Tag: writing

Five Changes

I wasn’t satisfied with how things were going last month. I was in a tunnel, that tunnel shaped my life and attitude. There were no lights in my tunnel. Changes were needed to provide me a light to look to at the end of the tunnel. So, on a whim in August, unmentioned to anyone, I sought to make five changes.

  1. I quit drinking mochas every day.
  2. Priorities were re-evaluated and shifted.
  3. I re-balanced myself.
  4. Alcohol intake was reduced.
  5. I began drinking apple cider vinegar every morning.

My decision to stop drinking quad-shot mochas during my writing routine at the coffee shop freaked my barista buddies. I had to assure them, it wasn’t them, it was me. I didn’t explain why, though, just ordering black coffee. I’ve had two mochas since August 27, when I stopped, but they were of the weak Starbucks variety, which is more like mild hot chocolate than anything else, and were accepted when another bought them for me.

To re-evaluated priorities, I had to change how I approached blogging and my Fitbit activities. I’d become almost obsessive compulsive about establishing goals for them and following through. I had to remind myself, they’re not as important as other life matters. I blog far less. My daily Fitbit goals are met, but they’re the last item of focus.

Re-balancing myself required the biggest effort. I posted about it in The Resentful Writer.

I’m not and wasn’t a ‘big’ drinker. I liked having a glass of red wine in the evening. I stopped it. I haven’t had wine, except at one dinner, in three weeks. I reduced my beer intake. I enjoyed a beer when my wife and I went out to eat, so I took a pass a few times, and I forsook my Wednesday evenings spent having a beer with friends.

The apple cider vinegar was last. I think it’s the most drastic step. I’m frustrated with my digestive system. I’d recently read about the Kansas City Chiefs, an American pro football team. They like pickle juice as an electrolyte. A few days later, a friend told me that her late husband loved pickles, so she had a huge stash of pickles of different varieties, and she doesn’t like pickles. I told her about the Chiefs and pickle juice, and she reciprocated by remarking that people often come up with interesting remedies, such as apple cider vinegar. She couldn’t remember what people drink it for. I made a note to look it up later. The results I found enticed me to try it.

Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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The Resentful Writer

I’ve been warring with myself. Fortunately, I’ve been winning.

The war is about priorities, routines, and discipline. I’ve worked hard to establish a daily writing routine. Discipline, so many writers counsel. If you want to write, write. Set up a schedule, and do it every day. So I’ve faithfully done. Friends, coffee shop employees, and family members all know my routine.

Several aspects have evolved on the quest for writing discipline and publication. First, I’ve learned that I’m happiest writing from mid- to late-morning to mid afternoon. Second, walking before writing helps me shift thoughts from daily life to plots and characters. Third, I write better outside of the house.

Writing outside of my home took some time for me to understand. My wife and I bought a home with a room that could be my office. We specifically set it up for that purpose. Yet, writing in there feels uncomfortable to me. Being an introspective person who self-obsesses, I’ve thought about why and came up with reasons.

First, cats. We have four. They seem drawn to my typing sounds. I suspect it sounds like scurrying little critters to them. Hearing my typing, the cats enter to investigate. Oh, it’s just you, they realize. Then, they say, give me some loving. Let me sleep on the keyboard. Let me on your lap. Let me mark this computer as mine. Permit me to play with your hand.

Yes, it’s precious, but it’s a frustrating divergence from the focus my scurrying brain cells need to type a coherent sentence. Closing the door on them doesn’t work. A close door is a challenge to get it open. They work on that challenge with scratching and mournful wails of deprivation.

The walks, too, are part of the whole thing with being out of the house. I leave, I walk, I shift into the writing mode, and go write somewhere. I think returning to the house pushes me out of the writing mode.

Socializing, chores, and errands all work against maintaining the schedule. Events come up that my wife wants to do, like go places, and have fun. I don’t know where she gets these ideas. I blame it on a bad element that she works out with.

She comes up with things to do. They’re enticing. I often want to do them, too. Well, I can say, “No,” to her. It sounds good, but it doesn’t work well. And I want to say, “Yes.” I want to have fun, and I want her happy, and I’ve heard that experiencing life can be a pleasant, entertaining experience, and help me develop as a writer by introducing me to other elements. So I say yes.

But I’m often resentful. My writing time gets whittled down to a third of my desired period. I’m forced to rush, and move the writing session to another time to accommodate the socializing.

Balance was needed. Balance is needed. Yet, the balance isn’t between socializing and writing; the balance is needed in me to accept that I don’t need to adhere to these hard-wired set of practices I created.

The shallow and insecure part of me fears that if I don’t write every day, I’ll lose the plot. The story will meander. My output will dry up. I’ll stop learning and improving as a writer. My meager stores of talent will oxidize, turn to dust, and get blown away. So, after working hard to establish my routines, I’m loathe to forfeit them, for anything, and anyone. The challenge, then, became, banish the fears. Accept variations.

Relaxing, I did. Yes, I write that like, la-di-da, I’m relaxed. It’s basically taken the year to date to get to the point where I’ve relaxed about it. I realized that my resentment was counter-productive. Negative energy often is. After I relaxed and dismissed my resentment – again, expressed as though I faced the sun and shouted, “Resentment, I dismiss thee,” three times, and it was all good, when it was really a constant wrestling match – I found I could enjoy socializing and varying my routines, and still be a productive writer who was having fun, learning, and improving.

It’s been a difficult lesson to learn. Once learned, I struggle to remember it, and keep the lessons learned in play. Sometimes, I feel like a child learning my ABCs.

It’s coming together, though. Check in with me again after twenty years. I believe I’ll have it down by then.

Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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Prepped

I’ve been writing in my head all morning. Now, here I am, coffee at hand, computer set up, ready to write. I feel like a little stopped up from all the mental writing.

That’s a perfect lead to my dream last night. It was all about a foreign woman trying to marry me — though she was married to another man, and he was present, and I am married, and my wife was there — my efforts to dissuade her, and then, my adventures with a toilet.

My recent dreaming has been a dream process. For the last twelve days, I’ve been awakening, remembering my dreams, and then knowing what they meant. Some of them were very specific about what to do with health issues, such as a foot bothering me. Others were about writing, and what I should do about something troubling me. I can tell you, and you can appreciate, it feels amazing to have such dreams.

So, last night’s dream was a little bit of a letdown. What especially troubled me was the end, when I was sitting on a commode and using it, and it started going forward. It was like I was riding a riding mower, except it was a toilet. After rolling the dream details around in my head down halls designed by M.C. Escher, I told my spouse the dream. She instantly provided a very satisfying explanation.

Okay, got that out of me. Now, for the rest. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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The Air, the Fitbit, the Writing, the Dreams

Our outdoor air sucks. Need more?

Smoke from wildfires is filling our air. The Air Quality Index leaped to one hundred fifteen last night. DANGEROUS. It hasn’t been hot, only into the nineties. We open the house at night to cool it off, and then close the blinds and windows during the day. Opening the windows last night sent us into coughing fits as wet smoke smells wafted in. Eventually, we donned masks.

Today isn’t as bad. The A.Q.I. is in the fifties, and officially, moderate. Visibility remains down. It’s like a white-out beyond a a few hundred feet.

All this wildfire smoke has reduced my Fitbit activities. Walking is way down, to five miles a day average. It’s not as critical as many other issues resulting from wildfires. None of the fires are directly affecting our community. We feel for all those being evacuated in those areas, and appreciate the firefighters’ efforts. If this stuff is terrible for me, a guy in his early sixties who considers himself in good health, those with emphysema and other respiratory issues must be deeply suffering.

I took to the Orson Scott Card method for visualizing and organizing the novel in progress. O.S.C. talked about just drawing places, like a city, and then adding details. With each detail and area added or defined, entertain questions about why those areas and details exist. I’ve done this exercise before, with excellent results. I wasn’t disappointed this time.

I had been editing the novel’s first draft. Halfway through that process, I perceived a problem. A new ‘greater arc’ was required as the solution. I could be wrong, but this is how I decided to address the issue. It’s essentially an epic. I like epics. Bigger is better.

This was decided over a four day period. Then, after deciding it was necessary, I went on a reading sprint. I finished reading two novels, and read two others, in five days. I also read fiction stories and news articles online. This reading stimulated my writing juices and invigorated my writing dreams. I found myself re-committed to who I was, and what I was doing. It’s a matter of taking a deep breath, turning on the computer, and putting the ass in chair, and the fingers on a keyboard.

This new arc takes place on a planet where technology fails. An outpost is established using outdated technology. Suddenly, it’s like living in a frontier castle. I loved that difference in direction from my usual challenges of visualizing the far future and other intelligent races.

I drew the outpost on my computer, and brainstormed about how the lack of technology affects them, and solutions and work-arounds. The team living in the outpost are hunting for people, but can’t use their suits or vehicles. They fall back to horses. Having horses adds more problems and dimensions.

So do the powerful windstorms endured on the planet. That’s why the outpost becomes a castle; something stout enough to survive the windstorms are necessary. That’s the iceberg view of all the scenes, problems, and challenges realized. I don’t want to give away more. Drawing and brainstorming in this manner was a catalyst to my imagination. I scrambled to capture ideas an create an event timeline. It resulted in *shudder* an outline. 

As an organic writer, the outline overwhelmed me. Suddenly, there it all was, this part of the novel mapped out in all its complications and key events. I could imagine, see, and hear them. Writing them was required. It’s daunting for an organic pantser. I decided I would scramble to write key scenes and moments, and patch them together with bridge and pivot scenes, and build the story in layers, much like I used to do when oil painting, or writing a business case, or analyzing data.

I think that whatever opened my creative floodgates also turned the dream valves to full open. I had six remembered dreams last night. Friends from my past were featured. My wife also made an appearance. Of course, maybe it was the eclipse opening the dream and creativity gates. Who can say?

Trying to capture details this morning diverted personal resources already earmarked for other activities. I resorted to dream summaries. The dreams were wild. Once again, my muses were prominently featured. They were attempting to guide and assist me in different manners. Sorting the chaos was a fascinating exercise.

Having your muses show up in my dreams injects high confidence levels. I felt empowered and emboldened when I awaken. Yet, being me, the confidence evaporates to more normal levels by midday. Having your muses and some higher beings populate your dreams and offer encouragement has a good thing. I’m certainly not going to kick them out.

Time to write like crazy, at least one more time. How about you, writers? Have you seen increased creativity? Maybe it is the eclipse.

Or maybe it’s the coffee.

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Organic Writing Fun

I’m having a ball with this organic writing business, and the part of the science fiction novel, “Incomplete States,” that I’m currently working on.

Organic writing in my use means that I have little frigging idea about where I’m going with something. Maybe expressing it, “Where it’s taking me,” is more accurate. It — the muse, the words, the characters, the novel — seems to jump into the driver’s seat, smash the gas and wrench the wheel. They don’t even yell, “Hang on.” They just take off. Sometimes they leave me behind, because they — or it — are smarter and more creative than moi.

But this time, I’m keeping up, and we’re having a ball. This far future, technologically advanced Human society is the backdrop. They travel galaxies like many of us fly around the country. Nanos maintaining health are embedded; so are various communication nets and data webs. You’re in constant contact. Death hasn’t been overcome, but there are work-arounds. People are living quality lives for over a hundred years.

The technology allows you to genetically shape and sculpture your body and features. Regardless of your ethnicity, you can like as you wish, and stay like that until you decided to die.

Because some, do, get bored by the tedium, or philosophically explore, but going for permanent death. That’s a background fade in my book.

Less children are being born. The procreative drive is evaporating. Part of this is due to a virus, but that’s another sub-plot.

The world of this section, though, has a virus that attacks technology. They don’t know the origins of the virus. I do, of course, and it is a Human development devised for war and marketing. (They’re not that different; they’re all about conquering others and gaining strategic advantages to advance an agenda and gain wealth.) The net is, everything normally done via technology can’t be done. Returning to more basic materials and methods are required.

In a sense, it’s like steampunk as the characters cope with the changes, and I, the writer, plays with the impact and shifts. This identifies one of my favorite writing aspects: exploring ideas, fleshing them out, and discovering how the characters react. It is delicious.

Now, gotta go. “It” is calling. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

 

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Wish I Wrote It

“When peace finally came, it smelled of the sort of peace that haunts prisons and cemeteries, a shroud of silence and shame that rots one’s soul and never goes away.”

“The Shadow of the Wind,” Carlos Ruiz Zafon

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The Nano Age

Has the Nano Age arrived?

Nanotechnology is a large part of my future scenarios, critically so in the area of human health. My future settings frequently include nanomeds residing in the body. Replenishing themselves, their tasks are to monitor people’s health and condition, and then address fixes. As part of their on-site services, they make continual adjustments to keep their human hosts comfortable and healthy. They address your heart rate, your nutrient, mineral and hormone levels, etc. Think of them in the same vein as modern cars’ electronic brains work to adjust spark and timing, air/fuel mixtures, and even acceleration and cruising levels to provide the optimum blends of power, responsiveness, and fuel economy, while minimizing air pollution.

I read today that Ohio State University researchers claim they’ve developed a device that utilizes Tissue Nanotransfection (TNT). They claim their device can heal organs with just a single touch in a procedure that takes less than a second.  This could be a big step toward my future settings. In the short term, I still think we’re due for a break through in using nanotechnology in clothing.

My future clothing incorporate nanotechnology. Since it’s in the future, it’s pretty impressive stuff. Self-cleaning, it adjusts to keep you comfortable, becoming hotter and cooler as necessary by changing its weave and density, or adding and removing layers. Of course, it can add a water proof layers, if needed. They’re not often needed, as people don’t go into precipitation. When they do encounter it, their personal energy cloaks keep the moisture off them. The personal energy cloaks also work with the nanotechnology — and both communicate and co-ordinate with your body’s nanomeds — to address your needs.

Styling can also be changed. You can switch from pants to shorts, but shorts are rarely worn, as pants can keep you cooler and more comfortable.

This doesn’t happen in a vacuum. An electronic personal assistant is embedded in you during your youth. This device coordinates activities, and keeps you wirelessly connected on multiple nets. You communicate on some of them, via nanoimplants in your brain as a sort of nano-empowered virtual telepathy.

Changing clothing styles and adding layers requires material, as do drugs, splints and sutures for your body. My future settings often include nano-compilers built into your body, which work with nano-transporters to bring almost instantaneously deliver whatever your body desires. Your clothing can look invisible while projecting a perfect body shape, according to your tastes for that day.

I like to think that we’ve moved past our fixation on body size and shapes by then. I also like to believe we’ve gone past concerns about the color of your skin, religion (which is waning by then), and your gender and sexual orientation. In fact, gender swapping negate many of the gender binary structure, and nanotechnology allows us to play with skin color.

As for religion, well that continues to rise as some people seek reassurances about their lives and direction. Unfortunately, discrimination, hatred, and prejudice sometimes still arise.

That’s the fun of playing with future settings. You can attempt to extrapolate current trends to protect future directions. It’s a hugely flawed process, of course, but fun. For example, even when developing nano-applications such as nanomeds and clothing nanotechnology, political, cultural, and economic issues arise as to why some people will not employ such things. Best of all is having my peoples dependent on such technologies and then having them fail. That’s why I’m at today, in one of my settings.

Time to go write like crazy, at least one more time.

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The Wide Receiver

I once met a man who’d been a wide-receiver.

We’d gone through a new acquisition. Marketing asked me if I wanted a job. He was the Director of Marketing, and my new boss.

Our business was coronary and peripheral catheters. I was just learning the business. He took me to hospitals. We’d watch procedures. He’d explain things and introduce me to people.

We spent a lot of time on the road, and learned things about each other. He’d been a wide-receiver in high school and college. Small, he’d been fast, quick, intelligent, and disciplined. Good route runner. But as he progressed, he encountered competition from other wide-receivers. They were faster, bigger, and stronger, and just as intelligent and disciplined.

Eventually, he left that field, but he loved football, so he became a high school football coach. Through it all, from the first spark of desire, running was what kept him going. He ran five miles every day. One night, while sharing a bottle of wine with our dinner, he confided, “I run every day, because I’m afraid to stop. I’m afraid that if I stop, I won’t ever run again.”

I think of Jon tonight because I thought, I need a break from writing. Like Jon, I’m afraid, that if I take a break, the seed that defines the essence of who I believe I am will dry up and crumble.

 

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