Thought-Drive

Over the past few months, I've been on a kind of cooking quest. I have a lot of gaps in my education and understanding of food, and the most used machine in my various living situations has been the microwave. I had pots and pans, but I had them more out of reasoning that I should because other people had them rather than that I should be using them. I spent some hours staring over a friend's shoulder in late summer as he meal prepped for the week for his family. I learned about cutting techniques and spice families, heating principles and preparation fundamentals. The biggest thing was a growing comfort with the preparation of food, personalizing the various procedures. I've ruined a lot of dishes, but in so doing I've learned a great deal. I'm going to relate this to a recent conversation I had with my cover artist. He sent me the latest version of what he'd been working on and I was, as usual, impressed. However, he expressed to me that he was having diffi

So I have this pair of jeans. I bought them to replace a pair I had from the 90s. It didn't occur to me then, how long clothes, especially jeans, can last, and how important it is to get the correct size and preferable fit. At the time I was just tired. I had driven a long way only to find that they were a little long, and slightly too big. I paid without thinking; I paid for years because I didn't think. Fast forward to now, and they're starting to fall apart, because of wear and because they were too big to begin with. A large hole in the knee finally became too large to ignore, then when I did ignore it, it became even larger. A friend had access to sewing supplies, and gave me instruction on how patching works. I don't know what the fabric was for originally, but it was presented to me as durable and sturdy, and the white color was similar in hue to the faded denim of the thigh and what was left of the knee. I went to work, and after stabbing myself a dozen times,

A lot has been said about the margin of error. Or victory. How small it can be, and how such a small thing increases the size and meaning of easy-to-overlook details. I personally love Al Pacino's speech from Any Given Sunday . The cover for the first book has been done for months. For a similar span, the book has been available for purchase electronically at non-Amazon type places. I get a royalty check here and there. The plan, though, the plan was to push things through over at Amazon in the same interval to become visible to that many more readers. There was a whole timeline, which I dismantled with my incompetence. First the file was in the wrong format, so I had to go back to my artist. Then, it required one image, which included the front cover, the spine, and the back cover. I went back to my artist again. He was very kind to me, making all these after-the-fact changes. All of this because I wanted to fix an issue I had going back some nine years now. At my publisher, be

Not a whole lot to report on the writing end. I've organized my to-do lists, and like every other time recently, was surprised at how much I'm not doing. I have three novels I could be submitting to agents, but I never developed a good system for generating the kind of volume I need to make that worthwhile. There are a lot of success stories about people finding agents, but on average it takes dozens and dozens of submissions before anything sticks. While I'm working on edits, maybe that's something I'll do: make yet another list. In the mean time I looked at this image in layers. First was the first-response factor; did I like it in and of itself. Then the content factor; did it do what I needed it to do as a cover for the novel resting behind it. On to the logistic factor; thinking about the issues last time, where does my byline go, and the title, and does that obscure any of the finer elements to be placed later. I'm happy when I think about the even

Been a while. So long that I can't really remember when I last wrote here, or what about. I have a distant recollection of some ambitious plan perfumed with an abundance of optimism. I'm not going to be a downer. I'll just say that I've learned a lot. Today I sit in a laundromat while my dirty clothes rotate in soapy water. I always wondered about those people, in the movies and TV shows, sorting garments and slotting coins. I can now add that experience to the list of recent experiences. I don't see the same people regularly like I thought I would. I don't have any conversations with strangers like I hoped I would. Like I feared I would.  But the weekly chore-ritual has settled into its place, predictable and quantifiable. What I haven't been able to work through as yet is the writing. And I guess that part is a bit debatable. An artist friend professes that thinking about writing, outlining, sketching, even drafting temporary, unrelated things counts.

Every now and again I hear a story about a conspiracy of events, where a person is in the right place at the right time, having just experienced a prepatory series of events that puts them in the right mind space to receive whatever opportunity. I always wonder if it's the human brain seeking to order events in retrospect into some sort of providence, or if it really is a stroke of the divine. Yesterday I was up in the mountains of Blue Ridge. A friend was having a celebration, and I had been asked months previous if I would attend. It being so far removed, and the request being so vague, I agreed without giving it much thought. Had I had all the information ahead of time, my answer very likely would've been different. However, as I sit here delivered, having passed through the crucible safe and sound, I'm glad I went. "When they told me you were coming, I didn't believe it." That's what my friend, the guest of honor said. I couldn't refute the

I don't keep physical lists of things I need to do. Rather, I keep mental lists that I obsess over continuously. I moved recently, and going from apartment to apartment, there's a lot to do, a lot of ends and beginnings. Internet and utilities, account numbers and ending balances. Changes of address. I didn't have the internet for a few weeks, and not for a lack of trying. I learned a lot about modems and MAC numbers and networking and customer service. From my one favorite chair, I toured the world as I was transferred again and again. I felt bad for the people who had to read me scripts about how much they cared about my problems and couldn't use their real names. All of it was a great opportunity to put things off. I haven't written on the new novel, and difficulties in the lives of my editor and my illustrator ground the publishing to a halt as well. I took a cue from their situations and stopped working myself. Work picked up along with the summer heat and..

I imagine that if I read more how-to books about writing, or read any at all, I'd know more about why certain writers write, and how writing came to certain authors. I know that for me, in the beginning, before being in college and having a mentor, before filling notebooks with stories instead of class notes, before I chose to write to articulate my frustrations and confusions, before all of that I had images multiplying in my head. My parents chided me for making sound effects with my mouth as I walked ruts in the carpet, from the kitchen, to the dining room, through the den, down the hallway, over and over and over again. They'd pick me up and sit me down on the couch, or tell me to go to my room, whatever it took to make it stop. I don't know where it came from, but I do know that I was never good at staying in the lines, or shading, or coloring. I had plenty of mental images, but there was a disconnect between what I saw behind my eyes and what I could create with my u

I made a plan for summer in mid spring; I guess that was my first mistake. The cover artist and I have settled on the line drawing, and color is being added. I'm told by the end of the week it should be about done. I'm pretty excited, however I am not in possession of the edited version of the inside of the book. All in all, in my abstract dreaming, I wanted all of this to be done before now, so the first book would be out in April, the second in May, so on and so forth. It was neat, in my mind, very orderly and squared. That should've been the first red flag that it wasn't going to work out how I planned. So, I'm not really sure where I am, exactly. I'm in limbo at work, too. Spring semester has ended, and the summer session isn't quite here, yet. The first week's first day was a lot of sitting around looking at emails I'd already opened. I've revised up to the 4th book, turned back around and mad some decisions about some dangling choices in

I don't think collaboration is a skill that automatically comes with the writer tool set. A lot of the quotes about writing and being a writer mostly involve ideas like stillness and solitude. But no matter how good the words in the book ultimately are, the initial cover presentation accounts for a lot. I guess it's very similar to attracting a desired mate. In most cases, they see us first. Before they know anything about us, they interpret how we choose to express ourselves outwardly. I can't speak for other writers, but I don't draw all that well. Certainly not well enough to produce a cover. Nor do I have any talent at all at photography or graphic design or painting. I tell people, in fact, that it's because I can't express my ideas in a representative fashion that forces my words to come out the way that they do. So, all of that is to say I had to tell someone else about what I wanted my cover to look like. This was the initial sketch the artist produced

I saw my first author information sheet more than a few years ago. It asked questions about the main characters, what they looked like, the setting of the story, and what I wanted my cover to look like. To say I didn't know about any of that would be an understatement. I knew who the characters were, what they looked like, but I knew so little then about covers that it may as well have been nothing. When I finally got into rounds of revision with the cover artist I began to understand the difficulty of two people trying to share the same vision. I understood what my theatre friends told me about artistic collaboration, and why it was it important, and how it could be so difficult. And that was way, way before anyone broke down for me why some covers sell, why some don't, and what a reader is actually shopping for when they're scrolling through images that represent books they might buy and read. Today, after days of scouring portfolios and reading reviews and re-reading

On Friday I had another opportunity to talk to creative writing class at a local high school. The teacher expressed the writers taking the course having some issues with their worlds being believable, and being unable to tell what changes are needed to create immersive settings. So, I went in and talked to them about suspension of disbelief and immersion and internal logic. I had them do a writing exercise about a character's day in the life in a world just like ours except for one specific change (one group opted for everyone being born with a third arm, and the second group voted for dinosaurs never dying out), after which we discussed things they learned when it came time to start putting words on paper. It was my contention then, and continues to be, that actually putting lessons into use is where the learning lives. I was happy that they had questions after the fact, that they realized some things about the difficulty of what they were attempting (turns out a slightly differe

The new novel is underway, has been for a couple weeks now. After taking down notes regarding who the characters were, what they wanted, and how they might achieve those goals, I tinkered with the setting. Questions came up, about timing and motivations and pacing and other narrative elements. I answered some, and others arose out of those efforts. After the notes I constructed the beginning of an outline. I can never build the entire thing, because I always learn new things within the writing, about the characters and sometimes about the setting. After the outline, I got to work. I've since written to the end of that outline, and I wish I had something to compare it to. I always struggle with the beginning and the end. I suppose it must be a lot like flying a plane. There's a lot of convenient instrumentation to keep the craft aloft once it's there; once I know where the story wants to go and what it's about, I can guide it just fine. The taking off and the landing

Part V David had his worst week of work since getting the job. He told his co workers it was the last remnants of the bug. By the middle of the week, he recognized that something had changed, and by the end he realized that he needed to make a decision. On Sunday, he thought about church for the first time in years. It would’ve been nice, he thought, to have some place to go to get the answers to his questions. Instead, David went back into the ghetto. He brought along a bag that had his wallet and a change of clothes, but he also kept his teeth hidden behind the top of his zippered jacket, and his hands in his pockets, except for when he knocked. The place wasn’t difficult to locate. He had the scent, and when it came down to locating which specific house, the area of dead grass and weeds, the rot in the wood and foundation, gave the place away. Jarvis opened the door and did not look surprised. David wondered if they tracked by scent also. “What is it that you want?” Da

Part IV His hearing came back first. There was a booming, a thump, distant vibration, then noise charging in his direction, ricocheting off of objects. It was more rhythmic than chaotic though, almost like music. Breathing in, David caught the stench that triggered memory. He jerked away from the contemplations, feeling sore muscles beneath naked flesh. Wood pricked his skin, and glass, and cold. He creaked his eyes open to see a blurry room with skeletal walls and unevenly spaced floorboards. A gaping hole in the structure cast blinding brightness on his prone form. David tried to move again and recoiled from the pain. He remembered what would usually follow the disorientation and mystery. People with their hands on him, grabbing and pulling, faceless assailants that always ushered him back to the cage. The pain was much greater this time, and the soreness, to the point that this time, even though he knew they were on their way, he would not try and hide. He had killed again. Da

Part III             Another night, another run. The sameness was broken by a splash of white on an otherwise black clad man, on either side of a dark tie, between two breasts of a matching suit jacket. The sight made David remember the guards in his mother’s kitchen in a way that made him realize that slowly, slowly he had been forgetting those memories all along. He changed direction after another two strides and pushed himself against an alley wall. He glanced in both directions, then peeked around the corner but the man was gone. Everything clung to the baseline of his beating heart, and David found himself stalking to hide away in the parking structure of a nearby office park, cowering. He waited, and then he waited some more. He waited until long after it should’ve been safe, then he climbed stairs to look down on the area around him, crouched down in the shadows, peering into the open darkness.                Part of him expected to laugh about it later, to be elated that

Part II               The next morning he checked out of the expensive hotel. He walked to the nearest bank, and investigated the fullest qualities of the plastic cards his father had given him. The teller looked perplexed. He had questions, but didn’t ask any of them. David didn’t help the man’s curiosity, only accepted the liquidated assets and absconded.                With a new number in mind, he walked and contemplated. What if he couldn’t find work? He needed to find a more efficient way to live for the time being. What if he couldn’t find work? With a new daily allowance, he could extend his situation for a substantial amount of time. What if he couldn’t find work.                David walked into an alley and put his hands to a brick wall. He pushed, dissipating some of the stress in his shoulders and back. He grit his teeth and breathed. It didn’t matter if he couldn’t find work. He wasn’t going back.                “Hey, you hear me?” someone asked.