Writer's Update 2015

     I quit blogging, but I didn’t quit writing. For a couple of years I wrote and posted every week. I would ponder what to write about and every Monday I would compose and post a blog here. Usually the topic was just something I was thinking about. It was rarely poignant enough to share and sometimes quite dull. But I kept at it because it was part of my writing regimen. But around the middle of last year, I just stopped.

     I had to be truthful. I told myself I was blogging to stay in the habit of writing, but there was plenty I could do to maintain the habit other than the blog. I was really blogging for the attention. And once in a great while I would post a winning blog that people might read and comment on and that just fueled me. And I realized that if I was writing for attention, then I needed to change what I did.

     I kept writing. I spent a few months revising the hardcopy of Sidewinder. Then in October I participated in a challenge to write 500 words a day and post them on my blog, which I did. In November I wrote a first draft of a new novel for National Novel Writing Month. When that was done, I started into a 4^th draft of Sidewinder.

I wanted to finish it by the end of February, but it went a lot slower than I thought it would. But then finally I hit a pace and started writing every day. I only missed a couple of days and in the end had a 51 day writing streak. I finished the 4^th draft of my novel yesterday.

Now what? My biggest fear is that I will fall out of the habit of writing. This could be especially easy to do this week when I’m getting less sleep due to my busy work week, the week before Easter. So I managed to get up this morning with the thought that I would write a blog post. I thought it would recap everything so far about Sidewinder, instead it’s been a recap of my writing life of Sidewinder? I want to share about it. Maybe tomorrow. I have a lot to consider for it. I’m in uncharted waters. A 4^th draft of a novel, not ready for publication. So again, now what?

Writer's Update

     I don’t like using the words always or never unless I really mean it. So when I say I am always anxious about writing a blog after knocking one out of the park, I mean always. Last week’s blog was not only well received, but I was pleased with it. So as the week went by following the post of The Sad Balloon I did what I normally do after a successful blog post. Fret.

     Prajna offered up some good suggestions. She never tells me what to write, but has told me in the past some good directions to take my blog. Also a few times, she has advised me what not to write. She suggested that I write a topic earlier in the week and spend the week revising it. My blog is supposed to be a writing exercise. It’s a way that I make sure I write at least once a week. Most weeks I write at least four days. That includes my blog that I post on Mondays. Prajna thought I could compose something on the day that I usually do, but then spend the week revising it and post it a week later after polishing it.

     That’s not a bad idea at all. I have the habit of writing pretty well established. This blog isn’t as much about that anymore. If I want to really grow as a writer, I am going to have to work more on the process of revision. First drafts are allowed to be lousy. The technical work begins when that first draft is done and it’s time to go in and start trimming the deadweight away. I could turn my blog into an exercise in revision, not just writing.

     One problem with that is that I like the topic to be fresh. I try to write what I’m thinking about. If I compose a blog on a Sunday afternoon and then work on it for a week before posting it, I may not feel like saying that anymore. I don’t like just writing random things. I want to say what’s going on in my life as currently as possible.

And the other thing is this: Roadwalker is a side project right now. I don’t think I want to spend the week working on it. The main thing that I’m working on is a memoir. I write about 3 days a week on it. Lately I have been writing in baby steps. It’s been tough going. Things didn’t get better after I bought that balloon, they got worse.

So I am directing my time to another project right now. In a couple weeks I am going to take a weekend away, a sabbatical, to be off by myself. I plan to spend some of the time at my campground outlining the novel I want to write this November.

Then during the month of November I will be writing an entire novel for National Novel Writing Month. The novel is going to be a space western called Sidewinder. I have some characters in my head as well as a solid setting and a very vague plot. There is little else I look forward to as much as this.

But in November I will be writing seven days a week. I’m not sure what will happen with my blog. I might post excerpts, I don’t know yet.

There are 563 words before this sentence. I had planned on writing this morning about how much I liked my job. I was going to say how when I fret about what to write, very little beats operating a vacuum cleaner and spending a day alone listening to music and audiobooks. But then I just went on and on about my writing. And here it is. Not what I intended, just me talking about myself. And it will be time for me to start breakfast soon.

I will be breaking eggs into a big bowl. Some eggs are resilient and take a good strike and the yolks are still intact. Other eggs almost disintegrate in my hand and the yolk breaks, sometimes with shell fragments. Sometimes I can just tell that something will come out good when broken out of its shell or just be a mess. Eggs are like blog topics. Sometimes they make me smile with satisfaction and sometimes I sigh with disappointment and try to fish out the shells. But I like them  to be fresh. Maybe ideas should age more than an egg should and my analogy is beginning to crack.

Who's a Writer?

     I knew a guy who said he was a writer. He was just a little younger than I was and very cheerful and even enthusiastic about writing. This was 14 years ago during the last stage show I ever did. Life was turbulent at the time. We were in the last months of our lives before Naomi was diagnosed with cancer. I still thought of myself as a writer then, but I don’t think I was writing anything.

     So this kid I knew had a great attitude about his writing. He was confident and hopeful of publication. I felt proud of him and thought it was an honor to know someone who would publish someday. I am trying to remember if I was jealous at all. I don’t think I was.

     Then one evening he brought some of his work to show me. I read it over. There’s a scene in the movie Finding Nemo when Marlon the Clownfish reluctantly begins to tell a joke to an excited audience of sharks. Almost right away, it’s obvious the joke is not going to be funny and Marlon isn’t funny either. And the grins on the sharks just melt away. I didn’t see Finding Nemo for a few more years, but as I started to read this kid’s writing, I felt like those sharks.

Like Marlon the fish, this kid was not funny. The writing was not fiction, but a confused narrative that must have been funny to him. I don’t remember what it was about. The only honest feedback I gave him was that babies actually loved puréed sweet-potato. I tried to be encouraging otherwise. And he took my advice with his trademark cheerfulness. Perhaps in the 14 years he has improved. I hope so. Maybe what I admired the most was his optimism.

And here is the very honest truth: 14 years ago I wasn’t so good either. I had good ideas back then, but little talent for putting them into a decent story. But between then and now, I have read a lot of materials and books about writing, I listen to author interviews and most of all, I aim to write every day. (I usually write 3-4 times a week though.) I can look at my work from many years ago and cringe. I think that means I’m better now.

But the question still haunts me. “What if I’m just fooling myself? What if I’m really no good?” Please, if you’re reading this, don’t answer. I think that some of my blog posts absolutely shine. Some others are best swept out the door with the cobwebs and dust. But am I like that kid just fooling myself?

The reason I’m thinking about this now is that I have been trying to steadily write for about 2 years or so now. Some weeks all I’ve done is blog. While last November I wrote 77 thousand words in 30 days. That is one of my proudest accomplishments. I felt like a real writer, not when I won National Novel Writing Month, but when I would sit down to write. I knew what I was doing. I knew where the story was going and I was having a ball at it. That was what it took to make me feel like a writer.

At this very moment, it’s ten after two on a Sunday afternoon and I’m in Starbucks with a coffee at my left and an iPod on my right. The words are flowing out of me, for the most part (had to think of the verb for how the words came out). And right now, I feel like a real writer.

But I’ve taken on a new project, one I’ve fretted over, but promised myself. I started my memoir last week. I have blogged about this before. If I ever really wanted to publish, this would be it. Everything else I write is fun. It would be cool to publish, but unrealistic. Lots of good writers don’t publish. But I have one story, just one, that I want to make the effort to go all the way. That means multiple drafts, editing, perhaps finding an agent, and writing query letters. It is big league stuff.

So far, I’ve written on a few mornings. And it’s not easy. The words come out, but they don’t feel good. This isn’t fiction anymore with cloaked strangers on desert roads, spaceships whirling around a distant star or rivers turning to fire underneath a castle. This is real stuff that happened to me. Does anyone really want to hear this?

I have an opening for the story that I wrote. It was a true incident where I walked away from the cash register only to be yelled at by the cashier for leaving one year-old Jamie behind. I went and fetched Jamie and didn’t bother to explain to the indignant onlookers that of course I felt like I was missing someone, my daughter had just died a week ago. I walked around all day with the feeling that something was missing. I just was trying to ignore it when I left Jamie behind.

It’s an intriguing story and it’s completely true. I think that written well, it’s a perfect opening. The real question is can I keep it up? And can I keep writing this? It’s not real fun so far. There’s no smoke-swept battlefield with wolves and marauders. There’s only me narrating the story of my life, the time before Naomi, during, and after.  

A writer’s best friend is a crumby first draft. I can feel liberated by knowing that this doesn’t have to be perfect the first time around. But there is still anxiety here. I have taken the first steps on a perilous writing venture. I don’t know if I’m good enough to complete it. One of my favorite authors said in an interview “Write the story for yourself and let the people who need to find it, find it.” That, in addition to the crumby first draft should have me writing freely. But it’s too different. But it’s early. I’m barely out of the starting gate. I hope I can find my voice for this, which will be the tailwind. We’ll see.

Dissapointment at a Red Light

     Show and tell at school was usually tedious because it often meant that I had to sit through other first graders going on and on about something. But one day I didn’t even hear what the other kids shared. I was too caught up in the awesomeness of the story I had to tell. When it was my turn I went to the front of the room and launched into the story of my family visiting Phoenix.

     We went to Phoenix every month or so. My grandparents lived there and my dad had district meetings. I didn’t share that or anything about the drive down. I just told them that we had gone shopping. But the shopping wasn’t the story either.

     “And then,” I gasped to the class. “Right when we were walking out of GemCo, a great big fire truck went by! With its siren and lights on! And it was honking its horn! It was loud!”

     I’m sure my sharing was probably loud too. With my story done I went back to my seat. I didn’t notice or care if anyone was impressed. I thought it was neat. If I had been any kind of writer back then, I could have painted the picture better, with less exclamation points. It was night and the streets were wet with rain. The red lights of the fire truck blended with the red and white of the rest of the traffic. The truck sort of emerged from the rest of the lights, mostly in its noise. It blasted its horn, the kind unique to fire trucks and perhaps locomotives. But the story I told to the first grade that morning was emotional and not descriptive. I had been thrilled and needed to share that.

For most big city-dwellers, it was nothing special. But the town I lived in at the time had only a volunteer fire department and I lived on a quiet suburban street where the loudest thing was the neighbor’s Corvette. At a young age, I wanted to be a policeman only so I could drive a cool car with lights and a siren. Later on, perhaps starting from that night, I wanted to be a fireman. I didn’t care about fighting fires, squirting water or anything else like that. All I wanted to do was drive fast, have a siren and flashing lights and run red lights. How much more king of the streets was that?

Sometimes my blog is like that. I get caught up in something that maybe thrills me or just sparks my imagination. I rattle on about it and post it. Later on I look back and wonder what I was thinking. I have gone and re-written a couple of entries, making improvements, being more descriptive and trying to make better sentences. I think it’s growing as a writer.

I kind of miss the times that all it took to thrill me beyond words was a speeding fire truck. And not only thrill me, but inspire me. I wanted to do what they did.

A year or so after seeing the fire truck that night, I was riding with my dad and we approached an intersection. Out my window I heard the wail of a siren. We had a green light but my dad came to a stop anyway. I looked out my window and saw an ambulance speeding up to the intersection, where it had a red light. I bristled with excitement at the thought that they would blast through and run the red light.

The ambulance slowed, came to a quick halt, then proceeded through the intersection. My stunned heart sank. They had stopped for the red light. The disappointment I felt was crushing. I asked my dad why they had done that and he explained that they were just being safe and careful.

Careful of what? Could someone actually not hear the siren and mosey out into the path of an emergency vehicle? It was inconceivable. But yet, I saw the ambulance pause. At that moment, I didn’t want to live in a world where ambulances were not free to run red lights.

Well I pulled through that disillusionment that time. There were more significant betrayals of my innocence and trust later in my life that I am still working through today.

And then last Wednesday I was driving the family van to the bank in my hometown. Coming up to a busy intersection, I heard a siren off to my right and stopped at the green light and waited as an ambulance came up, made a complete stop and then sped on. The shock of recognition hit me. I hadn’t thought of the ambulance at the light for years and was taken back at the sight of that replay. I got to the bank minutes later and was thankful I had my notebook and pen. I wrote “the ambulance at the light” on the first blank page I found. I thought about the fire truck when I was coming out of the department store and I remembered sharing it for show and tell. Then I anxiously awaited the time I would compose my blog. I would write about the loss of innocence seeing the ambulance stop at the light.

Then as I wrote this I realized that there is another recurrence. Again, I saw something so awesome that I had to share it. I usually tell the story without being able to really gauge any reaction. I was pretty impressionable back then and thought I was less so now. But not being impressed by things does not make for a good writer.

The goal of Roadwalker isn’t just to be writing every week, but to be looking for things to write about. They’re out there, sometimes it’s a noise out the right-hand window that recaptures the picture of an old memory. And sometimes that memory brings on a string of others, and finally a realization. That kid telling the story to the first grade hasn’t changed that much.

      

Stale blogs, and what might be Broken

     I don’t watch a lot of TV anymore. I used to.  I can still remember some of the plots from my favorite shows.

            The Captain and crew are faced with a hostile enemy, and the captain defeats them singlehanded… in a fist-fight.

            The flippant army surgeon’s attitude gets him in severe trouble with superiors, and his miraculous medical skills get him right back out.

            Or how about this one:

            They almost get off the island this time, but one knuckleheaded cast member botches it.

            Even the best writers might run out of something to say once in a while and have to resort to a tired but true formula to appease the network execs, sponsors, and hopefully the fans if possible.

     I am not the best writer, I am an amateur writer. And I don’t have execs or sponsors either. I have regular readers, but I am fans them.

     But I do, once in a while, run out of things to say for this weekly blog. When that happens, I might consult my notebook of ideas that I carry with me most days. I also might scrape around the barrel of memories with a spatula and see if I can find anything to share my musings over.

     I started Roadwalker blog almost 3 years ago. The first few weeks I wrote almost every day. I wrote about myself, memories that were on my mind and generally tried to paint a picture of who I was. I finally fell into a weekly schedule. But my topics were still Navel Gazing.

It wasn’t until about 9 months of blogging that Prajna encouraged me to make my blog more topical. She told me to write about what God was doing in my life at that time. So I started trying to write about what I was thinking about that week. That is when I think I found the voice of my blog. That’s when I started to really like what I wrote most of the time.

But I often see the same formula in a lot of my blog posts. I was messed up, then praise the Lord, I started to get better. I’m not there yet, but I’m on the mend and on my way and I hope everyone is encouraged by this.

Nice, but growing old. I feel like my blog is getting a little stale. And I wouldn’t be just filling up this entry to reflect on this without trying to make some sense of it.

I think my life lately has been a little stale. Now, don’t anyone get me wrong, my life has not been bad or even boring. I’ve been busy at work, read and listened to some good books, got a new puppy and been amazed at my second Celebrate Recovery step study.

But something is still lacking I think. I haven’t stepped out much or taken a lot of risk. The biggest thing I did lately was fit an extraordinary number of tables and chairs into an assembly room at church. I even blogged about it.

But if my blog is getting stale then maybe I need some new inspiration. And at the mere thought of that, I want to go take a nap. Getting inspired might mean trying something new or getting out and meeting people. I don’t know if my writing is worth me going out on a limb like that.

For now, I want to start writing a new story. I have an opening of a story idea that I want to start this week. I don’t know where the story will go and just want to write the opening scenes that I’ve imagined and see if anything comes after. That’s a start, right?

I don’t know how much that will help my weekly blog. I remind myself that this blog is a writing exercise. It compels me to write at least once a week, and it gives me something to think about over the days. I try to look for things to write about all week. Sometimes it’s profound, sometimes not. Starting a new story might sharpen my writing skills, but I don’t know if it will aid in inspiration.

I should get out more, not just grocery shopping. If my truck worked I could go for a road trip. Is it wrong to blame a broken rear-end for a stale blog?

Maybe it is. One might think that a father of five would never lack for inspiration. Maybe I just need to open my eyes more. But something tells me that all I really need to broaden my horizons and be more inspired is get my rear in gear.