We are back from our world travels and have recovered for the most part. It takes three or four days to really get back into your normal sleep pattern and home routine. I’m 95% back to normal and ready to get some work done.
I have yet to crack open my novel but am working up to it. I have some great ideas for later and will get to it eventually. For now, I need to get back into the day-job routine and make sure the I still have a income.
I have a total of 3302 pictures and videos to sort and edit from the trip and have barely scraped the surface. I will add a few here as a teaser. Keep in mind these are just taken with my cellphone. I haven’t posted any pics from the big camera and have high expectations.
If only we could capture The moment of connection The electric fire and energy All cosmic flowers blooming That moment That microsecond Before rinsed away By the wash of time Of thoughts and senses Living and life And forgotten Lines and lyrics And visions lost <sigh> For want of a notebook
We’ve probably all had those flashes of brilliance at completely inopportune times. The perfect lyric or book title or even snarky comeback that strikes while you’re in the checkout lane, or in a public toilet, or walking the dog two blocks from home. If only you could remember it you could prove to the world how absolutely brilliant you really are, but…
You never remember it quite right and you never ever have a notebook. Damn!
In 2023 I took a six-month break from writing in order to get a professional certificate (PMP for those wondering) but I’m now trying to get my creative juices working again. My current situation is that I find my brain full of ideas up to the point of actually putting words down. I enjoy outlining a scene or a blog post or even an entire novel plot. Yet, when it comes to actually creating the prose … my creativity locks up and lets me down.
Other than being creatively cramped, I find myself completely full of advice for ‘others’ to follow. I’ve got an endless litany of pointers and guidelines and tricks for the beginner or struggling writer. And yet … I struggle to take my own advice. The old saw about teaching immediately comes to mind: Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach. I don’t want to be that guy; I’m not qualified to teach. I want to write.
The trick I’ve been foisting on others lately while failing to do myself is: Write yourself out of the weeds.
It is an extension of my most quoted advice: Write all the words, even the crap. Which is an exercise meant to get the gears moving and to keep them moving.
Writing your way out of the weeds is meant to take the gears that are now moving and use them to find a direction for your writing. Write so much crap that you eventually write your way past your block or hangup or whatever was keeping you from writing useable words until you can find a path through the weeds and back to the plot of the story.
Essentially: If you write enough garbage you’ll find something worth keeping.
Currently, I’m at the write-all-the-words stage. To be honest, I wish I was in the weeds; I’m still trying to find them. To be in the weeds you have to be writing, even if it’s garbage. I have yet to get to that point. Writing this post was a start and painful as all get out. But it is part of my working through the issue. And hopefully, create something I can post to my long-neglected blog.
Only more writing can lead to better writing. I’m hoping this is the start of more.
2023 started out well; I had goals that were moving in the right direction and felt good about things. But then halfway through the year, I heaped an additional goal onto the heap that completely upset the apple cart and forced everything else to a halt.
I made the decision to further my engineering career by getting my PMP certification. It is a professional project management certification that requires extensive study culminating in a three-hour exam. I poured myself into the task and expected to have it complete before Thanksgiving.
Well, that didn’t happen. It’s mid-January of 2024 and I’ve only now scheduled my test. It wasn’t that I didn’t study or gave up or anything like that. It was that life events and the ephemeral reality of time placed metaphorical chutes and ladders in my path. (two-week vacation, tiling my basement, large projects at work, etc.)
However, now that I have the test scheduled and the end of this particular task in sight, I can resurrect the goals I’d set aside, such as organizing my vacation pictures, the rewrite of my book, and this blog.
However, I’ve found that restarting a project or goal is much like getting back on a horse. It’s as if both you and the goal are reluctant to start. I’ve yearned to work on these things for months but held my back because I knew I couldn’t give them the time they deserved. So, now I find that I am still a little shy of jumping into the task too hard, afraid that I will be pulled away again, unable to give it the attention I want. I feel the projects shying away from me for the same reasons. I’ve avoided and ignored them for so long that they’ve gone feral.
It will take some time to get my goals tamed and myself refocused. But the last six months of concentrated single-minded focus on a task have taught me some valuable skills. I tended to spread myself too thinly across too many projects. I now realize that I need to concentrate on the single task at hand.
Today it’s this post.
So, here’s to getting things rolling again in 2024. I have a lot to accomplish.
I am your typical introvert: I don’t have a need to talk to people. I can go an entire day and not say a single word and not mind at all.
Likewise, I don’t have a need to interact online. I enjoy peek into the socials to see what’s going on and what other people are up to, but I rarely feel the need to share my own activities.
Therefore I really don’t have much of a social media presence. I appear once in a while, say something snarky, and disappear back into my cave.
And I like it way.
However, I’ve been told repeatedly that I need a social media following to be a successful writer in this market. But it’s been hard to keep myself focused on the task. I have to pull myself away from other tasks – more important tasks – to do this… whatever ‘this’ is.
I’m not sure what I’m to do about it. I’ve laid out media plans, scheduled wiring tasks, outlines, etc. And have failed to stay on task at every turn. But yet, I’ll rework a single scene from my story for hours on end. Because ‘that’ is the work to me. Not this… not talking… not socializing in electronic packets… not showing you my lunch or my cat or derpy dog.
Sigh… But I guess I will for a laugh….
Whatever happened to that solitary tortured soul of a writer?
I should be writing. I want to write. I have the desire to write. But I’m having a hard time forcing myself to write. And it really is ‘forcing’ myself to write. I find myself avoiding the work, doing everything but write. I get lost on the internet daily when I know there is work to do. Then, after hours of this, I get angry with myself for not working, not accomplishing ANYTHING!
It is SO frustrating. I’m stuck in this circle of avoidance and self-disgust. I’m the worst employee, I swear. It’s sad.
However, I am honest with myself and can analyze my own actions. I’ve done this sort of thing before for ‘other’ issues. It’s time to use some psychoanalysis on this issue.
I’m in the rewrite stage of my novel, and, to be perfectly honest, this is the first project I’ve ever taken this far. I usually get to a ‘Final’ draft that has been polished to the best of my abilities and call it complete. However, this time I am working with an editor. She is a personal friend, and I trust her opinions and experience.
A scene in need of raking.
She marked up my novel and was not kind about it. Kindness is not something you look for in an editor. They are meant to be mean, cut with broad strokes, and eviscerate our beloved words to produce a leaner, meaner, and more readable product.
Overall, I agree with most of her edits and suggestions. Yet, that doesn’t mean it isn’t painful or easy.
I need to rewrite a side character into a main character sidekick; she is essential to the story and needs to be more involved. To facilitate the fix, entire scenes need to not only be changed but COMPLETELY CUT! This is what my subconscious is balking at and why I am avoiding my work. Because I like those words, and I’m attached to those scenes. Hours and hours were spent writing and polishing them until they shone. How can I just DELETE them? But that is what I must do.
All those beautiful words!!
I have read in a hundred different places that “writing is rewriting.” Yet, I could never fathom how true and incredibly hard it is. The sentence I struggled for days to get just right, to invoke the perfect emotion, the ideal atmosphere, now has to be sacrificed to strengthen the remaining words. Knowing how necessary the task is, doesn’t make it any less painful. Those are my words, my work, and it’s got to burn.
I know myself pretty well, and I tend to avoid the most difficult tasks, sometimes to the point where they get forgotten and are no longer necessary. Success! But… If I want to be a writer – a well-paid writer – I need to get past this particular hang-up and move the f*ck on and do the work.
Realizing the issue is often half the battle. Fixing or working around the issue is the other half. So, I’ve learned some psychological games I can use to ‘trick’ myself into doing something I don’t want to do.
Example: I used to hate eating my vegetables when I was little. I also knew my parents would make me eat them, so I forced myself to eat the vegs first and as fast as possible. That way, they were gone, and I could cover their yucky taste with the good stuff. I’m now in my fifties and love vegetables, but I still eat them first every time!
Question: What is the psychological trick I will use to avoid the pain of cutting all my beautiful words from the book?
Answer: I archived my highly polished turd of a final draft and started working on a new version as a NEW file. I deleted all the scenes that needed to go and most of the material that needed to be changed. Now I am essentially working with a clean slate. I’m no longer editing ‘that’ book; I’m working on a new book with someone else’s input. It may not be as good as the first or may fail to live up to our expectations. It doesn’t matter. The scenes and words I had such passion for but was unwilling to let go of are preserved. I can go reread them anytime I want.
Now I can get back to work with a clear conscience and a more compliant subconscious mind.
I’m going to take a break from Twitter and F***book for a while. I’ve been so distracted by the BS and stupidity that my fellow Americans are burying themselves in that I couldn’t tear my eyes away. It is much like a car accident and we’re craning our neck to see the gore.
I discovered that you can mute people on that F***book thing. I mute my step-daughter for a month, she’s an anti-masker, pro-Trumper, bigot, so we really didn’t have anything in common anyway. I’ll see her at Thanksgiving. That’ll be fun.
But the end of 2020 can’t come fast enough. I expect Trump to be out on his ass and maybe some kind of progress on the virus. If anything maybe we can at least agree that masks are a good idea. If America votes Trump in for a second term, we deserve to be sold to Russia. There is no excuse for hoodwinked two elections in a row.
Now, to move on to other more calming and enjoyable topics:
I will be posting here more often. I find that I like the quiet in here much better the social media blast I’ve been hanging out in. This is relaxing.
I really, really, really need to finish this damn book. The book is done. I’m now stuck in an editing loop. So, I’ve decided this is the last go-through. I have some specific things to iron out and then I’m going to submit it. I have other things to write.
I’m working on some short fiction that I’ve previously written but never submitted. I really need to get something published.
I’m outlining my next book – ergo, I need to finish the current book!
I’m also really looking forward to some Football. I really don’t want to jinx it, but I don’t hold out much hope on having a season. In my mind, it would be rash and irresponsible to try and play sports in this environment. Go Pack Go!!
I’ve never killed anyone. I’ve thought about it, of course, we all have. But the thrill is not what I expected. As I worked out the details and fleshed out the plan, my excitement built. Now, standing over my victim with a baseball bat, I feel it much more than I could have imagined. I’m almost giddy.
Once I had the planning complete, Devin made the rest so easy for me. Sicily described him as a sloppy drunk, and she wasn’t kidding. He was at his usual spot on the beach and in extra special form today. Drunk off his ass and not even noon. Hell, it might be a continuation of yesterday’s drunk. Who knows? I imagine he thought of himself as a beach bum, he did live in Florida after all, but he looked more bum than beach.
After a friendly hello, all I had to do was offer him a fresh beer, and he downed it without hesitation. What a douche! There was enough drug in it to put him down for hours.
“We’re going to need more beer,” I said and lead him to the car; like luring kids with candy. I should be arrested.
In her discussions, Sicily spent a lot of time on how to find the perfect location. It is the most critical part of a plan, she said. But it turns out that Google does know everything, making it easy. Online satellite images helped me locate the perfect cabin.
Requirement #1 – Old shack built out over the swamp. Check!
Requirement #2 – On rarely used back road of another back road. Check!
She couldn’t have described it better; this place has been unused for years. Even the discarded beer cans and trash are old. Once I finish with Devin, I only have to push the body off into the water and walk away.
Honestly, the hardest part was getting him out of the damn car. He’s a big boy, and dragging his unconscious body into the shack was harder than I expected. I really should have rented the SUV and backed it right up to the door. Lesson learned.
The main room of the cabin is bare except for Devin, inert in the middle of the floor. His hands are tied behind his back, but legs free, as per the plan. A chair to prop him in would have been handy, but watching him writhe on the floor will be just as good.
I’m shaking and sweating in rivers. My heart pounding in my chest. And yet I’m smiling and fearless. The nervousness and fear I expected have vanished. The swamp air is hot and moist, but it seems fitting.
I’m about to kill someone! Holy Shit!
I pace while I wait for Devin to wake, breathing deep to calm my heart. I hope I didn’t give him too much of the drug. An overdose is not the death this ditwad deserves. The bugs circle and buzz in a growing cloud. The message must have gotten out. Fresh meat! I swat at them angrily as they start to get vicious. I’m getting impatient.
Finally, my victim groans and begins to squirm. I take another shaky breath and heft the baseball bat to poke at him. He had to be awake for this part.
Uncertainty is a terrible catalyst for creativity. When the Coronovirus transformed into a pandemic and we began to see social distancing and stay at home orders, I was excited. Wait, that may not be the best word. I was encouraged and expected to get some alone-at-home time to complete my book and even had some new ideas for other material. The reality of the situation has proved to be far different.
I have had zero alone time at home. My work schedule hasn’t changed an iota and my wife thought this would be a great time to landscape the yard. So I have had far less time to write than I did before the virus, not more.
I have made daily attempts to write, but it comes in fits and starts and rarely flows like it did or needs to. The uncertainty of our current situation is weighing on me, I think. I expected the United States to be able to handle this situation better than most. Irregardless of our incompetent President and his lackeys, I expected there to be enough quality adults in charge to offset them and get us through this smoothly. I was sadly mistaken.
A month into a weak national lockdown and we’ve got more cases of the virus in this country than all the rest of the world combined. We as a nation have failed and as a people are continuing to fail. I have little confidence that we will be out of this crisis soon or undamaged. Our economy, our world standing, our healthcare system and our self-confidence will be damaged and changed.
I’m just trying to complete my novel. I made the conscious decision to not address the virus in my writing, but it has definitely affected my work-mind. I need to be in the correct frame of mind and emotion to produce quality work and the uncertainty of today is not making that easy. Most days I get little accomplished and end up getting lost in the pity/bitch party that is Facebook/Twitter.
I hope everyone is safe and taking this seriously. The only way through this a concerted effort to stop it. And that can only be accomplished by social distancing.
So Many Words... 