Adam Reger | Freelance Writer

Philadelphia-based freelance writer
January 11, 2011

Here’s to Giving up

. . . on books you don’t enjoy reading, that is.

For most of the new year, I’d been working on Adam Levin’s mammoth (i.e., 1,030-page) tome The Instructions. And for most of that time, I was waiting for it to go somewhere. Finally, on page 272, I put it aside for a little while. I picked up Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics), have found it to be awesome, and am now reconciling myself to the fact that I probably won’t be going back to The Instructions. It will join Chris Adrian’s The Children’s Hospitalon my bookshelf as over-long, over-hyped novels, published by McSweeney’s, that I found to be all sizzle and little steak (though in both cases I didn’t/won’t finish, so I should really be less confident about dismissing them; all I can fairly say is that both novels completely lost forward momentum, making their enormous length (700+ pages in the case of The Children’s Hospital) unjustified and thus all the more tedious).

It got me thinking about the ethics of giving up on any book, no matter how little I’m enjoying reading it. I’m sure lots of people are like me in that the thought of giving anything up carries a certain stigma. Even considering giving up on a dull book is a new phenomenon for me. I suspect the stigma of quitting comes from years and years of schooling, when I literally couldn’t have stopped reading something for fear of failing class. But bundled up with that fear is the idea that with any book, no matter how dense and seemingly terrible, if you can just push to the end, there will be something revelatory in the experience of having finished it; that’s very much the implicit promise an English teacher makes when he/she assigns you to read 1984 or Julius Caesar.

But once you recognize a stigma as coming from your years of schooling, it’s fun to celebrate the fact that you’re no longer in school by defying said stigma. I’m going over my list of books read in 2010 (yes, for the first year I kept a list) and realizing that it was a banner year for flaunting my ingrained prejudice against quitting books. I thought I’d share my list of abandoned books (which I also penciled in, mainly so that, if I’d ended up reading like 17 books, I could comfort myself by looking at all the books I also spent time on without finishing), for whatever such information is worth. Read the rest of this entry »

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January 7, 2011

Noveling

I wanted to share a novel-writing resource I’ve found useful over the last few weeks, as I’ve changed course while working on my novel. As usual, I’ve gone on at length in the run-up to sharing this valuable resource, Randy Ingermanson’s “Snowflake Method” for outlining a novel, so I’ll link to it here in case you’d rather not wade through the waist-high verbiage below.

In a nutshell, I became frustrated with the increasing aimlessness of my novel. I had what I thought was a good idea of where it was going, what the various threads were, and so forth. But each scene seemed inessential, even dull. I felt like I was writing only for the purpose of getting that day’s word count in. I could all too easily see to the end of this process, when I’d have a first draft I didn’t care to revise, and would be faced with re-writing the entire thing.

I thought, “What will I do before the second draft to make this less of a mess?” The best answer was that I’d look through, see what I had, and rigorously plot out the second draft based on the storylines and characters I’d worked out. This satisfied me for about thirty seconds before the obvious occurred to me: why not plot it out beforehand?

I’ve never worked that way before. I’m not ideological about it, though; I just think it’s fun to free write, catch a hint of where this thing is going, and then follow it there. I think Stephen King, in his surprisingly great On Writing, describes this method as something like finding dinosaur bones in the ground and then just following the process of excavating them. I’ve found that solid . . . but it’s never worked for me for the novel. Part of what gave me pause as my novel went along in its bumbling fashion was that I’ve been here before. I’ve written two novels, and each one I wrote more than once. That thing I said about getting to the end of a first draft and not caring to revise it? Yeah, I was very much speaking from experience on that one. (I would argue that my first novel is more like three novels, since each one shifted focus quite a bit.)

So I was left with the alternative: to plot. (I should stop and confess this is hardly a new dilemma for a writer to face; so much so, the website for National Novel Writing Month has at least one forum thread dedicated to the “Plotters versus Panters” (i.e., by the seat of your pants) schools of thought, and there are over 70,000 Google results for that search phrase. (Interestingly, “Plotters versus Panthers” turns up about eight times more results. Go figure.))

I looked around the internet for resources or advice on outlining a novel. Read the rest of this entry »

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January 6, 2011

New Layout

Happy new year to all. The new layout is not too terribly new, but it is exciting, at least for me: I know just enough about blogging to have gotten thoroughly confused, numerous times, trying to change the layout of this blog. But finally I’ve done it, and I have what I wanted: the main page of this site is now a simple note about me, and the blog is not front-row center anymore. I want to keep going with the blog—my recent, dramatic fall-off to the contrary—but I was getting increasingly uneasy with the disconnect between what was going up there and the reason that I originally started this site.

In a nutshell, I hoped this site would serve as an online portfolio to which I could direct potential clients, and where people looking for a freelance writer in Pittsburgh might eventually find themselves. It is that, of course, but it’s also often a blog where I re-cap the latest Philadelphia Eagles game, or discuss how bad M. Night Shymalan’s last movie was. Maybe “unprofessional” doesn’t fairly describe it, but I wouldn’t call it “professional” exactly, either. Basically, any time I’ve provided the link in a freelancing context, I’ve hoped that the person visiting my page would look only at the “Non-fiction” or “Ghostwriting” pages and leave the blog alone. It got to the point where I thought that if I wanted to keep this site going, I might just have to scrub the existing blog archives and restrict my subsequent blogging to 10 ways to maximize SEO efficiency, the art and science of proper comma usage, the challenges of crafting a good white paper for a client, and a bunch of other topics I know I’d find really tedious to read on a blog. (Actually, maybe not the comma thing, if I’m being honest. There are days I might read that.)

Tucking the blog away here will hopefully allow me to keep a balance between being professional but also having fun writing about the things I’ve so far written about. My “problem” (let’s call it a “first-world problem” of the highest order), after all, stemmed from having too much fun with the blog, writing about marathon training, the maintenance guy who hosts telephone conferences from the toilet, and the comedy I enjoy, rather than producing fussy considerations of the ins and outs of being a writer. Being a writer, to me, means engaging with the world.

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December 20, 2010

“Miracle” at the New Meadowlands

They are calling the Philadelphia Eagles’ 38-31 win over the New York Giants the game of the season. Others are calling it “a ‘where were you?’ game.”

I can answer that question easily. I was at home, not watching the game; by that point, I’d given up on the Eagles and decided to save myself the agitation of watching them play out the string while surrounded by annoying Steelers fans streaming into the sports bar where I was watching. (By way of background, I’d been getting more and more irritable throughout the game, beginning when the bar I was at, Silky’s in Squirrel Hill, decided to play the Saints-Ravens game with sound on, despite the dozen or so visible Eagles fans in the bar. I asked if the sound for the Eagles could be turned on, but was told it wasn’t possible. It’s not a big deal, except that Silky’s has done a brisk trade among Eagles fans all the time I’ve lived in Pittsburgh, and you’d think they would occasionally throw these patrons a bone, at least in this circumstance. The Steelers were not on until 4:15—none would dare ask that a Steelers game take second fiddle—and there were no fans in evidence watching the New Orleans-Baltimore game (presumably to “scout” the Ravens, or just to root against them). This resulted in the mildly absurd phenomenon of Ray Rice running up the middle for two yards on first down, with Dan Dierdorf calling it, and a bunch of cheers ringing out throughout the bar as something important happened in the silent Eagles game. I’m venting too much here, I realize, but it’s literally true that my first year in Pittsburgh, you could often hear “Fly, Eagles, Fly” after an Eagles touchdown. This is free extra money every Sunday for Silky’s, but their management seems not to realize it or not to care. If I owned a bar that was inexplicably patronized by a dozen loyal Broncos fans every Sunday, I think I might go with it.)

In any event, the Eagles’ first offensive success came with 3:56 left in the third quarter. Not “too little, too late” by any stretch, but the next couple possessions would determine whether the Eagles would come back or fall short. The Eagles held serve for a few possessions, and then, on a promising 30-yard pass play, DeSean Jackson fumbled. Replays of the fumble showed Jackson being touched by a Giants defender, falling to the ground, and the ball popping out, in that order. A slam-dunk reversal, especially for Andy Reid, a man who’s never been afraid to throw the red flag out on the field.

Except in this case; the cameras caught Reid standing with the flag beside the referee, holding it, holding it . . . surely about to throw it, right? The cameras moved back to the field, where Eli Manning was about to take the snap. Certainly Reid wouldn’t let them get the play off; a referee would run onto the field, waving his arms, blowing his whistle (silently, for those of us in the bar) and announcing (silently, again) that Philadelphia was challenging the ruling on the field that the play resulted in a fumble.

But no. Manning took the snap and handed off to Brandon Jacobs. Every Eagles fan in Silky’s—more of them than I had realized—groaned and yelled and cursed. I’d already settled my bar tab, already had my coat on against the draft. I couldn’t believe what a gutless and/or ignorant call Reid had made, so I left.

I’ve been kicking myself, of course, watching the highlights—especially the footage of DeSean Jackson winning the game, a moment that made me (and lots of others) think of this similar winning moment, courtesy of the great Brian Westbrook—and wishing I’d been a true fan and stayed ’til the bitter end. I’m quite sure, though, that if I were still in the bar several plays later, when Eli Manning threw to tight end Kevin Boss for a touchdown to make the score 31-10 with about eight minutes left to play, I would certainly have walked out then.

(Postscript: the similarities to the Westbrook game-winner are particularly eerie for me because I can remember suffering through that game—the Giants led 10-7 for the longest time, and the Eagles couldn’t do anything offensively—and finally deciding to pack it in. My Dad and I had to be at an aunt’s house for some kind of holiday event, and we figured we’d better get on the road. So we were driving, listening to the radio broadcast of the game, and caught Merrill Reese’s great call of Westbrook breaking free along the sideline to score. In that instance, at least, I can remember where I was when the play happened. For most of the scores on Sunday, I was sitting at my computer, clicking “Refresh” on Sports Illustrated’s play-by-play update, and have no idea exactly when any of these last big plays went off.)

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November 17, 2010

59 Points

I am late to the scene, as usual, but this past Monday night my Philadelphia Eagles lambasted the Washington football club with the racist team name to the tune of 59-28. (Although Washington’s 28 is slightly misleading because the Eagles were up 35-0 before Washington did anything at all.) They set a bunch of team records, and their 45 first-half points were the most by a visiting team in one half in the history of the NFL.

Moreover, this was an intra-divisional match-up, a rivalry game, and it followed Washington’s 17-12 win over the Eagles on their home turf (which caused me to stop blogging about the Eagles, after this overconfident blog post prior to the game).

So you’ll understand when I say that watching this game was very, very sweet. Nick Paumgarten of The New Yorker wrote on the website about missing the first quarter of play, but this summed it up: “As an Eagles fan—as a fan of anything—you don’t get many moments of unadulterated bliss.” That’s what this was, from that first, 88-yard touchdown strike to the last touchdown, an interception returned forty yards for a touchdown by the rising star Dimitri Patterson (who also helped shut down Reggie Wayne and the Indianapolis Colts).

Interestingly, a moral or at least an emotional dimension of the game has emerged since the final gun sounded. During the broadcast, there were a few shots of pre-game scuffling between the teams, in particular Washington safety LaRon Landry jawing with Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson. It’s since come out that Landry and cornerback DeAngelo Hall taunted Jackson, who missed a game three weeks ago with a concussion, by making “go to sleep” gestures. (As in, you know, we’re going to knock you out.) And Eagles center Mike McGlynn has accused Landry of spitting in his face during point-after attempts.

The spitting thing may be bogus, though the NFL is investigating, but I haven’t heard anyone dispute the “go to sleep” taunts. Various Eagles have as much as said that the pre-game taunting fired them up. It’s just piling on at this point to say that Washington deserved the drubbing in some sense, but it is an interesting case of bad behavior being punished directly on the field.

And it ties in interestingly, if maybe tangentially, to the whole Michael Vick storyline. I tend to think that what I’ve heard of commentators drawing in his dog fighting crimes, and the difficult ethics of rooting for a convict, are a bit of a stretch. My feeling is that he did his time, and that to continue to say “Yes, but . . .” sort of undermines the idea that we can be rehabilitated. (Although I suppose that, if the narrative being spun by sports commentators is that Vick is on a road of redemption, calling back to his misdeeds is perhaps fair enough.) But I mention this just to acknowledge it; you’d have to be pretty dense to talk about justice, and bad guys getting theirs, when the avenger himself has a pretty spotty past.

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November 11, 2010

Sad (Book-Related) News

Joseph-Beth Booksellers, a real high point in the life of Pittsburgh’s literary scene, is closing this weekend. Darn this rough economy!

They moved from a big, lovely two-story space (with escalators and a weird, tiny tranquility fountain sort of thing) to a more cramped space earlier in the year, but still had a great selection, at least in the fiction section and, especially, in the number of literary magazines they carried. I special-ordered Jack Pendarvis’s Awesome one time and the clerk advised me that if it came in and I decided I didn’t want it, that was fine. Some may see that as a lack of business acumen, but I was impressed by the book-first attitude evinced by that policy.

On a note that is either more positive or slightly morbid, though, they are having a great sale—40 percent off everything—until they close on November 14th.

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November 5, 2010

Marathon Homestretch

Over the weekend, I put in my longest training run: 20 miles. It was a good, good feeling to hit the showers after that one, knowing I’d reached the pinnacle and my running would now begin slacking off in preparation for race day, November 21. After the rough, dehydrating experience of running 18 miles the previous Sunday, I was smart enough to bring two little bottles of water with me, plus a packet of GU Energy Gel. It made all the difference in the world. As much as I’d like to think I’m tough enough to go without, the difference between absorbing no calories during a long run and taking in 90 calories is substantial. (An aside re: GU: the gel, while restorative during runs, is kind of gross. Decidedly awesome, on the other hand, are GU Chomps, which taste and go down the gullet like the fruit snacks I so loved as a boy.) And the difference between being totally dried out after a run and being pretty dried out, but not completely, is maybe even more notable. My legs were sore, and I was obliged to take a nap, but I did not feel as drained and just overall zonked out, the way I often do after these long runs. I’d thought those feelings were just inherent to running 14+ miles in one go, but apparently I could have avoided some of these lost Sunday afternoons had I but planned a bit better.

All that is sort of a prelude to say that I faked myself out somewhat and the real pinnacle of my training came last night. Thursday-night runs have slowly been ramping up throughout training, from 5 to 6, etc., and jumping up to 10 last week. I think I knew this already, but last night’s run was also a 10-miler. It sounds like a piece of cake, if one has recently conquered a 20-miler.

Read the rest of this entry »

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November 4, 2010

Sentence(s) of the Year

The last two lines of Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds*:

Well-known, alas, is the case of the poor German who was very fond of three and who made each aspect of his life a thing of triads. He went home one evening and drank three cups of tea with three lumps of sugar in each cup, cut his jugular with a razor three times and scrawled with a dying hand on a picture of his wife good-bye, good-bye, good-bye.

*These lines are in no way a spoiler; thus my putting this important message after the excerpt.

I just rescued this excerpt from my Facebook page, where it was toiling in obscurity, trapped in the little-loved FB “Note” format. The rest of At Swim-Two-Birds has absolutely zero to do with these lines, but is written in a similarly beautiful and surprising style, and its Irish characters speak with the wit and verbal pizzazz you would expect. Among my favorites is a dialogue of several displaced characters from literature in which the others grow obviously bored with the long-winded verse saga of Finn McCool, a figure from Irish legend represented as a tired old man.

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October 26, 2010

Eagles QB Situation Summarized via Autotune

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October 26, 2010

Pittsburgh Pools: Reason #6 to Love Pittsburgh

Whether you’re cross-training, nursing a sports injury, or just love the water, swimming is always a solid option. It tends to drop off the radar once the weather turns cooler, but for my money that’s the best time to start up. Indoor swimming during the cold months puts me in mind of all those great moments when you’ve been shut up inside someplace that’s gone overboard on the heat—a stuffy lecture hall, a smelly gym—and at last you burst out into the cold air. For a brief time, it doesn’t register as cold at all, only as a bracing and welcome change. So it is when you’ve been swimming: your hair is wet, your lungs are stung by chlorine and exertion, and the sharp edge of the air takes you by surprise.

I sing in praise of indoor swimming because I recently discovered one of Pittsburgh’s real municipal treasures, the Oliver Bath House on the South Side of the city. The city has a quite good pool system, with most of the pools open during the summer only. But only the Oliver Bath House remains open through the fall and winter months. So far, it’s been a great experience. I’m lucky in that I work only about a mile from the Bath House, and can get there by 5:30 p.m., a few seconds before the bulk of the post-work rush, thus allowing myself about 20-25 minutes of lap-swimming. The pool is well-maintained, if a little small, the staff are friendly, and there’s a general willingness among the patrons to share lanes when things do get a bit more crowded.

The best part, though, is the price. It costs $4 to go for the day, $3 for a child’s pass. But a season pass costs an adult only $30. I was genuinely surprised, upon signing up, to find that “season” doesn’t mean the fall, or even fall and winter, but that my pass will cover me all the way to June. That is the kind of steal that makes me proud to be a Pittsburgher, and to pay the taxes that make such a thing possible.

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