Tag Cloud of Life Portraits

A tag cloud is a visual representaion of the words (tags) in a document where the size of the font correlates to the frequency of the word. Tagcrowd.com has an easy interface for generating tag clouds from text.

Here is the tag cloud for my novel Life Portraits. The names of the characters and several themes of the novel are prominent.

almost anything arm around art asked atlanta away beach bed behind better boys called camera car coffee dark different done door enough eva everything eyes face father felt found front going gone hair hands happened head help home house hub isaac jack job kat kept kids kissed knew life light lisa looked love man married maybe miss mother name nothing opened paper paul people photo pictures portraits pulled really room sally sat school seemed someone something started stay stood surprised talk things think thought together told tom took town tried turned waiting walked wanted watched window woman work years york

created at TagCrowd.com

FIrst draft of "Life Portraits" is done

Sixty-two days. 116,599 words. The first draft of the novel code named "Life Portraits" is done.

Here are some stats:

• 116,599 words


• 62 days


• average 1881 words a day


• twelve "zero" days - no writing


• 38 chapters


• 96 "scenes"


• shortest scene: 131 words


• longest scene: 4219 words

Of course, these boring stats tell you nothing about whether the novel is any good or not. I don't know - it's too soon to tell, and I am too close to it at the moment. Now I need to let it sit for awhile before reading it to see what kind of a mess it really is. But I have high hopes for it - I think it may be my best yet.

Research for new novel

Went to the main branch of the Atlanta library this afternoon to do some research for my new novel - code named "Life Portraits" or LP for short. Two of the characters lived in Atlanta beginning in 1955, and I needed a good way for them to meet. An incident at Tech in December of 1955 that I had read about in one of my history books sounded interesting, so I looked at the microfilm archives of the Atlanta newspapers to get the real scoop.

Atlanta Journal headline for Saturday Dec 3rd 1955 - "Tech Students Jeer at Capitol, Mansion". It seems that Tech got selected for the Sugar bowl that year, and word got out that the opposing team, the University of Pittsburgh, had a black player. Governor Griffin of Georgia pitched a hissy fit, sending a telegram to the Georgia Board of Regents that, by our standards today, would be grossly racist. Actually, by the standards of the time it was probably racist. Here is the some of the telegram - you decide:

"It is my request that athlete teams of units of the University System of Georgia not be permitted to engage in contests with other teams where the races are mixed on such teams or where segregation is not required among spectators at such events. The South stands at Armageddon. The battle is joined. We cannot make the slightest concessions to the enemy in this dark and lamental hour of struggle."

And so on and so forth. Remarkable what was uttered in public by politicians back then. And this was a telegram that he released to the papers.

Anyway, the Tech students reacted by throwing a little mini-riot. Two thousand of them marched on the capital and broke in, hung the Governor and burned him in effigy, and then tried to march on the Governor's mansion. They almost made it, but got turned back by police. Finally about 3:30 am they broke up, but not before three of them got arrested. Oh those wacky kids. In a couple of days the Regents basically laughed down the Governor, and Tech went to the game.

But it's a cool story. One of my characters is a female, trying to be a press photographer, the other can be a Tech student (they were exclusively male back then). An interesting way for them to meet.

The Church of Hooks and Lures - update

I'm calling revision four done. Converted it to 6x9 format and sent it off to Lulu.com to get an actual paper copy in my hand. I don't sell it on Lulu, of course, since I am holding out for a actual agent and publisher. I use Lulu to get an economical hard copy in my hands. It costs $40 to print out at Office Depot, and $20 to get a copy shipped to me from Lulu. Of course, it is an actual book, single spaced, with my cover art, and not the double spaced, single sided manuscript format that has been the standard for years for submissions, but this is for my own use. And I love to hold it in my hands. Satisfies my book lust. Looks like an actual book, instead of a foot high stack of paper.

The cover is an actual picture of one of my grandfathers fishing. I think it's pretty cool. Of course, the novel is fiction, and not based on any actual persons. The usual disclaimer. Neither of my grandfathers would have done the things that the grandfather in the novel did. But if would be lying if I said I did not picture my grandfathers when describing some of the physical characteristics of the fictional grandfather in the novel.

Novel Status - The Church of Hooks and Lures

I think I am "done" with revision three of this novel - if it's possible to say that about any novel. In a sense, I have been writing this novel for three and a half years. It didn't reach it's current form until January 2007, though. Some of the themes and characters have been present in my writing for awhile. One of my first attempts at one of the characters goes back to one of the first short stories I tried to write.

I'm happy with the form this version has taken. It's more complex, while at the same time more focussed, than any previous incarnation. From the first chapter, the reader knows what the major conflict for the protagonist is going to be. By the time we are 10% into the novel, all the characters (that matter) are in place and their problems defined and the plot is ready to go. The climax takes place at about 85-87% of the way in, after which it collapses to a wrap up that is satisfyingly symmetrical with the beginning.

Here's a log line:

Whit is a seventeen-year-old fatherless white boy caught in a struggle with his controlling, bigoted grandfather. It is 1970, and the public schools in South Carolina are finally being integrated. Whit must choose: attend the white-flight private school, or the racially integrated public school.

 Of course, there is more left out of that blurb than is included, but that is the purpose of a log line. How about some meaningless statistics:

• Words: 110514


• Characters: 481877


• Paragraphs: 2657


• Sentences: 8594


• Sentences per paragraph: 3.2


• Unique Words: over 7100


• Words per Sentence: 12.8


• Characters per Word: 4.1


• Passive Sentences: 0


• Flesch Reading Ease: 84.9


• Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 4.5

I'm a little worried about that grade level - it makes it look like a kid's book. It's not, believe me. The vocabulary helps make up for it, though - over 7100 unique words.

I have an agent pitch on August 18th - the first time I have ever looked for an agent for this novel, and the first time I have ever been to a pitch session. I'm thinking of it as good practice...