Dear Alice

For the last month or month and a half, I've been working on a project that I can't talk about quite yet, but it involves sending out another book proposal, which is where it's at right now. (Hi, editors!)

In any case, the point of mentioning that is to say that between that and the blogging and the freelancing, I had gotten a bit sidetracked on the novel I am supposed to be writing, which is based on my experiences in Porn Valley. Which is to say I hadn't worked on it at all.

After all that time, I finally looked at it for the first time in a long time a few days ago, and it was messy. Very, very messy. I was mistrustful of this state of affairs, as I am not much of a drafter. When it comes out messy, it tends to be wrong. I would say that my approach to the novel that time around was ambitious: a big novel, broad in scope, lots of sturm with a side-helping of drang. But it was a mess, which I find to be... odious. In my defense, this attitude is genetic, I insist! My father was like this. Since then, I'd been thinking that perhaps I needed one character, one plot, one movement. Not Altman on crystal.

When I moved to New Orleans in September of 2003, I set out to write this novel. And at that time the central character was Xerxes Xavier. At that time, he was a writer. I mean, I think he was. What with everything that happened since, I have a hard time remembering. In any case, I've wondered since then if the first way was the right way. So I started wondering if I should toss what I'd written thus far and start over again with Xerxes as the main character, but a different Xerxes, in a way. Somebody hates it when I do this. I know this.

But I watched the truly beautiful video you see here (via Kottke), and I read this inspiring piece of writing about the creative process, and then I opened up a new Word document and started writing it.

"One clear day in May, Xerxes Xavier Jr. drives to the top of the Hollywood Hills. At the peak of the range, he stops by the side of the road, just past Mulholland Drive. Next to a redwood tree, he stands facing north, and the San Fernando Valley spreads out before him like a woman. From here, he surveys the great landscape: a 400-square-mile, pastoral valley floor bound by a series of dramatic mountain ranges. The Verdugo Mountains to the east. The San Gabriel Mountains to the northeast. The Santa Monica Mountains to the south. The Simi Hills to the west. The Santa Susana Mountains to the northwest. More than a century ago, California State Senator Charles Maclay overlooked this place and proclaimed: 'This is the garden of Eden!' Now, where conquistadores Californianos once galloped across wide-open ranges as cattle grazed serenely under Oak trees, there lies suburban America: tract homes, backyard pools, mini-malls. He has come a long way to get to this place. In the midday heat, the [redacted] stands in the dirt, not far from a road where no one is, bows his head, places one hand on his chest, says a prayer under his breath so no one can hear it, and dives in, headfirst."