Nobody cares if I have a breakthrough in the narrative. Nobody cares if I nail the dialogue or a description. Nobody cares if I write one word or a thousand.
Nobody cares what I do today. Huh.
It’s True. Nobody Cares
Tag Archives: self-absorption
Writing Process: Out of the Muck
I had a dream about a broken-down electric dog, its wiring hanging out, paneling split open, trying to climb out of a muddy hole, pawing and digging and getting nowhere. I didn’t like it.
As much as I might tend to deflect and joke about my current malaise, it’s what depression might be, realizing how pointless everything is. It’s a dark fucking cloud, not knowing what to do, which direction to turn, to carry on or not, giving up and admitting the failure. Drinking to that. It isn’t a good feeling. It’s shit.
And then it’s not. It’s something else. The light. A sound. A thought. Something to do. Not phone games or social media, but the work, things that need to be done. First things first: stuff the wiring back in and get up out of the muck.
Truth as a Sitcom
If there is truth in a contrived show with a laugh-track, then what? It’s just drinks from there on. Isn’t it? Or am I wrong?
Or to be more opaque, the rich are always looking for discount deals. And they don’t need them. That’s the point of being rich. And if anything, they’re greedier for the deals than anyone else. Or am I wrong?
As far as I understand it, we have only two options: a. Have nothing and dream of having something OR b. Have everything and dream of having something else. Or am I wrong?
Malaise or Deep Vein Thrombosis?
I have been anxiety-ridden as of late, much of which is due to writing the final book of my speculative work, The Cx Trilogy. I’ve recently written notes for the outline and even glanced through the first few pages but have mostly been plagued by inertia. Distracted by my literary angst, I packed my toiletries into my luggage for the flight to Greenland, forgetting that I needed my dose of blood-thinner.
I didn’t realize the oversight until boarding and had to accept that I would be fine as long as I walked about on the four-hour flight. I looked down at the continent and then went through the list of the films, stumbling upon Steven Soderbergh’s Let Them All Talk starring Meryl Streep as a well-known author named Alice Hughes.
I was pleasantly surprised by the film which featured literary angst, engaging dialogue and a cleverly entwined plot until I was surprised (spoiler alert!!) to see Ms. Hughes suddenly die of Deep Vein Thrombosis. I got up immediately to walk.
Of course there was no real reason for alarm. Ms. Hughes’ case was severe and her writing far more of a success. It was funny, and that was it. Another moment of me thinking the world was about me.
Our Unspoken Selves
Our history is unspoken, a nightmare only the subconscious knows. Human nature is deceit, the oxymoron of how we honestly treat one another and what we pretend for ourselves. From now on, we will sleep no more.
There has never been a record of truth. That was the epiphany of the Nazis. It’s only getting worse now, where the shadows become real, and the nightmare is complete. Because, as horrible as they are, you and I are the very same.
Who I say I think I am
I try to think about who I am and what I know, but I don’t know what any of that means. It’s a thing off in the distance, someplace that I thought I might have been, even convinced myself of that, and have now lost.
I know what I want to be. No, that’s a lie too. Even if I said that I knew what I want, or that I thought that I knew that, I wouldn’t. The more I think that I know the who and what, the more I’m further from it because I think that. It’s a façade.
Confidence is the thing, believing in those lies is what makes you that you in you. The deeper you get, the further you are from the same. A gosh-darned paradox!
And so…something else. Drugs and whores! No confusion there. Or all confusion. Signs of it all gone awry. At least it’s not a façade. Or the façade of facades. Good copy anyway.
Proud as I’m Allowed to Be
I lent her my car and then needed it to go out to the graduation. We drove together and kissed goodbye.
I ended up in a misshapen entourage of graduates as they exited the cathedral and watched them make a mockery of decorum and distancing protocols. They were having fun and the school had to let it all go.
They took me along, and I should have left at my first opportunity, but I’ve always been told it’s a free world, and so I stayed until I had had enough of my mistakes.
The judge accepted all of this, as did my counsel. But not me. I think about what happened and what could have been.
Writing Process: Unconscious Self
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.
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.
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.
I want to write like I thought I would.
Young Chronicles XXII: Fortune to Port-Aux-Basque, Newfoundland
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).
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: Am I Any Good?
Every once in a while, it occurs to me that I’ve been writing for a long while, over 36 years now, writing my novels and screenplays, short stories and articles, and I have yet to get it anywhere of import, nothing but meaningless articles published in community papers.
It has dawned on me that I might not be that good, that, as much as I pretend to deny my desire for vainglory, I crave it as much as the next. It may also be that my writing is bilgewater (my father’s expression), that I drivel on because I am on immature autopilot.
However, my extreme subjectivity understood, I don’t think so. I believe that I understand what’s in a character’s head, what moments mean something and what others do not, what this experiment of ours, humans that is, might or might not be, and that I can express that in words and phrases. My thoughts burn ahead. (Which might explain why I always get fired.)
Anyway, that’s the trickery inside that pushed me on here, ready to take on the big bloggers like Gala Darling and Heather Armstrong and say, well, you know, I might not know marketing and key words but I do know something about…uh, not so sure what that is, but, fucking hell, I have Zake’s Orchestral Studies Collectanae looping in my head, and that has to be worth something.
