July, 2010:

Episode 10 of Scurvytown is proving itself a little bastard to write. I am just over 350 words into it, with a decent start, but the rest is not as forthcoming as I would like. It’s kind of like you’d imagine what trying to pull Captain Tullis’s teeth would be like. Man, could you imagine being his dentist? Ugh!

It’s been a tumultuous little shit of a week, and I will be glad to see the tail-end of it, and am looking forward to throwing myself in front of the ongoing traffic that is the weekend, as soon as I see the headlights begin to round the bend.

I have been working on some ideas about what I want to do next with Scurvytown, and the “what happens next” is definitely impeded by a much-needed editing process. I cannot deny for a second that this story needs some professional help, if I ever hope to do anything more with it than post it on this crapshoot of a website.

So please, feel free to offer any advice on where/whom I might turn to for help in gaining some focus and perspective on this project. I know there are timeline issues, narrative flow issues, and a multitude of other problems that I have no doubt can by overcome with a little spit and elbow grease, not to mention cursing at the keyboard until the story somehow rights itself (because it ain’t going to write itself, that much is clear from my troubles with episode 10).

So, my mother has informed me that there are timeline issues with Scurvytown. I definitely see what she means, because it is very confusing to figure out what happens when. I get it, because I live in my own head and know what I mean, but to the rest of the roughly four folks reading it, timeline progression is definitely not clear.

I am working on the timeline issue. I think the problem is that I am telling characters’ stories concurrently, but also jump around a bit in time when I do so. Everything takes place so far within a week’s time, which is also confusing when each episode comes out every week. It’s taken 8 weeks to get through an entire week. It reminds me of back when I used to watch the now defunct soap opera, “Passions”. (Seriously, I swear they used to take eons for anything to happen, it would be Thanksgiving until it was Christmas, and then Christmas until Valentine’s Day, and then it would be that until the 4th of July, etc. But they had witches and a living doll – R.I.P. Timmy – and it was funny. Plus, Spike and Giles used to watch it together on BtVS, which is a hilarity in itself.)

Anyway, yeah, timelines, working on that.

Also working on the exciting conclusion to the Hopewell kidnapping saga. I think I have figured out a fairly funny outcome for all of that. Hopefully, when I go to the bar tomorrow night to work on writing, I’ll end up writing something good. I feel like I am on the verge of something awesome here with Scurvytown, I just need to focus and put more effort into it.

So it’s about time I came clean about the whereabouts of Scurvytown.

Stop reading now if you don’t want to know. It’s still pretty vague where it actually is in the world, but the world in which it exists, that I am happy to reveal.

Awhile ago, I read an article on NPR about the Lost States of America, which apparently is a book some dude wrote. People sort of tear him to shreds in the comments, but I think it’s interesting regardless of whether something as pesky as facts are actually accurate. Besides that, I can use this in fiction, because fiction is such a marvelous place where I can write whatever the heck I want. And the second I read this article, I knew I wanted to write a story that took place there, but I simply didn’t realize at the time that Scurvytown could be that place.

The thing about Scurvytown is, it takes place in one of the 89 states in what I am calling Lost America. Basically, I’ve taken the normal 50 states and added 39 extra ones, and I haven’t even figured out the names of all of those yet, although I am about halfway done making my list (feel free to offer suggestions, by the way). Right now my favorite is a tie between Lost Dakota and Santaland. The latter is a perfect circle of land we’ve battled over with Canada, and it’s a major distribution center for all things Santa/ North Pole related. It’s also the location of Scurvytown’s sister city of Dickensville, where they do daily re-enactments of Charles Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol,” which is delightfully reminiscent of a Groundhog’s Day/Scrooged mash-up.

So, Scurvytown is an island that is one of the 89 states, but the actual location of the island is still a bit up in the air. Could it be Cuba? Could it be Puerto Rico? Probably not, because I like the idea that it could be one of those, but I would feel like I was shitting all over the people of those places by taking away their independence, even in fiction. So most likely, it is an island that exists in the geography of the Earth where Lost America is, but not in our reality, meaning this Earth, where I am sitting in Kentucky typing out this silly little blog, and cracking up over the fact that in Scurvytown, I could very well be sitting along the path of the Transylvanian railroad, as a nearby train thunders past, rattling the windows.

And with that, time to go walk the dog, and try to figure out what combination of 1000 words I need to write to finish this week’s episode.