Tag: existence

The Writing Moment

Revising my current novel-in-progress continues. I expected to be done by now. I was excited the other day because, hey, only thirty pages remain.

I am over page 400 now, so I have that going for me. But, as I read and revise, I encounter matters of continuity. Like eye or hair color, nicknames, and details relating to the characters’ personal histories.

I don’t know what the right thing to do is, but I always stop, go back, and resolve the issue for myself. It’s one of my personality quirks that if I know that’s still in the book, I become bogged down thinking about it. Better to just resolve it.

A danger to going back to research continuity is that rereading those passages entertains me. I get invested with enjoying the story. Which means that the revising timeline gets imperiled by reading my own stuff for entertainment. There’s also often a little more needs to edit and revise exposed. Like, I’ll encounter a sentence that’s slightly scrambled, just enough for me to question my writing skills and stop to fix those issues.

I also backtracked to a previous chapter. I’d been quite long, so I modified it and re-invented the one big chapter into four smaller ones. Then I did something to another long chapter, feeling that the move would enhance clarity and pacing – win-win.

The final note on this part of the revision is that it’s tying up the story, closing with a large battle, with some matters of other dimensions and time thrown in. I’m a sucker for other dimensions and time. My writer self is amused with our current theories and understanding of these things. Like the growing understanding of quantum entanglement and other quantum matters, I think we have more to understand about time and existence.

The passages in question were also written at high speed: think, write, and press on, with admonitions to myself, don’t slow down to analyze and question. Just get it done and fix it in revision.

And that’s what I’m doing. TBH, I’m a little surprised that it flows as well as it does.

Onward, right? Yeah, just give me a little more coffee. Pass it over; doesn’t matter if it’s cold.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: philosophical

Hello, fellow life travelers. Welcome to another day of the journey.

Today is Friday, October 6, 2023. Buoyed by a balmy zephyr it’s already seventy outside and the sunshine rules. 86 F will be our high, I’m assured.

I’m in a reflective mood today, the product of a night of dreams. Days often seem so closely like the one the day before it and so in, like we’re standing in a hall of mirrors looking backwards and forwards to the same thing being endlessly repeated.

Not true, of course. The seasons change. So does the daily weather. So does how we physically feel and appear, typically in small ways, hour by hour, day by day, month by month through our piece of time. Yeah, many changes are seen but unless there’s a sudden sharp intrusion, most of our visible changes come in slow increments. Sometimes the pace of change can take a lifetime. I’m often surprised looking in the mirror or suddenly unable to do something that I used to do without thought. The change was coming but I didn’t see it.

After reading about the speaker selection process going on, The Neurons are having fun. Politicians who horrify me are being mentioned, like Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan. Neither of them have done anything in my purview which generates respect and admiration; instead, I found myself mildly ill at the thought they might become Speaker. I can’t imagine them being reliably intelligent or skillful enough to pull together the GOP and keep them focused. I’d use the metaphor about the GOP being as unmanageable as a herd of cats, but I like cats and don’t want to insult them.

Back to The Neurons. After reading and thinking, I found myself with “Better Man” by Pearl Jam circling the morning mental music stream (Trademark swirling). Jordan? Scalise? Can’t they find a better man or woman? Like that, Eddie Vedder is singing, “Can’t find a better man,” in my mental stream as The Neurons giggle and guffaw. Silly little immature booger heads.

Stay positive and keep reaching for the stars. Let’s embrace this day and go forward. Here’s the music. Cheers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOWsKYG_Zoo
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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Mood: uncertain

It’s morning in Ashlandia, where the children aren’t sure but the parents are very confident. Current temp is a little warm for the AM, 74 F. Low 90s are kicked around as the high although one source says it’ll only be 89 F. Like, where do they get that? Well, we’ll see, won’t we? Cool breeze just started kissing my neck, trying to coax me into a better mood. I’ll see what they have to offer.

Another battle of the dreams for my night. Long dreams but once again, I had the one about the house flying through space. Wakin’ from it, I argued with myself. The dream self was worried ’bout the cats being out in space again. Wakin’ self told dream self, relax, we’re not in space. Real tug of war as The Neurons would take one side and then the other.

In world news, things are bad and getting worse. Over to you, David.

Well, that’s how it feels with so many weather disasters underway, along with the war in Ukraine. In good news, many companies are seeing excellent sales. Because that will really matter in the long run, yeah?

Sure. The world will be burning and flooding, almost devoid of glaciers at the poles, and the news headlines will be, Amazon had record sales. And everyone will be like, thank god they can deliver by drones.

Of course, I still write. The world is burning and flooding, but I write on. Just like everyone else, pursuing my own agenda. It’s all crashin’, so what will help me cope and get on by? Well, give me a cuppa coffee and let me write a tale.

See, that’s the thing. While a greater mess happening to the whole of us and our world, each of us are dealing with our private addictions and desires. The big stuff happening is so big and abstract in many ways, so debilitating and demoralizing, we respond by turning to something which we can try to control. At least, that’s my theory. Probably wrong as the decision to end “Firefly”.

Writing has inspired The Neurons’ song choice today. I’m like, what happens now, all the while, entertaining different directions in me head, worrying about where I’m at with it (this feels like a box), trying to bring it all together and to an end without losin’ the plot. Out out that came the James Gang with “Walk Away” from 1971. Makes sense if you look at the song words. Think they’re called lyrics.

“Takin’ my time, choosin’ my lines,
“Tryin’ to decide what to do.”

And that’s what I’m doing, trying to decide what to do, searching for the words and sentences. They’re there, just waiting for them to emerge, kind of worried because they’re not what I expected.

Stay pos and be strong. Here we go, another day in the life of (insert your name here). Coffee is up; let’s go. Cheers

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Words Wait

A friend has gone into hospice. Failing heart. Surgery to replace his pacemaker was aborted a few months ago. Measures were made to help him sufficiently recover for a new pacemaker. Whatever happened since, he’s in hospice.

I thought about him and me, and him and his life, trying to find words for where we’re at. I finally decided, I was happy to know him, enjoyed his company, admired his accomplishments, respected his principles, and enjoyed his company. The words feel empty and lost, as satisfying as reaching into an empty bag.

It’s the nature of existence as we know it to live and then die. Sometimes the space between the beginning and end are cruelly small. His was not. He’s done the first. Now he will do the second.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Warmish and foggy, kind of cool, too. It’s Christmas day in southern Oregon.

Dawn dashed in under the fog’s cover at 7:38 in the morning. I fed the cats and we prepared food to take to our friend’s house for Christmas brunch. Sipping coffee, I looked out the kitchen window. The fog was hurrying away. Sunshine struck the valley’s southern edge, lighting the trees and the blue sky.

I thought about all the matters which have gone well for me and pushed that aside. Homelessness plagues our small town. All those people were out there, looking for places to get warm, to be safe, to rest their bones and minds. I helped a few this week but it never feels like enough. Never. It’s a pattern encountered across the nation, one of the most powerful societies the world has ever seen.

I thought about the misery of people in other states hanging on as snow and ice storms undercut their infrastructures and cut their power. I thought about the military forces battling for arcane logic in Ukraine and the people trying to help one another to stay alive there. Then I thought about all the wealth hung onto by our world’s most fortunate families, individuals, corporations, wondering if they’re the most deserving, and how the sperm lottery affects our existences. I’m flattened often by stories of the wealthy do the most that they can to stay wealthy and make more money. Work harder, others are told. It’s just that easy.

Just Christmas reflections, little different than my recurring daily thoughts. Not original, but worn and tired.

My music today has nothing to do with the holidays. The song came out of dreams and efforts, weariness but hope. Called, “Turn It On Again”, the song is by Genesis. Released in 1980, the song is about a man whose friends are the people on TV.

Have a merry one. Happy holidays to you, whatever your flavor of seasonal celebrating as the common era year slides to an end. Hope you’re warm and safe, with a belly full of food.

Cheers

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Friday’s Wandering Thought

He recalled the mother of his youth. She was always reading. Michner, Robbins, Jong, paperbacks purchased at drugstores. Movies fascinated her. She always recommended actors, directors, movies.

Now, she doesn’t have time to read. Hasn’t in years. She’d moved from fiction to true crime to nothing. She doesn’t like movies, she says. She wants drama and none of them provide it. Time is spent watching MSNBC, or shows like Doctor Pimple Popper, My Feet Are Killing Me, and Dateline.

It’s not surprising. Everyone changes. He thinks about the episodes, powers, and energies that shaped and reshaped her, rising to a comparison with the planet, and how unseen events work together to reshape the world.

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1988 Dream

I kept encountering an error message. Sometimes it was written on a printout: [Error 1988: Michael does not exist]. I saw it in emails and text messages. Sometimes it was also spoken in the same voice my Roomba makes an announcement: “Error 1988: Michael does not exist.” As this happened, I was hurrying down hallways, looking over my shoulder, and pushing on doors, trying to find one that opens, hunting for an exit.

But, in one sense, it was understandable. On vacation, a person who needs isolation and solitude, who enjoys writing as their escape and therapy, who is forced to spend almost eighty percent of their time with other people, will end up dreaming about escape.

Right?

The question is, why those numbers?

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