The Writing Walls are Crumbling.

Tags

Biden, bipartisan, debate, discussion, left wing, moving forward, right wing, Trump, walls

I have had a very hard time blogging over the past four years. It wasn’t just Donny and his insane cabal but his many followers. I have unfriended many people during this reign, and I have blocked many of them. And I did try to listen. I tried to understand the divide, not just in America but in Canada and around the world . I have teased and ridiculed not only Donny but these followers. I knew converting the mindless was not possible, but they were never my target. I targeted the middle-of-the road centrists, the non-partisan voters who see truth above party politics. Unfortunately, these people tend to be more laissez-faire and vote less than the indoctrinated [on both sides]. Biden winning the vote feels like a victory but a tainted one. We are not in a good place.

Now that we have a change on the horizon, can I dump the farcical memes and get back to arguing with logic? I hope I can. I hope we all can. I would much rather see far-righters and far-lefties write out what they believe and openly discuss their arguments. I would hope we can all sit down quietly, read others’ stances on issues, and work to some consensus. It is this back and forth playing with ideas that moves us forward. It is how I move my writings forward. I don’t write knock-out stories in one go. It takes many tries of pushing that theme or pushing this character or pushing that conflict. All of my best writing has come from pushing into areas I never ended up in. The same is true, I believe, for moving forward in social and political discourse. Life is story, and those of us who write a lot of story can attest that what we think is best almost always is not.

I could not write much about life these past four years because so many have adopted views of life I do not agree with. And no, it is not just the righties. I am anti-government. When governments in my Canada want to implement new programs, I cringe, because I know my government’s debts will rise with no compensating benefit. Too many pay no service at all to our enormous debts.

What do I want to Write About?

The list is long, and I don’t claim to be qualified to write about much of it. But the following is a quick list.

• Socialism
  • what is it?
  • where should social policies fit in a capitalistic society?
  • what do Liberals really want?
  • what are Conservatives afraid of?
• Competition
  • I am for competition, when it makes sense
  • when does competition not make sense?
  • how do we manage non-competitive units so everyone is happy?
• Executive Accountability
  • this is currently a critical problem in not only America but in Canada and around the world
• Taxation
  • does the low-taxation-of-billionaires model make sense?
  • what is the logical management perspective on achieving good government?
  • of course, taxation of expatriates and management of tax fraud.
• Reading and Writing
  • I work at my writing every day. I have many ideas on making writing more interesting and relevant
  • reading is a forgotten skill. We have millions of experts who do not read anything more than Facebook posts or their favorite news headlines
  • how to correctly punctuate lists 😉
• Racial Injustice
  • unfortunately, the list is endless!
• My many other interests: books, fountain pens, inks, poetry, nutrition, diabetes, and more.

There is so much to write about and such little time to do it. I’ve been sitting on my hands for so long, I don’t really know if I can do this. Is Humpty Trumpty falling off the wall enough to get me back into this? But of course I have to write. The only way we’re going to move forward as a civilization is through discourse and debate. I remember when the Berlin Wall started to come down. It was the day my firstborn entered the world. I was so hopeful. The world really did seem to offer a brighter future. But of course we’ve erected replacement walls, and unfortunately we always will. I think the purpose of my writing and many other blogs has to be the dismantling of walls. These ideological walls need to crumble.

Blizzard

Tags

blizzard, chronic pain, shoulder pain, sleep deprivation, weather

I write this from the middle of a blizzard, our second in four days. I don’t use the term blizzard lightly, but I live in a winter storm belt and 30 plus centimeter (1ft) snowfalls are common. The National Weather Service defines a blizzard as a storm which contains large amounts of snow OR blowing snow, with winds in excess of 35 mph and visibilities of less than 1/4 mile for an extended period of time (at least 3 hours). Being unable to see the road from a sidewalk is not unheard of. The image below is from two years ago.

 

My life the past few months has been blizzardy. In August 2016 I somehow partially tore a tendon in my shoulder. I’ve lived with nearly constant pain since then. It is not intense pain but it wears on you. The worst part is trying to sleep. An arm hangs straight when I sit or stand, and the tendon likes that. But lie down and the arm wants to move sideways or backwards. Ouch. Most of my sleeps have been two-hour sessions, and I wake in stiffness and pain. I stay up for a couple of hours, try to write, let the pain dissipate, and go back to bed for hopefully two more hours sleep. I’ve slept six hours maybe three times in the last six months.

Lack of sleep is an insidious condition. It slows your thinking, your memory, and your concentration. Writing, editing, thinking, learning, exploring a poem, whatever I try to do is impacted negatively. Yet somehow I finished NaNoWriMo, Robert Brewer’s November Chapbook Challenge, have written at least a poem a week, have studied poetry, and have edited some of my novel. Short sessions. Even now my mind drifts back to my throbbing shoulder.

Then there was the election. The election affects my novel as my story is set in Canada’s political environment. It is a trip across the nation and explores various protests, the divide between left and right. It is not so much a political book, but it is. It was written when this extremist divide was more or less defined in my head. left likes this; right likes that. But now President Trump has thrown a bag of hammers into the political machinery. I struggle with trying to understand him, people who support him, and people who defend him. I struggle with the left too but on a more purely ideological scale. The question of whether my story is relevant haunts me, and it has hobbled my progress.

I think it is still valid, and in many ways I think my message is more relevant than ever. I’ve been through reader feedback and am now reading to myself aloud.  I am up to page 65 of 303 in my Word document, and I hope today I might knock off a hundred more pages.

Anyway, I wrote a poem this week after the last blizzard ravaged us. I had originally written it with longer lines, but it didn’t work very well. Too much wallowing image and emotion and not enough tension, so I busted it into short, tight lines. I had it all in one stanza, but I do have some logical breaks in scenery. I don’t know if it will speak to you, but it speaks to me. I have lived through at least one blizzard a year for the last 46 years.

Oh, and the shoulder is slowly improving. Motion is up, MRI was definite, and back to physio today if the storm lets me.

Blizzard

a biblical plague
snowballs from
the fists of God
smack you in the face
the wind sucks
the breath from your lungs
a frozen sneeze
spraying your world
the howling ghosts
of dead trains

slippery footing
hobbling
plunging bodies
shoulders lean into
conflicted heat differentials
slams you hard
into the boards
grabs your collar
throws straight punches
tight knuckles

a father and son
killed
the New Jersey Turnpike
doesn’t care
if you are hunkered and afraid
the raid comes
brave cower
the regretfully stupid
quantum motion
of infinite chaos

the day before
calm
wet and clammy
you could smell it
coming up the coast
throbbing temples
filled with supplicants
refugees
nobody lays claim to
a blizzard

The front window view at 6:20AM

Editing Lessons

I’ve concluded that when I write during NaNoWriMo that I write complete and utter crap.

That’s not true. Since June 27th I’ve edited almost 20,000 words of my novel. I haven’t spent nearly the hours I’ve wanted to on it, but I’ve gone through more than I expected to. This last sentence should tell you I’ve written a lot of good words.

My words were lousy. I can’t believe how bad they were. My character cursed a blue streak on every other page, she talked and acted like a drunken whore, and my prose was riddled with multiple, meaningless one, short, nonsensical sentences.

My general ideas, my plot lines if you will, mostly all remained. I’m up to 38 labeled and edited scenes, and I can recall deleting only four. I’ve kept about 90% of my work, not my words but my work.

Each scene has been a challenge. The workflow has gone something like the following.
– begin reading
– feel sick about my writing
– play Zynga Poker, make some coffee, or weed my garden
– finish reading it
– start slashing, rewriting, slap myself in head
– WRITE AN OUTLINE
– cut the words that don’t fit my new outline
– fill in the gaps
– play Zynga Poker, make some coffee, or weed my garden
– sleep, drink wine or whiskey, maybe eat
– exercise (2hrs a day for last four)
– re-read and expand on tension, character, plot, and scenery
– re-read and ‘listen’ for gaps
– fill in holes
– re-read and listen to voice
– fill in holes

Simple, huh?

My story is taking shape as a story. I realize the first dump i merely an emotional outline. I am not disregarding those initial emotions, but I am not being lenient either. My delete key is highly used. My total word count since the 27th has gone from 100,518 up to a high of 101,879 and down to a current 99,742. I’m 67% through my first edit with 32,717 left to hack and slash.

It’s been bloody hot and humid all week. Yeah, suck it up Canuck, you might say. 85F – 90F is nothing you say. Well, you probably have air conditioning. Barely anybody in my town even owns one. Two months from now we’ll be looking for our first frost.

I still think I have a best seller, but I need a good editor. Someone who knows how to finish a book properly. The story is … Yup, I know I have a story here. Back to work … back to learning this craft the hard way, the only way 😉

Reality Catches Up With You

Tags

cape split, fundy, Marin, novel, Writing

Knowing my novel might take forever to finish and longer to get published, I wrote it in the future so that it wouldn’t become outdated as fast. Sensical, right? But eventually, given enough time, real time catches up to fictional time. This is that weekend. The scene I finished this morning during my first-draft editing process happens tomorrow.

An interesting fact: in my story, today is a rainy day. In real life: today is a rainy day. Tomorrow in my story the sun comes out in Nova Scotia. It might yet do that.

But it’s a rather cool experience. It’s motivating to see and feel world-paths cross like this.

My main character is an artist, a painter. Tomorrow morning she will paint Cape Split, the Canadian version, from accross the bay. It’s allegorical. Politics. Enough.

Here’s some links to the real life image:


Google Maps
Cape Split – John Marin in Maine

A Writing Vacation

Tags

goals, objectives, schedule, targets, to do, vacation, Writing

I think I want to become recognized as a writer, as someone who makes their living by writing and not as someone who simply writes for the joy of it. I want writing to be the name of my next career. I want a business card that says writer.

I think I want these things. I’ve said many times in my life that I want to be something or want to do something, and then the bling dulls, and I move on to something else.

I have written much, though, in the last six years. I have made about fifteen thousand posts in various diabetes forums, I write Facebook posts every day, often lengthy, I respond to many nutrition and diabetes articles, I write letters to editors, I write a few blog posts about diabetes, I write my new blog daily, I write 750 or more words every day at 750Words.com, I write poems and short stories at Writing.com where I also review others’ work, and I have two novels in progress from the last two NaNoWriMo events. I also belong to a writing group and a book club. I may start a new writing group this fall at our local library. My word counts for the past six years amount to

–          Forums:               15,000 x 50             = 750,000
–          WDC writing:                                      =      5,000
–          WDC: reviews          750 x 110             =   82,500
–          Novels:                                               = 175,000
–          Letters:                   20 * 1000             =    20,000
–          750Words                                            = 205,000
–          Blogs:                    30 * 1000              =    30,000

Let’s see. This adds up to an estimated 1,267,500 written words in six years. I’m also being somewhat conservative. How many words have I deleted? How many letters and reviews have I written 2,500 words in? My WDC counts might be much higher. Whatever the real count is doesn’t really matter too much. What counts is I’ve written my million words, and I should be ready to take a next step from a quantity perspective.

The next step I’d like to try is actually being a full-time writer, that is, spend some time behaving like a writer. I want to try it out, see if I can do it, see if I can live the hard writing life. I have three weeks of vacation time coming up in July, and if I can free my mind of other crap – money stuff – then I want to spend this time being a professional writer.

*I made good progress on my paperwork backlog today.

There are considerations to make. When does my right brain work best, and when should I do my creative writing? When should I read and how much? When should I write my directed writing such as this blog and handing out free advice to those noncompliant diabetics around the world?

Consult the experts, of course.

Writer’s Digest has some cool resources, and another article discussing building a schedule.

Here’s how I plan to behave during weekdays.

–          4am: wake up, make coffee, and read news, email, social media, and some poetry
–          5am: work on my novels
–          10am: breakfast followed by some yard and garden work and/or exercise
–          12pm: read
–          1pm: nap
–          3pm: make coffee and write my 750
–          4pm: write daily blog post
–          5pm: choose: Anything but reading, writing, and computer. Eat.
–          7pm: work on novels
–          10pm: read
–          11pm: bed

Time:
Novel s – 8hrs
Read – 3hrs
Misc Writing – 2hrs

These are thirteen hour writing days. It doesn’t feel like enough time.  I may have to cut back blogging and miscellaneous writing days. I can’t cut back on napping if I’m up so early. I could cut back on food and family time. Yah, right.

I write best creatively when my mind is free and fresh which means after sleeping. I’ve written some of my best work in the evenings after an early nap as well as in the early mornings. Alcohol has also helped before, so I will likely indulge in some wine and whiskey, not too much.

I am in my first edit, and I’ve already made some tough decisions about my story. I’ve kept most of it so far, but I have also changed a lot. The story is now out of the opening phase and into the middle game. It’s a travel story with much promise of becoming tedious and boring: step, step, step, step, step. Gagh!  I have challenges in making it interesting and meaningful while staying fresh and clean. It’s all part of the process.

Setting a firm schedule should help, though. I find I often fail to sit down and write because I know the mental work will be very tough.

My directed writing can’t be set aside. I need to write blogs and reviews and responses to idiots that call themselves scientists. I have fire inside me that needs to flame hot. But I need to control it, limit it. With a full day at the keyboard, hopefully I can balance it all and make it all work.

I’m not sure about weekends.  I really should write then too. I feel I should make it a full 24 x 7 job for these three weeks. I really want a completed draft of #2 and I’d like a good start on revising #1. I’m advanced quite a bit, I think, since I worked on #1, so there may be much re-write. I also need to sort out the plot: logical, realistic, believable, etc and tie in to the character empathy. I’d really like both ready to read by the end of the summer, and #2 ready to read by the end of my vacation.

Then I need to begin on #3 for NaNoWriMo. I want this year’s to be a serious effort all planned and ready to go. I want to know where I’m going for a change. I want that voice screaming to come out and I want to sit down November first and write that next killer novel in a single draft. I know it’s not possible, but that’s where I want to be November 1.

Sigh. This sounds a lot like work; which of course is why I’m planning these sessions. I want, but want is only fulfilled through hard work. Yes, my three weeks of vacation will be spent working.

Cafés

Tags

Literary, Writing

Café is one of those words that creates visions. It might be an bright outdoor restaurant on a hot summer afternoon or a dark and cold wood clad hovel behind some grungy door on a back street. Today one can easily see signs of café in various coffee shops. Here in Canada we’re inundated with drive-through Tim Hortons and a growing number of Starbucks and independant shops. I suppose if you serve coffee as it’s own offering — as opposed to after a large expensive meal — then you are a café. Size might matter too. I can’t picture a 300 seat café.

I’ve been trying to write in cafés. Tim Hortons is off my list; because I need internet access. I want internet access. My files are on DropBox, and while I can work on them unconnected, it will force me to synch up before I work on them elsewhere. I’m a forgetful procrastinator.

Starbucks is an okay choice. I like their coffee and they serve heavy whipping cream. Their connection suffices. There is not a lot of seating in them, and finding a quiet corner is challenging. I have written at two of them, and it’s a choice I’ll make again.

I’ve tried a local shop called Java Moose (JM). My problem here is they have too many lounge chairs and don’t serve heavy cream. I hate 10% cream in my coffees — John is on a high fat, Dr. Richard Bernstein, Paleo/Primal diet. Usually at JM I will read. Reading, by the way, is necessary for writing, so it’s not a waste of time.

While in Newfoundland in late 2010 I spent a lot of time in a shop called Hava Java. They had good coffee and atmosphere. I liked it a lot. I didn’t care for the food, though. I don’t do sweets or vegan. But we got along. They stayed open late at night, something JM here doesn’t do.

I’ve chatted with Randy at JM, an owner, but he’s not interested in specialized creams. It sounds like way too much trouble for him. Sorry Randy, but the customer is always right. I bring my own cream in, and I now buy my beans from Beamish Creek.

Lst night I tried a little café downtown called The Magnolia Café. It sounds nice. It’s paired with a restaurant called The Bourbon Quarter, and they serve food and drink from it. I ordered a wine, a plate of beef strips shaped like a flower, then a coffee. $17 and two hours later I’d written my 750 words at 750words.com and edited half a chapter of my novel. It felt free and easy in there, but it didn’t feel … fun.

I think cafés need to feel fun. They need happy, joyful people in front of and behind the counter. They need people that laugh and smile and make you feel good. Age really doesn’t matter, but I don’t complain about all the young people at most cafés. I don’t complain about the old people either. Smiling and laughing makes you feel good and makes the people around you feel good. I feel good about the people that visit Starbucks and Java Moose. They will talk back to you when you say hello and ask them what they are reading. The people at Tims are more likely to be harvested as antagonists in my novels, and nobody there reads. The people at Magnolia were sullen and dull. Sorry, but you were.

I guess Starbucks it is, until something new opens up, a place that serves beautiful coffee, heavy cream, and a selection of real and natural foods, a place with real and natural people, and a place that is fun to be in and write in.