Tag: Writing efforts

Work Habits

Here we are, the six of us: writers. Meet Michael the Original and Michaels Two through Six. None want to be called a number, usually channeling Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band when that’s attempted. (“I’m not a number, I’m not a number, damn it, I’m a man.”)

Each writer has their piece to write. We’re seated around a large, round table. Each has their own space and quad-shot mochas. Each is on a computer and has their files open.

One is copy-editing the novel to date. The Original – that would be me – is doing the hard thinking to bring these drunkenly rambunctious stories together. The next four are working on the different storylines and scenes for Pram, Forus Ker, Brett, Philea, Richard, Kimi and Handley, onboard the Faux Mo, Pentagon, River Styx, and Wrinkle, on Willow Glen and the escape pod, in the stasis pod, and in the past, present and future, dealing with the Monad, Sabards, Humans and Travail Seth…and each other…. There are battles, revelations, duplicity, treachery and betrayal.

It’s a lot of work for the six of us.

Unfortunately, there is only me. Having the six wouldn’t be sufficient, either. I would need more, a committee of me to write and edit. Each story and its main character is drumming, “Write my story,” into me. I write a few lines, paragraphs, and then jump into another, tediously advancing on all fronts, advancing, but not anywhere near the desired pace. The process reminds me of a class I took decades ago, in 1988 or 1989.

I was stationed in Germany. Offered by the University of Maryland, the class was four days long, two weekends, eight hours each day. The subject was French literature. Four authors were being studied. Among them was Honore de Balzac.

Balzac was said to write fifteen hours a day. The claim presented to me in that class is that he wrote with a quill, standing up, sucking down cups of coffee. He was said to be always writing and created voluminous manuscripts, often with characters straying from one story to another, and frequently revised. How did he do it, I wondered then.

How did he do it, I wonder now.

But then I figure, man, if good ol’ Honore could write and edit so much on his own, I can as well.

Just give me more damn coffee.

Here we go: time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

 

0

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

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

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑