Backpocketpoet

Freeman Hrabowski

2011-11-14T09:36:00.000-06:00

Freeman Hrabowski III - his grandfather's grandfather (Hrabowski) was a polish slave owner and his grandfather was the first one born free.

Love these kinds of stories. He was on 60 Minutes last night. He is so encouraging and upbeat.

Like most university presidents he says look to the left and right at the person next to you but he doesn't create the self-fulling prophecy of failure, he creates one of success. He tells them they should all graduate and that if they don't the university has fail, not them

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgTo4tslgwM

http://www.umbc.edu/aboutumbc/president/index.php

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1937938_1937933_1937920,00.html

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Freeman+Hrabowski&aq=f

AT&T

2011-10-25T10:47:00.000-05:00

AT&T done lost it's freakin' mind. They owe me a $50 rebate. They claim I owe them $45. They were supposed to call me back last week. Instead, some Bay Area something Collection Agency and someone who does not speak English in an accent I can understand calls. Yes, used a few choice words and told them I would call AT&T. They asked if I was going to pay them., I said I was going to B* them out.

The Way of the Snake

2011-07-19T10:42:00.000-05:00

Last night while trying to back-up and update my computer, I spent time reading The Way of the Snake, Writings from the war in Vietnam by Terry Hertzler. I got this book in 1985. It's signed by the author. Thing is, it could almost be any war. Note I said almost because war is deeply personal and though I did some military time (a whole other kind of battle), I never went to war. Today, we are bombarded with images of service members injured, maimed, psychologically damaged but back when Vietnam was happening it was quite a different story. Nobody spent time understanding PTSD aka shelled-shocked aka battle fatigue. Nobody wanted to understand why it was so hard for young men to "get back in the swing of things" after they'd been to war. These days, we have a better understand but we could never really know.
This book, however, makes understanding easy. It opens with "AQuarter to Wash, the Dry is Free." The poet is in a laundromat, drowsing, five years after the "police action." He gets shook up when some women come in speaking rapidly in Vietnamese. His survival instincts come out then he flees the laundromat with his still-damp clothes. I can feel the shock and fear of this poem so intensely.
Later in the book is "A Vietnam Alphabet:" A is for America. It's funny the things we do for love./... D is for dead. E is for E-1, E-2, E-3, etc. Those are Army ranks. The higher the number, the less chance you'll fall under "D."/...N is for nothing./O is for officers. They often knew nothing./...U is for unicorn. I've never seen a unicorn./...There is no Z. Some things have no end. A is for ...
I'm trying but it's actually hard to tell you about these poems because what excerpts I can give you could never hit you like the actual poem. I checked and this book is available (2 used) on Amazon.com. So if you are seeking understanding about what war does or just seeking some powerful poetry, check it out.

The homeless guy and the house key

2011-06-07T09:39:00.000-05:00

I used to give money to homeless people all the time. I thought it was the right thing to do. That opinion was formed by the one guy in a wheelchair with a tin cup on Canal Street when I was a teenager.
The first time I ever saw hundreds of homeless people was in San Diego in my late teens. The streets were filled with them. During that same period, a friend, Sandra Greenlee, and I took a bus ride from Oceanside, California, to Los Angeles. A woman in the bus terminal was talking to herself as she walking into one walk, turned, walked until she hit the next wall, turned and just kept doing it.
The next woman we saw yelled at us then said, "Pretty baby, pretty baby."
One time I gave my donuts to two girls on the Moon Walk. Turns out both were named Amanda and had met on the street. I don't remember their story exactly but one had been tossed out of her home. That was one of the stories that generated the poem "Gutter Punks."
Then a few things happened.
Once a man chastised me about my car. I was stopped at a red light with my window open (typical for me) and when I told him I didn't have any cash he started talking about how I could afford that pretty car. We are talking about a ten-year-old used car, mind you. He also said God was going to punish me for having a car, a job, etc. I was so glad when the light changed.
Then there was the woman who was dressed better than I. All dolled up with lovely clothes, sporty sunglasses, fancy sandals.
I'm sure many also remember the young adults who died in that fire; eight of them, right? Their shoes cost more than half the stuff in my closet. And, they did not want to be slaves to a job or live by the rules of homeless shelters. They would rather take my money since I live by the rules and have a job.
Recently I saw a guy who apparently had something else to do so he pulled out his keys to unlock his bike and there on his key ring was a house key.
I stopped in a parking lot once to drop a friend off. I was facing the interstate exit. I saw this guy who had been panhandling rush from the side of the road and realized it was because of the police. He pulled out his keys and climbed into an SUV.
These days I see groups of young people panhandling on every busy corner. They are laughing, joking, telling stories, drinking beer, gatorade, water, coffee, eating and leaving piles of trash every where. When I got my library card recently I broke it apart and gave the scraps to the library clerk because I didn't see a trash can. She said, "Most people just throw it on the floor." Well, I guess if people will throw trash on the floor in the library, I shouldn't expect panhandlers to pick up their trash on the neutral grounds, right?
There are truly some homeless people in the world; most of them have mental health issues and can't get help—especially here in New Orleans since the governor moved the mental health care facility to Mandeville, assuring most of the New Orleanians who need it—the ones without cars or cab fare—can't get to it.
If I ever go back to giving money to homeless people, I will do it at a shelter.

Chaos and the 40-ounce

2011-03-07T12:07:00.001-06:00

My daughter hasn’t been to a Mardi Gras parade in about 15 years so she is trying to get to as many as she can. Naturally, that gives me an excuse to go. We recently went to Babylon, Chaos and Muses.

Babylon: Right off the bat she got a jester hat — and put it on. We caught so much stuff we were giving it to the children around us. My daughter was catching the lighted throws and I seem to get the stuffed animals. We were trading throws with each other. We had a plastic bag full of beads even before the parade ended. My daughter got one of those super bags from one of the parades — can’t remember which. Might have been Babylon. I had let one bag fly by and she commented. I didn’t know she wanted a bag. So glad she finally got one. We filled it up since there was no room left in our backpack.
Dinner: We started our trip with home-cooked food, cookies, potato chips, coffee for me and tea for my daughter — who had prepared dinner ahead of time. Nothing like eating home-cooking food while waiting for a parade to start. It was as pretty as restaurant food. Flat iron steak, red bell peppers, cilantro, garlic, onions, gravy and bowtie pasta. Uhmm Uhm!
40 ounces: During the pause between Babylon and Chaos, about a dozen college girls crossed the street and blocked the whole section we were in. Each of them was carrying a 40-ounce. Because of commercials and perception, 40-ounce bottles of beer are associated with a particular ethnic group. I’m here to tell you, these girls were not of that group so feel free to guess which other group they were from. They proceeded to block people from the floats, put there 40s on the ground in the street and so on. My daughter politely made them put their drinks in the dirt by the tree so the little children they had cut off wouldn’t accidentally knock them over and get cut.
Harbinger: As the parade rolled, we realized these women were a harbinger. The krewe, out of Chalmette, was so “selective” (I know you get my meaning) in who they threw to that some of the crowd began to taunt them. The man behind us kept calling them weak. My daughter and I decided we would do some bogarting, blocking and snatching because this whole scene got on our nerves. (Terrible, I know but not as terrible and someone intentionally cutting you off or not throwing to you.) Of course, we weren’t going to do so much as to get ourselves in trouble — not over parades throws. We just did enough to vent out displeasure. (Yes, I know you think I’m perfect; I am — perfectly human.) We then gave our catches to the children.
Bead battle: In my New Orleans-women-can-jump mode, I sprang and grabbed a slew of beads. The college gal behind me had one in her hand but was trying to take them all. I said, “All right, Missy, let it go.” She said, “This one is mine,” and that’s what she got, one pair of red beads. I got the rest. After that I was satisfied. I would have sat in my chair but the heifers had cut-off the entire view so I just stood there commenting with the guy behind me. One particular action that disturbed me about this parade is how violently some of the men were throwing things from the float. I couldn’t figure out if they were trying to reach the people in the back or hurt the people in between. My daughter decided that next year, if they run the same, we would use Chaos time to go to the bathroom.
Take your trash with you: When the parade ended, our 40-ouncers took their leave. As they were departing, leaving their empties on the ground, my daughter politely told them to take their trash them. They were, of course, stunned but they complied. Truly she was polite but there must have been something in the tone of her voice or her face because they picked up the empty bottles, looked back at her with doubt on their faces and went on their way. She said that they were not from here and have no respect for our city; they shouldn’t be trashing it. I laughed and cheered her. I did not point out all the trash from the parade. After all, that’s entirely different. Nobody is going to get cut by a piece of paper or a broken pair of beads on the ground.
Muses: I decided to go to this particular set of parades because of what I read about Muses and thought it would delight my daughter. It was the most hysterical, most fun line-up I have ever seen. Can you tell I have never been to Muses? I took most of my photos at Muses. We caught a lot more junk. At one instance, a little boy and a little girl were in a tiff over a throw. It was a lighted shoe barrette. The mom was telling the brother it was a barrette. I had just caught some of those funny bands children like. I gave him that and that changed the whole scene. Later I gave more to a boy when we leaving. He ran over to his parents as excited as he can be. Whoo! Simple pleasures, huh? I love making those small differences.
The lighted ladies: My daughter and I and the little girl were calling ourselves the lighted ladies. So much fun! About midway through Muses the little girl caught a Frisbee. Frankly, it was the one throw I wasn’t chasing because I can’t throw a Frisbee to save my life. I cooed when she showed it to me and she said, “It’s for you.” That perfected my night.

50,000 - a reader's first eye view

2011-02-03T00:26:00.000-06:00

I let my daughter read my partially complete novel. She is the only person I would dare do this with because understands my struggle as a poet trying to get through a much longer work and knows I am having trouble seeing the whole puzzle right now. She is an avid reader who enjoys short stories and novels and is good at analyzing and evaluating such works so I knew she would give me an honest but not cruel evaluation. She said the writing was good but that it had too many flashbacks, which made it confusing, and it read more like a collection of short stories. Perhaps I should make it a short story collection. I like her evaluation and it tells me I have some work to do on transitions and exposition since my goal is to write a novel not a collection of short stories. Though she got lost in my story line, she is still willing to read it so I put it al in one document so it would be easier for her to make notes. Her comments were really on point. She caught such simple things as a sentences that could be better placed and whole sections that could be moved around, as well as sections that could be divided and spread throughout to offer a better, more consistent and more logical reading. Ah, I love this child!

Lunch hour writing is good stress buster

2011-01-13T14:40:00.002-06:00

I got some good writing done at the park today. If you’re wondering how the heck I could sit in my turned off car with no heat in 40° weather, I plan. When I get in to work, I park my car in the sun so my seats will warm up. I have a blanket and a scarf in the car. I wear my jacket and a sweater. As well, I usually have my computer booted up and my programs (Word and Excel) open so all I have to do is pull up, park, climb into the backseat, take the computer from the bag and start writing. That gives me 45 minutes in another world. Stress relief at it’s finest.

The $155 adventure!

2010-12-28T14:40:00.001-06:00

Whew! It has taken me a while to get back to everything—novel, blog, life in New Orleans after 9 days of vacation plus the holidays. Took a train ride on which I intended to spend time updating my novel and expanding it but my logic board failed Sunday night, the night before I left. I didn’t know it was the logic board. I knew the computer still worked but the screen was black. I couldn’t get it fixed until Thursday, after my daughter’s graduation from the Art Institute. Repairing the logic board could have cost me $900 because my computer is out of warranty. However, it turned out that it was a known issue with Apple so they replaced it at no cost. YES!

It was too cold in the coach car on the train so I spent a lot of time in the observation car. That was hysterical. I couldn’t write because I was too busy observing. Three people managed to get themselves thrown off the train for getting pissy drunk. If you don’t know what pissy drunk is, ask someone. One woman was on her way to LA to go to court for a DUI that could get her thrown in jail and yet she got tore down drunk. These people went broke buying $5 cans of Budweiser. Good Lord! I overheard the DUI recipient talking on her phone — as so did everyone else so I wasn’t ease dropping; she was just that loud — telling whomever she was speaking too how expensive the train was. It wasn’t the train. The food in the dining car was reasonably good and reasonably priced. The liquor was outrageously priced.

One guy started looking for an ATM after awhile so he could get more money to spend on alcohol. These folks got so drunk they were cut off from drinking. Next thing you know they had their own liquor — at least he did — clear, probably gin or vodka — in a water bottle that they shared. It is a federal offense to bring liquor on the train. This guy bought me some coffee in hopes I would go get him beer when he got cut off. Not a chance. He also offered me some of his “fire water.” Hell no. I don’t drink after people I know, let alone some drunk guy I don’t know.

That train ride was such a trip that it will take me a while to write about it. I’ve been so caught up I haven’t had time and some of the facts are starting to fade so I need to get to it soon but today I want to work on my novel.

Baba Kwanzaa

2010-12-06T09:57:00.000-06:00

Each year since his inception in 1990, the character Baba Kwanzaa has been dedicated to some friend who is dedicated to family, community and has done service above and beyond the call of duty.

Baba Kwanzaa is dedicated this year, his 20th, to Ser Shehab Heter (Clifford Boxlely). Boxley has worked to make sure that the efforts of those involve in the struggle for freedom from those who fought in the Civil War forward, have gotten their due accord. He has been a tireless fighter for truth and the telling of the history of his people.
Baba lights the candles in this scene in his library. The names on the books are those of friends, authors and educators who are important to me. The gleam in his eye was borrowed from the excitement that makes Boxley glow when he tells his-story.
Chuck Siler

Still writing, y’all—and reading

2010-12-01T14:46:00.001-06:00

Still writing, y’all — and reading

Yes, I know I haven’t been blogging. I’ve been busy with so many things. Writing a little. Not as much as I want but I did break 41,000. How about that? I had to step away from one section for a while to see if I still liked it. Well, I have to say, I do. It’s the section about my main character who is in a coma. That section just flowed so nicely. I think it is the longest section I have—almost 2,500 words. I’ll probably have to break it up but for now, it stands as it is.

In the novel I am currently reading, I find myself listening to the voice of the characters. Sometimes it doesn’t sound like the character and I have to reread to make sure it’s the same person.

I also seem to come across a lot of gerunds at the beginning of sentences—something Olympia Vernon discussed. It’s amazing how they jump out at you and how they weaken the sentence and thus the paragraph and thus the writing. I also notice wordiness that doesn’t enhance the information. It’s just words to fill space it seems, as though the writer had to have so many words.

I didn’t plan to find these things when I started reading. They just popped out at me. In fact, I have begun to get weary of the book but I am still reading because—like I keep repeating—there is always something to learn. This book offers a roadmap to things I want to avoid.

I also notice how the sections are defined, and tha the chapters are short, usually five to seven pages. I did intend to look at the structure to see what constituted a chapter and what determined a secontion break. This book is proving very instructive in the construction of a novel.

And, if you are wondering why I haven’t named the book, I don’t think my comments are flattering and don’t want to disparage the writer. This is the only book I’ve read by this writer so the author’s other works might be better. Besides, this is only my opinion. Since this is not the first author whose work I found less than satisfying, I just accept that my standards may be a bit high. Okay, really high, even for my own work. We’ll see how that sits when I’m done and someone is critiquing my novel.

No Room In My Bed

2010-11-19T14:38:00.001-06:00

Fiction characters take up a lot of space. They steal the covers. They knock the pillows onto the floor. And they say the strangest things. Here is what I heard last night. it is part of an ongoing narrative over the last few nights.

Deep inside the void, beyond the hum lived the undefined of his life. His core fluid, remote. The consciousness of his being was in disarray, hidden behind bruised and swollen matter, held there by the mass of wet, gray tissue. Beyond the swamp black was a black hole—all uncertainty, neither truth nor lie. He groped about in that space when the soundlessness surrounded him, when the hum left him. He searched the center of that nowhere, trying to find his way back. The pulsing currents danced around, striking each other. “Where is this?” was an echo in the hollow trunk of his head. “Where am I?” was a reverberation with only itself to answer. Both a call and response at once. And a single blue beam, stopping just short of itself or reaching past the black hole or into it. He could not discern the sense of it. The nowhere. He was trapped inside, peering over the beam, trying to find a way out. “I am lost,” a voice said but he didn’t recognize it. Who did it belong to? “Undefined,” it said, “and lost.” Into this he crept when the soundlessness surrounded him, when the hum disappeared.

Sometimes I try to make these characters come to life but they resist me. They, apparently, have their own plan and their own timetable and I am but one of their tools. They are like Dr. Moriarity, on Star Trek. They have no basis in reality and yet they are real. Can anyone explain this?

OMG!I broke 40,000! Wasn't even trying to. My character is in a coma and apparently, the muse seems to be very intense about what being in a coma is like. Frankly, I don't have a clue.

The flow is back

2010-11-16T20:17:00.001-06:00

The flow is back. Today with the music playing, the clothes washing, reading Eden, a million bits of things running through my head. Was it writer’s block? Maybe, if that means being stuck on a particular piece of writing but not if it means not being able to write because I never lack for things to write. I write in my head every day, all day. Sometimes I pen the words to the page. At one point I wrote everything, everything. These days I’m less likely to grab my pen or computer but I still write in my head. Today’s first piece was ugly underwear. I’ve scribbled some of it inside this piece but I’m not going to type it into the final one. I’ll save it for its own place. I have a whole story about underwear and then I have this missive, destined for my blog and I have pieces for the novel. So, see what I mean?

It’s hard for me to give credence to writer’s block. Anything can be worked through if you just do it, right? Or, maybe I need to revise my own definition of writer’s block. Or, maybe I just needed to get this pen on paper, not my fingers on keyboard. This, apparently, is where my muse lives. It is where she started her life, where he honed his skills, where it lives inside the words. Maybe the keyboard is for tidying up and quick jots, not for the marathon of words that connect the hand and the mind.

This may be different for you. Maybe you learned keyboarding instead of typing. Maybe you are from the era when copying was as simple as placing a piece of paper on a machine. I am from the era where copying meant rewriting by hand and later by typewriter. Maybe you feel the words when your fingers strike against a soundless keyboard. I feel the words as the pen slides across the page, as the pencil point wears down and needs to be sharpened, when the keys clack and I can feel them on my fingertips. What I say is whatever works, use it. Each day may be different. I know that in the last three days I have handwritten 1,500 words. I've been writing on this novel so much it has taken me three days to finish this blog but in the last three weeks I barely squeaked out a hundred on the keyboard. Maybe my muse was protesting but I am glad she/he/it is back. Now if I could find the time to write about the ugly underwear — and the million other stories running around my head over and under this novel like water from a waterfall. Today’s count, 39,279.

In case you are wondering, the cat is Shoestring. He's gone now. He was my daughter's baby. She talked him down out of a tree once. It took 15 minutes but she cajoled him and he responded. She was teaching him to sit. Sadly, someone poisoned him.

Fiction workshop with Olympia Vernon

2010-11-10T22:21:00.001-06:00

It’s hard being broke. One always has to make such tough choices. I’ll readily sacrifice food for books but once I sacrifice food, I still have to choose the books. This weekend I was really stuck. I went to the Festival of Words in Arnaudville/Grand Coteau. First was Olympia Vernon’s fiction workshop. I got there an hour late because I was unaware/unprepared for football traffic in Baton Rouge and had not mapped an alternate route.

Even though I missed the first hour, Olympia and the group let me in for the second hour. I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself properly so I think my work surprised them. It made me a little uncomfortable because I didn’t want people to think I was pretending not to know how to write. I told Olympia later that I am a writer and poet. I came to the workshop because writers never stop learning and because I am trying to write a novel. She agreed we never stop learning then asked why I hadn’t already written a novel and I told her honestly I didn’t have the drive for it before. Plus, that is a HUGE undertaking for a poet like me who is accustomed to poems writing themselves, practically.

Anyway, I only got to work on two pieces. We listened to Nina Simone sing a song in French and then wrote about the emotion it evoked. Next, Olympia gave us each a color and we were to write about it without mentioning the color. I thought these were very interesting techniques. I had no expectations for the workshop in the sense of how it would be conducted or anything or even what I would learn but I knew I would learn something. However, I am always a little nervous trying to write creatively on demand, which is odd because I am also a journalist, which is definitively on-demand writing. Somehow, that doesn’t make me nervous. I don’t know what the difference is or if the difference is in my brain or in my heart. I free write all the time (heck, I’m free-writing this blog) so why would free writing on demand be any different?

Olympia thought my work was good and I liked that because I think even seasoned writers/artists need encouragement sometimes. I think all the participants really enjoyed the workshop and learned to take their writing to new levels not only from the help she offered with their writing but by being privy to each other’s work.

After the workshop I wanted to get Olympia’s books so I could see what is happening in modern fiction and perhaps find a way to move forward with my work, which has been going very, very slowly. I’ve been frustrated.

I decided to hang around for the poetry reading later in the evening. I’d wanted to stay anyway and once people informed me that I might again get stuck in football traffic I knew I was going to stay.

The poets were Darrell Bourque and Kendra Hamilton. Naturally, I enjoyed them as much as Olympia Vernon’s workshop — perhaps a bit more because we all know my heart is a poet’s heart first and every other kind of writing second. My problem was that once I bought Olympia’s books I couldn't afford the poetry books. Serious bummer.

My consolation is that reading Logic has made me think again. I can’t describe Olympia’s book to you. It is considered experimental fiction, which I know nothing about. It is unusual in both the writing and the way the chapters are formatted, some of them as short as haiku. The curious thing is that somehow her books seem to be exactly what I need. Not that I can write my novel that way; just that it made me feel open again. One of the reasons I got stuck is because I started out with a plan for my book then I started reading how fiction should be written. The information is good, valuable but it can also be stifling for someone like me who writes in a flow, like a river or a waterfall, writing until I am done. At least, that is the way I write poetry — and the sections of my novel. However, once I started worrying about the writing, my flow became a trickle — and a tiny trickle at that. I kept looking at the work, trying to find the novelist’s approach.

After reading Logic and moving on to Eden I feel like my flow is coming back. I’m not saying reading about writing novels is bad. What I am saying is I should have stuck to my own advice and the advice of so many other writers: Read but also keep writing. Don’t worry. Just write. Keep that editor in check until the whole thing is done. Olympia, if you are reading this, thanks.

By the way, books weren’t the only things I sacrificed this weekend. I missed Lee Grue’s workshop at the Alvar Library. The group there is very diverse and the works are very interesting. I can’t wait to get to it this weekend. I hear I missed some good work, too.

Fiction Workshop: Alvar Branch Library, 913 Alvar, 3-5p, Saturday

The three-ring-binder approach

2010-11-03T13:58:00.000-05:00

Well, I've printed all my sections and dropped them into a three-ring binder. I am reading through them, trying to fill in the gaps but I admit I am a little stuck. I don't know what my premise is or even if I should care. I have bios on my characters but I don't have an outline. I know where I want this novel to go but I don't know how to get there.
I have to say, there is something to be said for writing before the computer age. Before computers made it so that we never have to re-type — unless a crash destroyed everything — we were forced to rewrite by hand (when I was younger) or retype everything. This had the effect of forcing us to actually see the words, not gloss over them. It was much easier, I think, to find errors and other interruptions in the flow.
These days we must resort to other techniques to make sure we see every word. One way is to read it aloud to ourselves or to a writing group. The other way is to read it into a tape recorder and play it back. Even though the tape/reading idea may work for getting my novel to the place I need it to go, I have the feeling I am going to end up re-typing everything. I know that sounds crazy and frankly, not having to re-type is one of the things I like about the computer age. However, the way I work as a writer, I need to feel the words, see the words and the only way I can really do that is to type them, again.
In case you are wondering, the word count is 37,826. Slow going these days but still going.

Thinking about writing

2010-10-26T23:41:00.000-05:00

I lost my momentum for a couple of days. I was so busy reading about writing a novel that I stopped writing. I started thinking about writing, started worrying about it. That’s a mistake I think many writers make. While it is important to continue learning, to continue reading, a writer must also continue writing. It is hard enough to find time to get lost in our world of characters. So many things get in the way. The last thing that should get in a writer’s way is the writer. When you are writing, write. Write until you run out of words. Don’t think; don’t worry. Write. Even when it seems what you are writing is trite or useless or out of order, write it anyway and stop thinking about it. No writing is wasted because even bad writing gives a writer an opportunity to get better, later. Then, when you are done writing, then you think. Then you edit, revise, rewrite—but only then.

If I had any sense …

2010-10-19T00:40:00.001-05:00

If I had any sense, I would have chosen an entirely different profession because being a writer is like having OCD—Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Writers are compelled by their disorder to write just like people with OCD are compelled to do whatever they do. Perhaps all artists have OCD. Perhaps all humans have OCD or the potential for OCD. I do believe that each of us has the potential for every illness every discovered and for some that are as yet unknown and unnamed. Think about it. We all do strange things. The difference between what is “normal” and what is “disorder” is a matter of degree.

What I have been doing is reading books about writing novels. None of these books makes novel writing sound easy. None of them boast of the financial gain of writing a novel. In fact, many note that financial gain, like the Great Novel, can be elusive and downright nonexistent. These novel-writing books make writing a novel sound more and more difficult. Somehow, though, my lunatic brain keeps translating difficult into challenging and exciting. I keep rereading sections I’ve written to see if I’d met some of the criteria laid down in these books. I keep seeing my novel as some huge, colorful, multifaceted puzzle just waiting for me to get all the pieces in place. My spider sense is tingling at the very thought of going back over what I’ve already written and what I plan to write. In my mind I know fairly well where this book is going but I am open to it taking another route. I know what I want to write. I don’t have the words yet but I know what I want to say and every book I read makes me want to continue what some could call an insane journey.

In one book is an explanation of wacky characters, those on the lunatic fringe. It explains how important these characters are. Well, I don’t exactly have one that is entirely on the fringe, yet. But I have one that is leaning that way. Maybe I’ll just push him/her over the edge and see what happens. Or, maybe I’ll put myself in the novel (figuratively) because this drive I have to continue this novel certainly seems to put me on the lunatic fringe.

Little things I notice when I'm not even looking

2010-10-14T15:52:00.000-05:00

There was [an] old lady ... a black man ... an Indian couple ...
So, what color (race, cultural, ethnicity) was the old lady?
The same color, etc., as the writer.

If a grown-up saw a kid do something, they would start asking the kid questions.
What's wrong with this sentence?
Someone told me that these days it is acceptable for the subject and verb not to agree. I find that unacceptable.

To write good fiction one must read good fiction

2010-10-12T00:09:00.000-05:00

To write good fiction one must read good fiction. With that in mind, I organized my books, sort of. I only have three categories right now: Fiction, books about writing and everything else. It is exciting to look at the books I can reread and enjoy all over again. It is sad to realize how many of my books are missing, including several of Maya’s Angelou’s books of poetry and Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Actually, I am hoping some of these are still packed in some of the boxes we have yet to look through—at least, I hope so.

I only have one bookcase right now so my books are double-stacked but at one point I had a room full of bookshelves and had bookshelves in every room in my house except the bathroom and the kitchen. Now, almost all of my books are on one 2’ x 6’ bookcase.

Ah well, I have to live with what I have and fortunately, I have several of James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Terry McMillan, Zora Neale Hurston, Alex Haley, Masterpieces of African-American Literature, Alice Walker, William H. Armstrong, Sam Greenlee, Gordon Parks, Margaret Walker, Poppy Z. Brite, Edgar Allen Poe, H.G. Wells, Bev Marshall and Shakespeare—for starters.

Then there are the novels some people have probably never heard of but that I enjoyed including, the The Poet of Tolstoy Place, A Period of Confinement, The Last Butterfly, Shout Down the Moon, Return to Laughter, Five Smooth Stones, and Trip Sheets.

As for the writing books, ah: The Elements of Style, The Elements of Grammar, The Elements of Editing, On Becoming a Writer, On Becoming a Novelist, On Writers and Writing, Make Every Word Count, Just Open a Vein, Writing Down the Bones, The Chicago Manual of Style, On Writing Well, On Moral Fiction, Line By Line, and Thinking on Paper—to name a few.

Tonight, I don’t know which one (or two or three) I may read. Another benefit of starting this journey to a finished novel is that I am back to reading books instead of just online information and news, which gets so wearying and depressing. And, it’s endless. One thing leads to another to another and they can be so long and trudging that I just get tired.

Speaking of long and trudging, I better end this or you’ll be echoing my words, huh?

Lost inside my own head

2010-10-07T01:06:00.001-05:00

So much interference this week. Fatigue. Commitments four out of seven evenings, a rare but important lunchtime commitment — to replace the cord on my computer and week end commitments. I have been writing, though, here and there on various sections. I’ve added a couple of sections. Right now everything is clamoring to be written but it’s hazy, no clear direction so I am also filling in my notes file so I can at least have the information that keeps popping up. Trying to get the language right. I don’t worry about how good or bad the writing is because good or bad matters less than the information I am trying to get written. I can edit/rewrite/revise later. Sometimes, though, I capture a perfect line or two or a better way of writing something that was just jotted down.

I am becoming friends with Word Perfect, sort of, and getting friendly with Excel as a good way to manage my sections. Many of them were in order but once I separated the document, it got confusing so I put all the section titles into an Excel document and number them. New sections that are related to older sections become .1, .2, i.e., 2.1, 7.2. I started out with alphabets; then I tried numbers and alphabets but couldn’t get Excel to sort them the way I needed. With the point system, they sort perfectly and I can keep my thoughts together as I try to track this story.

Working at lunchtime is proving to be interesting. When my alarm chimes I have to get back to work so I am forced to stop. Sometimes I am in a flow but I gotta go. When that happens, I highlight the section in red in my Excel document and I find I can get right back in the flow most of the time. Cool, huh?

Novel writing is a whole other game than poetry. For the most part, poetry is down and dirty. Once that initial blast is written, I can work on it for days. I do have a few poems I never finished but those are rare. Even long poems come fast, just write themselves, essentially. Then I revise them. Novel writing is the same in that aspect. My reading, and the current flow tells me it may take me a year to do this but I think it will be worth it in the end for many reasons, in particular, I am in an entirely different state of mind when I write. Of all the things I have done in my life, nothing fills my spirit like writing. Once I get in the flow, everything falls away, time, worries, problems—the world disappears. Not just with this novel but with everything I write. I get so deep inside the words that nothing else exists.

When I was (much) younger, I briefly took up running during the lunch hour. I eventually was running 7.2 miles every day, five days a week, for I don’t know how long, probably a couple of years. (I was svelte, baby!) Everything fell away. If I had a problem I couldn’t work out before my run, by the time I finished running, I would have an answer. I wouldn’t think about the problem when I ran. I thought about running. This made the logical side of my brain let go and allowed the creative mind to take over. It is the same with writing. I don’t think about the outside world but when I get done writing for a stretch, I have answers for my everyday world that I couldn’t find as long as I was in it.

II have been inside my problems so long, I forgot how to get out. My out was writing. I have not been in my writing zone for a few years and I did not realize how much I missed it, how much it helped me. We have so many stressors in our lives that we should all have one thing that brings us pleasure and joy. Writing does that for me. It’s not that writing is easy; writing is challenging no matter what we are writing and no matter how long we have been writing but I think working through a piece to make it the best we can at the moment we are writing it, the challenge, is the thing that helps the most. I wish for you that you get to do the thing you love, whatever that may be.

Look at that, a thousand words at the drop of a hat. If you get this far, thanks for reading. I should edit this but I need to get my behind to sleep and tomorrow I am reading at the Goldmine so I am going to post it as it is.

By the way, hope you like the photos. They’re mine, except for “Poet is Verb.” Got that one from Dave Brinks.

Current word count: 33,705.

The puzzle approach to writing

2010-09-29T22:51:00.000-05:00

For some people, working a puzzle is traumatic — all those little pieces that must eventually add up to a whole. In my family, puzzles are loved, kept, traded and re-traded: My mom, my youngest sister, my daughter and me. We all like huge puzzles. The more pieces the better—2,000 or 3,000 pieces, more if we can find them. Oh, yeah, baby! My mom likes huge landscapes with lots of blue sky and green grass. I can work them and you would be amazed at how easy it is to find the right hint, tint, shade of blue, the right shape but I find too much sky and grass boring. I like the ones with lots of color and variety. No garden unless it’s scraggly.

We pour the puzzle out of the box (if the puzzle still has its box) and sort through the pieces, working organically to build the image. I once put together a 1,000-piece puzzle with a black background and a bunch of colored lines and objects whose box had disappeared years before. I found it in the back of my closet and since it had been a few years, I had to work it, box or no. Did I finish it? Yes, I did.

Writing is the same way. I just pulled apart a copy of my novel. Always a copy because things happen — even on our trusty computers, which we put far too much confidence in. It was starting to get unwieldy with all the pieces in one big box (document). Pulling it apart let’s me cut and paste much more easily. I can add notes inside each section, dropping in other sections or parts of sections. My goal is to re-insert the sections into a base document as I go just so I can still keep everything in one place and so I can do the word count. I just like doing that word count, seeing the shifting as I go along, wondering how many words I will actually have when I am done. I have a goal but it’s flexible because, frankly, the word count depends on the story, not the other way around. When the story is done, the count is done.

I have rarely counted words in my life because even though I have been a journalist for umpteen years, my editors never assigned a word count. They assigned page counts, based on 10- or 12-point Courier or Times. I tried to keep a word could, line count, and character count on my poems because some publications actually asked for that. One time I set out to do the counts — and the first and last lines — of all the poems on my computer but that quickly fell apart. I do, however, have a database of my poems, their titles, if and when they were published, what inspired them. Yep, I like to remember what seed was germinated into a living, breathing poem. When I was submitting with some regularity (and regular is relative), I tracked everything to avoid simultaneous submissions and so I could know where my babies were at all times.

I also tracked the expense: Postage, envelopes, submission fees, paper, contest fees (hardly ever did contests). If it could be counted, I counted it. (Strangely, I like it. I live in two worlds: Logical and creative.)

That, eventually, fell apart as my submissions became more and more infrequent. But, that is one thing I want to get back to. Well, two things: Regular submissions and tracking my poems. I need to get my new poems into my database. While this may seem counter to a poet’s mentality, it is actually a good thing because searching a database is so much easier than searching a computer hard drive. Truthfully, I keep all my poems in one folder but trying to find a poem I have forgotten the title of, except for a word or two, can be impossible, even in one folder because I literally have hundreds, hundreds of poems on my computer. In the database, I can simply look up the words I know and voila, a few poems appear. A few because my titles are usually very individualistic and usually, short; rarely do they have more than one or two words in common.

And, at the end of the tax year, I can pull reports, making income tax work a whole lot easier.

I love writing organically but I crave order so this pull-apart technique suits me, for now. Since this is my first novel, we’ll see how it works. If it doesn’t, no problem; I am very open to experimenting to find what works best for me.

Gathering historical data to infuse my novel with realism

2010-09-27T14:38:00.001-05:00

I am sitting on the edge of City Park, enjoying the first days of fall. It is so beautiful! Yes, I am online in the park!

I needed some historical data to fill out the gaps in my memory and flesh out sections of my novel. A library is out of the question because it will be closed by the time I can get to it. Books, yes, I would love to restock my library, which is down to about one-fifth its original size but time and money preclude that. (Okay, I did buy a couple of books. Couldn't help myself.) What’s left? The Internet. The wealth of information is mind-boggling. You can suffuse yourself in knowledge to the point of overflowing. I have to set a time limit on my surfing or I’d never get any writing done.

Here are a couple of links that really blew my mind. One is black and white and only four years later, the other is in color. Amazing how quickly technology changes, isn’t it?

Hurricane Betsy
Hurricane Camille

A visual representation of a novel

2010-09-25T00:41:00.002-05:00

No lie. These spreadsheets are really giving me a workout, primarily because I am filling them in after I started writing and developing characters and now have to work at ensuring everything flows. It would be a hundred times easier, I think, had I started with the spreadsheets after I got the first thoughts for the novel.

I found some serious errors in my timeline because I was writing on the fly. I’ll still write on the fly, but at least my facts will be in order.

I can say that as I fill in the information, most of the work on the structure of this novel is getting done. The threads are getting properly woven.

Now that I have created the spreadsheets — one with character attributes and one with a timeline — I am going through what I wrote. It’s slow verifying and correcting but it is also extraordinarily useful. As I verify and correct, I fill in blank and missing connections, finesse sections, and create new details. The spreadsheets give me a visual representation of the novel. I can’t tell you how cool this is — at least for me.

I'm also expanding my character attributes and timeline, naturally.

p.s. If you don’t have Excel or don’t want to bend your brain any more than you are already bending it (although bending the brain does make you smarter, really), I am sure the same thing can be done with Tables in Microsoft Word. Don’t ask me how to do it, though, because I don’t like Tables. Some people can make Microsoft sing; I can only make it cry, “Why, why don’t you like me?”

Word count? Don’t have a clue. It’s all hand-scribbled.

Dirty Work

2010-09-25T00:33:00.000-05:00

Did some editing today, just trying to get a look at what I had so far. I realized that I could not put off expanding my character descriptions any longer. As well, I need to get my timeline in order. I've chosen to do this in a spreadsheet. I saw an example online and thought it was a cool way to get a good view.

The hard part is, I haven't used Excel in probably five years, at least. I was fairly savvy with it but I was using it regularly. Could even do sums and calculations. How that for a non-math person?

Well, I have to learn all over again but I'm a quick study and really, all I need are columns and rows to hold similar info on each character.

Dirty Work - Steely Dan

This spreadsheet is turning out to be a really good idea. Initially, I thought it would be fiercely tedious and the "list" function was confusing me. That function didn't exist the last time I used Excel. I couldn't insert more columns and rows.

Then, I couldn't remember how to use "Freeze Pane" so I had to go to "Help."

I have a lot of columns, a lot. Then I remembered I could hide columns and rows.

Inserting the data is not all that tedious. It even has some elements of excitement. As I input the data, I catch errors in logic. That's cool. Mind you, it will take a while but it is more than worth it.

For all my right-brain friends, give the left brain a chance. You may be pleasantly surprised. The ability to take advantage of the left hemisphere is a great asset for artists in all fields.

The delete key

2010-09-22T09:55:00.001-05:00

or a quiet night—maybe

My characters aren’t talking to me tonight although they are whispering among themselves. I think I ticked them off because I took a nap instead instead of listened. It’s okay. I used the time to read through some passages, correct little things, make deep cuts and do some research.

I lost about 1,000 words once I pulled the notes out. Lost another 500 when I started revising. Normally, I don’t think about word count and even now I don’t really think about it until I’m done. I’m just one of those people who tracks things that seem arbitrary to other people but make perfect sense to me.

There was a time when I wrote strictly longhand but it has become secondary to the computer since I can now type faster than I can write. That wasn’t always true. I had developed the skill of writing almost as fast as people talk. I had my own set of abbreviations and wrote in a script-print. It devolved when I started using a tape recorder. Eventually it devolved to chicken scratch when my writing became more other-work-related instead of writing. I also use a computer because unlike a typewriter, where you may have to retype the work a dozen times, the computer will keep it forever — as long as you back it up regularly. I still have an affinity for typewriters, particularly the blue IBM Selectric II. My mom used to think I was a master typist. I told her the truth was I could correct as fast as I could type. The Selectrics had a white-out tape. Today, I can still delete as fast as I can type.

Oh, hey. Somebody’s calling me. “I’m coming!” I might be gaining some words after all.

- - - - -

Word count: 29,898, only 129-word difference

Deciphering notes

2010-09-21T22:29:00.000-05:00

and sleeping off my sleepless night

Seems like every time I turned today I was jotting notes. I had a page full, scribbled in every space available. Sometimes extreme fatigue is a writer's best friend, actually. The brain is less controlled, allowing creativity to flow. Of course, it can also make our writing messy. I knew I would have to decipher my when I got home but first I would need a nap.

Napping used to be laying on the sofa watching a Star Trek movie on my VHS machine (those were the days, eh?); 15 minutes and I was out for two hours. Why Star Trek? Why not? Funny, intriguing, interesting characters and creatures. It was always one I’d seen a thousand times so my brain could relax, not worry about missing something. This technique has served me well over the years. My mom is on the sofa these days, watching Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy while she crochets so I crawl into my bed. Napping in bed is risky. I may not get up if I am too tired — or too comfortable.

I’ve taken a generic Ibuprophen tablet because when I am this tired I need something to ease the fatigue headache and coax me to sleep. (A sleeping tablet doesn’t always work or works too well.) I’ve drawn the drapes, popped a favorite DVD movie into my television, significantly lowered the brightness and contrast, reduced the sound to a soft murmur, just enough to keep the characters in my head quiet and set the sleep mode for 20 minutes. Why not just set the television? Because most of what’s on television disturbs the senses and if those commercials get any louder or any longer, shows will be reduced to 20 minutes and used merely to fill the gaps between commercials. They are almost there already.

Which movie? Happy Feet. Yep, animated. You can laugh if you want but this is a great movie filled with delightful humor, an incredibly diverse music selection, some wonderful characters, a love affair, a “wizard,” and an outcast penguin, a prodigal son. Plus, I’ve seen it a thousand times so my brain relaxes and I can sleep—which I did for about two and a half hours.

Now that I have deciphered my notes and filled them into the spaces, it is time to flesh out the characters more and write more scenes or link more scenes.

The current word count? 30,027