Someone Asked About Artwork…
Not writing, but creativity nonetheless. I paint ceramics; this is an example (not as high res as I’d like) of my pointillism style.
Incidental Writing
I’ve got a neighbor with a first-person-shooter problem. Well, it’s my problem, but his sub-woofers. I circulated this document to the folks in my building. So far, quiet. Maybe it’s because tomorrow’s Monday… We’ll see.
Still, it’s the kind of letter I’d like to receive if I were the guilty party. A bit funny, very clear in expectations, with just the slightest fillip of consequences. Feel free to distribute, but please don’t charge for this.
Dr. Who as a Writer’s Franchise
Forget JK, or JRR… I’d love to have something with the staying power of Dr. Who as my legacy. Well, we all have our fantasies.
Via: CableTV.com
Appearing at a Drash Pit Near You…
I’m a regular contributor to Drash Pit, a Jewish webzine composed of snark triggered by Torah. This month’s issue was devoted to “shunning.” My poem is up there, on the DrashPit.com site.
(Oh, and if you like buttons like the one at the right, check out zazzle.co.uk.)
Fractal Lists of Things to Do
I’m drowning under the increasing lists of things to do. To-do items are fractal: each produces subordinate or successor objects, each demanding its time slot, its focus, its ramp-up and ramp-down resources and time.
Apparently it’s good for the writing soul, since I’ve started writing poetry after more than an eight-month hiatus. (Okay, there’s no causal link, but I’m trying to make lemonade here.)
More later — too many people hovering overhead.
Progress, Embarrassment and Poetry
Great, a P.E.P. talk.
I haven’t written a good, solid poem (first draft, of course) in literally months. I get that way: in going over my record of about 550 poems (the edited, “finished” ones, not drafts or juvenalia) I’ve had gaps of over a year at some points. This seven month gap is the longest in at least fifteen years. The draft isn’t ready for sharing, but was triggered, the day a car was rammed by a local commuter train, by the smell of creosote warming in the 90+ degree sun off the railroad ties at a train station.
Smells are said to be our strongest memory joggers. What’s irritating to me is that they job the fact that I have a memory, but I can’t remember why that smell is a trigger to remember something. Ah, the joys of incipient senior moments. The creosote was a pervasive smell where I hung out in Riverdale, down past the “jungle,” by the train tracks on the banks of the Hudson River near the NYC/Yonkers border. It was a great place for me to be daring, standing close to the trains as they whipped by: cargo, commuter, passenger… and sometimes the repair trains with their cranes. I remember when they built an overpass so people wouldn’t have to cross the tracks directly. And I remember walking over a tiny, rusted footbridge that was the only way across before it was replaced. I can’t imagine letting my kids go off and do that. And I guess I shouldn’t wonder what my kids have been doing while I haven’t been hovering overhead.
More anon. Sleep, perchance a deep dream, tonight.
Shlomi Down
Took some time off Friday to have strangers plumb my innards. Bottom line: I’ve got nice innards. (I could have told ’em that.) I also decided to heed my body: even after an only 15 minute procedure early Friday morning, my body is still clamoring for attention. Slept more since then than I did the entire week before. Okay, maybe I needed more sleep, but 13 hours at a stretch? What a luxury! What a slothful rack of time!
I’m in the metaphorical saddle again, juggling the usual too many things to do, aiming to do a few. Only a few: otherwise I thrash around getting none done.
Today: a few little web site things…
Facebook Down
As of this writing Facebook is unreachable from my computer. Everything else (including this, obviously) is present and accounted for.
It must take a lot to clobber Facebook, even in a limited geographic area. I depend on it to connect with other authors and poets — it’s a weird, early bump in my normal routine.
Okay, okay, I just want to see what “Being Liberal” is on about this morning. 🙂
I Really Know How to Make Life Difficult
In reading a bunch of space opera and humor/horror books lately (yes, it’s procrastination under guise of research), I’m realizing how difficult I make my writing life. My characters aren’t in a soap opera, they’re doing an ‘Around the World in 80 Days’ reshoot. In Induction, my main character goes through:
- El Paso
- Parts of New Mexico
- Odessa, TX
- Shep, TX
- San Angelo, TX
- New Orleans, LA
- Parts of Oregon
- Tacoma and parts of Washington
- At sea
- Towns in Russia
- More at sea
Multiple descriptions of places throughout. My character would have to have an accompanying travelogue for the novel to be vividly visually described (I like the writing, it’s very readable, go buy it!). It’s tough to situate a character in one place after another. The character doesn’t get to act as if they’re on their turf. The scene is a character, and how the humans interact with the scene is as much an expression of the people as their dialog.
So I’m going to write something (well, adapt an existing piece) with that in mind. And write with more luster, more… cowbell.