Joseph Said
The End
I’m reading Bill Browder’s memoir, “Red Notice”. Partway through, I’ve just finished the part of his life when the Asian markets tanked, tanking his Russian-based fortune in his company, Hermitage Capital Management. At this point, still in the first third of the book, he considers his options. It would be easy to sell off everything for what he could get, close the company, and leave Russia, but he disliked the impression.
His thinking reminded me of Stephen Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. Habit Two is “Begin with the end in mind.” It’s my favorite habit. When I used Covey’s book in team building, I led an exercise to imagine what you want others to say about you when you’re finished, when you finally say, I’m done. It’s one of those things that provides extra motivation when it seems like your tank might be empty.
I feel like I need to remind myself of this today. My muses are tearing me up with their pace. I’ve been reading a lot, which is a catalyst to dreaming. Dreaming fires up my imagination, and imagination stimulates my writing. Or something like that; I don’t know the exact connectivity between these activities, only that they seem to act on one another in me. Simultaneously, I sometimes worry that I’ve gone off the tracks and have begun pursuing a delusional folly somewhat like Professor Grady Tripp in Michael Chabon’s novel, “Wonder Boys”. Michael Douglas played Professor Tripp in the movie.
Intellectually and emotionally, I know that doubts like these aren’t uncommon among writers, especially while you’re an unknown author and working on a long project. Personally, I know my rhythms and understand this is part of my modus operandi and my untamed impatience to get done and move on to other activities.
You probably get tired of reading blog posts like this. As it is part of my normal cycles along my personal spectrums, I end up thinking, writing, and posting about them. I share it as much to help me think through my situation, but also to let other unknown writers out there that they’re not alone. Every writer that I know goes through these doubts. Some let their doubts stop them from writing. Others take Professor Tripp’s path, figuring that if it’s never done, it’ll never be read nor criticized, creating Schroedinger’s novel. Is it brilliant or garbage? Nobody knows because he won’t let anyone read it.
Looping back to the post’s beginning, though, I don’t want that to be me. The end for that is a writer who never finishes or publishes. Good or bad, I will finish and publish despite myself and my fears, worries, and neurosis.
Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
A Muse Rides In
A dream began and ended. I slipped between the cracks of being asleep and awake and considered the dream.
My muses rode in our horses. There were five, all women.
And David Bowie’s song, “Heroes,” began playing.
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I’ve been having a series of nostalgic dreams about being happier and more contented. These dreams reflect my wry private observation about my life’s trajectory. I’d followed an upward curve for decades, the kind that’s part of the mythology of working hard and being rewarded when really, it was partly being a beneficiary of being a white male with a modicum of sense in modern America. Sometimes there was a brief drop, and there were a few sharp spikes. Overall, it’d been up and steady. Now, I ride a plateau.
This dream was like that series, but sharper. It centered around me opening a business. I’d picked a location but was having buyer’s remorse and self-doubts. I walked around thinking, what to do, what to do. Was this really what I wanted to do? More, it didn’t seem like a good business idea. Friends, family, and business associates were present. As it grew clear that I was dissatisfied and bothered, they offered alternative ideas for the space and my business.
That triggered fond thinking about going to coffee shops and bakeries. I thought the space was perfect for that. Into the dream comes one of my old CEOs, enthusiastically reminiscing about life at a start-up, and coffee shops like this. Everyone was excited about that idea, and I awoke on the verge of a decision.
After thinking about that dream, I reordered myself to sleep.
Then the muses rode in.
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The five muses rode in and stopped. I had a profile shot of them in a line. They were looking straight ahead. I don’t know what they looked at it. It was then I realized they were my muses. I recognized the setting from the scene I’m working on in my novel.
Bowie’s “Heroes” began playing. IT would play on a continuous loop in the background for the rest of the dream. The song was a live version from one of Bowie’s last shows.
The woman in the center was on a light brown horse. She dismounted. Her horse and the other muses went away. She transformed into one of my novel’s characters. The story-telling commenced. As her story spread out like I watched a movie, she said, “No, further back. This series of scenes needs to begin further back.”
So back we went, resetting the start of her part in this series. She began telling it again. It was like I was in a movie watching her.
There’s a lot to write today.
###
As a final part of the dream sequences, I dreamed a dragon flew through me. Huge, it flew through my body and breathed fire, burning out any diseases in me.
As far as I know, I don’t have any diseases.
Catch Up
Don’t you hate it when you keep writing in your head, and then sit down to write and discover that you have entire chapters completed in your head that need to be typed out?
Yikes. I like it that the muses are so active and engaged with me. That’s not the kind of thing I want to complain about (even though, yes, I acknowledge that I am whinging about it, right?) because I don’t want to insult them. You know how temperamental the little sweethearts can be. Speaking of which, does anyone have suggestions about what sort of thank you gifts muses like? Is there a protocol? Does Hallmark have a line of cards for muses?
Got my coffee and ass in chair. Time to type like crazy and try to catch up with the muses.
Steinbeck Said
Bemoaning that the novel and series continues expanding (“This is taking forever!”), I was thinking of something like this quote for myself last night. “Just keep typing,” I told myself. “Don’t rush it. When it’s done, it’s done.”
Meanwhile, I thought Steinbeck was quoted as saying that finishing a novel is like having a death in the family. I decided to look for that quote this morning, but found the other one instead. It’s almost like it’s all part of a plan.
As the Cats Watched
Was it a worm, a thread, a nibble, a spark? I can’t codify what it was that happened as I rushed through a few quick chores (with three cats eyeing me from comfortable curls to ensure no noisy machines were engaged). The brain was freed from thinking, and the muses thundered in with one of those OMG shots that started me laughing and saying, “Yes,” (which caused the cats to raise their heads in questioning unison).
As Thomas Weaver reminds me once in a while, many writers begin in the middle, without full awareness of what’s happening. Following the spark of a concept that flames into a story, we let the characters arrive to illuminate events and motives. As I’ve gone through those steps to create a massive arc that covers four novels (each with their own arc of discovery and story-telling) and contemplate the end (which was already written), ideas sparked (or were there loose threads that I pulled, or a worm wiggling into my imagination), showing me that I’d not completely thought out and understood the concept. Even though I’ve been writing about it since July of 2016 and there are over a million words, there was more to know and write about.
This newest addition tickles me, and I think about it with amused excitement. It has a “holy cow” aura. Such fun. And in a few minutes this morning, as the cats watched, I was reminded again how much I enjoy fiction writing, and why.
Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Natalie Said
I like this quote. Writing is a relationship with my mind, and not just an escape or an attempted career path.
It’s always why I like having dreams at night, and remembering and thinking about them. They’re another part of the relationship with my mind.
One Of Those Nights
It was one of those nights. My muse didn’t recognize my need for sleep and refused to issue permission to shut down my brain and close my eyes.
Such times are productive, even though I feel like shit in the morning. I’m exaggerating for effect, of course; I really don’t know how shit feels. I feel guilty, implying that shit feels terrible. For all I know, shit feels great.
Sorry for the shitty detour. I know, terrible humor. Hey, I just confided that I had a rough night. Grant me some latitude.
Back to the muses’ nocturnal gallop through my mind. I’d just been complimenting my muse (or muses – I think there’s a congress of muses within me) about the pleasant week of systematic writing established and reflecting on the progress made. When last I left off writing yesterday, I had a damn good idea of where I was next going.
I’m still going there, but the dark silence of night brought out the muses like they were in heat. Instead of allowing me to sleep, wake up today, and go walk and write to work out details, the muses began shotgunning details into me. The people look like these. These are their names. They’re all women, and —
It’s not polite to ignore your muse, and it’s rude to tell them to shut up. I obliged them by listening. When I thought they’d finished, I attempted to use one of my honored processes to engage sleep. I thought it worked, too, but then, the muses thundered out anew.
When sleep and I finally met, quicksilver dreams rushed in, flashing kaleidoscopes of scenes and words. Awakening, I had a lot to think about between dreams and night writing, and a desire for about four more hours of sleep.
Got a big ol’ cup of dark, unadulterated caffeine loaded coffee steaming in a mug to my right. Time to write like crazy and get all this stuff down, at least one more time.
Michael Seidel, writer 