Category: writing

Best Writing Movies

I’ve been thinking about the writing process once again, specifically my writing process.

Catching a piece of ‘Mike & Molly’ triggered the thinking. Molly, as a teacher, decides to write, and quickly and seemingly easily writes a book, finds a publisher, gets it published and so on. Although I know from other glimpses of the show that she struggled at times, the sitcom’s presentation of writing effort and success is the sort of sequence that makes me growl and pour a fresh glass of wine to guzzle my irritation. This is the sort of story-telling that makes people say, “I’ve always wanted to write a novel,” the sort of avenue of writing that makes other people ask, “Are you published yet?” Because it is just that fucking easy.

Everyone can present their own movies about writers and why they like them. I liked these movies because of their focus on writers and their processes, and the struggles they encounter while trying to write. These movies present the sense of battle that I feel I endure on frequent days, a sense of battle imposed by the tensions of living, struggling to write, coping with low self-esteem and pursuing a prize in isolation, all somehow with the sense and understanding that no matter what I write or achieve, I’ll probably never be happy with it.

‘Adaptation’. Number one, I’m a Charlie Kaufman fan. He wrote this screenplay. Number two, I’m a Spike Jonz fan, and he directed the film.

This movie has a good cast: Nicholas Cage as a writer, Charlie Kaufman, struggling to adapt ‘The Orchid Thief’, but then we have Tilda Swinton and Meryl Streep, Brian Cox and Chris Cooper, and Judy Greer and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Kaufman is going nuts trying to write the screenplay. In an interview given in 2002, Kaufman says, “The emotions that Charlie is going through are real and they reflect what I was goin’ through when I was trying to write the script.”

Then there is the question of Charlie Kaufman’s twin brother, who helps him write the movie. I often refer to my writing side as another person who happens to live in my shell, and that’s how I interpreted Donald Kaufman’s existence, since Donald is fictional.

‘Stranger than Fiction’. I’m not a huge Will Farrell fan. I like Emma Thompson but I was quite ready to not like this movie (because I am not a huge Will Farrell fan), so I was surprised that I enjoyed it. I particularly enjoyed Emma T as Karen struggling with writer’s block and pensively thinking through what she wants to write, rejecting different approaches and hating herself and the world in the process…but also coming to grips with it all.

That, also, is part of the writing life.

‘Wonder Boys’. I’m once again influenced by the cast and inspiration here, as much as anything, considering myself a fan of Michaels Chabon and Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Francis McDormand, Alan Tudyk and Robert Downy, Jr.

This movie is about several writers as played by Douglas and Maguire. One is the aging, struggling novelist trying to publish another novel, whose novel is now over twenty-five hundred pages; the other is a brilliant young talent (Maguire) on the verge of his career.

‘Barfly’. Kind of based on Charles Bukowski’s life, this is a gritty portrayal of the complications that haunt humans, including writers. Our writer in this movie is Henry. As so many are, Henry is self-aware and intelligent but victimizes himself and his supporters by his inability to deal with his flaws. And so, he begins and ends the movie changed but the same, fighting with the bartender in back of the bar.

Charles Bukowski wrote the screenplay. Mickey Rourke played the fictionalized version of Bukowski, Henry.

Honorable Mention: 

‘Death at A Funeral’. I’ve never seen the American version of this film, just the original British, which represents a great example of British black humor.

The Brit version’s cast includes Peter Dinklage, Alan Tudyk, Keely Hawes, Jane Asher, Matthew Macfadyen and Rupert Graves. Macfadyen and Graves play brothers who are writers. Graves is successful, living it up in New York and fawned upon by everyone as the famous writer while Macfadyen has remained at home, coping with his parents and his marriage and struggling to write a novel. This is carried through into the writing of the eulogy; Macfadyen’s character, Daniel, is writing it, and everyone is disappointed that his brother, Robert (played by Graves), isn’t writing it.

That’s the basic premise of their relationship. I don’t want to spoil the movie by revealing more.

I’m not an expert on these matters, or a pro critic or anything. Please, offer your take on any movies that attract your interest because of their portrayal of writers.

I always want more.

9

New Words

Skoth and fald have entered my writing vocabulary for my science fiction novel.

Skoth: skin clothing. Smart clothing which mimics Human skin’s respiration functions but also can shield and protect the body, and cover people so they don’t seem naked, while sculpting and shaping their forms according to their settings.

Fald: fake world. Artificial planetoids constructed to be planets for human activities, called falds to differentiate them from bioships and starships, moons, satellites and planets, and the other places Humans occupy in the far, far, far future.

These are both essentially future marketing terms.

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Complications

I’m involved in the part of my novel that’s labeled ‘the dance’ in my mind.

The multiple story lines have snaked into a knot. Each of these story lines are represented by a character with a third person personal POV. You’re in their thoughts; you know their lies, perceptions, fears, histories and plans. Now, all of that is running up against the others’ realities and activities.

I end up with multiple documents open:

  • the main document, with the chapters embedded, the actual work in progress, used to confirm scenes and sequence;
  • the bible, so I can look up terms, characters, and details without losing my place;
  • a map of where we’re at and expected to go;
  • and then a document for each of the story lines in progress.

I find myself writing one of the story lines but then switching to another doc and another story line, so as to keep it all integrated and true to the character and their story line.

Then, there are complications, because I love complications. There are the secrets that I know that even the characters don’t know, and that the readers certainly don’t know. There are secrets that the writers and some characters know that others don’t know, and some secrets the readers know that none of the characters know. Complications arise from politics, visions, time and memory. Writing it becomes a breathtaking, cerebral exercise to keep the complications from running me into the ground.

It’s all so satisfying and fun.

Oh, I think, I hope some readers someday find this novel, read it, and enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing it. I wonder what they will see in it that I’ve written that I never noticed.

Time to write like crazy, at least one more time, just for the sheer joy of it.

1

Let’s Start Here

Let’s start here. 

I saw the movie ‘La La Land’ yesterday. As I watched it, I thought, this is the movie that writers should see.

‘La La Land’ is a song and dance musical staring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone about a jazz musician and a struggling actress, Seb and Mia. I thought I was going to be seeing ‘Manchester by the Sea’ but my wife called an audible. We met friends, went to the movies and had drinks and nibbles afterward.

Let’s start here.

I discovered the dream of writing when I was in my early twenties, and young and arrogant. By then, I’d served four years in the military, and had tried and failed as a restaurant owner. Needing an income, I returned to the military. I ended up retiring after serving twenty years on active duty.

Let’s start here.

It had been my dream and plan to use my military pension to fund my writing career. I was thirty-nine years old so there was plenty of time. But the SF Bay Area where we were stationed and where I retired is expensive. I wanted to move to somewhere affordable.

But…my wife convinced me she wanted to stay in the SF Bay Area and Silicon Valley to pursue her career. Her career with advertising had started just a few years before but now she thought it could go places. It was making her happy. I agreed to put my writing dreams ‘on hold’. Note that the writing dreams were never really ‘on hold’; I was always learning and writing, first short stories, having a few published, and then pursuing novels.

Meanwhile, that region was an expensive area and my wife worried about finances. I sought employment. By the time six years had passed, a chronic disease, the dot com implosion and advertising companies consolidating and merging had snuffed her dreams.

But I flourished. Starting with medical device start-up companies and moving to Internet security companies, I went from success to success before spending my final years with IBM and electing to bail on all that jazz when I turned sixty last year.

So let’s start here.

As any aspiring/struggling/dreaming writer can attest, keeping the balance between marital harmony, life and family requirements, while working and sustaining the energy needed to pursue your dreams is daunting. It’s a candle aflame on both ends and the middle. Support is required. We make compromises and choices and withstand challenges. Our energies are taxed to breaking. We endure fears, setbacks and doubts. Sometimes we break, and sometimes, we try hiding. We often struggle and suffer in solitude, misunderstood and underappreciated, striving to remain hopeful.

Which is essentially what ‘La La Land’ is about.

As Mia sings in an audition, and I’m paraphrasing because I don’t remember the exact words, here’s to the dreamers and the messes we make, foolish as we often seem.

The other point in the movie that seems powerful to me is made by Seb’s friend, Keith. Seb is the jazz musician played by Ryan Gosling; Keith is played by John Legend.

So let’s start here.

Seb loves jazz music but he is enamored with the traditional musical styles. Jazz is dying, he laments. Yes, Keith agrees, and you’re killing it by playing those old styles. In order to keep jazz alive, it needs to change and adapt to attract new audiences.

It’s a telling point to me. To keep literature, reading and writing alive, change is required. We may love the literature that we read as we grew up but we need to face the new morning in the world. That’s what self-publishing and e-publishing is about.

Pursuing the dream, no matter what talent, skill or education is required, is about being strong and making the sacrifices required to achieve. Some of us are not strong enough to make them. We put others first.

Some of us are more foolish. We believe we can do it all, that we can sacrifice and compromise, and still achieve our dreams.

So let’s start here.

3

One More Time

Dreams beat me up last night. Intense, involved and convoluted, I awoke and thought them over for a while somewhere around two AM. Returning to sleep isn’t usually difficult and I was headed that way when Quinn the Black Paws went cat-crazy. He raced around the house, scratching at doors. When I went to talk to him about it, he rushed to the front door and issued pitiful mews. They sounded like, “I need out now,” to my ears. I tried soothing him but he insisted. It was thirty-three degrees out, a welcomed warmer night than that the last six days, so I released him. I knew he would demand to be let back in by beating on the windows when required and we, of course, would obey.

His antics had awakened the other three feline emperors. Each now demanded either released to the outside, food, attention, or all three. By the rules established by some crazy god, I was required to do their bidding. An hour later, returning to bed, my energy was too high to dismiss. Besides that, all that activity had summoned the writer.

He’d been thinking about where we are in ‘Long Summer’ and had some ideas to pitch. So he started pitching. Pram does this, and this happens on the ‘River Styx’  while Handley does this and this happens to her on the CSC Narwhal and that happens, and Forus Ker does this and Richard does that, and this is what’s happening to Brett and here is a part that I can’t work out, that I need to work out but this happens.

Sounds good, I told him. Keep it in mind and talk to me about it tomorrow.

But no, he wanted to write it and place it now. He mentioned a few more reveals that hadn’t occurred to me.

But really, it was dark-cold-time-to-sleep AM. Much as I enjoy writing like crazy, now was not the time.

I retreated to the recliner in the snug with a blanket. Finding a sitcom on Netflix, I set the TV timer to turn it off after thirty minutes and settled back. This pleased Tucker the Black and White Enigma, who happily landed on my abdomen. After studying me a few moments and conducting an abbreviated sniffing session for clues about what’s been going on, he gave me a nose lick and positioned himself to groom. I was probably asleep ten minutes later.

Now it’s almost touching on eleven thirty. I’m way behind. The writer appears to be asleep, but I have my quad-shot mocha.

Time to wake that rat-bastard up and write like crazy, at least one more time.

1

The Chi Compulsion

A storm was rocking the house. Rain did a Keith Moon impersonation on the walls and roof. My wife could not sleep. She was listening to BBC World News on the clock-radio.

“Want me to talk to you about my novel in progress?” I asked.

“Yes.”

That always puts her to sleep.

So I talked to her. I told her, I just wrote the first chapter to part three of a science fiction novel, even though parts one and two are not finished. Part two needs much more work. But I ‘saw’ this chapter and felt like it needed to be written. It’s like a guidepost about where I’m going. So I wrote it and put it into the novel.

I’ve been researching and writing about Chi-particles, I said, and then talked a little about general and special theories, chemical elements and quantum mechanics. I don’t know much about them, and that part of the discussion was finished quicker than an amuse-bouche.

I went on about my current obsession, Chi-particles. Chi-particles are imaginary particles, with imaginary mass and energy, that travel faster than light, and faster than the theorized tachyon particles. They exhibit properties of light, time and mass. They gain real energy and real mass as they slow down.

Yeah.

Calling them particles is incorrect but that’s what I called them in the beginning so that’s what sticks as part of my world-building history. My imaginary physicists later investigated and theorized that Chi-particles are sub-sub-sub atomic particles.

They are the universal building blocks. Chi-particles are in everything.

My wife was now snoring.

I continued, however.

Chi-particles actually have structures with a nucleus and other sub-level Chi-particles in orbit about them. Their Chi-structure is what drives atomic structure. Everything has Chi-energy. Chi-energy directs whether something develops into a chemical element, energy, dark matter, etc. They direct when something ‘comes alive’ and direct its levels of self-awareness, growth and sentience.

They direct what species the animated, organic matter becomes.

I sketched the Universal Theory of Relativity, in which the quantity of energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared (Einstein’s theory) is equal to the square root of Chi-particles imaginary light times Chi-particles imaginary mass.

I folded the entire thinking into wave function collapse and thoughts of ‘now’, time and the past. From there, I developed several other ideas and kept talking.

One idea is a future technology called star dating. It’s still rudimentary but I see it as a small but critical point in the novel. Essentially, background radiation leaves residual energy on everything, which then can be measured, in a sort of hybrid process between carbon dating, counting the rings on a tree, and using layers of dust to establish global events or using background radiation to understand the Universe.

Next to emerge was Chi-particle entanglement. I’ve thought about this before but needed to more fully vet it. As I walked through what the hell that meant, I came to realize that Chi-particles travel in a petal pattern. I started thinking about energy fields and ley lines.

Ah, yes. Much more came together. Some stuff didn’t work, I realized. They needed more thought. Then an epiphany rewarded me. Dazzled by its audacity, I started laughing in bed. But then, I easily impress and amuse myself. It’s all far-out. Hell, it’s fiction.

The alarm went off. It was six twenty-seven. Time for my wife to get up to dress and head for the Y and her exercise class.

I pulled the covers up to my chin and snuggled into my blanket nest. I wasn’t ready to get up. I wasn’t going to get up. I was warm and drowsy. I wanted more sleep. I’d been thinking and talking, off and on, for over ninety minutes.

My wife rolled over, turned off the alarm, re-settled herself and returned to sleep.

A cat meowed in another part of the house. I wanted more sleep but…

The cats needed to be fed and tended. Taking my Chi-particle thinking with me, I went off to feed them and then, because they were on my mind, presented these posts.

Now I really want a nap. But…there is writing to do, and movie matinees later today. I need to write so I can return and do other things. Therefore….

Turn on the coffee.

I can nap later.

3

Today’s Theme Music

Songs are bouncing through my head. Why today and now?

I don’t know.

They’re happening against the writing, dreaming, holiday, marriage, and life background. Each of those arenas inject their own spectrum of influences. All feel equally strong this week but writing is affecting the others. I’m deeply involved in the novel writing process, so much so that I’m losing track of the calendar and holiday, and I’m withdrawn into my thinking and writing. This, unsurprisingly, triggers my spouse’s deep irritation and some resentment.

I see her point. Yet, that is me, an emotional cripple, and a writer. I write to explore what I think but also what I feel. It leaves me at the crossroads at midnight, waiting to consummate a deal with the devil. I can’t abandon thinking about the novel and its elements of chi-p, Pram, Brett, virii, time-travel and the like. It’s too late for that; the novel’s presence is embedded in my psyche and will likely remain there until the story is fully told.

Yet I look for the leap from my life cycles to the song cycles. I wonder how songs are connected to smells and smells are connected to sights and sights are connected to emotions and emotions are connected to intelligence and intelligence is connected with memory and memory is connected to songs. It’s all wired together but something charges the wires, making some wires come alive, opening and closing switches, and taking me to unexpected places.

Like these songs.

Against the backdrop of writing and living, I’d been thinking about Mike Posner’s song and his lyrics.

I took a pill in Ibiza
To show Avicii I was cool
And when I finally got sober, felt 10 years older
But fuck it, it was something to do
I’m living out in LA
I drive a sports car just to prove
I’m a real big baller ’cause I made a million dollars
And I spend it on girls and shoes

But you don’t wanna be high like me
Never really knowing why like me
You don’t ever wanna step off that roller coaster and be all alone
You don’t wanna ride the bus like this
Never knowing who to trust like this

I was particularly hooked on the lines, ‘But you don’t wanna be high like me, Never knowing why like me’. From there, drifting through the lyrics last night, I awoke today singing:

Tell you ’bout a dream that I have every night
Tell you ’bout a dream that I have every night
It ain’t kodachrome and it isn’t black and white
Take me for a fool if you feel that’s right
Well I’m never on my own but there’s nobody in sight

I don’t know if I’m scared of the lightning
Trying to reach me
I can’t turn to the left or the right
I’m too scared to run and I’m too weak to fight
But I don’t care it’s all psychobabble rap to me

Tell you ’bout a dream that I have every night
It’s in dolby stereo but I never hear it right
Take me for a fool well that’s alright
Well I see the way to go but there isn’t any light

That song is ‘Psychobabble’ by the Alan Parsons Project. The album containing the song was released in 1982. I listened to it on cassette tape while I lived and worked on Kadena Air Base on Okinawa.

I can see how the two songs, Mike Posner’s ‘I Took A Pill in Ibiza’ and Alan Parsons Project’s ‘Psychobabble’ fused in my mind. There’s a thread of questioning identity in both and reflections about our minds and choices. It’s more a question of why those songs nestled into the thinking and feeling about everything else this week.

And as I wrote it, I saw it. These songs arose from the morass because I’m conflicted; because guilt assails me. Because responsibilities and desires are torn and my frustrations are running high.

I thought one of these songs should be today’s theme music for my day. I finally decided to go with ‘Psychobabble’ because it’s more recent. See, it’s the latest one that I’ve been singing.

In my mind.

0

Big Data Spoke

A far future science-fiction exercise.

Collecting, collating and compiling data from Human databases and streams – government, social, medical, financial, historic, personal, personnel, death, birth and health records – revealed startling evidence.

Humans were dying less. Even those who could be resurrected, cloned, recovered, re-invigorated or re-born, were dying far less often. Fewer still were dying and remaining dead. Suicides were recorded with four zeroes after a decimal point. The population median age, already well over one hundred, was rising sharply, with less people deciding to even be reborn as a younger age with their adult memories intact. It seemed like that fad had fast faded.

Okay. But birth rates had also plummeted, falling like the temperatures on Castle Frozen when an Arctic front roared over the mountains and down across the plains. Less than two children were being born for every hundred people. Most of those children were not being permitted to age into maturity and adulthood but were kept as children for their parents’ entertainment.

The Council for Peace and Prosperity met on Castle Prime’s equatorial climate-controlled island to discuss general trends and concerns. The big data study on birth and death was a minor agenda item on the third day.

Most weren’t worried, arguing this was a burp, a blip. Yes, all were part of longer, greater trends, but the sharp drop-off was new. Those in the business of helping the dead return to life weren’t concerned; their business reviews were based on subscriptions and not a per use basis. Subscription rates were remaining steady. No losses were being recognized but the resurrection was a mature technology and had developed into a commodity. Profit margins were smaller. That was a concern.

Analysts also had deep dive data to present. Wars, warfare and violence remained at high levels but more people were avoiding killing one another. That unnerved attendees. It pointed to a training issue to many. Soldiers and officers needed encouragement to kill more quickly and readily. Perhaps studies were needed to understand what kept them from killing others when engaging them.

Such suggestions were quickly shot down. Studies like that were for the weak-willed or when appearances were needed that something was being done to mollify investors and voters until their attention wandered or other matters distracted them. No, studies weren’t needed in this situation; investors and voters didn’t know about these big data reveals. They would remain corporate secrets.

Second: population growth was required. Cloning was the natural solution. Adult clones were a ready market. Children had smaller and well-defined needs that were already being fulfilled. Adults were big children who eagerly embraced new toys and trends. Adults were willing to spend more on their toys, too, especially if said toys could be positioned as status symbols about wealth, power or influence. Most adults were sufficiently weak-willed and insecure or had such low self-esteem that they would be swayed by such bland and routine practices.

However…archaic laws remained in place against cloning a person to live more than one life at a time. Right now, cloning was permitted for only very small population segments and narrowly defined pre-existing conditions. Even that cloning was done well outside of the public eye.

Those laws needed to be changed. Immediate potential campaigns inspired the Council attendees. Contract pop and sports stars to headline campaigns. Say, they could be doing different activities on different planets, like skiing, surfing, fucking, dancing, performing, interviewing, whatever, marketing could work out those details. The point would be that doing these things simultaneously enriched the individual experiences and compounded their impact. The key behind the campaigns – there would naturally need to be several because to cover all the pop-culture segments – was to encourage envy about living a fuller life by living multiple simultaneous lives and fertilizing your life base. Having it done illegally by someone(s) popular and successful was the natural launching point. People loved lawbreakers.

Likewise, clone the best of the service members. Offer small bonuses for permitting the cloning. Simultaneously, initiate campaigns to overturn the cloning laws. Analysis would reveal which planets and societies could be open to such change and which would be the greatest influencers. New interpretations of founding documents and religious works could be published that seemed to encourage cloning as a religious right and even an expectation by whatever deities people worshiped these days.

Third, begin a whisper campaign. Stir up the rabble: birth rates were down because governments were encouraging certain races, ages, classes, corporations and planets to give birth less as part of a greater conspiracy to reduce those populations, thereby undermining their impact and participation. People always hated and distrusted governments and were easily inspired to rise up against them. Blame regulations, too. That always fired up the fringes, and then the flames would spread.

Beautiful. It was all coming together. Off the record, they agreed that more wars could be initiated. Step up the activity against pirates, rebels, independent planets, and smaller corporations and systems. That would increase the death rate and probably the birth rate.

Sure, this wasn’t a problem; it was an opportunity. Open the floodgates and rake in the wealth.

 

2

These Days

These days are like and unlike other days. Days are like people and snowflakes, so similar on quick glances and shallows assessments but unique under study.

These days are wearying, grinds with the same sense of repetition and routine found in many livelihoods. That it is my choice mitigates some of my complaints but add some bitter flavoring in acknowledgement, this is the culmination of my efforts, dreams, thoughts, planning and decisions. Passing people working in the thirty-two degree sunshine, I know I have it fortunate but I still complain. Complaining seems to be my essence but I’m solidly stolid and stoic in my demeanor. Yes, I readily smile to address the world and otherwise seem affable. Under this is a worn and brittle sense that I’m hanging on. I don’t know what I’m hanging on to, for or why; I sense that’s pretty normal and a large part of our standard quest to learn why we’re here.

These days of wars, lies and misinformation are actually much like many days of other eras. There is always contention between classes, nations, parties and individuals about humanity’s course and about what should be done, with more and less callousness extended toward the general human condition, and more and less need for some to be powerful, wealthy and worshiped. These days, we’re not really sure what’s going to happen next but these days aren’t much different from other days. Our children are no longer practicing duck and cover at school so they can survive nuclear, biological and chemical attacks as so many children did in the 1950s in America. We have that going for us, these days, although the weapons and capabilities remain, ready for release when orders are given, codes are verified and buttons are pressed.

These days I take a deep breath and mount the stairs to the coffee shop. I find a table and set up shop. Order my drink and banter with the baristas. I collect story points and scenes in my mind, bringing up the things I thought in bed last night, in the shower, and during the drive and the walk today. Scenes gain momentum in my consciousness.

These days, I question myself, is this how others write? Bob Mustin offered a series of posts about Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize. In the series conclusion today, Mustin included the text of Dylan’s speech and a video of the US Ambassador to Sweden making the speech. Bob Dylan thought about and expressed what such an honor means, but more, Dylan wrote about his early hopes and expectations. He just wanted someone to hear him and get enough reward to do more of the same. As Dylan does and did, he gathers insights and neatly sums them up: that’s all we want, to find what we want to do and gain enough reward and recognition to carry on. Everything else is an unexpected benefit.

It’s a good grounding reminder. We don’t know what the future will bring. We can expend energy projecting and forecasting, striving to understand every nuance of nature and events to ensure we’re as prepared as possible, but we just don’t know what will come. We don’t know what dreams will be fulfilled, nor where we’ll fail. We can only decide to try and press on.

These days, it’s helpful as encouragement to keep going. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time. You never know what will come of it.

Not in these days.

 

0

The Real

He awakes. Stillness is king.

Big snow storm was striking the area. They weren’t due snow in his zone. Snow was expected above five thousand feet. That gave them an almost three thousand foot buffer but weather is fickle.

He checks the time and temperature on his weather station. Three fifty-five. Thirty-five degrees. Three five. The numbers made him smile. Those were his lucky numbers as a kid.

Two cats investigate him. Deciding all was safe, they expect rewards. He feeds them and goes to the kitchen for water. Drinking it, he surveys the remnants of two dreams. Odd, of course. One involved his mother-in-law, sister-in-law and her husband, their car, and a white bi-plane. The other was military oriented, of course – structure and identity. The dreams remind him of wreckage after a hurricane.

Peeing was required. The business didn’t require much attention. His mind wandered to blogs and knowing people through blogs but not otherwise knowing them. He pondered the difference between aspiring writer and struggling writer and the choices the words reflected.

He went to bed and thought of a road trip movie. A writer. A series of events. A wife passed away. A writer road trip to meet bloggers that he’d never met. It reminded him of a movie more than a decade ago, perhaps two decades. A man retiring. He bought a recreational vehicle. His wife dies of a heart-attack while vacuuming. He can’t recall more. Details trickle in. Man discovers his wife was having an affair.  De Niro? Murray? No.

Ah. Nicholson. ‘About Schmidt’. What year? That’s too much for dead AM.

A working title arrived for his movie: ‘The Real’. He smiles at that. He thinks of it as a dramedy.

He wonders how much of this he will remember in the morning. “Sleep,” he whispers to himself and lets his breathing seek its rhythm.

So much to write, he laments to himself, and sleeps.

1

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