Month: February 2017

Today’s Theme Music

Today’s song came out of a 1975 Art Garfunkel album, ‘Breakaway’. My wife and I loved this album. We owned it on cassette and it was a regular road trip album.

There were a lot of road trips in those days. I had completed basic training and tech school the year before. Now, in 1975, I was assigned to my first duty assignment, HQ AFLC at Wright-Patterson AFB. My wife was still in high school in a neighboring state. I broke Air Force rules to jump into my 1968 Camaro and drive down to see her. She moved in with me, and we married in August of 1975.

‘Breakaway’ is rich with memorable songs for us. ‘The Waters of March’ is the one selected for today’s theme music. Written by Antonio Carlos Jobim about the rainstorms of Rio de Jainero in March, it’s been covered by many. Wonderful versions are out there. But I selected the Garfunkel version for its personal connection.

A mellow, meditative performance, it’s a good song to stream in your head while walking around in the rain.

 

 

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Hey Writers, Are You Writing?

I’m always questioning if one thousand words a day is sufficient for my writing output, whether I should be writing every day, and if my writing process of a few hours each day is sufficient. A few other bloggers have addressed the question and basically decided one to two thousand words a day is their normal output.

But restless last night and this morning, I searched for other writers’  opinions about these matters.

Isaac Asimov, author of over five hundred books, wrote every day. He used a simple writing style, and he didn’t care about critics. Those were essentially his three rules, according to the post.

So there you have it. Write every day. Thank you, Isaac.

Now Novel had some information from J.K. Rowling. “One of J.K. Rowling’s most famous quotes is: “Sometimes you have to get your writing done in spare moments here and there.”” That’s a good reminder for how fortunate I am to be able to carve out and dedicate time to novel writing. My wife is very supportive in this, and that helps a helluva lot.

Aerogramme’s Writers’ Studios offer thirteen quotes on writing from Octavia Butler. My favorite:

“And I have this little litany of things they can do. And the first one, of course, is to write – every day, no excuses. It’s so easy to make excuses. Even professional writers have days when they’d rather clean the toilet than do the writing.”

Every day! Thank you, Ms Butler. She’s one of my favorite authors. Selfishly, I wished she’d not died so young (fifty-four) and suddenly, because I want to read more from her. I’m thankful that she wrote and published what she did.

In Diane Prokop’s post about Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon, she includes this quote from him:

“I work roughly five or six hours a day, five to six days a week, and I try to get a thousand words per session, a thousand new words. I don’t count rewrites.”

Rewrites and editing count against my time slot. I’m beginning to suspect that’s a problem, that I should be setting aside another period to do these matters. I like the way Chabon puts this, “I try to get a thousand words per session.”  That leaves some latitude.

From this search born of angst and self-examination, I returned to my touchstone of belief about writing: find what works for you and do it. That means that I write almost every day, probably not writing a week to ten days a year due to illness, travel or interruptions, like power outages and snow storms. I try to get over a thousand words per session. I don’t use word counts as the whip to keep going any longer. They worked well in the beginning but I discarded them. But if I’m thinking about quitting on a day because I don’t seem to be getting anything done, I’ll undertake a word count. If it’s below nine hundred, I order myself to go on.

Usually.

Smile.

Time to write drink a four shot mocha and write like crazy, at least one more time.

Into the madness!

 

 

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Today’s Theme Music

I rode the surf from yesterday’s catchy and memorable song (what was it again?) to today’s.

What I remember best about this was that it was one of many forty-five RPM records my sister owned. We had the little plastic spindle adapter that allowed this to be played on the thirty-three’s spindle. Otherwise, you put on the larger forty-five plastic adapter, which reminded me of a red and gray toilet paper roll. The record’s label was orange, which I think was Decca. The song was ubiquitous, true for many Beach Boys songs at the time.

Here, from 1965, ‘California Girls’.

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Where the Sun Shines Through

He’s missing from his post, by the window, where the sun shines through every day. I’m used to him raising his head and turning to look at me as I pass. He appears on the young side, young enough that he awakens when someone walks past his window.

Once in a while, as he looks, he yawns, or stretches. He usually just gives me a wide-eyed curious glance devoid of fear but rich with interest. Sometimes he lifts his nose and his whiskers move, as though he’s trying to smell me.

All black, he’s long-haired and a very handsome beast. I refer to him but he could be she, which makes no difference in his looks or behavior.

I don’t know his name. He’s never given it. I’ve not given mine, either. He looks at me, and I smile and nod at him as I pass by.

He’s not in his post, by the window, where the sun shines through every day, today. I imagine him elsewhere, maybe with his people, in the other room, visiting with them because he’s happy they’re home.

Or maybe he’s in the other room, looking for them, wondering where they went and when they’ll be back.

Or perhaps he’s just decided that he’s found a better place to sleep than his post, by the window, where the sun shines through every day.

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Dream-Peat

I dreamed three dreams last night. There were repeats of dreams I’ve dreamed before. Like watching a movie more often, more details have developed, or are noticed and retained.

The dreams involve me to different degrees. I’m heavily involved in the first dream, less involved in the second one, and I’m almost phased out wholly by the third. The third dream is mostly about black women getting on an aircraft. The aircraft is a C-5 Galaxy. They’re happy and excited about a journey they’re about to take. I’m happy and excited for them, too, but most of my involvement is listening to them and seeing close-up shots of all those happy people going on a journey.

The first one, that so involved me, was mostly adventure. About me and a group escaping, and then exploring, the dream begins after the escape. I don’t know what we’re escaping. The group is small. We find a cold, icy place to stay until we’re rescued. Once we’re in that place, we discover there are items left behind, and that we’re in what was once a military post. Then we learn the post isn’t entirely abandoned. Little by little, we slip in and integrate, making use of things we see the military using. The military isn’t malicious or anything; they’re simply there, going about their business as it’s been on so many military bases I visited.

No family was in the dream. So it goes. I never feel threatened or frightened in the dream. I’m a little wary initially but that changes quickly as I relax and gain confidence. By the end, when I’m using the military’s stuff, part of them but not one of them, I’m a confident leader.

The second dream is a lame sequel to the first, almost like a set-up to the third. There’s abstract discussions about what happened – “We survived, we found this place, now we can help others” – and sort of a montage of things like that being done. Then, it’s on to the third dream.

I write about the dreams to understand them. Frankly, I don’t. They seem hopeful but beyond that, I can sketch any number of meanings to them. All those meetings would have strength, weakness, logic and flaws to my interpretations. I sometimes think I should devote more time to understanding them but I see that as a major investment in time. I like to guard my time and routines.

Which brings me around to my conclusion. Do my dreams need to have significance, meanings, or portends to other matters? Perhaps it’s sufficient to accept, I dreamed. My mind has cleared some clutter from my thinking. Maybe it’s like organizing the attic; “Oh, here we have some leftover stuff. Where should we put it?” “Stick it in a dream.” “Oh, okay.”

It’s odder and a little more intriguing that I have repeat dreams. Do I have some frozen synapses causing the same images, sounds, ideas and stories to circulate through my mind? Such thoughts trigger comparisons to similarities in my writing. I often address time, memory, reality, technology and alienation in my fiction writing, whether it’s the mystery series or the science-fiction novels.

This leads to insights and suspicions. Perhaps I need more outside input and stimulus. I’m in ruts of living and writing, constrained by others’ health issues, concerns and worries, and have been for some time. Perhaps my dreams are a reflection of my ‘real’ situation, and that’s why they’re repeating, and why I’m so little involved. I’m often a spectator within my own life, another rider on the train.

Not too long ago, I read an article about a woman who often fantasizes during the day. Her pattern of thought developed when she was a child but she realized she continued them as an adult, and that they were connected to regular activities. She recognized that when she does certain activities, she likewise engages in fantasies, and they’re often the same or similar fantasies.

Becoming more interested in what she was doing and why, she searched for evidence that others were doing something like this, and found she wasn’t alone in this habit.

Well, I could have told her that; I also do this.

At first, this behavior was helpful in falling asleep. I engage it and knew it as a way to shut off my brain so I could sleep and rest. Later, I extended it and began engaging to turn off my brain from other issues. I’ve always recognized it as a coping practice to de-stress, but they’re also a way to engage my subconscious mind to think, develop solutions and ideas. These fantasies are harmless, about designing survival places, trains or ships, but I can see parallels to my dreams, and to my fiction writing practices.

In a curious way, I begin to view myself as a pie. Then we can slice me up into my various activities and realms – writing, sleeping and dreaming, walking and living, interacting with others. When I begin doing that, I can see how the whole fits together in a larger pattern. I can see my limitations and frustrations, and how they manifest themselves through fiction writing, daytime activity fantasies, and yes, nocturnal dreams. I can see how other dreams were wish-fulfillment that I matter more than I do, that I have a starring role in something, somewhere, that I am not just another blink of consciousness among the trillions of blinks on Earth.

For better or worse, the dreams are part of the whole necessary to complete me. That isn’t a permanent or complete answer, nor even a deep insight. It’s just another glimpse of an entity and a life.

It just happens to be a very personal view.

 

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Today’s Theme Music

This song popped into my head yesterday while cleaning in the bathroom.

I don’t know why.

I rarely understand what causes the selections that stream into my iBrain for me to watch, hear and think about. It’s a bona fide mystery.

But it’s a fun tune, a bit older, of course. I know it from the movie, ‘Earth Girls Are Easy’. That was released in 1988. Let’s see, call it a romantic, science-comedy with musical overtones. It was an astonishing cast: Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, Charles Rocket, Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans, with others.

This song is ‘Cause I’m A Blonde’, by Downtown Julie Brown.

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The Flight

I often have a very good general idea of what I’m about to write when I sit down to write it. That’s due to process; I typically write in my head before I sit down and visualize the piece. I do this with more than just fiction, but with almost everything that I write.

But, with fiction writing, I notice that sometimes I’ve written so much in my head that I’m a little disappointed with needing to physically write it. I also become a little lost, because, hey, it’s written in my head. Therefore, it already exists in some form.

In those instances when this happens, I drift on the eddies of my thinking and writing, just flowing along. I’m not on a stream of water but a stream of air, a kite on the breeze, wings extended, looking over the terrain. Then, seeing something, it circles back and dives.

I feel like that bird. Circling, the place where I want to begin writing is my target. If I don’t try thinking about it but instead let it return to me yesterday, then it often arrives with a powerful rush. Then, like a kite, I dive in on my target.

So it was today. Four hundred fifty pages are done. Six chapters, six of the first seven chapters of Part III, are being written in parallel. The seventh was written about six weeks ago. As the story comes on more fully realized in my thinking, I jump back into other scenes to correct details, add set-up exposition, or nuance something to foreshadow events. I’d written so much of these six chapters yesterday in my mind, though, because there were there even after I stopped for the day. They stories go on even though I’ve stopped writing. Then, I added and edited later in my head, making mental notes to myself about revisions.

That’s how it happens when I’m writing with the flow. The story is so real that I feel like I can turn and walk through a door and be in the place, or turn on the television and see it, or even pick up the book, open it, and begin reading.

Sometimes I become a little disconcerted with this. Confusion sets in as to whether I already wrote it or someone else wrote it and I’m just remembering their work.

Nevertheless, I love this organic style of writing, jumping back and forth through the stories and novel as it’s all played in my mind. It’s sweetly beautiful and amazing to visualize, hear and known. It’s something that others struggle to do. I’m sure engineers, physicists, mathematicians and software coders do something similar, along with writers, artists and musicians. Others, though, I know from conversations, are awed that it happens, that all these details can be imagined and experienced as real and then put onto something tangible that can be shared with others. It is, as our POTUS would say, a great, great, beautiful thing.

The skill, or ability, didn’t come overnight, though, which amuses me. I’ve worked on this like a batter hitting a fastball, an artist learning how to observe and interpret, a student musician, or physicists and philosophers contemplating existence. I’m always working on it but I fail as a writer to convey the fun and satisfaction of seeing, creating and meeting the challenge of realizing fiction.

Done writing for now. It was a great day of writing like crazy. Now I must go clean the shower.

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Today’s Theme Music

I was sent on a secret mission this morning. I’d tell you about it but I assume that if you’re reading this, you understand what secret means. Perhaps I’ve erred.

Naturally I needed secret mission theme music. The world abounds with such music but I dropped back to an early favorite. The TV show, ‘Secret Agent Man’ with Patrick McGoohan, played in the US in the mid 1960s. Dad was back in the country for a period then, and I remember watching the show while visiting him at my grandparents’ house.

Here it is, that 1966 hit, Johnny Rivers singing ‘Secret Agent Man’.

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Personal Windows

Friends, prompted by curious, started grilling me about some of my past life the other night. Those were my super-secret military days.

Since their questioning, I’ve drifted along currents of wonder about living amidst change and how small our windows of knowledge truly seem. Change is fast and constant. The military commands I worked in thirty years ago no longer exist; the weapons systems introduced during my career are being retired. Bases have been shuttered. They’re trying to retire the nukes I once controlled (a good thing, in my mind). God knows what’s going on in space.

I ended up in a medical start-up after my military career, first in sales operations, running customer service and spewing out reports about sales trends. We were part of a nascent business, per-cutaneous transvascular coronary angioplasty, moving into stent delivering systems for coronary applications and radiation therapy to cope with re-stenosis. After that, I moved on to another company in search of ways to cope with chronic total occlusions.

Life found me in Internet and computer security in my next phase, and then onto analytics. Whatever. I drifted through choices, jumping through windows when the opportunities arose, and was fortunate to have someone on the other side of those windows to pull me in and show me around.

The windows in our lives are always so small. They open and close so quickly. Technology accelerates the speed with which the windows open and close. For examples, consider how we now conduct war versus how it was conducted in decades and centuries past. Consider how we make, experience and enjoy music, and how we entertain ourselves. Yet, each window and moment is treated as though this is a permanent solution. Consider the plight of the coal industry, for example. They think it can be legislated back but technology and market forces have moved past them.

We, as humans, can only see and understand so far, and we argue and debate about what we see, what it means and what we need to do about it. Yet, each person’s life is defined by their personal windows. These are shaped by their culture, heritage, education, genetics and personal experiences, yes, but they’re also shaped by much larger forces. We often barely glimpse the shadow of such forces.

Sometimes – no, hell, often – I think we’re going around understanding the world backward; we believe reality shapes us, and we investigate how we shape it.

Maybe we shape reality. Maybe there is no past or future, there is only the window into Now.

Jump through it and keep on going.

 

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