked anyone specifically to do so - and the early returns aren't especially encouraging, but they're also not surprising.

The problem is that I have a somewhat fast-paced opening - for about two chapters. Then the novel slows down and becomes a character study. And several readers have been thinking, "Wait, wait, what happened to that suspenseful story we were reading, with Sam and Robin on the trail of a Big Conspiracy and maybe fearing for their lives?"

You're not going to like this.

All that fast stuff is just setup. The novel is really about Robin and Juliet and Kate and what happens to them, how they change and what they undergo. The chase - the Machine - is just to keep the book moving forward.

It gets fast again at the very end, but make no mistake: The middle portion, the slower portion, is the real book. The book I wanted to write.

Those of you who've read it will now finally understand what I mean when I say that I write things no one wants to buy. Or perhaps read.

This novel is about some people who have unusual things happen to them - how they react, how it changes their lives, and most importantly how it affects their interactions with other people. It isn't a suspense-filled book. Nor is it a plot-heavy one.

I commented to Nonelvis the other night, "Isn't it strange how the plot-driven, fast-paced books are usually the only ones I want to read, but I never want to write them?"

Welcome to my private, personal hell.

Another comment I've gotten is that my characters sound somewhat alike. I know they sound alike. I've done four major reworks of this thing, and each time I've tried as hard as I can to make the characters sound less alike. I'm open to suggestions. I can't fix the fact that the novel is about a story you don't want to read, but by god I can at least try to make the characters as distinct in your mind as they are in mine.

Actually, given that a common complaint of my work is that I don't delineate my characters clearly, if you've read Quarter Moon and finished it, I'd love to have your impressions of what the characters are like, what their respective personalities are - so I can figure out where I've gone wrong.

But that's more than enough about that.

You know, I feel guilty every time I gripe about something here. I worry that people will feel I'm fishing for sympathy, as it were.

The fact that I get mail almost every time I gripe about something - I even got mail today recommending web sites where I can buy leotards, for heaven's sake - is wonderful - I love it - but I don't want to feel like your replies were anything less than voluntary, I don't want to feel like I coerced you into replying.

So tonight, as you read my annoyance about the novel - and that's all it is, annoyance - bear in mind the anniversary comments above it. A little of the good, a little of the bad. That way hopefully it balances out.