Category: writing

I Am A Writer, I Write

As a writer, I have opinions on many topics. I scrutinize and judge just about everything. I think about politics, values, experiences, events, issues, history, arts, books, food, beer, wine and coffee, sometimes deeply, sometimes intelligently, but often sort of vacuously. Just ask me about something. If I don’t have an opinion immediately available, I’ll create one, because not only do I write, but I write fiction. Hence, I’ve come to write reviews on Travelocity.

It’s been going on a few years, and it’s not under my name. My origins as a reviewer are obscure. I suspect a place either pleased or annoyed me and I wanted to share it with the world, because, see the post title.

And then they kept hitting me up. Do you have more to write about? Why, yes, I do. I don’t write often, though, and I try to be careful. Five stars are not given. Five stars means something close to magic has been experienced. I think too many people too quickly issue five stars. But then, ratings are based on experiences and expectations. If you eat at McDonald’s everyday, other places can quickly seem like fantastic food, and if you sleep on wood, a decent mattress is amazing. I imagine ratings also have the same sort of immediacy and experience auras encountered in performance reviews, too.

So I write reviews, trying to say more than, wow, was this place great, or crap. Travelocity encourages me, “Hey, wow, you’re a level 2 reviewer,” (I think that’s what it said), “and your reviews have been read by 13,000 people.” My writing ego was impressed. Then it tells me, “20 found them helpful.” Twenty, from 13,000? That throws my ego under the truck. “You have 300 followers.” Well, it’s someone.

But I still like writing the reviews. Because — see the post title.

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Reading Writers’ Blogs

All the world’s events have upsides and down, depending on your framing mood and which glasses you put on. Even sunrise can suck, as it counts down to a personal Armageddon, something bothering you alone.

Reading writers’ blogs reinforces the ups and downs of trying to write, publish and sell, but also shows the humanity behind writers. They’re revealed not to be just mad typists and scribblers, but beer and coffee connoisseurs, sports freaks and political junkies. It’s fun learning these things about them and discovering you have something in common with them (hey, Louise Erdrich likes drinking water, too!)

Upsides include great references to novels, short stories, poetry and information about writing and publishing. I often encounter intelligent, stunning writing from unknown writers.

Downsides include grimace inducing, clumsy writing.

Upsides – revelations about what not to do.

Downsides – realizations that damn it, I do that.

Big downside, too, is that I’m competing in some sense, because only so much can be read, with brilliant, intelligent, inventive, clever writers with skills that humble me.

Definite upside, no matter what level of writing I’m achieving, the discovery that a whole world of writers work in much the same esoteric and secret way of other endeavors, like pro sports, banking, software programming, name it, and recognizing I’m part of that world. Often hardest about writing is the lack of validation of my work. Nobody wants it and nobody reads it. It’s not necessarily crap, but it’s not easily accessible. I think weirdly so I write weirdly. Writers’ blogs remind me that this isn’t unusual, burning off some of my personal loneliness and frustration.

Writers’ blogs help me hope for that big breakthrough. They remind me how long it took Ursula LeGuin, JK Rowlings, Andy Weir, Lisa Genova, Stephen King, John Scalzi, Kathryn Stockett, Theodore Giesel, and others, to achieve their success. Their secret was that they kept writing. Their efforts, and success, inspire me.

I don’t know where I stand on the true spectrum of writing skills and talents, but I’m also not certain how much that matters. But, although I’m a seriously suspect Space Cadet, I will continue writing and trying to find my audience.

Because that’s what reading writers’ blogs tell me to do.

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New Balance

Revelation!

I always notice myself and the things happening to my body – mind – spirit – energy – writing – relationships, and think, aha, revelation! They’re revelations to me but might be nothing to others. Others noticed their revelation long ago and shrugged it away, or quietly and simply absorbed it without scrawling to the world, revelation! But I always think, I’m onto something, and want to share it, because I am.

Revelations happen a lot when I’m on the upper end of my spectrum, and right now, all aspects seem to be approaching zenith, meaning, I’m happy, I’m noticing a lot and have huge energy reserves, and I have lots of patience, and voluminous, dramatic dreams. Really.

Today’s revelation came during calf dips. I liked doing these up and down movements while balancing on the edge of a stair and not using my hands to hold myself up. Oddly (perhaps others have insights about this and will say, no, not oddly), but oddly for me, I’m better at this if I used the twenty pound weights while doing this.

Anyway, while doing these today, I realized as I rose and dropped and adjusted my balance, that various small balance centers were in play and being felt. I loved learning that. It synchronized with a greater observation about how I set myself up to fail. I set myself up to fail by creating huge expectations and hopes for success. Then, naturally, I don’t achieve what I want as fast as I want it. But, aha – revelation – using small and separate adjustments made the exercise work more smoothly. Thus, I should set smaller goals, employ small adjustments and make small changes.

I did learn that a long time ago when editing and revising. Big changes are very dangerous and can spin wildly out of control. I use a lot of caution now while editing and revising, tasking myself to read the entire document and see it as a whole before attempting large changes. Then I don my critical reader hat and ask, if I was critiquing this for another writer, exactly how would I state my problems with that work?

Naturally, there’s a bifurcation of thought in me about making small changes. My desire for the big reach stretches along on my emotional and physical spectrums. Emotionally, that doesn’t surprise me. Success appeals to my emotional side. Failure is felt emotionally. Physically, physical conditioning has always been structured in me to try harder, go further, do more and stretch yourself, to achieve the best gains.

Over on the intellectual and spiritual sides, I’m much more measured, and very accepting of small steps and minute adjustments. While the emotional and physical spectrums do not accept any backward steps well, the spiritual and intellectual sides will counsel, even a backward step is a learning opportunity. It’s like my emotional/physical sides are petulant toddlers, and my spiritual side is a zen master, while the intellectual aspect is a patient mentor.

It’s great when they all work together. Today, they do, so I observe, recall and apply once again a simple lesson, take small steps to achieve balance, reach your goals, and realize your dreams, Michael. Fortunately, the writer in me seems able to embrace and be on all four spectrums somewhat evenly.

Time to write like crazy, one more time.

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MG6

 

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My new version, Michael Gen 6, has been released to exciting reviews. Lighter, leaner, more mellow, here are some product highlights.

1. Computer issues plagued Michael G5, triggering blood pressure increases and often fracturing his calm. With the computers temporarily shelved, MG6 is a more mellow, tolerant and jovial person.

2. Carrying an iPad mini 4 and 100 sheet composition book and pen is much easier than trucking the computer in the bag with whatever support gear and accessories were packed. Losing them means MG6 weighs 15 pounds less than MG5. The lighter load has unexpected collaterals ramification. Packing less weight has resulted in MG6 having greater energy over MG5. The enhanced energy levels are being proven with increased optimism, exercise and activity levels.

3. With less frustration and irritation exhausting him, MG6 sleeps better and awakens with a greater life zest. MG6 has even planned a coast vacation.

4. Writing in a notebook with a pen has bounced MG6 to a higher creative cycle. More primitive and elemental, rawer, torrents of words pour out, although there is a shortcoming with this output, as it still requires typing.

5. As MG6 is less stressed than the previous version, less comfort food and drink are consumed. Money is saved and body weight has been reduced.

Some things didn’t change with MG6. He still answers the cats’ purrs, cries, meows, paw swipes, head butts and rub bys, doing whatever they order, from feeding to treats to catnip to extended petting sessions as they roll around, and offering a lap for napping when demanded.

MG6 still obtains most calories from organic food, having a wonderful grilled vegetable quesadilla with guac, salsa, and sour cream for dinner last night, with additional input coming via beer, in this case, a shandy of lemonade and Ashland Amber.

And though it’s a notebook, and the result isn’t tidy, MG6 still drinks quad shot mochas and writes like crazy.

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Just More

I figure I should rename this blog to Just More BS, because it’s all just about me, baby.

Three days I’ve not written. I feel like those cat satires, whereby felines record how their captors taunt them while keeping them imprisoned. Oh, such a miserable life.

Life is not at all mis for me now. I’m rising, again, but will set again. I’m a creature of cycles and spectrums. But while I’m up —

I recognized stages today, of coping with not having my computer, and not being able to write like crazy each day, and of being limited to writing on the butcher roll paper of my mind. I complained (fuck!) and whined (why me, universe, didn’t you always tell me I’m the chosen), and then accepted (okay, I can do this, I will do this). (Clarification, I’m creating blog posts on the iPad mini 4. I’ve managed to miniaturize my hands so I don’t feel like the Jolly Green typing on a Selectric but I worry about enduring the rest of my Earthly existence with tiny hands. Yes, I’m a handist.)

Yesterday afternoon, tho’, whilst grilling veggies, I speculated, can I go back to writing in a paper notebook? Challenges and obstacles rose through the mists of hope. My writing is organic. I’m like a kid jumping through and around puddles of scenes, plot setting, and characters. I wouldn’t be able to do this, and I didn’t print out the works in progress. Still, I convinced myself I can write some scenes and insert, edit and polish them after the Computer Returns.

Pondering this, I grew hopeful. This morning, I considered, maybe I can just write a short story, hey, hey?

Sure. Whatever. Deciding I needed to write and was going to write, I found an almost blank notebook. The few written pages were perused. Ah, a draft of a performance report, I recognized. They were part of the structure of a past existence and have been banished to the admin vortex where they belong. Tear them out!

Now the notebook is blank and ready. Short story or novel, and which novel, Long Summer (sequel to Returnee) or Personal Lessons with Savanna (third book in the mystery series)?

I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I’m in my coffee shop office. I have my quad shot mocha and a pen at hand. Because, when I summarize what I want, what I do, and who I am, I want to write, and I write. To not write is to give up. Why should I assume this will not work out? Perhaps this change will inspire a new spring of creativity. Maybe this is a reboot, Michael G6.

Yeah, that’s all words, justification, rationalization, clarification. I just want to write like crazy. Time to do it, at least one more time.

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Reset

Tsk. I’d forgotten about the reset button.

I knew I had one. Every human has a reset button but I think most of us find using our reset button is like using ice cubes as charcoal briquettes. Speaking for myself, the biggest problem with my reset button is that it’s not clearly marked and easily reached. Be wonderlicious if my reset button was labeled to my navel’s left, “Press here to reset.” I’d even deal with it if I had to reach down on my bottom and thread a straightened paper clip into a tiny hole to find and press a minuscule button. But my reset button isn’t that easy.

Yet (sigh) a reset was indicated. The computers are freezing me out. I’m like a cave man, except I’m hairier, live in a house, don’t hunt, gather food at stores and markets, wear shoes, have electronic fun stuff and the electricity for them, and I don’t drive as well as a cave man. I’m reduced to not writing or writing in notebooks. I decided not to write in notebooks, except for notes, as the muses intended.

But it’s a painful withdrawal, not to sit and back space and click across a keyboard. Scenes bloom like red algae in my head. I tell myself, “Remember this to write later.” But my brain is an express lane. Only five items are permitted. Putting in notes to remember to write later bumps out my name, address and telephone number. Once they’re gone, matters like other people’s names and where I’m going have as much chance as an ice cube on a hot grill.

Took several days to remember the reset button. I owe it to Amazon. Entertaining myself, I watched a show, “All or Nothing,” about the Arizona Cardinals and their efforts to win the NFL championship. Someone made a big boo boo on the field and another player encouraged him, “Hey, that’s done. Reset.”

Yes, reset. Drop those past frustrations, errors and irritations like soiled underwear. Forgive and forget what I would normally be doing (writing) if my computer was here and working (sob). It’ll be back in two weeks, so reset.

Yes, reset. One lesson I once learned a dozen forty times is that vacuums don’t work for us as humans except when we can apply that technology to suck shit up. So I set to mind sucking that shit up and out. The other thing is that it’s not enough to proclaim that I’m resetting, dumping negative energy and going forward with a glowing positive aura. No,the things that provide me that delicious negative energy that I feast on must not only be rejected but needs to be replaced. See, that’s where the vacuum thingy comes in. Dumping the negative stuff creates a vacuum. See? Follow? Create a vision for going forward, I tells myself, as I’ve tolds myself eleven million and eleven times to the power of eleven before. That’ll bring in positive stuff to replace that negative stuff.

So, yarp, here I go again, on another day, hitting the reset button like it’s my existence’s snooze button. Let’s do this.

But first, some coffee.

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Counting Waves

You know the words. You can write the cliches for me.

Talking about another, you note or say, “Oh, he/she is in one of those moods today.” Curl a little snark into your tone. We joke about women and their cycles, because that’s how many of us were socialized and conditioned. “Women’s cycles” are visible. They’re “emotional and irrational” when it’s “that time of month” or “they’re going through the change.”

Men’s cycles are more often ignored. But we talk about male bosses and spouses and how they seem angrier, more irritated, or conversely, they’re in a great mood. “Maybe now is the time to ask them for ____.” Fill in the blank of what’s been considered and rejected because of their mood, but now, it’s a possibility, because they’re cheerful today.

Or you notice it about yourself, but you don’t know why. You don’t know why you’re sad. You don’t know why you’re happy. You rationalize reasons, develop a logical explanation for why you must feel this way. We think we know ourselves best, but I know myself better. I have large, dark windows that I can’t see in. Monsters are back there….

Everything seems like it’s on a spectrum for me: energy, optimism, dreaming….

I dreamed many times and vividly last night.

I wrote with speed and intensity yesterday. And what I wrote? Honestly, I’m amazed that I’m so talented. What an imagination! I am fucking brilliant.

I’m optimistic, hopeful and cheerful. I look forward to visiting with friends. My body feels great.

I feel like I’m enjoying life more. Food and drinks taste better, and that sunlight, golden on those scattered soft gray and white clouds above the verdant tree filled mountains against an azure sky late yesterday afternoon, wasn’t that the most magnificent, inspiring sight? Did you see that soaring hawk?

But as I dreamed and awoke last night, considered the dreams and returned to sleep, I thought of how alike it was to being on beach at the ocean. Like waves, there’s a pattern to the dreams and the ocean’s movement, and there are high tides and low tides of dreaming. It’s not the first time I’ve thought this and written about it. Even now, it seems like deja vu. I dream; the dreams increase with strength, vividness, and impact as my cycle progresses through its spectrum. I wake up and write about it. Then the dreams peak and begin diminishing.

Ah, yes, you see that, how my mental acuity increases as well? I’m able to observe more clearly and understand myself better. I wonder, are Jeopardy contestants aware of this? Do their personal cycles affect their winning and losing? I really would like to study that, because, you see, I’m almost at the top.

During the rising mental, spiritual and physical energy cycles, I write, and the words come faster, clearer, more quickly and easily, and then I peak. I begin back down. Writing becomes a greater and greater challenge, until, down in the trough, it’s a slog to get to the coffee shop, sit in the chair and focus on the stories being told. My rituals and routines, and the tricks I’ve learned to encourage and engage my inner writer help them. But the stuff I write. Oh, God, help me, please. How could I ever believe I had any skills? I’m worthless, less than zero, with the creativity and talent of a gnat’s ass.

I know this week’s optimism and cheerfulness will crest. I will begin a slow descent into gloom. I will crave isolation. Small irritations are imagined to be major insults. I become a more aggressive driver, and a more bitter person. I’ll hunger for and reward myself with the junk foods, desserts and fried foods that I deny myself when I’m ‘up.’ Then I’ll bottom out, silent, weary, angry, self-loathing, and begin to arise back from the depths. I drink coffee but derive little energy from it. Even reading sucks. My needs and responses are wildest at the bottom. I’m more emotional, needier. I want to shop and buy new things, as a salve for how terribly I’m suffering, but I want to do it without others bothering me.

I know, too, how my cycles affect my world perceptions. When I’m rising, I’m more open. I post and comment more. More cheerful, I have greater self-confidence. When I’m in the pit, I disappear. I don’t check Facebook and don’t post, because it’s all the same jokes, I tell myself, the same crap, the same garbage from the same people, and the news? When I finally bottom out, I have a sense that the world is a terrible place of killing and brutality, our leaders are shits, and we, the common, the less than 1%, have no chance. I am resentful and hostile.

Being in the depths is miserable. I feel lifeless, a sawdust man, without purpose, direction or hope. Down in the trough, it’s hard to see my way through an hour. Food tastes terrible, and taxes are way too high. Everything costs too much then, and it’s all junk.

I wonder, how many people kill one another or themselves because they’ve descended into their pit. How many cops are more fearful and frightened, more ready to kill because of their state? How many others are more willing to take up a knife or gun and seek vengeance and make others pay because of where they are in their cycles and spectrums?

Now, climbing toward the peak, I’m on top of the world. The view is magnificent, and I believe that we can work together, change the world, and solve all the problems.

We just need to hurry, before I start down again.

 

 

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Writing’s Adrenalin

Lethargy rolls a slow fog over my mind . Do I hafta write today, a plaintive voice demands. I don’t wanna. 

Last night’s sleep won’t go into the book of the best. Mimosas with friends this morning contributes something to the singular sense that I don’t want to write, and put it off, playing games, reading a book, reading blogs. Timing is off, energy off.

Oh, push, damn it, push. Push. Just think of a word that you want to write, the beginning of a chapter, a scene, a sentence. With explosive suddenness, words pour into me from three scenes, two books. Hurry, hurry, my laggard mind is suddenly urging. Write like crazy and get it down now. Okay, okay, okay, let’s get these things down. Which to start with…? Pick one.

One is picked, pursued. Words are collected, ordered, re-arranged, deleted, added, ordered again. More scene arrives. Moments expand, expand, expand.

Writing’s adrenalin kicks in. I can’t write fast enough, head down, fingers dancing with ballerina lightness, going until I’m drained. The quad shot mocha remains, waiting to be drunk, now iced with a fine skim from being cold.

I drink, suddenly weary again, but satisfied. Started with nothing. Found a word and managed twenty-eight hundred. Feels good but I feel tired.

I’d really like

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New Fav Expression

I came in to order my coffee. It wasn’t necessary, as all the baristas know my drink. Meghan had been serving me over a year. “You give me deja vu everyday,” she said, laughing. “You know that, don’t you? You give me deja vu everyday.”

“What a cool statement,” I said. “You give me deja vu everyday.” It’s my new favorite statement. I think there’s a story in it, but then, I see and hear stories everywhere. Somewhere, maybe in another dimension, or a dream world (or is this the dream world?), or a future past or past future, I’m writing those other stories. If you want to get Far Out, maybe I’m writing your story. I am the writing god, writing the stories of our existence, unaware that it’s going on, because someone else is writing my story.

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Just Write

Just write, I told myself. The aliens hadn’t yet arrived in my head, but I can’t wait for the aliens. I need to write. If you’re not writing, you’re standing still, (with the caveats, naturally, that if you’re editing, polishing, rewriting, etc., you are still engaged in the writing process, so you’re technically still writing).

These aren’t things I say out loud. Friends and relatives probably don’t know that my increased quiet is because I’m dreaming about aliens, trying to entice them out of the air and into my head (kind of like the old Billy Ocean song, “Get out of my dreams, and into my car.” I had asked my wife and others what aliens they like in books, films and games, or who were their favorite aliens. Great conversation fodder. The baristas, twenty year old women, were into it, and the barista today created an alien on my mocha. She then brought the alien topic up for her co-worker, who didn’t work yesterday when I asked, re-invigorating the conversation.

I derived beautiful thoughts from all these words. Yet the aliens remained nebulous, refusing to get into my car. Just write, I told myself, and they will come. Okay, so what will I write? I was picking up the scenes already created. They’re wonderful stepping stones, and although I wasn’t quite to the scene that arose to be written today, I shrugged. Okay, that’s what I’ll write, and then I’ll write the bridge to it from where I’m at later. No Big Deal. I write like this all the time, seeing what is to be and writing it because I want to, and then returning to bridge the pieces together.

So what happens in the novel today? This happens, and then that happens, and then, boom, there it is, writing stuff about aliens and plot exploding into me, firing off flares and tracers that illuminated what is to be.

Beautiful. Yeah, here I go, just write like crazy, one more time. Let the rest worry itself.

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