Category: Thinking, thinking

Negotiations

Thinking about my writing process this morning, I think I may have left people with the impression that my muses just dictate to me. That’s a false impression. I write about it in that vernacular a lot because of how the entire process ends up happening, but it’s more involved than that. I’m sure most understand that, but as I’m overly bent toward being pedantic and over-analytical, I’m going to enlarge on my process.

The muses fill me with a concept, general story arc, and the main character. A few other characters and some reveal points follow. This all happens very fast. Ideas constantly bang on my mind to enter the writing realm. Many are rejected outright. Some are briefly entertained about how they can be expanded. Others get a more thorough mind treatment but had deferred until later (which may not ever come).

A few ideas enter the writing hopper where they’re given more writing cogitating time. This is where the muses really enter, tossing ideas about the story and how it can develop. Sometimes, these come on very strong, concrete, and specific. When that triumvirate arises, the writing urge is ignited. It then depends on my schedule and projects that are underway. When I was younger, I split myself between projects. With more experience, I’ve developed a routine of focusing on one project until it reaches some stage of completion. They’re then often edited and revised. After that, they can go in different directions.

Meanwhile, my organic writing-like-crazy process isn’t that straightforward. The muses suggest and I counter suggest. I’ll often consider and present multiple possibilities for character development, story arcs, and how a scene goes. I present them to the muses. They reject, accept, or modify them.

Even then, when I sit down to write, it often doesn’t come out as envisioned. Things take place that I never foresaw. This is the true writing-like-crazy process, and when I give full control to the muses. It comes out and I do my best to type it up without analyzing it or putting it into perspective with the rest of the story, arcs, etc. That comes afterward, when I think about where this piece has taken me and what needs to change, along how it’ll be changed, and why it needs to change.

Of course, the muses and the entire process is mine. There aren’t little elves or gorgeous creatures inhabiting and haunting me, telling me what to write. What I call out as the muses is a deeper subconscious level of thinking and creativity that seems to work at high levels of complexity and speed, and its my intuition. I can’t keep up with that thinking on my conscious levels. I’ve learned to trust that process, not because of great creative or critical success, but because, from that process comes the story-telling, novels, and tales that I enjoy. I write for myself. It saddens me that others don’t enjoy it. I hope that’ll change someday, preferably while I’m alive.

Likewise, when I say that the characters have taken over, I’m using a shorthand to describe a process. The characters were put into a situation. I thought about what could happen and different directions that they might take, and then let it settle into my subconscious mind’s chasms for greater process. Results then spring out when I sit down to write. Sometimes, of course, they spring out beforehand, and sometimes they just explode into my thinking an awareness at awkward moments. Words heard or read, realizations, photographs, a piece of song, a splash of light, a burst of noise…multiple things trigger that explosion.

In the end, my process is all about negotiations, negotiations about how commercial or artistic I’ll let myself flow, the directions I do and don’t want to take, and my acceptance to write like crazy, accept that it needs work, and then keep working on it later, and the intuition to accept this feels right, coupled with the understanding, nothing is permanent. Better ways might emerge. Stay open to them.

Got my coffee. Time to write like crazy. at least one more time.

2

The New York Dream

A brief snippet from last night’s dream stream.

My sister-in-law, a Florida resident and business women, President of a manufacturing company that she started, was visiting with my wife and me. My wife said, “You should go to New York with Kat (her sister).” Kat was enthusiastic, telling me, “Yes, I can show you around the town and introduce you to people,” while I was resistant, responding, “New York with Kat?” It didn’t make sense.

After a lot of cajoling, Kat left without me, but my wife was insistent that I should go to New York. I was starting to come around. A male friend – someone I don’t recognize from my life but that I knew as a friend in my dream – a dream friend, if you will – came by and told me, “I’ll take you to New York.” Kat called me on the phone then and said, “I’ve made the arrangements. You’re going to New York.”

The dream ended with me beginning to pack to go to New York.

0

Smoke

I smell a pipe and remember Dad.

Cigars remind me of my smoking fad.

Mother dear arises with sights of Salems and Kools.

Pall Malls and Marlboros put me in the office with chain-smoking fools.

But marijuana rolls me back in time

to my youth, when a hazy high was sublime.

 

0

Two Cups

It began in December. With receding silver hair and a large, round head, he looks like he’s in his late sixties. Each day, he enters the coffee shop at around eleven thirty. He buys two cups of coffee to go. Going outside, he finds a seat at one of the patio tables. His location varies by weather. He puts one cup of coffee by one seat, and then sits down at another. Sipping coffee, he gazes at something that he only sees. When he finishes his coffee, he picks up the other cup and empties it on the ground. Both cups are thrown into the trash can, and then he walks down the street, alone.

0

Agent Submissions

I wish agents submitted to my will, but they’re impressively resilient.

That’s not what I’m writing ’bout, as you know. I’m addressin’ the other sort of submissions, the one that requires you to send agents your writing, seeking a pinkiehold on the path to traditional publishing, which, as we all know, also brings us fame, fortune, and immunity from ever doubting ourselves again.

Right?

As I’ve refined my submission process in this go-around, I’ve come to think of it as job-hunting. Instead of a novel or proposal, you’re submitting a resume when you’re job hunting.

They have other similarities.

You peruse every source you find for potential places to submit.

You submit as much as you can.

You wait and hope for positive responses.

You keep going until you’ve signed somewhere.

What ’bout you? How’d you approach it?

1

This Phase

I began a new novel project at the beginning of the new year, April Showers 1921. I’m in the exploratory phase. While the character, story, and its cover popped up in a dream, and I can see it and hear the characters and story, sometimes ‘watching it’ like I’m seeing it on a television or movie screen. Then I’m scrambling to capture all the details, translate them to words, get the order right, and get it on paper.

It’s difficult. The pace is fast and relentless. My brain power lacks the capacity to absorb it.  Stopping to do and enjoy other things is hard because novel scenes are always popping out. Details spring into mind in the middle of conversations with other people. When I’m in an actual writing session and everything is channeled into a coherent order, the inexorable flow quickens. The faucet is opened but I have no control over the volume that pours into me. Becoming intense and exciting, I fall behind again, forcing me to break off and pace to regain control, take a deep breath, and go at it again.

I also want to jump ahead to learn more about the villains. They intrigue me, but my muses are being coy about them. They offer tantalizing glimpses but won’t let me see the whole thing yet.

Yeah, weird, but it’s my process. If I could, I’d just stay here with this novel, hour after hour, watching, listening, shaping and writing. I’d probably deprive myself of sleep and exercise, but not coffee, water, and food – a man needs to know his limitations.

I remind myself of my basic writing approach.

  1. Discipline: write every day.
  2. Patience: it’ll all come. Just keep writing.
  3. Persist: stay with the story and keep moving it forward.
  4. Write like crazy: capture what I can as I can, and then edit, polish, revise, and re-order scenes and paragraphs as necessary.
  5. Finish. The goal isn’t just to write but to tell a story in a novel.

These sessions leave me spent, as you can probably understand. I vex others because most energy is being diverted into writing this novel while I submit my last finished work to agents in search of publication.

The coffee shop is closing, and they’re kicking us out. It’s their usual Sunday thing. Done writing like crazy, at least for now.

2

Feeling Dumb

I received a Costco paper thingy in the mail yesterday, one of those things with thin but glossy pages stapled together that show, “Here’s what you can buy!” 

I leafed through the leafs because I’m always looking for things to buy, when what do you think caught my eye?

Yes, that’s right, a smart toilet.

Offered by Ove, the description was pithy. They mentioned that it had memory and a remote control. I thought, WTH? Why would your toilet remember you? Does it say, this guy again, and turn on some air freshener? Or is it a matter of adjusting the toilet height and angle to suit your body for the best experience evacuating bowels? And what the heck was the remote control for?

These questions pushed me to search the net for answers. I found a promotional video so that I can share all of those things with you.

The smart toilet disappointed me in the end. While it was impressive on the surface and intrigued me about what it could do, I thought, what about a phone app for it, and voice control? Does it not interface with Siri or Alexa? I don’t know why you’d want to do any of that, but then, I’m not really sold on a remote control for my toilet.

Of course, I shouldn’t be surprised that the smart toilet has arrived. Smart dildos, smart thermostats, smart phones, and smart toothbrushes have been around for some time. Other smart inventions are arriving every day, like smart sex dolls and smart showers. Naturally, with all this smart stuff, concerns are raised about your smarts being hacked, resulting in unexpected problems. Besides someone else taking control of it, these smart devices are calling back home, reporting on what you’re doing.

It’s another reason to not get a smart appliance. Sooner or later, they’re gonna turn on you.

 

5

Lane Envy

Lane Envy – anxiety and desire to be in a different lane, often associated with driving and shopping.

In use: “Seeing the other lane going much faster, lane envy struck, prompting him to contemplate moving, but he knew the shopping gods were playing a cruel joke on him. As soon as he changed lanes, this one would go faster, so he stood where he was and bridled his longing to go to another cashier.”

0

Unchanged

She’d thought about using a computer but decided that she didn’t want to. That would have been cumbersome to learn, as would changing her phone. The green wall phone with its rotary dial and long cord was sufficient.

She kept her old color console television, bought from Sears in 1969, because it still worked, so why buy a new one? She had to buy new furniture in 1969 because the old stuff fell apart, but once the gold and green brocade stuff she bought started falling apart, she kept it, even though the fabric was torn and worn, stuffing was coming out, and the frames were coming apart.

Her hair-style was unchanged from 1968, which is also when she started dying her hair brown, so she looked much the same in this century as she did the last. She loved Campbell’s tomato soup and had it almost every day for lunch with a grilled cheese sandwich using Kraft American Cheese Singles, along with a Heinz dill pickle. Her breakfast was Quaker Oats followed by two cups of Maxwell House coffee that she made in her old percolator.

Days were spent reading Dick Francis, Nancy Drew mysteries, or Agatha Christie while watching Fox News. In the evenings, she watched The Family Feud and The Price is Right followed by Murder, She Wrote, The Andy Griffith Show, The Big Valley, and Perry Mason. Once in a while, she watched a movie, like The Sound of Music. For treats, she ate Little Debbie Cakes.

Not much had changed in her life, and that made her happy. Being happy, she saw no reason to change.

0

A Ferrari Dream

So many of my recent dreams have been like watching adventure movies. I can’t recall seeing myself in many of them.

I starred in last night’s dream, though. The dialogue was often too fast for me to hear and capture, and there weren’t any captions or replays available. But I was happy, cheerful, and, well, unstoppable, overcoming everything.

The dream took place outside in pleasant, balmy weather, and daytime. Accompanied by my wife, I was somewhere that seemed tropical, but I — we — had to get out of there. The question was, how? Other men, in suits, were trying to keep us there.

My wife and I were armed with small black devices. About the size of a television remote control (clicker, as my wife calls it), it had no buttons. Pointing it at people immobilized them. People with stronger wills could resist it, but they could be overcome by pressing the device against them. The stronger their will, the longer we had to hold it against them, but none required more than several seconds.

It was all kind of frolicky. The men in suits would say, “There they are, get them.” They’d come after that, but there’d be no rush. It was like they were going slow, trying to be clever and unobserved. But we saw them and knew what they were doing. Laughing, we pointed and stopped them without a struggle.

A stalemate delivered. We couldn’t leave, so we’re weren’t escaping, just keeping the others at bay. Along came a man and a woman. They were older than us and well-dressed. My impressions of them were they were wealthy and powerful, but also trapped. I didn’t know them, and observing their exchanges, I thought that they weren’t together but had recently met. I think she was called the duchess.

“Take the Ferrari,” the man said. He pointed.

An older white Ferrari was there. I hadn’t noticed it before. I thought the car was from the sixties. (I confirmed this after researching and finding the model. Here it is, a 1966 California 365, except my dream car was white.)

Ferrari 365 California - 1966

“I can’t take that,” I said, laughing at the audacity of it.

The man said, “Why not?” The woman said. “Yes, you can. Take us with you. Drive us out of here. You can do it.”

So we pointed and stopped the pursuit, got into the Ferrari, and I drove us up through some forest. We couldn’t get all the way out, though. “We need to stop and rest,” I said.

We did that. The dream showed us stopping and then awakening the next morning. Pursuit had caught up to us by then, but they weren’t energetic, and we had our remotes. After doing our point and incapacitate thing on those closest to us, we all got in the car. I was driving and my wife was in the passenger seat, with the other two in the back. I drove us up and out of the situation.

The end. An uplifting dream, it brings a smile to my face as I remember it.

1

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑