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Bird by Bird: Book, Blurb & Collage

I think most writers I’ve encountered have discovered Bird by Bird. It’s a powerful book, and helpful to struggling new writers. I recommend it to other writers. It may not resonate with you, but give it a shot. You never know which book holds the key that helps you move forward, and if you dismiss them without reading them, you may never find your key.

Corey Truax's avatarCorey Truax

bird by bird, Anne Lamott.jpg

This is a quote collage I tossed together to highlight some of the content from the book.  Clicking the image will send you over to Flickr where you can view it in high-res.  This is free to share and use however you would like.

I finished reading Anne Lamott’s, Bird by Bird, a couple weeks ago and am happy to share it with all of you today.  This is a call-to-action book about writing that I would highly recommend.  It was suggested to me by someone here on the blog, but despite my best efforts, I couldn’t find the comment.  Regardless, it was a great suggestion (thank you nameless person!).

bird by bird.jpgIf you’re unfamiliar with Lamott’s voice and style, it’s witty and has some kick to it.  For me, that’s always a plus.  What she does amazingly well is talk from the heart about the struggles most writers face (more…

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The Cat Crew

The cat crew continues growing.

In the beginning…there was Quinn the Black Paw (a Quintessential cat), Lady and Scheckter. The latter two passed away. Arriving in that same period was Tucker, a tired, wounded and hungry black and white stray who exhibits some Maine Coon traits.

Meanwhile, Meep (aka, the Prince or the Little Price, the Orange Blade or Blade, Doppelganger or Doppel (because he so resembled a miniature version of Scheckter that we were sometimes confused)) is fed two or three times a day and given shelter. He is supposed to be Garfield (of course, other than being orange, he is not a Garfield) and belong to other people but they don’t let him into their home and he seems to prefer our company. He and Tucker have loud, angry clashes.

Living in the master bedroom and backyard (because he and Tucker have had a few skirmishes and are still adjusting) is Boo Radley, a big black cat with a small white cirrus cloud on his chest and belly, and no tail. Boo has behavior issues of his own. An older and intelligent fellow, he also has arthritis in one of his back legs.

Pepper is a brown and black calico. She’s lived next door to us for ten years. Yet, in 2015, she took up residence on our front porch, often staying there day into night into day, begging food whenever the op arises. She’s given the other cats’ leftovers.

That’s the primary stable of five. New to the program are Buddy and Princess.

Buddy lives across the street. A small, black, vocal and social male, he’s recently taken to begging food a few times a day. We accommodate him with kibble but more than anything else, Buddy just wants someone to talk to him, and pet and scratch him. So we do this.

Next and newest is a gorgeous little sweet gray and white kitty, Princess. Princess is supposed to own some people in the Ashlanders Apartment complex, located about a football throw away. But she started coming around with matted fur, begging for sustenance, and sigh, we could not say no.  Now she’s out there every morning in the 40 degree chill, and every night, at about seven PM, just as the sun descends.

So, as sevencatsandcounting would say, we’re taking care of seven cats in one way or another. Only three are ‘officially’ ours, but when a cat selects you to join their clowder, what choice exists? I have yet to learn how to gracefully abdicate that position.

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Old Gangs

Found some of the old gang this week.

Well, one of one ‘old gangs’, this one from my early teen years. I’ve had many old gangs as I traveled the world in a twenty-one year military career, and a few other old gangs as I pursued civilian careers after my military retirement.

This old gang is one of my earliest, formed in formed in Penn Hills, outside of Pittsburgh, PA. We attended school together there at Washington Elementary School, Penn Junior, and John H. Linton, riding the bus, sitting in classrooms, playing baseball and football on fields and streets. I knew them from fifth grade through ninth, and then I left the area. Although I returned, they and I changed, and we never enjoyed the same dynamics and relationships.

I always held them as young people alongside my young self in my mind’s crawl spaces, like home decor that was once loved and used, now set aside, but saved, because someday, I’ll pull that out again. I have tools like that, too. I used to change my cars’ oil, spark plugs, etc, what we used to call ‘giving the car a tune-up.’ These chores had specialized tools. The Porsche used one tool for its oil filter, the Audi, Camaro, Firebird and BMW used other ones. Every time I bought a new previously owned car, I bought a new shop manual and the correct tools. And I never released them back to the wild.

Likewise, I have wires for everything computer and stereo. Printer parallel and serial cables, RCA plugs and jacks in full size and mini, adapters, splits, cable wires, and now, zip drives, mice, keyboards, and fire wires. I guess I’m a collector.

I’ve been looking for my old friends through my family connections, Facebook, Google and other search engines and social media. I wanted to know what each did with their existence, talents and skills, see what they’ve become, what they’ve experienced and accomplished. One finally turned up this week, through his father’s obituary. Astonishingly, that took me directly to my friend’s FB page.

I studied what was shared for a while, confirming it was him. He’d now fifty-nine, but I saw my childhood friend in the hold of his head and the gaze in his eyes. He’d once been a huge comedy fan, outgoing with his inner circle of friends but otherwise shy and withdrawn.

Then he got a puppy, Charlie. Charlie was a small, shaggy black and brown mutt. He loved that dog, and the dog loved him, each exhibiting shining proof in their eyes. Unfortunately, heart worms brought the relationship to an early end, devastating my friend more than Katrina did to New Orleans. He was forced too early to deal with pain and loss, and it fundamentally changed him, something I think about as I watch children cope with historic natural disasters and war zones. Not all react the same to adversity but my friend’s reaction opened a chasm that was never bridged. We came to forks in the road, took different ways, and never saw or heard of one another again.

Until now. It’s nice reaching out to him, and lovely that he’s accepted my FB friend request, but I’ve escaped illusions that we’ll ever be the buddies of childhood. I’ve seen too many changes in myself and other gangs of friends. But my memory of him and our fun and growth in classrooms and summer streets and parks are part of my touchstone of being, so I reach out, to catch a firefly of youth, and watch it glow once more, however briefly it might be.

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Mail Call

  • I want to know what mailing list I’m on that I received personalized advertising for cremation services. Have I just reached ‘a certain age’. I think that’s preferable to believing they have inside information, like foretelling people’s demise.
  • Speaking of being a certain age…I’m sixty now, and I receive a lot less junk mail, other than cremation services. It’s nice, as a ‘younger baby-boomer’ (52-61, according to a recent survey) to finally have the credit card, personal loan et al quite circling like waiting buzzards. Or maybe they have access to the same information, that I’m due to die soon, so they’re taken me off their mailing lists.
  • Isn’t it better to have cremation services junk mail rather than dead skunks and raccoons? A coaching candidate didn’t get the job. He mailed dead skunks and raccoons to the rival that won the job to be a fourth grade teacher and basketball coach. I’m making a snap judgement but if he’s such a sore loser, perhaps it’s better that he’s not coaching fourth graders.
  • Fan mail is always fun, especially when they ooze praise for your writing, how a novel ended, or for general creativity. I don’t get much of this stuff and to receive three in one day, from different people, and they didn’t know me, nor were related, is an astronomical high.
  • One of the weirdest recent developments is using FB to send personal messages. People have email addresses but prefer to go to FB and just click and send via that app, rather than using the more tedious method of typing in names or email addresses. I know, because that’s what I do, given the option. It is easier.
  • Speaking of FB, you can always friend me on Facebook. I admittedly tend to FB much less in recent months. It just became too much of the same thing, whether it’s because of the groups I subscribe to, or FB’s tailoring or privacy and security settings. Either way, I’m tired of dealing with their changing settings. So Friend me! Please. Hah.
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Edit Mode, Anyone?

Editing and revising modes are vastly different than conceiving, creating, writing and polishing modes. Every writer ends up with a different approach, which is one of the hardest points to grasp. You have to find your own batting stance, your own formula, your own look. Part of that for me was learning to love editing mode, but it remains a trying relationship.

gridleyfires's avatarGridley Fires- The Blog

Yesterday, I finished a first draft of a novel I’ve been working on for something like a year and about the ‘Sixties. Okay, I’ll quote David Crosby on that subject again.

“If you remember the ‘Sixties, you weren’t there.”

That quote sometimes confuses me; I often feel I remember too much of that era.

So I had done something in preparing to write that novel I rarely do: I’d outlined it in great detail. Usually I scratch out a few ideas and characters on a pad of paper, just to keep from going too far afield as I write. But a more formal outline for this one seemed necessary because I planned a number of characters and over a span of time, 1968-1970. It’s important in semi-historical writing to at least keep the chronological sequences right. Not that I stick religiously to an outline. As I write and the story comes…

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What I’m Watching

We’re in a near television desert. I call it television but I mostly stream my joy. Most of the joy derives from selected television series.

The desert began with Game of Thrones ending. Then we finished off the latest year of The Vikings. The Great British Baking Show helped ease my withdrawal. We’re still waiting for Orphan Black and Grace and Frankie to come back. We’ve watched Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Wolfe’s Hall. Alpha House. Raised by Wolves. Jessica Jones. Stranger Things. Orange is the New Black. The Walking Dead. Fear the Walking Dead. Dead Set. iZombie. Dark Matters. Misfits. Gavin and Stacey. Miranda. We attempted The Man in the High Castle but it left us thinking, meh.

QI provides some diversion. So does stand up – Tig Notaro, Amy Schumer, C.K. Louis. Tig’s show, One Mississippi, is entertaining, but there are few episodes. All the Happy Valley, Cuckoo, Foyle’s War, Longmire, Wallander, The Wire, Doctor Who, River, Scott & Bailey, Nurse Jackie, Last Tango in Hallifax, Ray Donavan, Inspector George Gently, Bletchley Circle, Sharp’s Rifles, Justified, Jack Taylor, Jack Irish, Bosch, Miss Fisher’s Mysteries, and Rake have been consumed, along with multiple TEDs. The Killing and The Top of the Lake were watched yonks ago. While friends love the American version of Shameless and House of Cards, the aged Brit series make the American editions wilt. Watched The Bridge, Fortitude, Crossing Lines, Spiral, In the Line of Duty, Inspector Lewis, all the Holmes, all the Cranford, Downton, Larkrise, and Doc Martin. The Republic of Doyle is okay but not compelling. People recommended The Boss but we disliked it. We tried Flash, Green Arrow, etc, and different other Marvel output, but they did nothing for us.

It’s tough out here in the desert. Hot and dry. The Secret Agent is coming. Boomers. Then There was None, with a terrific cast. We’re hopeful that we’ll be saved. Otherwise, we’ll just need to keep reading.

Which isn’t a problem. There’s never a reading desert, for me. Reading tends to stimulate my writing so I’m not a fast reader, unlike my wife. (It’s amusing to watch her trudge through The Secret Magdalene, because she doesn’t like it, but it’s the book club selection, so….) I’m still turning pages in the second book of the Neapolitan series. Two more books remain after this one. Then a pile of other tomes await.

Television, though? It gets very dry.

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My 9/11

My wife always wondered why I was up then.

I was three months into a new job, living in Half Moon Bay, California. And for some reason, on that day, I did things I didn’t do on other days. For some reason, I awoke at 5 AM. False dawn was leaning in the windows. I went downstairs. I turned on the television. Settling myself on the sofa, I turned on CNN.

All those things are contrary to my usual routines. I rarely watch TV before 6 PM, and don’t typically watch CNN. But there I was, lying on the couch, watching history. The first aircraft had struck one building. I realized the second plane had struck before the commentators as I watched the live feed.

My wife asks me, “Why were you up? Why did you turn on the television, and CNN? That’s totally unlike you.”

And I answer honestly, what I thought that morning, before turning on the television. “I didn’t feel well.”

I didn’t feel well, but I wasn’t sick. I couldn’t identify what drove me awake and down. I can’t classify my sickness to this day. Some will jump on it and call it out as a psychic empathy for the death and disaster happening on the other side of the US. Others will judge it as coincidence.

For me, it’s just a vivid memory of a shocking day.

 

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Tachyon Cat

The cat is domestic only as far as suits its own ends… – Saki (H. H. Munro)

Cats have been referred to as moons, planets and gods since they first deigned to allow humans to see them. I, however, ascribe to the theory of a tachyon cat.

Like the tachyon particle, the tachyon cat is hypothetical. It must exist, because no law or principle prevents its existence.

Tachyon cats display bizarre and contrary behavior. They are there and not there. Look for them and you don’t see them. Call them and there is no response. Yet, suddenly, they’re upon you, gazing and waiting, “Yes?” written on their whiskered expression. “There you are,” you exclaim, rewarding the tachyon cat. “Where were you?”

But they were right there, seen and unseen. Tachyon cats gain energy as they acquire mass, and gain speed as they gain mass and energy. They never travel slower than the speed of light, even at rest, and gain more mass when you try to move them. Their eyes reflect the gaze of distant black holes, which they alone have seen and visited.

When tachyon cats are detected in your presence, it seems like they’re coming and going. Although they can traverse walls without flinching, they like to assert their mastery over humans, so you see them always at the door, asking to be let out, in, out, in, out, in, out, until you’re reduced to puzzling, “Again? But didn’t I just let you out?”

Tachyon cats eat nothing and eat everything. They eat more and less than other cats, and sleep more and less than their feline peers. They play more and less than other cats, and they’re more loving, aloof and cuddly than other cats, while being the same as other cats. They’re a different species than other felines, but they’re the same species.

They’re as dark and mysterious as the dark side of the moon, and as bright and sunny as our star. Some say tachyon cats do not exist, but I know that’s not true. One lives with me, when it suits his desires.

Otherwise, I live with him.

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The Cat Front

The Cat Front is a lot like a weather front without the heat, moisture, winds and barometric pressures, and with more paws, claws, fur and teeth. The Cat Front is more similar to the front lines of other challenges, like war, pestilence and disease.

On my Cat Front, our cats have been battling an illness. It’s gone from one to another. It seems like a type of flu. Boo Radley developed it first, refusing to eat for several days, vomiting and hiding out to sleep. I was doing everything to comfort him. This struck on a Thursday. Being a passive person, I tracked him through Friday and into Saturday, confirming, no, he’s not eating. No, he’s not injured anywhere. Yes, something is wrong.

But I kept trying to get him to eat. BR is a big boy so he had the chubbiness to endure a few days without eating. By late Sunday, he finally started up, and was his normal eating fellow by Monday.

I went through the same with Quinn, a small cat, whose diminished caloric intake was much more worrisome. Perhaps because he’s younger, he pulled through faster. Then it struck Tucker. Tucker, though, has a love affair with food ,so despite his sickness, he always attempted to eat. He usually eats about four and a half ounces twice a day. During this sickness, he was below one ounce.

But he, too, was only down for three days (perhaps assisted by a recent antibiotics injection to cope with his gingivitis stomatitis). Pepper, the neighbor’s cat who begs me for food and sleeps on my front porch, went down while Tucker was down. She’s a chunky girl and came back after two days, just a little lighter.

The worse was Meep.

He is the youngest of our ad hoc clowder. Meep is another neighbor’s cat. Strangely, he isn’t permitted into their home, so we take him in to shelter him during cold or poor weather. We ensure he gets fed at least twice a day, and that he has fresh water available. Not surprisingly, he hangs around our house, mostly in the back yard.

There are complications. These are cats. Boo and Meep fight. Boo and Tucker fight. Tucker and Meep fight. Those fights involving Tucker are of the “I am going to eradicate you” variety. The other cats tread warily around him. We’re working on it but meanwhile, separate but equal rules. This segregation is about as satisfying as the SCOTUS ruling regarding education.

Meep went down several days ago. And disappeared. We spent hours searching for him. After two days, he showed up again. Skinny. I tried feeding him. He made a lot of high pitched, growling, “I’m pissed off noises”, accompanied by feline demonstrations that he wasn’t in the mood.

He left, disappearing again. Two more days. The daytime temps dropped from the low nineties into the high seventies, which was a break, and humidity rose, but smoke from wildfires was filling our valley, causing breathing issues, and nocturnal temps descended to the low forties. I thought the worse about Meep and continued my searching.

He reappeared, sleeping in his bed on the back patio Friday. After drinking water and disdaining food, he ran at my approach and became scarce again. He returned last night. This time, I coaxed him into the house. He’d been enduring his illness longer than the others. I figured being outdoors probably contributed to that so I wanted to keep him in. He didn’t want that, but he did drink water. Determined that he needed food, I cradled him and force fed him.

He wasn’t happy. Again he demanded, “Freedom!” Again, I acquiesced. This time, he stayed on the porch overnight.

This morning, he approached our door in his old way. He wasn’t quite ready to eat. I offered food. He licked a little. I offered more. He licked a little. So this continued through the morning, until he finally ate several tablespoons of food on his own. Then he came by me and rubbed against my leg before wandering off to wash and sleep.

It can get tense, on the Cat Front, but I think the worse has passed.

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