Category: writing

Monthly Changeover

A new month has arrived. Hello? February, already? No way. Time continues to accelerate in an unseemly manner with months passing like weeks and hours flashing by like minutes.

I hypothesize that we each have time particles at a sub-atomic level in ourselves. Their interaction with others’ time particles and those embedded in other matter form how we perceive and use time, and how time treats us. We adhere to agreed standards for simplicity’s sake, but time is more personalized than realized. That’s my theory, and I’m sticking to it, at least for today. Someday, someone a lot smarter than me will figure all this out, and our thinking about time will undergo a monumental shift. For now, it’s one of those, we can’t make out the forest for the trees sort of perspective.

With the new month comes chores that rotate around the month’s arrival. Besides flipping over calendar pages, reviewing business plans, goals, and dreams, I also back up my writing work on something external that’s placed somewhere safe. While floppies of the five and a quarter and three and a half-inch varieties were used in the past, I moved on to zip drives, CDs, and now, flash drives.

Reviewing the month, I’m pleased with my writing progress, but I’m astonished that it’s taking so long to finish this quadrilogy, Incomplete States. I seem to be adding a new volume every few months; this week I was contemplating a fifth book in the series. Reining myself in, I sought ways to incorporate these new ideas into the fourth book being written. We’ll see how it goes. It’s not like the series is a raised garden bed, where everything must be contained. My motto is generally, write like crazy, and let the words go where they flow. I’m a trifled concerned; if I keep adding volumes like this, I’ll end up with something that rivals the Wheel of Time for the series’ length.

Now it’s time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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The Comedown

You ever have a highly productive day, where you feel fantastic about what you accomplished, but then, the next day, you feel hungover, drained, and tired?

Yeah, overcoming the comedown from a natural high is tough, innit? This is when discipline, perseverance, and dedication are demanded.

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POV

Writing from multiple personal points of view as I like to do is a fascinating exercise. Each character has a different interior voice and private agenda. Less than putting them on, I marinate in them.

It’s engaging to explore them as their personalities emerge and these voices and agendas become stronger. The longer I marinate (write from their POV), the move they develop.

I have broad strokes about each. Kanrin is quiet, patient, and thoughtful. He likes to wait for more information before saying anything, and is careful about what he says. Richard is verbal, veers toward narcissism, and often becomes petulant, childish, and jealous, characteristics that make him unpredictable. Pram has less complexity and is action oriented. Not being able to act drives irritation and anger in him, facets that the others know about him, which cause them to worry about Pram and distrust him. (He knows it, and that angers him more.) Handley is younger and more mellow, with simpler needs, and Brett is a weary, older human who just wants to have a beer, chill out, and let the universe pass by.

Then we have Philea.

Philea is a scientist. Today’s writing unexpectedly took me through Philea’s thinking about chi-particles, qubits, unitary transformation, and quantum superpositions. Philea, a character that I supposedly created, is far more intelligent than me. I struggle to follow her thinking and put it into words.

I say I supposedly created Philea because it’s possible that she exists elsewhere (in another time or dimension), and what I’m writing as fiction is being channeled from another life elsewhere. That’s one possibility; another is that I’m just crazy. A third is that I have created Philea, and trying to think like her forces me into deeper focus and thinking, which can be done for a short period, but is ultimately unsustainable for me.

I’m agnostic about which of these are the truth. Perhaps they all are, in that I created her, which actually generated another universe of existence (sound familiar?), which then evolved, and is now feeding my thinking from her through a channel from that universe. Pondering it is fun, challenging, and harrowing.

Philea’s thinking has worn me out. Enough writing like crazy for today.

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Bad Writer

Yes, that’s me; I’m a bad writer.

I indulge myself when I write. My characters take long journeys of exploration. Thousands of words are spent as they kick around space, time, and memories, plot and vacillate over moral decisions and relationships, renege on their promises to themselves and others, and forget shit. Good writers (and editors, and hell, probably readers) will ask, “Well, what’s the point of all of that?”

Well, the point is, I enjoy it. It’s probably unhealthy, but my characters live alternative lives on my behalf doing all this. They help me engage in hyperbole. None of the characters are good or evil. Good and evil is a sliding scale, pushed around by situation, relevance, and perspective. That doesn’t mean they like what they’re doing; they often regret it. Hard choices are imposed on them. They forget what they learn, and are forced to learn it again, or learn their lesson, but can’t apply their lessons learned. Sometimes, it feels like they’re addicted to errors.

The characters are probably too much like me, regretting decisions and ruing choices, frustrated that they can’t control their lives, that their dreams are pushed aside by others’ agendas. Some of my characters are bitter and angry about it; others are blasé or fatalistic. Apathy sets in on some, but some forge ahead with determination, racing along even after it turns out they’ve made a bad decision. “Follow me,” they gleefully urge. Hundreds of pages later, they ask, “Where am I? What happened?”

It’s hell keeping up with them. Some days, they’ll like a drunken dysfunctional family gathering. Other times, they’re as boring and tedious as an later afternoon office meeting where everyone is waiting to leave so they can get on with other things.

I love keeping up with them and the laborious labyrinths of their lives as they struggle to find how much they can trust one another and cope with mysteries, betrayals, and setbacks, and find new goals as old goals are overcome by events.

Yes, I’m a bad writer, writing to mend my life and peer past the horizons imposed by reality. It’s probably not healthy, and I won’t bet any money that I’ll win awards or become wealthy, or critically successful, but I do have a helluva good time doing it.

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

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Roll Call

Have you ever been writing and have to pause to take a roll call about which characters are where and what they’re doing during a scene?

“Let’s see, Kanrin, Richard, Handley, Forus Ker, and Brett are in here (the lounge on Wrinkle). It’s Richard’s POV. Handley (burger and tots) and Kanrin (chicken sandwich and coffee bulb) are eating. Forus Ker is standing and staying mute. Brett is sitting and drinking beer. Philea is in the command section (next chapter). Pram is in the cargo area (about to go Hulk) (two chapters away). Anyone missing? Nope, that’s the seven. The rest are all elsewhere.”

Okay, now that I have that straight….

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Velvet Rain

A velvet rain is falling. It’s a rain that makes the world feel cozier and more intimate, inviting deeper thoughts.

I’d planned to walk ten minutes but the rain soothed me, inviting me to keep going. I did, until two miles and an hour had passed.

The rain didn’t appear to soothe all. Some drivers took the rain as a sign to go, “Faster! Faster!”

The walking time allowed for solitude and writing time. I’d dropped into my personal trough the other day in the cycles of buoyancy and depression. Oh, lord, that darkness. Daunting, it drinks me up and swallows me down. The sighs are heavy, the thoughts are bitter, and the world looks grim. Even the cats’ attentions are infuriating irritations.

Perspective helps me survive. Writing, walking, and solitude help me grind out perspective. Alas, Schedules and events kept me from consistently achieving two of the three. But yeah, I survived.

Our new microwave and range were delivered and installed yesterday. They look so modern, I was surprised to realize how ancient the replaced ten-year-old units looked, and the difference it makes to the kitchen. To celebrate, we went out to lunch, and then to a movie.

The movie is part of our annual Oscar Quest. Friends throw a party, and we like to be able to think and talk intelligently about the movies and performances. We’ve only seen a few noms, so we’re behind. We saw “The Post” yesterday. That increases our total to four. We have work to do in our entertainment. None of the previews (“Love, Simon,” “Red Sparrow,” “7 Days in Entebbe,” and “Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool”) didn’t inflame deep interest. Each struck me as something to stream and watch at home when it’s available through one of our subscriptions. Of the four, “Love, Simon,” sparked the most intrigue. I suppose I’m too picky and cynical.

As the lights dropped and the previews played, and then the movie opened, my writers emerged with scene ideas. When we returned home, I quietly sat down (quietly, so as to not attract the cats, who seemed determined to stop me from writing at home) at the laptop, opened the required doc, and wrote the scene and changes. Not interested in tempting fate (the cats! the cats!), I saved and closed the doc, but later, while eating, more writing visited me. I stole back into the document and added a few more pages. Best, it left me knowing exactly where to begin today.

It’s a fine feeling, to know what to write, to write it, and to look forward to writing more.

Liquid dripped onto the coffee shop table as I unpacked and set up. Rain or sweat? I don’t know; either were plausible. I suppose I could taste it, but it’s not a critical difference.

Tonight, Wednesday, is when I meet with my friends for conversation and beer. It’s a standing invitation. My attendance record is lackluster but the rain is whispering, “You should go.” I’m ambivalent, but contemplating it.

Meanwhile, the first gulps of hot, black coffee have scalded my lips and tongue. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

 

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The Goofy Band

A mug of steaming, fresh black coffee in hand, I strode back to the table where my laptop waited. “Okay,” I said, “Let’s write, brother.”

Write brother. That cracked me up. I’m a rainbow, and one broad band is definitely goofy.

Time to write like crazy, one more time.

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