iPad: the new face of writer's block.

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you’ve probably seen status updates like this over the last couple of months: “Time to coffee-up and get to work on Chapter 22. It feels like I’m barreling toward the end now.” Chapter 22 of what, you may ask. Well, chapter 22 of my first novel, Midlife Mouse.

This process began last summer when, while dealing with the worst personal financial crisis of my adult life, I began to post blog entries here and on Facebook about my struggles and how my faith in God was being reshaped in the process. In the meantime, I shared with an old friend from high school some of my pie-in-the-sky ideas for becoming a novelist – whenever my busy life would allow me to pursue that dream. That friend then started a Facebook group called “I think Wayne Franklin should write his novel now.” About a hundred or so friends joined. The pressure was on.

Last August, I began writing. Given that I had been thinking about the first chapter for nearly two years, I was able to knock it out in less than 24 hours. Chapter two took a little longer – about 2 days. Chapter three took a week. Chapter four I worked on in fits and starts over the next four or five months. With a small break in my schedule, I knocked out chapter five in early Spring.

With five chapters under my belt, I asked my TV agent if she could pass them along to someone who could provide feedback and let me know if I was simply wasting my time. I expected her to send it to an agent who specialized in the literary field as she specializes in national cable TV. Instead, she sent the pages to a friend who just happened to be a senior-level exec and publisher of an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

A few weeks passed with no word. My schedule was about to get crazy with two big commercial campaigns. I wanted to get a sense of where I stood before then. While awaiting feedback, I became convinced that if my agent emailed me the feedback, it would be negative. If she called, however, that would be a good sign. One Thursday afternoon in April, I was driving home after running some pre-production errands when I received a call. It was my agent. Good news? My heart raced as I answered.

She told me that she had just received an email from the publishing imprint. Uh-oh. A phone call about an email. I hadn’t accounted for this variable. She said the editor was very enthusiastic about the first five chapters and wanted to read the rest of the manuscript over the weekend to present to her editorial board the next week. I had to reluctantly explain that there was no “rest of the manuscript.” And I wouldn’t be able to start writing again for at least three weeks. The editor was very understanding and we have had a friendly dialogue in the intervening months.

Fortunately, my busy spring of commercial production has opened up a window of opportunity for me to work on the novel. Since mid-May, I have been officially working as a novelist. No, I haven’t gotten a check yet for my endeavors, but this has been full-time job. In fact, because I’m trying to finish as quickly as I can, my days writing have looked an awful lot like some of my days editing TV projects: long. On my best days, I knock out an average 12-page chapter in a single day. More typical are days when I write 8-10 pages. I’m currently working on chapter 22, and I expect the book to be around 30 chapters. Hopefully, I’ll finish before the end of the month.

Back to our original question: what exactly is a Midlife Mouse? To best answer that, here’s the treatment I sent the publisher:

Bill Durmer is in over his head. In the mother of all mid-life crises, he finds himself a fugitive and accused kidnapper, hunkered down in a darkened hotel room, surrounded by the Mickey-eared forces of the Walt Disney World SWAT team. This is not how he expected to spend his summer vacation.

Mid-life Mouse pieces together the myriad decisions and circumstances that lead Bill to this fulcrum moment in his life. From life-changing choices like leaving behind a promising tech career to take over the family electronics store, to seemingly meaningless ones like refusing to protest the Walmart that would eventually kill his business, Bill feels robbed of his destiny. And now he thinks it’s too late.

Compounding matters is the overbearing presence of his sister, Nancy, a classist Southern Belle to the manner born. Bill’s every move is made in the shadow of a long and storied family history in his idyllic coastal hometown of Decent Chance, Alabama — and in the even longer shadow of his sister’s disapproval.

When the family store fails, Bill finds himself unemployed, depressed and staring headlong at 40. He cracks. One night, while watching Beauty and the Beast with his children for the millionth time, he has what he believes is an epiphany; he wants to be “the baker with his tray like always.” Rather than pursuing his lifelong dreams or embracing his talents in fields as far-flung as engineering, animation and writing, he wants to be a simple character living in the background of a fantasy world.

His wife reminds him that, as the proprietor of a small electronics shop in a quaint resort town, he’d been doing pretty much that his entire adult life. For Bill, it isn’t enough. He wants the simplicity, the innocence of the Disney version of life. So, he does what any formerly levelheaded, upstanding father of three would do: he runs away to Walt Disney World… And he takes his nine-year-old daughter, Cleary, with him.

At the Magic Kingdom, Bill finds his dream undermined by his own unique talents. After turning down more suitable positions, he settles on a gig as a bus driver – under the tutelage of a mysterious mentor. Bill soon finds himself embroiled in a turf war between various factions of radical Disney fans, all of whom believe him to be the fulfillment of a prophecy spoken by Walt himself on his deathbed. In the end, Bill finds the courage to embrace his newfound destiny. In doing so, he offers Decent Chance a second chance.

Mid-life Mouse holds a satirical mirror up to the uneasy and often hypocritical relationship between Americans and the often faceless corporations that are so ubiquitous in their lives. It examines how far some will go to try to be exceptional and the dire consequences for those who truly are exceptional refusing to make the most of their gifts. But at its heart, it is a complex portrait of a simple family in a uniquely American town struggling with pressures of class, success, identity and societal expectations that threaten to tear them apart.”

So that’s it in a nutshell. For a closer peek at the process, here is a list of chapter titles so far:

Ch. 1: “Skulking in the Shadows of A Giant Spaceman’s Legs”
Ch. 2: “The Mystery of the Towel Baby Couple”
Ch. 3: “The Buffet Promise”
Ch. 4: “According to the Bus Driver”
Ch. 5: “Beware the Cartoon Future That Never Was”
Ch. 6: “All Because of a Yard Sign”
Ch. 7: “Everything’s Disposable”
Ch. 8: “One-Eyed Jack and All of His Trades”
Ch. 9: “The Night of the Black Jubilee”
Ch. 10: “There Goes the Baker”
Ch. 11: “The Hyper-Caffeinated Delusion”
Ch. 12: “A Case of Mistaken Affinity
Ch. 13: “It Take an Army to Fight a Closed-Head Injury”
Ch. 14: “All the Best Storytellers Have Their CDLs”
Ch. 15: “Duct Taped and Stuffed in a Pig”
Ch. 16: “It’s a Big Bus After All”
Ch. 17: “Keep the Home Fish Mounds Burning”
Ch. 18: “Nine Words of Nine Words”
Ch. 19: “Just Call Me Mommy”
Ch. 20: “The Return of the Fishbowl Pajamas”
Ch. 21: “A Melodious Menagerie of Purveyors of Musical Perfection”

UPDATE – Here are the remaining chapter titles:

Ch. 22: “A Kiss for the Ages”
Ch. 23: “Under the Watchful Gaze of Dwarfs”
Ch. 24: “Fate, as Determined by a Head in a Jar”
Ch. 25: “Ontological Issues Ignored by a Hack Writer”
Ch. 26: “The Last Drawing of Walt Disney”
Ch. 27: “Closing the Book on Bill Durmer”

Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: John S
Film: Kodot Verichrome
Flash: Off

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Posted via email from Wannabe Pics

Sent from my iPhone

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Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: John S
Film: Ina’s 1969
Flash: Off

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Wannabe Pics

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Wannabe Pics

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Wannabe Pics

Edited in TiltShift Generator and Lo-Mob.

Sent from my iPhone

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Edited in Photoshop Express and Kooleido.

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Wannabe Pics

Sent from my iPhone

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Sent from my iPhone

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