Writing Organic Dialogue

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One of my few strengths as a writer is dialogue. I rarely use an outline or definitive plan. Instead I focus on knowing the characters, watching them move and interact. Most important of all is knowing what their motivation is for the scene (why they there and what they want) as well as their background and relationship with the other(s).

I spend a great deal of time in thinking about how the scene starts, the exact lines and scene, and keep that moment in my head. It is almost like a moving snapshot – a gif as it were – that goes around and around, anxious to get out of the loop. And then I let them go and do what they want. At that point, it’s just a question of keeping up with what they say, basically transcribing as they go. They can get stuck, repeat themselves and run down blind alleys. It’s all a matter of trying to keep them on track.

The trick is to move ahead for as long as their voice stay strong. And when the momentum is gone, to step back a little and start again, like getting a car out of the muck, rock it back and forth until it’s back on track. Once the scene is done, it needs to be run through again a couple more times. Time is needed after that, a few days to do a proper edit, focusing on the structure and repetitions and that oh-so-impossible satisfying arc.

A Place to Write: The Magic of the New York City Pub

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I remember my first visit on a holiday afternoon. It was warm and quiet, a few people talking at the bar. A football game was on television, the teams on a snowy field. I pulled up a stool and ordered a Bud and a Jameson and thought of staying forever.

My Bud and Jamo at The Irish Punt

Whenever I am anywhere else, I think of getting back here where I can think and write, where I am left alone by everybody (except the bartender that is). If allowed, I would curl up against the rail and go to sleep beneath the warm bottle-filtered lights.

The bottles behind the bar at The Irish Punt

This place is called The Irish Punt, and it is peace and quiet. It offers the certainty of being somewhere, where my mind is clear. Indeed, why ever leave, just to be somewhere, going somewhere else? Why do any of that when I can stay here and order another Bud and Jameson, which I think I will do.

Writing Process: What If You Don’t Know What To Write?

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A close friend recently texted me: Write what you know. It’s good advice, like Keep It Simple Stupid or Seize the Day. Then again, what if I stay in bed too long? Make it slightly complicated? And I just don’t know?

Army personnel at The Javits Center during the outbreak of Covid-19, New York, 2020

I’m writing a speculative trilogy about going to another planet, which is something that I know nothing about. But I do know about promise and failure. I know I think of my flaws as attributes. I know that there is a fine line between when to choose the sensible thing and the brave. I know that I am as self centered and mean spirited as the rest. And I know that I will be alone in the end.

Abandoned sign near Wall Street, New York, September 2020

And so it becomes jumbled. Yes, I know what I know. But I think I know too much of that. It might come clear in my dreams, but who wants to hear about that? I’ll tell you about my mother. Actually I think I already did.

So here’s the story: Guy writes a blog for eight years and then writes that one true thing that gets shared to every corner of the galaxy and becomes the soothsayer for all. Share that!

Writing Process: 3 Thoughts

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#1 A story is not self about self. That is hubris.

#2 Do not describe what the reader can already see.

#3 In the end, the story is about the disgustingness of one another.

Writing Process: Unconscious Self

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I want to write like music. I want to write in a sustained sound. I want to write in a loop that goes around, on and on. I want to write with never-ending tension. I want to write like the opening of a door, the scuffle of feet, the distant sound of something coming soon.

My Bloody Valentine, Hammerstein Ballroom, 2010

I want to write like I dream and see my mother, looking young and sharp, in the car with me to the airport, our bags overflowing out the back, a starship flier picking us up before we even get there, continents vanishing in steam.

View from Crown Mountain, BC

I want to write like it was left unsaid, like eyes see. I want to write in a burrow, like roots to rocks. I want to write words that mean something else in their unconscious self.

Documenta 2017, Kassel, Germany

I want to write like I thought I would.

Buying Secrets from the Past: NHL Action Players

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I spend a lot of time digging into my memories. I look at pictures of me as a boy – fishing on the dock, beside the Christmas Tree, with our dog Celeste – trying to access that momentous time. I have also tried to searched out childhood things like Checkerboard Ice Cream and Pantry cookies, both of which I cherished in those days and both of which have vanished.

Modern-Day Checkerboard Ice Cream but not my brand (Not the Gluten-free notation!)

It seems somehow possible that if I could just taste them again, I would rediscover a key note to my uncluttered mind, like the magic of holding the tin or the feeling of my bare legs against the kitchen linoleum. But I have not been able to find either.

Something I have found is the NHL Action Players Book from Loblaws grocery store.

Toronto Maple Leafs page of Loblaws NHL Action Players

I collected these stickers from the Loblaws grocery store, furiously opening strip after strip to fill the booklet, trading for missing stamps, finding out who had found the un-find-able ones. There were dozens of Larry Carriere and Walt McKechnie and so few of Guy Lambert and Don Awry. It was impossible to find those.

NHL Action Players available for purchase on Ebay.

And then Doug Crosby, a rich and somewhat simple boy in my class, bought the completed book from Edward Etchells for $50. The class bully Andy McAlpine mocked him. “You idiot! That’s not how it’s done!”

Class bully Andy McAlpine today.

I realize that the whole thing was about the experience of collecting things, but why not do it Doug Crosby’s way? Why go through all of the hassle of bartering for the rare stickers when you could just buy the whole thing in one shot? As much as Doug seemed to have missed the point, Andy totally misses it. It’s not about scamming the system but learning from the experiences of the thing, be that finding Don Awry or eating Checkerboard Ice Cream.

Sex Meanings of Animal Emojis

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I used to send random animal emojis to confirm receipt of a text, until I realized that I had no idea what I was really saying, that I could be sending the wrong message to former students who had the code book for what these things really meant.

And so after sensible analysis and broad assumption, here are The Secret Sex Meanings of Twelve Animal Emojis:

Cat Emoji (U+1F408)
Alert Cat – Foreplay
Badger on Apple iOS 12.1
Badger – Ready to Please
Say hello to the new giraffe, shark, owl and boar Animoji in iOS 12.2
Giraffe – Cunnilingus
How To Get The 70 New Emoji, Because You *Need* This Hedgehog
Hedgehog – Fuck buddy
Lady Beetle Emoji (U+1F41E)
Ladybug – Clitoris
🐒 Monkey Emoji — Meaning, Copy & Paste
Monkey – Masturbation
🐡 Blowfish Emoji
Puffer Fish – About to Explode
Raccoon – Bondage Games
Rhinoceros Emoji (U+1F98F)
Rhino – Horny
Scorpion Emoji (U+1F982)
Scorpion – One-night Stand
Unicorn Face Emoji (U+1F984)
Unicorn – Multi-orgasmic
🐗 Boar Emoji — Meaning, Copy & Paste
Warthog – Outdoor Sex

More to follow after further research,

Young Chronicles XXII: Fortune to Port-Aux-Basque, Newfoundland

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The Young Chronicles detail my 1983 hitchhiking trip across Canada. Having completed the initial Toronto to St. John’s, Newfoundland leg of the journey, this section covers the return trip back across Newfoundland.

June 16, 1983 Mileage 35 miles

Ride One: Fortune to Grand Bank, Newfoundland. Old turquoise pickup truck. 23-year-old man with toothy grin. Wants to get out of Fortune.

Ride Two: Grand Bank to four miles down road. Old pickup truck. Toolbox. Nice man.

Ride Three: To Marystown. Pickup truck. Young guy, moose hunter, works on the oil platforms, six months on, six months off. Off to fish in Gander, Labrador soon.

Stayed in Mariner’s Lodge run by an old guy. “Been everywhere and know everything.”

June 17, 1983 Mileage 418 miles

Ride One: Marystown to Clarenville. Old car. Squeaky 200-pound moose hunter.

Ride Two: Clarenville to Trans Canada Turnoff. Blue pickup truck. Middle-aged guy with no right hand index finger. Electrician moose hunter. Loves screech and special mild cigarettes.

Ride Three: TCH Turnoff too Gander. Old Blue car. Old lady who told story of mongoloid children from a little red bible. “God bless you.”

Ride Four: Gander to Corner Brook. Old Buick. Young guy who took pictures and hunted moose. Quiet except about moose.

Stayed in Bridgeway Motel with two beds. Upcoming Red Rider concert advertised heavily on radio. Ate a hamburger at an old diner. Still cold. High of 24.

June 18, 1983 Mileage 137 miles PLUS ferry trip back to mainland

Ride One: To “a better exit”. Small car with a guy and girl. “I’ll show you a better exit.”

Ride Two: Corner Brook to Stephenville. Canadian army truck. Guy looked a cartoon character with lips jutting out. Moose hunter

Ride Three: Stephenville to roadside bar 25 north of Port-Aux-Basques. Three guys on a multi-day bender. Doug (groom-to-be, bearded, driver, calm, scar on cheek), Pat (married two years, former speed user), Brian (married three years drinker, mustache) and Tefel (fellow hitchhiker, insecure, loves high speed driving).

Doug, Pat, Brian and Tefel holding the spare tires that acted as back seats.

These guys are all moose poachers and have been jailed four times each. No back seat in the car. Spare tires instead. Shared bottles of beer. I had four. They took us to dump to look for bears and threw empties into the garbage pile. Left them at the bar.

Ride Four: Roadside bar to Port-Aux-Basques Ferry Terminal. Light brown sedan. Mustache and overweight. “Keep all your lanes open in music.”

Overnight ferry to Sydney, Nova Scotia.

Writing Process: Conjuring a Scene

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I am stuck on a scene in my book, Anori. There needs to be something there, but I don’t know what. It begins like this: Dee and Tommy are on the coast of Maine (with Dee’s exotic cat) where they talk about the end of their relationship. A park ranger arrives and tells Dee that exotic animals are not permitted in the state park. The exchange is cordial and the ranger leaves.

But then what? I have a tentative scene of three poachers appearing with a dead moose in the bed of their pickup. The ranger returns and says nothing. The contradiction is the aim. The ranger does nothing because he knows the poachers and will receive compensation. I like the premise of this but don’t know what should happen in the end. It seems that the stakes will have to be raised – Tommy proving himself with bravado or Dee challenging them – but I don’t want this scene to detract from the arc of the novel.

To put into context, the following scene is this: Dee and Tommy return to New York City the next day with Apollo. They spend another night together, and there are moments of hope. Dee begins to reconsider her perspective. But Tommy vanishes early the next morning. Dee is saddened and yet relieved. She returns to her work in Greenland.

Options include: a) Dee and Tommy see the poachers from a distance and leave. (Missed opportunity?) b) Tommy shoots one of them in the foot. And then…they race off to NYC? (Stakes too high?) c) Dee records their confrontation on her phone and threaten to expose the ranger’s corruption. (Convoluted and heavy handed?)

Presently, I am thinking a combination of b) & c). Tommy threatens the poachers and then he and Dee leave the park in a hurry. No one follows. I like the idea, but is it obtuse?

Governing Those Who Hate

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Apparently, 73 million people voted for Trump. We know that the 1%ers are a big part of that, given their insidious lust for money, but that still leaves 68 million hateful ignorami in our midst. Fear and ignorance drive this horde, denying rights and freedoms to anyone with a different way of life.

For those who think that we all just have to sit down and talk, I encourage you to read Wajahat Ali’s Reach Out to Trump Supporter. That should cure you of that delusion.

To understand these people, one only has to paraphrase David Attenborough’s forward to Cameron’s To the Furthest Ends of the Earth on the nature of explorers: Trump supporters (explorers) are not, perhaps, the most promising people with whom to build a society. Some might say that these people become Trump supporters precisely because they have a streak of unsociability and need to remove themselves at regular intervals as far as possible from their fellow man. In other words, these people tend to be self-centered jerks.

And so what do we do with these hate-filled loons? The knowledge is there and they won’t read it. Instead they call it fake and lies. They will not listen. This is not a case of separate bubbles of perception. This is a hateful, ignorant group who will not engage. Time could work, if not for this collapsing world. Our chances are becoming nil to zero. Could they be given a time out or something? Maybe we could come back to them in a year?

And for those who think that we all just have to sit down and talk, I encourage you to read Wajahat Ali’s Reach Out to Trump Supporter. That should cure you of that delusion.