Deadwood Revisited

 The Beloved Spouse™ and I recently completed our more or less annual viewing of Deadwood. We now know the show well enough to recite the lines along with the actors and can spare the attention to look for more subtle things: set dressing, how the actors use their eyes, how they play off each other when they are not speaking. It’s all fascinating and no one has ever done it better than David Milch and the cast and crew he assembled.

 

I could write a series of posts about Deadwood but, looking through the blog’s history, I have no material changes to what I said in 2015. (About which, pardon my puffery, Jim Beaver (Whitney Ellsworth in the series) commented, “Great piece.”)

 

I do have additional thoughts.

 

In 2015 I wrote: Probably the greatest praise I can give Deadwood is that it has made me re-examine my creative process. (Such as it is.) Since then I have become much more intimate with not only Milch’s process, but his attitude. I have

·       Watched, taken notes on, and distilled his series of informal talks titled “The Idea of the Writer.” They’re fascinating, if rambling, and I can’t recommend them highly enough for anyone interested in the creative process. All are available on YouTube.

·       Read Milch’s books: True Blue (with Bill Clark, about the first two seasons of NYPD Blue); Deadwood: Stories of the Black Hills (companion volume to the series); and Life’s Work, his memoir.

·       Read The Deadwood Bible: A Lie Agreed On, by Matt Zoller Seitz, an exhaustive labor of love that details everything from Milch’s life and career to oral histories of the show’s production, cancelation, and resurrection as Deadwood: The Movie.

·       Seen the documentary Without a Net: Creating NYPD Blue, directed by Marc Ostend and executive produced by Milch’s wife, Rita. The film depicts and dissects the end of Milch’s tenure at NYPD Blue. Don’t let his wife’s involvement fool you. This is no puff piece.

 

Several changes resulted:

·       I interpreted the concept of resting transparently to suit my situation, using it daily when drafting and rewriting.

·       There are no problems, and nothing is ever “wrong.” There are things that need to be better.

·       The best time for research is not during the writing but before, and it is not too specific. The best research becomes part of you and is expressed more between the lines than in specific explanation. I always had some of that attitude; a future blog post will describe a renewed interest.

·       “Visions come to prepared spirits,” a quote from the German chemist August Kekulé after discovering the structure of the benzene molecule. (After 25 years’ work, the answer came to Kekulé in a dream.) Now I try never to rush an idea to fruition.

·       “The testifying to the going out in spirit by the act of imagination.” Milch believes nothing exists in a vacuum, and that we are all connected in some way. I’m not as sold as he is, but I have found the task of writing—and let’s face it, much as we love to write, doing it well is a task at times—much more palatable. The “going out in spirit” part has also made my life a better place, and probably better for those who interact with me.

·       “The artist’s job is to find imaginative associations in what is merely fanciful.” Our job as writers is to take personal experiences—things significant only to us—and find ways to give them meaning for our audience.

·       Milch never thinks about writing except when writing. My adjustment is that I never try to think about writing unless I’m writing. That doesn’t mean things never force themselves into my thoughts; those that do, are welcome. I rarely play music or listen to the radio in the car; in good weather I take walks. If something about the writing pops up uninvited, well, the least I can do is let it visit a bit.

·       Milch’s memoir is unsparing in its evaluation of his life. I have neither his demons nor his gifts. Maybe they go hand in glove, though I think those types of explanations are more excuses than reasons. I mention it here because it taught me to be honest with myself in all aspects of my life, and to understand that all I can do is the best I can. (See “going out in spirit” above.)

 

I set out to write about Deadwood and ended up writing about David Milch. (Again.) I don’t see any good way around that. Deadwood is Milch. To talk about the show without going into some detail about him is to miss the point of its creation.

 

We’ll watch Deadwood again.

De- and Re-fining Process

 Last week I wrote about Joe Lansdale’s thoughts on first readers and got tangential a few times. This week I have more from Joe’s Facebook posts on writing, dealing with the process itself.

 

Again, it’s gratifying and validating for someone with my level of accomplishment to see my method has evolved along the lines of one of the greats. I am comfortable with not having the same level of talent or success. What matters is, however good my writing may or may not be, it’s not because of things that are under my control. I’ve done my due diligence.

 

The topic of Joe’s post was, “How Many Drafts Should You Write?” Joe’s answer fits in with what my practice and research have shown me: there is no right answer. Joe writes: “Each writer finds their path. I do one, and then a polish. Now and again I end up doing more polish than expected, and each day I revise as I go, so how many drafts do I do daily? No idea.”

 

I’m a bit more OCD, so I have a pretty good idea, but the number of drafts has changed dramatically over the years. I used to keep hacking until I couldn’t bear to look at the manuscript anymore and was spending most of my time adding and removing the same commas. Then I started using each draft for specific things: one for descriptions, one for each character to get their voices right and unique, one for action and narrative, then the overall polishing. That took forever and require too much polishing, as the multiple drafts left me with a story that didn’t seem organic.

 

I winnowed that down by beginning each day by looking over and tidying up yesterday’s work. This probably saved a draft and had the added benefit of reminding me exactly where I was the day before.

 

Then I came across David Milch’s concept of “resting transparently.” (It’s actually Kierkegaard’s concept, but since Milch distilled it into something I can understand, I give him the credit.) My version is to think as little as possible about what needs to be written today because that’s the conscious mind looking for a logical continuation of what I wrote yesterday, which is not always where the story needs to go. Now I sit quietly, letting my mind wander until I know what I want to do. At first I’d often as not fall asleep. Now there are days where I sit for as little as thirty seconds before I’m virtually propelled out of the chair and off to the keyboard.

 

This isn’t much different from Joe’s advice, though arrived at from a different direction: “The most important thing I learned as a writer was to work from the subconscious. This sounds easy, and pretty much is once you are able to tap into it, but it takes practice.” Resting transparently is my way of releasing my subconscious. With practice I find I barely need the actual process. My subconscious now knows when to feed me what it’s been working right when I need it.

 

What stimulates my subconscious? Many of the same things Joe describes. “Reading novels, stories, comics, non-fiction and viewing films, TV shows, are fuel for the subconscious…” I used to feel like I was stealing when I took an idea from a previous work and adapted to my needs until I saw a d read enough to realize how many stories are adaptations of things that came before. Just because I first saw a scene by Author A doesn’t mean he hadn’t seen a variant of it elsewhere. I used to feel bashful about changing the ending of my first Nick Forte book to use a concept I saw in the movie Three Days of the Condor, especially after it received a Shamus nomination. Now I’m looking forward to thanking James Grady the next time I see him, less for “giving” me the idea, than for putting something out there I was able to adapt to my own purposes.

 

The subconscious is not as low maintenance as one might suppose, especially when you hope to get some benefit from it. Milch tries never to think about writing except when he’s doing it. Unsaid is that his subconscious, left to its own devices, is always churning away, whether he’s aware of it or not. He likes to operate on faith and I believe a lot of that faith is that his subconscious will not abandon him.

 

Lansdale has a similar attitude: “But, during the day, if I could learn to relax and think about anything but story, ideas would develop, and certainly at night a seed would be found.” I retired at the end of last year and now, a month or so down the road, I find I’m much more creative. More story ideas, more ideas on how to improve what’s in progress, more ideas about what I might want to revisit. I believe that’s because I’m no longer tied to thinking about workaday things half my waking hours, five days a week, with those concerns also intruding on my “free” time. Now I spend an hour or three most days taking care of household business, then my day is free.

 

(Next week I’ll conclude this series with a post on pacing yourself to stay fresh. Thank to Joe Lansdale for allowing me to quote from his posts.

 

 

 

 

 

Taking My Time

 

I wrote in July about the influence of David Milch on my writing and the concept of “resting transparently.” An exercise he promotes is to sit down and start typing a scene. Two characters: Voice 1 and Voice 2. Nothing but dialog. Type whatever comes to mind for no less than 25 minutes and no more than 50. Stop when you begin to think about what you’re doing. When finished, seal it in an envelope and forget about it. As Milch puts it, “Give it to God.”

 

Milch believes writers too often think about what the writing can do for us, or how it will be received, or, ultimately, if it will sell. Or how well. The point of the exercise is to pull the creative process away from that. His point is that your best writing gives you the best chance of success, and your best writing often comes from a place the conscious mind may be reluctant, or afraid, to go. Resting transparently is letting go and trusting your subconscious.

 

I don’t have much time for exercises. The day job still consumes almost half my waking hours. What I can do is to put the concept to work for me.

 

I’m writing this after supper. The work-in-progress awaits. When I finish here I’ll do something else for a while to clear my head. When I’m ready to get to work I’ll take a few seconds, no more than 30, and refresh my memory of where I am in the book. Then I’ll walk into my reading room, sit in my chair, and close my eyes. Whatever comes to mind comes to mind. I make no conscious effort to direct it.

 

Sometimes it’s a little while before the book takes over. Sometimes—and more often recently—I sit no more than a few minute before I know exactly what comes next. I about launch myself out of the chair to get to the keyboard.

 

The session goal is 500 words. If I hit a roll, I keep going until I start thinking too much, or I start feeling good about what I’ve done. Either of those involves the ego, and the ego is the enemy of creativity. When that happens it’s time to stop. With rare exceptions, this takes 25 – 50 minutes.

 

Where this method works best is on days I don’t work the day job and I can repeat the process three or four times. It seems to work so long as I leave an hour or so between sessions. Do that three times a day and I’ll have at least 1500 words and quite possibly more than 2500, because, once begun, every session gets easier as more comes to mind virtually unbidden.

 

It also helps that this is the first draft. There are misspelled words and mangled grammar. There are sentences I’ll look at in three months and wonder, “What the hell does this mean?” Doesn’t matter. There are no mistakes. There are only things that need to be better. That’s what edits are for.

 

First drafts were always drudgery for me. Now I look forward to the next session. This may be the best first draft I’ve ever written. I don’t know if it will be the best book—a draft often bears only passing resemblance to a finished novel—but I’m delighted with what I’ll have to work with.

 

I’ve discovered chapters I’ll need to add. Leave them for the end, then find good places for them. Sanding off the unintentional edges are what edits are for. (Scrivener’s note cards are great for this. Just create a new card, type in a slug, and I’ll get to it when I get to it.) What’s best is the lack of anxiety. Every first draft I’ve written has had several, “Oh shit” moments. Not once in this one—so far—and I’m at least two-thirds of the way through.

 

I’ve known for years I’m more left-brained than it’s good for a creative person to be. Resting transparently allows my right brain to breathe. Taking my time allows what comes next to form itself in my subconscious so when I’m ready to rest transparently, what I need is right there.

 

I never think about writing when I’m not writing anymore, which is another Milchian trademark. That doesn’t mean ideas don’t come to me unbidden. I came home from shopping recently with well over half of the plot for a new Nick Forte novel so well formed I typed out 1500 words of notes. Didn’t have to think about them. Just wrote down what was on the tips of my fingers.

 

We’re all looking for a way to open the tap in our brains that lets out the words we want in the order in which we want them. Resting transparently and taking my time will not make me more talented. They might help me to stay out of my own way.

NYPD Blue

 

The Beloved Spouse™ and I rarely leap into the hot thing du jour. We let things breathe and gauge the reception over time before devoting any of our precious remaining hours to something. Ergo, we recently binge-watched NYPD Blue fifteen years after it went off the air. All 261 episodes. In a row. We didn’t watch anything else.

 

We don’t fuck around.

 

What a great show. Like any property that runs twelve years, it slows down a little toward the end, but not a lot. The entire cast turns over except for Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) and the producers use that turnover to shift the squad’s internal dynamics so you’re never quite sure what’s going to happen, but you have an idea how events will affect the characters.

 

If I had to pick one thing that stands out, it’s how the rest of the squad, including the bosses, come to respect and gain affection for Sipowicz. He’s a racist asshole when the show starts, and he’s never cuddly. He struggles with multiple demons and keeps them at bay while understanding they are never defeated. He learns when and how to ask for help, never more touchingly as when he calls his wife to come get him in a bar. “No, I’m not drinking. But if you don’t come for me I know I will.” Not an order; a plea. Early in the show the only person who has the time of day for him is his partner, John Kelly (David Caruso.) By the end the entire squad will do anything for him.

 

All of the characters’ histories have their places, but not in a manner that the show becomes about their flaws; it’s still about the whole person. What turned me off of Rescue Me was that every episode became a test of whether Denis Leary would drink. After a while I didn’t care anymore, and there wasn’t much else to him. That’s never true of NYPD Blue. Everyone is a well-rounded person and personality. The characters never become stale because there’s always fertile ground to be worked, between New York situations (“Everything’s a situation,” said Sipowicz’s second partner, Bobby Simone) and the depth of the characterizations.

 

Since I brought him up, let’s talk about Bobby (Jimmy Smits). He’s only in a third of the episodes, but he leaves his mark on the rest of the show. His replacements, Sorenson (Rick Schroder) and Clark (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) are well-developed, well-acted characters, but they’re not Bobby. It’s Simone’s understanding and empathy for Sipowicz that turns the rest of the squad around. Not because Simone says or does anything, but everyone loves Bobby, and if Bobby feels this way about Sipowicz, then he can’t be all bad. The show is still good, but not so often transcendent after Simone leaves..

 

It’s a cop show and I haven’t said a word about the crimes. There’s no big deal made of stories “ripped from the headlines,” but former NYPD detective Bill Clark had a hand in breaking the overwhelming majority of stories. It shows. The weird crimes all have a “no one could make this up” feel, and the painful stories are never melodramatic. They just tell the story. Make of it what you will.

 

No show has better exemplified Joe Wambaugh’s mantra that a good cop story is more about how the cases work on the cops than about how the cops work on the cases. NYPD Blue is a procedural without much procedure. Only what you need to understand what’s going on. Nothing easy about that, and it’s more than worth your time when executed this well.

 

(I also recommend David Milch’s book, True Blue, about the first two seasons of the show, including the transition from Caruso to Smits. As good a behind the scenes book as I have read.)

 

First Cousins

“Write what you know” is the hoariest piece of writing advice. Also the worst, when taken too seriously. Used responsibly and wisely it can add depth and nuance to any project.

 I got comfortable writing what I knew when I began the Penns River books. Previous efforts involved things I’d learned or come to know. Penns River I knew. I never had to learn it. I grew up there. Many of its qualities, better and worse, are as ingrained in me as my hair color.

 Like hair color, what you “know” changes over time. Perspectives that made perfect sense in your twenties now seem silly or even embarrassing. That doesn’t mean you deny their existence. Keep them in your toolbox. A character come along sooner or later who suits your discredited ideas. Not only can you use them, you get to look at them from the outside. There’s potential gold there.

 I wrote a few weeks ago about David Milch’s talks on “The Idea of the Writer.” In one he discusses the concept of looking for the first cousins of ideas. I’m still finding my way around this at the story level, but it’s already paying dividends on the character level as a great way to keep from being too “on the nose.” It’s particularly useful when dealing with a personal experience too painful or too close to write as well as you’d like. Often those situations become either preachy or heavy-handed, or the characters start to wallow in the writer’s self-pity.

I moved back into my parents’ house a few years ago when my mother couldn’t handle the day-to-day needs of Dad’s home hospice care. I wouldn’t trade most of that month for the world, as it was an opportunity for a son who’d moved away to show he cared about, and for, his parents. That said, I wouldn’t wish Dad’s last few days on anyone. Nor would I wish it on anyone’s family. (Home hospice care is a wonderful thing. The doctors, nurses, and clergy truly are angels on earth. There also comes a time when the professionals need to take over, both for the comfort of the patient and the sanity of the family.)

 I can’t write that story, nor work it into a larger piece. I can find its first cousin. I know what it feels like to watch someone you love become les vital until what’s left is hard to remember as anything except what he’s become. I know the odd mixture of relief and guilt that comes when he finally dies. That’s the “what I know” to write about.

 A friend of mine wrote a first-rate story for our writers’ group years ago about a homeless man. The story gripped everyone from the start until the ending, which fell flat. The consensus was to leave everything else alone and fix the ending. Suggestions flowed like a spring, as so often happens when critiquing something that’s thisclose.

Within minutes, our friend was almost in tears. It was a true story. The homeless man was her brother. She was way too close to make any changes without feeling like she was betraying him.

 The ending was weak because it was too on the nose, which made it land heavy. What she needed was the first cousin for it to kick ass. I wish I’d known about it then. Everyone could’ve left happy that night. 

Resting Transparently

No one knows how writing happens. “Sit your ass in front of the keyboard” is less about writing than typing. “Plotting” vs. “pantsing” deals with the mechanics of story. Where does creativity come from?

If I knew, you think I’d be telling you for free?

The best I can do is refer to a series of videos in which David Milch (NYPD Blue, Deadwood) talks about “The Idea of the Writer.” Recorded at the Screen Writers’ Guild auditorium during a writers’ strike, Milch held court for a couple of hours each day for a week about the creative aspects of writing.

These are rambling discourses, covering subjects as diverse as chemistry,

I have always been more left-brained than it’s probably good for a creative person to be. Charlie Stella described my writing style as “documentary,” and that’s fair. I’ve always thought I did my best work describing things that had already taken place in my mind.

This caused first drafts to require more heavy lifting than I like to do. I’ve used the term “mining” to describe my first drafts, no one’s idea of a pleasant experience. Editing was where I had my fun.

The current book—Number Seven in the Penns River series—is the first time I’ve made a conscious choice to change, thanks to Milch. I’ll write more about his talks as time goes on, but two takeaways not only shifted my attitude about the first draft but make me look forward to each day’s production, so much so the blog has to fight for time. (Apologies to Patti Abbott. I haven’t forgotten about the post I owe you.)

Most important for me (filtered through my experience and personality) is the concept that all art must rest transparently on the spirit that gives it rise; the artist must therefore do the same. It’s a concept Milch adapted from Kierkegaard’s definition of faith as the opposite of despair: "In relating itself to itself, and in willing to be itself, the self rests transparently in the power that established it."

Milch’s faith is in his Higher Power, learned from years of working his twelve-step program. Mine is in knowing I can take as many passes as I want to make things better. It’s all about removing the ego, which is the enemy of creativity. As soon as I start thinking too much about what I’m writing, or whether it’s any good, I stop. It’s impossible to rest transparently when thinking about the potential effect of the art on others, and how they may respond; the writer creates what he creates. The reception is beyond his control.

How to get to a state of resting transparently is up to the individual. I need my increasingly vague and flexible outlines to remove worry I’ll write myself into a corner that requires either an implausible resolution, or throwing away thousands of words of work. (Which I’ve done and it’s no fun.) Like all writers, I depend on a certain amount of inspiration, a Muse for lack of a better word, to do my best work.

The German chemist Friedrich August Kekulé discovered the ring structure of the benzene molecule after twenty years of work. The solution came to him in a dream of a snake swallowing its tail. In Milch’s telling, his peers gave Kekulé a ribbing. “Why did you work twenty years on this? A dream was all you needed.” Kekulé’s reply was, “Visions come to prepared spirits.” That’s the key: how to prepare the spirit. Everyone does it in their own way

Milch swears he never thinks about writing except when actually doing it. How the ego influences that is a post of its own. He battles with OCD and would wrap himself in knots if he thought about the craft too much. His energy goes directly into the work.

The Beloved Spouse™ can attest I am not above overthinking things myself. I have made a major effort not to think about this book unless I’m working on it. I read the chapter’s brief slug in the outline or review the last few paragraphs from the previous day, and jump in. Not only is it easier and more fun, based on feedback from TBS it’s at least as good as the other first drafts she’s

A surprising benefit is how often ideas now come to me unbidden. Last weekend I went grocery shopping and a few disparate thoughts and events coalesced and the next Nick Forte fell together by the time I got home. More came to mind as I told TBS about it. Another useful event dropped in on me the next day, vision coming to a prepared spirit.

I’ve never been more enthusiastic about writing, other than right after conferences. I’m rushing through this so I can get back to the book. (After I add the notes to the file for the next Forte.) It’s messy, but I have faith all will get sorted out, and that’s what really matters.

June's Favorite Books (Movies, Too)

What with only weekly blog entries for the foreseeable future and hoping two a month are Diversity Friday posts, most months would be no more than one post for my favorite reads of the month prior and one would be the movies I’ve seen since last I mentioned them. We all know I’m too opinionated to keep them all to myself lest I burst, showering entrails across the countryside, so today we’llo see if combining the two allays the situation.

First, the books I liked best, because though never having been a journalist, I know better than to bury a lede. (And I know how to spell the cocksucker.) (Editor’s Note: Yes, he’s watching Deadwood again. Roll with it. It’ll fucking pass. Oops.)

Deadwood: Tales of theBlack Hills, David Milch. The companion to the series, written by The Man himself. Full of insights into history, drama, characterization, human frailty, and just about any other fucking thing you can find to say about such an immersive experience. I don’t believe in saying something is a “must read” or a “must have,” but if you’re looking for a peek into the experiences and mind that drove Deadwood, you ought to take a look. More than one.

Cheapskates, Charlie Stella. My favorite Stella, full of pitch perfect dialog and well-drawn but less than reverentially depicted characters with various plots and plans coming together in ways no one expects, least of all the characters. Stella hasn’t had a book out in a while, which is a shame, but Mr. Silver Lining here seized an opportunity to look back on what’s come before and be reminded how good it is.

And the movies…

The Highwaymen (2019) Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson play Frank Hamer and Maney Gault, Texas Rangers brought out of retirement to capture Bonnie and Clyde while a thousand-man dragnet foundered. Costner and Woody are prefect, their chemistry is perfect, the other casting and performances are perfect, and every other decision made by writer John Fusco and director John Lee Hancock works, too, to create a wonderful film. (Or whatever it is we’re supposed to call Netflicks.) Highly recommended.

L.A. Confidential (1997) Yes, again. I think it’s the first time this year, so be quiet. Yes, I’m talking to you, Mike Dennis.

Bosch (2019: Season 5) True, not a movie, but it’s my blog and I’ll put whatever I want in here. Bosch is a good solid show. The writing is good, the acting is exceptional, and the production values are first-rate. Limited run series like this are now my preferred way to encounter visual stories, as they allow for scope without worrying about padding. That said, the show also lacks the same things the Bosch books lack, at least for me. I know I’m in a minority here, but while Michael Connelly tells great stories, the books don’t sing. There’s little wit in the dialog and, frankly, Harry’s an asshole I wouldn’t mind seeing get taken down a peg. Even so, The Beloved Spouse™ and are looking forward to Season 6, though not with the same fervor as we did for Justified or The Sopranos.

Vice (2018) The most disappointing movie I’ve seen since Blade Runner 2049. I’m no fan of Dick Cheney, but Adam McKay’s hatchet job tends too often to use the blunt end rather than the blade. McKay’s touch was outstanding in The Big Short, but he had Michael Lewis’s brilliant book to work with. He tried a similar approach here, but wrote it himself from scratch and it shows. All told, I’d rather have watched Michael Moore direct a Cheney film, and Michael Moore embarrasses me as a liberal.

Bad Times at the El Royale (2018) I occasionally let time pass before writing these capsules so my thoughts about a film can coalesce. It’s been two weeks and I can’t remember a single thing worth complimenting about this movie. So, there’s that.

Deadwood: The Movie (2019) Well, it’s about fucking time. Seth and Al and all those cocksuckers come back to add an element of closure to the series so unceremoniously ass-fucked by HBO thirteen years ago. The storytelling is a little different from the series because David Milch had only two hours to work with instead of twelve and HBO cut half an hour while adding some flashbacks for the hoople-heads who didn’t know what the fuck was transpiring back there. Still, it’s a more than worthy bow to tie off the series and an accomplishment on its own. A second viewing only enhanced its appeal and a third is in the offing as soon as we work our way through the series again.

                

The Choirboys (1977) This is such an execrable adaptation of Joseph Wambaugh’s masterpiece he completely disassociated himself from the film and sued to have his name removed from the credits. He was right to do so.

June's Best Reads

This is the summer where I decide whether to fish or cut bait on the Western I’ve been toying with for several years now. My reading list reflects that, and likely will for the next couple of months. It’s okay. There’s no dearth of great stuff to read in this area.

Deadwood: Stories of the Black Hills, David Milch. This is the inside story book written to accompany the HBO series. In it Milch details how and why he made many of the creative decisions that made the show what it was, some of his research, and includes sections by various actors about how they played their roles and how the characters grew as the show moved on. A fascinating ‘inside baseball” look at what may have been TV’s most fascinating series, though with a melancholy ending: the closing article was written with the full expectation that the series would conclude with two two-hour movies, which we now know never happened.

Six Guns at Sundown, Eric Beetner. It’s a good thing Beetner is such a nice guy and so generous in his aid to other writers because he’s so good and so prolific it would be easy to hate him otherwise. Even so, I may give it a try. Not content to write some of the best and most concise crime fiction around, he branched out into Westerns and nailed it. All of the things one loves about his crime stories are here, including the cinematic textures that lead the reader to visual a movie scene while reading.

True Grit, Charles Portis. A re-read, and well worth it. As good as everyone who loves it says it is, a book that will survive endless readings. Portis was a treasure and should be better remembered for his other works (which include Masters of Atlantis and Dog of the South) but it’s no crime that True Grit holds the primary position. The only shame is that so many read this one and stop there.

                                                                                                     

Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson and the Wickedest Town in the American West, Tom Clavin. I stumbled onto this at a book event and it followed me home. Lucky me. Meticulously researched and written with a dry and appropriate wit, Dodge City captures not just the flavor of the town but gives a good, broad look at the origins of law enforcement on the American frontier circa 1870 – 1890 or so, including why there was a need for it. Highly recommended.

Execution is Everything

I’ve written about the value of execution before and I expect I’ll do it again. It’s that kind of topic. Every so often I read or see something that reminds me of how critical it is, more important than any other facet of creativity, and I’ll end up in a cul-de-sac of thought until I work out the new angles. What happens to the rest of you here is collateral damage.

People alleged to know spend a lot of time discussing the value of catching the zeitgeist, or, even better, starting the Next Big Thing yourself. Hopefully by now the “Girl” wave has run its course. (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Shook the Hornet’s Nest, The Girl with One Brown Eye and One Blue Eye, Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train, The Girl Who’s Gone on the Train, The Dragon-Tattooed Train with the Girl On it, etc.) Even so, something else will replace it—it’s how we’re geared—and it will spawn its own incestuous family of imitators artists uniquely inspired by it.

It’s still execution that matters if you want a long run.

Today’s example is a cop show from the 90s and early Aughts, NYPD Blue. Yes, it premiered 24 years ago. Regular readers know the Beloved Spouse and I are not people who like to rush into our entertainment choices. Two-and-a-half decades of universal acclaim is enough. We started Season 2 this week and I’m happy to say the show holds up.

Is it dated? Not in ways that matter. Sure, the cops still use pagers and have to find pay phones. The few cell phones on display are the size of shoes. They use manual typewriters hammer out paperwork on actual paper and documents have to be hand carried. Those are all peripherals. The key elements are still solid: relationships, dialog, and the effects of the job.

What strikes me most about the show is how little of it is ground-breaking. I know that opinion runs counter to the show’s reputation; bear with me. The sex and nudity and what was at the time foul language were the big deals at the time. A third of ABC’s affiliates refused to show the premiere. Those of you who have seen the show can attest to this: once creators Stephen Bochco and David Milch had made their point and grabbed your attention, the sex and nudity dropped way off. The language settled in. The show has little onscreen violence.

What else was ground-breaking? Hill Street Blues had been a procedural that spread its attention around to patrol officers, detectives, and the bosses. NYPD Blue is basically detectives, based on one key partnership. First it was Kelly and Sipowicz, then Sipowicz and Simone. TV detectives have worked with partners since before Dragnet. Big deal.

The show is basically episodic, with some carryover storylines. Ho-hum.

So why does anyone give a shit about it 24 years later? Because it was a great show. The writing was exceptional, and often brilliant. The casting was spot on, and the actors uniformly rose to their tasks. The sense of place is always there. The stories still resonate today because their underpinnings and greater significance were more timeless than topical.

If I had to pick one thing in which NYPD Blue was ahead of the curve it is how Bochco and Milch handled violence. There’s not much of it on screen. What they excelled—and a lot of creative people would do well to learn from them—is in showing the aftereffects of violence. Shootings. Domestic abuse. Muggings. It’s been a long time but I don’t remember any of Blue’s contemporaries or predecessors dwelling much on that. (Hill Street is the one exception that comes to mind. Big surprise.)

NYPD Blue is worth watching today because the things that made it a good show are timeless. It’ll be a good show in 20 years. All because it focused more on being good than on being different.

Deadwood

God, I love Deadwood. I love the characters, the stories, the sets, the photography, the acting. I can relate more closely to The Wire, and no series ever strung stories together to a more fitting climax than did The Shield. The sense of place established by the characters and dialog in Justified is unsurpassed. What Deadwood  did—and still does, after repeated viewings—is create a hyper-reality where disbelief need not be suspended; it’s torn away as brutally as James Ellroy describing a Los Angeles that existed, but never quite the way his does.

How does Deadwood do it? This may seem ironic when discussing a visual medium, but the whole things is about language. For a person who loves words—their uses meanings, the sounds as they fall upon the ear—Deadwood is the ultimate experience.

The Beloved Spouse and I recently finished what was our fourth (or fifth) trip through the 36 episodes. Not ready to give it up, we worked out way through the bonus features disks. They were a revelation, and highly recommended for fans, especially for insights into the creative process of David Milch.

Let’s talk about Milch for a minute. For years I spoke of him as if his given name were “That Cocksucker.” (“Don’t forget how That Cocksucker Milch fucked us on Deadwood.”) Jim Beaver recently placed the lion’s share of the blame on HBO on his Facebook page. He was there, I wasn’t, and a re-reading of the relevant portions of Brett Martin’s wonderful book Difficult Men shows I had been largely unfair. I still wish Milch hadn’t been quite so sensitive to HBO’s snub and found a way to get the two two-hour movies made to wrap things up, but that’s small potatoes compared to his overarching achievements in Deadwood.

The bonus features were another eye opener. True, they’re edited, and I’m sure Milch had final approval, but the respect, admiration—awe, even—the actors had for Milch was evident, even in candid shots. Watching him speak showed a bit of the charisma they must have felt. Something special was happening there, and while I can’t say everything they did worked—the George Hearst character might have been a little more believable had he not become evil incarnate—the flaws are negligible when compared to the accomplishments. (Some Season Three subplots don’t go anywhere, but I’ll give the benefit of the doubt that Season Four would done something with them.)

                                             

Probably the greatest praise I can give Deadwood is that it has made me re-examine my

creative process. (Such as it is.) I’ve toyed with the idea of a Western for several years; now I have a file full of notes for it, and plot ideas are springing up unbidden in the car and after showers. I’m paying special attention to the language I’ll use. Not just the style and voice, but the language, both narrative and spoken. I’m not fool enough to try to copy Deadwood’s unique speech, but some things Milch said in the bonus features stuck with me: the task is to create a language. It will sound like English, and it will have elements of the vernacular of the times, but the point will be to develop something unique.

Development. That’s the key. The story develops. The characters. Even the language. Milch spent over a year “developing” Deadwood before bringing in the crews and getting to work. The universe must be set in the creator’s mind before “work” begins. The story and characters and language and setting can develop in whatever form and direction, and the whole will not be ill-affected if the vision of the world is true. That’s where the real effort must take place for this book, and even for the Penns River books I have on the back burner, though that world is known to me well enough now that deliberation is less important than interpretation.

Gustav Mahler said after revising his Fifth Symphony, “I cannot understand how I could have written so much like a beginner. . . . Clearly the routine I had acquired in the first four symphonies had deserted me altogether, as though a totally new message demanded a new technique.”  I’m no Mahler, but I understand what he meant. I’ve been dissatisfied with writing in general and my writing in particular for some time. Now I think I know why. I’d said as much as I could say with the tools and approach I had developed. So it’s time for me to develop, too. Even if the end result is not dissimilar, the approach will differ.

I might have come to these conclusions even had I not seen Deadwood as this precise moment in time. Maybe. I defy any limber-dicked cocksucker to gainsay it had nothing to do with it.

Difficult Men

Difficult Men is Brett Martin’s brilliant and entertaining look behind the key shows of what he calls the Third Golden Age of television, a period spearheaded by HBO with the prison drama Oz laying the foundation from which The Sopranos would become a phenomenon.

The title has double meaning. The programs that make up the core of Martin’s third golden age focus largely on the lives of forty-ish men in crisis: Tony Soprano, Vic Mackey, Walter White, Don Draper, and several cops, politicians, and drug dealers in The Wire. Those are the guys the public saw. The men responsible for their creation were forty-ish themselves, and they were, by and large, the truly difficult men.

The biggest takeaway, for me, was, “Why would anyone want to write for television?” Even if you overcome innumerable hurdles and are lucky enough to get on a first-rate show, you may get to work for a David Chase, a David Milch, or a Mathew Weiner. Chase never got over the idea he was too good for television. Weiner comes off as an arrogant an asshole ever to draw breath. Milch is such a whack job he makes James Ellroy look as eccentric as Jimmy Carter.

The stories of how all these men achieved their positions are fascinating. How events, timing, critical masses of people, and the pure luck of pitching the right idea to the right network at the right time came together to create something special. How HBO owned the franchise until it got a little complacent and FX leadership decided maybe that network didn’t have to be an afterthought at Fox, after all. AMC’s good fortune when looking for a program with gravitas, but not a crime show, which had done the heavy lifting to that point. Martin talked to a lot of people in position to know, and what they told him was too good to have been made up.

Not all the showrunners were off the rails. David Simon comes across as argumentative, but fair, and extremely loyal to both his people and his vision, which could cause friction. Shawn Ryan (The Shield) called in personal favors from friends for his pilot and to keep the cast together—casting his wife as Vic Mackey’s wife because “I know I can get you back”—and using the guerilla film tactics born of budget necessity to create something special both onscreen and off. Vince Gilligan appears to be a mensch. So, no, one does not have to be a neurotic asshole to be a big success, though it doesn’t seem to hurt.

Difficult Men is a great read for any fans of any of the shows cited, and for anyone curious about how shows get made—or, more often, don’t get made—in Hollywood. A quick read, written by Martin in an engaging manner with the perfect distance from the subject matter. Not so distant he looks down on his subjects, yet not so close he fails to recognize the lunacy. This is pretty much a pitch perfect tale.

One last thing. Despite giving David Chase every opportunity to justify the ending of The Sopranos, when all is said and done, it was still chickenshit.

Deadwood

I re-read Pete Dexter’s Deadwood last week. Enjoyed it even more than before, which says something, since I knew what to expect. I’m sure to read it again in a few years. If you haven’t read it yet, I feel bad for you, though I’ll feel jealous when you pick it up, as you get to read it for the first time, a treat I’ll never have again.

As a hard-core devotee of the HBO series Deadwood, I found myself comparing creative decisions Dexter made with those of David Milch, the limber-dicked cocksucker who got us all wrapped up in one of the finest shows television ever produced then, through his own hubris/hardheadedness/dickishness, didn’t see it though, even though HBO offered him a a couple of movie-sized slots to do it. (It’s interesting that Dexter receives no mention as a source from either Milch or HBO. Milch claimed he never read the book. This is hard to believe, considering the amount of research he obviously did. Dexter’s novel did win the national Book Award, so it’s not like it was under the radar. Dexter is understandably bitter, though some of his evidence against Milch—“they obviously stole at least the first scene from the book”—doesn’t hold up, no matter which “first scene” you look at, Dexter’s or Milch’s.) It‘s interesting stuff, well worth the time of anyone interested is how to make story decisions. Not that either is right or wrong—I have opinions both ways—creative decisions that seem inevitable to the reader or viewer were not at all that way at the time of creation.

Two differences stand out as pivotal. It’s hard to say which is most important, so let’s start with the treatment of Al Swearengen, owner of the Gem Saloon. Milch makes him the counterweight to Sheriff Seth Bullock. Their yin and yang relationship frames the series. Each has a vision for the camp, and each has different ideas about how to get there. Their shifting relationship, and how the grudging respect they come to have for each other, is the centerpiece of the show.

Dexter’s Swearengen is completely different. A minor character who can be described as a “whore man” who is a bully and a coward. Not at all how Milch wrote him, or how Ian McShane played him. Dexter’s version is much closer to the real Swearengen. It’s hard to imagine Milch’s character dying broke while hopping a freight train.

Dexter doesn’t need Swearengen and Bullock to carry as much weight. His story is told primarily through the eyes of Charley Utter, Wild Bill Hickock’s friend. (Another piece of Dexter’s evidence of Milch ripping him off. He describes the real Charley as an historical “dot;” and claims Milch’s elevation of him is a sign of the novel’s influence.) Charley is a key, yet supporting, character on the show. In the book, everything that happens is described either through Charlkey’s eyes, of by how the outcome affects Charley, though sometimes he serves as the representative of the rest of the settlement. (Another interesting difference. Milch’s characters perpetually refer to Deadwood as a “camp;” Dexter’s think of it as a town.)

Dexter uses only actual people, with one exception: Charley’s brother-in-law, Malcolm. The events he describes all pretty much took place, though not necessarily to, or by, the same people. Milch is far more apt to roam. Brom and Alma Garrett, whose gold claim is the primary means of displaying Swearengen’s character early and how the camp evolves as time goes on, do not appear in Dexter’s book; they are wholly fictional. George Hearst was not the rapacious sociopath Milch makes him out to be.

These approaches allow the two creators to use the same setting, characters, time, and many of the same actions to create two stories that resemble each other only where characters and events intersect. Dexter’s book is more easy-going in its way, describing peoples’ lives, and how they adapted to the conditions they found, using Charley Utter as the (flawed but reliable) moral compass. Milch’s series is about bringing order to lawlessness, and the struggle to decide how much order is enough. It’s also about power and how to wield it.

Each version is equally entertaining, on different levels, making different points. Anyone who is a fan or either owes it to himself to take a look at the other. (Especially if you’re a writer, or someone interested in how stories are told.) Remember to leave any preconceptions behind when you do.