Month: September 2017

Call. Coffee. Write. What is real always endures.

I managed to get to sleep sometime after midnight last night, plum out of excuses for staying awake. I woke to the distant sound of children and realized I’d slept past 5 AM. That is an amazing rarity in my life that was followed by the gentle buzz of my cellphone offering me a morning text from my partner. That feels right. All of it finally felt right this morning–It felt like I’d finally fallen into where I am at.

Some Thoughts:

1. Some things ought to be without question, but questions arise in the midst of confusion and unclarity and lack of definition. Questions beget uncertainty, which beget a lack of self confidence. In such circumstances start with faith in what you know to be actual and ask yourself if the questions affect what is happening right now. Does it fundamentally change what you believe and what you feel? My answer is no. I know what I feel, and what I have in my hands and in my heart. That is always going to be enough.

I am writing a new novel. Part of the point of the process is to let myself go and explore creating something guided completely by its own momentum. The difficult part of that is not getting bogged down in exacts. I’ve gotten to a point where I’m digging into a character’s main quest and I really don’t have a lot there that feels as epic fantasy as I was hoping and doesn’t entirely make a lot of sense. Still, there is good in that. I recognize what is necessary for character growth and what is pure MacGuffin–a stand in item or plot device put there just to push the plot forward. The one true ring in Lord of the Rings is a MacGuffin.

I’m putting my pen where my mouth is on this one. All of the lessons I teach in class over a given week are modeled through the book. In fact, this is likely going to be the basis of my sabbatical–not this particular book, but the creation of a semester long website that details daily assignments, prompts, etc. on how to create a book in a semester. I think I’ll call it the 16 Week Novel–Until something better comes along.

Some Thoughts:

1. Missed opening night of football and it was epic. Patriots got thumped to the tune of 42 points allowed. There’s more to that. Eric Berry is probably done for the season, so the Chiefs are about to feel the burn too.
2. Had a dream about playing football again. I was out of shape and slow. I think it was reflective of watching my son run in the football practice and realizing where his speed tops out and being a bit disappointed that he isn’t faster–which somehow feels like a failure on my part.
3. Cats are cool, but Dogs….

It is said that those who roam the Broken Sea are madmen. The squalls and storms can rise up at any moment and there are always whispers of a more malevolent nature, of ships cutting through the waters bearing flags of nations long since forgotten. Ships that, under a cloak of fog, vanish from sight to never be seen again. There is talk of creatures larger and longer than the bowsprit of Wynspurlan War Galleons with fat rubbery tentacles that can crush a man completely. For a man to be a sailor in this stretch of water is madness, but for a man to fish is quite far beyond reason.

Elric of Adon captained a small scut he titled Windsplitter. She was a sea worthy vessel, cut from the heartwood of an oak his great great great grandfather planted on their farm some three hundred stones ago in the time of Calleon. Elric spent two nights chopping down that tree. The sound of his blows carried through the thin air and rose like a warble to the village at the base of the beach. Each morning he would leave his retreating lands to find rope and tar and tether all to help him with his quest. He was not a fisherman. He came from hard earth and tilled corn and wheat well past his twenty seventh stone.

When the drought fell, he knew his farm wouldn’t recover and he turned to the great oak. He turned to the Broken Sea.

I wanted to talk about infusing the real in writing. Often the things that makes fantasy accessible is how real the emotions and basic situations are for the characters. Take this scenario for example: Kastigan is a Privateer whose ship, The Flame, operates in the Broken Sea. He is protecting a barge moving inland towards Koril. None of this sounds remotely like a story that is real. However, his crew is starting to distrust him, riled up by a particularly distrustful and charismatic crew member and the sea itself is full of obstacles, so he must fear the choppy waters around him and the enemies at his back. More familiar? The second half of that conflict is real. I could just as easily written that as Evan the professor trying to deal with the rigors of teaching students who will pull any trick for an easy A while a co worker fights to destroy his reputation in order to cement her own as queen bee. Same story. Different clothing.

The key is to use all of that real in order to shape the context of the fantasy–give it the gravitas of a situation that feels all to familiar but in a shell that is utterly foreign. More and more my writing is like that. Perhaps that is what makes it work.

Some Thoughts:

1. I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve stopped wanting to say I feel good and even hopeful about my writing or even on the verge, because the moment I do is when shit goes south.

With the NFL season about to get underway I wanted to step forward and make a few bold predictions…

1. It all starts with the unlikely (becoming more likely) retirement of Darelle Revis. I expected him to sign with his hometown Steelers while secretly hoping he’d don Giants blue. Both teams made other moves at corner, signaling an end to Revis Island.
2. From there we visit Kaepernick Island. The forlorn QB has been a castaway from the NFL thanks to his kneeling for the pledge. In a nation that prides itself so heavily on the right to free speech, we put a lot behind the power of the public and the media. CK is better than at least 10 starting QBs in the league right now and cannot even find a job as a lowly backup.
3. Speaking of backing people up, the number of aging defenders who cannot find good work has climbed dramatically. One look at the Madden slush pile is a reminder that teams are preparing for the future while trying to maximize their profit with younger (read: cheaper) players.
4. The Jets, Bills, and Browns have all actively tanked this season before it started. The same can be surmised for the Vikings and Colts, but they were not nearly as obvious as the first three–especially the first two. Still, I expect each of these teams to eek out a win or three on their race to the bottom, proving that there is some level of parity in the main grouping of the NFL. Still, the elite teams will continue to be elite.
5. That list includes the Patriots who are without their go-to receiver in Edelman. This promises more work for Gronk who will have a record year on the way to another playoffs. In the end they won’t have the chops to knoc off the Raiders.
6. On the other side of the rock, the Giants will tough it out and meet team Beast in the big show.
7. I’m taking the Giants 24-12

I have a list of things I want to look up before Tuesday hits. It’s like a job, getting ready for the ‘on’ days. There’s finding the right snack for my kids who will come home and have between thirty minutes (the big one) and an hour and a half (lil one) to finish HW, snack, relax, and prep for practice. Two hours plus later I’ll have all three and they’ll be expecting a full meal on the table. They’ll expect some time to hang with me and, for the middle one, time to do the HW he couldn’t do because he never gets home till after practice(s).

It is for this reason I’ve started to look at these three weekdays of the fall semester as a second job. I recognize spring will be easier once we’ve cleared this hurdle, because we are leaving football behind. For now there are three days in which a chunk of hours of the evening is devoted to sports and running around.

But what about the rest?

Some Thoughts:

1. Something has to give here. Either I decide to become the guy who shows up everywhere alone or I find myself a companion to hang with during that dark near two day stretch where I don’t see another human being. I’m in the stretch now and I’m not a fan. I used to go out to this restaurant for bbq and bourbon night, but the first time I showed up with my lady I realized that the staff I’d gotten to ‘know’ apparently pitied me for being the guy for showing up alone. I am somewhat sensitive to what people think. Not so much what they are thinking as the vibe I’m putting out there. If that vibe doesn’t match what I am trying to send it gives me pause.
2. Part of me gets the sense that this is ‘my chance’ to sit down and have uninterrupted stretches of work time to develop the things that I want. I gotta learn how to fall into that sense more and not be afraid of the blank page. I mean, when else am I really writing?
3. All in. That’s the term I’ve been reaching for. I’m looking for all in.

Started watching Hero Academia last night and quickly came to the conclusion that this is another version of DBZ, Naruto, etc. By that I mean to say that all of these shows are inherently binary hero journeys; story formulae in which the hero begins with a companion that could and should be his greatest ally but for ambition and or rage. That then creates a false antagonist and builds a parallel story as we follow both through their respective journeys.

The above is the main throughline of Naruto. It also follows for DBZ and Hero Academia. While there are other stories that are of note, I’ve spent extensive time with the first two and just started the third. I will point out that I am quick to ignore Attack on Titan because it simply doesn’t fit the argument and Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood, because the binary nature of the show doesn’t pit them against each other but instead forces a dependent cooperative that models the target shows later seasons.

What I am really getting at here is a storytelling model that works. We have in this binary telling of the hero’s journey something that draws fans to either side and creates a false dichotomy that attracts tons of viewers. As I am presently designing a novel with dual protagonists forced into service together, I might be able to make some use of the structure.

Some Thoughts:

1. Football talk: Giants cut Will Tye and the flashy new receiver Travis Rudolph from Florida State. Adam Bisnowaty also failed to survive the axe, after showing amazingly quick feet and presence on the OL. Rudolph and Bisnowaty may have been practice squad gambles, built on the hope they’d clear waivers. This remains to be seen.
2. I get the sense that lately I’ve been really overwhelming to the woman I love. I gotta back off.

Song Lyrics of the month (August): from Micheal Kiwanuka’s Love and Hate..

The upside of that in many ways is how I am connecting to something creative and powerful.

Some Thoughts:

1. Call, Coffee, Write. I don’t have the life I expected. I don’t have the one I want either, but the people that matter still matter to me.
2. Part of finding peace is figuring out what you actually want out of life and then figuring out what, if anything, you have the ability to find within yourself.

Recently I’ve started to adopt a dim world view–an inability to see my way to a happy ending. I stopped making wishes whenever the clock rolled to matching digits (11:11, 2:22, etc.), stopped expecting ms. right to become mrs., and generally moving towards an acceptance of long term malaise. As such it came as little surprise when opened a fortune cookie and found no fortune presented inside. What caught my by surprise was opening a second cookie and again finding no fortune. That is when things got dodgy.

There are many theories about human existence. I’d guess a lot of us live along the spectrum of faith. We believe that things are ultimately doled out by a higher order of energy, be it God, fate, ka, or what have you. I believe we do have some choice in the matter–free will to swim against the current, or as Wesley Snipes is fond of saying, ‘Ice skate uphill’. I’ve never been much of a skater, but I’m not one to normally let fate bustle me about without some semblance of control. For example, when I decided to go to college I read the signs and portents and two options were clearly the most ‘fate driven’. I decided on one vs. the other and spent the next two decades of my life hearing about what the other would’ve looked like through a multitude of people and stories that intersected both geographically disparate worlds. I made a choice and made a life out of that choice.

As I moved through this life other signs arose and other choices were made. I could always read what I believed to be signs, because they kept popping up. Lately in conversations it feels like key words and phrases pop almost as if I can see those words standing out and dimming out the rest of them. It feels like my subconscious sending me messages through the conversations I am having. That is what made it all the more discomforting when the fortune cookies came up empty.

I don’t know what that means.

Nobody seems to know what that means. There are some that say it means good luck is owed to you. There are others who suggest that your luck is poor or has even run out. One thing is certain: Everyone says it means a change is coming. Now I get to wait and see what that change is.