Tag: #NYC

  • New Thought: New Blog

    As I have been playing around with this blog, and thinking about earning an income from writing, I keep running into the same advice; write about what you are passionate about.

    Sometimes, easier said than done.

    But I don’t think the advice is inaccurate.

    I like writing, clearly as I am doing it as we speak, but writing about writing is not something I am passionate about. Writing is like breathing; I will be doing it no matter what, and rather involuntarily.

    But what to write about, say, in a blog form, that I can come back to day after day, if not at least once a week, that I could earn an income from?

    This blog serves the purpose of being limited in the number of words per post, and subject matter is open to just about anything. Confessional and Personal? Yes. Informative? Not so much. And following the rule of good marketing, the product has to be either the “best.,” or the definitively “only” source of said product. My personal blog is not the “best” blog, nor do I hope that it would be, but it is definitively the “only” source of me.

    What does that leave me with?

    An idea!

    As far back as March of this year, I was still working in the world of theatre, but being that the world has come to a crashing halt, that no longer is possible. Not only me, but a great number of other people. Also, because of the end of the world, a huge number of theatre artists have moved out of The City. And this is one of the few cities in this country where you can make a living in theatre. It stands to reason that at some point it will be safe to go back into a theatre, right? Theatre will begin again.

    My corner of the theatre world was puppetry and object movement theatre, and it will start up again. I know that to be true because a good number of people who do it, are still in New York, waiting for things to become safe. What if I were to blog about the puppetry and object movement community as it starts up again?

    An idea, that I don’t think anyone else is doing.

  • NYC Schools Delayed, And a Normal Schedule?

    Things have changed yet again in NYC when it comes to the public schools. Looks like the Mayor and the teachers have agreed to delay the start of school a week, and in person classes for 10 days. I think this is the right decision, as far as I hear from my teacher friends, the schools are not physically ready for students, and this delay will help get things ready. This doesn’t change our plans; we are going to continue with the remote learning for our kid, and then see if she will rejoin her class in November. Hopefully, this will make everything safer for the teachers, staff, and students.

    The wife’s new job is planning to open up their offices in October. The rule they will be following is that only 50% of the staff can be onsite at one time, which will mean that she will be in the office 2 days out if the week.

    Looks like we are slowing beginning to see what our Fall schedule will be like, and this also feels like for the first time we have a glimmer of the tiniest speck of a shard of light of having a small amount of normalcy.

    Not that I am holding my breath.

    But it would be nice.

  • Autobiographical Fiction

    Last night I was working on the novel, and I noticed that my second chapter was getting pretty big, unwieldy, and that I still had yet figure out how to wrap it up. Again, I know it’s a first draft, but I thought it best to just cut it off, start the third chapter, and continue the idea of building up the dynamic of the town. As I am about to move the protagonist’s story to New York City, I need to make sure the small town he finds himself in is defined for a clear contrast to what his current life is, and what his past life in the City was like.

    I know; nice and vague, right?

    And as I came up with these thoughts for my own story, I had this moment where I felt like I was not doing the best job of disguising myself and my experiences in my own work. It is fiction, after all. I know that writers writing about themselves is nothing new, especially novels. Hell, that was Wolfe’s entire career.

    How autobiographical can you get in your work and still call it fiction?

    And the reverse, how much fiction can you create about yourself, and still call it the truth?

    It is my personal belief that all fiction is based on the writer creating the story, and it has spurned a whole subsection of fiction. I would even take it a step further, and say that autobiographical writing is expected nowadays. How can you be honest in your story if you are not being honest about yourself with the reader?

    Just thoughts I am having while working.

  • New Writing Schedule for Fall

    The wife and I sat down and had the discussion about whether we were going to send our daughter to school this Fall. We know that the kid really, desperately, wants to be back in a classroom with her friends and her teacher. We also know that we just aren’t comfortable with the way the world is when it comes to Covid. I also understand that NYC is one of the safer places in America to be when it comes to infection rates, and that precautions are being taken with the interest of safety for students and teachers in mind.

    But, we still aren’t comfortable. And I can admit that this is based off a feeling, and not logic. My feeling is that I don’t want to put my kid at risk. Covid is too dangerous without a vaccine.

    So, we have had to also sit and rethink how we are going to handle the wife working full time from home, a full-time student at home, and this guy looking to steal moments to write. I was hoping that I would have about three hours on days when the kid was in school, but that doesn’t seem likely for the rest of this year.

    I’m not complaining. First, I don’t think I have the focus right now to sit and write for three hours straight. But, most importantly, my number one job is to take care of the kid; making sure she is safe, and gets the best education possible. It’s a small sacrifice to make on my part, and the reward of having this time with the kid is boundless.

  • Coronavirus Downer of a Day

    We are all having a down in the dumps coronavirus day in our home. My wife’s job hasn’t been the most fun of late, and to be honest, remoting into work every day does take a toll on you after a while. The kid had a tummy ache most of the morning, so we passed on going to the park, which, now that her tummy ache is gone, she’s become a rubber ball, bouncing off the walls. I, for my part, got my big chore done today (laundry) but pretty much have farted out on everything else; I have to finish school shopping, and creating a “school area” for the kid as the start of school is closing in.

    I had been hoping that school was going to start in September, and we were going to be able to drop into a normal routine for our family. I have to admit now that it isn’t going to happen. We have to choose, very soon, if the kid will attend classes in the school, or if she is going to continue with remote learning. We have to deal with the very harsh reality that as we don’t have health insurance (the kid is covered, thank God) that sending her to school does create a risk for us to get infected. I am aware that NYC has the lowest level of infection in the USA, but I am still nervous about getting so sick that I or the wife have to go to the hospital. That thought is never out of our minds.

    On a day when things aren’t working out the way we want, it’s easy to start down the path of all the awful things that could happen to us, and then everything becomes unbearably depressing, and the world is coming to an end.

    That’s why I suggest you check out my friend John’s free trivia night, called “Mind If I Ask You Something?” It’s virtual, on Wednesday night, and anyone can play. You can find him on Instagram or on Twitch.