Blog

  • New Writing Schedule, and Some Inspiration

    Well, the good news is that I think we are finally coming to an understanding of what our daily schedule will be with the wife working at home, the kid remote schooling, and me floating around all of it, while writing when I get a chance.

    I can write this, a blog, when the kid is “in class” and my involvement is at a minimum. Writing in the journal is still during park time, which gives me a solid thirty minutes. Working on fiction is happening during the kid’s hour of TV time in the later afternoon. In the end, I get about two hours of writing during the week. Clearly, I would like more time, but this, right now, is keeping the balancing act working. With this tentative schedule in place, I am feeling a bit more relaxed, and have a reasonable expectation of what I can accomplish in a given week.

    The bonus effect of establishing this “schedule” is that I am now finding that I am inspired to go back to old ideas, and flesh them out more. Notes and sketches that I tucked away months and even years ago, have sprung to a new life, and are interesting to me again. I found myself working on an old story that I had shelved about a year ago, because I thought the idea had run out of steam.

    This isn’t really surprising, nor a revelation, but I had lost inspiration and drive of late. Small changes can make a difference. I have to remind myself that this is a marathon, and will take more time than even I expect.

  • Fictional Real Life Fiction

    I go back on forth on what I should fictionalize when it comes to events that happened in my life. I remember a writing professor stressing to all of us students to never write about themselves. “You are more boring than you think you are,” is what he would say when any of us challenged him on that.

    The reason I bring all of this up is that I had an idea of a story about this time that I tried to record a song off the radio back on the mid 90’s. At one time or another, most of us Gen Xer’s tried to do this. The reason that this seemingly common exercise in music acquisition still sticks with me is that in 1997 I had every Led Zeppelin song on tape except for one; “Hey, Hey, What Can I do.” It was the B-side of the “Immigrant Song” single from 1970, and “Hey, Hey,” never appeared on an album, and wasn’t widely available until the Led Zeppelin box set came out in the early 90’s. At this time in my life, I was rather poor, and didn’t have the money to spend on a box set to just get one song. So late one night, I called my classic rock station to request that they play the song, but also requested that the DJ not speak over the song, which caused the DJ to joke/threaten that he was going to talk over the opening, or ending of the song. I had to stay up close to another hour till the DJ played the song, and he held his word, allowing me to record it clean, and complete my collection. It was a victory, and I held on to those tapes well past the times when I stopped listening to cassettes and CDs.

    It’s a funny, nostalgic anecdote, but it’s isn’t a life changing story. Yet, I have this feeling that if I take the “me” out of the story and drop another “character” in, then I think this story would have legs, and might shed insight on a character, and help with their development.

    So, maybe I’m not that boring after all…

  • Taking A Walk, Clearing My Head

    We had a pretty decent weekend. We weren’t too ambitious, like coming up with home improvement projects, or deciding that we had to go on a road trip. We just stayed at home and ran errands.

    One of the errands that I took care of was going grocery shopping. I got a crazy idea, which was that I going to do the shopping out of our neighborhood, but I was going to walk there. (I have put on some Covid weight. A nice solid ten pounds.) It was a good 40-minute walk to get to the 93rd street Trader Joe’s.

    It had been a while since that I had left our neighborhood, and it was a nice Fall day to take a walk. It was cool, but I found not cool enough to wear a light jacket. There were more people out than I expected. With the exception of masks, it almost looked normal out. I know we are still a long way from getting back “to normal,” but I have to keep hope alive.

    The other thing was that this was the first time, in a very long time, that I did something by myself. And had a good amount of time to myself. Time to think about ideas, and stories, and current events, and odd song lyrics. I even thought about that guy skateboarding while listening to “Dreams.”

    It was a simple act of self-care. Just a walk, listening to music, and thinking about things. It did give me a lift, and made me feel better about where I am in my process, which is still very much in the beginning phases. And being at the beginning is a good place.

  • What Have I Learned This Week?

    This has been a very political week for me, blog wise. I woke up this morning with the intention of not writing about anything political, and then I saw that Trump and the First Lady have tested positive for Covid.

    Proving that 2020 is the year when anything and everything will happen.

    But as it is Friday, maybe some self-reflection is needed.

    What have I learned this week?

    First, school teachers do not get the credit and pay that they deserve. I have said that many times before, but two weeks of home school/video chat has proved that to me, in a very crystal clear manner. I will commit now, and for the rest of my life, to ensure that teachers get the respect, pay and resources they need and deserve to do their jobs.

    Second, if doing the home school thing is my lot for the next eight months, then I have to come to terms that I will only have about an hour a day to write during the school week. And if I want more time, that will have to occur on nights and weekend. Just a fact.

    Third, as we enter October, I also have to come to terms that I will not being able to relax until the year 2020 is over. I thought 2016 was bad (except for the Cubs winning the World Series) and 2018 wasn’t a good year either. But, 2020 just won’t let up. The anxiety I have every day is relentless, and I don’t think I will be able to relax until the election is over, and a vaccine is out. I know there are a million other issues that 2020 has brought us, but I need those two things to happen.

    Here is to trying to have a good weekend…

  • A Crack in Trump’s Support?

    I am still having trouble coming to terms with how awful that debate was on Tuesday. I keep rereading articles, looking at polling data, and watching clips of the awful performance by Trump. Even on Wednesday, Trump still couldn’t find a way to come out and denounce white supremacist groups during “Chopper Talk.”

    I have observed that most hardcore Conservatives and Republicans have no issue with how Trump behaved, and even in some comments, they even have applauded it. That, I sort of expected. The other thing I noticed on social media, which might be more telling, was that my Conservative and Republican friends have gone silent about the debate. I would refer to them as moderate conservatives; taxes and abortion are their biggest issues but they don’t delve into conspiracy theories. They are posting about issues, and not posting about Trump as a leader. Such as, “We got to get people back to work to save the economy,” rather than, “Trump is the only person who can save this economy…”

    I admit that this observation is completely anecdotal, and not supported by scientific polling or any data. It’s just a feeling. And my gut tells me moderate conservatives are beginning to rethink Trump. Maybe not voting for Biden, but maybe thinking about not voting.