A Blog of Timely Persuasion

Our hero pays a visit to his sister for a progress report, and ends up in a place that was as surprising to the author as it was to the character. Read on…

• Observational blinks alternate between being up high, down low, or (almost) just right to keep things interesting. I tried to fit in a lyrical reference to the Pavement song Elevate Me Later when talking about his proximity to the high ceilings, but couldn’t find a way without forcing it.
• Intent of the timer/oven is to hint at a suicide method, while the ensuing argument with Nelson points more towards a murder. Both are red herrings, but the manner of death is intentionally danced around in the early chapters based on Nate Pepper’s astute suggestion to play it like a mystery.
• The first scene at the hospital happened completely by accident. It wasn’t a part of my outline or notes at all, but while I was writing the story took on a life of its own and that’s where the narrator ended up. The scene was way too good to cut, so I found a way to pull him out of it quickly and get back on track. Subconsciously I probably knew we’d return to the hospital at some point.
• We finally learn the sister’s manner of death from the narrator’s committed counterpart right around the 1/3 point of the book.
• I love how well the Pearl Jam lyric flows with the story and is nearly undetectable unless you really look for it.
• I just found a minor typo in this chapter, which will be fixed in the online edition momentarily…
• The unread objection was the real end to the narrator’s writing career, not the old “lost the passion” excuse he gave previously. He feels that his inability to object was the final cause of what eventually played out, and his guilt rendered his pen impotent.
• April 12th has a dual significance: It’s the real date of the Metallica/Napster lawsuit, but also the birthday of 311 singer Nick Hexum. My high school friends and I used to have an unhealthy 311 obsession and would follow them around the greater New England area during the early Grassroots tours. Whack!
• There are 40 known musical references in this chapter.

Read Chapter Ten Online

Just got back from a weeklong trip to Boston for Jon Mack’s wedding.  Chapter commentary posts will resume tomorrow, but due to popular demand I’m posting my best man speech below:

Can I have everyone’s attention?

I’d like to take a moment to thank all of you for coming together today to celebrate the marriage of Jon and Kati.  We were a little worried when National Train Day was scheduled for the same date, but it’s great to see everyone here decided to skip that celebration in favor of this one.

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Jacob.  Jon and I have been friends for about 17 years or so, and today I’m his best man.

I’m going to start off by reading what Jon wrote in my yearbook when we graduated high school.  He said:

“Someday when you are a famous sitcom writer you can give a call to your old, poor, homeless, lonely friend Jon that lives as a hermit and you can philosophize about life and love with him again.”

I guess that goes to show that it’s hard to predict the future after you leave high school and move on to college and eventually the real world.  We are getting older, but I’m neither famous nor a sitcom writer, and from what I can tell Jon is neither poor nor homeless.  And now that Kati is in his life he’s certainly not  lonely.  The hermit piece — that’s still debatable.  But Jon was right about something.   As the best man I suppose I am being asked to philosophize about life and love with him again, this time in a more public setting.

With 17 years of material to draw from, I thought this would be a pretty easy speech to write.  But then Jon gave me this list of topics I’m NOT allowed to talk about today.  It was a pretty long list.

There were two rules:  Don’t reference anything on “the list,” and make sure the speech is about both he and Kati and not just him.

That was a pretty tall order, especially considering the fact that the first time I ever met Kati in person was just a few days ago.  But then I remembered that that wasn’t the first time we had spoken.  So today I’m going to tell the story of the first conversation I ever had with Kati.

I was sitting at home one night in LA when the phone rang.  The caller ID said it was Jon, so I answered expecting to slip into a random debate about a band or a concert or the Red Sox.  But instead Jon immediately said “Kati wants to ask you something” and handed the phone over.  I don’t remember the exact time frame of this, but it was fairly early in their relationship, probably in the first few months.  I knew of her existence, but like I said this was the very first time we had a firsthand interaction.

So we chatted for a few minutes, and then she brought up the reason for the call.

“Jacob, I have an important question for you.”

“Ok.”

“When was the last time Jon washed his hair?”

(Laughs?) Based on the reaction I’m hearing, I bet a lot of you know where this is heading.  But if you don’t, I’ll just say that the secret to Jon’s good looks is his dedication to quote “letting the natural oils do their thing.”

(Jon:  Did you wash your hair today?  Mrs. Mack: Did you ask him to?)

Ok, back to the Kati’s question.  At that moment I knew that the future fate of this relationship could be riding on my answer.  What was I supposed to say?

I thought about if for a few seconds, then decided that Jon would have to earn this one.  So I told the truth.

“Kati, I cannot tell a lie.  It’s been years.  Not since his sister Lauren’s wedding, and that was only because his mom made him.”

And here we are today.  She still married him despite his questionable hygiene.  So we know it must be love.

In closing, a love of music has always been one of the strong connections between Jon and I in our friendship, so I’d be remiss in ending this without giving him credit for the excellent choice of “The Universal” by Blur for the traditional “first dance” as a married couple.  As the last line of the second verse goes:  “Well, here’s your lucky day.”

Here’s to Jon & Kati on their lucky day.  Congratulations!

Cheers!  Gezuar!

Thank you

Everything before this was setup and foreshadowing. In this chapter we finally kick off the mission that will be the focus of the main story.

Other tidbits:

• I really liked the idea of placing the sister’s death on 9/11 by pure coincidence, as I’m sure there were other real life passings overshadowed by the gravity of the day. Not to take anything away from what will always be one of the darkest tragedies of American history, but the less obvious stories beneath the surface are sometimes more interesting.
• The part about a guy demanding to be put on a plane even though all air traffic was grounded was loosely based on an actual incident that happened to a friend of mine, and the pogo stick retort was something that unfortunately went unsaid in real life.
• “Call me Edgar Allan, ’cause I’m so Po’” was a common joke during college. As most of those jokes go, it’s both hilarious and not funny at all…
• The Waiting for Godot reference proves that high school English can have a lasting effect. But unlike Trinity, I’ve always loved this one.
• The name of the bar on the answering machine message changed with almost every draft as a funny little inside joke to someone, but in the final edit “no names” kicked in. So in the end it was just “the bowling alley,” which really makes the most sense in the scheme of things.
• Another quick foreshadow of the cute little redheaded girl. If he saw her in the present, would she have the same hair color?
• The first meeting between the narrator’s younger selves was tough to write until I decided to put one of them under the influence, thus raising the plausibility factor.
• I liked the moral dilemma of having to ponder one life over many, but was a little worried about coming across as insensitive to the bigger event. At the time that’s why this particular conundrum wasn’t explored more, but in hindsight I wished I had dug in a little deeper.
• There are 30 known musical references in this chapter.

Read Chapter Nine Online

For some reason I’m drawing a complete blank in trying to write an introduction to the commentary for this chapter, so I guess I’ll just jump right in with the tidbits.

• I’ve always been partial to the brilliant simplicity of “and/or” when I write. Surprisingly it only shows up three times in the final draft, though I’m sure it used to be more.
• Important to note that the narrator takes a (very) slight pause here to ponder if it’s possible to save his sister while keeping Nelson in her life. Deep down he knows his hatred for Nelson is irrational, but at this point he still doesn’t really know why.
• The narrator’s backyard originally resembled my own childhood backyard only as a placeholder. I had every intention of fully fictionalizing it later on. But the thought of my parents reading the book and then going outside to check the back left corner of the “real” doghouse was too hilarious not to leave in there. (They never did check since there was snow on the ground at the time, but my Mom did admit she thought about it…)
• How does dual memory syndrome work? Basically the narrator “lived” the version where he did kiss the girl. His older self later changed that on a time travel trip we learn about later, making it true that he did not. Memories powered by mental time travel transcend both real time and “altered” time, so he has this psychic memory link with past versions of himself who both did and did not kiss the girl, hence the confusion. (We’ll get into this more later…)
• The reader probably expects him to go back to try to watch himself make out with the girl, so I intentionally didn’t do that to avoid predictability.
• “Yellow matter custard” was a lot harder to fit in than I thought it would be.
• The dog had a name in an early draft, but it was dropped under the “no names means no names” rule.
• Some music references happen by accident. The “invisible bridge” line was supposed to be a nod to an album by the Silver Jews, but I was actually misremembering their album “The Natural Bridge.” (or maybe I had dual memory syndrome…) However, it turns out there are actually two different albums with “Invisible Bridge” as a title.
• The card game was originally Cassino, but so many people either didn’t know the game or thought I was spelling it wrong I changed it.
• “…her name is not of your concern.” At this point I’m really starting to have fun with “almost” naming characters.
• Like most mothers, my mother is fond of saying “the name of the game is fun” and “because I’m the mother.” She has never uttered the phrase “the past is still the past” prior to the release of this book though, which should be evidence enough that she is not the Mom character in the book.
• “You better run, motherf@#$er” is a reference to something a bartender yelled at one of my college roommates when he was caught removing a chair from a bar via the back door. Here it’s used to foreshadow the temper of the father character (who, incidentally, is not based on my real father).
• Nate Pepper strongly dislikes the phrase “fingered the neck bruise,” which is odd coming from the guy who coined the phrase “all seven digits” referenced earlier.
• There are 18 known musical references in this chapter, tied for fourth lowest.

Read Chapter Eight Online

Changing things up today, I thought it would be interesting to dissect the longest deleted chapter since we’re at the point in the book where it would have appeared. I’m also hoping that a baseball post will help snap the Red Sox losing streak

As I’ve said before, this was intended to set up more of the time travel rules in an interesting venue. But it really felt like it was slowing down the plot, the narrator’s baseball past were causing the story to lose focus, and the afterglow of a World Series victory made revisting past failures a little trite.

So here are some notes on what might have been, including a peek into the writing/editing process.

Other tidbits:

• There are a number of direct Quantum Leap references scattered throughout the book, but I believe this was the only direct Back To The Future nod aside from a reference to the soundtrack.
• Midway through writing this chapter I suddenly realized the scene may predate Busch Stadium, and research proved that to be so. The cab driver providing the real info is a nod to my near blunder.
• After that near miss, this ended up being the most heavily researched chapter of the entire book, requiring a little more digging than the Cobain and Dylan time trips.
• “Pseudoscientific” is a nod to a class I took in college called “Science for the 21st Century” that was commonly nicknamed “Pseudoscience 101″ by my roommates and myself.
• Dad’s charm was originally first mentioned here, but later moved (almost word for word) to the Washington motel once this chapter died.
• The cartoon character section was also lifted verbatim and dropped into the airplane blink, along with a few other aerial musings.
• I’m not much for flowery description of details, with the double breasted suit and trilby hat being my quick nods to the 1940s.
• Considering whether or not his thoughts caused bad luck in the game links back to some of the bowling superstitions the narrator has, and later ties into similar feelings about his love life that prove to be true.
• Another goal of this chapter was to expose the Pesky scapegoat story as a total myth, which is (was) supported by the history but never really brought up.
• I only count 10 musical references in this chapter, but I probably could have easily doubled it if this chapter gone through further rewrites prior to being scrapped.

Read “Pesky Held The Ball?” Online

If memory serves, I think this was the first chapter written in Luxembourg using Jon Mack’s laptop. I spent 8 weeks in Lux; taking the first week off to get acclimated, writing every weekday for 6 weeks, then taking the last week off to celebrate the first draft. So it’s somewhat fitting that chapter 7 kicks off on an airplane since it was fresh in my mind.

This chapter actually serves to set up quite a bit of what will happen later on, especially when the narrator first arrives “home.” Foreshadowing includes Dad’s prowess with the guitar (and the ladies), the cute little redheaded girl, a vanishing love life in general, and the fact that not everybody blames Nelson for the death.

Other tidbits:

• A flight attendant on the plane to Lux actually said “electronical.” Though technically incorrect, I really like it and have since adopted it.
• The five dollar tomato was a late addition, inspired by a similar tale told by Jon’s roommate Andreas.
• Flashing back to “the plan” was one way of cutting down the information overload in the previous chapter, where this scene originally took place.
• If we were looking to make chapter title connections, floating around in mid-air seems pretty close to “Tram #7 To Heaven.”
• Note on geography: Originally the plane had a layover in St. Louis, and during that layover was an entire deleted chapter about a trip to the 1946 World Series. In my original outline I knew I wanted to revisit both the Kurt Cobain death and a non-1986 Red Sox World Series game. That’s essentially the only reason the plot is bi-coastal. Once the layover was cut I just as well could have set the whole thing on the west coast, but it seemed to be an unnecessary rewrite. I think it does adds to the plot to have had the narrator flee the “scene of the crime” as he calls it. The 3000 mile buffer also let’s me explain away a potential lingering question later on, but we’ll get to that when the time comes.
• “For lack of a better term”/ “the elusive better term” is one of my favorite sentences in the book for some reason.
• Speaking in song lyrics is addressed by the narrator for the first time here, partly to let readers who may have been confused by some phrasings to this point off the hook. When my wife would go through her early draft edits she would circle lots of phrases and put a question mark next to them. 90% of the time they were force-fed allusions. Most of the really gratuitous ones were rewritten, though there may still be a few.
• Everyone I’ve talked to raves about the photography bit, and even my mother seems to appreciate it even though she partly inspired it. I sincerely believe that non-candid photos should be banned, with the only staged exceptions being professional portraits, school or team photos, and mug shots. (A driver license or passport photo counts as a mug shot.)
• There are 40 known musical references in this chapter, as I’m really starting to play it up for Jon Mack’s benefit now that I’m in Lux and he’s noticed.

Read Chapter Seven Online

I had an interesting day yesterday to say the least.

Rather than recap it again, you can read the gory details over at Towform.  Here I just wanted to quickly add something a little more on topic.

I discovered an interesting collaborative writing site called Protagonize a few weeks ago.  It allows authors to post chapters to stories that are then continued by other authors in a bit of a writing relay race.  Two flavors are available: a traditional chapter by chapter story, or a branching out “addventure” that allows for non-linear, choose your own adventure types of tales.  At the time I thought it was neat, but didn’t really have anything in mind to post there.

Long story short, yesterday’s events inspired me to start a story on Protagonize that you can take a look at here.  Feel free to contribute your own chapter if you so desire.  There’s definitely something there worth exploring, but since I’m supposed to be working on a new novel right now it didn’t quite fit in with my plans, thus becoming my first dip into the collaborative waters.

Enjoy.

Read (or contribute) to “Wrong Number?” at Protagonize.com

Another review, this time courtesy of Mrs. Giggles. My two favorite excerpts:

“Some of the first person narration is beautifully written, I find, which makes Timely Persuasion a book to read for the sake of reading as well for the story, if I am making any sense here. There are times when I wonder why I bother reading self-published efforts, and it is books like Timely Persuasion that remind me of the reason why.”

and

“There are many things that can go wrong in this story but the author manages to create a coherent story out of a premise that is very difficult to summarize in a review.”

The first quote is probably the best unsolicited compliment I’ve received from a non-acquaintance so far, and as such made my day and made the whole book worth writing. The second is interesting as it echoes the trouble I’ve had with the synopsis, which is why I’ve been tinkering with it on and off for the last week since the previous review. It’s just a hard book to boil down simply without giving too much away, even for the author.

Looking at some of her other reviews, Mrs. Giggles appears to be a bit of a tough critic. That makes me especially proud of the 86 out of 100 rating she gave me, as it seems pretty high on her scale.

Thanks Mrs. Giggles!

Mrs. Giggles Reviews Timely Persuasion

Back at the bowling alley in search of answers, our hero confronts the old man. This chapter is exposition heavy on early time travel nuts and bolts, and one I struggled with most in rewrites. The idea was to set a foundation that would have some parts hold true and other parts be called out as false later on, but it kept spiraling out of control and confused a lot of early readers. In the end I chopped it up quite a bit, relegating two sections to deleted scenes and bumping one into a flashback on the plane.

Other tidbits:

• In the first draft I actually name dropped all of the actual members of the 900 club, but decided that “no names” meant no names except for Nelson and more mainstream celebrities. I was also worried it would date the story too much whenever another perfect trifecta occurs. But for the record, the members of the USBC certified 900 club are Jeremy Sonnenfeld (2/2/97), Tony Roventini (11/9/98), Vince Wood (9/29/99), Robby Portalatin (12/28/00), James Hylton (5/2/01), Jeff Campbell II (6/12/04), Darren Pomije (12/9/04), Lonnie Billiter Jr (2/13/06), Robert Mushtare (12/3/05 & 2/19/06), and Mark Wukoman (4/22/06).
• As Devon Kappa correctly guessed in the NoneMaySay review, the old man is an homage to Doc Brown of Back To The Future fame. A mix of brilliance and insanity, a hundred steps ahead of everyone and rarely slowing down for long enough to let them catch up. But unlike Doc Brown, he’s not particularly trustworthy even though he means well.
• The time traveling stool and beer from Chapter 2 pay off here. This is also the first hint that we’re technically picking up the story in medias res, otherwise there would be a causation paradox.
• The big “I’m you” reveal is a little bit cliché in the time travel world, but I decided the “only interact with yourself” twist was unique enough to allow it. Besides, it’s really the only way to set it up.
• “Sometimes theories are right, sometimes wrong” is a main theme of the book and the main takeaway from this chapter. It should be applied to anything the old man says about time travel, and anything he says at all for that matter.
• I intentionally tried to make sure that the narrator was just as confused as the reader, partly to pull the focus away from the physics and partly to build sympathy. If you still have trouble understanding the old man, his comment at the end of the chapter is as much to the reader as it is to himself: “Don’t dwell on it too much.”
• There are 14 intentional musical references in this chapter.

Read Chapter Six Online

Although Timely Persuasion has a science fiction premise, I really wanted to ground the story in reality as much as possible outside of the time travel. Thus I knew I wanted to send the narrator back to save Kurt Cobain, but I also knew that his mission would ultimately have to fail. The physics of time travel in this world made sure of that, and the narrator and I continue to learn the ropes together in this chapter.

Other tidbits:

• The record reviews stolen from the library were baseball box scores until the final draft.
• Were you able to guess the name of the city 76.7 miles east of Seattle? An even bigger coincidence is the name of a town slightly to the west that I just noticed right now when linking to the map.
• I went to Viretta Park and Kurt’s old mansion on a research trip after the first draft of the book was done and actually walked through the majority of the actions in this chapter. The rewrites came from that hands-on trip, including it starting to rain in the park as I stood photographing the bench.
• All of the bad concert karma events (sadly) actually happened to me.
• I’m trying to draw a red herring of a connection in this chapter by alluding to the sister’s death as a murder when it’s really a suicide, but I’m not sure if I actually pulled it off. Feels to me that the Cobain connection actually telegraphs how the sister died, but maybe I’m just too close to it.
• The two men searching the house are Tom Grant and Dylan Carlson. It’s based on real life, though I don’t think they realized they had a ghostly visitor watching them…
• My cousin Adam commented that “the world is rarely ever on a plane” (pun intended) after reading the first draft, which made me really scrutinize foot placement above and below the normal “ground” in subsequent drafts. I also inserted his comment almost verbatim into the narrator’s analysis of the situation.
• The chapter title “Five Seconds To Hold You” comes from a great song by an LA band called Devics. It doesn’t hold much relevance, though I guess it could be the small window of time when the narrator actually thinks he’s going to solve the mystery.
• There are 28 intentional musical references in this chapter.

Read Chapter Five Online