Category: Thinking, thinking

Thursday’s Theme Music

Just out of speaking with friends, reading the news, remembering the past, and pondering the future…

Into the stream came a song from The Falcon and the Snowman based on the book with the same title, with more words in it. A friend received it in a slush pile, read it through the evening one Friday, looked up the author and discovered they were in the same area code. The book excited him. A phone call was made against all standard protocols. Arrangements were made to connect the following Monday to talk about going forward.

Alas, by then, the author had contacted an agent, and everything changed. The book went to another publishing house, to my buddy’s dismay.

Meanwhile, the song — also with the same name — by Pat Metheny with David Bowie on vocas, reflects the disbelief and denial that I feel while reading the news. It isn’t particular to this era. I always think we should learn and move forward, but my idea of moving forward doesn’t align with what others think and want. To me, it’s like they’re moving backward and repeating history as they insist that we’re going forward.

Anyone, this 1985 ditty expresses my point of view. Cheers

0

Here We Are

Here we sit, on the first day of 2020. 

Memes about the roaring twenties abound, but others are attracted to the vision aspect of 20/20. That’s funny when you think of it; people often think of 20/20 vision as perfect vision. 

It’s not.

“A person with 20/20 vision can see what an average individual can see on an eye chart when they are standing 20 feet away,” says Dr. McKinney, an ophthalmologist and glaucoma specialist at Eye Health Northwest in Oregon City, Ore.

An eye chart measures visual acuity, which is the clarity or sharpness of vision. The top number refers to your distance in feet from the chart. The bottom number indicates the distance at which a person with normal eyesight can read the same line.

For example, if you have 20/30 vision, it means your vision is worse than average. When you are standing 20 feet from the chart, you can read letters that most people see when they are 30 feet away.

h/t to American Academy of Ophthalmology.

You can argue that 20/20 means clear vision to you. That’s fine; we’re not here to nitpick.

Whatever it means and whatever you do, when you create your vision for this day, week, month, project, or year, make it your vision for you to see where you’re going, and give yourself some ways to measure your progress.

If you’re serious about wanting to achieve that vision, you should write it down. Studies have shown that doing so helps you become more likely to achieve your dreams (h/t to Huffpost). Evidence exists that the path to success becomes stronger if you share your dreams and ambitions with a friend who believes in your ability to succeed.

So, don’t wait for success and achievement to fall into your lap. Pursue it. Write it down. Put it out there. Find someone who believes in your ability to succeed.

Create your vision and pursue your dreams.

Cheers

2

Monday’s Theme Music

Counseling myself last night as I stepped out and hunted stars through the descending night fog, I thought about plans, and how easy it is to slip into a comfortable rut and let yourself stay there, successful in the rut to the detriment of everything else. I realized that I’d done that to myself. Easy to do, especially when the rut gives you joy.

My rut is writing. It satisfies me in so many ways, but it definitely steals energy from the rest of my life. I knew I had to shift myself out of my rut when I had my response to agents being interested in some of my work and my response was, meh. That’s just not right.

So I began hunting and shifting the mental and emotional levers to ply myself from my rut. More easily said, am I right? The duality of it all struck me. I’m a person that feels the darkness and rages about once a month, ready to shuck everything in fury and despair. Then that passes and I’m good to go again. I’m fortunate that I know my cycle and cope with it, but not fortunate that I have such a cycle. I’m fortunate, too, that I can see into myself and find the levers to change the cogs. This comes from being sixty plus and having friends and relatives who’d make comments to me that opened my awareness to how others see me, subsequently providing me with greater insight into myself. It comes from luck, too; others know these things but struggle more with it than me. (Yeah, and there’s a ton of other stuff, nature vs. nurture, socialization, genes, etc. We’re dynamic, complicated beings, always playing on the balance of a blade.)

Well, to the music, then, because this is about the day’s theme music. Into this crucible of thought flowed words from “Over My Head (Cable Car)” by The Fray (2005).

Everyone knows I’m in
Over my head
Over my head
With eight seconds left in overtime
She’s on your mind
She’s on your mind

h/t to Songmeanings.com for the lyrics, because it’s easier to get them right by copying and pasting.

It was that ‘eight seconds left in overtime’ that I keyed to, not that there was pressure, nor that time was running out, rather the impetus from the image of a sports game that something needs to be done. The goals are clear; now execute. Get ‘er done.

Laborious explanation for a song choice, innit? Happy Monday, campers. Cheers

 

1

Humaverse

“Listen,” she said. “It’s very simple.”

Although she was a little girl (four, I’d guess, and then remembered, oh, yeah, she told me that before, she is four) with a high-pitched voice, her tone carried a judge’s authority.

“I’m listening,” I said, injecting a hint of jocularity.

My hint gained me an eye-roll. “We remain in a humaverse. It’s only the timeverse that’s changed.”

I conjured up more questions. She stilled them with a small rosy palm.

“Stop. I know what you’ll ask,” she said. “The humaverse is the universe as humans perceive it.”

I pursed my lips to issue another question but faced the all-powerful palm again.

Eyebrows going up, she tilted her head. She did that often, resembling a small dark-haired, white parakeet when she did. “I’ve been through this before. Let me finish. Humans have certain perceptions and observations that create agreed and accepted preconceptions about how everything is supposed to work, like gravity, time, and light, for instance. I’m talking classic physics, of course. Light travels at cee. Gravity is a force that causes bodies to be attracted to one another, as Newton expressed in the most commonly accepted explanation in this humaverse. Time flows from the past to the future and can’t be revisited. Well, it can but you need to shed preconceptions to make that work. Most people can’t.”

Her glance lashed me. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m sure that you can’t.”

“Hey, that’s — ”

“Excuse me, I’m not finished. So, that’s why it’s called the humaverse. It’s the universe as humans define it. Others can use it, though, but they’re not usually limited by the humaverse’s laws. It depends.”

“Okay.” It depended on what? “And a timeverse?”

“A timeverse is an agreed upon reality within a humaverse based on the constraints and parameters established by the results from major events of a specific time-period, as humans think it happened.”

“Like…who won world war two.”

“Everyone always brings that one up.” She sounded mystified. “That, and Jesus of Nazareth. But, yes. There are many timeverses. Some people call them alterverses, but they’re not really. To be a true alterverse, enough residual chi-energy to change humaverse rules must be present. I’m talking about classic physics, of course.”

“Of course.” Like I knew, but I didn’t want another eyeroll. If her eyes were weapons… “So…there can be more than one humaverse?”

“Of course. Now we’re wasting time. Yellow will be coming after us. Let’s go.”

Swinging around, she marched off. “Adults,” she said. I wasn’t sure if she talked to herself, me, or someone else. All were possible with this child. “They can learn if they can just forget.”

As I hurried to catch up with her, I thought with cynical amusement, I never will.

1

One More Time

I was frothing with surprise and delight for a while today.

The morning’s email brought interest from three agents. They wanted to see more material from April Showers 1921, a surprise. I thought that all interest from the first round of submissions had died (accomplished in October, 2019). I was regrouping for another round of submissions.

I also thought how odd it was that these agent things happen in clumps. But then, I submit in clumps, and the agents describe similar processes and response times. It shouldn’t be a surprise when they respond in clumps.

What WAS a surprise was an agent expressing interest in Four on Kyrios, the first novel of the Incomplete States series (five books). I submitted to her in February, 2019, ten months ago.

(A pause to consider that I’d finished writing a five novel series last year (Incomplete States, 430,000 words), and then wrote a novel earlier this year (April Showers 1921, 180,000 words), and now I’m finishing a third book (To Begin, 73,000 words so far). And yes, that does please me. Plodding along at about five pages a day does start adding up. Especially when I remember that Incomplete States and all of its support documents (side stories, character, planet, and cultural histories, etc) added up to one million words.)

Although it’s exciting to receive the emails from the agents, after reflecting, I thought, well, I’ll do my writing session today, and then try to respond to these agents tonight. I wasn’t being contrary or sabotaging myself, but in thinking through where I was and who I am, I enjoy the writing process, I’m enjoying writing the current novel, and I have momentum. (The muses are being friendly and I don’t want to alienate them.) So, although my goal is to find publication for those previously written novels, writing the current novel entices me more.

It’s a curious sensation. Yeah, I seek publication beyond the self-publishing of the four novels that I’ve already done. The agent interest is validation, in one sense; someone is interested! In another sense, I shrug; I’ve always written for myself, creating mysteries and logic problems for me to solve, building and expanding worlds in my mind, and discovering characters who emerge as people to me.

I’m also a tinge jaded, reconciling myself, yeah, you’ve been shown interest by agents and editors before, and it’s come to naught. (Really, are you so cynical, Michael?)

Yes, I am. More than cynicism, in the course of writing novels and following a quest to be a better thinker, story-teller, and writer, I’ve fallen out of concern about what others think about my writing. I can argue that some of that is self-preservation (and perhaps a tincture of imposter syndrome). See, if I don’t get excited, then I’ll be less dejected if the agents decline my project. That’s the theory.

It’s also short-sighted; being in a bubble of my own thinking, reading, writing, and criticism means that I don’t receive feedback that could help me grow.

Yes, true.

So, being cynical, jaded, short-sighted, and dubious, writing, with all of its challenges and frustrations, is more immediately rewarding and satisfying. Solving these self-made issues generates a sweet dopamine infusion. Perhaps that’s the lesson — and warning — that I should really find in my response today: I’m a writing addict, looking for a quick fix.

Today’s news does want me to treat myself to a scone or muffin. Comfort food, I believe, to help cope; the potential for advancing also carries the angst and burden of failure. Have something to eat, right? It’s a humorous pattern.

Yet, again…there was that time when I came across a woman reading my novel at a Starbucks here in my town, a cool experience. I’ve received feedback from readers about how my they’ve enjoyed something I’ve written, which was a powerful jolt to the ego. Multiple those intangible rewards by the potential that being published on a larger scale could bring.

Also in passing, though, I do enjoy reading my own work. It’s fun to read what I’ve written, and it often surprises me. I understand what that says about my process and being in the tube. What was originally conceived and written (in my methodology) frequently evolves under editing, revising, refinement, and polishing. I write to know what I think, and I rewrite to clarify it and deal with loopholes in my thinking (and plotting and problem solving).

As a final piece, of course; this is me, today. Me, tomorrow, or yesterday — or even later today — might respond differently. Moods (and the hopes and expectations related to them) are dynamic. Hence, I needed to write all of this out just to think about it, a prelude, perhaps, to discovering how I feel.

Well, it’s all thinking fodder. Got my coffee. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

Got to feed that addiction, you know?

 

 

2

Death Grip

She got that death grip on the wheel

she’s not letting go

not slowing down

no, not taking it slow

doesn’t matter where she’s going

long as she gets there fast

doesn’t care about the journey

that’s for others to make it last

she’s pouring through gaps

riding hard and leaving free

swerving around obstacles with abandon

like buildings, pedestrians, and trees

Don’t know where she’s going

that’s for others to find out

she’s moving ahead

forging past fear and doubt

we all glimpse her

wanting to see

who’s that girl with that death grip

we’re all wishing that it could be me

0

Word

The word is given

we gotta go

through that door

either quick or slow

We think we know what’s up

think we know it’s time

though we’ve been wrong before

we keep swallowing the same lines

so on we go, on our way

not understanding

it’s the same game

by another name

 

0

Lee Scoresby

We’ve been watching His Dark Materials (HBO), and mostly enjoying it, although the story feels like it’s rushed more than the books. But then, that’s why I prefer reading (and writing) books. I can indulge in my imagination more, and let matters (and story) expand and flow with fewer constraints.

Lin Manuel Miranda is playing Lee Scoresby, aeronaut, friend of Irok (the armored bear) and protector of Lyra (one of many). Sam Elliot played Lee in the first movie, The Golden Compass. Sam aligned more with how I saw Lee in the novel, so I thought he was casting perfection. Nevertheless, Lin does a damn fine job (not surprising for someone as talented as Lin).

Here’s the kicker and the point to this whole post: a man who looks like Lin Manuel Miranda as Lee Scoresby just walked into the coffee shop. After I stared at him, watching his passage across the coffee shop (which he noticed) (it seemed to disconcert him), I had to go outside and check – balloon? Large white bear in armor? Gyptians? Flying witches?

No; just Lee, sneaking in for a cuppa…and perhaps here for a secret assignation.

Who the hell knows?

(The weirdest thing: after he came in…he disappeared…)

3

Impressions

Impressions crept in on her, darkening her mood. His cell-like room felt dryer and hotter than she remembered the Sahara being. Negativity spiked from him like blackberry bramble thorns. When he spoke, words lurched out like they were freight cars in a train that didn’t have the engine for its load.

0

Not the One

I am not the one in love

and I’m not the one pursuing a dream

I’m not the one questioning my life

or looking back on choices

I am not the one missing you

wondering where you’ve gone

I am not the one in a bed alone

never falling asleep

I am not the one with too much time

to do too little every day

I tell you,

if you see me, I’m not the one

it’s not me

2

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