Category: Uncategorized

New Demands

Pent up by a winter storm, my cats conferred and emerged from their confab with new demands. Each demands that they get at least fifteen hours per day of personalized care and attention. Said personalized care and attention requires me to pet, scratch, caress, play, and feed each one (or allow them to sleep on my lap) for a total of at least fifteen hours per day. They’re calling this the fifteen-hour minimum initiative.

I pointed out to them that the day has only twenty-four hours, that I have other things to do, and there is no way that I can give each one fifteen hours of attention.

They reacted with sad head shakes. Boo, the spokes-cat, said, “Anything is possible, if you set your mind to it.”

They’re boycotting me until I come around, or feeding time, whichever comes first.

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Pauses

They exchanged greetings, and then comments about their coats, hats, and smiles.

Then they went on, two strangers pausing to chat while they were walking through the falling snow.

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@70

He was comfortable, and she wanted to turn the heat up.

She was going to dance-exercise classes, and he was counting pills.

He was impatient to drive faster, and she thought he should slow down.

She was remarking about the pleasant evening they’d had, and he was complaining about the price of a dinner for two.

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Sorry, No

I recently met a person at the coffee shop who discovered that I was a writer. They asked me to tell them about what I was writing.

Sorry, no.

In a hurry, I said, “Sorry, it doesn’t work that way,” and departed. But after walking away, I began thinking about my answer, constructing the reasons that it doesn’t work that way.

In my early days, I was always eager to tell people about what I was writing. My position changed for several reasons.

  1. In the early days, I was hunting for validation and encouragement. I was more insecure about writing. I wanted someone else to tell me how wonderful it all sounded.
  2. A book is a written work. The nuances live in the words and the order that I’ve arranged them to tell a story. I work hard to find the ideas, establish and grow the characters, advance the plot, and tell the story. That’s all done through written words and the supporting structure.
  3.  I’m an organic writer, also called a pantser. Starting with a concept, I build. The construction takes unexpected directions and doesn’t seem to pause until I write ‘The End’. What I tell you about today may not make it into the final first draft.
  4. Writing a novel or short story excites and energizes me. My ideas are usually complex. Chances are, you’re not going to be able to follow, because, again, I’m talking about a written work. Your lack of enthusiasm will depress me. Unless you want to read a passage or have me read it to you, I’m not going to tell you. I’m also not going to let you read it because of reason number two, already presented: it’s a work-in-progress.
  5. Finally, with all the previous reasons, talking about what I’m writing to others siphons energy off, in my experience, so, sorry, no.

Policy exceptions exist. First, if you’re an agent or publisher, I’ll be polite and do what I can to tell you what I’m writing and why it excites me.

I can also talk about the writing process (I probably enjoy talking about it too much), especially to other writers. As part of that, I’ll share some of a WIP with other writers. Whether it’s me and my expectations, or their experiences, or our empathy, or all of these things along with other aspects, I think other writers are worthy recipients to hearing about my WIP.

Thinking about all of this, I realize that my attitude is a major hindrance to selling agents or publishers on my finished novels. I love being subtle and complex in my writing, and accomplish that, in my mind. Lot of people don’t have the patience for subtle and complex, and it’s hard to convey in the first twenty pages, along with a synopsis, pitch, and hook. I’m just not good at that shit. Admitting it means that I need to work harder on it, along with my first twenty pages.

I suspect that my writing style likely only appeals to one percent of potential readers. Not a problem, to me, because there are many readers in the world. The larger problem is that I probably need to submit to one hundred agents to get one interested, and they’ll probably need to pitch it to multiple editors and publishers. So, I feel like I’m looking at a high and steep rocky mountain to climb.

I’ve been climbing it for a while, and will keep going. Each time I reach one ridge, I think I’ve reached the top only to find there’s more climbing to do. That’d be a problem if all of this conceiving, imagining, writing, editing, and revising wasn’t so much damn fun.

It’s also addictive.

Okay, enough reflecting. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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Last Wish

Dressed in a long, glossy black skirt, black boots, and a hooded black rain coat, she shuffled in slowly. Her steps made no sounds. A little bent forward, white, with wire rim glasses, she looked straight ahead.

She looks like death, he thought.

Turning, she looked at him, raised a black-gloved finger at him, and smiled. She is death, he realized. The scene changed. Instead of being at a coffee shop table typing on a computer, he was squirming and shaking against the shock of being born.

Great, he thought back in the other moment, guessing that he was going to endure a this-is-your-life montage before dying.

That was probably going to take a while.

He wished he had more coffee.

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Disturbing Results

He didn’t know how this fit into anything.

Completing his manuscript, including revising and editing it, he scoured the net, found a dozen prospective agents, and sent it off to them.

Three weeks later, he hadn’t heard anything from any of them and decided to beat the net to see what was happening with his prospective agents.

Imagine his surprise when they all turned out dead.

Well, he’d always thought it was a killer idea.

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The Tiger Dream

It was another chaotic and hectic dream. 

I was camping with friends at a big music festival. The place was packed, reminding me of images from Woodstock back in 1969, but with better weather. Everyone was having a good time. As part of a group of ten to twelve people, we all had roles for setting up and sustaining our party. I was responsible for a cooler of beverages and ice, along with a sound system. I brought them, set up, and we had a good time. As night fell, I found a sleeping bag and crashed out.

The next morning, the celebration was cranking up early. I looked for the cooler and sound system. Neither were found. I told the others, “I asked you guys to look after it.” Laughing, they shrugged that off.

Okay, I had to find them. As I started out, I said, “I have two things to do.” As I said that, I realized that there was more to do, so I said, “No, I have four things to do.” Then I ticked them off my fingers. Unfortunately, I only remember looking for the cooler and bringing it back, and doing the same with the sound system.

I set off through the packed grounds. Sometimes I’d tell people what I was looking for, but mostly, I just wandered and looked.

As I did, I saw a young tiger running toward me. I’d heard rumors while I was rambling around that they had young, wild animals like cougars at the festival. As I saw the animal, I heard a young woman say, “Oh, look, a baby tiger.” I thought the tiger was young but not a baby.

A woman said, “It’s not supposed to be out.”

The tiger ran toward me. I prepared to catch it, but it veered at the last moment and leaped up a tall stack of shelves filled with cans, containers of ketchup, bags of flour, and jars of pickles. The tiger’s jump amazed me, but the tiger didn’t stick the landing. As I began reacting, it fell off the top shelve, which was over a dozen feet high, and landed on the ground. The woman came forward and scooped it up.

“Did you see that tiger jump?” I said, pointing at the shelves. “That tiger jumped to the top of those shelves. It was amazing.”

Although I said this several times, nobody else seemed to have noticed, and nobody answered me.

The dream ended.

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The Real Story

I came up to the coffee shop counter to order. The barista’s eyes widened as her glance flicked over my face. Poise returned to her. “Do you know that your eye is very red-looking around it, like it’s bleeding?”

“Yes. My wife hit me.”

Her eyes widened.

I smiled. “I said something to her. I guess she didn’t like it, because she reached back and punched me. I reacted, but she caught some of my eye.”

“What’d you said?”

“I don’t remember.”

As the barista continued looking at me in shock, I smiled. “No, I made all that up. What really happened is that I got out of bed and peed. As I came back to bed at five twenty-five, I wondered where my cat, Tucker, was. I didn’t see him on the bed. He usually likes to sleep with us. I got into bed, and shifted my head and blanket to get more comfortable. As I did, I raised my head and looked over it, toward the headboard, and saw Tucker swing a paw at me. I guess he’d been asleep. I hadn’t noticed him, and startled him awake.

“Seeing the paw coming, I jerked back, but I wasn’t fast enough, and I was in the wrong position. One of his claws caught my eyelid and hung. Pitching forward, I freed myself, but not without some pain. I ended up with a scratch, about a sixteenth of an inch deep and three sixteenths long, on my eyelid. Luckily, he didn’t catch my eyeball or the cornea or anything.”

“Did you go to the hospital or get it taken care of?”

“No.” I smiled. “I cleaned it up and applied antiseptics with cotton balls. I believe I’ll live.”

“What’d you do to the cat?”

“Nothing. It was an accident, I think. He just freaked out. Although I have to say, when I fed him this morning, I told him that I was pissed at him and he needed to keep his distance for a while.”

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Floofjury

Floofjury (floofinition) – a wound or wounds inflicted by a housepet; one or more judgemental housepet(s).

In use: “He rolled over. Arising from its sleep, his cat reared back and swatted across his face, leaving him with a bleeding floofjury.”

 

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The Book Store Dream

There was so much dreaming last night.

One memorable part involved a back door where I checked on books. I don’t know why I checked on books there, but I would go out and look for books. It seemed to be by a garage door in my house. Returned surveys about books began arriving there. I struggled to understand what they were. My wife and some friends were in another part of the house. I took it to them but they were talking about other things and didn’t pay any attention.

I learned that the front of the house was a book store, but someone else owned it. I realized that the surveys were probably due to them but were being delivered to me instead. I found the owner, a woman, and told her that her surveys were being sent to me and that she needed to do something about that if she wanted to receive them. Another man, her employee, started talking to a group of people about the survey, and what they hoped to get from it. He was talking about the disappointment they had because so few had been returned. I interrupted him and told him they were being delivered to me instead of them, and gave them a stack of them.

Then I discovered an old Wizard of Oz DVD. Recalling how I’d come to have it, I went to return it to its correct place and discovered an entire stash of them.

Nobody else seemed to understand me, frustrating me. My wife kept leaving the back door open, and didn’t pay attention to my complaints about it. I finally told her that she couldn’t have those keys any longer. She and her friends decided to leave. She went to leave by the back door, discovered it was locked, and asked me if she could have the keys. That was a catalyst for sky-high frustration and irritation. I went through the same complaints and statements as before. She then left through the front, but still didn’t seem to understand.

Then I heard the book store owner, her employee, and several customers talking about the survey. The book store owner complained that they weren’t getting surveys back. The customers said they’d returned them. I intervened, explaining again they’d been sent to the wrong place, and that they were coming to me instead of the book store. I told the store owner that needed to be changed if she wanted to receive the survey. As I was now fed up with trying to get them to understand, I told her I’d no longer be an intermediary for ensuring her surveys reached her.

I left, but immediately regretted being spiteful. Outside, I walked down a large green hill. The hill was full of desks arranged like tombstones and grave markers. No one was at any of them. My desk, I knew, was at the bottom of the hill, where I was headed. As I was almost there, an old female friend, who I haven’t seen in twenty-plus years, joined me, talking and commiserating with me as we walked.

Reaching my desk, I sat in my chair and leaned forward in thought. She sat in a chair beside my desk, and then leaned forward and wrapped her arms around me. She was talking as she did, being very sympathetic, and then began kissing me.

The dream took an sharp, erotic turn after that.

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