Category: Navel Gazing

Writer’s Block Procrastination

For three days, I’d been trying to get this section of a story rewritten. For two of those days, I was sick. Still, Gunny brooks no excuses…

The point is that on the morning of day 4, I did in just under forty minutes what I’d been dreading for those three days.

So far, this quote, attributed to comics writer Brian K. Vaughn, bears out in my personal experience…

“Writer’s block” is just another word for video games. If you want to be a writer, get writing, you lazy bastards.

Yes, I didn’t write for two days and I felt stopped by 3/4 of a page of stuff I didn’t like. Yet when I finally sat down–with no more inspiration than I had before, other than the mental image of R. Lee Ermey telling me to get myself squared away–I reworked it to my satisfaction in forty minutes. On the other hand, why does it seem I have to keep learning that lesson, over and over like it’s brand new?

What Do You Say to a Mocha?

“Going down?”

Isn’t it amusing that one can frequent a particular café so much that the baristas actually start calling your name out loud just like Norm on Cheers?

Today, I buy this replacement coffee tumbler to replace one I just lost. It’s the exact same model, which causes one barista to remark, “That’s so Don!” But hey, like Nick Nolte said in Another 48 Hours, unapologetic for buying the same make and model car that got destroyed in the original movie, “I get used to things.”

Thinking Out Loud

Permit me to muse. I’m just going to think out loud about what I’m going to do with this blog (and maybe that blog, too). And what I won’t do…maybe. Probably.

1
Remember that list of short stories I read every week? It does get a little tedious, since I read so many of them anymore. Maybe I’ll just stick to doing Quick Reviews like I did on Raketenwerfer (which is on hiatus). Because there is, as others have noted after Stephen King’s fueling of the rumors of the death of the short story, a need for stories to be talked about on teh intarweb.

2
I put reference material on here. I also put reference material on my del.icio.us account. It feels like I’m violating a basic GTD/lifehacking principle if I don’t have a clear reason for maintaining both.

(To say nothing of the archive I keep on Google Bookmarks–although those are in holding and do get processed once in a blue moon.)

3
I used to keep a bi-weekly Tough Love log of how my latest pieces fared at the crit group I’m part of. Again, a little too tedious anymore. For one, the story I gave them last week was my first in about three meetings, and was a story that I wrote about six months ago. I felt guilty not having brought anything, even though I’ve been on a heavy editing spree lately. Maybe I should just junk it? The posts, not the group. No, the group is still far too valuable to me…

…which brings me to a tangent, which should really be the subject of another entry.
(Note to self: write this entry.)

4
I’ve been collecting (in two paper journals and one electronic one) my thoughts about the writing process that’s forming the basis of my own process. Do I put them all together and throw them on here?

5
I’ve been collecting (in the same scattered fashioned) others’ thoughts on the same subject. Consolidate them on here?

What to do, what to do…?

“Get along…”

It’s just past noon, and I haven’t really started my writing day yet. I shouldn’t complain; now’s about the time I started yesterday, and I got done everything I’d planned to get done. Trouble is, I set my bar a little low during the break. It’s time to pick it up a tad, I think. Not that the time’s been completely wasted, seeing as I’ve been scouring teh Intartubes for snippets from the Daptone Records catalog.

Still though, Gunny says that it’s time to work, so that’s what I’m going to do. Time to turn off the soul (music) and put on some stuff I can work to…

No Tough Love Today

The crit group was cancelled due to inclement weather, so that sucked. Just as well, because I didn’t have anything to contribute this week aside from my usual half-baked opinions of other folks’ writing, much like the half-baked thinking I’m about to share with you now.

I’ve come across a bunch of stories lately that make me wonder what would happen if I re-typed them and submitted them to the crit group. What would they say about unclear narration, too many points of view, or just plain too many adverbs ending in -ly in a story I tried to pass off as mine? Would they have the same comments regardless of who wrote the story?

And, I’m not talking about the authors everybody loves to hate, either. I’m talking about writers whose talent I’d gladly sell a testicle to Ol’ Scratch to have. So, I’m not hatin’ on anyone.

Makes me go, “Hmm…”

Baaaaaaaa!

Normally, I’d do this on this neglected blog, but because SaltyMissJill asked so nice (“Hey! I tagged yo ass!”) on this blog, I’ll play along here–at least as far as I’d usually play along.

Here are the rules for the meme:
1. Link to the person’s blog who tagged you.
2. Post these rules on your blog.
3. List seven random and/or weird facts about yourself.
4. Tag seven random [?] people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by posting a comment on their blog.

Sorry, but I just don’t do the last two. Nothing personal–just sheer laziness.

1
I can hum along, note for note, with the horn lines of every Chicago song (with horns), from the Chicago Transit Authority album to their latest, Chicago XXX.

2
I have successfully gone black and gone back–not once, not twice, but three times.

3
I worship Cassandra Wilson.

4
The one food I’d be willing to subsist on: Chinese restaurant fried chicken wings.

5
The first concert I ever went to: Depeche-fucking-Mode.

6
I’ve played the trumpet, off and on, for almost half my life.

7
I know kung fu.

Ouch

Something I read in The American Scholar at the bookstore. I regretted not buying it until I found it online…

…certain writers produce Brooklyn Books of Wonder. Take mawkish self-indulgence, add a heavy dollop of creamy nostalgia, season with magic realism, stir in a complacency of faith, and you’ve got wondrousness.

Makes me feel good to be a Jonathan Lethem fan–in sort of the way you do when you hide out during a scuffle long enough to read the writing on the wall, and then throw the last two punches for the winning side once all the hard work’s done. Well, not really. I mean, I’ve read both of Lethem’s short story collections, and I have both Gun, With Occassional Music and Motherless Brooklyn on tap.

But, I also have You Shall Know Our Velocity and McSweeney’s 14, too.

There, But for the Grace of God

My crit group is not like this, thank Christ. Now the business, from what I’ve heard, might be a different story…

(Sent by a fellow group member.)

EDIT: I’ll be damned, I thought I’ve seen this image before. Neil Gaiman posted it on his blog a few days ago in an entry I “starred” for later review in Google Reader. I found it since I’m home sick from The Diamond Mines today, and going through my horrendous backlog.

“That’s the sound of the men working on the chain gang”

It took me quite a long time to achieve the level of groove I’ve got now. I’ll be happier with it when I start seeing what sort of finished stories I start to produce. But right now, I’m more interested in my daily progress.

Before the AS3K, I used to carry around two legal pads, a white one for draft when I couldn’t or wouldn’t carry my laptop around, and a yellow one for notes. Nowadays, I don’t have much need for my white pad. I do all of my drafting on the AlphaSmart, and other writing and planning in my notebook or my canary pad. So yeah, I got a new style, as the kids say. The important thing is whether or not my new process helps me produce on a daily basis, regardless of how I perceive the “quality” of the first draft.

Because right now, I really don’t know where this new piece of mine, “The one with the warlock JuCo,” is going. I honestly wonder whether there’s a story in here. I think the initial scene that inspired the story in the first place is compelling and could maybe be turned into some sort of light flash piece. But beyond that, I’m running into the “Okay, why should anyone care?” question. It’s tempting to quit, but I won’t. It’s more likely I’ll be tempted to sit and type pages and pages of notes and summaries and shit–I’ve got 9 pages of “supplementary material” that thus far has helped me write a mere 7 pages of first draft. What point, if any, does a cost-benefit analysis come into play?

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