Fruit and Memory - 100 Words

The field is full of fruit. It's picking time. Fred wires the big speakers in the trees so the workers can listen to their music. The accordions remind him of the polkas he learned back in dancing school. Dusty Thursday nights where he learned which girls you could touch and where.

It wasn't till he was in his 20's that he learned that his gropings were not a secret to his parents and that this was their goal. Apparently they were worried that their poetry-loving little boy was headed down the wrong sexual path. Fred Smiles. They were so wrong.

100 Words- Roman Numerals

Norman started normal. Gwen did not. Roman numerals were the undoing of them both. Norman by way of a mistake at a Superbowl party where he mistook an L for an I and was the subject of so much ridicule that he never chanced speaking out loud again. Gwen on the other hand was traumatized by a misaligned sun dial.

They met one day at a support group for unsupportable neuroses. They found each other among the folding metal chairs and Styrofoam cups and lived silently ever after in a cute little house with no clocks or periodic sporting events.

Quiet - 100 words

Sunset over the fishing boats. Where have all the sea lions gone? It's so quiet you can hear the sheets slapping the masts in the breeze. No seagulls. No otters. A distant fog horn. No fog here.

The fishermen pack their things away weary and uneasy. They don't talk much and seem guilty when they do. The beauty of the quiet had been broken. They have sinned.

The sun is now down. The men gone. The breeze has retired for the night. Even the ocean is unsettlingly still. As if the world has ground to gentle halt. Time to sleep.

Some story arcs are flat

Not all story arcs reach for the stars.

Some story arcs are gently rolling hills and plateaus. Now I just have to get the inner critics to agree.

Here's what led me to this train of thought; I was meditating and a worry cloud drifted in. My new novel is forming well but didn't seem to be going anywhere. There was no big story climax on the horizon. Then I realized that's OK. I've read and enjoyed many novels that had no car crashes or explosions.

Now that I've gotten over that for my current novel, I realize that was the problem with the recently abandoned novel as well. I was forcing all the characters into an artificial drama that even I couldn't make sense of. I will however finish the current project before I go back to the other one.

The current novel is the story of a woman's life. My attempts at plotting have concentrating on some big and explosive way for her to die at the end, but that just doesn't fit the character or the message I think she is trying to send. Now I realize that she must die quietly and oldly to make her life complete. She is a survivor, so she must survive as long as humanly possible.

I attribute the desire the need for explosions and car chases to an inner critic I call The Manly Man. He thinks I have far too feminine an outlook on life. He's one of those go big or go home kind of characters, but since he lives in my head he's already home.

He is usually quieted by a vigorous bike ride and watching a Shakira video or two, but as I've managed lately to calm most of my other inner critics he's gotten pushier. I think he enjoys the increased attention.

Writing is a salad of tears, fears and beers

Fortunately I hate salad. Doesn’t make sense? Of course it doesn’t.

I sit here at the keyboard dealing with a huge ego and debilitated self-esteem. By definition those two should be mutually exclusive but in practice they are separate entities. What it boils down to is that I feel I should be a great writer, but don’t believe that I am. As every teacher I ever had would say, “I’m not living up to my potential.”

The worst thing is that it’s no longer mass-production educators looking at standardized tests defining my potential, it’s me. You always think you outgrow these sorts of things but you don’t. For your entire childhood the phrase is hammered into your head. It gets pretty stuck down in there.

So now I’m the one setting the target of potential and I pretty much suck at it. The worst thing is that I know that I have unrealistic expectations but can’t seem to lower the bar. On the other hand I have this fear that if I lower the bar too much I’ll become a veg.

It’s weird because at work, when I have such, I’m an expert at cutting big problems down to achievable chunks. However when it comes to real life, and especially my writing projects, I can never get past the enormity of a project.

As I work on my new novel I try to concentrate on the scene, but I find myself using the current scene to set up the next scene that I haven’t started yet. That’s not fair to the current scene at all. Dare I say, I’m not letting it live up to its potential.

So what’s my point? Actually I just realized that I’m having this bitch session to shield my new characters from all this negativity. I guess I’m afraid of hammering negative attitudes into their impressionable little personalities. I don’t want them to suffer as I do.

A case of distracted writing

It’s not the external but the internal noise that leads to distracted writing.

It’s not writer’s block, because I’m still writing. The problem is that I’ve taken on all these projects and I jump from one to the other. I’m having trouble working on the new novel and instead work on the blogs and social network posts and trivial real life things like looking for a job.

It’s easy to prioritize the small stuff because it’s doable. This blog post I’m writing now will be done within the hour. The ability to finish something is attractive. It satisfies my creative need and allows me to move on.

The novel on the other hand is not finishable. Yes someday it will be done, but that someday is a long way away. Months of work are ahead of me. I’m not complaining about the effort because I love getting lost in the creation of a story and its world. The problem is how do I put aside the little projects that satisfy my need for closure.

I come back again to my Puritan work ethic. Writing is what I do for fun, so it’s seen as something to do when work is done. In the back of my head work is more important than play. I don’t seem to fully believe that just because I enjoy something doesn’t mean it isn’t work.

I’ve started a dialog with my inner critics on this subject, but haven’t found the right one yet. It turns out that I have several inner critics, not just one. Each one has a different set of roles and concerns. I used to just try to ignore these critics but I’m learning to listen to them and work out compromises that are mutually beneficial.

The problem is that distracted writing is caused by several distinct critics. The perfectionist, the guilt-tripper, the gratification-seeker, the approval-seeker and other yet-defined voices are at play here. Satisfying all of them may be difficult.

Poor Emily

The state of Tom's Novels address.

Novel 1: Broke Down on the Road to Glory

Self-published. I love this book, but it's the kind of love I can't recommend to others. Like a really bad movie that you still love despite all its flaws.

Novel 2: Unrealistic Expectations

Abandoned. Written for Novel in a Month. Countless rewrites but never found a story I wanted to tell. I expect I'll use some parts of this in a later project. It has some great scenes, just no reason for those scenes to exist.

Novel 3: Untitled

Also abandoned. Many false starts but you can tell from the fact that it never earned a title that I never got a grasp on what I was trying to do. I think I was trying too hard to make a story for other people and not myself.

Novel 4: Remnants of Emily (Current Project)

I've had this idea for a while. Emily is the humanization and fictionalization of the life of a dog we once had. Her name was Emily and she was the ultimate crotchety old lady dog. The fictional Emily has a tough life, starting from the opening scene of her birth which is full of violence, drugs and an army of tiny nurse nuns. I think it's a comedy.

Non-fiction: Assorted, on-going

I'm writing lots of blog posts lately on a variety of topics. Mostly trying to show off for potential employers. Now that I'm working on the Emily novel I don't think I'll as much time/energy for the blogs.

External Factors

Most of my energy is going towards the job hunt and learning new skills to improve my employability. I feel like I'm going to get a job soon and when I do I will switch all my job hunting energy into my writing. (If the new job isn't too tiring.)

Tom's Novels

Tom's state of the novels address.

Novel 1: Broke Down on the Road to Glory

Self-published. I love this book, but it's the kind of love I can't recommend to others. Like a really bad movie that you still love despite all its flaws.

Novel 2: Unrealistic Expectations

Abandoned. Written for Novel in a Month. Countless rewrites but never found a story I wanted to tell. I expect I'll use some parts of this in a later project. It has some great scenes, just no reason for those scenes to exist.

Novel 3: Untitled

Also abandoned. Many false starts but you can tell from the fact that it never earned a title that I never got a grasp on what I was trying to do. I think I was trying too hard to make a story for other people and not myself.

Novel 4: Remnants of Emily (Current Project)

I've had this idea for a while. Emily is the humanization and fictionalization of the life of a dog we once had. Her name was Emily and she was the ultimate crotchety old lady dog. The fictional Emily has a tough life, starting from the opening scene of her birth which is full of violence, drugs and an army of tiny nurse nuns. I think it's a comedy.

Non-fiction: Assorted, on-going

I'm writing lots of blog posts lately on a variety of topics. Mostly trying to show off for potential employers. Now that I'm working on the Emily novel I don't think I'll as much time/energy for the blogs.

External Factors

Most of my energy is going towards the job hunt and learning new skills to improve my employability. I feel like I'm going to get a job soon and when I do I will switch all my job hunting energy into my writing. (If the new job isn't too tiring.)

Writing is a game - 100 words

Writing is a game played on the keyboard. The rules are pretty flexible and will often change from one round to another. Sometimes it's best to throw the rules out the window and dance around the page till you bump your head on something sharp. Fall down, get up and flail about once again. Maybe this time you will trip over an ottoman and launch into 300 words on Mary Tyler Moore and the sacrilege of the Rob and Laura beds. Really, how did they ever have a son? Where was I? Oh yes, playing around with mind and page.

Bone jewelry and enemas - 100 words

The only thing creepier than dreams about ninjas attacking me in motel rooms is the ads that are showing up on my computer after researching those dreams online. Handsome men and ugly women in shining armor on motorcycles trying to sell me hot yoga, human bone jewelry and enemas.

To deflect the ads I searched for Katy Perry and Hello Kitty but that just made things worse. I can't even describe the images the internet tried to sell me. So I searched for monster trucks and punk rock. Now I'm being offered doom and gloom but it's better than enemas.