Day: September 3, 2019

I was standing at the line of sidewalk where beach begins when I saw a man walking towards the beach with a bow and arrow. I thought, “That’s a compound bow.” Then I thought–I mean I really thought–about the profound influence D&D has had on my life.

Who would imagine a kid from Harlem might even know what a compound bow looks like? Moreover, that this would be the first thought running through my mind as the man approached the shore with the high quiet steps of a hunter stalking prey. I didn’t know what prey he was stalking. He had a single white arrow and a bow that, based on the size had a draw weight of close to 50 pounds. I am not supposed to know things like that. Given my earliest surroundings I ought to know how to size up a guy to know if he’s going to jump me. I ought to know how to play basketball and run fast, zoom down staircases, and hop fences–American parkour. I know some of those things. I received my Harlem education with open eyes. However, my afternoons and evenings were spent eyeballs deep in fantasy novels and the musings of Gary Gygax. Eventually I came around to video games. I lost my 3rd grade year on Pitfall. My writing was born out of a culture of dragons and pixel-driven video games. I never left that culture behind. It evolved as I did. The Dragons learned how to hack the internet. The video games found higher levels of resolution.

It was in that manner that I wound up on the beach watching a man with a compound bow hunting waterborne prey. He never did find what he was looking for at the shore. I’ve never quite figured out how to translate my past influences into a story that honors them. He moved on after a while. I’m still trying.

So, I am at the beach.

Usually I am not big on revealing my location less the robbers come and get my empty home. No, I am not daring you. I’ll be home soon. In the meanwhile I am falling back into the routine of writing and thinking and processing and finding quieter moments in an all too noisy world. So, what do I hear in the new silence? Strange relationships and connections that form across the world.

I found myself watching some show on the gameshow network where the contestants had all met in an Uber. The four of them became close friends and intend to spend the money together. Those unusual meetups–those meet cute moments are really interesting to me, because it reminds me that as a writer those are the surprise moments that keep readers engaged and coming back.

How does that work for me as a writer? More and more I find myself collecting these… life codes? and trying to capture how to put them into the stories that I write. Perhaps one day I will do what all writers apparently do and write a book about writing and give these clues away. I don’t really have a problem with sharing the information because it isn’t about having cheat codes (hmm… that is a sweet title) but it is about the stories you really end up speaking from the heart. The cheat codes are what makes it easier to strip away all the extra stuff and fill in the blanks you need to fill in as a writer while telling the story.

Some Thoughts:

1. Hurt the back again. This is a major setback, because it is impacting the workout and I know I am slowly growing fatter instead of fitter. I need to fix this.
2. Random, but boring people are really important in stories. They are like the base to which you add a splash of color.
3. Had the beach fantasy draft. Waiting for the AI generated article to poop on me again. I used to be so good at this.