Amicatable (catfinition) – a friendly feline.
In use: “Blue is amicatable, greeting strangers on the street with purring confidence and a raised tail.”
Friday’s Bumper Sticker
I know some cats that might disagree with this bumper sticker’s sentiment. Then again, they probably won’t disagree, because they would need to acknowledge that they failed. Everyone knows that cats never admit that they failed. They always act cool, and claim, “Yeah, I meant to do that. I meant to miss that window sill. Fooled you, didn’t I?”
The Midnight Writer
Have you ever been about to shut down the laptop for the day and go to bed when a sudden insight into a scene overtakes you, so you think with excitement, well, I’ll just sit down and add that part or make that change, it’ll just take a minute, and then you get into the work in progress, and look up to discover, holy hell, it’s ninety minutes later?
Yes, it’s at once irritating, satisfying, annoying, and exhausting. That damn muse has no sense of time.
Speaking of time, time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Friday’s Theme Music
So, confession, again. I enjoy the original Mad Max trilogy. The first is the least of them, but I will watch The Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome again and again without too much thought.
Which is what I did this week. Thunderdome ends with Tina Turner singing “We Don’t Need Another Hero.” Which makes sense in that context; they’ve already lost it all. Civilization has been wiped out, and they’re trying to rebuild something out of the wreckage, something more humane than Bartertown and the Thunderdome.
But I wake up and read the news, and think, we need a hero. Seems like any fucking day, someone is going to decide, “Today is a nice day to nuke! Let’s find someone and make a radioactive statement.” Then a shit storm of retaliation will fire up. Anarchy and chaos get stirred in as civilization’s plastic veneer melts, and norms, morals, and ethics get tossed.
(As an ironic aside, I first saw The Road Warrior on VHS while I was on temporary duty with the Air Force in South Korea.)
Yeah, gloomy fucking Friday, right? Not really. A hero can stop all that. I don’t see anyone riding in at the moment, but I’m always an optimistic person that eventually sanity prevails.
So listen to Tina singing in 1985, and think about it. Focus on the song’s words, “Looking for something we can rely on, there’s got to be something better out there.”
Yes, there’s got to be.
Catpulsion
Catpulsion (catfinition) – a feline’s irresistible activity or behavior, often impelled by an urgent or obsessive need to act.
In use: “Whenever the bathroom door closed, Ittybitty catpulsion to supervise her humans kicked in, and she scratched frantically at the door to get in.”
Town Charm
Six deer walked along Siskiyou, and then decided to cross the street and go down Sherman by Safeway. They began across and then paused in the middle, as though confirming their direction. All the traffic stopped and waited for them to make up their mind and move on.
“Only in Ashland,” spectators said.
Yes, it’s part of the town’s charm.
Sisters
A smile wreathed her face. “My sister is the perfect shopping companion for me. She goes into a store and takes off, looking for what she wants and needs. Then, when I look for her, I can usually find her trying clothes on, and what we compare what we found. “Oh, that looks cute, can I try it on?””
E Cubed
Energy, exploring, and expectations.
The more I write fiction, the greater I understand that much of my writing is about exploring what I’m thinking and understand (and then trying to explain and share it by putting it in a story), and managing expectations about writing.
Some days, about one in fifty, I think, I don’t want to write. It’s mostly because I weary of my routine and want a time out. This typically happens when multiple energy levels – creative, physical, intellectual, mental, and emotional, let’s say – simultaneously drop to low levels. That puts me in a black place. That’s when I must dig deepest and longest to sit down and start typing those first words. If I can make it through a paragraph, I’ll persist and write several pages.
I know this. That’s when managing expectations enter my personal equation. Like everything else, my writing efforts reside on a spectrum. I know there are days when the words leap effortlessly through mind and onto media (and I love those days, and thank the Universe for the experience). On the spectrum’s opposite end on those weary, turgid days. Not only do I not want to write, but I’m also pretty much a much larger asshole than I am on other days. My tolerance, patience, and bonhomie seem completely drained on those days.
I also know that regardless of my approach and expectations to writing (and editing, and the rest of the writing process) on those days, I can rarely tell the difference in the end product. I edit, revise and polish too much. I tend to write the bones down in a flurry, and then more leisurely add details, bridges, and expansion. For instance, the first line of a new chapter begun the other day ended up being the first line of the sixth paragraph by the time I finished the chapter. That line was the part of the scene I first saw, but then the light grew wider and brighter, and I saw more of the scene, and entered the characters and their expectations and participation more deeply.
I know all of these things because I’ve explored myself and my approach to writing, and what I like and dislike about my processes. And then I write and post about it because that helps me clarify my understanding. Sometimes, other writers respond, and let me know, “Hey, me, too,” and that helps, too, because I see that I’m just another normal, fucked up writer. I might even be human.
Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Michael Seidel, writer 