Rodney Dodig

Larry and I met with Katrina on Monday and Thursday this week to continue the editing process of the novel. We have made it through about a third of the book so far. I’m not sure what I expected from this but I certainly am surprised at the amount of work that she has put in to help us make the book a better read. We are still going page by page and sometimes line by line to get the job done. After we have finished listening and taking notes on all her suggestions it will be up to us to either use them of ignore them. As far as I’m concerned, she has a lot of valid points and at a minimum we are going to have to restructure the plotline as well as developing some of our characters more extensively. We especially need to work on our main detective, at the moment he is a little one dimensional. Fixing the grammatical errors has turned out to be the least part of the editing process. For some reason, knowing that this was both our first attempts at writing a book, there would be a lot more. A good portion of the grammatical errors are simple typing errors. That makes me feel better as I work on honing my skills as a writer.

Before the Thursday session, the Writers’ Group met to discuss another work by our guest author, Rinda Payne. Not sure if I mentioned it before but she, like the rest of us, is a beginner as far as works of fiction are concerned. This will be her third piece and her improvement from the first is phenomenal. Her works center around the spiritual aspects of the Q´ero, an indigenous group in Peru considered the descendants of the Inca. As always, we had a lot to say on how the story could be improved in a constructive manner. I’ve had a couple of inquiries from other people planning on moving to Peru who would like to join our group and are interested in writing fiction. It would be nice to have about six people in the group.

I managed to work on one of my short stories and get more work done on the novella I am writing during the between days. It was nice being able to add a few thousand words on these two pieces. I had set them aside for awhile; the editing on the book taking up all my time. I still need to spend a day on my own, editing the pieces I don’t like. I’ve also started a new short story for the Group’s blog. I’ve tentatively titled it, “The Fisherman and the Fish.” If it continues along the path that I have started, it will be a story about friendship and betrayal. I have discovered that when I write, a story doesn’t always end up the way I originally planned for it to.

Last but not least, I purchased and watched a movie this past week. It’s the one with Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler. It was cute, had a few funny moments and the ending was soooooo predictable. I give it 2½ llamas, but only because I have a crush on Jennifer. I’m really glad I bought the movie (about $0.90) instead of seeing it in the theater (about $4.50). That’s it till next time. I hope you all have a great weekend, I plan on going to the ballet on Sunday.

BTW, the photos are from a visit I made to the skate park in Miraflores last weekend.

Saturday, I had the privilege of watching a group of young street artists known as the DMJC Crew demonstrate their talent. I have long admired the work of these mysterious artists whose works seem to appear suddenly on walls and buildings as if by magic. The mayor of the district of Miraflores here in Lima, Peru agreed to let this Crew demonstrate their art on a concrete space located in the skate park overlooking the ocean. For those of you who have seen skating events or been to a skate part you will be familiar with an area called the bowl. It resembles an empty swimming pool and skaters use it to perform tricks and other feats of skating prowess. The entire area of the skate park is one large slab of ugly concrete with humps, bumps, stairs and rails that skaters can use.

The Crew consisted of six young men whose tag names are: Fater, Fog, Entes, Dem, Pesimo, and Music. They are each talented and their artistic styles different as is the color pallets they work with. As they each picked an area of the bowl to work on, they picked up a can of spray paint and outlined the piece they would do. None of them worked from a photo or drawing of any type. The works were created straight from the creative centers of their brains. A large crowd of onlookers gathered around the rim of the bowl to watch as they worked on their painting for the next four hours. There were even a few news crews from the local stations interviewing and recording them. I took over 300 photos of them as they worked. Just a few of those are here; they hopefully demonstrate the talent this Crew has. Those of you who follow my blog on a regular basis may recognize some of the works painted by these young men that I photographed. My personal opinion is that blank walls of concrete whereever they are located are ugly. What better way to add beauty to the blank cityscape canvases than to allow these artists to cover them with their works. It would be even better if they were paid to create, the same as any mainstream artist. It was a great way to spend an afternoon.

Larry and I met with Katrina and her deadly editing pen on Thursday and Friday. The process is painful, which I imagine is true for all writers. Still, I can see how some of her suggestions will improve the book immensely. It will be a few more weeks before we will be able to go through then entire book. The process is a little slow due to time constraints on all out parts. We will be back at it on Monday. After the Thursday editing session, Victoria came and we went over a short story by Larry that will be posted on the writers’ group blog this coming Tuesday. It’s nice having four in our group, it takes a little pressure off of the frequency with which we have to submit a piece for the blog.

Friday night I went to a movie with Antonio. We saw the latest “Pirate” movie with Johnny Depp in 3D. For me, don’t waste your money on the 3D version. It wasn’t worth it. There were some parts of the movie where it was so dark I had to remove the 3D glasses to see what was going on. As for the actual movie, 3 llamas. Depp was funny but for me the character is getting a little old (not age wise). The fountain of youth was an interesting twist till the Spanish showed up and destroyed it in the name of “Religion.” I believe the line was, “eternal life through Jesus only.” I found the concept that someone had to sacrifice their life for another person to regain their youth. I guess in the end I recommend, rent the DVD and watch it at home. Have a great week all.

Larry and I had the first couple of many meetings with Katrina, a friend of ours that has graciously agreed to help us with the first edit of our book. She has a brutal editing pen but delivers her comments in a constructive and friendly manner. I know she will help us make this a better book. I have almost read the entire book for the first time since finishing it. Even I can tell that a lot of work needs to be done in character development, the timeline, and the dialog. I can’t see how we can fix everything that needs fixed in less than six months and then we still have to go through a second editing with my friend Tim. On Sunday morning, we met at Larry’s house where Katrina gave us the needed improvements in broad strokes. Monday, we met at the patio and started our page-by-page critique. We only made it through 18 pages before Larry had to leave to take his dogs for a walk. At that rate, it might be two years before we can actually have the first edit done. I feel a little hysterical at this point. Especially since I realize I will be the one who has to do most of the editing. Don’t get me wrong, I still think we have a good book. It’s just going to be a lot better after all the editing. I have to look at this as a way to improve my writing. I’m sure that this process is going to improve the first draft of our second book if we ever have time to actually work on it.

I’m still managing to get in some time on my short stories and the novella that I am working on. At times, I feel like I have a few too many irons in the fire. I do know that I need to spend more time writing. For some reason my motivation to sit at the computer and pound on the keys has deserted me. I still force myself to write but it seems that I drift off into fantasyland a lot easier and then have to pull myself back to the task at hand. Fortunately, keeping this blog going helps a little. It reminds me to get back to work, that I am actually enjoying this.

Sunday evening a friend of Steve, Rubén, came over to teach me how to make pasta. Now personally I would just as soon go out and buy it but I thought the lesson would be interesting. The first thing I’ll say about the process is, “It’s a lot of work.” Neither Rubén nor I have those wonderful appliances that do the hard part for you. It reminded me of making bread, a thing that I loved to do back in the US. Kneading the dough was always therapeutic for me and the smell that permeated the house while it baked, delicious! I took some photos as he made the hand made the pasta and have included them in this post. I will admit that the pasta has a nicer taste than the store bought. I’m just not sure if it was worth all the work involved.

Keiko Fujimori’s lead continues to grow ever so slightly in the polls. I hear a lot of heated discussion about who should be President but not from Peruvians, mostly ex-pats. They seem to be divided fairly even between Humala and Fujimori. Their real question is, “How could these two have ended up in the final run off?” My answer is, “It’s none of our business.” I’m fairly positive that most people do not like it when foreigners get involved in their politics. Peace out everyone, have a great week!

For all you first time writers and novelists out there, I now feel your pain. This past week I started working on editing my novel. The goal when I started was to cut at least 10% off the book. Since it is approximately 120,000 words and 137 chapters that would mean cutting about 12,000 words and maybe 13 chapters but not necessarily both. I have covered 65 chapters and I am positive that I have added more words than I’ve deleted and no chapters have bit the dust yet. I read something by a writer who called editing, “Killing Your Babies.” I now know what he means by that. Maybe I’m too close to the writing still and need to put the book away again and come back to it in a month or so. I am sure that I need to make it through one time before I do that. I am catching some poor sentence structure and mistakes that I overlooked while writing. I guess that’s the good thing on this first go around. My friend Katrina Heimark has agreed to read it through and offer us her thoughts on the book. I met with her Thursday after our writers’ group meeting and she discussed some of her preliminary findings. I can tell that she is going to be brutal, which is what I really need. She is going to meet with Larry (my co-author) and I on Sunday morning to start going over the book in detail. I’m sure she will have no problem cutting 10% of the book. She did tell me that she liked the book, the plot and characters but there is a lot of room for improvement.

We had our regular meeting of the writers’ group on Thursday. Both Larry and Victoria showed up very early. They sat and talked while I tried to work on the Suitcase Murders, the short story I started that is turning into a novella rather quickly. I found it hard to concentrate with two people talking at the table and eventually gave up. After everyone was in attendance, the first order of business was getting a new photo of the group for our blog. You see the big group photo and the cropped one I will use on the site here in this entry. After that we settled in and they started critiquing my final part of the “Lady in the Lake” series. As always, they were brutally honest, with two of them actually wanting me to write a part 4 or at least another short story that takes place after the end of this one. I will certainly take it into consideration. For now, the important thing for me is finishing up the work on the novel and the short story/novella I am working on.

The political rhetoric certainly hasn’t abated since the last time I told you about it. Now the papers are saying that Keiko Fujimori is trying to buy votes by distributing food and blankets to the poor. Jaime Bayly a Peruvian Columnist, wrote an article that called Ollanta Humala a traitor who had called for the overthrow of the Toledo government in the past while he was working for that government. The latest poll puts the two candidates only two tenths of a percentage point apart. The comments on articles I have read show that the supporters of the two have very strong opinions. I fear that there might be some violence after the elections are over regardless of who wins. I truly hope I am wrong on that point. They are still connecting Humala to Chavez and showing that there is a lot of money coming into Peru from Venezuela and Brazil supporting his campaign. It certainly keeps life interesting here. That’s it till next time. Have a great weekend.

Sitting at a table in the Patio waiting for the other writers to arrive is one of my favorite times during the week. I sit, leisurely drinking a coffee and enjoying a fruit salad and work on my small notebook. I like the little HP that my friends Mona and Kelly brought to me. Besides being small and lightweight, the battery power is phenomenal. I generally work on one of my short stories now that we have finished the first draft of the book. For now at least, I feel at my most creative when I am working there. This past Thursday was no different. I was able to add at least 1000 words to the story I am working on now. Katrina and Victoria were both a little late, which didn’t bother me in the least. More time to work so to speak. We went over a piece by Rinda Payne (guest author) called “An Uncommon Relationship,” which was very interesting. Here is the link in case you are interested in reading it or any of the other stories we are posting,

http://peruwritersgroup.blogspot.com

This coming week we will be discussing the final part in my three part “Lady in the Lake” story. For me, it will be nice to finish that and move on to something else. It’s great having four members and one guest in the group. The pressure to come up with something new isn’t quite as stressful as it used to be.

Friday morning I had coffee with Isabel and Katrina at Holly’s Coffee in Miraflores. I hadn’t seen Isabel in over a year and it was great to see her again and catch up on what she has been doing. She and Katrina both worked at Living in Peru when I was first starting to write articles for them. The rest of the day, I spent relaxing and reading a new book that Larry loaned me titled “Dead Lagoon” by Michael Dibdin. I am reading it for two reasons. The first is that it is a detective novel; the second is because it demonstrates how to make another country a character in a book. Something I need to be more conscious of when I am writing about things that happen in Peru.

As I noted above, I am still working on my short stories. These days, writing is like getting my teeth pulled. I seem to use any excuse to avoid it. I’m sure I am just going through a slump though and will be back on the horse soon. Tomorrow (Monday), Larry and I meet to talk about the new book and how we will start our edit of book number one. It should be an interesting conversation. I continue to work on the short stories I have been writing about Detective Rodriguez in hope of selling one or more to a crime magazine. In addition, I still write stories for the blog and try to get an article or two done for Living in Peru. All that keeps me busy but I do still find plenty of time to slack off.

I want to wish all the Mothers of the world a Happy Mother’s Day, Feliz Dia de la Madre in Spanish. I miss my Mother and Father very much, they have both been gone for some time now. Still, they live within me and I hope the life I am living now is a testament to their ability as parents.

That’s it for this entry, have a great week everyone. Be active, be creative, live every moment as if it were your last.

The afternoon started with a drink made from Pisco and Vermouth. I can’t remember what José called it but it was strong. I had been invited to a BBQ at his house and as usual, I was the first guest to arrive. It’s a habit I have never been able to break. Always arrive early in case the hosts need help setting up or someone to run to the store quickly because something was forgotten. None of that applied on this day. I hadn’t seen or talked with José in at least four months and I hadn’t been to his house since I first arrived in Peru and he had invited me to a dinner party. It was great seeing him again as well as his girlfriend Fiorella, his Mom Cecilia, and his stepdad Martin. He had also invited a couple of other guests, a young man from France, Arthur, and another American, Bruce. The afternoon and evening was spent in lively conversation, mostly in English but occasionally in Spanish and a few words in French and German. There was lots of laughter and very little talk of politics or other subjects that can bring a party to a screeching halt. An amazing array of food kept coming and José, Martin and Cecilia worked the BBQ Grill like masters. We had hot bread with a spicy olive oil to dip it in with cheese and olives to start us out. Then came the chorizos from the grill with potatoes and corn on the cob plus a choice of three sauces to dip them in. After that, hot wings and a salad followed by grilled swordfish. Then to finish off the evening, a sensuous chocolate cake drizzled with Chevas Regal. It ranks as one of the best evenings I have had in a long time.

Sunday was a beautiful day and I went into Miraflores for the party early so that I could stroll around and take some photos. Some of the pictures posted with this are from that walk alone the Malecon and Balta.

On Monday, I met with Larry about the novel. I had to go to his house in Barranco for the meeting. They are having some problems with their help and he was unable to leave the house on that day. I brought him a copy of the book we had just finished so that he could start editing. We talked about how we wanted to proceed with that monumental task and after making that decision, we started talking about the second book and how we would deal with writing and editing at the same time. I’m not sure we came up with the best of plans but at least we came up with one. Only time will tell how successful we will be with either. Katrina is reading the book for us also and will give us an honest opinion and some tips on editing. I have been working on my short stories but it’s taking me longer than I thought. For one thing, they are turning into short novellas and for another; I have been having trouble with the plot line for how the murder is solved. I think I have finally worked it out but now I have to get it all down on paper.

The other days I spent trying to write, going to the gym and doing chores for and around the apartment. It’s amazing how stuff can build up on you if you let it. Cinco de Mayo is tomorrow and I know they will have a celebration here in Peru. I may try to get a few photos of the festivities in after our writer’s meeting tomorrow if possible. Enjoy the rest of your week everyone, I know I will.