Let not the right paw
Stop the left paw from acting
For the best of both.
It Gets Exciting
I’ve been struggling with Handley, which is uncharacteristic of me. In a key scene, a pirate vessel, the CSC Narwhal is going after the stasis ship, the River Styx. I knew the scenes, having visited them in my head, writing some aspects in my mind. I’d been looking forward to writing the scenes because I knew what a keystone scene they were to the novel’s arch. Yet, they suddenly fell through a hole in my brain in the last three days. I’d bring the doc up to write once, twice, thrice, and then wrote or edited other scenes and chapters.
Yesterday, I’d had enough. I spent several minutes castigating myself. Has to be done, you idiot. Just write it, I told myself. Suspecting I was worried about how it would go or that I was overthinking it, I told the writer, just fucking do it. Get it done.
I began just writing the essence of what was supposed to be happening. It’s been so long since I’d struggled to write as I did then. The process felt like I was plucking eyebrow hairs.* My God, those were clumsy, awkward, lifeless sentences. The writing was so dense and abstract, and not in an interesting Kafka way. After sipping coffee, I walked away, shaking my head at myself, appalled by the moribund words on the screen. Then, deep breath, try again.
Thank God the cafe was almost empty and nobody was near me. I’d hate to have to apologize to others for the awful smell that the shit on the screen was surely exuding.
Work it, work it, work it. Ever shape model clay or work bread? Felt exactly like that. This was a lump. I kept kneading the scene, trying to form something out of it. After twenty to thirty minutes of this, the scene suddenly became emerging from the material. After an hour, two hours plus into the writing session, I had two pages written.
That was all.
But it was enough. Showering and shaving today, I envisioned the rest of the scene and the chapter’s subsequent scenes. They grew alive in my mind. I became eager to write. I hurried through feeding cats, harvesting potatoes from the litter box, cleaning up in the kitchen, and getting ready to leave. Consumed by the mind writing, I forgot to put my Fitbit back on after my shower, misplaced my glasses and vacillated about what walking shoes to wear. My focus was too far into the novel.
But here I am, quad shot mocha with fine latte art by Meghan at hand, at the coffee shop, ready to rock.
Time to write like crazy, at least one more damn time.
*NOTE: Yes, I have plucked my eyebrows, or tweezed them, if you prefer. Once upon a time, I was said to resemble a smaller version of Tom Selleck when he was doing ‘Magnum, P.I.’ If you recall him from then, he had a uni-brow going on; so did I, and my wife convinced me to pluck it because she was certain Tom Selleck plucked his.
Yeah, that was long ago.
Mom’s Fault
It’s pouring rain. Soaked dark, my coat dribbled rivulets across the floor as I walked across the coffee shop.
“Did you walk?” the coffee shop owner asked. “I know you like to walk. I’ve seen you walking all over town.”
“No, I just walked a mile,” I answered. “I wanted to feel the rain and wind.”
“You like to walk, don’t you?” the owner said.
“Yes.”
Yes, I like to walk. It’s Mom’s fault. In my young life’s dawn, I’d want to go somewhere and requested Mom drive me. “You have two legs, you can walk,” she’d reply. Stories about her walking when she was a child followed. She walked to school miles in both direction, no matter what the weather was, digging trails and tunnels through the Iowa snowstorms, if necessary, fording rivers and forging trails, dodging wild animals while picking berries or nuts on the way home to use in baking, and stopping to milk the cows. If she walked in those conditions, I could walk.
I might have exaggerated about what she claimed to do.
So I walked. I walked everywhere. I didn’t have a car in high school for several years, so I walked the miles home from school after sports activities and play practices. I walked to my girlfriend’s house, miles more, and back again. Sometimes I was given rides. Sometimes, people attempted to molest me.
Once in the military, my wife and I didn’t have much income, so we walked. Over in the Philippines on duty, I didn’t have a car and had plenty of time, so I walked around the base and the town. In Germany, walking was organized into Volksmarching and celebrated with drink and food. Terrific!
By the time I began writing, walking was ingrained as part of my thinking process. I was pleased to discover that studies validated my impressions about walking. Walking ten minutes a day made most people happy besides providing exercise. Walking also enhances the creative process for most.
I was sure of that latter. Deciding I needed to put myself and my goals and dreams first, I started taking an hour out of the work day to write. Bosses, co-workers and team mates didn’t care as long as I did my share. As part of that, I observed that walking helped me shift from work Michael to writing Michael. As I walked to write, I would ask the eternal writing questions, “Where the hell am I? Where does the story go next? What do I need to write next? What did I write yesterday?” Asking these questions and thinking about it prepped me to sit down, ready to type.
Likewise, after leaving, I’d often continue working out characters, scenes and plots as I walked back to work. Then, walking to write the next day, I would recall the previous day and resume writing with little effort.
I was surprised that studies didn’t demonstrate a link to improved focused thinking, as well, and problem solving. Perhaps I’d trained myself to solve problems by walking, but I always felt leaving work for a short work, changing the scenery and releasing my brain from the work environment, was hugely instrumental in being able to see answers and develop solutions. Perhaps, though, that was still the creative brainstorming that writing seems to encourage.
My walking continued once I started working from home. I walked to take breaks and enjoy fresh air and sunshine. Then, walking to the coffee shop to write, I walked to reduce my carbon footprint and help save money and the environment.
Now, I have the Fitbit to encourage me to walk. If I haven’t walked in an hour, it buzzes me to get up and walk. So I leave the coffee shop and hustle down the steps and around the block and back. That’s enormously reduced my writer’s ass, which is when your ass goes to sleep after being almost stationary while typing or writing at a desk or table. When I’m at home, my wife and I jump up and start running around. Sometimes, we chase the cats, but they’re not into it, so we don’t do that much.
But, like many things I do and enjoy, my walking started with Mom.
I Will Do Better
I’d been reading articles on success by Nichole McGhie at The Excited Writer, and how success is defined by Lisa Kron at Writer Unboxed, along with posts about believing in myself and being great, both by Jay Colby.
I was intimidated about trying to be great. I am intimidated about trying to be great. Who am I, to dare to think I can be great? Hell, I’m intimidated about trying to be mediocre.
I used to facilitate strategic planning sessions for U.S. Air Force units. The steps were about defining how the units viewed themselves and what they wanted to achieve. The mission was who they were and why they existed; the vision is who they wanted to be, which would be gained through their accomplishments. Goals were established and plans put into action.
Likewise, I used to write and conduct performance reports. While I’m unimpressed with the standard performance report processes and mechanisms the USAF and many corporations use because they’re rich with folly, the best part of the process for me was asking myself and my people, “What do you really to do? What do you really want to be? Who do you really want to be?”
This worked well. My teams and the individuals were stronger for the effort. The visions provided structure and discipline.
I did the same for myself for my writing endeavors. Such a vision is a powerful, sustaining force. When you’re tired, depressed, frustrated or bitter, a vision of what you’re pursuing is a magnificent catalyst for taking a deep breath, mining out some new source of energy and determination and pressing on regardless.
It’s done wonders for me. I write consistently and patiently, defining and re-defining my process as I learn. I’m pleased with myself as a writer.
I’m not pleased with myself with the business aspect of writing. As I’ve noted before, I had a vision, write a novel. Done, done, and done again and again and again. But guess what? As writers, editors, and publishers all know, writing a novel is the beginning. So while my vision was beautiful for being a writer and writer, it was not significantly developed for being a successful published writer.
I was thinking of all of this today. Using Jay Colby’s questions in his post on greatness as a starting point, I decided I would treat myself to an off-site and set aside a large part of a day to defining my vision for being a successful published writer. Along the way of thinking and deciding this, I considered my meager, weak efforts so far. They’re frankly embarrassing and depressing, yielding the results you’d expect from such half-assed mediocre work. That’ when the voice in me said, “I will do better.”
I know that voice; it’s my inner voice of determination. It’s not a wheedling, apologetic voice used while called on the carpet and groveling. It’s not a voice employed to mollify another, nor a voice of regret when I’ve been caught doing something another doesn’t like. This is the voice of one who has been down, recognized he’s down, and decided that he’s fucking tired of being down. I know this, because I’ve heard this voice before, several times in my life. Each time, though, it took a descent into a morass of doubt, self-pity and self-flagellation for me to speak and hear the voice. The difference this time is that I only usually answered with that voice only after others told me I had the potential to do more and be more; this time, I’m telling myself.
“I will do better.”
Why I Write
I’ve probably written why I write before, but it’s that time of year again. It seems to be some alignment of energy that is driving me to self-examination about who I am, what the hell I’m doing, and why.
In thinking about writing and writing about writing, I’ve developed greater insights into the complex dynamics of why I write. I’m still just descending from the iceberg’s tip, however. But writing helps me understand why I write. Posting about it gives others the opportunity to provide me feedback and insights, and they often help.
I write to understand what I’m thinking. That holds true through dreams, essays, business cases, white papers, theme papers, fiction, whatever you want to name, throughout my life. My thinking is fast and chaotic, like torrents of fast-moving water coming off of mountains of melting snow. Writing adds order and structure.
I write because I’m arrogant and love to read. Once upon a time, I read some mediocre science-fiction and fantasy, and scoffed, “Hah! I can write better than that.” I’m still trying to prove that I was right about that. But I also write because I admire the writers and their works that I’ve read, the people who grant insights into history, society, personal lives, technology, dreams, who imagine what else might happen, or could have happened. I envy them. I want to be like them.
Writing is much more challenging for me than it appears on the outside. That’s true of many activities, right? It depends upon where you want your activities to take you. I want my activities to take me to a place where others enjoy my writing as much as I do. But to get to that level takes discipline and effort in multiple areas. It takes an application of time, thought and energy.
Which is another reason for why I write: it’s a challenge and a pleasure. I’m a creative person. Writing provides an outlet and structure for my creativity. My science, engineering and observations may be wrong, but it’s logically consistent in my writing world. It is because I enjoy exercising my intelligence to come up with logical, consistent solutions.
Of course, the danger is that I’m writing in solitude. I’m in the cave, attempting to describe the world from the shadows on the walls cast by the fire burning behind me. I’m limited in what I see and comprehend, and I can’t know what I’ve done wrong until I let others see it. But I’m too fragile to permit easy access.
My writing activity is also addictive. My wife, family, friends and acquaintances appreciate that I’m an aspiring writer, and respect the time and rituals I’ve developed to write and pursue my dreams. The writing when it goes well, as it often does, boosts my self-image, as does the feedback I receive not just for what I’ve written, but for my dedication in trying to write.
Tangibly, writing becomes tremendously rewarding, especially fiction writing. There is nothing more satisfying to me than trying to understand, why the fuck did that happen and what the fuck comes next in the piece of fiction I’m writing, and then being able to conceive and write of those answers and end up with completed scenes, chapters and books. These endeavors deliver such a high when it all works out, and I sit back and congratulate myself for accomplishing something.
And that’s why I write, too. Because this is a complicated world where masses of people struggle and suffer in silence. Writing allows me to be someone more unique, someone who is managing to do something to help me rise above the morass of the common and ordinary. It gives me direction and purpose.
And that’s why I write, at least here, today, now. Perhaps someday I’ll manage to see more of the iceberg.
When I do, I’ll be sure to write about it.
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.
Today’s Theme Music
Everything’s so blurry
And everyone’s so fake
And everybody’s empty
And everything is so messed up
Pre-occupied without you
I cannot live at all
My whole world surrounds you
I stumble then I crawl
You could be my someone
You could be my scene
You know that I’ll protect you
From all of the obscene
I wonder what you’re doing
Imagine where you are
There’s oceans in between us
But that’s not very far
~ ‘Blurry’, by Puddle of Mudd, 2001
I have a good life when you consider everything but it sometimes still gets all blurry about how good things — and how bad it could be. ‘Blurry’, though, is about emotions. Emotions care little about a situation logic, something often forgotten during passionate discussions and angry debates.
‘Blurry’ also show us that emotions can help us overcome ‘logic’:
There’s oceans in between us
But that’s not very far
I might be adding layers and insights. They’re clearly writing about love and a tumultuous relationship. I see more. That’s the point of art, including literature and music, isn’t it? The composer, writer and artist are drawing their vision. Their vision, though, remains unique to them because it must be shared with others through the filters the viewer brings upon the scene. And these individual, personalized interpretations of words and intentions can make it all seem very ‘Blurry’.
Hope this all comes out properly. It’s relatively colder than usual outside (17 F). Google Chrome apparently has some problems when it’s cold.
It’s Like —
I’ve been further defining the ideopat.
The ideapat is used as part of a telepathic process among the Travail Avresti Forus and Seth, and the Travail Favrashi Forus and Seth in my novel in progress, ‘Long Summer’.
It’s more than telepathy. Calling it ‘telepathy’ demeans its full range. I felt, in order to be logical and consistent about its use in the arcs, character development and plot, I needed to further define and understand the ideopat.
First, within the ideopat is the phena. Phena is derived from phenomon. The phena is the emotional piece of the ideopat. To help understand it, I think of how drops of waters come together to form torrents. This is generally how the phena comes across on the ideopat. It’s a perception of separate processes and impressions aggregating into an over-arching view.
Generally; exceptions exist. In this way, I think of vision and human differences with their vision. The classic example for me is the ability to see a fastball and the ball’s movement through the air. Not everyone has that ability but some do, and that makes them special.
Good; that was a decent start.
After deeper thinking, I found this video a friend had posted on Facebook.
You can argue, as many have, about whether this is a vortex, and point out that some of the planets are in the wrong orbits, and whether this is true, but it stimulated my thinking. That’s why I’m sharing this. Seeing it, I thought, yes! This gives me greater insight into the ideopat and its structure and motion. There’s a position of recurring motion on one level that doesn’t take in the greater points of view about what’s happening within the ideopat. Beautiful.
The Forus and Seth can also use the ideopat to experience the world through one another’s. After some thought about the development of the skill and individual abilities, I decided that they would need to provide this aspect with a name. Eventually, I came up with sensta as the visual and auditory flows within the phena. As Travail Kidder mature, the sensta is the first aspect of the phena they experience. Their reaction to it guides their further development and direction. Some are overwhelmed. When that happens, they’re trained in how to close the sensta. Of course, closing the sensta to them closes the phena and the ideopat. So they can’t be Forus or Seth but must be named and become something else in the society.
Then I recognized that those for those with the wherewithal to know, the pentha is like an atmosphere, with richly developed layers.
That’s a brief insight into the pentha. In my notes, it takes up a few pages.
The pentha is just one piece. Next up was the ideopat’s true telepathic aspect. The Travail refer to this as the
Now, among this, a very few can perceive the mutex and the saiki. The mutex are the combined threads that make up the flows which become the exopatheia and phena. (Note: the Travail call the threads the sper.) For those who can perceive this level of the ideopat, it’s like seeing the results after white light passes through a prism. What others can only experience the pentha as the white light, they see the resulting rainbow. The greater the ability for them to perceive and segregate the mutex and spers, the more powerful their telepathic abilities. For the normal Forus and Seth, they don’t perceive the mutex and spers but know one another through exposure, repetition and ultimately, familiarity with others’ ‘telepathic voice’.
But one step past all of this, on the very highest level of ability, those that can see sense and see past the pentha, exopatheia and mutex, and find the individual spers and follow them back to the actual person where they originate. This psychic representation is called the saiki. This is so far beyond the skill levels of most that a majority of Travail Forus and Seth don’t believe they exist, that those who thought they’d seen them in the past must have been imagining them. So the saiki is dismissed.
But Travail Avresti Forus Ker has developed the ability to perceive the saiki. He’s not only seeing the saiki of the Travail Forus, but also the Seth and the rest of the Travail, not just his race (the Avresti), but the other races as well. He’s even perceiving the saiki for the Humans and then for the Monad.
And most interesting and frightening for him, he can see the saiki of death. That makes him wonder: is there a saiki for life as well?
And then things really start getting interesting for him.
After that, I set about writing the limitations and further defining the exceptions.
Most of today’s writing session was devoted to fleshing this out and documenting it. I only actually wrote a thousand words in the novel. A few hours have passed. I still had half a cup of mocha remaining when I stopped writing. Just finished that as I wrote this post.
It’s been a good day of writing like crazy.
Meet and Greet: 12/10/16
Reblogged on WordPress.com
Source: Meet and Greet: 12/10/16
Danny has offered writers and bloggers another chance to meet and connect over on Dream Big. I hope you take the opportunity to see what others are offering.
Enjoy the writing, create a vision and pursue the dream. Cheers
Happy December, Writers
You can’t learn to walk without a few trips, stumbles and falls. Bike lessons typically involve an accident, too, when something goes astray. You lose your balance and fall, or forget how to brake and crash. The point there, as I’m so cleverly hiding it and I should make it clearer, is that to learn and succeed, you must take risks. With risks can come pain and failure. How you handle it all is where some of your best learning can arise.
With that in mind, I salute all those who attempted NaNoWriMo, no matter their result. More power to you for putting in on the line and trying. Fantastic, if you succeeded; I hope you keep going. Fantastic, if you failed; I hope you keep going, because you tried, brothers and sisters.
Now it’s Monday in some parts of the world. Morning, in a few neighborhoods. December is blooming everywhere. Summer and winter are rising, depending upon where you live. I hope you all have a December that you look back upon with fondness and satisfaction, that it’s a month when you think back upon and say, “It all started that year, 2016, in December. That’s the month when it all really came together and I knew.” Substitute whatever words you want in there for your moment, path and vision.
For me, it’s time to go write like crazy, at least one more time.
Michael Seidel, writer 