Ah, in a reflective mood. Louis Armstrong is perfect for such mornings.
A Year
It’s been a year since I collected my last IBM paycheck.
I expected a lot of changes in that year. I’ve been disappointed.
One bitter reason for wanting to leave IBM was my unhappiness of how callously we were treated as individuals. That’s my perception. Others may not share it. The work had become routine and boring. I was rarely engaged, and my circle of involvement seemed to be shrinking. So, I was receiving less validation that I was worthwhile to the company or that anyone there appreciated my work or efforts. Hence, I wanted to leave. When they offered me the choice, I took it.
Yet, being freed from employment didn’t do anything to enhance my sense of validation. If anything, the solitary habits I employ and my social awkwardness remain, so I’m just as out there on my own now as I was when I was employed, and experience even less evaluation. It’s tested my strength and determination.
I thought my writing career would take off. It hasn’t. I didn’t appreciate the hard work required to not just prepare a book to publish but also to market. I naively thought, “If I write it, they will come.”
My year of being unemployed, the first since I was seventeen, taught me how much I require structure, goals and a vision to keep me moving forward. I’ve been forced to re-evaluate what I’d established in the past that helped me succeed, and create new structures, goals and a vision. That’s all still in progress. I also needed to educate myself more about the writing business, something also underway. Frankly, it’s wearying.
In thinking about all of this, I resolved, “I will do better.” It’s a big poster in my mind, glowing at me all the time. “I will do better.”
Today’s writing session is finished. I only wrote about fifteen hundred words and edited some. The novel is becoming hugely busy. I reached the point that I felt like a puppet master getting entangled in his puppets’ strings. Pacing across the coffee shop with impatience and frustration, I gazed out the window and recognized, I need to stop today. Regroup and marshal my energies and intentions to proceed. It’s a complex novel, with complicated plots and societies, set in the future, with unique words, and yada, yada, yada.
Those of you who write will totally understand.
Today’s Theme Music
One of my most enjoyable experiences while in the military came during my assignment to Okinawa. I was stationed at Kadena Air Base.
I became good friends with Jeff, who arrived almost at the same time. We were in command and control. Both assigned to the Military Airlift Command for the first time, Jeff had come out of the Strategic Air Command, probably the most intense Air Force command regarding command and control, because they were a large part of the nuclear deterrent triad. So Jeff thought MAC was pretty laid back. Compared to SAC, it was.
Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) ran facilities at Okuma Beach for the military to use. Jeff had two young boys. He would go camping. I would tag along. Sometimes others would go with us. It was great, grilling all weekend, tossing around baseballs, swimming, a wonderfully relaxing time. My wife didn’t like camping, so she didn’t go, declaring, “My idea of roughing it is no mints on the pillows.” The one time she did go, a typhoon was moving in, blowing our tent over while we tried to sleep.
Situated where it was on the island in the East China Sea, Okuma suffered little light pollution. It was great to put down a blanket, look up at the clear, bright stars, listen to the surf and think.
Our music of the time was dominated by Toto IV, an usual rock album that did very well. One frequently planned song was ‘Africa’.
Here it is.
Protocol Three
Pram has declared Protocol Three. You know what that means: the sierra is encountering the rotating blades.
Meanwhile, Handley and company have found their target. Fermenting in my brain cells for several weeks, I’m looking forward to writing these scenes; their plans are going disastrously awry, and they’re ignorant of what is about to happen. Love writing my characters into disasters and confrontations. Some, like Tang’s confrontation with Pram, I never see coming. Such surprising encounters are engaging, especially when they organically develop from just letting the characters carry the scene and be themselves. And then, what happened next astonished me but made absolute sense from the characters’ POV. Very cool.
After this is written, it’s back to Forus Ker, Seth Nor and the Humans, where they’ve been killing Brett, and Philea and the Wrinkle, where she’s meeting Forus Ker and Seth Nor. I can see and hear these scenes so clearly, I’m impatient to write them, but I don’t want to be hasty. Relax, I order myself; they’ll be written.
The common rule of thumb for movies is that one page equals one minute of screen time. That’s what I learned but The Working Screenwriter says, “Not so,” and gives specifics of movie scripts and running times. Anyway, I’ve noticed that scenes and dialogue take place in my head very quickly. I’ll visualize and realize them in thirty to ninety seconds.
Great, right? So they all pile on, scene after scene after scene. But writing these thirty to ninety second one bites takes a few days of writing and editing, and typically require two or three days. One, I’ll often write to capture the essence. Then I return to pad it with relevant details. In parallel, I’m editing and revising for pacing, grammar, sentence structure, et cetera. Then, I also find that something realized during the writing of such scenes trigger an impact on another scene. Sometimes that scene is already written and needs revision to add the tidbit.
The other scenes then must be held in my head or scribbled onto a notebook page, or have a brief entry typed up in a doc. All those paths fortunately work for me. Sometimes one of them stumbles but I find that with a little work, they start making sense again.
So much to write, so little time. Three…two…one. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Today’s Theme Music
A new FM radio station was launched in SF when I lived in the area. Part of a national development, the station was called Alice, KLLC. They played what I guess would be called light adult contemporary music.
I liked KLLC, especially the morning show, with Sarah and Vinnie. That abruptly ended one morning; Vinnie was gone.
Anyway, a song that received a lot of air time was ‘Cornflake Girl’ by Tori Amos. The song came out in 1993. I retired from the USAF in 1995 and started working for an startup coronary angioplasty company. Hearing this song one day at work, I asked several twenty-somethings that I worked with, “What’s a cornflake girl?” I didn’t know. They snickered and didn’t answer.
I didn’t know what a raisin girl was, either, but didn’t bother asking that trio of information, the only young folks that I worked with or knew at that time. This was before Google and the net as we know it today. Looking it up or finding the answer was difficult. It pissed me off that they wouldn’t answer. Oh, well.
Well, now I know.
Me
I might die today, or maybe tomorrow. I may have already died and just don’t know it. I can be slow on noticing things sometimes.
Meanwhile, I’ll drink my wine, coffee and beer, overeat and chastise myself, do what I think I need to do, and live as I think I need to live. I’m not worrying about regrets or what I will or will not achieve, what others conceive of me, nor wasting time.
I’m just going to be me, obnoxious and lazy as I sometimes am, procrastinating, stupidly drunk, focused and solitary, standing on the edge, wandering and wondering.
The March Yesterday
The southern Oregon’s women march was yesterday, January 21st, 2017.
I participated by being there and walking, trying to be supportive of women and others worried about their rights and freedom. Because, sorry, when I fought for freedom and equality, it included everyone. There were and are no buts, exceptions, exclusions, or doubts. Also, the Trump agenda seems to be releasing a chaos of hatred, bigotry and sexism, things that I endured in my youth, crap that we were moving past. I don’t want to move ‘back’ to anything; I want to keep moving forward as a world, taking everyone with us to a better existence for everyone. Call me idealistic or romantic, but I grew up on science fiction shows and literature in which we did find a better future. So blame popular culture for creating me.
Besides that, I worry about anyone who begins talking about ‘alternate facts’. As a writer, I call that fiction. It’s all right as fiction, but it doesn’t do anyone any good when it’s our government using ‘alternate facts’.
I was expecting about two thousand people at our Ashland march. I was off.
About eight thousand people, according to the Ashland police, participated in the march in Ashland, population about twenty grand. (Now I’m reading that the Ashland police estimated that it was fifteen thousand, and that traffic was backed up onto the Interstate with cars trying to get into town.) People came from other parts of southern Oregon and northern California to participate. I didn’t witness anything hateful, just determination about rights, equality and justice. Although the temperature nudged to just forty-eight F when the clouds parted enough for the sun, and it rained, the march had an exuberant, energetic, positive aura.
Some call it a protest, but I call it an assemblage and an exercising of civic rights, even civic duties. If we do not agree with the politics, practices and policies of our elected officials at any level, we should be determined and brave enough to voice our differences without resorting to violence or being fearful of retributions. Changes rarely begin at our highest echelons of society, government and finance. Those levels usually have the most to lose in a change of the status quo. Change typically begins with grass root movements as people raise their voices and state their concerns and insist on change.
So raise your voice, no matter where you reside on the spectrum, or who you believe to be right and wrong. Let’s debate these questions with the civility they deserve. As one citizen to another, as one human to another, I ask that you not be hateful about this, and that you don’t resort to violence and name-calling. I ask that you use facts, and not any alternatives. The United States and other democracies remain a great experiment. There will be setbacks, detours, and red herrings, but let’s keep moving it forward, and give other generations a chance to continue this great experiment.
Cheers
How Much Editing Is Enough?
I discovered at work (in those days) the importance of editing. So many emails flew through the work threads with terrible grammar, spelling or punctuation. I would think a little less of those people for them; then I would see one such error in my email, and think a little less of myself….
It’s worse with books. When I’m reading something, encountering spelling, punctuation or grammatical errors, or awkward sentence structures propels me right out of the book.
You’ve had a request for your complete manuscript from an agent or editor. Suddenly your mouth goes dry. Your knees are shaky. Is your manuscript REALLY ready for prime time?
OR
Let’s say you’re a DIY person, and you publish yourself through Amazon or Smashwords, or some other self publishing organ. Will your readers toss your book in disgust because it’s so amateurishly edited?
OR
Maybe you’re hyper-anal or compulsive, and you don’t know when to stop the editing process. When, exactly, is enough enough?
To my mind there’s no “exactly” possible; it’s my contention that there’s never been a perfect novel or non-fiction book written. Still, don’t use that as an excuse to take a lazy approach to editing.
Some newbie writers don’t much care for the editing process; it’s not where the creative process is, they will tell you. And some high-dollar writers feel this way, too. But editing can…
View original post 672 more words
Today’s Theme Music
A co-worker hated this song, hated it.
The song is ‘Torn’, as covered by the Australian, Natalie Imbruglia. A stanza includes the words, “Lying naked on the floor.” This always send Louise into head-shaking disapproval.
“She’s lying naked on the floor. That’s disgusting.”
“But it’s not — ”
“Disgusting!”
“But it’s — ”
“No. That is so gross.”
Guess Louise is a germaphobe.
Here it is, from 1997, ‘Torn’.
Today’s Theme Music
Nancy Sinatra was brought up in my memories this week. She was quite popular among the neighborhood girls when I was young and living in Wilkinsburg, PA. Hullabaloo was a big hit then. Mini-skirts and white go-go boots were in. Young girls liked to put Nancy’s song on and dance on chairs as go-go dancers.
From 1966, here is ‘These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.
Michael Seidel, writer 