Thought-Drive

Well, I guess it had to end some time. And no, I'm not referring to whatever important event that's going on in the extroverted world. I'm talking about my weekly writing streak. Yesterday, I wrote, and it was the only time I worked at that all weekend and I only completed two chapters of the three. I didn't even make up for it this morning; I didn't even try. On the one hand, it feels appropriate to list all the different things that led to the breaking of the streak of six months, the friends in hospitals, the power outages, the quasi family crises, but on the other hand, I wonder at the difference between an excuse and a reason. That's the line from the movie: it's not an excuse, it's a reason. And I can't say whether I have either or both, and ultimately those sorts of things are tools to get a given person to forgive us our mistake. And the only person I need to placate on this matter is me. Simply complicated. Despite being late, and presse...

On Friday I was humbled. I was working in a friend's scene shop at his theater and saw something I was hard pressed to put into words. It was right then that I realized that I'm doing that all the time, every day: looking at things, thinking about things, and how I would describe them, in words to someone who hadn't been there to witness it. I guess to a certain extent that's what writing is, conveying something through words that only the writer can see, though, even that sounds wrong. 'Wood birthing steel' is what I came up with for the description of a spinning saw blade whirring up through a waiting block of wood, the stimulus only audible at first, and then, like a thin, steel head cresting out of its wooden mother, the experience became visual as I watched the biting metal create a burrowed slit. It was pretty cool, I must also add. I told my friend about the experience of looking at something I had no words, at the time, to give to someone else so they ...

A few minutes ago, a sports story I wrote on Bleacher Report got 1000 reads. I know this because the site sent me an email saying so. The number even earned me a bronze medal. I don't know if it indicates anything about my writing skill as much as it apparently pays to write about polarizing figures and provocative subjects. It isn't my first story on the B/R, but it's the first one that garnered that much attention (which means I've never come close to even third place with my stories up to this point). I segue from that thought to hearing recently about rumors about a new trend in 'rebooting' with movies. Stick with what works, is the central premise, beyond the basic idea that unless whatever idea continues to be used, rights revert back to the original owner of whatever intellectual property (translation: studios will lose the ability to print money). Combining that situation with the financial gamble making movies nowadays is creates a likelihood wherein...

Yesterday, while on a date no less, a friend of mine noticed something that was both pretty cool and related to me. He even went so far as to send the picture mail to my phone. The image was of my book sitting on a shelf in a bookstore. I smiled, and replied, thanking him for carrying my book around and having the creativity audacity to sit his copy on the shelf and take a picture of it. He called me not five minutes later, still on the date, to clarify that the image was not of his book. The picture was of a stack of yet to be purchased volumes, legitimately for sale. I stick my foot in my mouth a lot; I've even used my own foot to wipe egg from my face. That conversation will stand out as one of the more positive occasions. But perhaps I should also digress and explain. Firstly, I don't self-condemn that much anymore. The reason I jumped to my initial conclusion is because I had seen a picture of another author doing the same thing. I was almost inspired enough to do it mys...

Well, the blog is two days late, but the drafting I spent my brief vacation committing to worked out right on time. I'll take that trade. Two weeks, twelve chapters. And aside from the seasonal heat, I'm fairly ecstatic to be back to work. It was surprisingly stressful to be worried about failing to make the deadlines I set for myself, but on Memorial Day at 12:02 I finished the last edits on the last chapters I wrote, and didn't even pass out. I did exhale heavily, though. Also, I learned some things, possibly invaluable things. I call the concept virtual distance. When a writer writes something, it's not perfect. Usually, it isn't even close to as good as it can be, hence the need for editors. And it's a fair question to wonder about why a writer, who supposedly puts words together so well, cannot edit their own work. A popular answer, and one that further expands on the concept, is that "the writer is too close to it." To a certain degree, all of ...