Blog

  • I Didn’t Write Today, But I Don’t Feel Bad

    That pretty much sums it up.

    Oh, and I had plans today as well. I had worked on the outline, and I was ready to start taking a second crack at working on the narrative. I even started thinking about the tone of the narrator, and the cadence he would have in his sentence structures, and use of receptive phrases. I was thinking about it, and gearin’ to go.

    And I won’t even say that the day went sideways. It just went, and I had to roll with it.

    First of all, the school had a two new assessment tests that they wanted my kid to take to see where she was on her reading and math skills. I know what assessment tests really mean, but for the kid it was just fun, and she enjoyed all the math stuff. In fact, for a kindergartener, I don’t know where she picked up what she knew about fractions! She’s not getting the math skills from me, that’s clear. Once she had finished the assessment, the app we were using offered some math games to play, which she ate up! And I sat next to her, encouraging her to keep going, and it was so exciting and heartwarming to see that spark of learning in her. That feeling that all the world can be discovered and understood. That horizons are being broadened.

    It through my schedule off for the rest of the day, but it was completely worth it.

  • Outlining a Story

    On Friday afternoon, during my brief writing time, I sat down and outlined a story that I have been trying to write for a couple of weeks. I have been speaking about my need to focus better during the short amount of time I have to write a day, and also the need to have an executable plan when I sit down and write. Hence, the outline.

    I was going to try and follow a simple Three Act structure; first act to establish characters, second to start plot, and third for the climax. (I’m a theatre guy, so I’m relying on what I know.) I also thought about the Joseph Campbell/Dan Harmon “Hero Cycle” structure, which is more about the emotional journey the hero takes. For that “cycle” to work, the hero needs to learn something by paying a heavy price, to return home changed.

    So, I’m trying something new with outlining, which is causing me to go outside of my comfort zone when it comes to creative writing. But, I also need to be honest with myself and admit that writing when the mood hits me has not lead to an inconsistent output of material. I also feel bit amateurish to make this admission; I mean, shouldn’t I know to do this? Well yes, I have known this information, but I didn’t want to admit to it. I didn’t want to admit that this is work, and could be unsexy, hard work.

  • Why I Blog, Again

    What am I doing with this blog?

    I have this thought a couple times a week. (This is the neurotic side of me, where I have to continually affirm my decisions.) I write a blog as a daily exercise to express a concise thought in, give or take, 250 words. It is one part of the three types of writing I try to do, at least, 5 days a week. The other two are journaling, which is completely free form, has no structure, and is the structural opposite of the blog. The third type of writing I try is fiction, which is combination of creative freedom, while trying to stay within a narrative structure.

    It’s a good old classic thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.

    That having been said, when I do ask myself “What am I doing with this blog,” I do wonder if I should actively try to “make” something out of the blog. And when I say “make” that word means monetize. If I work had at something, pour myself into it, then I should earn money off of it, right?

    First of all, what I like doing, and I could be wrong as I just crossed over 100 followers yesterday (Thank You!), won’t ever generate enough traffic for me to earn anything. As all of you know, if your blog isn’t unique, niche, or teaching something, then it has zero change to earn, or be sticky, or what other buzz word is used. I know only one friend who has a successful blog, and they still have a day job. Second, I have been so hard wired into believing that only earning an income off of my exertion is the end all be all justification. If I were to limit my creative endeavors to what could earn money, then I really wouldn’t be creatively free. I would be beholden to what the market deemed accessible.

    What if I just want to create and share? No strings attached. Just put it out there and see what happens.

  • My Mother’s Birthday

    Today would have been my mother’s 74th birthday. This is the third of her birthdays that has arrived without her presence. The first was the worse, and last year wasn’t much better. And this year is 2020, so it’s just as awful as it could be.

    My mother’s death is wrapped around me, not tightly, but it is all over me. It is a blanket of sadness. There are moments when I get choked up, and I still cry occasionally about her death, button the whole, I can speak about it open, and honestly. I speak most often with my daughter about it. This was her first experience of death, and she does miss her grandmother. Talking does help, and talking about memories I have of my mother to my daughter, does make thing easier.

    But it is a sadness. A feeling that I could be happier, but that I just won’t ever be that happy again. I find joy and happiness with my family, and friends, and then at the end of the night, as I drift off, or hope to drift off to sleep, there is that little honest moment that I am reminded that I can’t talk to her.

    I also know that her death has put me in a depression, one that is with me, and will be with me for some time to come. I know it because the things that I used to enjoy before her death, just don’t bring me that joy anymore. I know the signs of depression. I have dealt with it many times before, and I have always come out on the other side, and better for it. I know that this will happen again, because I want to be in a good place again, and I also have great people in my life that I can lean on.

    Still, I do miss my mom.

  • Thinking About Summer Vacation

    Today was a nice, solid winter day in NYC. It’s only 36 right now, and there was about an hour of snow flurries that fell, though nothing stuck. We have the radiator on in the apartment, and I am bout to make afternoon coffee. It feels like winter, and if you squint, it almost feels normal.

    And if this a normal winter day, then I would start thinking about summer vacation. Like a real summer vacation. (Just humor me, here.) If this was a normal school year here in the City, than we know that the kid would be in classes all the way through the end of June. Most likely, we’d take part in a Summer camp for the kid over the month of July, and I have a good idea that we would get clued in by some of the other parents from school of which camps to take part in.

    That would leave the month of August, and I want the whole month of August 2021. See, I have it in my head that we could take the whole month off, and if so then we are headed up to New England, and I think I would like to try out Maine again.

    Two years ago, we did five days in a small vacation town on the coast in May, and I thought it was great. The day was only 75, and warm enough to go to the beach, and then at night it got into the 50’s so I could put on a sweater while having a drink on the front porch.

    I know the wife wouldn’t be super excited about it, but she could work remotely for two weeks, and then we all could take two uninterrupted to just relax. Maybe boil some lobsters, do a clam bake, or just order take out. And reading books, sketching landscapes, just thinking the day away.