Yangsze Said
Monday’s Theme Music
Boom — it’s Monday. It’s like it happens every week. Today is April 19, 2021, which doesn’t happen every week. In fact, this date makes this day unique. Meanwhile, over in the sky, the sun came creeping around my back window in Ashland at 6:24 AM. It’s fully out now, and will steal away at 7:57 PM. Speaking of sun and long hours, yesterday cracked 80 degrees F but didn’t take us to the heat they’d been forecasting. We’ll strike the mid to upper seventies today.
It’s day three of our three-day green smoothie fast. It’s working well. Hard a handful of raw almonds, another handful of raw walnuts, a few celery sticks, and prunes, along with three smoothies. My favorite was the mango-pineapple-banana super-greens offering. Other than when I was out doing yard work and smelled someone’s Italian meal preparation floated through the air did I think, gotta eat. Didn’t, though. The smell reminded me of good food, but also things that Mom used to cook when I was a kid. Need to stop writing about it now because it’s having an adverse effect on my willpower.
Musically, “Brass in Pocket” by The Pretenders (1979) came to me after my shower, when I was drying off. Brass in pocket? Don’t know. My wife and I take little book-cations this year. A book-cation involves taking the book you’re reading, getting into the car, driving to the park, getting out of the car and finding a place to sit and read for a while. It’s just a break in routines and fresh air/experience nature opportunity. We went yesterday (got a new book to read, “The Resisters” by Gish Jen”) (yeah, finished “Circe”, “The Night Watchman”, “The Sentinel”, and “The Death of Vivik Oji”). When we did, though, I also took notebook and pen, like the old days, to think about the novel revisions and write through my thoughts.
How does “Brass in Pocket” fit in with that? Well, the song always struck me as a cocky attitude, a sort of ‘I can do this’ stance. I later saw confirmation of that in a Christine Hynde interview (she wrote the song’s lyrics). So, I suspect my mind pulled it out as an affirmation. It’s a good song for re-attacking a project, and a good song for a Monday.
Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask, and get the vax. Cheers
Sunday’s Theme Music
“Good morning, star shine. The Earth says, ‘Hello!'” Yes, just thinking of that 1967 hit song from Hair. Not the day’s theme song, though. I have another song in mind for that.
It is another Sunday in southern Oregon, and we dutifully note and mark, April 18, 2021. The rise of Sol came about 6:26 AM, and the western sky fade away is expected at 7:55 PM. Between those hours, the sun’s going to have her scientifically-grounded impact on our temperatures, taking us from where we reside now, 60 F, to something in the seventies, or maybe the eighties. The weather prognosticators told us yesterday would be at 80 but my thermometer noted 77 as the high. Nothing to complain, just noting.
It’s day two of the three day green-smoothie fast. It’s not quite a fast. I augmented my green smoothies with a handful of almonds, another handful of walnuts, four prunes, and two stalks of celery. Never did have my coffee. I prepared to make it but didn’t follow through.
The day’s first smoothie (wife-prepared) accentuated raspberry highlights, which I found too tart. My next two smoothies (prepared by moi) were blueberry oriented, more agreeable to me. She noted it tasted very banana-y to her. I noted that no bananas were used in preparation of those smoothies. Yeah, I forgot the banana.
I felt fine yesterday. Mild hunger pangs in the early evening. More at midnight, right before retiring to bed. Breakfast time this morning found my body snarling in its best hungry-lion imitation, “Food! Now!” I went with a mango dominated smoothie. All is good now. Kind of. I wouldn’t say no to a breakfast burrito. Nor a stack of pancakes (flapjacks, waffles…whatever). Or scrambled eggs with toast. Maybe an omelet.
Music choice is writing-driven. Finished working copy number five of the novel in prog., final draft number one. I hate it. I had the this-writing-sucks blues. Writings is fine; major story issues. They must be addressed. Took the day thinking about that and knew what must be done. Now I must do it. Like many things, making that decision to do it is the hardest part of doing it. Then it’s deep breaths. Go. Start cutting. Revising. Editing. Changing. Doing it over.
The song inspired by this is “Funkytown” by Lipps Inc, 1980. The lines, “Gotta move on,” is what has me hooked. You see the writing connection? First draft is done; not what I wanted or expected. Work is needed. Gotta move on from cursing my meager skills to getting things done.
Here’s the music. Stay posi, test negy, wear a mask, and get the vax. Gotta go see some machines about smoothies and coffee.
Never saw this video before. Talk about funky. Cheers
Flippin’ the Script
With writing, I’m often stymied as I await the muses’ participation. These past two weeks, I’ve turned it around on them. Writing steadily, finding the path each morning, I keep the final destination in mind. Quiet and watchful, the muses gather around me. “Where you going with this?” they keep asking.
Chuckling, I tell them, “You’ll have to wait and see.”
It’s nice making them wait to see what happens next. I feel like the novel in progress in almost at an end (draft five). I edit and revise as I write, grinding down the story, molding and shaping it. Not to jinx anything, but I have a good rhythm formed for now, generally writing a bit, then going off, reading, doing housework or other things, then returning to write more, then editing. For now, I’m focused on finishing this draft. In the meanwhile, a solid grasp of what I’m going to do in the next editing stage has crystalized.
It’s been thirteen months since I began writing this one. Writing it required process changes driven by social distancing and coffee shop shutdowns. I used to leave the house, walk to get into the writing mode, then enter a coffee house, sit with my laptop, and do the deed. I’ve had to adjust. That was a surprising challenge. I’m pleased (but anxious) that I could adjust.
Pleased and anxious remains the watch words for writing this. I worry and fret, then tell myself not to worry and fret, just write, but yet, worry and fret, hunting through words, finding my way. It’s surprising to see that I’m at five hundred and ten Word pages, 145K words. I’ve already done some cutting but more is due once the ending is reached.
Got my coffee. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Michael Seidel, writer 