Tag: #writing

  • Go to Work

    When I was in high school, I had a Humanities teacher tell me a story about Edward Hopper. Later in Hopper’s life he gave an interview, and the reporter asked if Hopper enjoyed the process of creating his work? To which Hopper answered; No, because it’s hard work. Hopper got kind’a cranky later in his life, but I liked how honest his response was. Sometimes hard work isn’t fun, and also, being creative isn’t a joy either. I am very glad that Dr. Tripp told me that story, as it has stuck with me for twenty-eight years.

    This also reminds me of the debate I would get into while in college studying theatre. There were two camps of thought in class; the planners and the improvers. You had to fit into one of them. If you were planning out things, then you weren’t in the moment, but if you were improving all the time, no one could plan on what you would do next which really pissed off the technicians and designers. And round and round it went. I found improvers to be selfish, they were people who didn’t want to be told what to do. But planners lacked a spontaneity in their work.

    The truth, I found out in the real world, is that you have to be a little of both.  

    Oh, I was a planner, in case anyone one was wondering.

    But it is about each person figuring out what their process is. Such as, the other night the wife and I were asking each other about our day, and I told her I was feeling frustrated that I haven’t been able to work in the way I feel I need. What this boils down to is that I’m not allowing myself dedicated time to work. I can journal, and I can blog, but I keep placing fiction last, and with the least dedicated time for it.

    And I have I mentioned that I’m not the best husband. I work at it, but I’m still not the best.

    What my wife suggested was that maybe I should try what our friend, who is a published writer, does which is write at the library. This is probably the third or fourth time my wife has suggested this to me in the past year in a half, and this time, it sunk in. She went on to say that I should schedule the time at the library, and then build the rest of my day around that.

    I did get very lucky in landing my wife.

    What she suggested doesn’t sound like fun, it’s work. And I think that’s what I need. I have to plan my creative time. I have to go to work.

  • Short Story Review: “What the Forest Remembers” by Jennifer Egan

    (The short story, “What the Forest Remember” by Jennifer Egan, appeared in the January 3rd & 10th, 2022 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Why did our parents do the things that they did? Why did my dad stop buying sports cars in the 70’s and then start buying station wagons? I can guess, which is that he started a family, and two door sports cars just aren’t practical for a growing family. That’s a logical answer, and most likely correct, but there is an outside chance it could be something else. Do I want to know his thought process as to why he made this decision when it came to cars? No. I want to believe he made that decision because he loved his family and it was the right thing to do. I would hate to know that he was guilted by my mother to give up his sports car for a station wagon, and he spent the rest of his life resenting her and his kids. It’s not a pleasant thought, but it is possible.

    I feel that was what Jennifer Egan was trying to tackle with her short story, “What the Forest Remembers,” which is a fun read. She tells the story of four men, three of which who are married with families, all living around the San Francisco area in 1965, who go on a trip to the wilderness around Eureka, CA. The point of the trip is to visit a marijuana farm/commune, experiment with grass, and have a good weekend. The crazy right turn of this story is that the narrator, Charlie, who is the daughter of Lou, one of the four men going on the trip, has access to the memories of her father, the rest of the men, and even some of the people at the commune. This is because Charlie exists in the near future where people have uploaded their memories into a Collective Consciousness, and thereby, one can review memories and thoughts of the past. It was a bit of a jarring twist, but it had a slight Vonnegut feel to it, so I went with it. I don’t want to spoil the story, but this trip plays an important role in the three married men’s lives.

    I had to read this story twice, because the first time through it, I just felt like I had missed something. The story and the writing is very, I think, charming is the best way to describe it, but the ending left me feeling unsatisfied. I sat on it for a day, and then decided I needed to take another crack at it. The second time through, I began to pick up on a little of the nuance of disappointment Charlie has with her father, which I found at odds with the concept of the story. If the premise is that Charlie can see and hear her father’s thoughts and memories, then there shouldn’t be any vagueness on her understanding of his intention and thought process of those decisions. There are moments and lines that are dropped by Charlie about her father’s thoughts towards her, that you would believe would be difficult for her to hear, but these thoughts are treated like adjectives in describing a person’s hair color. In fact, at one point in the story, Charlie rhetorically asks what should be done with this overload of information that comes from viewing a person’s memories? Which causes Charlie to state, “Not every story needs to be told.”

    And I think that is where my issue with this story lies; why is this being told? If Charlie is not affected by her father’s memories; they neither make her happy nor upset, then why is this being shared? If you remove Charlie and the Collective Consciousness database, then this is a story of a consequential weekend for three men in 1965. But Charlie and the database is in there, so the question must be asked, as to why? Shouldn’t Charlie and her feelings towards what happened be paramount to the story’s resolution? And that right there is why the story felt unsatisfying for me; what does Charlie think about all of this? It’s like a punch got pulled at the very end.

  • Solving the Small Problem First

    It is cold today. Not just the normal cold, but actually 20 degrees. I know things get cold here, but it has been awhile since it has been this cold. I decided that it was too cold for the grocery shopping which I had planned down at the 93rd Trader Joe’s. It’s a just a “stay in” kind of day.

    And as such, I have a free day – sort of – at least, one I wasn’t planning on. I am doing what I normally do, which is starting off with the blog. Next, I will put in some journal time. The last thing for the day will be working on a story.

    This has been my pattern of writing since September when the kid went back to school. I have to say that the results have been mixed. Not bad, but I was expecting that I would have completed more work, and would be in a better position for submitting work. (In four days, One Story Magazine starts taking submissions again, and I plan on sending them something.) I still feel that I need more material in the bank, but I think that is a cop out on my part. Like, I’m already looking for reasons why things haven’t been going my way, thus not my fault.

    I keep saying things haven’t been going my way, because I still take myself out of the game. I’m continuing to have the 2am self-doubt moments. Last night’s was pretty bad, as I started telling myself that I just don’t have the passion to do this. That all my friends who are doing well in their careers are passionate about what they do, and are willing to work hard, and that is way they are successful. While me… I’m too lazy and insecure to even get started, and if I did get started, it would suck, and I would fail.

    It took me a bit to calm myself down. Just to breath, and remind myself that I’m okay. Everything is okay. Everything will be okay. I don’t know how, but it will be. Gotta have faith.

    One of the things I reminded myself of was what I learned in therapy long ago; You can only solve one problem at a time. Instead of trying to solve the biggest one, maybe I should try a small one – a problem that I can have control over. THEN, I should try to solve a problem that’s a little bigger. And so on, and so on until maybe that big problem is a little more manageable.

    One problem at a time.

  • Taking and Keeping Notes

    I had this great idea for a story this morning. I was in the kitchen, making the kid’s lunch for school, and it just hit me like lightening. I remember thinking that it was a great idea that I should work on today, but I should finish making the kid’s lunch, and then I’ll jot down some notes. By the time I finished making the lunch, the idea left my body… and I cannot for the life of me remember what it was.

    Nothing

    I tried retracing my steps, doing what I was doing when the idea hit me, but nothing has worked. The idea is lost to the universe…

    Now as I sit here blogging, I wonder, is this just the normal forgetfulness of life, or am I getting older?

    Most likely, a little of both.

    More importantly, I have never had a good system for taking notes. Even in school, like in junior high, I was taught a note taking system, which it’s really just bullet points. I still use to this day, and it sucks. It’s not real coherent, or logical, but I keep using it – never improving on it. The other weekend, we were cleaning out the office, and I found a couple of legal pads that had meeting notes from the second to last job I had, and my notes aren’t really helpful, as I can’t really understand what I was taking the notes for. That could also be a sign that the job wasn’t very good.

    Some people are great at taking notes, and cataloging things. I was rather impressed with several friends for listing all the books and movies they watched in the past year. Not only did they have an impressive count, but I thought it was equally impressive that they had the wherewithal to just follow through on collecting that information. That is, if they were telling the truth. People do lie on the internet.

    As this is a new year, and I seem to lack the ability to remember things, I will need to step up my note game, or outlining, or just keeping track of shit. I am getting older.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Storage Unit, More Covid, and Do What You Love

    ODDS and ENDS is my continuing series of random thoughts and follow ups…    

    I am currently in an online chat with a person who works for U-Haul. It turns out that we need a larger storage unit. I feel a little defeated in having to do this. In a sense, I have a second apartment in New York City. An apartment for things I only want to see once a year, or never seen again, but don’t want to throw away. I could say there is a logical reason for this development in our lives, but it feels like our stuff is dictating how we live. So, another project for the weekend! And we get the Christmas stuff out of the apartment as well!

    We got another notice that there was a Covid exposure in the kid’s classroom. Which means that we will have another round of at home testing to see if she has been infected. Ironically, the kid got her second Covid vax yesterday. I know that she still needs about two weeks for the vax to fully get in her system for her to be TOTALLY COMPLELETY 100% AMZAINGLY VACCINATED! Yet, I feel like it is still a matter of time before the schools close and we are back to remoting. This is Omicron’s fault, and not the failing of some person or institution, and I am aware that I am in the minority of people who believe that. Soon, just like with the Delta variant, things will peak, and then a decline will start, so it is a wave we are riding. We all just have to hang in there for a while longer.

    Do what you love, and follow your bliss. Oh, Joseph Campbell, you inspiring mythology professor, you! I have been wrestling with his thought for, well, the past two years actually. As things fell apart, I started to question what I loved and what was my bliss. I wasn’t thinking about who I loved, and who made me happy, as I saw the question pertaining to a “what” – a thing, a desire, a concept even – not a person or persons. And as I thought about my “what” made me happy, my “what” never felt consequential, as I thought, that’s what it should be. Love and bliss should be a burning passion that I can’t live without, right? It should be epic. If it’s not top of the pops, and the best of the best, then can it be worth following? I’m not sure anymore. What brings me joy is not epic, but it is fulfilling. It gives me confidence and purpose, but it isn’t a burning passion. Is this state due to wisdom, or compliancy? But age is a factor.