And still another wall (and still not THAT one)

I thought I would be done.

When I posted last week, I thought I would be done by now. My brief wall notwithstanding, I was pretty certain I would put a bow on it and be finished by the time this post rolled around. I was wrong. You see, I hit another wall.

After finishing my post last week, I had to work despite the holiday, co-leading a snowshoe walk at a state park in the afternoon. It was cold, in the upper teens, and though it wasn't windy, there was enough of a breeze that, when we stopped in an open area, you could really feel the breeze cutting in. Still, everyone seemed to enjoy it. That night, I managed to work through about eight manuscript pages, crossed the 300-page mark. At the end of the evening, I had under 90 pages remaining.

I made the mistake, perhaps, of staying up to watch the Bruins on Monday. They were in the midst of a 5-game road trip and played in San Jose, 10pm start. The wild game (a Bruins 6-5 overtime win) ended around 1am, leaving me with five-ish hours of sleep before going in to work the next day. In general, I am not one who believes that being cold and/or tired makes you sick--germs make you sick. Viruses make you sick. On the other hand, perhaps cold and tired can suppress your immune system and help you get sick. It certainly seems possible. It might explain what happened next.

On Tuesday night, after work, after dinner, I sat down, opened the manuscript, and...nothing. I picked at a paragraph, rearranged a couple of sentences, felt so tired I could not concentrate at all. Unlike the previous week, this was not a case of me being befuddled by what I had written. I literally could not summon the energy to think properly about what I was looking at. For the first time in I don't know how long, I went to bed before 11pm. Theoretically rested, I went to work the next day. By afternoon, my throat was sore, my back was sore, and I had to face the facts: I was sick. No Bruins for me on Wednesday (another late game, this one in Vegas), no editing work, no nothing. I might have actually been in bed before ten that night, I don't remember.

I stayed home on Thursday. While a sick day can sometimes be an opportunity to make some progress, I didn't even bother. Sometimes, the body knows best.

The good news for me is that I recovered fairly fast. On Friday I was back at work--both the job and the manuscript. And over the weekend, I steamed through the manuscript. Last night, though I tried to make the last push to finish, I had to call it a night, just 14 pages short of the end. Tantalizingly close.

It's important to listen to your body. As much as we want to push on, there are times when the thing to do is to shut it down, give in, and get some rest. There will be another day.

MUSIC:

Love this song. The chorus kind of sums up how I felt in the middle of this week!

A Facebook challenge comes to the blog!

Some time in late April, I did something I don't normally do: I accepted a challenge. Every day for ten days, I was supposed to list a record album that I still listen to. I had been seeing this happening for a week or two, and found it interesting to see what people I knew were listening to.

As I said, I don't normally do this stuff, but I did this one and it turned out to be kind of fun. So, for today, here is my list of ten albums that I still listen to. The format is Album title, artist, (year released). The list is presented in no real order.

The Beatles, The Beatles (1968). Better known as The White Album, this does go first because it represents my real entry into rock-and-roll. For the most part, I'd been listening to whatever was on the AM radio station my mother listened to. Hearing this at a friend's house in 7th grade or so got me into The Beatles--and rock music--big time.

Quadrophenia, The Who (1973). On Facebook, I listed Tommy in this slot, but on further review, while my friends and I listened to Tommy a huge amount, I actually listen to this much more often now. And the story--about a teenage boy searching for his identity against the backdrop of gang violence is the 60s--is a bit more relatable that Tommy.

London Calling, The Clash (1979). Fun fact: the song "The Right Profile" once helped me answer a Trivial Pursuit question, much to the amazement and disgust of all in attendance. That's Montgomery Clift, honey!

Anthem of the Sun, Grateful Dead (1968). "We mixed it for the hallucinations."--Jerry Garcia. Yeah, no shit. The band allegedly made the producer quit when Bob Weir stated he wanted "the sound of thick air."

American Beauty, Grateful Dead (1970). It's amazing how far this band developed in two years. There's a warmth and presence on this album that this band would never achieve in the studio again. "Box of Rain" may be my favorite song of all time.

Flood, They Might Be Giants (1990). The only band I can think of that has the audacity to reference Jason and the Argonauts, the Longines Symphonette, AND manage to work in the phrase "filibuster vigilantly" in a song...about a nightlight. These guys are all kind of fun, and they're still making quirky records like this.

The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1, Traveling Wilburys (1988). The Osmonds. The King Family. The Jacksons. The Von Trapps. No list of great musical families is complete without the Wilburys. Listening to this album just makes me feel good, they sounded like they had a lot of fun making this. It's too bad only two of the brothers are left.

Bringing Down the Horse, The Wallflowers (1996). Lucky Wilbury's son fronts a band and shows he's got what it takes. Some great songs on this one, and still good listening today.


Astro Lounge, Smash Mouth (1999). I don't care if John Oliver said "All Star" is a "terrible stupid song," I like it. And this whole album is still fun to listen to.

The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd (1973). I was never into Pink Floyd back in the day, and while I'm not exactly "into" them now, this is one hell of an album. There's a reason it was on Billboard's charts every week for 15 years. Heavy stuff, yes, but great music.

Abbey Road, The Beatles (1969). Side two of this album may well be perfection.

It's probably telling that the newest album here is just short of 20 years old. The truth is, while I hear plenty of new songs I like, I don't really buy albums anymore. And when I do hear new songs on the radio, it's hard for me to remember who the artist is or what the name of the song is!

What about you? Are there any albums from "back in the day" that you still listen to? This particular Facebook challenge turned out to be fun, and it was surprising to see what turned up on other people's lists.

Random Thoughts

It's been a tough week, capped off by the long drive to get the Catbird back to school from spring break. Here are some random thoughts:

*Defenestrate is a great word, but, boy is it hard to work into everyday conversation.

*There is nothing more optimistic in this world than a dog.

*Waking up to single-digit temperatures again kind of sucks, but it looks like we're at least going to have a snow-free week.

*I need to find my next writing project.

*The Bruins are doing their best to make a believer out of me.

*Waiting is still the hardest part.

*There is nothing quite like a good bagel in the morning.

*It's nice to have it still light at 7pm, though I'm not crazy about waking up again in the pitch dark.

*Black Panther was a lot of fun.

*It's going to be hard for season 2 of Jessica Jones to top season 1, but two episodes in, they're off to a good start.

*David Byrne sounds like David Byrne--yet he doesn't. I find this video strangely compelling, and the song has been stuck in my head the last couple of days. It's funny how people's voices change as they age.


That's all I've got for today--what's on your mind?

Hello, Square One

Oh, hello, Square One, I...wasn't expecting to see you here. How are you? It's been a while, hasn't it?

Four years? Really, that long? Time flies, huh? Sorry I haven't kept in touch, you know how it is.

Well. I'd love to stay and hang out, but--

Yeah, sure, we can hang out a little. Catch up a bit, sure, I guess I can do that. Is there anything you'd like to do?

...

Sure. Yeah. I guess we can look at the old spreadsheet. I guess it's around here somewhere...yeah, there it is. Geeze, what a lot of work we put into that, huh?

Yeah, I guess we can update it. Wow, what fun. You really haven't changed much in four years, have you?

Wait, you want to do what? Query writing? I haven't written one of those in...four years. But I do sometimes write query-like paragraphs, so I'm not totally out of practice. Oh, but guess what I still do a lot of? Waiting! Yeah, I'm still pretty good at that.

Well, it sure has been fun catching up with you, Square One, but I'm sure you've got places to be and I don't want to hold you up, so....

Oh, you've got time? Lots and lots of time?

...

Yeah, that's great. Just...great.

***

Welp, as you may have figured out, I am once again agent free. It's a business decision, one of those things that happens from time to time. I want to express my gratitude to Carrie for taking me on, showing faith in me and my work, and working on my behalf, and I wish her well in her new position at Laura Dail Literary Agency.

***

Interestingly, on my way to work on Tuesday (before I became a free agent, so to speak), I heard this song on the radio, and remembered how much I like it, and considered slipping it into a blog post somewhere soon. Now, it's more appropriate (I also think I may have done this once before, but if I did, I didn't tag it specifically, so if it's a rerun....). The song is, when you get right down to it, pretty sad. Chrissy Hynde wrote it shortly after the death of Pretenders guitarist, James Honeyman-Scott from a drug overdose, which itself came about two days after the band fired bass player, Pete Farndon for his drug use. Despite this, I've always found something optimistic and uplifting here, and I'm going to be positive. Hope all is well with all of you, what's new?

 

Musical Monday: Jackie Wilson said what?

It's a Monday, there's something like eight inches of snow on the ground (despite the forecast that told us we'd have half that, at most), and I'm kind of tired and achy, hoping it's not something coming on. So, we'll have some rather chipper music today! About two weeks back, I completely got Van Morrison's Jackie Wilson Said stuck in my head.



But it did get me wondering:  What did Jackie Wilson say? According to Van Morrison, it was 'Reet Petite', whatever that meant. But since Morrison has a rather...unique...vocal style (as my wife says, "He swallows his words," which is a pretty apt description), what you hear may not come anywhwere close to reality. After all, for years I thought the chorus line in Jackie Wilson Said went either "What did Billy want" or "Bop en diddy wah" when it's really "I'm in heaven when". So, I did a little searching.

Turns out, Jackie Wilson really did say "Reet Petite"! Reet Petite (The Sweetest Girl in Town) was Wilson's first solo hit way back in 1957, and got a second burst on the charts almost thirty years later, when the following, somewhat bizarre) video was made (three years after Wilson's death).



Well, that's it for me. Just about time to go and shovel. How's things by you all?

Weekend Update: (Temporary) End of the Cold edition

Greetings, all. Woke up this day to a welcome sight: the mercury in our outdoor thermometer was above zero, which it hasn't been before sunrise in close to a week. Not that you can feel it, mind you; took the dog out and was surprised at how cold it felt, courtesy of a decent breeze coming up the hill. But I'm buoyed by high temperatures that, by Wednesday, are supposed to be pushing fifty. Unseasonably warm, as they say. I wonder if all the folks who have spent the last week sneering, "So much for global warming" will apply that same (flawed) logic to this week, or if they'll suddenly (correctly) say, "Don't confuse climate and weather."

I'm equipped to deal with this weather. This Christmas, I got a new hat to replace one I got probably our first Christmas in this house, since the fur was kind of falling out of the old one. When I put the hat on on Christmas morning, the Catbird said I looked like Vlad the Impaler. I'm not sure how I should take that.

"And who knows which is which, and who is who?"*

While I don't generally make resolutions (and didn't this year), I did want to get better about setting up blog posts ahead of time. When I expected to be done with the WiP by Christmas, I thought I'd be able to use writing time that week to get a head start on 2018 posts. Problem: I didn't get done with the WiP by Christmas, or by New Year's. In fact, I didn't get done with the WiP until this weekend (Yay, me!), though there are a couple of things bugging in the back of my head about the WiP, so I might need to go back and make some more changes before setting it sailing off to the Wonderful World of Betas. Back to the blog, though: I did start working on a post for today, but I fizzled out. Figuring I had enough of a base to be able to write on the fly this morning, I left it last night, but the brain power is a little low this morning, so you're getting yet another of these generic update posts. Maybe next week.

Last night, something unexpected appeared in my Facebook feed, a grant opportunity for New York state artists. They call it a fellowship, but it's basically a grant. No age requirements, no "Must have been/must not have been published" requirements, no requirement that you spend the money on an expensive retreat in the woods or anything. I can do this! It doesn't necessarily get me published, but it could get me a chunk of money ($7000), and that would certainly be nice and supportive. Deadline is January 24, so if you are living in the great state of New York and you're an artist, look into it, and good luck! Many of you live in other states (if not other countries!), but I expect your state (or province, or country) has something similar. Ever apply for one? Ever win one? 

Time for some music. Haven't  done this in a while. Bob Weir wrote a lot of weird songs with strange time signatures. This is one (two?) of them, written in 7/4 time. John Perry Barlow, Weir's primary songwriting partner, wrote a lot of songs about obsessive love--though when it comes to the point of obsession, you can argue that it's no longer love. "Lazy Lightning/Supplication," as performed at San Bernardino in January, 1978, will either wake you up or put you to sleep. Have a great week, all!


*From "Us and Them" by Roger Waters and Rick Wright

The Lure of the Shiny

The good news? This isn't a post about politics, or Harvey Weinstein, or anything really unpleasant. The bad news? I don't know. Maybe it's not bad news at all. In fact, there really isn't much news at all.

Saturday was a good day for writing. I am now heading into the final hundred pages of the RiP. I'd love to have this back in Agent Carrie's hands on November 1, but that may be a bit of a tall order. I'm not the fastest writer in the world, and there's still some rejiggering to do, but progress!

While I was getting myself organized Saturday morning I had myself briefly tempted by the lure of the shiny--appropriate, since one of the chapters I was working on involved a father-daughter fishing expedition. Whilst searching through my papers trying to find a section I had rewritten (as much as it's a waste of paper and a consumption of rather expensive printer ink, I really like to have a hard copy for rereading/editing; it's much more fun to mark up), I found a printout of an outline I had sent to Carrie for the WiP last year--and gazed upon it with all the longing an eighth grade boy feels for his first crush. I wanted nothing more than to dive back into that manuscript, which is going to need one hell of a lot of work before I can even consider sending it to Carrie. It must be time to start working on it, those characters have been creeping back into my brain.

What is it about the new that is so attractive? I really like the RiP--again. And it had a nibble last year, which means someone at a publishing house really liked it, too. That glimpse of words with my main character's name on the WiP, though, was almost enough to make me say, "I can work on both of these at the same time; go for it!" I'm not sure I can, however, and it may not be wise to try it, though in truth, rewriting one thing and reading/making editorial notes on another are not the same thing, and require different parts of the brain muscle.

I've often said that the way I keep motivated is that I want my stories published, want someone to read them, and that the only chance of that happening is to finish what I start. Now, I can add this to the Kick-in-the-Pants toolbox: Want to work on that new shiny? Finish that thing you've been working on for weeks/months/years.

How do you resist the lure of the shiny new thing?

Music! I think I've posted this one before, but maybe not. It's on my mind lately, for reasons I can't explain. It never made it onto an official studio record, but if it had, it probably wouldn't have sounded as alive as it does on this rehearsal. Enjoy!

The Reading List, 2017 (Part III)

Amazing that we're into October already, isn't it? Here's the list of books read and completed between July and now--have you read any of them?

The Good Life (2006), Jay McInerney. Unintentional re-read. I did not like it nearly as much as I thought, and I can't remember what I thought of it the first time.

The Returned (2013), Jason Mott. A TV show was based on this, but apparently not the one I watched, which was French and based on a movie that had no relation to this except the title and the broad concept. It seems there's a bunch of films/TV shows/movies called "The Returned" that all have dead people coming back, not in a Walking Dead kind of way. I really liked this one.

Cancer Ward (1969 edition), Alexander Solzhenitsyn. The toughest part of reading Russian writers? The patronymic! Thus, everyone is Oleg Filimonovich and Pavel Nikolayevich and Ludmila Afanasyevna. Good book, though.

Into the Water (2017), Paula Hawkins. Strong follow-up from the author of The Girl on the Train.

Dream Hoarders (2017), Richard Reeves. Non-fiction work looking at the growing separation between the top 20% of Americans and the rest of us.

The Wild Palms (1939), William Faulkner. I reached the end and said, "WTF???"

Amagansett (2004), Mark Mills. Murder in the Hamptons, post-WWII. Ultimately disappointing.

The Winter People (2014), Jennifer McMahon. Promising start that kind of fell apart in the last third.

The Shock of the Fall (2013), Nathan Filer. Schizophrenia makes for unsettling but effective narrator.

There it is. Nine books read, one a re-read. I note that, aside from Cancer Ward, which was a monster, most of these books were pretty thin in terms of page count.

In other news

... I had a good weekend of working on the RiP (huzzah! This revision has been difficult)

...On Wednesday last week, our high temperature was 85. On Thursday, it was 65. Fall has arrived (though we've effectively had no rain for three solid weeks now).

...Hockey season starts this week, yay!

...Though the Bruins could be a disaster this year. Boo!

Finally, the song of the week. Neil Young's After the Gold Rush. What have you been reading lately?

 

Monday Musing

Another Monday morning that catches me rather bleary-eyed and unprepared. Second cup of coffee is on its way in and I'm not much better off than when I got up!

-Despite having to work through almost all of my Saturday, attending a memorial service for a really good guy I knew through work, having to mow my lawn on Sunday, and Skyping with the Catbird last night, I managed to work through over 50 manuscript pages over the weekend. Since starting the actual revision work (as opposed to reading and making notes) I've cut 4,000 words and 15 pages, tightening things up considerably. What do I like better, drafting or crafting? It's hard to say. There's nothing like the rush of pouring words out on the page. Then again, there's nothing like polishing something to a high shine and smoothing out the rough edges.

-I woke from a dream this morning in which both my parents were alive. I didn't see my father; he was running his trains off in another room. It's very unusual for me to dream about my parents. I have had several dreams in the past (including two in the recent past) about their house, of all things, but not usually them. Maybe it was all the pictures of people with their mothers splattered all over Facebook on Saturday.

-The graduation photos have started appearing: kids of friends and family who have no business leaving college so soon are getting out! The Magpie graduates officially next week; she came home on Friday (though she has one more paper to turn in yet). It's interesting how, not all that long ago, she loved being in college and didn't want to think about life after, and now she's happy to be out. In true Magpie fashion, she's skipping the university graduation, though we are going to the much more intimate departmental ceremony. I'm not heartbroken by this decision at all.

-Music! Because, why not? From a performance 39 years ago (!) yesterday.



-That's all I got for today. How was your weekend?

On the Cusp

A funny thing happened while I've been griping and grumbling and carping about my current WiP: I'm nearly finished.

Last night, I sat down and tried to work on the penultimate chapter. I didn't have much success, but that's okay. The morning was productive, and this chapter will come--I may start in on it after I finish this post, or this evening when I'm home from work. If all goes well, by the time I have my "State of the Union" conference with Carrie later this week, I'll be able to tell her, "It's done!"* and we'll both be pretty happy about that.

It's funny how stuff like this can sneak up on you. You're plugging along, focused on what's in front of you, and all of a sudden, there it is--whoa, how'd that happen? For a long time it felt like I would never get here, but it happened the way writing always happens: one word, one sentence, one paragraph, one page at a time.

*Of course, I'm not quite ready to pop the champagne just yet (I don't do that, anyway, though I might allow myself a nip of scotch or something). There are those last two chapters to get through. The one I couldn't quite face last night will require a little more heavy construction than the last one. And then it's definitely going to need a re-read and a pass-through before I send it off. Will it ultimately be good enough? That remains to be seen, but it's a step almost completed, and given how difficult it's been to get here, I'll enjoy the moment.

Have you ever surprised yourself by reaching the end of one of your projects? How do you celebrate hitting 'The End'?

I was a little shocked this morning to sit down at my computer and see the news that David Bowie died. Every once in a while someone will die and you'll think, "Wait, I didn't even know he was still alive!" but that was not the case with Bowie. What did surprise me was that he had been battling cancer. Either I don't pay that much attention to the celebrity news or Bowie kept this one to himself. Even when he released a new song not all that long ago (I gave it a listen, and really didn't like it), I don't recall there being any mention of cancer.

I was never a huge Bowie fan; I liked some of his music, but not all of it. Still, there was no doubt that he was a huge persona, and a huge influence in the world of music. Here's "Modern Love." Back when I was a college freshman, there was a guy a few doors down who used to blast this all day.

Musical Monday: The Blues Brothers

Funny how life works. For reasons unknown to me, I found myself thinking of The Blues Brothers--the actual musical act, not the movie; I've never seen the movie--yesterday morning while scraping snow off my driveway. I was thinking how at first it seemed like a novelty, a gag for Saturday Night Live like John Belushi's Joe Cocker at Woodstock bit, or Gilda Radner's punky Candy Slice, but that they were actually a really good musical act. I don't know why I was thinking about this; just one of those random things that pops into a brain and stays for a bit.

Later in the morning, while eyeballing Facebook, one of my friends posted a status update. She was watching The Blues Brothers (the movie) and commented about how much she loved the film. Strange brainwave, right? So I did some searching around and found some clips. Here's one from New Year's Eve, 1978, at Winterland in San Francisco:


And yes, that was that Paul Shaffer, for those of you who watch David Letterman.

Not a whole lot else to say about this weekend. At some point in the near future I'll have to set foot outside and see how deep the snow is and determine if I can get to work (school is already closed)--maybe I'll get a writing day!

How was YOUR weekend?

Christmas Preparedness, and Music!

Well, well, well, we are just a week and a half away from Christmas and...I am totally not ready for it. I did spend about ten minutes moving some stuff out of the living room yesterday so that we can (eventually) put up a tree and decorate. Because we are 'live (or, as my brother likes to call them, 'real, dead) tree' people, there's always a bit of an argument over when to get the tree and when to put it up and how long to leave it up. In my house growing up, we always got the tree fairly late in the season, which undoubtedly explains in part why tree shopping was always such a stressful affair. I remember tree shopping being fraught with tension and short tempers, and trips to many, many different places--often on the coldest day of the year to that point. The tree generally got put up in the tree stand on December 23, and the decorating occurred on Christmas Eve itself. Naturally, I have a predilection for that.

My wife, on the other hand, prefers to get a tree bought and in the stand earlier than that. She's not quite a 'let's get the tree on Black Friday' person, but she runs toward the earlier end of the spectrum. The result is we don't have a hard and fast day. It's not tradition in our house to get the tree every year on December 17, lets say, or December 12. Instead we roll along until we receive some signal that tells us, "It's time." (Usually it's the kids saying, "When are we going to get a tree?")

We are fortunate, however, in that our tree shopping usually isn't all that stressful, which is a good thing because the geography of tree places up here is a lot different than where I grew up. On Long Island it seemed like you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a tree lot. Up here? Well, the Lions Club sells them up in Cooperstown, but it seems like if you don't get one there in the week following Thanksgiving, you're out of luck. There's another place, an actual tree farm where we get our trees year after year, but if we strike out there, we're looking at a 20 minute drive (at least) to the next place--and the further we drive to get a tree, the further we have to drive home with one strapped to the roof of our vehicle. That is always a white-knuckle drive for me; I'm convinced, no matter how tightly we've got the tree strapped down, that I'm going to look in the rear view mirror and see it bouncing along the road behind us. It's a great visual, and might be funny as hell in a movie, but not in real life.


So, perhaps we'll get a tree this week. If not during the week we'll have to do it this coming weekend. I just hope the weather is good. What about you? If you buy a tree, do you get it early, or late?

And now, some music. It's not a Christmas song, but that's okay, there's enough of that out there without me pushing more of it in your face. Julia is the Magpie's friend, a very talented young lady. Perhaps one day you'll see her on TV or hear her on the radio and you'll say you heard her here first. Enjoy!

Blah, Friday

It's Friday. Normally, I get my blog posts done in the morning, but I've been slipping lately. I haven't been thinking about the blog post much this week (I lie; I've thought about it several times this week, but never got much beyond "Friday's coming."), and we went to the school musical last night which was fun (no, the Catbird opted to sit this one out; she's on stage crew instead) but didn't allow me the time to think or write.

Not only do I have no blog post today, I have not written anything on my NaNo this week beyond some scribbled notes. I'm just short of 25,000 for the month, but after Saturday's brain-deflating splurge, I've been inconsistent. I'll get going again--weekend's coming.

Nope, nothing worthwhile here.

I was going to reach back into the 'archives'--the vast file folder on my hard drive with ideas and started blog bits, but the one I was going to use, well, it was based on a news item that doesn't look so reliable in hindsight.

And so, we need something goofy. I hope I haven't put this one up before. I looked and couldn't find it, so maybe I haven't. Enjoy your weekend, all.

Echoes

While writing this weekend I listened to One From the Vault, a commercial release of a Grateful Dead concert from August, 1975. The show was notable in part because it was one of only two times the band played Bob Weir's short instrumental, Sage & Spirit:



Sage & Spirit appeared on side 2 of the album, Blues for Allah, but I confess after probably the first or second time I listened to that album, I only listened to side 1. I loved side 1; side 2, not so much (note this was unusual behavior from me--in those days, skipping tracks on an album meant picking up the record player's tone arm and trying to put it down right at the beginning of the track you wanted, without scratching the record, or playing with fast forward and rewind on your tape deck. It's a lot easier now. Plus, I generally liked to listen to albums all the way through).

Since Sage & Spirit was only played twice in concert in thirty years, I was not particularly familiar with it. But as I listened, I heard interesting echoes of other Weir compositions, most notably, the distinctive opening to Lost Sailor, a song that would not be completed until four years after Sage & Spirit was recorded. There are other hints of other songs in there, as well.

As I worked on my WiP over the weekend, I find myself echoing myself, traveling over, if not exactly the same ground ground as before, then ground that is very familiar, very similar to where I've already been. I won't say too much about it here, now (we know how fragile those WiPs can be, right?), except this current piece deals to some extent with a person who is a bit of an outsider in his community. And as I look back over previously completed (or started) projects, I see this theme running through over and over again. Sometimes it's blatant and up front, other times it's more subtle, but it's pretty much always been there.

There seems to be a tendency for artists to explore certain topics or themes and images over and over again. I can't explain why I keep going back to 'the outsider' in my writing, except I find the idea interesting. There's a certain tension inherent in a character being on the outside looking in, especially when there's a subtle hostility that exists because of her outsider status. And, I think, it's a status we can all relate to: everyone's been an outsider at some point in their lives. It's something everyone can relate to.

I do wonder if I'll ever write my way out of this and find another theme, or if it's something that will unconsciously work its way into everything I write.

That's about it for me for today. How about you? Do you find yourself returning to a particular theme or idea over and over again? Have a great week!

Ah, December

This post is coming to you from the Department of the Top of My Head.

IN the sports world, when a team is struggling through a rough patch, every win is treated as something of great significance. "This game is could mark a turning point in the season,"  the broadcasters and beatwriters say. "They really needed this win." It's a narrative that fans seem to eat up, but coaches know that this last victory is only really significant if the team then goes out in their next game and gets another victory, if they build on the performance of the last game. If the team goes out and lays an egg in the next game, or drops five out of the next six, well, that 'significant' win doesn't look so significant, does it?

Writing a NaNo is kind of like this. If you've managed to churn out 50,000+ words in the month of November on a novel, you deserve congratulations--it is a great achievement., one you can be proud of. The question now, however, is what are you going to do with it? This isn't just aimed at your NaNo, but at your writing in general. What are you going to do with it now?

The answer, of course, depends in a large part on what your goals are for writing. Let's assume, however, that you're here on this blog because you're like me, someone who likes to write, and someone who dreams that this writing thing can  turn into something--a published book (or 2 or 10), maybe a career, maybe even fame and fortune. If that's the case, then what you do next is vital. You need to finish the book. You need to let the book rest. You need to go over it again and again, rewriting, revising, rethinking. You need to get it in the hands of people who aren't going to just say, "My gosh, this is great!" because you're their friend/son/wife/whatever, but people who are going to tell you what they really think. In short (not really), now that you've rushed your novel through the artificial growth chamber that is NaNo, you need to let it breathe, let it develop properly. The racing part is over. If you're new to the writing thing, this is a good time to evaluate the process and figure out what really works for you as a writer.




Now, I will share two bits of news from my own front. First, I aimed at getting BARTON'S WOMEN query ready by the end of the month, and I think I'm actually there. Woot! Second, I have been informed that I have had a short story accepted by the fine folks at Elephant's Bookshelf Press for inclusion in their winter anthology, due out in January, 2014. Double woot! How about you? Did you meet your goals for November? Did you NaNo, and if so, did you 'win'?

Weekend Updates

Nothing especially organized about today's post, just the ramblings of a confused mind still waiting for his first cup of coffee.

- The high school musical was this weekend, an ambitious one this year: "Les Mis." 2-1/2 months of often grueling rehearsals (the directors of the musical for the past six years in our school are Broadway veterans, so they often seem to forget that these kids are students) really paid off--everyone did a fantastic job with the material. The Catbird was a chorus girl, though she got two or three solo lines and did great! I'll add that a number of the performances were revelatory--I sat there and thought, "Who knew [insert kid's name here] could sing like that?"

-Along those lines, I found it amusing that the school felt the need to post content and language warnings at the entrance and on the program. Of course, there is some 'rough stuff' involved.

- The Magpie came home for the weekend (or, more correctly, we went and fetched her) so she could see the musical. It was really nice to have her back, and real nice to see my girls together. They get along so well.

-Enough of that mushy stuff. You ever notice that, in car commercials (and probably not necessarily just car commercials) where there's a hetero couple driving, it's almost always the man behind the wheel? I do most of the driving in this family, especially at night and in winter (which is roughly 8 months here--okay, I exagerrate), but that's because the girls don't have licenses and my wife doesn't like the roads. I wonder if this is the case in most places. Do share.

-Despite the craziness of the weekend, I managed to get in some decent work on BARTON'S WOMEN, working through about 50 pages of manuscript. Ah, the benefits of getting up before everyone else! It shrank by almost 500 words and one manuscript page, though I'm finding myself struggling with one particular section--not so much in the writing, but with whether the segment belongs where it is or needs to move up from the back of the chapter to the front. I think I can still trim a bit from the front edge of the story as well. I'm about 100 pages out from the end, and am still hoping to start my query by month's end.

-Coffee's kicking in now. Look out.

-Comet ISON--have you seen it? Have you looked? Sadly, we have two obstacles to quality viewing (three, if you count today's clouds): hills to the east that get in the way, and a street light about 200 feet up from my house that's quite bright and glary. I'd like to see it before it's gone.

-A college campus early on a Sunday afternoon is like a ghost town.

-I also got through a number of pages of reading for a friend (you know who you are!). I'm happy to say I'm almost done, and happier to say that it's quite good! I aim to have it for you by Thanksgiving!

-Two weeks ago I turned in five (or six) printed pieces for the Writers' Circle anthology. Yesterday, I e-mailed the project leader four of the five (or six) pieces--I can't remember what the extra one (or two) was. That's pretty sad. There are at least three possibilities. Why didn't I write this down?

-I appreciate the input you gave me on my question of two weeks ago. Your responses made me think quite a bit, and I'll likely have more on that subject when I can devote a bit more time to things.

-And in closing, this one may be a little mellow and melancholy for a Monday morning, but I love the song and I love the performance, acoustic Dead in front of a rowdy Halloween crowd at Radio City Music Hall. See you Friday (I hope)--how was your weekend?

A Quote

"The Beatles haven't got any magic you haven't got."--John Lennon

It's easy to be discouraged by the works of others. "I'll never turn a phrase like that one," you think. "I wish my descriptions were as lush and full." When we read a finished product, those phrases, those descriptions, those characters seem so natural, so easy, so the result of talent or genius. Talent plays a part, yes, but there's no magic there--there's hours and hours of work, determination, grit, experience. In the end, you want it to look easy, to look like magic, and to be magical for a reader.

Musical Monday: Birdhouse In Your Soul

They Might Be Giants--a quirky band if ever there was one. I remember seeing them on TV somewhere before I'd ever heard them on the radio and thinking, "Who are these guys?" They make me think, which is good, and they make me smile, which is even better. This song contains what may be the only use of the word 'filibuster' in musical history.




Now, I'm having one of those weird moments where I really feel like I've done this post before. I poked around and couldn't find it, so if it's an inadvertent rerun, you have my apologies.

Musical Monday: Still Fighting the War

Heard this on NPR's folk program last night.




When I was kid, if I heard someone refer to 'The War', it meant WWII. Twenty-five, thirty years after the end of that conflict, WWII still shaped so much of the world, and my perceptions of it. We had the Cold War as a direct result of it, for one thing, plus I knew people who had fought in it. My grandfather, several uncles, fathers of a couple of my friends. They were still making movies about it and doing TV shows about it (and this was long before The Hitler History Channel provided us with fodder like, Sex and The Third Reich), and books, books, books.

It wasn't until later that Vietnam came into sharper focus for me. I was a little too young (and I suspect my parents shielded me from the more grisly images of body bags and burned out villages that were shown on TV) to really remember or pay much attention to Vietnam; it wasn't until Vietnam began entering popular culture through films like The Deer Hunter that I started paying attention. At the same time, more and more Vietnam veterans began fighting for their rights, and more and more of them began revealing major physical and psychological damage as a result of their experiences. Sadly, the crazed Vietnam vet who was "still fighting the war" became a cliche used to drive all kinds of TV programs and movies. World War II veterans seemed to make a seamless transition back to civilian life (and I know this isn't true, but that's the perception); Vietnam veterans, by contrast, had a far more difficult time. "Still fighting the war" was a phrase much more frequently attributed to them than to veterans of other conflicts.

When I heard the title of this song, and the opening verse, I immediately thought it was a Vietnam song. Funny how you get conditioned, isn't it? It wasn't until the line, "Flashback to Fallujah" that I realized Cleaves is talking about the Iraq war, the war that is still going on. Perspective is a strange thing.

Friday Music: Say It, Blue October

I've been thinking a lot about words (that's a good thing, right?) and their effect. Unfortunately, the thing I'm working on just wasn't going to be ready in time for today, so I'm filling in with this number from Blue October. A bit bitter, but very powerful. Oh, one blatant F-bomb in here, you have been warned.




I hope you all have a great weekend!