Blog

  • Rewriting is a Skill

    I fully believe that rewriting is a skill. A skill that I do not possess.

    I am trying to make a better effort this time around at rewriting. Really putting my mind to it. Making notes on the first draft, formulating an outline, crafting the words to build the story. And I just about hate all of it.

    As I get older, I begin to see patterns in my life. One pattern I see is my attraction to acts of immediacy in the arts. I love Jack Kerouac, Jackson Pollock, and Jazz. The theatre I have been the most successful at has been puppetry, which has been like pick up the puppet and go perform.

    It has been an artistic life and philosophy of, “First thought, best thought.”

    Yet, when it comes to my writing, my first thought is not the best thought. I have to work at a best thought.

    I remember a theatre professor back in college who told us that we had to learn to appreciate all the steps in the process of being an actor. Not love all the steps, just appreciate. You can’t be an actor if you hate auditioning, as the hatred of that step will come through when you try to get a job. But if you respect that step, then you will hone the needed skills that will help you audition, which helps you get to the next step.

    That’s where I feel like I am coming to. I don’t like rewriting, but I have first drafts that need reworking, and this is the next step in the process.

  • Ghost of Kilgore Trout

    If you know who Kilgore Trout is, then you are someone who has read Vonnegut. If you have read Vonnegut, then you most likely love him, because he’s the type of writer you either love or hate; not many in the middle.

    I always felt that Kilgore was created as a character to reflect how Vonnegut felt about himself as a writer, and the fear most writers have. Thus by creating this embodiment, the fear becomes knowable, and therefore manageable.

    If you don’t remember, the Kilgore Trout character was a great writer who could only get published in the worst magazines published. This lack of publication status causes Trout to doubt his abilities as a writer, and lose his grip on reality.

    I think Vonnegut touches on a very interesting modern anxiety; achieving your dream, but you still don’t get the validation you seek.

    I think about Kilgore Trout often.

  • Note Taking, Not Writing

    Last Friday when I was at the park with the kid, besides keeping an eye on her, I did some journaling with the intent of reminding myself of the story ideas that I needed to work on. Total, I have about four good ideas I want to flesh out.

    And that’s all the work I have done on the for four days. Just notes.

    I am beginning to get very frustrated at myself and my situation. Maybe I’m too ambitious or not enough of a realist when it comes to the world I inhabit. I keep thinking I can get it all done. Each day that goes by and I don’t work on these stories makes me feel like I’m flushing away my creative potential.

    I’m also tired of using COVID or the election as the excuse why I can’t work. I doomscroll and keep checking polls, but I don’t live like they cause an atrophy to my drive.

    It’s not working the way it should, and I feel like I have to go back to the drawing board.

  • NYC Almost Back to Normal?

    I had a busy ass day in NYC again.

    I was up early to get the kid ready for school.

    Then I had to move the car for alt-side parking, but got my spot back after the sweeper went by.

    When I got back home, I help the kid with her remote learning.

    Next I made lunch for the family.

    Then me and a buddy went in my car to pick up our friend who had foot surgery from the hospital and got him home.

    Dealt with crazy drivers on the West Side Highway

    Parked the car, amazingly, right back in the same parking spot on the street, which never happens.

    Did some shopping on the way home.

    And now I am home, and exhausted.

    It almost feels like an old fashioned pre-Covid New York kind of day.

  • Anger Stage of Grief, Again

    This is a tough week for me. Two years since my mom died, and I thought I was dealing well with it. The 14th was the actual day, and it went fine as death anniversaries go. The 13th on the other hand, and I wrote about it yesterday, was just anxious to no end, as I was dreading the 14th. Today has just been anger. Not that I’m lashing out at anyone, but I have been arguing with a troll online about Trump. It’s not making me feel better.

    Just angry at the world and I don’t have my mom to talk to about it. I feel like I need to be keeping it all together because the world is falling apart. But I feel like I’m failing at that job.

    I am very fortunate to have a great wife that I can talk to about all of this, and I do talk to her. But the anger still happens.

    What I am wanting is to channel these emotions into something productive. That seems like the healthy thing to do, but right now I don’t feel like I have the energy to even start that.

    It is a process and I know that I am still grieving. I have to forgive my anger and accept that I have these emotions, and all of that is normal and healthy.

    But at the end of the day, I still want to give her a call.