it's all in the wrist

When I read lately, I've been looking at writing techniques that work and those techniques that don't.  When I read for leisure, I savor the words and imagine the scenes vividly.  Although I can devour a book in a night, I know that I'm a slower reader when it comes to reading for fun.  Looking at technique as I read, is a relatively new thing for me to do.  It's different than critically analyzing literature for an English class.  The process is more about mechanics. 

One book I read, didn't adequately describe its scenes.  In one scene, a man gets splashed by a car that was driving by and went through a puddle.  Later in the narrative, we find that the man was out for a jog when the car sprayed him.  It changed the picture I had of a man casually walking in jeans and a t-shirt to a man running in short Tom Sellek shorts.  Big difference!  I found myself re-reading paragraphs in order to get a complete picture of the action.   

One of my problems in writing is that I don't elaborate enough.  The result is that I am careful about how I elaborate.  When I read, if the writer is lamenting over the same thing, or spends a lot of time describing something; I check out.  I don't want the reader to check out when he/she reads my novel.  I want every word to count. 

Another author that I recently read combated this problem by including a lot of action.  The book must have had twenty different sub-plots.  I felt like I needed to keep a flow chart of all the different characters and happenings.  There were times when I would lose track of who's who and what's what. 

This exercise has been helping me figure out how to address some of my own writing issues.  It's helping me balance what to say and what not to say.  It's helping me find tactics on how to deliver the message. 

Bam! Said the Lady

Anton Chekhov quite famously noted that a gun introduced in the first act must go off in the third; a succinct reminder to writers that you shouldn't add anything to the story that doesn't have literary value. Chekhov's Gun is one of the basic fundamentals of any writing class, and like the fundamentals of any craft, one abuses or ignores it at their peril.

It's been on my mind this weekend, brought on by an impulse ebook purchase. Although I have about ten books to read right now, I wanted something fluffy and thoughtless the other day to read, and so I downloaded a well-reviewed romance novel to my Nook the other day, by a Famous and Prolific author whom I had never read. It was actually pretty decent, and halfway through, I downloaded the next two books in the series. Book One was not great, but good, and since it was setting up an entire series, I didn't worry too much about the lack of depth; after all, it had fit my fluff requirement. Book Two had a little more meat on it's bones and was a better read, while also subtly setting up the following novel.

Book Three was an unholy mess. I have no idea how this got out of rough draft, let alone past an editor. Not only did the plot have holes you could drive a semi through, at one point the author actually had a character literally drive a semi through a plot hurdle.

Going into this story, we knew the protagionist was returning to his childhood home to rebuild his life there. His emotional baggage included an alcoholic, abusive father who had died when he was a teen, a mother who committed suicide prior to his father's death, two half-brothers he was not on good terms with, and regret over his failed relationship with his high school sweetheart, his One True Love, who has also coincidentally returned to town.

In true Chekhovian fashion, the author lays the following guns out on the table:

Our Hero had secretly married, and never told anyone in his family
His wife died recently in a tragic accident, but he didn't really love her, so it's no big deal
Our Heroine has also recently lost her spouse in a tragic accident
She also didn't really love him, but feels kind of guilty because he killed himself because of her
Our Hero cheated openly on Our Heroine throughout their high-school relationship
The result of which is a 13 year-old kid he has now randomly taken into his home
However, birth control is still not high on his list of priorites, since "he's clean"
He is also the greatest amateur singer/guitar player in the state, although he never seems to play his guitar or sing
Our Heroine has a six-year kid who is completely unaffected by the recent tragic death of her father, and openly campaigns for Our Hero to be her new daddy within two minutes of meeting him
Our Heroing also sees no need for birth control since she randomly became infertile after giving birth to her daughter
Which is somehow completely unrelated to her late husband's secret vasectomy
Our Hero's bastard child's baby mama has apparently killed one man, and attempted to kill another, and not only flees town, but comes back to town to visit her second victim while he is in JAIL for an unrelated crime, and the deputy forgets to arrest her

Guess which gun goes off in the third act? NONE of them. Not only do none of these plot elements play out, they are crammed into the front end of the story, and never referenced, or even discussed among the characters ever again. Even when the Hero proposes marriage to the Heroine, she never even thinks to say "Hey, what about all those times you cheated on me and had a baby with another woman and that kid is now living with you and I have a kid, too, and we should probably talk about this stuff and maybe lay out some fidelity ground rules and whatnot?" Nope.

So, long story short, I've spent the day frantically reworking my novel so far, and excising chunks of dialogue, exposition, and two complete scenes out of fear that I could be writing a book like this lady. Although the book itself wasn't worth what I paid for it, the lesson has turned out to be priceless, and I hope it's one I won't need to be reminded about in the future.

What I Know For Sure

Write what you know.  I can't count how many times I've read that phrase.  As overused as it is, there must be something to that piece of advice.  I decided to follow it. 

What is it that I know right now?  I know how to fail at a marriage.  I'm pretty damn good at it, actually.  I've failed twice, which is above average.  I don't mean that in a whole, "poor me" way.  It just is.  So, I am writing about that very thing. 

Writing about something that is deeply personal is a little weird, though.  I spend most of my time editorializing what I tell others.  I could rant and rave about the same themes, but in the end it gets a little old.  Instead I self edit what I say to others, as many people do.  Everyone has a filter.  Sometimes, that filter needs to be a little more robust.  In writing a story, I am able to take off that filter and explore the thoughts that I dare not say out loud, for fear of sounding a little off my rocker.  In writing, there is no judgement.  I can explore themes of hurt or longing and not be labeled. 

The experience has been freeing.  In life, I tend to try to see things from another's perspective.  I tend to compromise, which can be good, in the case of resolving a dispute.  It can also be bad, in the case of compromising one's beliefs or happiness.  By removing my filter and allowing myself to freedom to express what is mine alone, I have been able to see things clearly and achieve peace.   
 

Craftsmanship

One of the alarming things I'm learning about myself through this project is that I really do need some sort of external pressure to complete...anything, apparently. I've always been more task-oriented than goal-oriented, particularly if the tasks were set by someone paying me a salary. As much as I like to say I'm self-directed, the reality is that I'm only that way when I'm on the clock.


I had decided, sort of, that one of my goals this year would be to try to complete a novel by October 31st, which would then free me up to churn out a potboiler during NaNoWriMo. It seemed more than achievable - if I could write a crappy novel in a month, as I have for past NaNos, than surely I could write a good book in ten months.

It turns out, writing, regularly and with care, is really, really hard. I've never had to do it before; in the past I could churn out papers, essays, and stories quickly and with minimal effort.

Now, though, I'm putting a lot more care and work into it, and it's going at a snail's pace, to the point where it's borderline disheartening. It's hard work, and I'm really trying at it now in a way that I never had to before. Proofing, refining, doing outlines and timelines and character backgrounds; researching buildings and towns and professions. I know I can write well; I know I have a handle on the art of it. What I'm learning, painfully, now, is the craft of it. Like any other trade, I need to develop and hone my skills in ways that are not apparent on the surface, and the only way I can do that is through experience.

So it's been a slow go lately for me, but I'm glad that I'm sticking with it. It'd be easy to cheat, or quit, or pretend I lost interest in the project altogether, but I feel I have a bigger responsiblity now. Now just to Jen, my partner in crime, but to me; to achieve this goal I have set for myself. Not just to know that I can do it, but to believe that I will do it.

What flavor am I?

For years I daydreamed about being a writer.  One such manifestation of my dream was that I was a freelance writer for a magazine.  Last week I looked into what it would take to be a freelance writer.  The world of freelance writing is pretty vast.  There are postings for blog writers, marketing content, web articles, and product reviews.  I was amazed at how many different types of freelance assignments there were.  I also quickly discovered that there was global competition for these jobs. 

I decided to give it a try.  I answered an ad for someone to write biographies for the artists signed with a particular record label.  The person who posted the ad had a computer mishap and needed help in writing her articles.  I contacted her and submitted a bid, which told her how much I would charge, how much work I could take on, and when I would finish the job.  I discovered that many of these writing jobs paid barely more than minimum wage.  After an hour and a half of my time, she said that she would accept my bid contingent on writing a sample bid, which took me another hour and a half.   

In the end I didn't get the bid.  Given the rejection rate of writers and other artists, I didn't take it to heart.  However, I did gain some insight.  In the business world, time is money.  But in the world of art, money isn't everything.  Many of the people who were awarded projects were from overseas where the dollar stretches further.  Given this climate, it is clear that freelancing would only augment my income and enhance my resume.  It wasn't the dream I had in mind.

I think this was an important exercise in defining myself more as a writer.  I was able to delineate what I would and wouldn't do.  The more I write and dig into this process, the stronger my voice is as an artist.  Creating something with a better awareness of the marketplace will hopefully give me perspective so that I can write with relevance.  At the very least, it gives me understanding so that I don't feel like a bumbling idiot.  Now the next time I dream, it can be a little more specific.     

What's the saying about good intentions?

A couple months ago I was daydreaming and thought the idea would make a good story.  I developed the story by asking myself, "How did these characters get in this situation?"  Then I wrote, not caring if it were good or bad.  I just wrote to get the words out.  I'm about 100 pages into it, and it feels wrong.  I can't make the connections.  The more I develop the book, the outcome is so far removed from the original idea.  It's clear, in my mind, what I need to do.  I need to keep the original idea for later, and finish the new story. 

What happened with this story echos real life.  Starting out with best intentions, only to have something go wrong, and end up trying to fix it.  Nothing is beyond fixing.  In the end, I think the newly fixed outcome will be better than the original intended outcome.  At least, that's the thought that keeps me going.

I'm writing...now what?

I've been feeling a little accomplished lately, so I decided it was time to squish my high spirits.  Actually, I decided it was time to research next steps.  The squishing of my spirits was a unfortunate yet inevitable side effect.  I wanted to get published.  So, I read articles from writing organizations and writers to see what their advice to me was.


Each article detailed the long and arduous road of getting published.  It told of a struggle that lasted years.  It detailed the hundreds of rejections.  It told of project after project that would never know an audience.  Writing is not for the faint of heart and I was starting to become faint. 

The writers also had conflicting pieces of advice.  Just do it.  Don't just do it- practice then do it.  Write what comes naturally.  Think outside of your comfort zone.  Use natural language.  Use thought provoking language.  By the end of the night, I thought my head would explode.

In the end, none of it mattered.  I spent a day reading what someone else's ideas on writing were.  I had hoped for inspiration by people I admired.  There were very few articles that achieved that end.  So, I ended up back at the beginning, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  In the end, I know what I know and that is that I'm a writer.  Whatever profession I hold, I'm a writer.  My identity as a writer goes beyond a paycheck, beyond what's on my business card.  Writing is what I do.  Right now it's what I do for fun.  Hopefully it will become something that will be shared with others.  I just need to keep doing it. 

symmetry

My co-worker's mother passed away earlier this month. She was in her late eighties, and had been ill for quite some time, so it was not unexpected. I tried to write a few times this week about other things, but I am sad for my friend, and remembering my own mother's terminal illness, and my fingers are not interested in typing other stories just yet.

He returned to work a few days ago, and we had lunch together his first day back in the office. My co-worker is a born raconteur, and had spoken about his mother, a fierce first-generation Italian-American. I never met her, but liked her a great deal based upon his stories.

He told me how she had been lucid almost until the end, determined to go on her own terms, without regrets. She dictated her guest list and visiting hours personally those few final days, and participated eagerly in planning her memorial service, including the menu. While discussing menu options a few days before her death, she casually mentioned how much she liked the cookies from a bakery on the east side. An errant thought for the dessert table, and then she moved on to insist that no chicken be served.

Her son remembered, though, and drove two hours to this bakery to get her the cookies, which cost $18 a pound. The day he brought her the cookies was the day she was finally unable to eat solid food. Undeterred, she put the box next to her bed so she could smell and admire them, doling the cookies out to favored guests.

One of the last things she told him before she died was how the smell of the cookies brought back a childhood memory, long forgotten. On rare occasions, her father would take her on the long drive to this same bakery, and purchase the same cookies. He sketched the story so beautifully that I could see it in my mind; the little dark-haired girl, in her dress and mary janes, so excited to spend the day alone with her daddy on the long drive to the bakery; their special time together. My co-worker's cookies were more than a gesture of thoughtfulness for his dying mother; for that moment, he gave her her father back.

The Inner Critic

Somewhere on this journey, I have transformed.  When we started this reverse book club, my goal was just to write.  It didn't have to be good.  It just had to get done.  I was out of practice and needed to get into a routine.  Writing was something that was important to me, and I let other people's priorities and schedules push it aside.  So the goal was to just do it.  Write.  I didn't self-edit.  I didn't think "this isn't good enough".  Surely these were signs that I wasn't a "real writer".  Somewhere along the way, I started self-editing.  I hone and re-hone and hone yet again the things I create.  The self-criticism feels good.  Being engaged in the process feels good.  Writing, and subsequently editing feels good.

My sister encouraged me to watch a clip of Elizabeth Gilbert speak at the TED Conference.  She spoke about the pressure to create something good.  Sometimes the pressure of doing something well can prevent one from doing something at all.  She encouraged her listeners to let go of that pressure.  Your job is to create.  She speaks of the muse or the genius as being an external thing.  Its job it to inspire.  Thinking about writing, or creating art, in this way helps take the pressure off so she can get back to the task at hand.   I encourage you to check out the speech:   http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html

If life is about balance, it would follow that writing is about balance.  Striking the balance between getting your work out of your head and into a tangible thing, and honing the creation into something better.  Create something without editing it to death:  that's the challenge. 

slacker

Nearly every day I devote some time to writing imaginary blog posts in my head. Even if I don't get them online, part of me (the procrastinating part) is still mentally tallying points for effort. A couple of times a week, I actually pull up the site to post something, and end up staring at the blank page for a few minutes before giving up surfing the web "for inspiration."

The words just disappear. It's not so much writer's block as writer's ennui. When the time comes to actually type, I can't call up the words, and just feel completely defeated and don't even want to try. It's like being in high school again, and having to do a worksheet of parabolas without knowing the formulas; it's easier to give up. I should try to power through, but it's been a real struggle lately due to some external factors.

My treatise on "Beauty and the Beast" stories that also served as an apology to Jen for making her see "Beastly" with me? Gone. (I am really sorry, though. It was terrible, and for the life of me I can't understand why the NYT gave it three stars.)

Epistolary novels: Lazy, or brilliant? Gone.

Dialogue vs Description: What I like to read vs what I need to write. Gone.

Why I hate first person perspective. Gone.

The important of auto save, or how not to kill your dog when they jump on your keyboard and erase four pages of work. Gone. (Literally.)

Anyway, it's been a really rough past month at the office, and I've been feeling so drained lately, that it's been hard to get inspired to write anything. I definitely value our meetings a lot more; it's nice to decompress and have "me" time to relax and let the creativity flow. I'm hoping that as things settle down I'll be able to scrape out some more time to complete a few things, and get that sense of accomplishment that Jennifer has been feeling lately. I know it's out there, and getting the words down is a step in the right direction.

It's a Hard Habit To Break

The benefit from coming from a large family is that I hear voices of judgement come from many different directions.  Ultimately it is my sub-conscious quoting people I know and not a multiple personality disorder, although sometimes I think the latter would be less painful.  Today my sub-conscious took on the life of my aunt singing the refrain, "21 days is a habit".  She had the benefit of management training back in the 1970's, and remembers large amounts of information from those trainings.  Sometimes I think she could host her own hybrid version of management trainings, if she had the interest.

So, 21 days is a habit.  From her management days, my aunt learned that if you do something for 21 days, you are more likely to continue the practice.  Most people quit something after the first couple of weeks.  We've been doing the reverse book club for a couple of months now, and it has indeed become a habit.  A great habit, like flossing my teeth or eating broccoli.  It has become as much a part of my Saturday as doing laundry.

I seem to be in uncharted territory.  I'm notorious for not finishing something I start.  In my arts & crafts stage, this manifested itself in the form of a closet full of unfinished projects.  In my organizational phase, it manifested itself in the form of a partially alphabetized spice rack.  I am finishing things, and am working past the point where I normally give up.  The sensation of accomplishing something purely for myself is powerful, and addicting.

Who knows what will be next?  Maybe I'll start living out the messages of Dale Carnegie or Stephen Covey.  I could become the human manifestation of self-help books.  I could "Stop Worrying and Start Living".  I could "Win Friends and Influence People".  I could become a "Highly Effective Person" through living out "7 habits".  Or, I could just continue to write and finish things and see where that road leads.    

Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words?

In general, I'm a fast writer. A fast reader. A fast talker. And a lazy procrastinator. So, my writing projects in the past have typically fallen into one of two categories: 1. A paper due in under 24 hours, and 2. NaNoWriMo. In both cases, the goal is to write quickly and efficiently, and never look back, and it's always worked pretty well for me.

Now, though, I'm writing at a different pace, over a longer stretch of time, and my old habits don't work for me any more. Despite my detailed storyline and character notes, I find myself going back to read things I wrote weeks ago to ensure I'm getting little details correct, like the color of a character's eyes, the correct spelling of a last name, or if I designated a certain street as running north-south or east-west. It's a pain.

On Jennifer Crusie's blog, Argh Ink, she recommends making a collage to have a snapshot view of your story. Crusie gives a lot of great writing advice on her site, but the collage idea always seemed a little stupid to me until recently. I'm past the point in my life where popsicle sticks, poster paint, and pipe cleaners are a part of my daily existence. Now, though, I see the appeal.

To that end, I spent a few hours online this week gathering links to pictures and maps; things that are close to the way I am imagining my characters and scenes in my mind. I'm still not entirely on board the collage train, but I'm willing to put a few pennies on the tracks. Just having the links organized on my laptop in a virtual binder (until I figure out a better system) will be a big help. I'd love to be able to make a foam core model of my town, with little models of my characters that I can move around at will from scene-to-scene. My inner procrastinator knows, however, that while I could probably justify a full-scale diorama pretty convincely, it would just be a means of avoiding actual writing.

REDRUM

So, we met last week at the coffee shop/liquor store that I was so excited to try, and it was kind of a bust. My coffee was good, and my scone was fresh-baked, but the atmosphere was kind of weird. I don't think we'll be going back any time soon, but we Tried a New Place, so pats on the back all around, I say.

Jen made the mistake of telling me that her daughter has embarked on a Stephen King phase. Book pusher that I am, I immediately offered to give her all of my Stephen King books (minus the Gunslinger ones, and "On Writing.") and Jen graciously accepted. Hurrah! I love to give my old books to a good home once I am past the point of wanting to reread them over and over again.

I can't lie, though - the most exciting part for me is the chance to get The Scariest Book in the Entire World out of my house. Like Joey from "Friends," I don't feel safe unless "The Shining" is packed away someplace where it can't sneak out in the dead of night and get me. Unlike Joey, I don't keep it in my freezer; instead it's nestled in a large box surrounded by Gideon Bibles.

If you've never read "The Shining," you really should. It's phenomenal; the more so because it's not a horror novel in the traditional sense. In this book, the monsters are human failings and how they affect those around us - child abuse, alcoholism, and a failed marriage. Seeing the movie is not equivalent; King himself abhors the Nicholson version, which is based loosely, at best, upon the novel. If you have read the book, you know my fear and admiration, and probably have your own copy hidden in a secure location. I've read the book twice in my adult life now (both times in the company of others and only during daylight), and it's etched so firmly on my psyche I don't think I need to read it ever again. And that's okay. In a way, I'm passing it on to the next generation, and I'm kind of excited that it's going to fascinate and terrify and thrill a new reader, who will hopefully come up with an even better secure location than a box of stolen hotel Bibles.

Skipping School

We didn't meet this week.  I called in sick.  It was the first time that we haven't met, and I felt a little empty inside.  Funny how not meeting felt so empty and not-quite-right!  Although it was the right thing to do- I was contagious and a sniffling mess-, my universe was a little off kilter.

I did honor my commitment to write, I did not accomplish as much as I had wanted.  Nor was I as inspired.  Stepping outside my environment and into a book club has been very helpful.  Every week, I feel as though I accomplished something.  The magnitude of the warm, happy feelings didn't hit me until I missed the book club. 

Going Dutch

One of my challenges with writing is that I tend to be verbose. This works in my favor when doing NaNoWriMo, but that's about it. If allowed, I will constantly edit my work in search of the perfect phrasing. It's becoming a sickness, and I blame Norman Maclean and Elmore Leonard.

Norman Maclean is best known for his novella (and the subsequent movie) "A River Runs Through It." In both, the writer reminisces how, as a child, he would give his homework to his father to correct. The elder Maclean would make grammatical corrections, and hand the paper back to the son and admonish him to rewrite it, at half the length. This would be repeated, over and over again, until Norman achieved perfect brevity. The idea of so brutally editing yourself (by at least half every time!) is both appalling, and appealing to me. In practice, I can't do it very well, but I do make the effort.

I can't say anything new about Elmore Leonard; any fan will already know my pain. I am completely in awe of, and intimidated by, his writing. In his books, the plot is a vehicle for the characters, and his characters are second only to his dialogue and pacing. Everyone should read him, and often.

Leonard very famously wrote in his "10 Rules of Writing" to leave out the parts that people skip. I've been trying to keep that in the forefront of my mind these days, and I do think it helps. Going over some of my recent writing, I pulled out the mental red pen, prepared to do some Maclean-style editing, and was pleased to find that there was not a whole lot of stuff that I would skip as a reader. But, since I had my Maclean hat on, I ruthlessly did strikethroughs on everything I thought I could safely excise. I went back a couple of days later to re-read for clarity, and ending saving more than I thought I would, and editing out far less than I originally marked. I feel really good about the progress, and that I'm still keeping my characters and pacing on track without sacrificing plot. My word count may not be where I'd like it to be, but my story is where it needs to be, and that's the important thing.

The Creation

My sister is an artist.  I don't mean that she is creative, which she is.  I mean that she is an artist by profession.  She makes her living creating art. The idea of making a living as an artist is both frightening and alluring.  Expressing yourself so freely can also leave you vulnerable.  It also promises fulfillment.  I have spent the better part of 10 years trying not to be vulnerable.  The more protected I am, the less fulfilled I am.  I’m trying to fix that.   

I listened to a podcast featuring Rainn Wilson, from The Office.  He has a website, Soul Pancake, which is designed to talk about spirituality in a relevant manner.  He also practices the Bahai Faith.  One of the things he believes is that creating art is as godlike as you can get; that creating something is akin to god creating us; that self-expression is a revered thing.  I didn't mention this to get spiritual, as I have no clue about my own spirituality.  But in thinking about creating art from this perspective, having all of these feelings about being an artist made sense.  Of course I would be scared and allured (and everything in between).  Creating something personal and trying to share it without exploiting is a challenge.  Sharing a piece of yourself with the world leaves you open to criticism.  It leaves you vulnerable.

My sister asked me to contribute toward a project.  My mission was to write about a specific memory.  I could think of nothing more personal than to write about this particular experience.  The process wasn't uncomfortable, as I expected.  It was liberating.  In writing about this memory, I gained insight that only time and experience could offer.  I also was able go back in time and relive a wonderful experience with someone who was very precious to me.    At the end of our session, I had gained far more than I risked.  The process of writing is chipping away at my carefully created protective barrier.       

Come to Mama

On our writing search for fulfillment, Jen and I are also searching for the perfect coffee shop in which to write. No such place exists, it just gives us something to discuss, a reason to procrastinate, and something to blame when the muse is not forthcoming.

I don't think the "where," matters to a real writer; we all have our comfort zones for things, but if you truly want to write, you'll do it anywhere, with whatever materials are at hand. Laptop, notebook, cave wall; it's all just a place to express yourself.

It does make me think, though, sometimes, of what Ondaatje wrote about Rudyard Kipling in "The English Patient;" that when reading his words, it was equally important to think of Kipling writing under the bright haze of the African sun, pen scratching slowly across the paper as he wrote in his rooms across the way from the Custom House. "Think of the speed of his pen." The dull heat slowed the thought and the hand, and one had to keep that in mind when reading his words, slowly, as he wrote them. Kipling is not for speed readers like me.

If Kipling can write anywhere, certainly so can I. However, good coffee and a comfortable work space definitely ease the way. And if the coffee shop also sells liquor, well, that's what I call Nirvana. I have learned of such an oasis today, courtesy of my oldest sister, and Jen doesn't know it yet, but we are totally meeting there next week. I don't know if it's the perfect place to write, but it might just be perfect for us.

What a Character

I drove home from the book club thinking about how we arrive at decisions.  Why do we do the things we do?  I'm not talking about big, life-changing decisions.  I'm talking about the little decisions, like why do some people wear socks that don't match and how does that fit into the overall scope of their persona.  Mostly, I was trying to figure out this man I saw while I was writing. 

What would possibly inspire a man to wear a coon-skinned cap to a coffee shop?  Otherwise, this man was somewhat normal.  He wore faded jeans with an elastic band, white tennis shoes, and a stable coat.  Not what I would call fashionable, but certainly not weird.  Underneath the carcass on his head, he wore a Bluetooth headset.  Although slightly out of place, the Bluetooth completed the look. 

I started thinking about character development.  How could such a small, albeit furry, gesture speak to the type of man beneath the hat?  I ruled out potential reasons for choosing the hat.  This was not a random act, as in "oh I just grabbed the first thing I saw".  He did not stand before his hat rack choosing between a baseball cap, stocking cap, and a coon-skinned cap.  He did not look like a collector of rare hats.  The decision to wear a coon-skinned cap must be purposeful. 

I searched further for an answer.  Perhaps he went small game hunting and caught his first coon.  The taxidermist was too costly, so he made a hat out of the hide.  Maybe his great-great grandfather bequeathed the dead varmint to him, and in honor of his relative he dons the hat on the last Saturday of the month. 

I guess I will never know the real reason he wore the cap.  I regret the decision not to ask him, but the fashion statement left me speechless.  I later asked a friend of mine who hunts about this situation.  His answer left me unsatisfied, yet maybe it was just that simple.  My friend said, "It's warm."
 

Just Do It

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."

From the moment I read those words, they were seared into my brain as the greatest opening line of any novel I had ever read. For me, the brilliance in the line is not just in it's simplicity, but in the particularly American image it evokes; after all, did you not picture Our Hero chasing the Bad Guy across a dusty land, possibly with a setting sun in the background?

Here's the thing. When this story was first published, if someone said "The Man in Black,", odds are, your first thought was, Johnny Cash. Troubled, sure, but not exactly a villain. And a gunslinger isn't the local lawman; he's a bounty hunter, a gun for hire; and Dirty Harry is now part of our cultural lexicon. You can't tell a hero by his white hat, and suddenly things are a lot more complicated. Our classic Western trope has been turned on its ear in a simple and subtle way. The gunslinger may be chasing the Man in Black, but the reader may not want him to be successful. This is a world colored in shades of gray.

Stephen King wrote "The Gunslinger" in 1982, and I'm sure I first picked up a copy sometime in the late 80s or early 90s, after I had recovered from the psychological trauma of reading "The Shining", and was ready to dip my toe back into King-infested waters. I haven't read it in years, and have always intended to reread it and finish the rest of the books in the series, but just never got around to it. I loved it, though, and I think this one line made me fall in love with the written word in a way that nothing else did. I had read genre books before, but this book was like all genres in one: Western, thriller, romance, fantasy, time travel, science fiction - you name it, it was in there. And to top it all off, King based the whole series upon a poem by Robert Browning.

When I talk to people about doing NaNoWriMo, or about writing in general, the two things I hear most often are that people wish they had the time to write, and that they never know how to start their book. As far as the time thing goes, I think people can always find time to do the things they want to do, if they really want to do them. As to the other, that's never been a problem for me. I don't think that my opening line needs to be the Greatest Sentence in the History of Mankind. Stephen King beat me to it, and now the pressure is off. I'm the writer; this is my story, and only I know how to tell it. I picture my scene, put my fingers on the keyboard, begin at the beginning, and go from there.

Get Up Off of That Thing

All week I had been practicing Newton's Law of Inertia.  Yeup, a body at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force.  I did things.  I don't want you to think that I spent my week sitting on the couch watching reruns of the Anna Nicole Smith show and eating Cheetos.  I just didn't write.  I focused on the mundane tasks of everyday life. 

So, when we met on Saturday, I needed to shake the cobwebs of inertia off my brain.  The Third Life Book Club was the "outside force" that got me off my ass and back into the habit of writing.  It was akin to aerobics after not exercising for a week.  The warm up felt good, stretching the neurons in my brain.  As I got into the writing exercise, I felt the rush of the aerobic high.  And after we were done writing, I felt the tenderness of using body parts that hadn't been used in a little while. 

So maybe this week, I'll practice a different law of physics.  Perhaps gravity needs to be challenged?

The Finish Line...sort of

I remember my dad telling me that I never finish anything that I start.  He didn't mean the comment to be offensive, nor was it taken that way.  It was just an observation.  It was made after I went to bar tending school and had just quit a bar tending gig.  I had visions of making fruity Mai Tais for roughnecks at biker bars, and ended up pouring wine at a business class hotel in Novi.  So I quit.  Ever since my dad's comment, I've been keenly aware of the completion of tasks.  My track record has improved.  I finished college while having two kids...but every weight loss plan I've started I've quit.  I purchased a house after years of planning, but I haven't finished putting my pictures on the walls.  My record is better, but there's definitely room for improvement.

Given my record for finishing things, finishing "leg one" of a project felt amazing.  I finished a rough draft of a short children's story.  I had written my daughter a series of bedtime stories when she was away at a fine arts camp a few years ago.  She received a story for each night she was away.  The stories were cute.  They still make me giggle.  I decided to develop those stories and see what happens.  Saturday, I completed the rough draft of one of the stories. 

There is still more to do, but I feel like a large part is done.       

     

A Good Day

So, I've abandoned my prior novel due to structural issues beyond my control, but that's another post for another day. It's okay, though, because I had another idea that I've been kicking around for a few weeks, and I've been plotting it out on my lunch breaks at work. We met today and I got most of my first chapter written. I have most of Chapter Two written in my head, so I think (fingers crossed) it's a good start.

To celebrate, I took my car for an oil change, and myself to the liquor store (they are fortuitously located in the same strip mall). On the way home, I drove by a pizza parlor that opened a couple of weeks ago, trumpeting their coal-fired pizza oven. I read a lot of cooking magazines, and I'd never heard of a restaurant that used a coal oven, so I was intrigued, and slightly suspicious. The parking lot only had a few cars in it, so I stopped inside to grab a menu. And then I did Something New.

The place smelled fantastic, and I decided I needed a pizza right then and there. So I went to the bar, and ordered a pie to go, thinking I would run to a nearby store and come back in 20 minutes for my food. Then the bartender asked if I wanted to have a drink while I waited.

Obviously, people do this all the time, but I do not. I don't have any objection to it; I've just never done it. I've gone to movies solo, and eaten in restaurants by myself, but never just had a drink at a bar alone. Even if I was meeting someone at a bar, I always got a table. But, they had Frankenmuth Dunkel on tap, on special (clearly a sign), and I had had a productive morning, so I cozied up the bar and had a pint. Here's where it gets weird: Then I talked to people.

I'm not an outgoing person, generally. I don't get into conversations with strangers or make friends with the cashiers at the grocery store. I'm friendly and polite, but it doesn't go beyond that. I don't think a stranger is a friend I just haven't met yet; mostly, I assume everyone is a potential serial killer until they prove otherwise. Today, instead of pulling out my nook, or my phone, or a notebook to continue writing, I talked to the people at the bar. Like, actually started conversations. The guy on my right had randomly stopped in, just like me, and I helped him make a pizza selection. The guy on my left had all kinds of food allergies. The owner came over to talk him through the menu, and we had a discussion about flour milling and filtered versus non-filtered water for bread dough, and how to make a decent meatball without using eggs. The bartender and I talked about a recent shipment of cava she had gotten, and how cutely it was packaged, and then we made fun of the table of burly men drinking pitchers of Miller Lite. It was nice.

So, nothing profound, but my random decision to pick up a carry-out menu was unexpectedly productive. Not only did I get some good work done on my novel, I found a great new pizza place with a well-edited beer list, and the folks I talked to gave me some great ideas for some secondary characters I've been struggling with developing. Sometimes, it's the little things that reap the biggest harvests. So, all in all, a good day.

Cheerleading My Way To Krogers

It’s amazing to me the difference a community makes.  Doing something alone has value, to be sure.  However, doing that same thing within a community takes on another dimension of significance.  When I am alone and write, my words and thoughts stop on the page before me.  My friends and family don’t always understand the challenges and triumphs of the process.  It took finding another person who is as engaged and impassioned to realize how meaningful having a support system of other writers is.  They know just what to say to get me over the writing block.  They understand the discipline needed to finish a project.  They appreciate the triumphs of solving a problem.  Whether the writing is poetry, prose, lyrics, or a thesis; the impact of a supportive environment of peers makes is significant.

Joanne approached me with the idea of a “reverse book club” where we would write a book (or other writing project) instead of reading a book.  We would focus on our individual projects, but gain the support of each other.  The idea appealed to me because I’ve been “putzing” around with writing, but didn’t dedicate a specified amount of time toward it.  Much like my exercise routine, if I didn’t do it, nobody would know or care.  Somebody or something needed to keep me honest.  Yeah, I was sold on the idea. 

And so it begins.  The worse-case scenario is that Joanne and I support each other through the rough draft of our respective grocery lists.  Grocery lists that will make you laugh, make you cry, and inspire you to alphabetize your spice rack.  However, I believe that the aforementioned things are just the beginning. 

So...

I've been thinking a lot about our little project today, now that we've fully committed to it. The concept is pretty simple; in order to stave off insanity and malaise, Jen and I have decided to tackle a writing project. Every week, we will meet for a couple of hours to write; whatever we want, however we want. Maybe I will finish one of my NaNo books, or start a new novel, or devise an elaborate new way to script a grocery list. The point is to have a creative outlet, to keep ourselves intellectually stimulated, and to have fun. A reverse book club, if you will, where we will each write a book, rather than read one. Maintaining a blog will hopefully help keep us committed to the project, and we're each going to try to post at least once a week. If others want to join us, that's awesome, but we'll slog on regardless of the headcount.

Joking about our "1/3 life crisis" inspired the name, but I'm finding a deeper meaning in it now. Doing something for yourself that has no external result can seem almost selfish; we won't gain a new skill or lose weight or get a diploma for it. What's left in the space between your work life and your home life? Like a third eye, the writing project is the third life, a place of imagination and creativity. Also, there is coffee.

We hashed the project out today, and I'm excited. Better than that, I'm feeling kind of inspired. I loved my NaNo book concept this year, and completely abandoned it midway through the month, so tomorrow I'm going to dig it out of my hard drive, revisit my plot and rediagram that sucker so that it makes sense.

And if that doesn't work, I can always fall back on the grocery list.

Our Mission

We will meet once per week for two hours to write.  We will write for ourselves, but can write anything (novel, poem, blog, grocery list).  Any one is welcome to join us, no matter where you live.  We're committed to doing this project for one year, and to post regularly on our progress.