Rodney Dodig

Detective Rodriguez holds back the branch of the bush hiding the body. The scene is no longer from the omnipresent view of the author. I have also moved this scene to the first chapter of book one along with improvements to the description of the body. Lourdes will move to chapter two and the scene of her getting ready for work will be cut down. I’ve also expanded the prologue and added a better sense of urgency to that scene. When you’re getting ready to flee Peru to avoid justice being meted out by Francisco Pizarro and his priests, you need to create that feeling of barely escaping with your life. As you can tell, I’ve started resolving what I and my writer friends think were the problems with those first five chapters. I also have the comments they offered on my synopsis at the writers’ group this past week. I was hoping to get that rewritten over the weekend but things conspired against me. My goal this week is to get the synopsis done and write a new chapter two for book one. I’d like to get more done but I want to keep my goals realistic, at least for this week.

We’ve had a water disaster here in the apartment that has been going on for over two months now. The water bill previous to the last one received was triple what we usually get. My landlady freaked and insisted I have a plumber fix anything that was leaking in my apartment. I conceded, paid most of the bill and had a plumber in. Then we received the latest bill, it was even higher. Friday I was looking up near the ceiling in our living room and saw that water was leaking through the roof. We had that fixed also. Unfortunately the plumber told us that it was impossible for our water to go up that much from either problem. Now, I guess it’s up to my landlady to get the issue resolved with Sedepal, the water company here.

Sunday morning I had breakfast with Tim and Lourdes. The first in three weeks so I was happy to see them again. Tim is working hard at his job in the all girl’s high school. He’s finding it to be a little more difficult than he thought. Then there’s all that interoffice gossip and general crap that goes on in any regular job. He’s finding that teaching at a school is quite different than teaching private students. Lourdes is quite happy. They are planning a trip at the end of July to visit Tim’s parents in Canada. I’m looking forward to lots of pictures. Afterwards, Amanda joined me and we headed into Barranco to sip wine and discuss life’s foibles. It’s always great to sit and talk with Amanda about writing. In some ways, only another writer can truly understand what you are going through. Larry is in the US this week as well as Kathy. Hope they’re having a good time.

Steve is back in University studying for his degree in Civil Engineering. It’s a five year program if he takes summers off. I think he can whittle it down to 3 ½ if he takes classes through the summer. So far, two weeks into it, he’s enjoying it very much. I also renewed my health insurance with Clinica Good Hope this past week. The cost was $312.00 for the year, which included a free battery of blood tests, an x-ray and an appointment with a physician for a yearly physical. Not bad as far as I’m concerned.

Other chores this week include finishing up my taxes, critiquing a piece of writing by my friend Steve in Massachusetts and getting closure with the water bills. Wish me luck everyone. Suns out today but it feels a like the humidity is a lot lower, maybe a nice walk this afternoon. Have a great week everyone.

A recent response by an agent has caused me to rethink the beginning of book one. Eight simple words, “didn’t pull me in as I had hoped,” have made me take a hard look at the first few chapters. I am grateful that the agent added that comment to her rejection instead of sending the usual polite form letter. Taking that harder look at them, my conclusion, they need to be rewritten! I will expand my prologue and bring the finding of the fourth victim along with my detective to the first chapter of the book. A deeper description of the body and insight into my detective will lengthen that chapter also. I’m also rereading the book and making edits for the fifth time. I can’t tell you how boring it is to read a book as many times as I’ve read mine in the past four months. Editing, well, that’s not a line if work I’d ever want to get into. Somebody should have warned me about how much work is involved in being a writer. What happened to sitting in cafés, sipping lattes or cuba libres and discussing projects with a cadre of other writers. Those whose work seems to get done miraculously while lounging about. “LOL”

I managed to complete a first draft of my synopsis. I fully admit it’s horrible. I took a look at it yesterday after letting it sit for a couple of days. I put it back in the pile of papers on my desk and went to watch TV. I hope I have better luck today at tackling the job of polishing it up. At least I have the main points of the book in it. Now to make it sound like a synopsis to the great work of literature it really is.

The writers’ group met this week. Other than me, Katrina and Victoria were the only ones to show. I had submitted my query letter and the first five pages of book one to the group. I wanted their opinions on the agent’s comments. Generally they agreed with me and also offered up some excellent suggestions that will help. Polly and Amanda (Kathy is still in the US) sent their comments via e-mail, so the four of them although not agreeing on everything did a great job for me this week. Next week we will be discussing my synopsis. I’m not looking forward to that one.

I met Larry for coffee on Friday again. We talked a lot about the book and changing those first few chapters. That led into a discussion on having a visual image of your main character in your head, not only his physical image but his or her personality. Larry’s having a problem accomplishing this in the new book he has started. Generally speaking whether it’s my short stories or the book I have started, the main character is in my head before I write the first word. I fully admit though, that character can change as the story progresses. We also discussed the latest gaffe by a republican presidential candidate. I’m pretty sure he has alienated all the latino voters in the US. Larry is in the US as of this writing. He’s visiting his sons for about 10 days and I think there a new grandbaby involved. I hope he has a great trip.

We had a little bit of wet on the ground this morning. Lluvista as the folks in San Borja call it, a heavy mist that leaves drops of water on the car and a wet sidewalk is what I call it. I’m hoping this is the first sign that fall is officially on its way. I’m tired of the hot and humid, although for most of my friends the summers here would be perfect. Spring is on the way back in the US as well as the rest of the northern hemisphere. I hope the worst of the storms is over for them. As for here, I’d love to see, feel and hear and nice big thunderstorm. Hope you all had a great week.

The words came out in a jumble. A miasmatic cloud of unintelligible blather stared me in the face. When I re-read the first 600 words I had managed to get out in an effort to write a synopsis of my book, I came to one horrible realization. I wouldn’t read this book from this description. I have since deleted, cut, pasted, moved, eliminated and added to the pile. It reads a little better now and stands at 720 words. I am only a little over half way through the book with the synopsis so another 600 words or so ought to do it for my first draft. That will make it about two pages. I know from scanning agent’s websites that many prefer that your synopsis only be one page in length. Guess what that means. Yep, I’ll have to whittle it down for those folks. Mentally, this has been harder than actually writing the book.

The work on this has also affected my progress on book number two. Last entry, I told you that I was changing the main plot of the book. I’ve also come to another realization. I need to make the second book stand on its own. It’s important that I include enough information from the first book that the reader doesn’t need to read book one to understand what’s going on. I’m going to change the first few chapters of the book to pull the reader into the new plot and use the ones I have now a little later in the book. Then if I am having trouble getting an agent to take the first book, when book two is finished I can submit it also without having to worry about the status of book one.

The writers’ group met this past week. We reviewed another piece by Victoria. Her writing in English is still showing improvement and the piece shows a lot of promise. The group felt like the work was incomplete though and we wanted to know more of the story. Her description of the main characters was a little weak also; she used words like handsome, beautiful without giving us a sense of what the two really looked like. We chatted and caught up for a bit before heading out. Amanda asked me if I would like to have lunch with her at the vegetarian menú we like so much. I agreed, so we took our conversation on writing and living in Peru to the restaurant. It was a pleasant afternoon and I left Amanda at the corner as she headed to Café Z for a cup of coffee and to work on her second novel.

Friday’s regular meeting with Larry for coffee was at the Patio this week. Larry wanted to get out of Barranco for awhile so we have agreed to go back to our old stomping grounds. As much as I love Espige de Oro in Barranco, the Patio is the place to be for me. Quiet, relaxing, pleasant atmosphere, good coffee and vegetarian food; it’s the perfect place to meet. I also enjoy it because it seems to stimulate my writing for some unknown reason. We talked about our novels, agents, vampires, healthcare, Peruvian politics and the horrific state of political affairs in the US. By that I mean the great divide that seems to prevent anything getting done these days. I don’t know about the rest of America but Larry and I are tired of it.

That’s it for this post. Hope you enjoyed my ranting. For all you would be writers out there, “Don’t give up.” Keep up the struggle, the reward in the end is satisfying. For me, I can say I’ve written a novel. As a percentage of the world’s population, how many can make that claim.

I have been stuck when it comes to my progress on the second book. Writing, adding words to newer chapters has been painful to say the least. During this past week I think I have finally come to the realization that the direction I was taking my detective is off. The major plot in the book was going to be the bust of a large cocaine production and distribution organization. I think this was holding me back. In the recesses of my mind, I didn’t really believe that he and his squad would be directly involved in this. They could provide support in the end but they are not really part of the anti-narcotics squads here in Peru. DINANDRO, their acronym, deals with major issues involving drugs in Peru. So, this major plot will be moved to a sub-plot within the story and mostly concern the TV reporter from the first book. My detective and his squad will be dealing with the murder of a policeman and possibly one other sub-plot. Now, having said all that, I’m putting the second book aside for a bit. I’ve realized that I need to do a fourth edit on book one. I’m still finding too many errors when I read through it. My second major task for the next couple of weeks is to write a synopsis of the first book. I hope to create one that will encourage agents to want to read my manuscript when I submit queries to them.

This past week large storms crossed the heartland in the US leaving death and property damage in their wake. Fortunately, to my knowledge, none of my family or friends were seriously affected. I know that everyone grieves for those who are suffering as a result of these storms. Keep them in your thoughts.

I took one of my nice long walks here in San Borja this past week. It’s been awhile. The heat and humidity of summer increased my laziness exponentially and as a result I hid in the confines of my cool apartment. Naturally my camera accompanied me. The flowers were in full bloom and I a hawk came to rest in a tree while I passed through one of the many parks on my route. It was a first for me and it might explain the lower numbers of pigeons hanging out in my neighborhood. There are areas where old olive groves have been preserved and when you are in the middle it seems the city is far away and calm of the country surrounds you. The shade with sunlight breaking trough spackles the ground, leaves sparkle as they fall from the trees and birds tweet their love songs as you saunter listlessly through the miniature forest. This is surrounded by concrete and glass towers which are hidden by the thick foliage of the trees. Now that fall seems to have moved in here, I look forward to resuming my long walks through the surrounding city.

I was in Miraflores on Sunday for breakfast with Tim and Lourdes. Last week there was an event in Parque Kennedy called “Art in the Park.” They set up blank walls on large boxes and gave them over to street artists to demonstrate their skills. They left the art up for display and I am certainly glad that they did. I am a great admirer of street artists. The skill they display in creating their works using cans of spray paints is amazing. If you’re in Lima, I recommend you stop by Parque Kennedy and take a look. It’s worth the trip. Afterwards, Steve, his Mom Jaita, and I took Jose Manuel to lunch for his birthday. We went to a local Pollos Abrazo and had roasted chicken and Bar-B-Que. I definitely ate too much. It was my last meal of the day. Jose Manuel enjoyed our little surprise lunch very much. I met with Larry for coffee on Friday and we will be moving our meetings back to the Patio for awhile. I’m looking forward to that. I really like having our meeting there much better. It’s quieter and much more serene. On the sad side, there was no writers’ group meeting this past week. We are hoping this Thursday works out for all of us.