On Focus (Again, and Again, and Again!)

shlomi on June 10, 2012

Six months ago for some reason I had a clearer “plate” for writing. But third rewrites, frantically writing down scraps of ideas for new stories, and working on what is turning out to be a monumental task for a simple thing (Google Charts embedded in WordPress, with data updates), plus the flotsam and jetsam of life’s issues, had made for a plate of raw squid tentacles (calamari, for those trying to keep with the metaphor) entangled with angel hair pasta, glued together in a sauce of lost time and chores.

And on my ride to work my train buddies ask “how’s the writing going.” It’s about discipline, I want to say. “And if you find mine, please give it back to me.”

So today I finish the rewrite of Generation to Generation so I can give it to one LAST reader before getting a {sigh} cover together.

Incidental Writing

shlomi on May 28, 2012

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.

 

Appearing at a Drash Pit Near You…

shlomi on May 20, 2012

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

shlomi on May 6, 2012

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

shlomi on May 2, 2012

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

shlomi on April 29, 2012

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…

I Really Know How to Make Life Difficult

shlomi on April 22, 2012

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.

A Return? On a 99 cent short story?

shlomi on April 21, 2012

I’m going to take the high road and assume that someone accidentally purchased Consent, meaning to buy a $200 tome instead. And I’ll make that my final answer, since I didn’t get an accompanying lashing of a review.

{grumble}

I doodled on a Generation to Generation cover, and quickly realized that if my stick figures weren’t awful enough, stick figures in perspective, spinning back in time, arranged as a double helix certainly didn’t showcase any nascent talent I might believe I have in that arena.

Splitting today into cooking, finishing G2G and getting it up online, and continuing to work on a WordPress plugin to integrate Google Charts into a blog site.

Dusting Off “Finished” Pieces

shlomi on April 19, 2012

The problem with writing is that, with practice, it improves. I went back to a really nice piece I’d written, intending to slap formatting on it and bring it up as an e-book short story. (As I did with Consent a few days back — thanks to all of you who’ve purchased it for the exorbitant, crazy price of under a buck!)

My writing friend JNE calls ’em ‘vampire words.’ They suck energy from scenes, dull down dialog… and the dang story dripped with them. ‘Began.’ ‘Felt.’ ‘Seemed.’ ‘Was.’

Rewriting is a recursive experience. One sentence leans on the next, paragraphs on their neighbors, and the whole short story on it’s scenes. The patient lies still on its word processing operating table, mostly put back together, but with yet a distance to travel.

Hopefully I can figure out how to create a cover for it — I really need to learn how to draw.

CONTEST!!! Speaking of publishing, with all the folks buying Consent there aren’t any reviews. Any and all would be much appreciated! I’ll pick a reviewer at random and write them into a story I’m just wrapping up. The higher the rating, the better the character in the story!